not brimming with anticipation as he saw the harpsichord brought in, and the Cardinal’s servants arranging his books so neatly on the shelves?
Tonio was certainly captivated by Rome, conferring with Paolo about all they’d seen on the way into the city. They wanted to go this very night to see the Pope’s treasures in the Vatican museum. Off they went together on various errands, even that an adventure in itself.
But Guido, alone finally, could not shake this sense of foreboding, so akin to sadness, which had pursued him all the way from Naples to Rome.
What was it that would not leave his mind alone?
Of course, there was always that old terror that he carried within him, to do with Tonio’s early life, and his last days in Venice of which he would never speak.
No one had ever had to tell Guido that Tonio’s elder brother, Carlo, had been responsible for the unspeakable violence done Tonio, or why Tonio had never let this be known.
It was all clear from the papers Tonio had signed and dispatched to Venice before they ever reached Naples. This Carlo Treschi was the last male of the line.
And Guido could remember the man, dimly, a smartly dressed and somewhat genial presence at a few conversaziones into which Guido had drifted before those Venetian days came to such a dramatic and surprising close. Guido had marked him only because he was the brother of “the patrician troubador” as they called Tonio. A big man, very handsome, teller of amusing tales, and a quoter of poetry, who seemed ever desirous of pleasing others, of keeping their attention and their affection as well. He had seemed at the time only another well-bred and infinitely courteous Venetian.
Guido thought coldly of him now.
He had never explained any of it to Maestro Cavalla. But in time, that had proved quite unnecessary, the Maestro putting it all together for himself as anyone could.
But both teachers had believed, when Tonio devoted himself so completely to his singing, that time and accomplishment would heal his wounds. And the brother? They had supposed him of necessity pardoned by Tonio forever, and thanked God for that.
But this Carlo Treschi had surprised them. Not only had he married Tonio’s mother (“Enough to inflame the most obedient little eunuch!” the Maestro had said, and in no sense could Tonio be described as an “obedient little eunuch”), he had fathered by her two healthy sons in three years.
And Marianna Treschi was again with child.
This had not come to his attention until he was ready to leave Naples and the Maestro told him of it, cautioning turn to watch Tonio with a careful eye.
“I fear he is biding his time. He is a pair of twins in the same body, one loving music more than anything in this life, the other hungering for revenge.”
Guido had said nothing: he remembered the little town in the Veneto, the boy bruised and drugged as he lay upon that filthy blood-splattered bed.
And worst of all, he remembered the role he himself had played in the entire plan.
He felt listless and almost dumb as he had gazed at the Maestro, marveling silently at that image: twins in the same body. Never did he think of such things; he did not even know the name for such talk. But he had often enough seen the face of the dark twin on his gentle and gracious lover; he had often enough seen it evince hatred, anger, and a coldness one could feel as palpably as winter in the damp walls in a northern inn.
But he knew, too, the other twin that lived and breathed inside of Tonio, the twin that wanted this first appearance at the Teatro Argentina as badly as Guido wanted it; that was the one who had a voice like no other in this world, the one who made love both fierce and gentle, the one who had become Guido’s life.
“Keep watch,” the Maestro had said fearfully, “and let him see what the world offers him, let him have all the pleasures he desires. Feed the one twin so the other starves, for they battle with one another, and surely one must give way.”
Guido had nodded, dazzled again by the idea. But in his leaden silence, unable even to offer the Maestro the slightest concurrence, he thought only of that little town again, the mutilated child in his arms. He thought of how even in the midst of his horror, he had so wanted that