3 - Cruel Music

by Beverle Graves Myers

  We crossed the river at the Isola Tiberina and soon stopped in a courtyard formed by a soaring church of smooth gray stone and an outflung arm of the same material. A flight of steps bisected the hospital wing; I took them two at a time. Rossobelli followed at a more dignified pace. Bursting through the doors and running toward a long mahogany counter, I cried, “Benedetto Benaducci! Where is he?”

  A gnome-like nun wearing a white habit and intricately pleated wimple bent over a ledger. I fidgeted while she ran her skeletal finger down the list of names. She finally shook her head, gazing at me over the top of her spectacles.

  “Please,” I begged. “He was admitted earlier today. An accident victim.”

  “They are all accident victims, Signore.” She addressed me severely. “That is the only type of patient we accept…but the name you speak is not on the list.”

  I reached across the desk to turn the heavy book so I could see for myself, only to have my hand smacked with the large crucifix that dangled from her waist.

  Rossobelli approached the counter with a solemn frown. His clerical garb seemed to impress the nun more than my fashionable attire.

  “We’re looking for a small man who was run down in the Trastevere just over an hour ago,” Rossobelli said. With a sidelong glance at me, he added even more gravely, “He may not have been able to state his name.”

  “Wait here.” She slid off her stool and scuttled down the corridor like a white crab.

  I paced, puzzling over Benito’s supposed accident. Carriage mishaps were fairly common. The topheavy, enclosed two seaters were particularly prone to upsets if the driver underestimated his speed around a corner. That’s why a pair of grooms was often assigned the duty of riding on the back to counterbalance the weight. But a drayman’s cart was hardly a speeding carriage. It was a heavy vehicle, pulled by one plodding horse. When had my nimble, sure-footed manservant not been capable of jumping out of the way of a lumbering cart?

  Rossobelli walked over to a small shrine where a plaster Madonna with outstretched arms presided over a bank of flickering candles. The abate surprised me by kneeling to pray. Over his bent head, I saw a plaque blackened with age and a locked metal box chained to the railing.

  I stopped pacing. Unable to decipher the plaque and searching for an innocuous topic to keep my fears at bay, I asked, “Do you read Latin?”

  “Of course,” he replied, raising his chin but keeping his palms pressed together.

  “What does that say?”

  He translated without hesitation. “All in need, from whatever corner of the world, are welcome here without restriction.” He cleared his throat. “This is a charity hospital, Signor Amato, run on the alms and donations of pilgrims.”

  As Rossobelli’s chin again sank to his chest, I took my purse from an interior pocket and slipped a coin through the slot in the box. I was too angry to pray.

  In a few minutes, the guardian of the admissions desk returned with a young nursing sister. A gray smock covered her white habit almost entirely, making her rosy cheeks and pink lips the only spots of color about her person.

  I hurried to her side while Rossobelli pushed stiffly to his feet.

  “Follow me,” she commanded in a half-whisper. “The men’s ward is this way. If we hurry, the surgeon may still be there. Are you his family?”

  “Yes.” The word escaped my lips without thought. “Well, the closest to family that he has. Actually, I’m Benito’s employer. How is he?”

  She set her lips in a firm line. “It’s not my place to say. The doctor will explain.” Quickening her pace, she led us up one staircase and down a corridor to a cavernous ward lined by beds surrounded by canvas screens. The smell was horrific: putrefaction and the odors of bodily functions permeated the air. Cries and moans rose from all sides.

  My manservant lay in a raised bed with roughly squared wooden posts. He had been covered by a thin woolen blanket; the shallow rising and falling of that worn blanket was the only sign that he still lived. Benito’s face, normally so alert and expressive, could have been mistaken for a death mask fashioned of polished ivory. A gauze bandage covered the crown of his head, and his left arm was bound up in a sling.

  Hot tears bathed my eyes as I groped for Benito’s free hand. Several times I called his name, but his frighteningly still expression never wavered.

