Secret of the Song

by Cathie Hartigan

  The advocate’s quill on the parchment reminded me of chickens scratching in the dust. I gave my full name and when they asked me my age, I realised that my twentieth birthday had passed that very week. No wonder I felt old.

  I proceeded to tell them what had happened during the evening in every detail, even to the point of demonstrating how my lady had worn my shawl about her shoulders.

  ‘Were you Donna Maria’s only maidservant?’ Master Sanchez interrupted my explanations of how it suited her. He was clearly a thorough man.

  ‘There was Laura Scala but she …’ I nearly said, she betrayed us, but thought in time that it might be better for me not to say much about that. I was a servant that only did as I was told, and certainly didn’t have an opinion … ‘she had left only recently.’

  But the truth was, I didn’t want to remember what happened. As I talked, the memories became clearer. I found myself back in the apartment. Back to the times of terror, when Don Carlo first threatened my throat with the tip of his halberd, when the night demons came … and when I saw… I saw my lady for the very last time, when I stood in the doorway of the bed chamber and finally opened my eyes.

  ‘I’m afraid you will have to tell us what you saw, Silvia,’ said Master Sanchez, not unkindly.

  I looked from one to the other and then turned to Sister Caterina. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘It was Don Fabrizio I saw first,’ I whispered. ‘He was on the floor, right there at my feet almost. But I didn’t think it was him. I thought it was my lady.’ Everything began to come out in a rush. ‘At first I couldn’t tell. He … he was in the nightdress, you see. The special one. I’d laid it out for her, but he was wearing it. Don Fabrizio was wearing my lady’s nightgown! And he was dead on the floor and it was covered all over in blood.’ I began to cry. I couldn’t help it. The memory of Don Fabrizio’s brains coming out of one of his eyes and being all of a mess against the little swans on the collar was too upsetting. ‘Why would he do that?’ I said, hiccuping. ‘Why would he be wearing it? I made it for my Lady …’ I fumbled in my pouch for a handkerchief. ‘He shouldn’t have been. No wonder the seams gave way.’

  Master Sanchez cleared his throat and leaned towards the man whose name I’d forgotten but was doing all the scribing. ‘I don’t think we need to mention any nightdresses,’ he said, under his breath. ‘Let’s not forget the Duke’s father is still alive.’ He waved his hand in a gesture that made light of it.

  ‘But it’s true,’ I said, surprised they were not going to record it. ‘It ought to be written down. And that he was wearing it before the arquebus was fired. The holes went through the silk. I saw them. There were scorch marks too as well … and great gashes everywhere. They didn’t put the nightdress on him after he was dead. He had it on before.’ I sat back, trembling and put my hand to my mouth. The awful sight had sickened me then and did again.

  Both men looked at me directly. I could see they didn’t want to say anything about the nightdress, but then from behind me, I heard Sister Caterina shift a little, perhaps only from one foot to the other, but enough to remind us all she was there.

  ‘Very well,’ said Master Sanchez. ‘You’d better put down something to the effect, Mutio. Carry on, Silvia. What of Donna Maria?’

  I swallowed. Had the air become sticky and glued itself to my tongue, I wouldn’t have found it more difficult to speak.

  ’My lady … she … she was …’ I shook my head.

  ‘Please do try, Silvia,’ said Master Sanchez. ‘The sooner you tell us, the sooner it will all be over.’ He spoke firmly and I tried again to remember the scene.

  When I had lifted my eyes from Don Fabrizio’s grisly corpse, the next thing I saw were his clothes cast all about the room. He must have walked about as he unbuttoned his yellow and green doublet for it lay on the chest, whereas his gauntlet and glove beckoned from the chair. On the floor by the bed, discarded in haste, no doubt, were his linen drawers. The sleeve of his shirt with the lettuce leaf cuffs hung over the side of the bed, limp and pale in that morning’s grey light.

  My lady was lying as usual, turned away from the door with her face towards the window, but then I saw how the bed curtains had a great swathe of red-brown spots that reached for more than my arm’s length up towards the canopy. The sheet too, I had thought it the bedcover at first glance, but then realised, with wrenching horror, that the sheet was so soaked in my lady’s blood that none of its whiteness could be seen.

