Tears of the Salamander

IT WAS ON SUCH AN EVENING, IN ALFREDO’S twelfth year, that his whole world changed. He had left home a little early because he was singing one of the solos at evensong. With the Prince-Cardinal away the choirmaster was taking the chance to give the first-year seniors a turn so that when their time came to sing for the ears of His Eminence they would not be afraid. So Alfredo robed himself and settled into a corner of the vestry and bowed his head over his clasped hands in the attitude of prayer. He didn’t understand about real praying. It was just words, the same words repeated and repeated until they were emptied of meaning. What he was really doing was allowing the fire of the bakehouse that still surged and swirled through his mind to turn itself gradually into the music that he was going to sing. He was more than happy. There were no words for it. Only the blessed souls in the presence of the Almighty could know and feel anything like what Alfredo knew and felt.

He heard a noise from the body of the cathedral. Not many people came to weekday evensong, often no more than a few old crones, but this was actual bustle, hurrying feet. A door must have been thrown open, because now there were sounds from outside, yells, clamor. More. Worse. The noises in themselves had nothing to do with Alfredo, with the fire and the music inside him. But these things too had changed. The music was gone. And the fire…

There was madness now in the fire, the wildness of wild beasts, the fury of a howling storm. He couldn’t hold it. It would burst out of him, burn, kill…

He leapt to his feet. Several of his friends were just coming in through the vestry door, teasing each other—in whispers because the choirmaster was close behind them. Alfredo charged through, dodged the choirmaster’s grab for him, ignored his bellow to stop, wheeled out into the chancel aisle, raced down through the screen and into the already darkening nave. Somebody had opened the great west doors, and through their arch he could see the orange glow of the blaze, the nearer roofs black against it, and above it the swirling tower of smoke, almost as black against the distant reds and golds and oranges of sunset.

He stood for a moment, panting, staring, then gathered up the skirts of his robes and pelted on down the twisting route along which he had so often trotted, singing. Long before he reached it, forcing his way through the gathering crowds, he already knew what he was going to find. His home, his ovens, were the roaring heart of that furnace.

They didn’t punish him for missing evensong. He wouldn’t have cared if they had—in fact he would barely have noticed. But the choirmaster, though strict, was a kindly man, and the boy’s whole family had perished in the blaze. Besides, he had plans now for Alfredo.

“This is a terrible thing that has happened to you, my son,” he said. “I truly grieve for you, as do all your friends here. You have no other relatives?”

“Only my uncle, Father. I don’t know where he lives. He came to my christening, but I don’t remember, of course. That’s the only time I’ve seen him.”

The choirmaster nodded. It didn’t sound as if this uncaring relative would be much of a problem. Very likely he would be glad to have the boy taken off his hands.

“You need not sing if you do not feel up to it.”

“Oh, sir, please,” said Alfredo, weeping. “I must sing. It’s the only thing left.”

“That’s a good boy,” said the choirmaster, remembering minor turbulences in his own life during which he had taken refuge in music, and believing he understood something of what Alfredo felt. “Soon you shall sing a solo for His Eminence.”

Next day an official from the City Watch came to talk to Alfredo. He did not, of course, explain that there was no doubt that the fire had started in the bakehouse, and that if it could be shown to be the baker’s fault, then neighbors who had lost their houses as the flames spread would be able to claim against his estate, but if not the city would be liable for some kind of compensation.

Reluctant even to think about the fire, let alone talk about it, Alfredo admitted that he had been home that evening, had prepared the ovens for restarting their cycle, and had again been into the bakehouse after the family meal, shortly before he left, and everything had been normal. His parents had been upstairs in their room—he had heard voices there. (Bakers keep strange hours, and the early meal had interrupted their siesta.) Giorgio had gone out but he must have come back. …

“A young man was seen running into the house soon after the fire started,” said the official. “Brave, but foolish, I’m afraid. I believe your father built his own ovens. He did not employ a professional? And he let you see to their firing, a child?”

Alfredo shook his head. How could he explain to this man that his father had known more about fire than anyone, and that there was no chance in the world that he could have made a mistake or not noticed if Alfredo had done so? Let alone how could he persuade him that there had been something wrong with the fire itself, its madness, its wildness, that it had somehow burst out of the fire pits like a wild beast bursting through the iron bars of its cage and going raging through the streets? And that Alfredo, sitting peacefully in the corner of the vestry, had felt the same thing happen to the hidden fire in his own heart, the fire that should have become music?

The choirmaster, sitting in on the interview, was not displeased. The boy, innocently admitting to the fact that he had been left alone to prepare the ovens, had provided the City with sufficient reason to declare the fire to have been the baker’s fault, which made it even less likely that the missing uncle would appear to take the penniless orphan under his wing. It was already, thanks to the father’s intransigence, a little late for the operation, but there had been certain scandals in the past, with expensive litigation to defend charges of kidnapping and mutilation. It was prudent, therefore that the consent of all interested parties—only the boy himself now, though an at least perfunctory attempt must be made to find the missing uncle—should be witnessed and registered in front of a notary.

Thus a fortnight later Alfredo found himself standing in front of the Precentor’s desk. To the right of the desk, behind a folding table spread with documents, sat a fat little snuffling black-robed man whom Alfredo didn’t know, but by his dress he was not a priest. Beyond him sat Father Brava. The choirmaster and another strange layman were on the other side of the desk. They all looked very solemn.

