Peter Dickinson - Tears of the Salamander

“What is this? You have been too long in the sun, you stupid child! What have you eaten?”

Uncle Giorgio’s voice, close above his head, shook with fury. Alfredo pushed himself up from the sill.

“Nothing,” he gasped. “Just what Annetta brought. It tasted fine. And I was careful about the sun. I wore my hat, but mostly I stayed in the shade. I really did.”

“Go to your bed. Put the chamber pot beside you. Can you climb the stair?”

“I think so. …I think it’s all gone, Uncle Giorgio. Out of me, whatever it was. I’ll be all right for Monday, I promise. I will.”

“That had better be the case. Very well. Go to your bed. I will come and see you later.”

Alfredo forced his weak and trembling legs to carry him up the stairs and along to his room, where he took off his shoes, placed the chamber pot handy and clambered into bed fully clothed. Despite that, and the warmth of the evening, spasms of shivering shook him every minute or two. Soon Annetta arrived with a basket containing a couple of stone bottles, a flask and a small bundle wrapped in a cloth. When she slid the bottles in under the bedclothes beside him he discovered they were filled with hot water, almost too warm to touch with bare flesh but wonderfully comforting through his clothes.

“Thanks,” he whispered. “That was worse than I expected. But I think it’s all right. So far.”

She put a finger to her lips, poured something from a jug she’d brought into a mug and placed it on the table beside him. Then she hid the bundle in the cupboard, put her finger to her lips again and left. The drink turned out to be lime water. He sipped a little and lay back.

A little later Uncle Giorgio arrived, still coldly angry but more in control of himself. He felt Alfredo’s forehead, took his pulse and made him stick out his tongue.

“You have a headache?” he asked. “You see correctly, without spots or blurrings? You came here without falling.”

“No. I mean my head’s all right. And my eyes, I think. I felt a bit dizzy climbing the stairs, but it went. I’m better already, just weak and shivery.”

“Tell me everything you have eaten today.”

Alfredo did so, in detail. Uncle Giorgio nodded.

“The plums are the most likely cause,” he said. “Some peasant with unclean hands may have touched them. So at least you ate them recently and the poison may not have worked into your system before you vomited it out. But if your bowels loosen in the night, eat nothing and drink all you can. I will see you in the morning before I go to Mass. You will stay here. Good night.”

Alfredo lay where he was for a while, enjoying the warmth of the stone bottles. The shiverings grew less, and ceased. By nightfall he felt fine, but ravenously hungry. As the last light faded he heard a soft footfall in the corridor outside, so he closed his eyes, slowed his breathing down and lay still. The door creaked gently. The footsteps crossed the room. A bony hand touched his forehead. He didn’t stir or change his breathing until the door had closed again and the footsteps dwindled along the corridor.

Still he waited, but at last rose, went to the cupboard, found Annetta’s bundle by touch and carried it to the window, where he opened it on the window seat, spreading the cloth round it. She’d provided a simple meal, slices of bread and soft cheese. He ate, crouching low over the cloth in case scattered crumbs might betray them when Uncle Giorgio came in the morning. When he’d had enough he carefully wrapped the bundle and put it back in the cupboard. He hadn’t discussed any of this with Annetta—it had all been her idea. So had the plums. If anything went wrong it wouldn’t be her fault.

He undressed, went back to bed and fell almost instantly asleep. It was as if, along with his stomach stuff, he had vomited out all the day’s anxieties and forebodings. He didn’t wake until Annetta opened the door in the morning, well past sunrise.

ANNETTA PUT DOWN THE TRAY SHE WAS CARRYING, made signs to him to stay where he was and put her finger to her lips, then helped him sit up, stuffed an extra pillow behind him and laid the tray across his knees. There wasn’t much on it, just a bowl of thin broth and a single slice of bread. Alfredo was still hungry, but he spun it out, sipping the broth and nibbling the bread, and was only just finishing as Uncle Giorgio arrived.

“Well, I trust you feel better,” he snapped. “You slept well?”

“Yes, thank you, Uncle Giorgio. I feel almost all right. Just a bit feeble. And, er, empty.”

“No more vomiting? No looseness of the bowels?”

“I don’t think so. I haven’t tried yet. There isn’t, er…”

“No doubt. Toni, apparently, has the same sickness, so it will have been the plums that caused it. In an hour’s time you may eat a little more, and again an hour after that. If any sign of the sickness returns, do not eat. Annetta will leave food for you in the breakfast room. Eat nothing else. You understand?”

“Yes, of course. …Can I get up?”

“Yes, but stay in the house, out of the sun. I will see you on my return from Mass.”

He marched out of the room without another word. Alfredo rose, washed and dressed, then finished the remains of last night’s supper, listening intently all the time for the sound of footsteps in the corridor. After that there was nothing to do but wait in his window until Uncle Giorgio left.

All his anxieties came crowding back. His plan was like a chain, each link depending on the one before it. If one link snapped, the plan would fail. What then? Run away, as he had told Annetta? How? Where to? Who on the island would risk the fury of the Master of the Mountain? He tried to force himself to think about the problem, but his mind kept slithering back to the chain, testing it through, link after link after link. And again. And again.

At last Uncle Giorgio appeared from behind the house, already riding his mule, with Annetta striding at his side. Just as he rounded the terrace he turned and looked up at the house. Alfredo waved. Uncle Giorgio raised his hand in brief acknowledgment and headed down the hill. Still Alfredo waited until they had long disappeared among the olive trees, then hurried downstairs.

He found Toni sitting placidly in the kitchen. There was a satchel on the table beside him, which he pushed toward Alfredo with a smile. Alfredo glanced inside. More food.

“Your mother is a marvelous woman,” he told Toni. Toni smiled, but there was no knowing whether he understood the words, or only the tone. Alfredo beckoned to him and led the way out into the yard.

Together they fetched out the two remaining mules and tethered them to separate rings in the stable wall. They gave them nose bags to keep them quiet, and then brought out the two harnesses and the cradle to carry the salamander’s bucket. Alfredo worked out how it assembled and then stood for a while checking round the yard, making as sure as he could that this stage of the plan would really work. The main problem was going to be the weight of the salamander’s bucket, filled with some of the molten mass from the furnace. Strong though Toni was, Alfredo didn’t believe that the two of them could carry it up from the cellars between them, and then lift it into the cradle between the mules. That’s why the second bucket had been so important.

There was nothing more he could think of. He sighed with anxiety and led the way back into the kitchen. The clock said it was still twenty minutes to go before the start of Mass, so he opened the satchel and forced himself to eat. Toni had no such problems.