Peter Dickinson - Tears of the Salamander

This was less than the truth. The feeling had grown only gradually since he’d left home, but by the time he’d been away for a year he had come to see that, in some way that he didn’t understand, he would have missed looking after the ovens—by himself, without Giorgio—as much as he would have missed singing in the cathedral. Mysteriously it was the same kind of thing. He understood the ovens and their needs very much as he understood the music that he sang, the inwardness of it, its central nature. And not only the ovens. He could pick up a log from the stack and immediately sense the hidden heat within it, waiting to be woken by the flame, its intensity, its possible duration. He could sense the swirling climb of the drafts up the flues…

…and then, after the family meal—two hours earlier than usual, so that he could be back at the cathedral for evensong—he would go back to the bakehouse and stand in the middle of the floor and feel the glowing fire pits of the three ovens around him as a single larger fire, with himself in the midst of it, in the heart of the living flame—just as, in the middle of some pulsing Gloria in the cathedral, he was in the heart of the music. It was as though flame and music were only different ways in which a single, majestic power made itself manifest.

IT WAS ON SUCH AN EVENING, IN ALFREDO’S twelfth year, that his whole world changed. He had left home a little early because he was singing one of the solos at evensong. With the Prince-Cardinal away the choirmaster was taking the chance to give the first-year seniors a turn so that when their time came to sing for the ears of His Eminence they would not be afraid. So Alfredo robed himself and settled into a corner of the vestry and bowed his head over his clasped hands in the attitude of prayer. He didn’t understand about real praying. It was just words, the same words repeated and repeated until they were emptied of meaning. What he was really doing was allowing the fire of the bakehouse that still surged and swirled through his mind to turn itself gradually into the music that he was going to sing. He was more than happy. There were no words for it. Only the blessed souls in the presence of the Almighty could know and feel anything like what Alfredo knew and felt.

He heard a noise from the body of the cathedral. Not many people came to weekday evensong, often no more than a few old crones, but this was actual bustle, hurrying feet. A door must have been thrown open, because now there were sounds from outside, yells, clamor. More. Worse. The noises in themselves had nothing to do with Alfredo, with the fire and the music inside him. But these things too had changed. The music was gone. And the fire…

There was madness now in the fire, the wildness of wild beasts, the fury of a howling storm. He couldn’t hold it. It would burst out of him, burn, kill…

He leapt to his feet. Several of his friends were just coming in through the vestry door, teasing each other—in whispers because the choirmaster was close behind them. Alfredo charged through, dodged the choirmaster’s grab for him, ignored his bellow to stop, wheeled out into the chancel aisle, raced down through the screen and into the already darkening nave. Somebody had opened the great west doors, and through their arch he could see the orange glow of the blaze, the nearer roofs black against it, and above it the swirling tower of smoke, almost as black against the distant reds and golds and oranges of sunset.

He stood for a moment, panting, staring, then gathered up the skirts of his robes and pelted on down the twisting route along which he had so often trotted, singing. Long before he reached it, forcing his way through the gathering crowds, he already knew what he was going to find. His home, his ovens, were the roaring heart of that furnace.

They didn’t punish him for missing evensong. He wouldn’t have cared if they had—in fact he would barely have noticed. But the choirmaster, though strict, was a kindly man, and the boy’s whole family had perished in the blaze. Besides, he had plans now for Alfredo.

“This is a terrible thing that has happened to you, my son,” he said. “I truly grieve for you, as do all your friends here. You have no other relatives?”

“Only my uncle, Father. I don’t know where he lives. He came to my christening, but I don’t remember, of course. That’s the only time I’ve seen him.”

The choirmaster nodded. It didn’t sound as if this uncaring relative would be much of a problem. Very likely he would be glad to have the boy taken off his hands.

“You need not sing if you do not feel up to it.”

“Oh, sir, please,” said Alfredo, weeping. “I must sing. It’s the only thing left.”

“That’s a good boy,” said the choirmaster, remembering minor turbulences in his own life during which he had taken refuge in music, and believing he understood something of what Alfredo felt. “Soon you shall sing a solo for His Eminence.”

Next day an official from the City Watch came to talk to Alfredo. He did not, of course, explain that there was no doubt that the fire had started in the bakehouse, and that if it could be shown to be the baker’s fault, then neighbors who had lost their houses as the flames spread would be able to claim against his estate, but if not the city would be liable for some kind of compensation.

Reluctant even to think about the fire, let alone talk about it, Alfredo admitted that he had been home that evening, had prepared the ovens for restarting their cycle, and had again been into the bakehouse after the family meal, shortly before he left, and everything had been normal. His parents had been upstairs in their room—he had heard voices there. (Bakers keep strange hours, and the early meal had interrupted their siesta.) Giorgio had gone out but he must have come back. …

“A young man was seen running into the house soon after the fire started,” said the official. “Brave, but foolish, I’m afraid. I believe your father built his own ovens. He did not employ a professional? And he let you see to their firing, a child?”

Alfredo shook his head. How could he explain to this man that his father had known more about fire than anyone, and that there was no chance in the world that he could have made a mistake or not noticed if Alfredo had done so? Let alone how could he persuade him that there had been something wrong with the fire itself, its madness, its wildness, that it had somehow burst out of the fire pits like a wild beast bursting through the iron bars of its cage and going raging through the streets? And that Alfredo, sitting peacefully in the corner of the vestry, had felt the same thing happen to the hidden fire in his own heart, the fire that should have become music?

The choirmaster, sitting in on the interview, was not displeased. The boy, innocently admitting to the fact that he had been left alone to prepare the ovens, had provided the City with sufficient reason to declare the fire to have been the baker’s fault, which made it even less likely that the missing uncle would appear to take the penniless orphan under his wing. It was already, thanks to the father’s intransigence, a little late for the operation, but there had been certain scandals in the past, with expensive litigation to defend charges of kidnapping and mutilation. It was prudent, therefore that the consent of all interested parties—only the boy himself now, though an at least perfunctory attempt must be made to find the missing uncle—should be witnessed and registered in front of a notary.