played on; faces grew flushed and hands began to slide beneath damask skirts and linen chemises. The supper did not end until Messer Agapito stood up, a faintly pained expression on his small, weasel face as he brushed the crumbs from his velvet jacket, and addressed us as proxy for the departed duke. “The former despots of Imola, whom our duke has deposed as his gift to the people of this city, referred to this wing of the Rocca as the Paradiso .” Thus my invitation to supper in Paradise. “But now we must all leave Paradise,” Agapito added with a reluctant grin, his teeth like grains of rice. “We have been summoned to the Inferno.”
IV
Agapito led us all in a long procession through the door at the end of the dining room, whereupon we entered a closet full of grain sacks and barrels of oil, and then another, darker storage room, reeking of gunpowder. A short flight of stairs led to the darkest room of all. Around me I could hear anxious titters, soon followed by the sound of a heavy door closing behind us.
This place smelled like a painter’s studio, redolent with oils and lacquers. More sounds: succulent kisses, the whisper of skirts, whining about the cold. I heard someone say that the tower we had evidently entered was called the Inferno because the previous proprietors had constructed it as a prison—
The sun might have burst forth in a moonless night. In the blinking of an eye I saw every person present—I believed I could distinguish each pearl, every stitch, the stubble on men’s faces. Yet this unnatural illumination faded in little more than a heartbeat to the sound of a loud, hollow thump, like a dozen people striking a carpet with brooms at the same moment.
Screams followed. One could scarcely think amid the terrified shrieks, and I wondered if someone had dropped a torch onto a barrel of gunpowder stored in the closets below us.
Out of the darkness, skulls appeared, six or eight of them spaced evenly about the room, hung like sconces on walls draped with black velvet. Each had a candle inside, the light pouring from empty noses and sockets. In this fashion the entire “amusement” was illuminated forus; it seemed Valentino’s people had ignited those vapors I had smelled upon entering—the explosion entirely harmless, except to our nerves.
Anxious laughter still floated in the air when a velvet curtain parted and a small, brightly painted car such as they use in triumphs rolled into the room with no apparent means of transport. Atop this chariot without horses stood three entirely naked women, backs facing one another to make a sort of human tripod; beneath their bare feet, gilded plaster gryphon heads spouted wine into silver basins. Absent cups, ladies and gentlemen alike began to scoop with their hands. In little time the wine drenched them, their soaked shirts and chemises leaving little doubt as to where this amusement was proceeding.
I found a corner among a few of the ladies who did not wish to stain their Oriental satins and Rheims linens, and was soon engaged in conversation by one of the blondes. “Most of us are from Venice,” she said. “Our merchants are always down here in good times and bad, and they like the same dishes they enjoy at home.”
To either side of her, several ladies dropped their deepest curtsies; my Venetian friend hurriedly joined them. Guessing the object of these frantic obsequies, I turned and did the same.
Duke Valentino offered a little bow before presenting me a hand formally gloved in black kid. I could not help but tremble as I accepted it. My companions furiously tittered as he escorted me away.
“Your rooms are sufficient?” We strolled with lingering, short steps, more suited to lovers. But Valentino did not wait for my answer. “If I have neglected to send word before now, it is because this treaty with the condottieri has got every government represented here in a lather, believing it will put them at some measure of risk. None more
IV
Agapito led us all in a long procession through the door at the end of the dining room, whereupon we entered a closet full of grain sacks and barrels of oil, and then another, darker storage room, reeking of gunpowder. A short flight of stairs led to the darkest room of all. Around me I could hear anxious titters, soon followed by the sound of a heavy door closing behind us.
This place smelled like a painter’s studio, redolent with oils and lacquers. More sounds: succulent kisses, the whisper of skirts, whining about the cold. I heard someone say that the tower we had evidently entered was called the Inferno because the previous proprietors had constructed it as a prison—
The sun might have burst forth in a moonless night. In the blinking of an eye I saw every person present—I believed I could distinguish each pearl, every stitch, the stubble on men’s faces. Yet this unnatural illumination faded in little more than a heartbeat to the sound of a loud, hollow thump, like a dozen people striking a carpet with brooms at the same moment.
Screams followed. One could scarcely think amid the terrified shrieks, and I wondered if someone had dropped a torch onto a barrel of gunpowder stored in the closets below us.
Out of the darkness, skulls appeared, six or eight of them spaced evenly about the room, hung like sconces on walls draped with black velvet. Each had a candle inside, the light pouring from empty noses and sockets. In this fashion the entire “amusement” was illuminated forus; it seemed Valentino’s people had ignited those vapors I had smelled upon entering—the explosion entirely harmless, except to our nerves.
Anxious laughter still floated in the air when a velvet curtain parted and a small, brightly painted car such as they use in triumphs rolled into the room with no apparent means of transport. Atop this chariot without horses stood three entirely naked women, backs facing one another to make a sort of human tripod; beneath their bare feet, gilded plaster gryphon heads spouted wine into silver basins. Absent cups, ladies and gentlemen alike began to scoop with their hands. In little time the wine drenched them, their soaked shirts and chemises leaving little doubt as to where this amusement was proceeding.
I found a corner among a few of the ladies who did not wish to stain their Oriental satins and Rheims linens, and was soon engaged in conversation by one of the blondes. “Most of us are from Venice,” she said. “Our merchants are always down here in good times and bad, and they like the same dishes they enjoy at home.”
To either side of her, several ladies dropped their deepest curtsies; my Venetian friend hurriedly joined them. Guessing the object of these frantic obsequies, I turned and did the same.
Duke Valentino offered a little bow before presenting me a hand formally gloved in black kid. I could not help but tremble as I accepted it. My companions furiously tittered as he escorted me away.
“Your rooms are sufficient?” We strolled with lingering, short steps, more suited to lovers. But Valentino did not wait for my answer. “If I have neglected to send word before now, it is because this treaty with the condottieri has got every government represented here in a lather, believing it will put them at some measure of risk. None more
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