The Black Opera

by Mary Gentle

  Conrad shut his ears to it, deliberately not looking up the stairwell to see who might be hanging over the railings.

  The Canon-Regular raised his voice. “Bring them. Keep them quiet!”

  Dominicans hustled Conrad down the final flight of stairs, Tullio Rossi behind him, JohnJack Spinelli in front.

  “Have Brother Marcantonio bring the closed coach round—”

  A loud, slow knocking interrupted Viscardo. The whole group of Dominicans shuffled to a halt behind the Canon-Regular. Conrad, stopped on a higher stair, had the height to see over most of the hooded men, but not all.

  He leaned out, over the rail, squinting at the foot of the stairs.

  The door to the street stood open, sunlight spilling into the foyer of the tenement house.

  Against the brightness, Conrad made out a figure in police uniform—a tall, sleek-haired young man with a cockade in his hat, who rapped his knuckles against the lintel of the door.

  “It was open,” the newcomer murmured, “so I thought I’d come in…”

  The sunlight shifted and his silhouette became recognisable.

  Conrad gave a surprised exclamation, his bruised stomach muscles catching him. “Luigi?”

  Luigi Esposito, Chief of Police for the Port district, posed like a tenor given a particularly fine entrance. The sunlight brilliantly sparked off his belt-buckle, gorget, and the hilt of his ornamental sword. He occupied himself in pulling off his white leather gloves, one finger at a time, until every one of the priests there was staring at him.

  He looked up with a singular sweetness at Conrad.

  “I do hope you’re not trying to avoid our chess game, Corrado? How much is it you owe me now?”

  Before Conrad could recover from his speechlessness, Canon-Regular Viscardo stepped off the lowest stair, glaring at the younger man. “Gambling is against Church law!”

  If there was a smile of absolute insincerity, the police officer had mastered it years ago.

  “Gambling for money? I’m shocked! Corradino and I merely keep a tally of points, and pay them off with a glass or two of fine wine…”

  Luigi’s bow to the churchman was a masterpiece of insolence masquerading as politeness.

  “…But first we have an appointment.”

  Viscardo seemed to gather all the power of the Church to him, the sun on his black hair like the glitter of an adder sliding out from under bracken. “Out of our way! Signore Scalese is under arrest for blasphemy.”

  “Are you really, Corrado? I’ve spoken to you before about your Natural Philosophy… We can discuss it again on our way.”

  “You’re taking him nowhere! You may have the authority of a Chief of Police, but I have the personal written authority of the Cardinal of Naples!”

  “Do you really?” Luigi Esposito shifted himself from the doorjamb with a casual push of his shoulder.

  Conrad met his gaze across the crowded lobby.

  The Chief of Police for the Port district lazily smiled.

  “In that case, it’s as well I’m not here on my own authority. I come on behalf of his Majesty King Ferdinand, Second of that name, ruler of the Two Sicilies, who requests and requires Conrad Scalese to attend him immediately at his court. And… I do believe that King trumps Cardinal.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Once downstairs and out of doors, Captain Luigi Esposito secured Canon Viscardo by the elbow and moved him aside, haranguing him and the group of priests in a confident tone just too quiet for Conrad to overhear. Overhead, sharp bangs echoed down the street—wooden window shutters slamming open.

  Conrad caught the Canon’s searing glare at Luigi; a contempt that seemed not to be alleviated by the police uniform… Oh. Conrad found himself nodding. Esposito: “the exposed.” One of the traditional surnames the Church gives to foundlings, those nameless children abandoned on orphanage doorsteps: noble bastards, children of prostitutes and the poor, priests’ offspring… Evidently this Viscardo thinks he has more than one reason to despise Luigi.

  “Peacock!” JohnJack muttered, his gaze on the police captain, but he sounded relieved.

  Conrad found his mouth still dry. “Wait and see.”

  He fumbled at the back of his greatcoat collar, turning it so that it cushioned his metal collar, and folded his thick felted wool cuffs under the steel shackles.

