Secrecy by Rupert Thomson Page A

had had on him. I was not only a visionary, he told the gathering. I was a moralist. I captured the spirit of the times.
    Later still, when even the English were beginning to stagger, their eyes astonished and blank with wine, I excused myself, but instead of following the corridor that led to the front entrance, I set off in the direction of the kitchens, determined to track down the waitress I had seen earlier. Perhaps the English weren’t the only ones to have overdone it, though, for I somehow ended up in a part of the palace I didn’t recognize, and as I came stumbling down a wide flight of stairs, trying to make my way back to the banquet, I heard voices.
    I crept towards the balustrade and peered over. Some thirty feet below was a large bare hallway, illuminated by a single iron chandelier. Two men stood facing each other. I was so high above them that I could only see their shoulders and the crowns of their heads, but I knew one of them was Bassetti. Nobody else spoke in such voluptuous tones. The second man was taller than Bassetti, with broad shoulders; his bald patch was ringed with black hair. Judging by the way they addressed each other, I would have said Bassetti was the more powerful, and yet the bald man didn’t sound particularly subservient.
    ‘– the documents tomorrow,’ he was saying in a voice that was quiet but slightly hoarse, almost as if he had been shouting.
    ‘Anything else?’ Bassetti said.
    ‘What about the Sicilian?’
    The Sicilian?
Had I heard him correctly?
    Bassetti turned and walked over to the wall. ‘What about him?’
    ‘You mentioned him the other day.’
    ‘Did I? In what connection?’
    ‘You’re getting forgetful in your old age.’
    ‘And you, Stufa, are getting insolent.’
    The bald man laughed. ‘You want me to look into it?’
    ‘Not yet. We’ve got plenty of other things to deal with.’ Bassetti said good night, then disappeared into an adjoining room.
    Acting on an impulse I didn’t entirely understand, I unpinned my violet and dropped it over the balustrade. As I stepped back into the shadows, heart hammering, I heard the man let out a grunt of surprise. Perhaps the violet had spiralled past his face. I could imagine him staring at the flower, then glancing over his shoulder. I couldn’t imagine his expression, though. I didn’t even know what he looked like. At some point he would probably discover that violets had been worn by people who attended the banquet, but it seemed unlikely he would be able to trace that particular violet back to me. I climbed the stairs again, on tiptoe.
    His name was Stufa.
    Since flowers didn’t fall all by themselves, from nowhere, he would realize that somebody had been watching him. Would he assume the violet was a love-token – that he had a secret admirer, in other words – or would he see it in a more sinister light? Though I didn’t know the man, and had nothing against him, I found myself hoping that the falling flower had sent a shudder through him. Of uncertainty, at the very least. Or, better still, of fear.

     
    The howling of the wind hid the sound of the Frenchman’s somersaults. The strips of oiled cloth that hung against the window reached into the room; I felt damp air move over my face. Turning on to my side, I pulled the covers up around my ears. They had a name for these bitter, nagging gusts that blew out of the north, but I had forgotten what it was. Once again, I heard the bald man’s grating whisper.
What about the Sicilian?
That had to be me, didn’t it? Who else could he be talking about?
You want me to look into it?
Then Bassetti’s voice.
Not yet.
By which he meant that there would come a time – and, unfortunately, there was plenty to unearth.
    I remembered a bright spring morning in 1675. Sunlight angled down into the courtyard in the middle of our house. I was having breakfast with my mother and her sister, Flaminia, when Jacopo appeared unexpectedly. I had thought he was billeted with