Free The Devil in Music by Kate Ross Page B

servants. Signor Ruga, will you be good
enough to come with me? I wish to make a search for evidence, and
your assistance would be useful."

    "Yes,
of course, Excellency! I'm at your service."

    Left
alone, Donati played the piano and considered where to find new Eyes.
Perhaps some young singer at the Conservatory in Milan would barter
his services for lessons. Donati would make enquiries directly he
returned to Milan. He hoped that would be soon. He longed for the
familiarity of the city streets, the spring season at La Scala,
Ricordi's music shop. This lake was an ill-omened, treacherous
place. He wished with all his heart he had never come never known
that sweet voiced Englishman who might be criminal or victim,
fugitive or martyr.

    Two
days passed. Nothing was heard of Orfeo or Tonio. Peasants poured
into Solaggio to see the marchese's body laid out in all its finery
in the church, but no one seemed to suspect he had met his death by
foul play. There was a good deal of speculation about why the
soldiers were seeking Orfeo. It was rumoured he had run away when
his patron died because he did not want to be forced to account for
the favours he had received. But the more popular theory was that he
had taken advantage of the marchese's death to pinch something.

    On
the third day after the murder, Rinaldo and his stepmother Beatrice
arrived at the lake. Donati had expected Rinaldo much earlier, since
Milan was only a few hours' journey away. But it seemed

    Rinaldo
had not been in Milan when Raversi's messenger arrived. Donati did
not hear the details about this. He was given permission to leave
the lake and lost no time in returning to Milan.

    Soon
after he arrived at his flat near the Conservatory, Conte Carlo
Malvezzi, Lodovico's brother, called and talked with him a while
about Lodovico's last days. Carlo lived in the neighbouring state of
Parma but happened to be paying a visit to Milan when Lodovico died.
Now he was staying on to meet with the Malvezzi family lawyer,
because Lodovico's will had appointed him executor.

    At
intervals over the next few weeks, high-ranking police officials came
to question Donati about the murder. But either their efforts to
solve it slackened, or they ran out of things to ask; at all events
their visits tapered off, and there was silence.

    In
token of her husband's high regard for Donati, Marchesa Beatrice
settled a pension on him, which he accepted gratefully. Freed from
financial worries, he retired to the university town of Pavia, some
twenty miles south of Milan. There he heard with increasing concern
about the political repression that was sweeping the Italian states.
The revolts in Naples and Piedmont were brutally put down. In Milan
and Venice, the special commission appointed to deal with the
Carbonari flourished. Respected aristocrats, artists, and
professional men were arrested, subjected to secret trials and
humiliating public sentences, and trundled off to prison fortresses
in the far corners of the Austrian empire.

    Donati
wondered whether, in this atmosphere of suspicion and secrecy, it
would ever be deemed safe to reveal that Lodovico had been murdered.
How could the government do so, when it must admit it had neither
solved the murder nor found any trace of Orfeo? Donati tried not to
think about it. He had plenty to keep him occupied: he was writing a
treatise about singing techniques, and he still took pupils
occasionally. Yet he could never hear the de profundis without
thinking of Lodovico's soul unquiet, his murder unavenged. Out of
the depths I cry out to thee, O Lord. But no one seemed to be
listening anymore.

    PART
TWO

    September
1825

    In
Italy? Unhappy land! she has ever been the reward of victory.. .
What can be attempted between two powerful nations, which, sworn
ferocious and eternal enemies to each other, make alliance together,
merely to enfetter us? Where their strength is insufficient, the one
deceives us with the enthusiasm of liberty; the other,