Book of Stolen Tales

by D J Mcintosh

  I pushed out from the alcove and trailed him. He walked haltingly along the roadway without once looking back.

  He turned north, going deeper into Sanità. I kept my distance, lingering in doorways, keeping to the shadows. As I followed him through the old district, I felt transported in time and Naples’ magical history came alive. I fancied that the Prince of Sansevero, a Rosicrucian and alchemist, prowled Sanità’s pathways again. Some claimed the prince perfected the metalization of human bodies and produced eternal light from the pulverized skulls of innocent souls he’d abducted. I imagined, too, medieval doctors moving through the alleyways in their cloaks and long-beaked masks to protect against the plague, or the richly festive costumed celebrations before Lent. It struck me that Basile’s fantastical characters and flamboyant descriptions were not so much an invention as a faithful record of his beloved city.

  A sweet, pungent odor hovered in the air. When Alessio turned a corner, a man swinging a copper censer brushed by him and smoky incense billowed about his cloak. A throwback, perhaps, to the days when plague victims and detritus lay in the streets. As he passed by me I had to cover my mouth and nose, overwhelmed by the perfumed vapor. Knots of men smoked outside the tiny bars lining Alessio’s route. They cast sidelong glances at him and looked away. They might have threatened me had I been alone, but just as Naso’s good spirit protected me on the way to Il Fontanelle, Alessio’s wraithlike presence shielded me now.

  He stayed close to the buildings and stopped frequently, putting a hand against a wall to balance while catching his breath. He dragged his right leg and leaned heavily on his cane. Before long, I recognized the streets. He was heading to Mancini’s palazzo, where I’d first seen Dina.

  I assumed Alessio would take the short laneway leading to it but he continued on. I gazed at the ivory walls of the palazzo, half expecting to find Dina framed by a window. She was nowhere to be seen. No light shone from within the house. It had the still and ominous feeling of a home abandoned.

  Alessio turned at the next intersection and made his way down a road barely the width of a car. The block’s entire east side was occupied by one long building made of a rougher, darker stone than Mancini’s palazzo. No wrought-iron balustrades spilled bougainvillea here—the structure had only a glazed black door flanked by two ancient twisted orange trees. Alessio leaned against the doorpost and fished in his pocket for a key. His hands shook as he inserted it in the lock.

  I rushed toward him, shoulder down, and pinned him against the door. He cried out with the blow and crumpled beneath me. As he fell, I realized this was not the same man who’d shown up at my hotel room. Alessio now seemed as I’d originally perceived him that evening in London—frail and elderly. His face had reddened and puckered so badly it was almost unrecognizable. Only in those dark, expressive eyes did a hint of his former vitality still lurk.

  “You stole Naso’s book.” I wasn’t sure he even heard my accusation as he wheezed with the effort to pull in air.

  When he lifted his head to speak I could see the bruises on his neck had ulcerated to become fiery-red open sores. “There is no theft when the volumes have been restored to their rightful owner.”

  “You mean Mancini? Neither of you has any moral right to them now after killing for them.”

  “I had no part in that. Lorenzo Mancini is the one with blood on his hands. And now he comes for you.”

  For a moment I feared Alessio meant Mancini had returned from Ghent. “Is he back already?”

  “Not yet.” His effort to shake his head caused a burst of coughing.

  “You work for him. Why are you telling me this?”

  “I am more his enemy than you. I set myself against him.”

  “By trying to kill me? A strange form of retribution.”

  “You are alive, are you not? I wanted only to find each volume and keep them out of the conte’s hands. I did not wish to take your life! I let you live. I went so far as to endanger myself in the London river to stop the demon from overwhelming you. And in France, when Renard’s dogs would have torn you apart, I lured them away. I came back here to seek my final rest, not expecting to see you again. It is good, though, that we meet here.”

  “You’ll have to come up with another reason. Superstitions won’t sway me.”

