Lucifer's Shadow

39 Unmasked

After the concert we fell into sunlight, blinking like captives who had spent a day beneath ground, locked in some fairy cavern. Delapole was the hero of the hour. The crowd was determined to make Rebecca the heroine, too, but she had fled unseen. I searched for her in vain and all the while felt my nerves fray at the possibilities. What if she had been recognised in spite of her attempt to alter her appearance? What was going through Leo’s mind? And, most of all, how had we given her the gift she most earnestly desired, and deserved, without bringing the world falling down around our heads?

Two hours later, back in the house, with Leo gulping down wine and looking like a hyena that has stumbled upon a fresh corpse, my worst fears were confirmed. He beckoned me to sit at the table, fixed me with a cheery glance, and asked, “So where will it be for Vivaldi now, do you think? Not a chap who likes to stand in someone else’s shadow.”

“I have no idea, Uncle. It depends who the composer is and whether he will produce new works. Perhaps he is old….”

“Old! Old! Did that sound like an old man’s music? Why, someone’s trying to rewrite the rules beneath our noses, and none over the age of thirty would dream of doing that.”

“If you say so. But I wonder how many people would notice such a thing. They just hear delightful music, well played, and ask no such questions.”

Leo grinned slyly. “Perhaps they should. I asked Vivaldi a question.”

The blood froze still in my veins. I said nothing.

“I asked him why he stared at the nicely disguised violinist I had sent him — Rebecca ‘Guillaume,’ I believe he called her. Why, she seems to think herself a rosy-cheeked Gentile these days.”

I answered this after some decent pause for deliberation. “I believe neither of us should dwell on the issue of the Levis, Uncle. Or we might both find ourselves incriminated.”

In an instant his hand shot across the table, grabbed my collar, and dragged me over the food and drink until I was no more than an inch or two from his face. He was surprisingly strong, and I was so shocked I didn’t resist.

“Don’t play with me, boy! I talked to Vivaldi and asked him how long it took her to learn her part. He gave me that supercilious look of his and said, ‘Why, Scacchi. It must be a miracle indeed. A day or two, no more. It was almost as if she knew the piece before I gave her the notes.’ ”

He flung me back into my seat, where I remained, desperately trying to see a way around this inquisition.

“Do you think I’m a simpleton, Lorenzo? That manuscript you found ‘left outside the door’? And all the time you and the pretty thing have spent together.”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

“Hah! She’s the one. You know it full well. And let me tell you something. She can never claim authorship of that music. She can whine and plead and throw herself at the feet of the Doge himself, and the city will still tear her apart the moment it realises Rebecca ‘Guillaume’ has been duping them all along. Jewesses do not write music or taunt the Church in this world. Her only hope — for her music and her survival — is to throw herself on the mercy of one who will invent some subterfuge that keeps her hidden.”

It was obvious who Leo had in mind for this role, and I knew already what kind of master he made. My mind whirled.

“And you,” he snarled. “You call yourself my flesh and blood, and still go along with this deceit. One glance from a pretty Hebrew face and it’s to hell with all your loyalties, eh?”

The painting in the church across the rio came into my head once more. I marvelled I had once found it incomprehensible that an apprentice might harbour thoughts of murdering his master.

“Is there anything more you require of me, Uncle?” I replied.

“What do you have to offer?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Then off with you. I’ll speak to the Levis myself and see what may be done. As for your excursions with the lady, I think you may forget them. There’s plenty of work for you here. Start by sweeping out the cellar, for one thing. And mind the rats don’t bite. You stay within these doors until I say you may do otherwise.”

With that I retired to my room to watch the evening strollers in San Cassian and let my fury dissipate like smoke into the night. Leo is like the spider. He throws his web in dark corners, watches from the shadows, then pounces when his victims are ensnared. Yet in this vain confidence lies his undoing.

I listened while, two floors below, he drank wine, talking to himself, with the cold, metallic sound of his empty laughter echoing from time to time around the room. The red Veneto grape is my uncle’s only bed-fellow these days, and when this affair is consummated he sleeps. After midnight I heard the sound of snoring and was gone, out into the night, out to the ghetto.