“Well, Alfredo,” said the choirmaster, “the time has come for you to make an important choice. It is your decision you must make for yourself. It concerns your beautiful voice. The blessed Lord in his mercy and wisdom has decreed that at a certain age, which you will soon be reaching, the nature of the male body changes…”

And so on, for some while. Alfredo barely listened. He knew about the operation. He didn’t care. All he wanted to do was sing. Nothing else mattered. When the choirmaster asked him if he had understood, he nodded. The choirmaster then introduced the stranger at the left of the line, who turned out to be the surgeon who would perform the operation. He told Alfredo about it, using long medical words that Alfredo certainly didn’t understand, but when asked he again nodded impassively.

“So,” said the choirmaster. “The choice is yours, Alfredo. Will you have the operation or not?”

“If it is your wish,” said Alfredo listlessly. “Provided I can go on singing.”

They looked at the fat little man behind the desk, who put the tips of his fingers together, pursed his lips and made a humming noise in the back of his throat to show he was thinking deeply.

“I think we may take that as willing consent,” he said at last. “Yes, indeed, I think so.”

He dipped a quill into his ink pot and started to write. The tension in the room relaxed.

There was a scratching at the door.

“Who is it?” said the Precentor irritably.

One of the vergers, Pietro, opened the door. Somebody was standing a pace behind him, a vague figure in the shadows.

“Beg pardon, Your Reverence,” said Pietro. “This gentleman…

But the gentleman in question had eased past him and was making a brief bow to the Precentor. He was a tall, elegant man, wigged, with a sword at his hip. He wore a brocade-trimmed gray dress coat, brown velvet breeches, white stockings and buckled shoes. His cravat was spotless white and he carried a tricorn hat under his left arm.

“The Cavalier Giorgio di Lucari, at your service, Holy Fathers,” he said in a slow, hoarse voice, as if he found speaking difficult. “I bear a letter of introduction to His Eminence from my friend the Archbishop of Ravenna, but I gather His Eminence is not in town, and my mission is urgent. It concerns, I believe, this boy, my brother’s son Alfredo.”

With an elegant movement he placed a wax-sealed envelope on the desk.

After a moment of baffled silence the Precentor said, “Your brother’s son, you say, sir? But the boy’s patronymic is Benotti.”

The gentleman sighed.

“Alas,” he said. “My unfortunate brother, despite my most earnest pleading, chose to demean his ancient lineage by becoming a tradesman. But at least I prevailed upon him to spare the family honor so far as to change his name. I have no children, and the boy is my only heir. I have come posthaste, as soon as I heard of my brother’s tragic death, to take the boy under my protection and bring him up in a manner proper to his inheritance.”

There was another silence. The Precentor looked to his right, but the fat little man refused to meet his eye. Beyond him, Father Brava shrugged. The choirmaster coughed.

“The boy has just now chosen to become a full member of His Eminence’s choir…,” he began, but the gentleman interrupted him. There was the touch of contempt now in the harshness of his voice.

“And this is the notary to engross the deed. And this, no doubt, is the surgeon to perform the operation. Fathers, I cannot permit it. The boy is the last of an ancient lineage. Would you snuff it out entirely, knowing that at the last day you shall stand before your maker and confess to such a deed?”

Yet another silence.

“In two days His Eminence will return…,” the Precentor suggested.

“Alas, I cannot wait,” said the gentleman firmly. “I have affairs to conduct. If my poor brother did not appoint a guardian for the boy, then in law that task falls to me. My consent would be absolutely necessary for the operation, no matter what the boy himself has said. Is this not the case, sir?”

The fat little man jumped as if he had been stung.

“Yes…yes, I believe so,” he said, with an apologetic grimace toward the Precentor.

“Well, I do not give it,” said the gentleman firmly, then added, in a quieter tone, “But, Fathers, I gladly recognize the kindness of your intentions, and the generosity with which you have educated and trained my nephew, and in settlement of all such debts I am happy to make a reasonable payment to the cathedral, to be spent for the benefit of the choir, as you think fit.”

He took a folded document from his breast pocket, opened it and laid it on the desk beside the envelope. The Precentor picked it up. His eyebrows rose as he studied it.

“That is indeed generous, sir,” he said.

“My pleasure,” said the gentleman. “Now I must be gone. I deeply regret that I am unable to have the pleasure of meeting His Eminence. You will give him my respects? If you need me, you will find me at the hostelry of St. Barnabas-by-the-Gate. Come, Alfredo.”

He bowed once more, turned and left. Alfredo followed him numbly. Never to sing again! Never again!

There was a closed carriage waiting in the courtyard, of the sort that plied for hire around the city. The gentleman opened the door and climbed in, Alfredo followed, and the horses trotted away toward the Northern Gate but, as soon as they were out of sight of the cathedral, swung left toward the harbor. The gentleman sat for a while, massaging his throat, and then opened a valise, which he had evidently left in the coach when he had come.

“Sit well back,” he said. “Take that thing off and put this on. It will be small for you, but most boys grow faster than their parents can afford to reclothe them.”

Still too numb to wonder what all this meant, Alfredo took off his ankle-length chorister’s gown and worked his way into a coarse fustian overshirt, much like the one he used to wear at home. Meanwhile, the gentleman removed his wig, coat, stock, sword belt and shoes, pulled a pair of gray woollen stockings over his hose and replaced the other garments with ones much like those any prosperous shopkeeper or small merchant might have worn, going about his business. He folded his gentleman’s outfit neatly and packed it into the valise, unscrewing the hilt from his sword to fit it in.

The coach stopped, they climbed out and the gentleman—gentleman now no longer—paid the coachman and led the way into the tangle of crowded streets above the harbor.