  “It is the truth. The demon would not leave me. It was wedded to me like my own flesh. Only now, because I am weak and sick, has it gone.”

  Was it possible? Dina had warned me about the conte’s desire to raise a demon named Frucissière and from the first, any point of contact with Alessio had an abnormal quality. I dismissed the thought as soon as it arose; it was too incredible to believe. And yet Alessio spoke the truth: when he could have finished me off, he’d waded into the cold Thames. My brother’s words drifted back to me: “The old gods aren’t dead; they’ve just withdrawn to hidden places.”

  Alessio tried to get up and fell back. My anger with him diminished and I felt a wave of pity for the tired old man. “You’re very sick. Let me take you to a hospital.” I bent down and slipped my arm around his back to help him rise.

  His head drooped slightly and he took a moment to drag in a breath. “No. I must finish what I started, even if none of it came about from my own will. I was Mancini’s instrument. He sent me out to recover the book, yes. Even though it is not his. The book belongs to the woman.”

  “You mean Dina? It did belong to her all along? That’s how you found out I was in Naples, wasn’t it? She told you.”

  “Yes, she did. Lorenzo Mancini’s men captured her in Rome and brought her here. I must take you to her for I haven’t the strength to help her myself.”

  “Where is she? In the palazzo?”

  “No. The other place. Where no one dares go.”

  “What other place?”

  “I will show you.” He lifted his cane to indicate the door but managed only to raise it a few inches off the ground.

  “Are they keeping her in here? How many are guarding her?”

  “None. Only one was left to keep watch over her. He is no longer a concern, as you’ll see.”

  “If she’s in trouble we have to call the police.”

  “This building is owned by the conte. They will not enter without his permission.”

  With all that had gone before, I was still wary of him and had no intention of walking straight into a trap. “You’re going to have to prove she’s in there. I’m not going in just on your word.”

  With no fight left, he simply nodded. “I understand.” He reached inside his coat and brought out a pearl bracelet. The pendant with Renard’s image dangled from it.

  Dina would never have parted with that willingly. “Show me where she is,” I said.

  Alessio took one last long look around. His eyes lit on the square pavers of the roadway, the dirty stone facade of the building across from us, the clouds above bruised yellow from the lights of the city. Not the most beautiful sight, but to him, irreplaceable. In his sorrowful eyes the longing was unmistakable. He knew this would be his last night in the city he loved. “She has not changed so very much, my dear Napoli. If not for the cars and the electric lights I would hardly notice the passing of years.” He turned the key in the lock. “Please push the door open,” he said. “I fear I haven’t the strength to do so.”

  We stepped into a warehouse. Once my eyes adjusted I could make out a large space filled with packing crates, cardboard boxes, and dozens of pallets. Dull, bluish light from the weak fluorescents overhead gave the area a sinister, chilly feel. Alessio led me down a corridor created by walls of crates and boxes at least ten feet tall on either side. The air carried a stench of mold and decay.

  The bad air affected him and he wheezed heavily between coughs. He paused to get his breath back. “This building adjoins the palazzo on the other side. It is the only way to gain access to where Dina is being held.”

  We continued to a sturdy wall on the far side constructed of large stone blocks. Set into it
were huge double doors made of oak. This differed dramatically from the other warehouse walls and I guessed we’d reached the ground floor of Mancini’s palazzo. The same one I’d seen from the outside with its windows boarded shut.

  Alessio sat down heavily on a crate. “Before we go in, I must rest.” He took another shallow, noisy breath. “I will tell you about the place we are about to enter. The old estate has always stood on this spot. Centuries ago it lay outside the city walls—a country manor surrounded by fields and a forest. When plague struck in 1632 a terrible misfortune befell the household. As you’ll see, my own tale transformed into a nightmare. My words came to life in a way I never imagined possible.”

