die without issue, or prove incapable of fathering children, could Carlo’s heirs be recognized.
But Carlo did nothing now that was violent or shameful. Advised by his father’s elderly friends that it was a scandal to challenge the wishes of his dead father, he appeared to accept this. His money he continued to lavish on the household, including increased salaries for his brother’s tutors.
He accepted any and all menial duties he was given by the state, set himself to pleasing everyone of importance, and soon became the model patrician.
And what some did not observe, others explained to them: it took money to hold important office in the Republic, money to rear sons for future service, and of the Treschi, ironically, it was Carlo who possessed this money. So those seeking to build their influence commenced to turn to him. It was a natural political process.
Meantime, the man was enjoying himself immensely. He did nothing unseemly, but visiting everyone, dining everywhere, gambling when he had the time, and frequenting the theaters, let everyone know that he was the child of his native city.
Tonio was never at home. He slept often with Bettina, above the little tavern her father owned not far from the piazza. Twice his cousins, the Lisani, called him on the carpet for his behavior, threatening him with the anger of the Grand Council if he didn’t start behaving like a patrician.
But his life was lived in the back alleys. It was lived in Bettina’s arms.
And when the bells rang on Easter Sunday, Tonio’s voice was a legend in the streets of Venice.
In the calli beyond the Grand Canal, people had begun to listen for him, to expect him. Ernestino had never seen such a rain of golden coins. And Tonio gave it all to him.
The exquisite pleasure he knew on these nights was all that he could have desired, and he himself did not fully understand its meaning.
He knew only that when he looked up at the sky full of stars, the breezes soft and salty from the sea, he could give himself to the wildest and full-throated love songs. Perhaps his voice was all that he had left of what had only a short while ago been father and mother and son and the House of Treschi. Perhaps it was that he was singing alone; he was not singing with her. She’d turned him out, so he’d taken himself to the world, and there seemed no limit to the notes he could reach, or how long he could sustain them. He dreamed sometimes of Caffarelli as he sang, imagined himself on such a stage, but all this was sweeter, more immediate, more colored with comfort and sorrow and pathos.
People wept above. They cried out vows of love as they emptied their purses. They demanded the name of this seraph soprano, footmen sent down to bring him and his little band up into fashionable supper rooms. He never went.
But he followed Ernestino to his favorite haunts as the hours grew smaller and the sky paler.
“In all my life,” Ernestino said, “I have never heard a voice like that. God has touched you, Signore. But sing while you can, because it won’t be long before those high notes leave you forever.”
Through the soft caress of Tonio’s drunkenness the words assumed their obvious meaning. Manhood, and the loss of this along with so much else.
“Does it happen all at once?” he murmured. His head was against a wall. He lifted the jug and felt the wine spilling again as it did too often. But he had to wash the bitterness out of his mouth.
“My God, Excellency, haven’t you ever been around a boy whose voice changed?”
“No, I have never been around anybody at all, save an elderly man and a very young woman,” he said. “I know nothing of boys, I know little of men. And when it’s finally said and done, I know very little of singing either.”
A figure filled up the opening at the far end of the calle in which they stood. It seemed to touch the walls on either side, and a sudden wariness gripped Tonio.
“Sometimes it’s fast,” Ernestino was saying. “Sometimes it drags on for a long time with broken notes, you can’t trust it. But as tall as you are for your age, Excellency, and…and…” He made a little smile, taking the jug. Tonio knew he was thinking of Bettina. “…Well, it may come sooner than with most.” He let it go at that, and