Peter Dickinson - Tears of the Salamander

This time Alfredo got it. Beneath Uncle Giorgio’s teasing tone there was something else, a note of threat, quiet but confident. And beneath the attorney’s gabbled reply there was awareness of that threat, and fear of it. And Uncle Giorgio hadn’t said the obvious “earthly and heavenly,” but used the strange phrase “earthly and beyond.” He was talking not of the justice of God, but of the powers of the Master of the Mountain, which his nephew would inherit. No attorney in his right mind would be tempted to swindle even a child who possessed those powers.

Signor Pozzarelli wrote briefly on the document, then read it through in a solemn voice. Though it was quite short, it was mostly incomprehensible. The only thing that was clear to Alfredo was that just three people were named in it, Uncle Giorgio, who was making the will; Signor Pozzarelli, who was to be guardian; and Alfredo himself, who was getting everything. There was nothing for Annetta, nothing to take care of poor Toni, Uncle Giorgio’s own son. Of course Alfredo would look after them, but how could anyone be certain of that? If only for form’s sake surely…But no. Uncle Giorgio didn’t think like that.

When he’d finished reading, Signor Pozzarelli rang his bell again, and the clerk and a gardener came to witness Uncle Giorgio’s signature. The gardener was unable to write his name, so signed with a thumbprint. Uncle Giorgio gave each of them a silver coin and rose as they left. Alfredo realized that Signor Pozzarelli was looking expectantly at him. Alfredo pulled himself together.

“I must…must thank my uncle for his great generosity,” he stammered. “I, er, will try to prove worthy of my inheritance and…and our name.”

“I have no doubt that that will prove to be the case,” said Uncle Giorgio, still with the same odd tone, as if the words had an extra meaning that only he knew. He signed to Alfredo, who helped him stand and then took some of his weight while Signor Pozzarelli showed them out of the house with obvious relief, bowing his farewells several times more than was necessary.

Uncle Giorgio seemed to recover as soon as the door closed.

“Lawyers are capable of infinite delay,” he remarked. “There is no harm in persuading one that the case may be urgent.”

He sounded really pleased with himself. He stood for a while on the doorstep, like a cat purring in the strong noon sun, while Alfredo once again wondered what it must be like to have everyone you met terrified of you. But Uncle Giorgio actually seemed to enjoy it. Strange.

Now he stalked off toward the inn, but started to lean on his stick before they reached it. Alfredo had been expecting that they would simply collect the mules and ride home, but the landlord was waiting at the door, bowing and smiling but still giving the impression that he would have preferred to run and hide in his darkest cellar.

“I trust the signor is in good health,” he gabbled.

“Feeling my age, feeling my age,” said Uncle Giorgio, speaking almost affably. “I shall need your arm up the stairs, I fear.”

The landlord helped him climb slowly to a room overlooking the harbor, where a table was laid for two.

Uncle Giorgio straightened as soon as they were alone.

“A feast in celebration of the occasion,” he said genially.

Alfredo’s heart sank. How could he eat a feast of celebration with this man whom he now believed to be a monster, a murderer? Sitting in the attorney’s office, pretending to be honored and grateful about what his uncle was doing for him—that wasn’t difficult. In a grim sense he’d almost enjoyed it, because each little deception of Uncle Giorgio became part of his secret knowledge. It was all right eating together up at the house, where often his uncle read throughout the meal and scarcely said a word, so that they might just as well have been eating in separate rooms, and where even when they talked their words seemed to be full of secret meanings. But here, like this? He thought of name-days at home, the joy, the family love, Mother’s pride in what she’d prepared for the occasion. That had been true celebration, not this. The food would be sawdust in his mouth, tasteless and unswallowable, and he must pretend to enjoy it.

No, he would not think like that. Soon, soon, before next Monday, he would find proof of what the salamanders had told him. And then…then somehow—something deep and savage stirred in him—then he would take vengeance.

They sat and the meal was brought, olives and bread and oil, of course, and grilled sardines caught fresh that morning, and a salad of wild leaves from the mountain, and a tender young pullet roasted on a bed of herbs, and a strange, sweet custard, and three kinds of wine, and lime water better than the attorney’s—indeed the sort of meal Mother would have prepared for a name-day.

Alfredo settled down to enjoy it, savoring every mouthful with the thought of his vengeance. Vengeance, he discovered, makes an excellent savor. So he ate with gusto until Uncle Giorgio pulled him up.

“We must feed you up but not make you ill,” he said, lightly enough—but still Alfredo seemed to hear the undertone of another kind of meaning. This time, though, he could guess what it was. To Uncle Giorgio each mouthful he ate, each sip he drank, each breath he drew, was not for his own pleasure, but a preparation for next Monday and his mysterious destiny.

He thought about this as they rode up the hill and wondered if he could starve himself until he was too weak to do whatever his uncle expected of him on Monday. Not easily, if he was watched all the time as he ate. But…

That evening, sitting in the kitchen and watching Annetta preparing supper, he wondered where her loyalties really lay. He decided to take the risk.

“Annetta?”

She turned from the stove, eyebrows raised.

“Can you give me something to make me a little bit sick? Not really sick, just so I don’t have to do something. Only for a morning—I can’t explain. He’d see through it if I was just shamming sick.”

She frowned for a moment, glanced at Toni and stared at her hands. Alfredo could see her thinking What if the master found out? He sighed with relief when she straightened, looked him firmly in the eye and nodded.

She laid her spoon down, crossed to her store cupboard and reached to the back of a high shelf for a small lidded pot. She fetched a mug, and her kettle from the back of the stove, took a leaf out of the pot, put it in the mug and mimed filling the mug from the kettle. She pointed at the kitchen clock and made a slow circle in the air. Wait for an hour . She then pretended to drink the contents of the mug.

That done, she tipped the leaf out onto the table and added two more from the pot, rinsed the mug carefully and laid it to drain. She pointed at the leaves, held up a finger, clutched her stomach and pretended to retch into her hands. Two fingers, and this time she was in serious pain and vomiting onto the floor. Three fingers, and she started to curl up in agony, then straightened, smiling.

“One leaf would make me a bit ill, and two properly ill, and three I’d be really sick,” said Alfredo. “If I took just one, how long would it be before I threw up?”

She pointed at the clock again, held up her finger and wrapped her other hand round the bottom half of it. Half an hour .

“And how long before I got better?”

This time she held up four fingers. Then she poured water into a bowl, washed her hands, threw the water away and rinsed out the bowl.

“Thank you, Annetta,” he said. “I won’t use it unless I have to—there may be another way.”

He took the leaves up to his room and hid them in a book. Following Annetta’s example, he washed his hands carefully before he came back downstairs.