The Invitation(66)

‘It is not the same.’

‘And to see other people.’

This last fills him with horror. ‘See people. Who, tell me, would you want to see? You see me, often. I visit whenever I can.’

‘I don’t mean anyone specifically. I just mean real people, in the streets.’

‘But this is a dangerous city. You shouldn’t be travelling about on your own.’

‘I’m not. I have Bear with me.’

Bear is the stray she found in the alleyway beside the house, a dog that looks half-wolf half-hound. A beautiful, dangerous animal – with eyes that almost match her own – and obedient only to her, apparently. He rather regrets having let her keep the creature now. She lavishes so much attention upon the animal that there does not seem to be any left for him.

And the idea of the dog as her protection is not enough to placate him. For it is not just concern for her safety that he finds troubling: it is the thought of having to share the sight of her with the rest of the world – with the paupers and grocers and fishermen who flock into the streets. But it isn’t that, he thinks. He is worried for her safety. He will meet her halfway, he decides.

‘I will throw you a ball.’

‘A ball?’

‘Yes. Though I will make sure that there is no … unseemly connection between us. I will explain that you are my ward – the daughter of a Corsican family, who is in need of my protection. That will explain the accent, too.’ He knows that this is nonsense. Those that care will already have made their assumptions about the sort of relationship that exists between them – the sort of relationship, in all honesty, that he would wish them to have. But he does not want to offend her.

‘In that way,’ he says, warming to the idea, ‘you may meet people, and be safe.’ And he rather does like the thought of showing her off to the envy of all others, in a controlled situation, of his choosing. Beatrix is no concern: she is a practical, unromantic sort. He knows that she harbours no illusions about their relationship. Though perhaps he would not be quite so bold if she were not safely tucked away at her father’s estate in the countryside.

The ball is a success. She is a success, in a silk gown embroidered with silver and gold thread. It is an outfit that would give the magistrato delle pompe forty fits, because such levels of ostentation on a single garment are forbidden.

‘I would like to paint her.’ He overhears this, and turns to find the speaker. It is the Flemish painter – a young man, but already renowned for his great skill. At first he is unsure about the idea. To have an image made seems to him merely another way in which he would be forced to share her with other people. But as he thinks on it, he realizes that it need not be a portrait for public viewing. It could hang in his own house – in his own bedchamber, even. Then he would be able to feast on her beauty always. In fact, it may be the best idea he has had for a long time.

He approaches the painter, imperiously. ‘I would like to commission you, to make her portrait.’

The man is delighted.

‘How much?’

‘Well,’ the artist says, earnestly, ‘to have such a subject would be payment in itself.’

The captain is the scion of merchants – he understands an excellent bargain when it is offered. But for some reason that he cannot identify, he does not like the idea of it. ‘No,’ he says, firmly, ‘I would pay the fair price for such a work.’

If the man is surprised he does not betray it. ‘Certainly.’ He names his price, and it is exorbitant. Yet suddenly he desires this image of her more than anything. The man could ask for the moon itself and he would find some way of fishing it from the sky.



Hal puts the journal down. Something has happened. Around him the castle sleeps. Except, in the midst of the silence he hears something. A sound of pain, low and animal.





25


Her


I have seen the plane coming for us. I have seen it this time: I know, somehow, that it is coming for us. I reach out to Tino.

‘Tino,’ I say, ‘we have to jump now.’

I think for a moment that he is coming, too – that we will both escape. And then I see him hesitate. I see him turn back into the dark space in the truck’s interior. I never manage to get him out of the truck.

There is a sudden violence between us, a white blast. But I am still reaching for him, clawing the air.

*

A sudden cry, splitting the silence. He walks to the corridor, puts his head outside. Bars of blue moonlight slit the dark, illuminating dusty lengths of stone. Stella’s door, he cannot help noticing, is slightly ajar. The silence is absolute once more. It is a nearly full moon – particularly low and large, as though buoyant upon the water at the horizon. It seems to Hal that the light of it is forming a path for him: along the corridor, and out into the garden. And so he follows it.

Outside the air is quite cool, with only the faintest breath of the earlier heat in it. As he descends through the terraced gardens he is aware of an odd sound, low and guttural, fracturing into a multitude of separate sounds as he nears it. Not the sound he heard – in fact, it is like nothing he has heard before. As he passes the stone well it grows louder, and he realizes that it is coming from within. Frog music. He peers down into the dark mouth of the well and the noise wavers, then stops completely. He imagines the creatures looking back up at him, but can see nothing beyond a black gleam of wetness at the bottom. As he moves away the noise resumes, hesitantly at first, and gradually building to the pitch of before. Now that he understands it, it makes him smile.