A Man of Genius

by Janet Todd

  Yet she knew in some shifting corner of her head that this marvellous, this tortured soul was fading just a little into a swinging lump. But it had not swung; it had been inert when she saw it. She was imagining it, imagining him swinging and twisting through the air, still alive and struggling. Not alive, though, dead.

  She held on tight to all the Roberts. For the first time in so many years they had the potential to make her laugh long and loudly with a most careless joy.

  25

  Aksel Stamer decided the route they would travel and the means. He chose out-of-the-way paths. Sometimes these required a guide to negotiate, so faint were the tracks. At times he hired carriages for them both, at others he put them in uncomfortable open wagons – a more elegant traveller would have dismissed them as farm carts.

  So demanding was the way that there was no time, no opportunity to talk of what had happened. Their business was to be unobserved. They must travel the most direct but safe route and be as inconspicuous as they could.

  So he said, on one of the rare moments of communication. With these aims, comfort had rather fallen by the wayside.

  Sometimes he seemed on the verge of saying something more but mostly he respected her privacy and pain. For, though her bruised eyes had healed, it would take more than a few weeks of bumping on dusty pitted roads, some miles of mountain and dried-up river, to make the rest of her body sound. The mind was another matter.

  She never understood the route they took or why they seemed to travel so far across such forbidding terrain, but she questioned nothing. Once she did look her surprise as they turned on to yet another winding road off the main highway. They had to cross this stretch of country, he said, because on the other side of these mountains was a port with boats to Sardinia. Perhaps he’d seen something in a newspaper, perhaps someone had mentioned an incident in Venice and he’d added precautions. Or was it simply because she lacked correct papers? As he did surely, for he’d left on impulse. Hadn’t he?

  ‘It is an empty island,’ he said. ‘From it we can travel with more impunity to France. Then we will have nothing more to fear except importunate officials.’

  She was still too dazed to notice much but she registered that he said ‘we’.

  After a pause he elaborated. He knew this because he had been to Sardinia and down through France already. He gave no further information.

  For now they had to go through the lands of Tuscany and part of the Papal States, skirting those places and towns known to care especially about documents. The avoidance made for very rocky travelling.

  When they learned that brigands lurked in the steeper, more menacing parts of the Apennines, Aksel Stamer hired men with guns to attend them on their way. They had no boxes for robbers to pilfer and no air of prosperity but it was best not to take chances and render themselves vulnerable, he said.

  She found to her surprise that he himself carried a gun. Had he brought it from his rooms near Le Zitelle or had he stopped somewhere to purchase it along the way, fearing particularly lawless stretches of the road? She knew she was no longer an observant traveller.

  Most likely he’d bought it somewhere when they’d stopped and she had tried to sleep. Could it be for her defence if the occasion came and they were apprehended by agents of the law? But why would he do that for her? Why risk his skin for hers? Always when her still fuddled mind formed questions about the immediate past, their present and future, they settled on this single one.

  But she didn’t worry much. Anxiety was deadened now that the worst or – she always paused at this point – had happened. She might be captured, locked in prison, hanged or executed or whatever Italians did with wicked strangers. But, while she was with Aksel Stamer, fear seemed groundless.

  What he did to facilitate their journey, their escape or rather her escape, he did quietly and efficiently, without consulting her. She was glad to be free of the burden of choice and grateful for his care.

  She knew him no more now than she had when she’d first spoken to him in Padua, but she felt, especially in the earliest days of their travel, a kindness that gave her confidence.

  Even in the height of summer the Apennines were chill at night. Mrs Radcliffe had placed the castle of Udolpho in these picturesque hills, somewhere vague but vertical and very wild. She had sent her Emily thither with the villainous Montoni for company. But, after her experiences with the Grand Canal in Venice, Ann was less eager to use Mrs Radcliffe as her guide.

  Indeed, the thrills of gothic now seemed poor things beside the real life imprinted on her mind. She remembered how Sarah had wanted to connect them. The writing she’d planned to do on what now seemed – hilariously – the more sedate journey over the forbidding Alps to Paris was forgotten. She’d no invention in her, no spirit to push Isabella through her imagined trials. As far as her author was concerned, the heroine would be locked away in an Italian convent forever.

  In all their time through Italy she’d not needed to produce documents. Or rather, whenever anything was required at the gates of a city they could not miss or when entering a new judicial territory, Aksel Stamer had shown the officials something that was necessary and they’d been waved on their way, not with enthusiasm or especial courtesy but with indifference. He seemed to have a sheaf of passes and papers and, so far, one always appeared to the point. Remembering the difficulties that she and Robert had encountered through the Alps and into Italy she could only admire the dexterity with which he moved them through gates and barriers.

  Did he pay large bribes? She couldn’t tell. He didn’t have the air of a man with great resources; yet gates opened for them and they passed on. She’d no wish to pry but once she saw a little of one paper he proffered. It appeared in a strange language. At each barrier he told her to be silent.

  When she did try to consider rationally what they were doing and open her mind to the journey itself, it was France that bothered her. Surely there at least the proper papers would be necessary. Her application for a passport still sat on a desk in Venice while the official with the potent signature cooled himself in Belluno or sipped his grappa in Bassano.

