3 - Cruel Music
doge’s palace. The Quay of Prisons was close at hand, and it was at those dismal stones that I was forced to disembark. At this bastion of government power, Messer Grande retained only four men to persuade me against struggle or flight. He conducted me to a small room. Not a cell, but a bleak chamber furnished with a wooden table and one straight chair. When I saw he intended to shut me in without a word, I confess I abandoned my last shred of dignity and begged to be told why I was being held.
    “You have a reputation for cleverness,” he answered, digging under his red robe for a tinderbox to light the squat tallow candle on the table. “Let’s see if you can come up with a guess. I’ll give you a few minutes to think about it.”
    The door thudded shut, and the rasp of the key in the lock sounded a note of cold finality. Surrounded by silence, I had ample time to review the last few months: every house I’d visited, every acquaintance I’d dined with, every triumph, every tiff. Then, one leg gone numb from perching on the hard chair, I paced the flagstone floor until I could simply think no longer.
    I must have fallen asleep eventually. When the squeak of door hinges jerked my head from my folded arms, the candle wax had snaked onto the table and the flame was burning low. Two sbirri entered, truncheons bared. Messer Grande followed. He made a short circuit of the room, peering into the bare, dark corners as if he expected assassins to materialize out of the grimy plaster at any moment. When he was satisfied that my little prison was secure, he opened the door and bowed low.
    Senator Antonio Montorio—it could be no other—sauntered toward me on elegant court shoes with high red heels and diamond-studded buckles. Above his coat of silver brocade, his beautifully dressed wig covered his head at a clumsy angle. Heavy bags pulled his bloodshot eyes low, and his neckcloth was in disarray. While I had been agonizing, the senator had been indulging himself at some casino or pleasure hall.
    He stopped just a few inches from my chair and towered over me with hands on hips. He spoke without introduction or preamble. “What do you know about the situation in Rome?”
    “Rome? I know nothing of the opera houses of Rome. I’ve never had occasion to sing there.”
    “Santa Maria! It’s not music that concerns me, man. It’s the pope. Surely you’ve heard he is ill.”
    I nodded. Everyone knew that Pope Clement had gone blind early in his reign and suffered from a host of ills. At every Mass, the priests offered endless prayers for his recovery. “Yes, of course,” I answered. “But what does that have to do with me? Why have I been arrested?”
    Senator Montorio placed his balled fists on the table and leaned on his knuckles. “The pope is dying. The old man’s been going by inches for months. In Rome, they say the cardinals will be electing a new pope by Easter.”
    I nodded, still mystified.
    “It’s high time for another Venetian pope,” he continued. “Pietro Ottoboni was the last we sent to Rome. That was over fifty years ago, and the man took pneumonia and died before he could send any significant subsidies our way. We’re not going to miss our next chance with the Sacred Conclave, and this time, it won’t be an old man with one foot in the grave.”
    I cocked my head. “It sounds like you already have a candidate in mind.”
    He took a deep breath. “My brother Stefano desires the papal tiara and I will see that he gets it.”
    Montorio’s resolution didn’t surprise me. Like all the nobility of my mercantile city, the Montorio fortune was built on trade. In their case, spices. Europe’s taste for Malabar pepper and other Indian seasonings had made the Montorio family a power to reckon with. At one time or another, members of their numerous clan had filled every post in the Venetian Republic from the doge on down. Senator Montorio’s younger brother Stefano was already a cardinal who served as

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