  Rossobelli grasped my shoulder. Starting as if a spider had landed there, I brushed his long fingers away.

  “The doctor,” he murmured.

  A tired looking surgeon in a blood-stained smock lumbered to the bedside. He pulled the covers down and put his ear to Benito’s bandaged chest. Clucking his tongue, he turned his attention to his patient’s head. After prodding and poking every crevice, he raised Benito’s eyelids with a flick of his thumb. I cringed at the filth that covered the doctor’s hands.

  “Will he live?” I asked tremulously.

  The doctor shrugged his sloping shoulders. “This man is gravely injured, probably dragged over the cobblestones by the cart that hit him. I’ve done what I can—bled him, set the fracture, taped the ribs, and dressed the cuts and scrapes. The head injury rests in God’s hands.”

  “Has he said anything?”

  Another shrug.

  “No.” The nurse spoke for the first time since we had reached the bedside. “He neither speaks nor seems to hear.”

  The doctor had turned to pass through the opening in the canvas screens. I moved to block his exit. “What happens now? What must I do?”

  “Wait,” the man growled. “As we all will.” He pushed past me, then added in a softer tone, “Sometimes, when the brain has been injured, it goes into hiding. To lick its own wounds, so to speak.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as it needs,” he flung over his shoulder as he disappeared behind another screen.

  “Here now,” the nurse flared up behind me. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

  I whirled. Rossobelli hovered over Benito, rearranging and patting his covers.

  “Stop that this minute,” she continued.

  The abate straightened quickly. His sharp cheekbones made ruddy slashes across his pale face. “I was just trying to make him more comfortable.”

  “That’s my job.” The nurse rounded the foot of the bed and inserted her willowy form between the abate and Benito. The fabric of her habit pulled as she stiffened her shoulders. “Perhaps you should wait in the corridor.” Her half-whisper carried a hint of steel.

  Rossobelli glowered but retreated through the screens and out of the stuffy ward. I suddenly felt much better about leaving my manservant in the care of this capable young woman.

  “What is your name, Sister?”

  “I’m Sister Regina.”

  “Will you be tending to Benito all the time?”

  She sent me a ghost of a smile. “There are six of us assigned to this ward. Our quarters are at the back, so several of us are always on duty. But as you see, this ward holds forty patients, and the beds don’t stay empty for long…” She sighed and folded her hands over her smock. “We do the best we can, Signore.”

  My fingers again sought the purse in my jacket pocket. My time might not be my own, but thanks to my triumph in Dresden, I did have plenty of money.

  The nun flinched when she saw what I was about.

  “You mustn’t do that,” she said. “I can’t accept money. I’m not even allowed to touch it. It’s a rule of our order.”

  “Who empties the offertory box I saw downstairs?”

  “Father Giancarlo, from the church next door. He’s the hospital superintendent.”

  “Does the Consolazione have a children’s ward?”

  “Yes.” She gestured toward the ceiling. “On the floor above.”

  I held up a thick gold
coin. The nun’s eyes widened. It was a Roman crown that could buy ten blankets, many dozens of eggs, or fifteen pounds of prime beef. “I’ll visit every afternoon. For each day that I find Benito alive and well cared for, I’ll give Father Giancarlo one of these to spend on the children.”

  “Very generous, Signore,” she murmured.

  “One more thing.” I fixed her clear gray eyes with my own. “If anyone besides me pays my friend a visit, a nurse will find something to do nearby. I want to know who comes, what they do, and what they say.”

  Sister Regina dipped her chin in a solemn nod. We had struck a bargain.

  ***

  After leaving my first offering with Father Giancarlo, I found Rossobelli waiting by the carriage. He gave me an icy greeting and bade me climb in to return to the villa.

  “No,” I replied. “I need to be on my own for a bit. I’ll walk, thank you.”

  Rossobelli looked like he was going to give me an argument but evidently changed his mind, merely saying, “At least I can take that package for you.”