  Thirty-Eight

  “Long ago a great lord celebrated the birthday of his daughter, Talia, with a grand fete. People flocked to the manor, needing respite from the destruction wrought by the eruption of Vesuvius the year before. Not long after the celebration, plague struck down the revelers.

  “Talia was the first to succumb. Soon everyone else fell ill and I too began to develop a great fever and weakness in my lungs, my throat so sore it was as if claws raked it from the inside. My skin burned and itched, grew red; my very bones felt sore. I was barely able to walk to the chamber pot to piss. In the end, of those who’d stayed on after the celebration, only the lord himself, the captain of his personal guard, and the painter de Ribera were spared.

  “Raging with grief, the lord declared the villa cursed and ordered it burned to the ground. He told the captain to have his soldiers rip up every piece of combustible material in the garden, destroy the outbuildings, and build a ring around the property to set it on fire. Villagers recruited for the task were happy to oblige, believing the house and all who’d touched it had been condemned by a demon’s spell.

  “At the last moment, the lord had misgivings. Instead, he chose to abandon the estate and keep it hidden forever from human eyes. With his captain, he hatched a terrible plan to massacre both the villagers and his guard lest they reveal the secret of the house. A fire was set, used only as a funeral pyre for the bodies. The captain and his horse were found some days later, dead in the forest of some mysterious cause.”

  He put his head in his hands. Again I asked if I could take him to the hospital and again he refused. “Thorn trees were planted around the house. Over time, the forest crept right up to its doors and mingled with the thorn trees to form an impenetrable wall. Local people, fearful of the estate’s history, stayed well away.”

  “Fearful because of the plague?”

  He didn’t answer me, but said, “I will start at the beginning. For her birthday, I’d prepared two gifts for Talia. One was the printer’s copy of five volumes of my tales encased in the golden covers and a cedar box.

  “The second item I presented to her that evening at the manor as well. On my posting to Candia as soldier to a nobleman of Venice, I’d met an Ottoman trader who spied for the Venetians. He journeyed all over the mystic East and possessed a round ring of stone with strange writing on it. He told me it was very old and came from a temple. He said the ancients used it as a weight, ballast for spindles in the weaving of flax. I thought the weight a fascinating relic and fashioned a pretty box to present it together with my book. When I gave the gifts to Talia, I explained one of them contained a puzzle and challenged her to decipher it. She mistook my meaning. Believing the spindle weight was the puzzle, she pried off the seal with a knife. Inside she found nothing but a fine gray powder. I know now, to my despair, these were the seeds of the plague collected by the ancient ones. Unleashed, it spread throughout the party like a flame set to dry fields.

  “She, at least, did not suffer but fell into a deep sleep from which none could rouse her. Others fared much worse. And so it was that one of the tales I penned came to life in the most horrifying way. In spite of the lord’s efforts to contain the disease, its deadly fingers caught hold of the populace of Naples.”

  My mind raced as I bent again to help him up. The fairy tale and the story of its origins that Renwick sought so avidly was “Sleeping Beauty.” Alessio had just confirmed the conclusion I reached after talking to Samuel’s colleague. He interrupted my reverie. “Now I’m dying for the second time from that accursed disease. I’ve seen how my story became famous over the ages yet changed almost beyond recognition. I give no thanks to the conte for raising me.”

  I felt sorry for the man, so mired in his delusions. “Why keep up the pretense? You couldn’t possibly be the author.”

  Alessio raised a trembling hand to silence me. “Can you not see what’s right before you?”

  “I’m sure what you’ve told me is true. Any historian with access to the Mancini family records, however, could piece together those facts.”

  A faint smile hovered over his lips. “I have no concerns if that is what you wish to believe; my purpose is not to convince you. Would you care to know how the story ends?”

  “Of course.”

