With exquisite tact and a welcome gift for concise synthesis, he related the origins of the huge southern estates in land grants made by the Spanish viceroys of Naples during the eighteenth century, and in their subsequent enlargement by shrewd purchases from adjoining landowners, often ancient noble families who had got into debt and needed cash fast. The key to success, the archivist explained, was to get possession of a property large enough to be virtually self-sufficient, to allow diversity of production involving economies of scale thus insulated from the vagaries of the market. The continuing integrity of the operation was then guaranteed by strict adherence to the primogeniture system, under which the eldest son inherited everything, the other males being maintained on an allowance but forbidden to marry.
‘To do that successfully over many generations requires good luck or good genes. The Calopezzati were gifted with both. They were of humble origins, small landowners from Cosenza, but they proved exceptionally astute and energetic in developing and managing their property, which eventually extended from the wheat plains around Crotone to the alpine forests and summer pastures of the Sila massif above us to the east. There was constant tension and occasional strife with the local peasantry, most usually over the encroachment and expropriation of smallholdings and common land bordering the Calopezzati domains, but in general the system worked fairly smoothly. By the mid-nineteenth century the family had been raised to baronial rank, was immensely wealthy and kept a splendid palace in Naples.’
‘So where did it all go wrong?’ Zen ventured to enquire.
‘The short answer is after the Great War. By then the Calopezzati were powerful political players, and the baron thus spent most of his time at the centre of things in Rome, leaving the management of the estate to less able relatives or salaried underlings. In addition, socialist ideas about the rationalisation of land ownership had finally started to take root in the south, leading to demonstrations which often ended in bloodshed.’
Cataldo Antonacci shrugged.
‘But in the end, it was their good luck that ran out. On the death of Baron Alfredo Calopezzati, the estate passed to his son Roberto, who was actively involved with the Fascist Mas X movement and later saw action in Ethiopia and the wider war that followed. He handed over administration of the estate to his sister Ottavia, who ruled over it with an iron hand from the old family stronghold at Altomonte, thirteen hundred metres up in the Sila mountains.’
‘What was she like?’
‘By all accounts, a stone-cold bitch. Her father Alfredo had been respected, if not exactly liked. Even her brother got some admiration for his courage and daring, although there were darker sides to his character. But to the best of my recollection I have never heard anyone say a positive thing about Ottavia. While the country fell apart and endured defeat and invasion, she remained shut up in that chilly fortress known locally as la bastiglia, surrounded by a retinue of loyal servants and armed guards. Then one winter night just before the end of the war, a fire broke out. It completely gutted the structure and killed the baroness, as Ottavia was called, although she had of course no claim to that title.’
‘And what happened to the estate after the war?’ asked Zen.
‘It was broken up by the agrarian reforms of the 1950s and what remained to the family was sold off.’
‘Did either Roberto or his sister have children?’
‘Not so far as one knows, but the details of the war years remain murky. It’s not even clear if Roberto survived, but Ottavia certainly died childless. She’d never married and was past childbearing age when the fire took her.’
‘So the family is now extinct?’
‘It may well be. That’s the price you pay for voluntarily observing primogeniture even after it was made illegal. But surely in your position it would be possible to…’
Zen nodded his assent. Yes, he would certainly make further enquiries.
‘As it happens, we’re standing in a former possession of that family,’ the archivist said as he saw his visitor to the door. ‘This building was originally one of their many properties. When they came south from Naples for the summer, they would break their journey in Cosenza for a few days and wine and dine the local notables before making the long trek up into the mountains to Altomonte. Until a century ago there was no road beyond Spezzano. The baron and his entire retinue had to get out of their carriages and continue on muleback.’
Zen had taken a taxi to the offices of the museum, but he opted to return to the modern centre on foot, down the narrow curve of Corso Telesio, where renovated apartments awaited yuppies with enough money and stamina to gentrify the largely abandoned mediaeval maze, and across the Busento river, a mere trickle between islands of gravel and tall reeds at this time of year. For a moment he wondered if he had wasted his time by going to see Antonacci. What he had learned had been interesting, particularly the bits that didn’t make sense, like Ottavia being past childbearing age when her son had been born. However, it remained doubtful how relevant any of it was to the task of getting Pietro Ottavio released as soon as possible by his kidnappers.
Jake and Madrona drove up into the mountains, pulled the bikes out of the back of the SUV and then cycled along an old railroad grade winding up above a dark, sinuous lake sheathed by forested slopes. Now they were sitting side by side on the timbers of a trestle overlooking the shimmering water below. The fresh, warm air was heady with the smell of pine sap and creosote.
‘Tell me about the Rapture again,’ he said.
Madrona smiled.
‘Oh Jake, you’re just like a baby, wanting to hear the same story over and over.’
She sighed wistfully.
‘I’ve been thinking a lot about babies recently.’
‘We’ll have one, Madrona. Real soon. I just have to get this project finished first. As soon as that’s done I’ll switch to breeding mode, I promise.’
He grinned at her.
‘The Lord has sworn and will not repent.’
‘Huh?’
‘Some hypertext link. I want to say someplace in the Bible, but I can’t be bothered to Google it.’
‘I never read that creepy Jewish stuff. They had their chance to accept Jesus as their personal saviour and they blew it.’
‘But you told me that the end times can’t happen without the Jewish state.’
‘Oh sure. That’s why we’re in Iraq. Pastor Gary says that even though it turns out that Saddam didn’t have any like missiles and was never a threat to us, he was a big threat to Israel. That’s why the president had to send in the troops. The other stuff was just window dressing to keep the liberals quiet.’
Jake leant over and kissed her. God, he loved this woman. She wasn’t maybe what you’d call really beautiful, but she was a total babe. A sweet smile, frizzy blonde hair, plus the guileless blue eyes of a child combined with that hot bod and a voice like wind-chimes colliding in a gale, harmonious but with a raucous edge. Above all, though, he loved Madrona for her mind. She was sublimely stupid.
This was a central processing issue, nothing to do with data storage, which for Jake was peripheral. Why overload your system with a bunch of mostly dormant read-only files when the internet could come up with anything you didn’t know in like 0.18 seconds? Jake didn’t know practically everything, but he wasn’t stupid. You didn’t rise like a rocket through the massed ranks of Microsofties without being able to spot a glitch invisible to other eyes, or figure out a more elegant route from A to B than detouring via Z. But Madrona was not only even more ignorant than him about every aspect of human knowledge, except maybe female grooming, she was also dumber than fuck. Jake found this adorable. It was like having some big, placid, playful dog around the place, only one you could have great sex with too.