  I clutched the bundle of Benito’s clothing that Sister Regina had wrapped up with twine. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “As you wish.” He entered the carriage, slammed the door, then poked his head through the open window. “This unfortunate incident doesn’t relieve you of your duties, you know. His Eminence will require you at eight o’clock sharp.”

  The carriage had barely rolled away when Guido trotted up, his handsome face blotchy with exertion and strain. “Signor Amato, I came as soon as I heard. How is Benito? Is he going to be all right?”

  I told the footman all I knew, little as it was, then added, “Did Rossobelli see you? He just left in the carriage.”

  Guido shook his head. “I saw it coming and stepped into a doorway, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not on duty until this evening. He can’t stop me from seeing Benito if I want.” He cocked a thick eyebrow and asked hesitantly, “You don’t mind if I go up, do you, Signore?”

  “Of course not.”

  I must admit to a twinge of jealousy as I watched the footman mount the stairs as quickly as I had. Benito’s amorous liaisons were generally casual and short-lived, nothing to compete with his primary occupation of seeing to my needs, but this relationship with Guido seemed more serious. If God’s grace allowed Benito to live, Guido might still take my loyal companion and sometime nursemaid from me.

  Feeling curiously adrift, I squared my shoulders, reproached myself for my selfishness, and set off for the Trastevere. The Romans were an idle lot. The women always seemed to be gossiping from their windows and the men playing cards or throwing dice on the stairs. Even the shopkeepers spent more time in the doorway than behind the counter. I shouldn’t complain. Their laziness might produce an eyewitness who could describe Benito’s accident firsthand.

  The right place wasn’t hard to find; many fingers pointed the way. It seemed that everyone had heard the news and was eager to express an opinion on the dangers of heavily loaded vehicles driven by heedless madmen.

  I chose to question a beggar I’d noticed on previous excursions through this quarter. He was a fat, amiable man of middle years who occupied a certain street corner as if it were his personal drawing room, a corner that happened to be directly opposite the site of Benito’s misfortune. My beggar decorated his person with tarnished medals and bits of military uniforms from several countries. He balanced his weight between one good leg and a wooden peg that took the place of a missing limb.

  “Lost it at the Battle of Parma,” he explained cheerfully, “courtesy of an Austrian cannonball. Those sausage eaters did me a favor, really. If I’d stayed a soldier, I probably wouldn’t be here at all.”

  I dropped a few coins in the hat which he’d quickly doffed. “Were you here earlier this morning? When the man was run down?”

  “To be sure. You can find me here nine to six every day. I set my time by the bells of the monastery at the top of the street.” He showed yellow teeth in a smile, circling his wrist to make the coins dance and jingle. I added to their number. My purse was suddenly getting more of a workout than it had during my entire stay in Rome.

  “How did it happen?” I asked.

  “You see that wall?” He pointed across the street to a shoulder-high structure that ran the length of the block and surrounded what looked to be a pottery factory. “The poor fellow was right in the middle there—had a canny little smile on his face—bouncing along with a swivel in the hindquarters, almost like a young miss.”

  I nodded at the particularly apt description of my manservant.

  “Along came a cart piled high with casks, the sort that haulers use to shift liquid goods from the warehouse to the shops and fine houses. It was moving at a good clip. Nothing odd in that, we’ve got a slope here, running down to the river. But when the driver saw the fellow, he cracked his whip…laid into the nag something fierce…drew blood.” The beggar fell silent and shook his head.

  “It was deliberate, then?”

  “Oh, yes. He drove his cart right up by the wall, full speed ahead. His cargo was rocking so hard, I thought we’d have casks cracking like eggs hitting the pavement. The poor fellow ran like the wind, but he couldn’t get across the horse’s path. And he didn’t have nowhere to go, see? It’s a solid wall, no doors or gates to jump into.”

  I took a hard gulp. “Go on.”

