Tears of the Salamander

by Peter Dickinson

  “I have been stronger,” said Uncle Giorgio dismissively. “You received my note?”

  “Indeed, indeed. And this is the young gentleman who is now to be your heir?”

  “My nephew, Alfredo,” said Uncle Giorgio. “His parents died tragically a month ago, and he is now in my care. The last, for the moment, of our line. Alfredo, this is my friend Signor Pozzarelli, who looks after the legal side of our affairs. You will have much to do with him in time to come.”

  “Indeed, indeed. I am gratified to meet you, Signor Alfredo,” said Signor Pozzarelli as they shook hands. “But let us hope it will be many years before that is the case.”

  “We are in God’s hands, Signor Pozzarelli,” said Uncle Giorgio. “And as you see I have not been well. The journey to fetch my nephew taxed my strength, and I was near to death by the time I returned. I am not yet fully recovered, and the malady could strike again at any time. We must put my earthly affairs in order without delay.”

  “Your earthly…?” Signor Pozzarelli began, and stopped himself. “Er…hum…a little wine in honor of the occasion? Now, let me see, let me see…”

  He rang a silver handbell, then fussed with papers on his table, recovering his composure. Uncle Giorgio watched him, smiling thinly. Alfredo was puzzled. He had a feeling Uncle Giorgio was teasing the attorney, but why was he pretending to be ill and mouthing these pious phrases about his own death if in a few day’s time he was going to start living forever? And what had Signor Pozzarelli been going to say when he stopped himself?

  A servant woman came in with a tray—glasses, a wine flask and a jug. Signor Pozzarelli poured two glasses of wine and glanced at Uncle Giorgio.

  “A little for my nephew—as you say, in honor of the occasion,” said Uncle Giorgio, still with that teasing note, so the attorney poured a few sips for Alfredo and filled the larger glasses from the jug with what turned out to be lime water, cool and fresh. The wine was dark and sweet—the best in the attorney’s cellar, Alfredo guessed.

  Signor Pozzarelli drew a chair to the table for Alfredo, picked up a double sheet of parchment and cleared his throat.

  “The terms, as you suggested, are the same as for the last will—nineteen years ago, I see—save of course for the beneficiary. The list of your properties has been kept up to date, as you know, and can simply be transferred to the new will. And there is the matter of a guardian still to be settled. Last time my father had the honor…”

  “Your respected father is now almost as old as I am, and we must look to the future. I suggest that this time it should be yourself, if you will be so kind as to take up the burden of my nephew’s earthly affairs. All else of course is in eternal hands, those hands which finally take care of all things, both earthly and beyond.”

  “Of course, of course,” agreed Signor Pozzarelli hastily. “I shall be much honored by the task.”

  This time Alfredo got it. Beneath Uncle Giorgio’s teasing tone there was something else, a note of threat, quiet but confident. And beneath the attorney’s gabbled reply there was awareness of that threat, and fear of it. And Uncle Giorgio hadn’t said the obvious “earthly and heavenly,” but used the strange phrase “earthly and beyond.” He was talking not of the justice of God, but of the powers of the Master of the Mountain, which his nephew would inherit. No attorney in his right mind would be tempted to swindle even a child who possessed those powers.

  Signor Pozzarelli wrote briefly on the document, then read it through in a solemn voice. Though it was quite short, it was mostly incomprehensible. The only thing that was clear to Alfredo was that just three people were named in it, Uncle Giorgio, who was making the will; Signor Pozzarelli, who was to be guardian; and Alfredo himself, who was getting everything. There was nothing for Annetta, nothing to take care of poor Toni, Uncle Giorgio’s own son. Of course Alfredo would look after them, but how could anyone be certain of that? If only for form’s sake surely…But no. Uncle Giorgio didn’t think like that.

  When he’d finished reading, Signor Pozzarelli rang his bell again, and the clerk and a gardener came to witness Uncle Giorgio’s signature. The gardener was unable to write his name, so signed with a thumbprint. Uncle Giorgio gave each of them a silver coin and rose as they left. Alfredo realized that Signor Pozzarelli was looking expectantly at him. Alfredo pulled himself together.

