Daggers and Men's Smiles (11 page)

“Do you believe in knights on white horses, Giulia?”
Leave the other alone
, she thought.
For now
.

“That save us from others, or ourselves, you mean? No. But, see, his horse is chestnut. I asked for that. And above his head an angel — them, I believe in. Sometimes. Come, I'm too hungry for all this. We'll talk while I cook.”

The small area behind the screen contained four burners set in an olive green ceramic counter, some wall storage, a small fridge, and two bar stools. Giulia patted one as she passed.

“Sit down. We'll start with some Brunello di Montalcino.”

The wine went straight to her head, courtesy of her empty stomach. It felt good. “How often are you here?” Sydney asked.

“It depends. As you probably know, my family are in
vino e olio
. The
olio
is my baby. By the way, don't feel too sorry for Anna, Toni's wife.”

Giulia made no attempt to explain her remark, and Sydney did not ask. Married to a man like Gilbert Ensor, she needed no further elaboration.

The wine was outstanding, filling Sydney's head with a humming sensation and the ability to ask the questions she most wanted to ask.

“Giulia, tell me about the symbol on your bike.”

“It is the symbol in Florence for the gay and lesbian community. Does that bother you?”

“No.”

Any worries Sydney might have had nothing to do with the sexual preference of her companion; in the world of dance she had worked closely with people whose tastes and orientation were frequently far from what some sections of society considered the norm.

“Besides,” said Giulia, “I am celibate for a little while.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes life simpler.”

There was no disputing that statement, and Sydney had other, pressing questions she wanted to ask.

“Is it a coincidence that you were running past the Héritage Hotel just as a dagger was thrown onto our patio and that, woven into the rug on the floor of your
castello
, is the representation of violent death by a dagger, or a sword, with a decorated hilt?”

“Coincidence, perhaps — I think your husband is a bit of a dragon himself, no? Planned, perhaps. A warning, maybe.” Giulia was taking eggs out of the fridge as she spoke and, although Sydney could not see her face, her voice was calm and unconcerned. “I often run on the cliffs in that area, and many people know that. Your hotel is only about two or three miles from here to the east of us, around the point, and there are cliff paths all the way. I am — easily noticeable.”

“That's true. So if it wasn't you, Giulia, then who?”

With her back to Sydney, Giulia shrugged her powerful shoulders. “Someone is saying something — what they are saying I don't know. But take care, Sydney, because whoever they are, they are killing anyone who stands in their way — or gets in their way.”

“Gets in the way of what?'

“Who knows? That, as you Americans say, is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

Even the sweet numbness brought on by the wine had not removed the image of Toni Albarosa, the haft of the dagger protruding from his chest. Sydney shuddered. “Let's change the subject. What are you cooking? It smells delicious.”

“Frittata, this one with some
carciofi
— artichoke hearts. Something simple. It is how I live here.” Giulia's smile was back, her mood sunny again.

“You are from Florence?”

“Yes. You know the city?”

“Not very well. I find it — well, gloomy, almost scary, in some way.”

“I can understand. A city of men,
Firenze bizarra
— Michelangelo, Leonardo, Brunelleschi — men who had little time for women. It's a city that turns its back on the stranger like you who passes in the street. Like
mio castello
, it hides pretty loggias, hidden courtyards, secret gardens behind ugly grey walls.”

It was in Giulia Vannoni's grey Martello tower, on an island off the coast of France, sitting at a marble-topped table eating frittata and drinking Aperol, the honey-coloured aperitif of Florence, that Sydney Tremaine began to believe once more in happiness — as bizarre and unlikely a time and place as any, in which to believe in such a thing again.

“Come on now, Sydney!” Giulia sprang to her feet. “We go out on the town.”

“Is that possible?”

“Of course! You don't know this place any better than you know Florence, do you?”

“But I think I should be getting back to the hotel.”

“The night has hardly begun,
cara
. Why not — how do you say it? — get hung for a sheep as lamb, no?”

“Oh, why not!”

Light-headed with wine and good companionship. Sydney threw caution out the Martello tower window.
Go on
, she thought,
let Gil feel what I myself have felt, so many times
.

“I am hardly dressed to go out on the town.”

“Here, anything goes. But I'll lend you something that is more fun. You won't be able to use my pants with that ballerina hip span of yours, but — let's see.”

Giulia started up the circular staircase with her easy, powerful stride, and Sydney followed her. The staircase opened directly into a bedroom, as different as it could be from the lower level. The wider windows let in more natural light from outside, but that was not the only difference. The decor here was spare to the point of sterility, with a simply designed bed in a beechwood frame, a pristine white bedcover, a matching bedside table, chair, and dresser with the same clean lines. There were curved, sliding doors set into the wall, and a walled-off section of another wall presumably concealed a bathroom of some sort.

“This floor,” said Giulia, “was added by the Nazis when they occupied the island — I think there is one other tower like this. I had the floor strengthened, and the walls covered with the wood panels you see, more for warmth than for any other reason.”

“It's so different from downstairs.” said Sydney.

“I sleep better in monastic surroundings,” Giulia replied, without a glimmer of humour in her voice or on her face. “In that city of mine you do not understand, it took until the fourteenth century for women to be allowed to read — unless they were nuns.” Before Sydney could think of an appropriate response, Giulia went over to the sliding doors and pulled them open.