  “He went down with a squawk. Sounded like a goose getting his neck wrung. I couldn’t see exactly what happened next. He went bouncing around under the cart, and by then people were screaming and running.”

  “Did the driver stop?”

  “For a minute. Just long enough for the other man to jump down.”

  “Other man?”

  “There was a man sitting at the back of the cart, holding onto the sides, legs dangling. When the cart stopped, he jumped off and ran to the fellow who was down. He turned him over and loosened his shirt. I thought he was going to help him, but I reckon he got scared. Must’ve thought they’d killed him. He jumped back on the cart and the driver took off like the Devil’s legions were on their tail.”

  “The driver? Had you seen him before?”

  “Never.”

  “You sound very sure.”

  He leaned against the building and nodded with a confident smile. Of course, I thought, a successful beggar must search the faces of all who pass by, taking their measure for a potential handout.

  “What did he look like?”

  “A burly man in a jacket of faded blue. And leather gloves with studded gauntlets.”

  “His face?”

  He thought a moment, fingering his chin. “Didn’t get a good look at his face, on account of the cap, see? He wore a bright blue knit cap, pulled down low, with the tail flopping over his cheek. All I saw was his chin. It was long and scooping—the kind that’s easy broke in a fight.”

  “Good. What about the other man?”

  “He was dressed in citified clothes. Nothing fine, just better than what you’d see on most working men.” The beggar paused to rub his good knee. “Young and strong. The way he jumped off and on the cart, he couldn’t have been too much over twenty. No, don’t bother to ask. I didn’t get a good look at his face, too many people in the way.”

  “Did a constable come to investigate?”

  “A pair of ’em—after all the excitement was over. They organized a litter to take the man to the hospital and haven’t been back.”

  I thanked my informant with another coin and crossed the pavement to make my own inspection. The stamp of passing feet had destroyed any marks on the cobblestones, but the wall of smoothly dressed limestone carried an imprint that set me shivering from head to toe. I squatted low. A rust red handprint, smudged but free of dust or soot, glared out from the stone at the level of my knees. I pressed
my palm against it, imagining Benito’s terror as he’d been dragged beneath the cart. My anger was so hot, I half expected the stone to sizzle at my touch.

  Who had ordered this cowardly attack? And to what purpose? Was I meant to take it as a warning to keep Gemma’s murder a secret? Surely not. Cardinal Fabiani knew that my involvement with the disposal of her body was enough to keep me silent.

  I stood and tucked my bundle under my arm. There was nothing more to be seen here. Letting my feet wander aimlessly, I considered other possibilities. I had asked Benito to question the servants about Gemma’s background and relations. Knowing his dogged persistence in such matters, I wondered if his curiosity had been made known to Rossobelli. The cardinal’s secretary was sure to have eyes and ears among the staff. Is that why Rossobelli had been so intent on accompanying me to the hospital? Had he wanted to see what damage his henchmen had dished out?

  I’d actually quickened my steps with visions of bursting in the villa and beating Rossobelli’s head to a pulp when another thought stopped me. Thanks to Abate Lenci’s revelations, Gemma’s murder was at the forefront of my mind, but I had to consider that Benito’s attack could have been a reminder to stay the course with Antonio Montorio. The Red Inquisitor was not a man to let anything stand in the way of his plans. Had he somehow found out about Stefano Montorio’s offer to arrange Alessandro’s escape?

  I stopped at the entrance to a narrow alley, my head reeling with twisted thoughts. Without a clear message, how was I to decipher the meaning behind the violence? Shifting the bundle of Benito’s clothing to my free arm gave me an idea. The beggar said that the younger man had loosened Benito’s shirt. Perhaps he had left some sign for me to find.

  I attended to my surroundings for the first time in many minutes. My unwitting steps had led me to the alley that held Maddelena’s cookshop. Liya was most likely at the theater, but her friend would give me a quiet place to search Benito’s clothing. And feed me, too. I could use a meal. I had never done my best thinking on an empty stomach.