4 - The Iron Tongue of Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

new toy, she called the composer and my fellow musicians to gather around. Weber must have heard her, but he remained at the rail, leaning over at a precarious angle, almost as if he meant to throw himself on the breeze to swoop and dive with the evening swallows.
    Octavia stretched up to whisper near my ear, “Don’t mind Karl. He’ll be over directly. When he’s tinkering with a melody, he can think of nothing else. Karl is a poppet, really. I’m certain you will become fast friends.”
    I nodded, though in truth, I had no ambition to make a friend of the composer. All I wanted from the moody German was a satisfactory score and sensible direction.
    Octavia gave my arm a motherly pat and gestured to a tall man in a neat bob wig. “Ah, here is someone I think you must already be acquainted with.”
    Indeed, the first man to make his bow was Emilio Strada, a fellow castrato with whom I’d often shared the stage. His face was as smooth as my own, of course, barely capable of raising a single whisker, and he had the wispy, attenuated stature that many of us are left with. There our resemblance ended. Emilio’s nose was a squashed lump of dough—I had always wondered how it afforded the breath necessary for song—and his mouth was narrow and wrinkled. Despite these physical drawbacks, Emilio had worked hard at his craft and developed a precise soprano with an appealing silvery quality. Emilio was also ambitious. Though he welcomed me with light banter and spoke proudly of his role of Andronicus, Tamerlano’s rival in love, he didn’t fool me. Emilio coveted my title role with the relentless greed of a Barbary corsair.
    Octavia then introduced a man who had just come onto the loggia, the basso Romeo Battaglia. I fear my jaw dropped when Romeo announced that he was singing Bazajet, the Ottoman sultan defeated and humiliated by Tamerlano. Bazajet was a tragic figure who was allotted almost as many arias as my character. In scoring the role for a low voice, Maestro Weber had made an audacious choice.
    I could see that the mellow depth and power of Romeo’s basso would serve the drama well. But what would Venice make of it? The Venice that reveled in the acrobatic roulades and endless trills of the castrati? I had only to hit high C to bring the box holders to their feet with wild applause, while a poor basso could sing his heart out and be ignored by those who couldn’t be bothered to raise their heads from their card games or their socializing. I glanced toward the composer. Maestro Karl Weber must have a stiffer backbone than it appeared.
    If Romeo Battaglia had any qualms, be didn’t show them. He planted himself before me with feet spread wide, took frequent swallows of wine, and discussed his role with the heedless enthusiasm of a puppy chasing a ball—a very large puppy of the sheep-herding variety. The loose curls of his formal wig hung to his shoulders, and his waistcoat swelled over a well-padded belly that jiggled whenever he laughed, which seemed to be a frequent occurrence. I put his age at a callow twenty-five.
    Romeo didn’t strike me as the sort of fellow who would carry on like the man we had overheard as we came downstairs, but I couldn’t help noticing that he was the only male of the company to follow Gussie and me onto the loggia. After the young basso had invoked the names of some mutual acquaintances and praised the musical taste of our hostess, he retreated so that Octavia could present the accompanists.
    I had worked with Mario and Lucca Gecco several times before. They were short, weasel-thin fiddlers who had been making the rounds of theater orchestras since long before I made my stage debut. As competent, but uninspired players, they fulfilled menial roles in the spectacles where musicians of greater talent achieved sublime heights. To them, the opera was merely a way to put bread on the table. I found it difficult to appreciate their philosophy. Though my vocation had been forced upon me,