The Black Opera Read Online Free PDF

you were right, signore. You don’t have Faith. Your reason blinds you to it. I pity you more than I can say. And it makes me furious to admit that a man is beyond saving!—but, to be saved, you’d have to let go of that human reason, and humbly turn to God. And you never will. Complete the binding.”
    Light glittered darkly from something coiled and slung over another of the Dominican’s arms. The heavy burden crashed to the floor. Sunlight reflected from the metal links of a chain.
    The reality of it—here in this room where he is used to the sunlight reflecting off the polished wood of his desk, while he wrestles with metre and rhyme and plot—curdled Conrad’s stomach.
    He wrenched, but failed to break their grip on him. The priests moved withpractised, mundane precision. One of the taller Dominicans bent over and threaded the steel chain through the hasps of the cuffs, that had worked up under the wrists of his coat; and the shackles around his ankles; and—while another two of them held Conrad motionless—through the hasp of the collar around his neck.
    Straining, Conrad gritted out, “Is this what the Church authorises for innocent men!”
    Canon Viscardo took the free ends of the chain from his junior priest with a nod. He opened his other hand, and Conrad saw he had a single open link: shining steel as thick as his little finger. The Canon’s dark eyes seemed more intent than it required as he threaded the ends of the chain over the open link, and closed his hand around it.
    Without looking away from the steel, Viscardo spoke. “You’re not innocent, Scalese.”
    â€œIs that decided, then!”
    â€œI was at the Teatro Nuovo last night for your blasphemy. ‘La morte di Dio’! The death of God!”
    â€œWhat do you expect in an opera set in the Enlightenment!”
    A capella singing filled the lodgings, suddenly; the Dominicans beginning at some unseen signal. Loud and beautiful: “Dominus Deus—King of Heaven—”
    Recognition made Conrad choke. That is Signore Rossini’s ‘Little Mass’!
    And, no matter how he claims he wrote it as Church music, this part is exactly the same tenor cabaletta that I heard at La Scala, Milan. I suppose it was too good to lose…
    Canon Viscardo opened his fist. The sunlight that filtered in through the drawing-room windows gleamed back from the steel link—now sealed into a closed oval ring.
    Momentarily, it was unimportant that the binding was complete—an unbroken chain, running through the hasps of his cuffs, shackles, and collar, so that he might be chained to a post like a dog or horse or bull. Conrad stared, hypnotised, at the seamless surface of that final link.
    Nothing visible to prove it had ever been open.
    Unbroken, too, to the touch of his bruised fingers.
    Is it some metallurgist’s trick? Or some conjuror’s distraction and switch?
    The Canon-Regular smiled with equal amounts of frustration, smugness and venom.
    Hands under Conrad’s arms hauled him bodily up. One muscled Dominican friar steadied him on his feet.
    Conrad glanced at that man, just as the friar exchanged looks with a younger, pale-haired Dominican. Both men focused on Luka Viscardo, and for the briefestmoment, Conrad saw a wary concern on their faces. And—shame?
    So they don’t all consider him godly … He seems an unpleasant man, full of spite; I suppose he might be exactly the same if he worked for the most revolutionary of societies desiring Atheism and Liberty.
    Viscardo, short of breath from the singing, gasped, “When God desires you bound, you’re bound beyond the power of man to escape.”
    The barrier between his thoughts and his mouth had vanished, Conrad discovered. “A blacksmith and a file, or two minutes with a cold chisel, and I think I could prove you wrong!”
    A snort came from Tullio’s direction.
    One friend in the room, at