  “I must…must thank my uncle for his great generosity,” he stammered. “I, er, will try to prove worthy of my inheritance and…and our name.”

  “I have no doubt that that will prove to be the case,” said Uncle Giorgio, still with the same odd tone, as if the words had an extra meaning that only he knew. He signed to Alfredo, who helped him stand and then took some of his weight while Signor Pozzarelli showed them out of the house with obvious relief, bowing his farewells several times more than was necessary.

  Uncle Giorgio seemed to recover as soon as the door closed.

  “Lawyers are capable of infinite delay,” he remarked. “There is no harm in persuading one that the case may be urgent.”

  He sounded really pleased with himself. He stood for a while on the doorstep, like a cat purring in the strong noon sun, while Alfredo once again wondered what it must be like to have everyone you met terrified of you. But Uncle Giorgio actually seemed to enjoy it. Strange.

  Now he stalked off toward the inn, but started to lean on his stick before they reached it. Alfredo had been expecting that they would simply collect the mules and ride home, but the landlord was waiting at the door, bowing and smiling but still giving the impression that he would have preferred to run and hide in his darkest cellar.

  “I trust the signor is in good health,” he gabbled.

  “Feeling my age, feeling my age,” said Uncle Giorgio, speaking almost affably. “I shall need your arm up the stairs, I fear.”

  The landlord helped him climb slowly to a room overlooking the harbor, where a table was laid for two.

  Uncle Giorgio straightened as soon as they were alone.

  “A feast in celebration of the occasion,” he said genially.

  Alfredo’s heart sank. How could he eat a feast of celebration with this man whom he now believed to be a monster, a murderer? Sitting in the attorney’s office, pretending to be honored and grateful about what his uncle was doing for him—that wasn’t difficult. In a grim sense he’d almost enjoyed it, because each little deception of Uncle Giorgio became part of his secret knowledge. It was all right eating together up at the house, where often his uncle read throughout the meal and scarcely said a word, so that they might just as well have been eating in separate rooms, and where even when they talked their words seemed to be full of secret meanings. But here, like this? He thought of name-days at home, the joy, the family love, Mother’s pride in what she’d prepared for the occasion. That had been true celebration, not this. The food would be sawdust in his mouth, tasteless and unswallowable, and he must pretend to enjoy it.

  No, he would not think like that. Soon, soon, before next Monday, he would find proof of what the salamanders had told him. And then…then somehow—something deep and savage stirred in him—then he would take vengeance.

  They sat and the meal was brought, olives and bread and oil, of course, and grilled sardines caught fresh that morning, and a salad of wild leaves from the mountain, and a tender young pullet roasted on a bed of herbs, and a strange, sweet custard, and three kinds of wine, and lime water better than the attorney’s—indeed the sort of meal Mother would have prepared for a name-day.

  Alfredo settled down to enjoy it, savoring every mouthful with the thought of his vengeance. Vengeance, he discovered, makes an excellent savor. So he ate with gusto until Uncle Giorgio pulled him up.

  “We must feed you up but not make you ill,” he said, lightly enough—but still Alfredo seemed to hear the undertone of another kind of meaning. This time, though, he could guess what it was. To Uncle Giorgio each mouthful he ate, each sip he drank, each breath he drew, was not for his own pleasure, but a prepara
tion for next Monday and his mysterious destiny.

  He thought about this as they rode up the hill and wondered if he could starve himself until he was too weak to do whatever his uncle expected of him on Monday. Not easily, if he was watched all the time as he ate. But…

  That evening, sitting in the kitchen and watching Annetta preparing supper, he wondered where her loyalties really lay. He decided to take the risk.

  “Annetta?”

  She turned from the stove, eyebrows raised.

  “Can you give me something to make me a little bit sick? Not really sick, just so I don’t have to do something. Only for a morning—I can’t explain. He’d see through it if I was just shamming sick.”

