Free 3 - Cruel Music by Beverle Graves Myers Page B

fashionable tricorne. His height was the only remarkable thing about him. That is, of what I could see. He was careful to keep his chin lowered so that his hat brim shadowed his face. Until I’d rested by the bridge, I thought he was simply someone going our way. He raised my suspicion when he followed Benito back to get the map. Now he was trailing at a distance, abruptly halting to gaze over the bridge railing every time I glanced back.
    Of course, my presence at the Villa Fabiani had raised suspicions. When I declined Rossobelli’s offer of a carriage, the abate could have made speedy rearrangements to dispatch someone to follow me. Or was I being trailed by one of my own countrymen? Perhaps a Montorio bravo to ensure that I didn’t grow too independent. I let Benito take the map and lead the way. I had much to ponder, and in my current frame of mind, I could have waded straight through one of Rome’s numerous fountains without realizing that my feet were wet.
    ***
    The Pantheon was just as magnificent as my brother-in-law had promised. Later in my stay, I would search for the old Roman Forum and find it teeming with cattle waiting for the market, its skeletal fragments and broken arches half-buried in rubbish and weeds. Most of the other classical ruins had suffered similar treatment. Over the years, the great baths and amphitheaters and triumphal arches had been pillaged of their marble facings and smoothly cut building stones. Everything that could be torn out had been incorporated into new buildings or sent to the lime kilns. Latter-day Romans were only just beginning to appreciate the wantonness of the destruction.
    The Pantheon had been spared by grace of its diversion to a Christian purpose, but to me, it still felt more like a pagan temple, somehow sacred and unnerving at the same time. I sucked in a breath as we mounted its steps, moving from the filthy, bustling square to the cool shadows of its covered portico.
    Benito shivered. “It’s like a forest,” he whispered. “A forest of stone.”
    I raised my eyes. Massive columns of red and gray granite soared above us, expanding to meet the roof in capitals of sculpted leaves and foliage. The noise of the city receded as latticed grills directed us through the open doors and into an immense, domed rotunda. Somewhere along the curved expanse of the encircling walls was the tomb of the artist Raphael. The guidebook said it was not to be missed, but I had eyes for only one thing: the oculus.
    At the zenith of the coffered dome, the builder had created a circular window to the sky. A shaft of sunlight streamed through the opening like a beam of divine substance. It burnished the floating dust motes into tiny diamonds and made everyone who stepped into its brilliance shimmer like beings fashioned of light. If any deity was worshiped in this space, Apollo seemed the obvious choice.
    Coming back out into the square was like leaving an enchanted land for the most prosaic scene imaginable. It was Friday—market day—and an array of stalls and barrows fanned out from the central fountain. The residents of this quarter must have been working since cockcrow. The results of their labors assaulted our senses: bread fresh from wood-fired ovens, papery garlic bulbs woven into braids, fish with scales of shimmering green and blue, and bright red blood dripping from severed joints piled on butchers’ carts. The splendor of the Pantheon had made me forget about our mysterious friend in the wide-brimmed hat, but I caught sight of him again as Benito and I wandered among the merchandise.
    Jostling shoulders with housewives intent on filling baskets with ingredients for the family dinner, I resisted the temptation of the roast chestnut seller and started down an aisle displaying household goods. A trio of wide-hipped women haggling with the proprietor of a junk stall soon blocked my path. Over their heads, I saw customers inspecting pots hanging from a tinker’s cart, and