In that case why hadn’t he done away with him years ago? He was perfectly capable of it. Because…because Toni had been all there was, until Alfredo came. But now, especially after next Monday…Once again he remembered the risks Uncle Giorgio had taken to get him here, not for family love or duty or anything like that, but because for his own purposes he truly needed to have him. He remembered the strange, intense look with which his uncle had stared at him on the mountain. Even then Alfredo had guessed at the need. On this coming Monday the need would be fulfilled. And after that he would no longer have any possible use for Toni. So Toni was not long for this world.
Alfredo munched his way through the rest of the meal, barely tasting a mouthful. When at last it was over he went up to his room to rest out the first heat of the afternoon. He tried to read, but his mind wouldn’t apply itself to anything but his problems, where it skittered uselessly to and fro between them. I must talk to Annetta again, he decided. I must tell her everything. Then she can make up her own mind what to do.
Long before the heat was any less he crept downstairs, took the recorder from its case and went out to the rose garden. Toni was already there, sitting on the bench playing softly—not anything Alfredo had taught him but a strange little tune that he seemed to be making up as he went along, because every now and then he would stop, go back to an earlier phrase and alter what he’d done before, fiddling with it several times until he was satisfied.
Alfredo leaned on the balustrade, watching and listening. After a while Toni seemed to be happy with what he’d invented and started again from the beginning. Alfredo took out his recorder and joined in. Toni looked up, but didn’t stop playing. The tune was trickier than Alfredo had realized, with unexpected time-changes. It was the sort of music that makes you want to dance, but you’d need to be a clever dancer not to make a fool of yourself. Alfredo made a lot of mistakes, but Toni held the tune firm all the way through. The last notes died into the breathless air and they laughed together.
Alfredo went down the steps and sat beside Toni on the bench.
“You made that up yourself,” he said, pointing at Toni as he asked the question.
Toni nodded and tapped his chest. Obviously he’d understood, but from the way Annetta talked to him and about him he’d always understood a few simple things. He was probably still like that. The Angel of Fire hadn’t cured him, hadn’t disentangled whatever was wrong with his mind, but it had done something else, even more important. It had set him free, freed his spirit, his soul, freed them from his terror of the world and his shame of what he was. It had given him a life worth living.
Alfredo thought about this as they continued to play—bits of church music, sailor songs, fairground dances, with Toni continuously decorating the music, as soon as he’d picked it up, in ways Alfredo himself would never have thought of. And he liked some things better than others, not necessarily because they were simpler; in fact rather the opposite. It depended on whether he found them interesting. So obviously there was nothing wrong with the music part of his mind. There must be some kind of kink, some blockage, somewhere else. If only…
“The tears of the salamander. Sovereign against all ills of body and mind.”
No, he couldn’t ask—in fact it would be a disaster. Uncle Giorgio hated his son. He wanted him dead. But…No, not yet. Wait until after Friday, when Uncle Giorgio was going to carry out some kind of test for the Second Great Work. Perhaps he’d know more then. There’d still be two days before Monday.
For the rest of the day every hour seemed to go slower than the one before. Alfredo took his History of Rome and the Latin dictionary down to supper, but could only pretend to read. Uncle Giorgio read in silence. Only as he rose at the end of the meal did he speak.
“Tomorrow, when we have breakfasted, you will sing the chant again to me. After that I will have preparations to make, so the rest of the day will be yours.”
The chant went smoothly. Uncle Giorgio muttered briefly before they began and the Angels of Fire did not appear, though Alfredo could sense the faint prickling of their nearness. The words still meant nothing to him, but he now seemed to feel them all as separate things, each of them full of its own dark import. Neither they nor the music were strangers in his mouth.
“Well done,” said Uncle Giorgio. “Now, as I told you, I have much to do. How will you spend your day?”
Alfredo had thought of going down to the town, hoping to find some friend to talk to, or at least a priest to whom he might confess his suspicions and terrors. But he guessed Uncle Giorgio wouldn’t have allowed it, and besides, who would dare lift a finger against the Master of the Mountain?
“I thought I’d climb the mountain again,” he said. “I’ll ask Annetta for some food. I promise you I won’t sing.”
“Excellent. But do not go far beyond the shade of the woods, or tire yourself, or stay too long in the sun. Take one of the mules to ride. It would in any case be best if you were elsewhere today. I will also send Annetta and her idiot son away.”
Alfredo hesitated, then seized his chance.
“They could come with me,” he said. “I need Toni, really. I don’t think I can manage a mule by myself.”
“If you wish for such company. Send Annetta to me and I will give her instructions.”
They climbed through the wood in silence, Toni leading the mule. Alfredo had wanted to dismount as soon as they were well away from the house, but Annetta had pushed him back into the saddle, shaking her head emphatically. She had been given her orders and she was going to obey them. It was still too early to eat by the time they came out of the trees, so they settled down for a rest, Annetta moving a little way off with Toni so as not to intrude on the gentry. It made no difference to her that Alfredo had come every evening to her kitchen and tempered her oven for her and chatted, nor that she had borne Uncle Giorgio a son. She was still, in her own mind, a servant, and knew her place, and did what she was told. Now Alfredo was going to try to persuade her not merely to disobey her master, but to help destroy him.
He watched them covertly. Toni was lying on his stomach, poking his finger into a tussock and peering with wonder at whatever it was he’d found there. Annetta was sitting bolt upright on a boulder, motionless, staring at nothing, her strong, proud face lined with the long endurance of grief. After a while Alfredo fetched his recorder from the saddlebag and started to play.
Annetta didn’t stir, but Toni instantly looked up. Alfredo beckoned to him and he rose and scampered across, drawing his recorder from inside his smock as he came. Alfredo patted the rock beside him, and Toni sat and took up the tune. Annetta was staring at them now, her normally expressionless features filled with astonishment.
They played on. The mule fidgeted, swishing at flies. Crickets shrilled. Otherwise it seemed that not a leaf or blade was stirring. Alfredo could feel the presence of the mountain behind and beneath him, the whole vast, churning inward mass of it stilled for the moment by their playing. It wasn’t something he was doing on his own—not even mainly his doing. It was the two of them together, here and for this short while come into their own, Masters of the Mountain.
Then Toni decided to switch to a tune that Alfredo had taught him and they’d played several times before. It was one of the rollicking airs that everyone used to dance to during the great Shrove Tuesday festival, waving their colored banners as they snaked in gaudy lines through the crowded streets. After a few bars Annetta rose, moved to a patch of ground where the slope eased almost level, raised her arms above her head and started to dance, twirling her skirt out and stamping to the rhythm of the tune. Alfredo almost stopped playing in amazement as she threw back her head and laughed with the joy of the dance. Her movements were quick, easy, definite, graceful. Every time she turned, her eyes came back to Toni. This was what life should be about, she seemed to be telling him, not drudgery, not fear, not power, not vengeance, but joy, the joy of being alive.