  Tullio’s eyes narrowed as if he watched for skirmishers. His gaze flicked up and down the oddly deserted street, identifying gossips at windows. Even Naples quietens for the Holy Office. “Them dumb god-botherers didn’t think about transporting a prisoner weighed down so he can’t walk.”

  Conrad yanked his hands apart with the chain taut, hoping to split the links or the hasps on the cuffs. Nothing happened except bruises. “This will do wonders for my public reputation! First I’m a drunkard, because hemicrania knocks me out. And now I’m a criminal in chains! No one’s going to wonder when I get shipped out to the prison on Ischia, are they?”

  A coach rattled up the narrow street towards them.

  Conrad blinked. Some signal was given and I missed it.

  The sunlight flashed back from tack and plumes, and the shining polished rumps of the team of horses. The royal arms stood out clearly painted on the door. A dozen or so of Luigi Esposito’s constables followed. Their uniforms at least had the effect of keeping back the now-emerging, curious—and loud—neighbours.

  “Impossible!” Canon-Regular Viscardo’s frustrated hiss echoed across the street. The grooms looked at him with amusement. The man’s black brows pulled down over equally black eyes in a frown of cold power. “You can’t stand in the way of Mother Church! God Himself is King over Kings!”

  Viscardo’s hand slammed against Luigi Esposito’s chest. Conrad saw a sheet of paper sideslip down to the cobbles. One of the officers picked it up and gave it to his Chief.

  Luigi wiped the paper with a silk handkerchief, inclining his head politely. “Thank you, Luka. I’ll certainly pass your message on to his Majesty.”

  The Canon choked.

  Luigi Esposito stepped past him, taking Conrad by the elbow.

  Conrad collected himself, halting at the coach door. “What about Spinelli, and my man?”

  The Chief of Police rocked back on a heel, one of his now-stained fingers grasping the scroll. He didn’t look over his shoulder, but a flick of his eyes directed Conrad’s gaze.

  Two of the attending police officers stood either side of JohnJack Spinelli, and—as he looked—another two arrived either side of Tullio Rossi.

  “I don’t believe there’s cause to worry.” Luigi held the coach door open, waiting until Conrad gave way and climbed in.

  “I hope you’re right—uff!”

  Conrad sat down abruptly on the forward-facing seat, having enough trouble balancing himself and an armful of chains without the dip of the carriage’s springs.

  Luigi Esposito stared at the growing crowd in the chilly Spring morning. The group of Dominicans began to break up. Esposito swung himself into the opposite seat and called up to the coachman, “Move off!”

  Conrad peered out through the cramped window, raising his voice over hollow hoof-beats and the creak of tack. “It looks as if they’ve let them go?”

  “I may—” The Police Chief had a fine air of innocence. “—may have heard some rumour of the Church being involved this morning. And if I had heard that, I would surely have brought the on-duty shift with me, even if you don’t presently see them all. They might be waiting by the friars’ coach, to relieve them of any prisoners for which they don’t have specific written authorisation…”

  Conrad took the stained paper Luigi held out, and scanned it hastily. “This is their official Order of Arrest? No one’s mentioned here by name except me.”

  “Er—exactly.”

  The Chief of Police wedged his shoulder into one padded corner of the coach, and crossed his legs, enabling himself to take on an attitude of careless aristocratic inefficiency. Viscardo would only be the la
test in a long line to be fooled by it.

  “By the time they come back with a revised warrant, I believe your man and your friend will know enough to be elsewhere…”

  Conrad sat back on the carriage seat, relief unstringing him. “I think you can trust Tullio and JohnJack for that.”

  He rested his chains down in his lap, wrenching his badly-tied cravat loose enough that he could breathe. In the sunlight as they drove across the city, he could see that his knee-breeches were dusty, and one wool stocking was badly laddered.

  “I can’t attend a court occasion looking like this!”