  Alessio steadied himself by gripping his cane tighter and continued. “Over the years, the manor deteriorated. The population of Naples swelled and the city took over the farm fields and woods. The new generation of Mancinis realized the force of this growth into the countryside was irresistible. They feared to raze the old house completely because, in that event, a stipulation in the will would give the property to the church. As a compromise, they demolished only the upper stories of the manor and built a new grand home on top. The first floor of the house was sealed off and the windows blocked. The doors were never breached until the present conte allowed his curiosity to prevail and dared to enter it.

  “Once, the estate garden was spectacular. It had a pathway made from the black lava stones of Vesuvius bordered by magnificent orange trees. In spring, the luscious scent of their flowers drifted on the air for miles around. An ingenious maze offered hours of delight. A grand fantasy for all who beheld it. After the tragedy, for many years the villagers avoided going anywhere near the house, except perhaps for a few adventurous youths who were caught by the thorny branches. Their bones still lie beneath us somewhere.” Alessio pointed to the wall. “The stone here differs from the rest of the warehouse because it’s the original exterior of the ancient estate.”

  The way Alessio wove an age-old tale into a historic event impressed me and I had no reason to doubt the story’s veracity. He’d tripped himself up, though, in taking on the guise of being an author he could never have known. “How could you know about all this history, after the plague took you?”

  “That which I did not witness was told to me by the conte when he brought me back. We had a mutual goal—to regain the volumes Dina had dispersed. I played upon his desires and agreed to assist him for the opposite reason—to destroy the revelation they held forever.”

  “That still baffles me,” I said. “You’ve just said the weight was deadly, not the book.”

  Alessio shook his head. “The book is even more dangerous.” “In what way? What’s the secret?”

  Alessio scowled. “Did I not just say I want to keep it forever unknown? For this reason, I have destroyed the covers and all the volumes I gathered. Lorenzo Mancini wanted one more terrible thing of me.”

  “And that was?”

  “To look into his future. Prophesize his fate and forecast whether he would live to see the outcome of his plans. I told him I did not know when or where he would meet his end. Nor whether his plans would be successful. I said only that he would die under the hooves of a horse. He owns Camargues—the white horses—a tradition in the Mancini family, and keeps them in the country near the village of Domicella. My prediction threw him into a fury for he loves nothing more than to ride. I must have convinced him. I believe he has not gone near his horses since that day. If this indeed turns out to be his fate, it would be a just one, for the cruel man is his own executioner.”

  These were nothing more than the meanderings of a demented mind. I felt sure of this now. That Alessio was highly intelligent was obvious.
And he had a dogged spirit anyone would admire. He was likely a distant relation of the author Basile, as I’d originally thought, perhaps also a gifted scholar Mancini hired to trace the family legacy. His mind had become affected in the process, maybe as a result of his illness. It didn’t really matter. He’d concocted a tall tale with a lethal effect on real lives.

  I was still trying to convince myself of that when, a few minutes later, he regained some strength and took me on a harrowing journey through the hidden house.

  Thirty-Nine

  The entrance led directly into the palazzo’s shuttered ground floor. He pressed several buttons on a plate fixed to the wall and the doors swung inward. It was pitch black inside. “Mancini installed some lights,” Alessio said. “There is a switch over here.” He indicated the wall to his right.

  I swept my hand down it and flicked on the switch. A rudimentary line of bulbs had been strung down the hallway, revealing that the once grand windows had been roughly sealed with bricks.

  On either side of us stood two statues. One of Eros pulling back a taut bow and the other, a sleeping Psyche. Judging from their broken edges, the two pieces of sculpture had been whole at one time.

  “A glorious place, is it not?” Alessio said. “This was the proudest possession of the Mancini clan until the dread day when the demon crossed its threshold.”

  The dim, sad space looked anything but grand to me. Down the hall a fresco showed an old woman, tiny as an infant, locked inside a jar suspended from a hook high up on the wall. Noblemen dressed in scarlet and purple robes stood before her. The Cumaean Sybil. Painted along one edge was a pitchfork with two tines. A bident, the symbol for Hades. Underneath the fresco, in gold lettering, were the words