  ‘Blood was everywhere,’ I whispered, putting my hand to my throat. ‘He’d cut …’ I demonstrated how that blade must have sliced from one side to the other, remembering the first time I had seen a pig slaughtered and how the blood had bounced and sprayed from its neck.

  The quill went on scratching across the page. It was the only noise in the room, almost as if we had all stopped breathing. I remembered Don Carlo coming from the bedchamber looking like a wild beast and covered in blood.

  ‘How could he not believe she was dead?’ I said, sounding loud and desperate. ‘There was so much blood. So much.’ I fanned my arms wide. ‘But he did not believe it. That’s what he said. I do not believe she is dead. I heard him say it! And he went back into the bedchamber and chopped at her … with his sword. He had a sword as well. His sword! I saw what he did to her. Who would do such a thing?’ I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Only a wicked person. A demon … a devil!’ I began to cry again.

  ‘Thank you, Silvia.’ Master Sanchez held up his hands. ‘That’s enough.’

  I found my handkerchief. Although I willed myself to stop the tears, they would keep coming. Eventually, the other man spoke.

  ‘And in the morning? What happened then?’

  ‘They still wouldn’t let me out.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, tapping the quill against the inkpot irritably. ‘But who exactly?’

  ‘They came for the Duke first, three from the Jesuits – it took all of them to lift him onto the bed. They sent me out then to get water, but I saw under where he’d been lying, deep dents in the floor full up with blood.’

  ‘Dents?’

  ‘They didn’t just shoot him, sir. Whatever weapons they used went right through and made dents in the floor.’

  Behind me, Sister Caterina gasped and the gentleman scribe turned to Master Sanchez.

  ‘That explains the crooked halberd that Dominico was talking about.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose it does.’ Then he turned back to me. ‘Go on, Silvia. Let’s get this done, shall we?’

  ‘After the washing,’ I said, ‘they put him in black silk hose and a nice overshirt with a black velvet collar and—’

  He interrupted me. ‘That’s enough about the clothes, Silvia.’

  ‘But sir, good fabric and needlework like that is valuable and the collar was hardly worn. Besides,’ I said, a little put out, ‘clothes are what I know best, sir.’

  ‘Clearly,’ he said, sighing to himself, but so I’d notice. ‘And did the Jesuits take the body away? Was there no family there?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ I nodded. ‘His grandmother, the Countess and two other gentlemen of the church. I don’t know who they were, although I think one of them was his uncle, but I wasn’t really listening. When they’d gone, Pietro came back with my lady’s aunt, the Marchioness of Vico, and I helped her.’

  ‘And the Prince? Was Don Carlo there?’

  ‘No. Pietro said he’d stayed away that night.’

  ‘And ever since,’ nodded Master Sanchez. ‘Very well, Silvia Albana. That is all. Although…’ he looked at me sternly, ‘can you shed any light on how the Duke of Andria gained entrance to the Lady Donna Maria’s apartment that night?’

  A strange thing. If he had asked me about any other night, I would have known, but not that night. ‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘I went to sleep straight after leaving my lady in bed … alone. It was Don Carlo that woke me, not the Duke.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Very well. That is all.
Have you finished, Mutio?’

  Mutio wiped his quill and fastened the lid of the inkpot. ‘Yes, I think we have enough.’

  ‘Enough?’ I said. What did he mean? All my fear of Don Carlo flooded into me. He’d spared me in his haste to murder my lady. Perhaps he meant to have me tried after all? ‘Enough for what? Have I done wrong, sir? Am I in trouble?’

  ‘Not as far as I am concerned.’ He shrugged and turned to Master Sanchez.

  ‘You may go, Silvia,’ he said. ‘Don Carlo has been to see the Viceroy who advised him to return to Gesualdo. It is understood that he will remain there for the forseeable future.’

  ‘Go, sir?’ I whispered. ‘Where should I go?’

  He frowned. ‘You are in good health, are you not? And young still?’ He put an eye-glass on his nose and examined me. ‘Get yourself married. That’s the best thing. By the looks of you, you’ll probably have pretty children.’

