tears.
“Don’t fret! It happens to everyone,” he said, taking a drink of wine. “One guest, a delightful descendant of the king of Sardinia, was missing overnight. Sal and Greta and I searched the place and found her in the second-floor ballroom, on the north side of the castle, asleep on a divan.”
I smiled despite myself. “I was in that ballroom.”
“What a mess,” he said, shaking his head. “But who could possibly take care of so many rooms? There are eighty-five in all. That is not counting the bathrooms, storage areas, or the kitchen.”
“You’ve been here a long time,” I noted. It wasn’t a question. It was obvious that Basil was as much a part of the castle as Sal and Greta.
“Ages,” he said. “Or so it seems. I am in the library every day, if you should ever need me. I keep the archival records organized. Order and invoice for supplies. And I pay Greta and Sal and Bernadette each month.”
“Greta mentioned Bernadette,” I said. “Isn’t she some kind of a doctor?”
Basil rolled his eyes. “Oh, heavens, no,” he said. “She’s the cook, and because she has a talent with herbal remedies, Greta and Sal go to her for every sniffle. I don’t rely on Bernadette for anything but dinner.”
I thought of the woman I had seen in the tower. It had not been Dolores, as I had believed. It must have been Bernadette.
“I think I may have seen Bernadette,” I said. “When I first arrived.”
“You would absolutely know if you saw Bernadette,” Basil replied. “Her appearance is, shall we say, peculiar.”
Bernadette must have been the odd-looking person I had glimpsed in the tower. There was one mystery solved.
Basil scooped some steaming polenta, mushrooms, and slices of meat onto his plate. Gesturing that I do the same, he said, “Don’t let it get cold.”
I followed his lead and filled my plate, leaving the mushrooms, which seemed unappetizing, like stewed prunes.
“Anyway,” Basil said. “I also coordinate telephone calls between Madame Dolores and her many employees outside the castle. It is like running a hotline, calling Turin and London and Paris as much as I do. That is how I was aware that you would be arriving. Francisco Zimmer rang here nearly every day with updates. Now that the count is gone, I am in charge of nearly everything. Not what I imagined my life to be when I was in my twenties, that is certain! My training was as an educator. Originally, I came to Nevenero as a tutor.”
“There were children here?” I asked, but of course I knew the answer to this already. Guillaume and Dolores were childless. There had been no children to teach in Nevenero for a very long time.
“Not exactly,” Basil replied, evading my question and instead holding up a bottle of wine. I presented my glass, happy to have a drink. “This is an Arnad-Montjovet, a strong local wine. You wouldn’t believe it, but Alpine wine can be quite good.”
“I was told the family has an impressive wine cellar.”
“Quite right,” he said. “The cave is a treasure and still contains bottles brought from Bordeaux with Eleanor, your great-great-grandmother, upon her marriage to Ambrose. Five hundred bottles were bestowed to the family as part of her dowry. I have a cellar list somewhere in the library, if you’d like to see it.”
I told him I would, and took a sip of the wine. Then I turned to my plate. The food was unfamiliar, without the charm of the meal I had shared with Luca in Turin. Flat. Simple. Without taste. I remembered, suddenly, eating something similar at Luca’s family reunion a few years back, something Nonna had made. I pushed a pile of mush with my fork.
“Polenta,” Basil explained. “Ground cornmeal. Very typical of this region. You will get used to it.”
I cut a bite of meat and tried it. It was dry and chewy. “And this?”
“Goat,” Basil said.
I almost choked. The image of the dead goat flashed in my mind. The metallic smell of blood. The rush of fear.
“Not to your liking?” Basil asked. “Yes, well, goat is also an acquired taste, I suppose.” I chewed the goat slowly, focusing on a mole above his right eyebrow, a brown circle, big as a dime. “Sal slaughtered this one earlier in the week. You’ll meet Sal soon enough. He’s a glum, unsociable man. Illiterate as a cow. But good with dogs and guns.”
“Sal and Fredericka introduced themselves last night,” I said, pointing to the wound on my