She turned to look at him. “Uh-isn’t this the part where you step in and shush them all? For security reasons?”
“Dear heart,” he said as the tempo increased, the players changing songs without stopping, “a few more minutes is unlikely to cause any more harm than may have already been done. They have been singing for five minutes, maybe ten. If any of Borja’s villains are in earshot, they have heard it by now and deduced what they will surely deduce. The probability that one of them is just moving into or out of earshot at this very moment-well, it is also possible that lightning shall strike me dead every day I go out wearing a sword. But it has not happened just yet. And in the meantime, the good it does to let these people have a few more minutes of joy must outweigh the scant chance that they are doing any harm that has not already been done.” And he went back to clapping his hands.
Sharon sighed, looked back at her staff, and saw that, for the first time in weeks, they were smiling. Wide, happy, unworried smiles-not the ones that signify willing obedience, or encouragement, or resolute cheer in the face of adversity. These were just folks enjoying themselves without a care in the world.
And they were enjoying themselves with a vengeance: instruments had materialized seemingly out of nowhere. Odo the radio operator was playing a well-worn cittern, two of the staff were keeping up with more traditional lutes, and no less a personage than Cardinal Antonio Barberini was putting a reasonably skilled hand to the strangest stringed instrument Sharon had ever seen: an oddly-fretted (was it almost double-necked?) monstrosity about the size of an overgrown bass guitar with a lutelike body and two sets of strings. The lower set, the ones Barberini was working currently, sounded like-well, probably what an electric bass guitar would sound like if someone could make it acoustic. Sharon shook her head at that inherent contradiction and was immediately struck by the powerful mezzo that rose up to meet the rollicking tune that had emerged.
The voice was coming effortlessly out of the wide mouth of the embassy’s somewhat hefty cook: usually cheery, always passionate, and now saucily belting out lyrics that went too fast for Sharon to follow.
But it was, of all people, Pope Urban VIII who identified the song. “Ah!” he shouted, with a clap of his hands and suddenly bright eyes, “ A Lieta Vita! As it was played in my youth!” And, from behind the cook, he commenced to roar out a harmony-more or less. Vitelleschi looked as though he was going to die of heartburn, but kept clapping anyway.
As Sharon stared, Carlo the messenger-boy came prancing into the circle that had been cleared for the cook and, like some upland sprite, twirled to the music, delighted to cavort about her skirts. And in the way she looked at him, eyes warm and her voice suddenly richer, huskier, Sharon understood: in her heart, the cook had adopted orphaned Carlo. And the little fellow knew it.
Ruy touched Sharon’s elbow, whispered, “Shall I stop them after this song? It is a short one.”
Sharon smiled. “Oh, I don’t suppose another ten minutes will hurt.”
When Valentino returned to the camp near Valsondra, it was three hours later than he had intended. His group had hit upon a new lead after scouting the skirts of Monte Campolon, and had actually hoped to find a sign of the renegade embassy, but it had been a dead end.
Consequently, Valentine was surprised when the camp, instead of being tense with worry over his tardiness, seemed to be quiet, waiting. Not that these men loved him-the nearly sixty cutthroats and ruthless mercenaries with him certainly did not-but they loved the notion of getting paid, and it had been made clear to them all that if Valentino did not come back alive and successful, the drink money they had been given upon signing up would be the only coin they would see from this venture.
“Linguanti?” Valentino called. “Is there news?”
Linguanti’s long face turned toward him, painted faint yellow by the firelight. “Ask Odoardo. When he came back, I had to ask a lot of questions which he didn’t feel like answering. Because he is not scared of me. And because he was sure it was unimportant.”
Valentino turned toward Odoardo, who had his obscenely broad back to the fire. “Odoardo?”
“Yeah?”
“What did you see?”
“Didn’t see anything.” A long pause. “Heard something, though.”
Valentino closed his eyes and counted to five. Extracting information from Odoardo was about as swift and interesting a process as watching a sliced apple slowly turn brown. “So what did you hear?
“Recorders. One was really high pitched.”
“Probably a sopranino,” muttered Linguanti who kept his background as a failed musician fairly secret. Which was fairly easy, given how little he said.
Odoardo shrugged. “I don’t know what they’re called. It’s just higher than anything I heard growing up. And then, when we got closer, there was singing. Lots of singing.”
Singing? Out here? And Odoardo didn’t think that was important? I will truly enjoy killing him when this is over. “Where?”
“We were near Laghi again, seeing if we could bypass it without being seen. It was coming from beyond there.”
“Where there are two communes, yes? Menara and Molini?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Valentino took another deep breath. “Did it sound close to Laghi, or like it was coming from farther back in the mountains?”
Odoardo thought. “Farther. It was pretty faint.”
“And there was singing. You are sure of that?”
“Are you deaf? Yes, I am sure.”
“Lots of singing?”
“Yes, damn it.”
“And any instruments other than recorders?”
“Uh, probably some strings. Lutes, I think. Like I said, it was pretty faint. Why?”
“Well, let’s see, now: what would a lot of people be doing making noise at either a small hamlet like Menara, or at a poor, dilapidated villa like Molini, which we’ve been told is the only building back at the far end of the Val Lagio? And why are they singing? And accompanying themselves with expensive instruments?”
“So you’re thinking-?”
“I’m thinking that the sound was too distant to have been coming from Menara, and that this old Villa Molini might not be as shabby or under populated as the shepherds down in Posina said it was. I’ll bet they haven’t actually been up that way in a year, rather than a few weeks ago, as they claimed. Just trying to make themselves sound worldly, I expect.”
Linguanti nodded. “So what do you want to do?”
Valentino motioned everyone to rise. “If we start marching hard now, we can reach the caves south of Monte Cengio before dawn. That will give us a base camp only a half hour out from Molini. If it is indeed where the pope is hiding, they will have watch posts keeping an eye out for us. So tomorrow, we’ll need to move in to observe it first. Only three of us are going to go ahead to do that; the rest of the group will stay behind in the base camp, out of sight.”
“So when do we attack?” asked Odoardo.
“When I tell you to. You’ll have tomorrow to clean your weapons while we go over the final plan. And remember, you have to remain silent: no shouting, no loud talking, and particularly”-Valentino smiled; sharks showed their teeth less menacingly-“no singing.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Frank and Giovanna, who were enjoying their fifteen minutes of daily freedom strolling around the lazarette’s small roof, saw movement beyond the outer gatehouse below. Dr. Asher had arrived early, judging from the sound of the cranky mules and the equally cranky passenger. As usual, he had brought several sizable casks of ethanol with him.
Gia stood on the tips of her dainty toes to get a better look at the day’s cargo, which was being offloaded by