  I was left alone. At first I felt relieved to hear that Don Carlo had gone to Gesualdo, so far away. As my lady’s husband, he was also my lord, and the one person in the world I most feared. I could not return to his service, but now he was living within spitting distance of my home. As I looked to my own future I grew more and more disturbed, for where could I go and what could I do?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘I remember sirens,’ I murmured, peering into my foggy memory. ‘And blue flashes. Was there lightning? ’ I remembered the smell too: a mixture of new timber and hedge clippings, but there was something burning … acrid. Was there smoke?

  Mollie sat on the bed, jiggling about a little too much for my sore head. I put up with it, for the warmth of her hand holding mine was too much of a joy to let go. I was back in a familiar world, although I’d rather have been in my own bed than in hospital. Mum straightened the sheet and tidied the water jug on the bedside cabinet, going back and forth with the regularity of a cuckoo at midday.

  ‘You were so lucky,’ she kept saying. ‘I can’t believe how lucky you were.’

  ‘Or unlucky,’ Mollie said. ‘You could look at it both ways.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ My mother, ever the optimist.

  I closed my eyes while they argued whether life was a glass half full or half empty. They’d be bound to let me know eventually. My head throbbed. I had a bump the size of an egg just above my forehead and was in for observation. They suspected concussion.

  You hear about people being crushed under trees during storms, but they’re usually in cars. Sometimes there’s footage of chimneys missing, upturned caravans and sheds going sideways, but Devon is hardly tornado country. When the old evergreen oak smashed down onto the flat roof of the studio, it went straight through. I sided with my mum. That nobody died felt like much more than luck; it was surely a miracle. The only broken bones were a finger and a toe. Ted and Jon’s respectively. Lucky for Jon it wasn’t the other way round. The toe was painful but not being able to play any of his various instruments would have been much more upsetting.

  I wasn’t so concussed that I didn’t remember what we were doing and why, but the doctor began to look at me oddly when I burbled about the manuscript being cursed, so I kept quiet.

  Voices, like the sort of sound bites you get when surfing telly with the remote, floated across my mind.

  All right, love.

  Over here!

  I do not believe she is dead.

  Is she dead?

  We’ll need to chop this up.

  Blimey, what a mess.

  Lisa … Lisa!

  I jumped and felt my head throb. The last voice was familiar.

  ‘Lisa?’

  Mum had turned into Jon somehow and Mollie wasn’t there either.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he said. There was a warmth in his expression I hadn’t seen for a long time.

  ‘Better, thanks. You? How’s the toe?’

  ‘Oh, not bad. And look …’ He reached round to the back of the chair. ‘You get a free stick for every one broken.’ He tried giving it a twirl, but a cry of anxiety from the woman in the next bed prompted a sheepish apology. ‘Oh, well,’ he whispered. ‘You’ll have to wait for my Fred Astaire impersonation.’

  I began to smile but found the pull of the muscles made my head ache again. ‘Ouch,’ I said feeling the bump. ‘Now I know what it feels like to be an egghead.’

  ‘They say we’ll all be right as rain in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Everyone’s shook up, of course. God, there was such a bloody mess everywhere.’

  ‘Was there? I don’t really remember.’

  He laughed. ‘Daniela gave the ambulance bloke a turn, clutching her scythe and rambling in Italian. You were spark out and Robert had turned into a cross between Batman and Florence bloody Nightingale around Sophie. All flappy nurse.’ He did an impersonation that brought tears to my eyes. ‘Did I miss something about those two?’ he said. ‘How come after all this time?’

  ‘I don’t know. They went to the pictures together and next thing …’ I shrugged.

  ‘Makes you wonder what they went to see, doesn’t it?’

  I nodded gingerly. That the others were okay was important, but I needed to tell someone about the curse. Someone who wouldn’t think I was mad, who wasn’t my mother or my daughter, who knew and who, I hoped, cared enough to listen. And even more importantly, who might be in danger. ‘Jon,’ I said, and then hesitated. ‘I need to tell you something … about the madrigal. The Gesualdo madrigal … I don’t think we should—’

  ‘Oh bugger! he interrupted, patting all his pockets. ‘I meant to bring it with me. Damn.’

