Free Mozart’s Blood by Louise Marley Page A

swiveled back toward Teresa. Teresa said icily, “Could you step down? I’m weary of standing here, bent over like an old woman.”
    With a hiss of fury, the woman whirled, nearly stumbling over the high step. Her feet landed heavily on the ground, and she grunted at the shock of it.
    Teresa gathered her things and followed. The last she saw of the couple was the lady marching into a nearby hotel with her husband scurrying after her. The driver followed with their bags, leaving Teresa to retrieve her own. She pulled it down from the luggage carrier and stood with her hat in one hand, her valise in the other, looking about at the bustle of the great city.
    The Duomo’s majestic spires pierced the blue sky, huge beyond anything she could have imagined. Workmen, looking no larger than birds, crawled over the cathedral’s enormous roof. After three centuries, the huge church dedicated to Maria Nascente was still not finished, but still its glories were more than the girl from Limone could take in. She couldn’t count the buttresses, the spires, the statues that adorned every surface. The structure dwarfed every other building she could see.
    She turned in a circle, tasting the city’s shape and flavor. Palazzi stood with churches at either shoulder. Most streets were wide enough for carriages to pass, with room on either side for pedestrians. Here and there were shops, fruit stands, a trattoria or two.
    In the distance, the two stone towers of the old fortress, the Castello Sforzesco, loomed over the surrounding countryside. And much closer, just a brief walk north in Via Mengoni, she could see the square roof of the new theater, La Scala, completed just two years before. The old theater had burned to nothing, but the wealthy patrons of Milano had seen to it that the new one went up as quickly as possible.
    She stood gazing at it, trying to absorb the fact that she was actually here. She had reached Milano, and La Scala was only a few steps away. Her goal was within her grasp.

6
    â€¦m’innamori, o crudele…
    â€¦you make me love you, cruel one…
    â€”Donna Elvira, Act One, Scene Two, Don Giovanni
    When Octavia’s dinner arrived she ate everything. Sometimes during the rehearsal period she had little appetite, but she knew she would need her strength. She drank a half-bottle of Tuscan wine, finishing her second glass as she soaked in the tub, bubbles frothing beneath her chin. She welcomed the wave of fatigue that swept over her as she climbed out, and she tumbled into bed with a sigh of complete exhaustion. Surely Ugo would be waiting for her when she woke.
    Tired as she was, sleep still did not come quickly. The melodies of the opera ran through her head, maddeningly. As usual they were not her own, but those of the other rôles, Zerlina’s and Donna Elvira’s and even Leporello’s “Catalogo.” When her eyes closed at last, the music was still playing in her brain, like a radio with no off button. She dreamed, and it was, again, of Teresa Saporiti.
    Teresa and Mozart, panting, tumbled together onto a pile of cushions in the salon of the Countess Milosch. Teresa’s head spun as much with giddiness over the success of the opera as with the wine she had drunk. She had laughed until she could hardly stand, had danced while Mozart played the Countess’s excellent harpsichord, had dined on roast pigeon with new potatoes and sweet dumplings. She had stayed close to Mozart, longing to be near him, to possess this plump little genius of a man. She would not have dared to go further. But the Countess, with her burnished black hair and hard, knowing eyes, had managed to seduce them both together.
    Zdenka was on Mozart’s other side, pressing her lips to his throat. Teresa would not be outdone, but slid forward until her body covered Mozart’s. Emboldened, she found his mouth with hers, tasting wine and tobacco and an oddly pungent flavor that was all