The contrast with the spare, colourless room was startling. Scarlets, silver, golds, echoes of the riches below dazzled Sydney's eyes, cooled by the monochromes around her.

“I love clothes,” said Giulia. “I love Versace, Gucci. Sexy, dangerous. My leather jacket is Gucci and so are these. I'll wear them tonight.” She pulled out a pair of jeans that glittered with dozens of tiny beaded squares, with fringes of silk scattered over the blue denim. “Long ago, there was a wise woman whose home was in the portico of Santissima Annunziata — a street woman, who sewed pretty patches on her clothes. I think of her surviving
con eleganza
when I wear these.”

“So Italian,” said Sydney, “and yet, didn't an American once design for Gucci?”

“
E vero
. Such a small world — that can make things so dangerous.”

Giulia Vannoni retreated for a moment into a mood that appeared to have come out of nowhere. Her warning came back to Sydney.
Someone is saying something — what they are saying, I don't know.

She knows
, she thought.
Or she knows far more than she is telling me
.

“Try this.” Giulia held out a slippery satin shirt in a luminous apple green. “This is Gucci also. It feels wonderful on the skin and is perfect with your colouring.” She pointed to the cubicle. “You can use my little bathroom, if you wish. And here —” From the dresser she pulled a pair of black spandex tights. “These'll fit. Roll up the legs and your mules will go perfectly.”

The cubicle contained an updated version of a hip bath, a toilet, a small mirror, and a tiny hand basin. As she started to change into her new clothes, Sydney heard Giulia going down the iron staircase. By the time she came back into the bedroom, Giulia was waiting for her, wearing a blue and grey striped bustier with the bespangled jeans.

“
Meravigliosa
!”

“
Grazie
— you, too.”

As they returned to the floor below, Sydney's attention was caught by a heraldic device she had not noticed before, hanging high up on the wall near the stairs in an area shielded from the brilliant light of the chandelier. It was a shield, divided into quarters, each with its own device. In the bottom right-hand quarter was a hand, the wrist encased in chain mail, holding a dagger — a dagger with an elaborately decorated hasp. Sydney stopped in her tracks.

“Giulia —”

Giulia Vannoni looked back up from below. Her glance followed Sydney's eyes.

“You have a dagger very like the one that killed Toni on your family coat of arms — I presume that's what this is.”

“Yes. The shield is on every bottle of olive oil we sell.”

“So, Giulia —” Sydney sat down on one of the iron steps. “— what's going on? Is this some extremist group? Is it the Mafia? Is this an attack on your family and, if so, how does my husband fit into this?”

Giulia held out her hand. “Come,” she said. “I have something to give you.”

She pulled Sydney to her feet, then went over to a small desk near the kitchen area, took a key from the small purse she wore slung around her body, unlocked one of the drawers, and took out another key.

“Here,” she said, holding it out toward Sydney. This unlocks the door to my
castello
— and the gate. You don't have a purse, but put it on that chain you have around your neck, and wear it under your shirt. If you ever need to, come here.”

“But why? Why are you doing this?”

“Because I don't know the answer to your questions.” Briskly, Giulia unfastened the chain around Sydney's neck. “Yes, it goes over the clasp. Good.”

“You said, come here. But where is here?”

“You take a taxi, and you ask to be driven to the tower on Icart Point. This tower is the farthest to the east, one of the few where the cliffs start to climb — he'll know. And one other thing I will show you.”

Giulia took Sydney by the hand and led her toward the statue of the girl. She reached behind it and the black wall opened.

“Not magic,” said Giulia, laughing at Sydney's startled face. “It's a door, a second exit from this place. It leads to what was once a gun emplacement, connected to the tower by a tunnel. I'll show you when we go out, but we won't go down it now. We are not dressed for guerilla warfare.”

Outside, Giulia led the way around the curving wall of the tower and stopped.

“See?”

She pointed toward a flat metallic disc about three feet in circumference, set in concrete, that gleamed dully among the plants and grasses. “That can only be opened from the inside. It covers a circular dug-out area where they had a gun — the edge is serrated, very strong, so it was possible to close it off. They made it out of the turret ring of a French tank. But you have to be careful here, because all is not as it seems. Look.”

Giulia picked up a stone and threw it. The stone disappeared.

“Trenches. Overgrown trenches.”

“
Esattamente
. The stone walls are covered with flowers and plants, almost two feet of them in places.”

Sydney walked forward. Close up, it was comparatively easy to see the opening of the trench nearest to her, in spite of about two feet of ivy, ferns, and a small plant that looked like a miniature cream-coloured lupin. A cultivated rose from the garden of the original house on the property had gone wild, covering the native growth with deep pink double petals, now past their prime. A flash of movement overhead made her look up to see a wraithlike white bird flying silently overhead, its long legs trailing behind its body.

“Heron,” said Giulia. “You don't see them too often. Like a ghost bird, no?”

A line of poetry that Gil once quoted to her floated into Sydney's mind.
The sedge is withered from the lake, and no birds sing.
His beautiful voice that could caress as well as castigate. She'd forgotten she had been wooed by more than the money. She had loved him once. Hadn't she?

“But now, we can forget about all this.”

“Where are we going?” Sydney asked.

“You like jazz? That's where we go — and to give you another surprise, I think.
Avanti
!”