Secrecy - By Rupert Thomson Page 0,7

he said, when I was seated opposite him, ‘you can’t imagine how much I have looked forward to this moment.’

In the green light that streamed in from the palace gardens, the Grand Duke’s face had the sponginess and pallor of the mushrooms that lay untouched near his elbow.

‘Your work is fascinating,’ he went on. ‘You have a vision that is not unlike my own.’ He turned his bulbous eyes to the window. A breeze pushed at the myrtle trees; a distant fountain glittered. ‘It’s as if you’ve gained access to the inside of my head. My innermost thoughts, my anxieties – my fears.’ He began to dismantle an artichoke, setting each leaf aside, intent, it seemed, on arriving at the heart. ‘You’re sure you won’t join me?’

I realized that if I continued to refuse the offer he might take offence. Leaning over the table, I studied a dish containing a pile of brittle black strands that reminded me of filigree at first, and then, more disturbingly, of pubic hair.

‘Good choice,’ the Grand Duke said. ‘Fried seaweed.’

As the seaweed was spooned, tinkling, on to my plate, he told me he knew nothing about my origins.

I was born in Siracusa, I said, in the south-east of Sicily. For centuries, the town had been a military stronghold and an important trading post, but it was also a beautiful place, with a warm, dry climate and sea views on three sides. My father, a shipbuilder, had been employed by the Gargallo family. Sadly, he had died when I was six. As the second of two sons, I had been educated at the Jesuit College, though my passion for sculpting in wax had led me away from a career in the church.

The Grand Duke interrupted. ‘If the town is as idyllic as you make it sound, why did you leave?’

This was a question I had been asked many times over the years, and in replying I always chose the lie that was most suited to the circumstances, the one that would be believed.

‘I needed inspiration,’ I said.

Siracusa was a small town – a fortress, really – inhabited almost exclusively by soldiers and clerics. I saw paintings by Caravaggio – he was my first real influence – but not much else; life could be suffocating, especially for an artist. In Naples, though, I knew I would be able to breathe, and it was in that exciting, chaotic city that my vision began to crystallize. The art I was exposed to had a profound effect on me. Religious works by Luca Giordano, obviously, but also Mattia Preti’s frescoes and the plague paintings of Jean Baron. And I had spent hours in front of Gargiulo’s masterpiece, ‘Piazza Mercatello’.

‘I hope you brought a sample of your own work,’ the Grand Duke said.

I signalled to a servant, who fetched a large, square package from the next room. This was a piece I had completed while in Naples. The Grand Duke’s eyes, already bulging, seemed to protrude still further as I undid the string. The wrapping fell away, and he let out a sigh. Inside the wooden cabinet were wax figures in varying stages of decay, the degree of putrefaction indicated by the pigments I had used. A half-naked woman sprawled in the foreground, her flesh a shade of yellow that suggested that her death was recent. Nearby was a baby who had been dead for some time, its face and body a dark soil-brown. The grotto in which the figures lay was filled with crumbling stonework and shattered columns, also made of wax, and the atmosphere of desolation was heightened by the rats I had placed strategically throughout, some perched on the bodies of the deceased, others busily tugging at their entrails. Presiding over the scene was an elaborately winged and muscled male figure with a scythe. The Grand Duke bent closer, his nose only inches from the surface, as if he wanted to plunge into that rotting world and feast on the corruption.

‘Exquisite,’ he murmured.

I showed him the hole I had carved in the roof of the cabinet, which allowed a spectral light to angle down on to the scene. I also drew his attention to the landscape at the back, which I had painted in such stark, pale colours that viewers would feel they too were in the grotto with the victims of the plague, they too were being afforded a last glimpse of the land of the living – the bright, brief moment that was life on