IGMS Issue 50 (3 page)

The baker shakes his head and swears he'll never again intrude on politics.

Later that night, as we walk up the hill to the cardinal's palace, five men jump from the shadows, rapiers flashing in the darkness. Ferri pushes me out of the way and leaps at the men, moving faster than the rapiers can cut. Blood and screams sing over me until, when the road is once more silent, I walk back to Ferri.

Four of the men are dead. The fifth lays pale on the ground as Ferri holds the man's own rapier to his throat.

"Was it the baker?" Ferri asks. The man nods, his eyes never leaving the rapier's tip.

"Uccello, sing an aria," she tells me.

The man looks at me with pleading eyes, as if praying I'll intercede on his behalf.

"My singing isn't so good."

"It's better than anything he'll ever hear again."

I remember how Siface came alive in front of an audience. How he'd sworn to never cease performing until the moment he died.

I stare at the man and sing a quiet, haunting song of love and happiness. I hear all the flaws in my voice but the man doesn't care. His eyes simply plead with me to save him.

I'm halfway through the aria when Ferri slices the man's throat open with her teeth and drinks his blood.

The following night, as Ferri and I walk the city yet again, we pass by the baker's empty store. A small note in the window says the baker and his family are visiting sick relatives in the countryside.

Ferri seems satisfied by this coincidence.

If the cardinal is satisfied, I can't say.

And that's how things are with Cardinal Battista. As the weeks become months and I'm still living with Ferri, she shares with me many stories. About the history of Bologna. About the little everyday dramas which encircle the cardinal's servants and fellow clergy. She even shares her assignments with me. But of the cardinal himself she rarely speaks. He seems remote from anything in my life. I live in his palace but I have a closer connection to the stones in Ferri's room than to the cardinal himself.

One night Ferri and I stop by the town's cathedral after making our evening rounds. Normally we merely pass by the cathedral's massive vaulting stones, but this time I hear the sounds of a choir practicing inside. I can't help but be drawn to the singing.

I'd assumed Ferri couldn't enter a church, but she shrugs and follows me inside. "If consecrated places bothered me I wouldn't be working for a cardinal, now would I?" she whispers.

Inside we discover a castrato beginning his solo. I recognize him--Nicolini, a famous mezzo-soprano Siface performed with a few times. He must be performing at Bologna's opera house and decided to come by and practice with the choir.

I don't know what Ferri feels as we sit on the hard wooden benches and listen to the choir and Nicolini--I'd never seen the barest of emotions cross Ferri's face--but I know what I feel. I am envious of Nicolini. I want his life. I want his acclaim. I want to know that I fit in somewhere. That I might actually live up to the potential Siface saw before I was cut.

"Not all extraordinary voices come from extraordinary people," a voice behind me says.

Ferri doesn't seem surprised that someone now sits behind us, but I jump. I turn to see a clergy member wearing the elaborate vestments of a cardinal.

Cardinal Battista.

"Good to see you again, Uccello," the man says, smiling at me. "Are you enjoying my hospitality?"

I don't know how to respond. Ferri told me the cardinal didn't want to see me because castrati made him uneasy. But even though Ferri sits beside me she doesn't react to the cardinal or his words, instead staring at the choir.

Before us, Nicolini's voice launches into a solo aria.

"I didn't . . ." I stammer. "I mean . . ."

Cardinal Battista laughs softly. "Don't worry on what to say. I don't blame you for your master's indulgences."

"Performances," I say. "Siface called his affairs performances."

"Did he now? Well, I'll give him that. It was quite a performance. Such a performance that I ended up sending my mistress to a convent."

I glance back toward the choir as Nicolini leans into a long, drawn out note which hovers at the edge of his ethereal voice. Again I wonder why Siface played around with the cardinal's mistress, along with all the other men and women with whom he had affairs. Like me, when Siface was castrated the possibility of truly being with a man or woman was taken away forever. Yet he still played at these affairs.

The cardinal sees the confusion on my face and laughs again. "I was also puzzled by that, my young friend. But it turns out castrati are able to do any number of unnatural carnal sins. Simply not the one sin our church so obsesses on."

For a moment pain flutters the cardinal's eyes and I imagine how he felt when he learned his mistress had cheated on him. But then I remember the cardinal should have been celibate to begin with. And I've no doubt the cardinal's mistress hated being sent to a convent but gave in because she had no other choice. Just like I have no choice but to sing for a church which allows men like Cardinal Battista to rule.

If, that is, my voice ever becomes good enough for a church which so despises people like me.

I laugh softly. Maybe that's why Siface engaged in these performances--to show the world the insanity and hypocrisy which exists in all our lives.

Cardinal Battista smiles gently. I've been around Ferri's unemotional grins for so long that I've almost forgotten what a true smile looks like. "I have some unfortunate news," the cardinal says. "During your travels with Siface, did you happen to sing for the different choirs and opera houses across Italy?"

I nod. Siface was always asking me to sing for his peers. "Siface often sought advice on how to improve my voice," I say.

"I see. Well, it appears I won't be able to place you in one of the established choirs or opera houses. The men I've written to feel your voice isn't up to their standards."

His news doesn't surprise me, but it still hurts. "Thank you for asking."