  “No time to sort you out, unfortunately.” Luigi winced and offered another clean silk handkerchief. “You’re still in knee-britches from the opera last night, and it’s before noon… But never mind the social niceties. It’s an informal audience, not a full court presentation.”

  Dabbing at his clothes didn’t make them look any less like he’d been rolling around on the floor in them, Conrad decided.

  Luigi demonstrated an apparent expertise at reading the physical signs of tension. “His Majesty was anxious enough to get hold of you this morning that I don’t think he’d notice if you turned up stark bollock naked…”

  Conrad snorted. He held himself back from too-relieved laughter with an effort. The wind brought the scents and sounds of Naples as they rattled down a hill: a great conglomeration of breakfast cooking on street-sellers’ booths, and beasts of burden being loaded for the day, and the citizens—as usual—loudly conducting all their business in the street, no matter that the morning had no more than a touch of spring in it.

  “I thought your Parigi went off particularly well last night, Conrad.”

  Approbation for his opera made Conrad breathless with happiness. All the same…

  Luigi’s fishing.

  Predictably. Nine-tenths of his police work seems to be gathering gossip. Or making it up, for dissemination.

  “I have no idea why the King would take me away from the Inquisition. Why he wouldn’t leave a blasphemy charge to the Church.”

  Luigi’s chess-playing expression disappeared. He looked faintly disappointed.

  “How often have I told you, Corradino? Never volunteer information; make the other man pay for it with information of his own.”

  “You don’t have any more information about this. You would have told me.”

  “I would? I’m going to have to start watching myself around you, I can tell…” Between Luigi’s amused, deliberate bickering, and Conrad’s effort to coil his chain neatly over one arm while answering him back, the crowded streets between the Port and the Palace passed easily. Conrad was grateful.

  They dismounted from the coach at the Palace. A strong salt wind blew off the Bay.

  Luigi led him through the opulent Byzantine corridors, on his way to a formal audience with one of the most powerful monarchs in the Italian states. A handful of police officers and courtiers trailed them, until Luigi’s offhand wave dispersed everyone.

  They passed the last door, entering an anteroom empty except for servants. Luigi clapped Conrad on the shoulder.

  “That door over there. The King is waiting.”

  Conrad frowned. Two months of living back in Naples has been enough to remind him how King Ferdinand divides his time between his two capitals, Naples on the mainland, and Palermo on the island of Sicily—and remind him, too, that this is a monarch who, amazingly, kept his country intact during the recent revolutionary uprisings and wars with the Emperor, which ravaged every other Italian state.

  What follows from that?

  That Ferdinand II isn’t a stupid man.

  That I need to be very careful. Because I have no real idea why I’m here.

  Luigi Esposito regarded the door to the King’s reception rooms with visibly frustrated curiosity. “I do hope to see you for chess or backgammon soon, Corrado. I’m sure you’ll have a lot to tell me… Better not keep his Majesty waiting.”

  How do I demand that a King tells me what he wants?

  Is this just a quarrel over whether the King or the Holy Office gets the atheist to chastise?

  Conrad nerved himself to walk in, and dredged up a confident smile.

  It faded as the door opened.

  A servant ushered him through, announced him, and effaced himself as only the excruciatingly well-trained can. And made it wordlessly clear that he thought a man who wore no hat, and had no money in his pocket for the traditional tip, was even less of a gentleman than a man in shackles.

  Conrad didn’t bother to tell him that no member of the opera world—“la feccia teatrale,” as they call it; the dregs even of the demimondaine, with its claques, back-biting, scandal, and calumny—will ever be regarded as socially acceptable.

  At the far end of the sunlit chamber, French windows stood open to the air and the Bay of Naples. Conrad felt unreasonably glad to smell the February morning as it warmed. Not imprisoned yet.

  “Signore Scalese.”