  She frowned for a moment, glanced at Toni and stared at her hands. Alfredo could see her thinking What if the master found out? He sighed with relief when she straightened, looked him firmly in the eye and nodded.

  She laid her spoon down, crossed to her store cupboard and reached to the back of a high shelf for a small lidded pot. She fetched a mug, and her kettle from the back of the stove, took a leaf out of the pot, put it in the mug and mimed filling the mug from the kettle. She pointed at the kitchen clock and made a slow circle in the air. Wait for an hour. She then pretended to drink the contents of the mug.

  That done, she tipped the leaf out onto the table and added two more from the pot, rinsed the mug carefully and laid it to drain. She pointed at the leaves, held up a finger, clutched her stomach and pretended to retch into her hands. Two fingers, and this time she was in serious pain and vomiting onto the floor. Three fingers, and she started to curl up in agony, then straightened, smiling.

  “One leaf would make me a bit ill, and two properly ill, and three I’d be really sick,” said Alfredo. “If I took just one, how long would it be before I threw up?”

  She pointed at the clock again, held up her finger and wrapped her other hand round the bottom half of it. Half an hour.

  “And how long before I got better?”

  This time she held up four fingers. Then she poured water into a bowl, washed her hands, threw the water away and rinsed out the bowl.

  “Thank you, Annetta,” he said. “I won’t use it unless I have to—there may be another way.”

  He took the leaves up to his room and hid them in a book. Following Annetta’s example, he washed his hands carefully before he came back downstairs.

  “A light supper after our midday feast,” said Uncle Giorgio pleasantly enough. “I think we are both too tired for talk.”

  Alfredo agreed, with relief, and took up his book. They did not speak again until they said goodnight. That was Tuesday.

  All night Alfredo dreamed restlessly of his vengeance. He woke early, and discovered that his confidence had somehow thinned in the night, as if it had become part of the now forgotten dreams. Yesterday his decision to trust the salamanders, his new hatred of his uncle and his determination to take his vengeance if he got the chance had seemed fixed and certain. Now both trust and determination had become doubtful, and without them what right had he to hatred? And even suppose, miraculously, he found the proof he needed, he could see no way forward, and was heavily aware of how little his power was, how few and small his secrets, compared to all that Uncle Giorgio knew from his study, and his long Mastership of the mountain. Fear had returned—not full-fledged panic, but a steady underlying apprehension, a feeling that he was picking his way along a narrow track with a precipitous drop below, and dared not look down.

  The sun was just rising as he went out into the silvery sweet dawn, not with any purpose, simply needing to be away from the house and all it meant. As before he found himself wandering along the overgrown driveway until his way was blocked by the old lava flow.

  He gazed a while, unthinking, and then, though it was still full of the chill of night, stretched himself out on it, molded his body to it, made himself part of it, imagined himself seeping down through its hidden veins, feeling his way toward the distant central fires. Faintly now he thought he could hear the singing of the salamanders.

  Oh, what is going to happen to me? he asked them.

  The singing paused and resumed, but muddled and uncertain. Like a fever dream. Whoever had written the notes he had found had been right— Nobody, not even we ourselves, the salamanders seemed to be telling him, knows what is going to happen, not until it happens. Till then there is no certainty about it, no truth for us to tell.

  He wasn’t disappointed. In his heart he had known this to be so, just as he knew, too, that it was no use asking them what Uncle Giorgio was planning. They couldn’t see into the minds of men. But the singing of the salamanders, and the fact that he could hear them, were comforting in themselves, so he lay where he was for a while, and then went back to the house for breakfast. As soon as they had eaten Uncle Giorgio took him down to the furnace room.

  Alfredo went reluctantly. He wasn’t in the mood for grief. Doubt and fear left no room for it. But sing he must, sing the music of sorrow.

  “By the waters of Babylon I sat down and wept…”

  For once in his life the music didn’t seem to be part of him. Some of the adult choristers had been like that, singing their way through the services by rote, steady on the note from endless repetition, while their minds were on other things—a woman they were keen on, a bit of gossip they’d heard, their next meal. Nevertheless the salamander rose and wept. The sorrow was in the music, as Uncle Giorgio had said. That was all it needed, and its own grief, the grief of exile, which was real, and apparently unending.