  It was so different from when she’d journeyed with Robert many months before. She and Aksel Stamer never stayed in the best or, after the first night, even in decent inns. Instead he chose places in the shade, hostelries and refuges not much frequented by the prosperous traveller.

  She continued to dress in the smock and baggy trousers he’d told her to wear soon after they’d left Venice. In one mountain village he’d helped her to add a few other items, so that she was at least clean and free of the vermin that attacked travellers in public coaches and dirty inns. He’d cut her hair short with some ingenious scissors attached to a hunting knife. She looked at the knife. His special knife.

  With her shorn head she was noticed by no one. When by chance they encountered other English travellers, she had simply to be quiet. Aksel Stamer sometimes said a few words to them but his taciturnity prevented talk beyond pleasantries, and they were always sure to be on their way before any more was needed.

  In taverns they ate silently together and even slept in the same room when essential. She was always exhausted now and he was discreet. She feared nothing. Why should she? On the road sometimes she was sick and they had to stop. He held her forehead as she vomited up her bread and cheese and olives.

  On La Giudecca he’d simply dashed away from her up to his lodgings to fetch his big leather case for the journey. He must have packed with magic speed or else he kept his luggage always ready. He could be on the move at once, always anticipating emergency.

  It surprised her just how much he had in this capacious bag, not just for himself but for general comfort. Not only his razors – he’d shaved off his small beard but kept his moustache – his toothbrushes, Waite’s powder, rose balm and personal items, but other things for use on the road. He had pieces of cloth to put over infested cushions when they stayed at particularly filthy inns, a towel that could
be washed and dried and used repeatedly, a leather bottle and metal cup, even spoons and an ordinary peeling knife for when they had to buy their food at stalls and journey on.

  She had made the arrangements for travel with Robert from London to Venice and had thought herself reasonably prepared. But this array of good sense and prudence rebuked her care. Robert would have been more comfortable on the journey, and she more tranquil, had she thought to augment the clothes and papers, the writing desk and books, with a little salt, some tea, a small lamp, pieces of flannel, some castor oil and bark.

  If instead of fugitives fearing the law they’d been common travellers with proper documents, they could now have crossed to France directly, taking a large and stable boat. They’d have expected to arrive with a flock of other passengers ready to do business or pursue pleasure. But it was impossible.

  Aksel Stamer had been clever through the Italian states – quite how she couldn’t tell – and the way had always been eased by some means of money or subterfuge. But he was not a miracle worker. To enter France openly from Italy they needed more than he could give. The passports she’d loaded herself with when she and Robert had first set out had taken weeks to acquire in London – and then they’d not had the proper signatures in Paris. Even if there’d been no further fear from consequences in Venice, it would have taken many more weeks to obtain what they needed and to explain how they were where they were, if indeed it was possible at all. It was to Ann a marvel that they’d got as far with so little documentation. It would stop now surely.

  Why would it be easier in Sardinia?

  ‘Sardinia is in turmoil. So it is less efficient there. I know. But we will have to take some chances. I hope you are ready,’ said Aksel Stamer. He didn’t wait for an answer.

  By the time they reached the coast her bruising was gone and her ribs had ceased to ache. Perhaps the movement had done them good. But her whole body held some deep-down pain. Was some essential organ damaged? She wore the baggy trousers he’d provided and her hands were ringless. No one thought her a man but no one much worried what she was. Just a nondescript sexless servant.

  They boarded a sailing vessel from down the coast below Civitavecchia with undocumented men returning to Sardinia from work. It creaked on choppy water and slid sickly on the calm. Aksel Stamer looked green at times but walked up and down, to settle his stomach. She couldn’t do the same. She sat huddled with their baggage as her own stomach churned, her eyes open and staring. Richard Perry shivering between two corpses on the North Sea swam against her mind. She shut him out; he led to Robert.

  They landed on a desolate stretch of land, a place where no passes were demanded and no one touted for business from gullible strangers.

  The other passengers shouldered their bundles and, paying them no attention, vanished into the scrubby interior. Aksel Stamer looked perturbed. It was the first time she’d noticed anxiety in him. Clearly he’d thought that something or somebody would have waited there.

  ‘We will have to walk, I am afraid, just a little way. You will need to be strong and brave.’ He looked at her but she could not interpret his expression – dubious, kindly? He showed no irritation.

  She’d be a burden to him if the going became even tougher. She’d tried to do her best. She’d hidden her woman’s weakness inside the loose dress of a peasant boy and she took larger strides. Yet she knew she went too slowly when they should have hurried; she needed to rest when he could have soldiered on. Now in this unknown land, this country with no map, what could she be but a drag on his swifter feet?

  For a while she kept up with him. He was carrying his large leather bag and another lighter one he’d added on the way. Then he shouldered her hemp bag as well so that she could walk more freely. He was much encumbered. Both suffered from the heat that grew more intense as they left the sea.

  Soon they came to a small village with a cobbled street running through it towards a church topped by a large bell. Aksel Stamer left Ann to wait for him on a tree stump in the shade. He would find help.