"It's my duty to aid the needy. I so dislike how the castrati are created. God made humans in His divine image--to damage His body in this way is a true perversion. If you wish, we can pray together. Ask God to heal the evil which mankind turned you into."

I know Cardinal Battista means well. I have met many bishops and cardinals during my time with Siface, and as Ferri once told me, Cardinal Battista is indeed more godly than most.

But I still burn at Cardinal Battista calling me evil. While I'd once told Siface that I wish I'd never been gelded, I only said that because Siface understood. I hated Siface for what he'd done to me, but at least he'd felt the same burning tongs I'd endured. Not Cardinal Battista.

"Should we also pray for your sins, Cardinal Battista?" I ask.

"What do you mean?" the cardinal asks, his smile disappearing. Ferri rests her hand upon my knee and squeezes gently. She's warning me to be careful with my words, but I no longer care and press on.

"I have heard many priests speak about God's commandments. Isn't one of them
Thou shall not kill
? Yet that's what you did to Siface."

Cardinal Battista is silent but there are flames behind his eyes. The same flames I saw when the tongs reached down to burn my flesh.

But I'm unable to stop, as if the tongs have finally cut so deep into my voice that I can no longer keep the words inside. "And I've seen what you force Ferri to do. Is that truly God's will? If creating castrati is evil, what about vampires?"

Cardinal Battista flinches, looking like an altar boy caught drinking the church's holy wine. "I didn't create Ferri . . . one of my predecessors did that . . ."

"No, but you use her." I'm now yelling, causing Nicolini to pause in his singing. The choir director starts to walk over to see if Cardinal Battista needs assistance, but the cardinal waves him off.

Ferri sits silently, her hand still resting on my knee but no longer squeezing, no longer trying to stop my words. Cardinal Battista leans forward, his composure returned and his anger as bright as God's wrath. "Do you know how to create a vampire?" he asks softly. Even this question doesn't elicit a response from Ferri.

I shake my head--No, I don't know.

"The peasants believe a vampire must bite you, or that the dead return if you don't stake their heart. Nonsense. We create a vampire the same way someone created you, my little castrato. But instead of gelding a young boy, we neuter the emotions. We use ritual and magic and cut a man's spirit instead of his body. The procedure is described in the apocryphal
Visio sancti Pauli
, but until I became cardinal legato I didn't know the church could truly do it. Not until I was introduced to your friend here."

Cardinal Battista shivers as he glances at Ferri, as if he dislikes what she is. Ferri still hasn't responded to Cardinal Battist's words. She simply stares at Nicolini as the famed singer again slides into song.

"But the problem of vampires is the problem of castrati," Cardinal Battista continues. "Just because you cut someone doesn't mean they'll turn. How many castrati are cut each year? Thousands, at least, but so few become a Siface. It's the same with vampires. One of my predecessors two centuries ago cut Ferri, but since then all the church's attempts to replicate her have failed. The Lord alone knows which person will become a castrati opera star or a vampire."

The cardinal glances up at Nicolini, whose large lungs are holding the same note as tens of seconds, then a half minute, flow by. The cardinal shakes his head.

"So Siface called what he did a performance?" The cardinal clasps both of my shoulders with his hands and squeezes hard. "Well, you are my performance now, little castrato. I will order that if you're seen away from Ferri's side you are to be imprisoned and tortured. You will continue living with this vampire. Until, that is, the day I finally tell her to kill you."

Cardinal Battista leans over and whispers in my ear. "Or perhaps I should try cutting your emotions too. Perhaps you could be the first person to become both castrato and vampire."

I shiver. I curse myself for speaking the truth to this man without the power to protect myself. "Ad Dei gloriam," I whisper.

"Ad Dei gloriam," Cardinal Battista echoes.

With that the cardinal stands and walks to the front of the cathedral. Nicolini stops singing as the cardinal steps up and hugs him. I hear the cardinal say Nicolini's voice is even better than the late Siface's, may he rest in peace.

I run from the cathedral, hating myself for crying but unable to pretend the tears are anything but my own.

Ferri finds me back in her room. I've barred the main door and moved my bedding directly over the trapdoor. Ferri bangs twice before pausing.

"I'm strong enough to destroy this trapdoor and you with it," she says. "But I have no desire to do so."

I roll off the trapdoor. Ferri enters before closing the trapdoor again.

"Why did you return here?" she asks.

"Where else can I go? You heard what the cardinal said. If I try to leave I'll be killed."

"It will take time for his order to carry over the city and countryside. If you run fast enough, you might stay ahead of it."

"Then what? If I open my mouth people will know what I am. Outside of a choir or opera house I'll be killed, or starve to death."

I sit on the edge of Ferri's coffin. After a moment's hesitation she sits beside me. While no emotions play on her face, she seems interested in my fate.

"Would you really kill me?" I ask.

"He's my master. Just as the cardinal before him was my master, and the cardinals before that. I've no choice but to obey my master in all things."

Tears again flow down my face. To my shock, Ferri hugs me and wipes the tears with her cold hands. When my tears don't stop, she picks me up in her strong arms and lays me down in her coffin before stretching out beside me. She holds me there, her touch lacking the emotion of the times my family hugged me, or the hug Siface gave me before the barber cut me, but I still lean into her body and cry until I'm exhausted and can cry no more.