  How did it come to be here, in this prison? he wondered.

  Alfredo hadn’t intended to ask the question—to question it at all—but it answered. As they sang on together he saw it swimming in the fiery currents of the mountain with its comrades, none of them yet fully grown. They were exploring, as young creatures tend to, the edges of their territory, daring each other to see how far they could go. A music reached them, strange and powerful. The rock above them split open and the current that carried them welled into the world above. Still the music held them, compelling them upward. The salamander raised its head above the surface and looked around. Something seized it from behind and lifted it clear of the molten rock into the killing cold of air.

  It had struggled desperately, but it was gripped firm between two meshes of metal and was carried to where two huge creatures were waiting—Alfredo recognized these as a pair of horses or mules—with a large object slung on poles between them. An arm reached from beneath the salamander and opened the lid of the object, which was filled with glowing coals. It was lowered into the life-giving heat and there released. As the lid was closed upon it it could hear, close by, two human voices, loud with anger, and farther off, the horrified wails of its comrades mourning its loss.

  Then darkness and endless jolting, and the embers cooling, cooling, until it lost consciousness. And finally waking to find itself in this furnace, also then filled with coals which were just enough to keep it alive, and were constantly replenished until out of its own natural process it had transmuted what was fed to it into the true stuff of the sun in which it now lived, and had lived for thirty long years.

  It was an account of cruelty and horror and loss. The salamander wept, but Alfredo did not weep with it or for it. Deliberately he used his thoughts of vengeance as a kind of harness to hold his tears and his voice in check, to stay dry-eyed, to sing the notes clearly and truly. So as he watched Uncle Giorgio coolly harvesting the tears of his prisoner, his resolve seemed to harden. That his uncle should treat the wonderful creature so! And Toni, too, and Annetta. And probably, all too probably, Alfredo himself.

  Yet still it was not quite enough. Some final, definite proof must be found, and then he would have vengeance on his uncle, and part of that vengeance would be somehow to free the salamander, take it back up the mountain and release it into the fiery torrents that were its home.

  At last Uncle Giorgio closed the lid of the furnace and r
emoved his spectacles. Alfredo did the same and wiped his eyes.

  “That is better,” said Uncle Giorgio approvingly. “But there is still too much feeling. You must not exhaust yourself so. There is more important work waiting for you.”

  He tipped the little draught of tears into his phial and started to tap off the molten gold from beneath the furnace. Trying to look as if he were simply waiting for him to finish, Alfredo let his glance wander round the chamber, all dim and shadowy after the furnace glare, in case there was anything here that would help him in his enterprise. Yes, in the corner to his left what looked like the selfsame large lidded iron bucket that Uncle Giorgio had used to carry his captive down the mountain; beside it a similar smaller bucket; and propped behind them a heavy ladle, an instrument like a large pair of tongs, each arm ending in a circular metal grill, and a stout pole with a hook at the center so that two people could carry the buckets between them.

  Uncle Giorgio rose from his crouch, holding the little pan into which he had been running the gold from the bottom of the furnace, and put it back on the table. A thin film of still-molten metal covered what he had collected five days ago. Uncle Giorgio turned the full pan over, rapped it sharply with a wooden mallet and pocketed the little ingot that fell out.

  Lost in his thoughts of vengeance, Alfredo gazed vaguely at the two pans, one now empty, one half full, as if they, too, might help him somehow to free the salamander, until Uncle Giorgio broke the trance.

  “Yes, Alfredo, pure gold. The First Great Work,” he purred, and turned to leave.

  Alfredo pulled himself together and on the way out took a good look at the door and its lock. Both seemed formidably sturdy. As usual Uncle Giorgio put the key back in his pocket as soon as he had locked the door.

  “I have work to do now,” he said. “You will be able to amuse yourself until luncheon?”

  “Yes, of course, Uncle. I’ll go for a walk in the woods. So I don’t need to take my hat.”