  A man in a blue cut-away coat and white breeches turned away from watching Vesuvius. The sea air had slightly disturbed his brown hair, cut short and brushed forward in the new Classical Roman fashion. His neck-cloth was crisp and spotless, and his coat bare of all orders except the Lion and Hawk of the Sicilies. Conrad thought the man only a handful of years older than himself—thirty-five at the most. Ferdinand’s round, amiable face gave the impression of plump prosperity without intelligence.

  Which history and current circumstances argue against.

  Conrad met the King’s eyes and was pinned by an unwavering, amiable, but surprisingly keen gaze.

  This could be as dangerous as the Dominicans.

  A formal bow was difficult, chains clasped to his body. Conrad thought he managed it without looking a complete fool, although his face heated. “Your Majesty.”

  “You’ll forgive this not being a formal audience.” The King visibly came to some decision. “Walk with me, Signore Scalese.”

  King Ferdinand Bourbon-Sicily stepped through the outer door. Conrad followed, emerging onto a stone terrace above the sea.

  He blinked at the muted sunlight—and realised that a canvas awning was stretched above, shielding the walkway from the light. It was made of ship’s canvas, Conrad noted, after the ancient Roman style, with slits cut throughout so as not to become a sail in reality. Sun and shadow cast hieroglyphic patterns on the pale flagstones at their feet.

  “Your family is from the Two Kingdoms, signore.”

  “My father was court musician severally in Bavaria and the Prussian territories, Your Majesty. But I have some claim through my mother’s family, who own property in Catania.”

  Ferdinand dragged his gaze back from clouds racing inland towards the mountains, as if the sight of the Bay were magnetic. He gave Conrad a frankly speculative look.

  “I’m told you may settle in Naples, given your professional success here.”

  “I had intended to stay, Your Majesty.” Conrad let his tone make it a reference to the burning of the Teatro Nuovo, if the King should care to interpret it that way. “My mother lived a lot in Naples in her youth, though her family’s from the other Sicily. I spent some of my childhood here, Your Majesty.”

  “Call me ‘sir’ when we’re private.”

  “‘Conrad,’ then, sir, if you wish.”

  I’m not yet certain that Tullio and JohnJack are safe; I need to know what’s going on!

  Conrad spoke bluntly but politely, ignoring the etiquette that says one does not question a king. “Sir, may I ask: what do you want from me?”

  Ferdinand’s inoffensive smile sharpened. He spoke mildly. “Do I want something?”

  “This morning I appear to have been saved from the Church, sir, only to fall into the hands of the State. I wonder what the State wants of me.”

  The King inclined his head, evidently not offended. “The State wants a private conversation. As to the nature of it… Come with me, Conrad.”

  Conrad, b
are-faced about the necessity, scooped up his chains more securely, and walked beside King Ferdinand down the awning-shaded terrace. He could see past the old royal Angevin palace, Castel Nuovo, square and granite and grim; to the curve of the Bay and Naples harbour. Spring clouds scudded up the sky, casting shadows on early, crowded streets.

  They passed another set of French doors. Ferdinand glanced inside the palace.

  Ah—This is why we’re walking out here!

  The air might be only just warm, but the sound of the breeze, as well as the noise of the waves, meant no servant indoors stood a chance of overhearing them.

  Conrad’s hands sweated, carrying the steel of his chains.

  “You’re an atheist,” Ferdinand said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  Conrad deliberately abandoned the ideas of prevarication, or tact.

  I’m deep enough in, in any case! Let a monarch have the undecorated truth told to him.

  “Because I never believed, sir. I don’t know why.”

  Seeing Ferdinand’s expression, he made the effort to give a wider picture.

  “I remember when I was six, believing in die Großmutter who brings coal on St Stephen’s Day for bad little boys. And the next year, I didn’t believe, being too old for fairy tales. I don’t know if I ever had any such belief in the Holy Virgin and Mother Church…”

  Conrad frowned, struggling for memories too far back, and too well-handled, to be certain.

  “If I’m remembering correctly, I never had to disbelieve in God. By the time I was nine, I had been in heretic churches—”