  ‘Bring it with you?’ I said, appalled. ‘God, I’m glad you didn’t. The thing is—’

  ‘No, no, not the music.’ He dismissed it with a wave. ‘The photo! It’s absolutely perfect.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes.’ He leant forward and grabbed my hand, his eyes shining. ‘Ted must have pressed the shutter at the exact moment the tree came down. We all look totally terrorised! It’s brilliant!’

  ‘Brilliant?’ I said, weakly. His hand echoed his enthusiasm, alternately squeezing and shaking mine. I let go and reached up to push the hair from my forehead. Ouch again.

  ‘Yeah … it’s going in the papers. Not just the local either. National. And there’s going to be interview spots about it on the radio … and telly. It’s the best advertising we could possibly have. The museum is thrilled!’ He looked too happy.

  ‘But, Jon,’ I said, ‘we shouldn’t do it.’

  ‘Shouldn’t? Why ever not? God, we couldn’t have asked for better.’

  ‘Don’t you see? We could have been killed.’

  ‘Yes, but we weren’t, were we? And why not make the best of it?’ He took my hand. This time in both of his. ‘Apart from that, Lisa. Don’t you see? This is our chance. With all this coverage. As long as we do a good job at the concert, Noteworthy could make it big time. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? What we’ve all always wanted?’

  Part of me knew he was right. But it was a part that had become veiled in my mind, a dark veil embroidered with black thread. Behind it lay a bright place and the Noteworthy of old.

  ‘And there’s something else,’ he said. He began to twitch about on his chair as if it had suddenly become uncomfortable. ‘It’s about the secret.’

  ‘The secret?’

  ‘I’m really sorry you were upset,’ he went on quickly. ‘And Mollie too. Daniela said I should tell you right from the beginning.’

  A spasm of fear ran through me. The pounding in my head went from uncomfortable throb to being whacked with a hammer. Not Daniela. Please not Daniela. It’s bound to be, the demon sneered.

  ‘Oh?’ was all I could muster.

  ‘The thing is, I’ve been writing something.’

  I blinked.

  ‘Yes.’ He glanced at me, as if guilty. ‘Yes, a musical. I know it sounds daft. But do you remember when you first read out tha
t stuff about Gesualdo?’

  I nodded carefully. When was he going to get to the bit about Daniela?

  ‘Well, it kind of kept rattling about in my head. And then Mollie was telling me about your school choir …’

  School choir? I shut my eyes. Did I have concussion after all?

  ‘So I thought, okay, other people have written operas and ballets and musicals for grown-ups … but what about a musical for children? It’s such a great story. Beautiful princess, wicked murderer. What’s not to like? All that grim stuff, you know how much kids love that kind of thing.’ His words tumbled out so fast. ‘The more gruesome, the better. Mollie was dead keen. We thought it would be great for your choir. The secret bit was my fault. I wanted to get it mostly down before I told you. Just in case, it went bollocks up. But it’s nearly there now.’ He sat back, pleased with himself. ‘So, Lisa, what do you think? Surprised?’

  I couldn’t speak. Surprised, bewildered, shocked: a soup of them all swirled about in my head. Once again, I heard the voice of Mollie crying out during her nightmares. Other voices too, men shouting, a snippet of Noteworthy singing the madrigal …

  ‘No!’ I blurted. ‘You can’t. You mustn’t. It’s a terrible idea.’

  His face freeze-framed.

  ‘It’s a horrible story.’ I could hear desperation in my voice as it got louder. ‘Not at all right for children.’ There was a cough from the next bed. ‘And Jon …’ I put my hand on his arm but he pulled it away. There was more hurt and disappointment in his eyes than when we’d rowed at my flat, a lifetime ago. ‘What about the curse?’ I whispered.

  ‘Curse?’ He looked at me blankly then swallowed. ‘Lisa, I—’

  ‘But it is cursed, Jon. Don’t you see? All the things that have happened. Ever since that first time. Even the boy drowning—’

  ‘What boy drowning?’

  ‘You know,’ I went on, leaning forward in spite of the pain. ‘In the river.’

  The curtain between me and next door twitched.