Peter Dickinson - Tears of the Salamander

Alfredo looked up at him. He could feel tears starting to come.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to say. “But I really wanted to sing. It’s all I’ve got left.”

“Poor boy,” said Uncle Giorgio. “But it isn’t all you have left. And you shall sing. Would you like to sing to me now? Not church music, I think. Do you know any songs of the sea?”

Alfredo cast his mind back to the old days and remembered a silly song he had picked up in the harbor long ago while Father was haggling with one of the merchants about a consignment of fine flour from the south. It was about a sailor numbering off the girls he had in the ports along the coast, adding a fresh name and port to the list with each verse. It had a pretty, lively tune, very far from how he was now feeling, but almost as soon as he’d started the music took over and he sang for the joy of singing.

Uncle Giorgio listened, smiling, and then reached out for Alfredo’s neck.

“Don’t stop,” he said as his fingers felt beneath the collar, found the gold chain, pulled it free and gently lifted it over Alfredo’s head and clear.

Alfredo’s voice faltered. Something was badly wrong. He had to concentrate hard even to stay on the note, but his training held and he recovered himself and sang on. But for that moment the music had been empty, meaningless, and still there seemed to be a sort of inner uncertainty, until Uncle Giorgio replaced the chain and slid the little golden salamander back under Alfredo’s shirt. The joy came back and Alfredo finished the song.

Shocked at last out of his apathy, he stared at his uncle.

“What…what happened?” he whispered.

“Originally there was no music in our own blood, Alfredo. All we have is the gift of the salamanders. They are intensely musical creatures. And we have known them long, very, very long, so that by now that gift of music has, as it were, bred itself into our family. It is, so to speak, our birthright. But it does not always run true. In a few of us it is manifest from the first. In some, such as your poor brother, it is entirely lacking. Your father had it, but—”

“But he couldn’t sing at all! He was awful!”

Uncle Giorgio’s voice grew even harsher.

“He chose not to, Alfredo. That was one of many bad choices.”

“But…”

“Since you loved him, we had best not talk about it. What was I saying?…Yes, for most of us the gift is there, but needs the power of the salamanders to unlock it. If I had given your brother the pendant he might have sung, but not as you do. For you the pendant was, as it were, a key to unlock the casket that held your gift.

“And remember this. One thing I told those priests, at least, was true. We come of an extremely ancient lineage, you and I, older than that of any prince or cavalier you could name. And we two are the last of it. That is why I have risked my life to bring you away. I did not do it for your father’s sake. I owe him nothing, nothing at all. You are very precious to me, Alfredo.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. The dry, effortful whisper had made it impossible to guess at his feelings, but twice, when he’d been speaking of Father, there’d been something—and then the final chuckle…and for the first time Alfredo saw that Uncle Giorgio might be his father’s brother. Must be. That was exactly how his father chuckled when he was pretending to make light of something that in fact really mattered to him…as on Alfredo’s name-day almost four years ago. …

Yes, the brothers must have quarreled, and about something that had really mattered. “… has no children, as far as I know …” (that must have been Uncle Giorgio) “…renounced my own birthright—I can’t do that for him …make up his own mind…” (and that must have been Alfredo himself).

But there’d been something that mattered even more, something that must have its Master. And because of that it was better for Alfredo to wear the salamander chain than not to. And Father had invited Uncle Giorgio to the christenings of both his sons.

And the neighbors had been right about Father’s singing so badly. He’d been doing it on purpose.

“So we must make things up between us, as best we can,” Uncle Giorgio went on. “It is proper that you should have loved your father, and I will not hold that against you. But now you have me in his place, and henceforth you will bear your true name, which is Alfredo di Sala. Are you content with that?”

Not knowing what to say, Alfredo nodded and waited to be told more, but Uncle Giorgio was massaging his throat in the way that he had in the coach, so Alfredo guessed it must be hurting because he had talked too much. Before long Uncle Giorgio went down to the cabin to rest, leaving Alfredo to sing softly, under his breath, hour after hour, while he watched the unchanging sea.

Next day they docked in a small harbor. Uncle Giorgio was evidently expected at the only inn, where another valise was waiting for him, and there was a mule in the stable ready to carry it and the rest of the baggage. They set out almost at once, up a steep track, but when they were well clear of the town Uncle Giorgio led the way to one side, halted as soon as they were hidden, opened the second valise and took out fresh clothes for the pair of them—a peasant’s jacket and breeches for himself and a plain country smock for Alfredo, with wide-brimmed straw hats for both of them. They plodded on for the rest of afternoon along narrow tracks, rising and falling, supped and slept in a deserted hut far up a hillside and journeyed on next day, coming late that afternoon to a final crest above a different harbor town. They neared its walls a little before sunset, but before they reached it, turned aside once more. In a tumbledown shack Uncle Giorgio changed back into his merchant’s dress.

“Wait here,” he croaked. “Bell rings before gates close. Go through when others go. Harbor. Largest boat at quay— Bonaventura —go below. Cabin. Wait for me.”

He took the mule’s bridle and strode on toward the town.

Alfredo was not worried to be left alone. By now he understood what was happening. His uncle had pretended to be a rich gentleman in order to impress the priests, and then had effectively bought Alfredo from them with what seemed to be a generous donation to the choir, though no doubt they planned to keep most of it for themselves. Without that they might have argued, made difficulties until the Prince-Cardinal returned. If he wished to keep Alfredo in the choir, it barely mattered what the law said. But the donation was of course worthless, the letter of introduction probably a blank sheet of paper. The Prince-Cardinal would be outraged, and if Uncle Giorgio was caught he would face a horrible death. So he was covering their tracks, pretending to be still at the hostelry of St. Barnabas when he had already left the city, changing their clothes, taking this roundabout but already prepared route home and now, at this new harbor, concealing Alfredo’s existence in the hope of smuggling him out to sea unnoticed.

Alfredo did as he was told, slipping in through the gates in the dusk among a group of latecomers and then finding his way to the harbor. There was no mistaking the Bonaventura . A sailor, leaning on the farther rail, glanced round as the gangplank creaked beneath Alfredo’s weight, raised a hand and returned to his contemplation of the harbor. Alfredo climbed down the companionway. In the pitch darkness of the well, lines of light gleamed around a door. He opened it and found that the light came from a lantern slung from a cabin ceiling. Uncle Giorgio’s valises were on the floor. He took off his boots, lay down in one of the two hammocks and once again waited.