  He returned soon with some provisions but had not managed to to hire a cart or get a man to help. The villagers were all absent or asleep or just lethargic. Not even curiosity had made them volunteer to accompany the strangers. But they had at least sold them a little food and drink. There would be more friendly towns further down the valley, he said.

  They set off again. But before they left the edge of the village she stepped awkwardly on a stone at the side of the cobbled part of their way; she slightly twisted her ankle.

  She feared to become lame, increasing his burden, slowing him down still further. The pain made her feel feeble but he didn’t register her state or the delay. Instead, he simply waited till she was ready and could move on, then went, as slowly as she wished.

  They came to other villages. Here they could eat and spend the nights and sometimes obtain a cart for part of a way. Wherever they stopped, his ready money and air of quiet command produced beds, but so far no comfortable means of transport.

  ‘Since we have had to go slower, it means we will – for just one night – have to sleep in the open,’ he said. ‘It will be cool in the hills but not cold, cooler than down here. Then we can walk the last section when your ankle will be rested. I know the way. I know the people.’

  There was no answer wanted or needed.

  It was a strange journey. Strange being in the open, travelling with a man so little known.

  He was sensitive. He walked off as she squatted behind a bush that hardly screened her to open her bowels. She was glad that it was not now the time for letting blood, not here in the open. Indeed, in these uncomfortable strenuous weeks this hadn’t troubled her as it often had in the past. She was relieved to find that, after the churning open sea and rumbling mountain carts, her stomach had become comfortable, seemingly content with its new diet of goat and boar meat, beans and dry bread.

  When it came time to rest for the night, he found her a spot where the sandy soil was firm underneath and soft on top. He made a cocoon of clothes from his leather bag, leaving hers to serve as a pillow for her head. He gathered a mattress of dry leaves, cones and grass.

  ‘Perhaps if we had prepared for this we should have brought along a mule to carry bedding,’ he said. ‘If they had no cart to lend us, they might have had a mule.’ Was she supposed to smile at this? She never quite knew with Aksel Stamer.

  Soon it was dark, no reason not to take off her baggy man’s trousers and lie beneath her cloak. It was clammy underneath, but throwing it off would expose her to the biting insects of the night and, if by amazing chance she slept into the dawn, to the stranger’s gaze.

  Long before morning the slight chill made her draw the cloak close round her. Still exhausted, she slept again.

  Already when the light came Aksel Stamer was standing, silhouetted against the dawn. She couldn’t tell whether his eyes were on her or were just looking out to where the sea would be, watching an egret on a protruding rock. He was like a stone statue, set up to guard the living. She realised he’d lain only partly protected and comfortable to leave her the snug place.

  Her ankle throbbed just a little but she wouldn’t complain. Bats were circling back to their caves.

  By early afternoon it was hard to remember that it had ever been chill. These September days still boiled at the zenith. The air grew heavy and humid and the sandy earth fluffed and swelled hotly about her feet. A cricket chirped incessantly.

  It would be nearly autumn in England. What was it here? In these slopes of dry flowers that looked like spent dandelions. Apart from the crossing, this night had been the only time of real discomfort on the trip and he’d eased it as far as he could. Still, she felt dishevelled. Would she ever be really at ease again – back in the world of eating and sleeping on down, washing, sewing and chatting, with protocols of politeness and all the proper defences of clothes and manners against the other sex?

  26

  The man – she thought of
Aksel Stamer as this now, not Robert – strode ahead. He’d told her to take even longer strides while she was in male attire, there was no need to mince as a woman must. But she couldn’t easily adjust further. Her body held its residual pains.

  Despite the discomfort, the oddness of it all, there was magic too. Sometimes distant voices and cattle bells dented the stillness.

  They came in time to a little chapel in some woods with a cave nearby, a special cave. Of course a hermit’s cave.

  ‘Look,’ he said.

  ‘How did you know it was here?’

  ‘I told you. I came this way once. Come, look.’

  The cave was of soft stone. It seemed to mingle shells and dust. Someone had carved grotesque faces or skulls on the wall, one face simply an oval with a great gaping mouth in perpetual howl. She could hear water dripping in distant caverns into pools she’d no wish to see. Were there blind white creatures there?

  ‘There must have been rituals, ceremonies here, something secret with the dead,’ she said.

  Aksel Stamer shrugged. ‘There was perhaps some mystery,’ he said, ‘or perhaps just a private place where men hid while their enemies sought them.’ He turned away.

  She wished she’d not spoken. Such gothic imagining had annoyed Robert. Perhaps had helped drive him mad. She chastised herself. She would never again use that word so lightly. It was not ‘madness’ in him. He had never been mad. If anyone had been it was she.

  A wooden bench was set against the old stones of the chapel. It had gaps in the slats where the wood had rotted and weeds grown through. Aksel Stamer sat down and encouraged her to sit beside him. For a while in the dappled shade they sat together companionably like a long-married couple. She thought once he looked towards her as if he would speak, but he said nothing. She had no urge to chatter as she’d so fatally had with Robert. No need to push this man on to say something. His silence was unthreatening, part of a laconic self. At times like this, his quiet strength was comforting.