North from Rome (29 page)

Borrowing some of the Italians’ perpetual hope, he crossed the shadows of the farmyard and entered the white blinding sunlight of the olive grove. Above, the sky was cobalt blue and cloudless; from the dry grass came the cicadas’ constant chorus. Round the gate, activity had died away. The meal of the day was approaching, and the women were in their kitchens. Only an old man stood there, a lonely sentinel leaning on a stick, squinting in the strong glare, supervising the plain below.
“Buon giorno!”
he said to the passing stranger, and looked back at the view.
“Buon giorno!”
Lammiter said, and stepped into the town.

The street ran straight up from the gate for no more than three hundred yards, and entered, at the top of its hill, into the beginning of a piazza. He glimpsed three or four tourists waiting for someone. They must have arrived with the bus. He dodged into the first small side street leading to the right, so narrow that one car would only scrape through at considerable risk to its paint work. He didn’t imagine Pirotta would drive down here, with a bright smile and a wave of his hand to the children who played in the shade. Neither the children, nor the old men sitting at the doors, nor the women who had come out for a moment to make sure their street was still there; paid much attention to him after the first all-over glance. He noticed two girls, foreigners, taking photographs of an old doorway a little ahead of him. So he dodged again, into the first street on his right, and hoped it would bring him near the wall. His plan
was to walk all round the town, following the inside of the wall wherever possible. He was curious to see not only the layout of the town, but how many entrances Montesecco had. When he found Eleanor again, a knowledge of this little town might mean the difference between entrapment and escape.

He had entered by the west gate. When he reached the south gate, he saw that it led nowadays only to a road that had degenerated into a rough track leading out to fields and trees. This couldn’t have been the entrance Rosana and Joe had used: it would only have led them into the little street where he now stood. He walked on, towards the east. And then, suddenly, he saw he had reached a high-walled garden of some size, adjoining a three-storied house, dominating everything else on this street. A house? It was a small fifteenth-century palace, built to withstand an army. This wall of the house, rising blankly from the cobblestones, was formidable: there were few windows, and all of them covered in elaborated patterns with iron bars three inches thick.

He slowed his pace, for ahead of him was the gateway, which probably led into an interior courtyard. And then he saw that its massive doors were closed. They were enormous, these doors, of heavy timber studded with iron nailheads the size of a man’s fist. Above them was a shield, carved out of stone, painted in red and gold and blue: a wolf’s head and three beehives, telling him what he had already guessed. This was the Casa Grande. This was where Eleanor...

Careful, Lammiter, he told himself, and kept his steady pace. He had seen all he could bear to see, at this moment.

He swerved across the little piazza in front of the main gates (it was more of a respectful retreat by the other houses in the
street than an architectural design) and took the first
calle
that would lead him away from the Casa Grande. Careful, he told himself again, for this street was taking him to the main piazza, to the heart of the little town. He swerved again, to his left, into an alley that twisted and turned between crowding houses. Direction was difficult without the town’s wall to guide him. He would have a little trouble finding his way back to the south gate that led out to the fields and the wood. For somewhere beyond or near that wood must lie the back entrance to the princess’s house.

He had more than a little trouble: this alley twisted like a snake. Suddenly it ended, right back on the main piazza itself. He halted, staring in surprise and anger at the open paved square before him, with its central fountain, a church on the opposite side, a town hall as big as the Casa Grande and as impregnable; and here, almost beside him, a sad little café-restaurant. A few people sat in the shade. It all looked peaceful enough, and safe. Then he noticed a bus drawn up against the wall of a museum, just around the corner from where he stood.

He had, after that one sweeping glance, been ready to retreat down the alley. But the bus—he looked at it again. Either it had forgotten its schedule, or it was not the local morning bus at all. As an answer, in the comic way that life so often presents its explanations, a small dust-covered bus came rattling and bouncing into the piazza. It stopped in front of the town hall. A woman with a large basket and a small boy got out. Three people, soberly dressed in their Sunday clothes, rose from their seats in the shade and climbed on board. That was the local bus all right. Now it was swinging around the piazza to leave by the way it had entered, bugling its horn gaily at two young
girls who had suddenly emerged from one of the side streets. Americans, he decided as he noted their clothes and cameras. He gave up all idea of taking a short cut along this side of the piazza to reach a south exit to the town wall.

Just as he was turning to retrace his steps down the alley he saw the two American girls stop as they looked across at the church, grasp each other’s hands, and then run towards the nearest street. They were laughing. He glanced over at the church. Now he saw what had driven the girls away: a flutter of tourists, all shapes and sizes, was coming slowly out of the church with the anaesthetised look of those who had just swallowed a lecture, while their guide still talked as he shepherded them towards the little café-restaurant. He had his amusing moments, too, to judge from the sudden gust of laughter that blew across the piazza. He was a small man, thin, neatly dressed in a grey suit with a panama hat worn at a jaunty angle. Something in his movements, a quick grace, caught Lammiter’s eye.

For a moment, Lammiter froze, staring at the man across the square. Then instinctively, he turned on his heel and retreated down the alley, no longer cursing its curves and twists. Salvatore Sabatini...that had been Salvatore. Or have I got him on the brain? he wondered. He wished now that he had waited to see the guide’s face more clearly, or that the man had taken off his hat to mop his brow and show the colour of his hair. But the guide had not been so obliging. He had only walked with a light step, made a dramatic gesture towards the town hall, raised a laugh with some merry quip, and then led his flock relentlessly towards the restaurant.

But I couldn’t wait, Lammiter thought: once he was near enough to be identified, he could have seen me, too. Then Lammiter put aside all speculation and concentrated on his direction. His only aim was now to get back to the farmhouse. He hoped to heaven that Joe was there, waiting.

He had some more trouble, for he must not appear to be a man who was in a hurry. Or a man who was going anywhere. He tried to look like a tourist who was wandering around by himself. It took him ten minutes to fight his way out of the labyrinth of small streets and alleys, twice retracing his steps, once almost back on the piazza itself. But at last he came to the main street of the town, which would take him down to its entrance gate. Carefully, he made sure there were no tourists in sight. No, they must be back at the restaurant, settling down to plates of heaped spaghetti. And there, thank God, was the gateway itself.

He passed under its huge arch and a blast of heat engulfed him as he stepped on to the dusty road that led down the hill of olive trees to the plain beneath. The farmhouse dozed among its warm terraces. The cicadas were starting the ninety-fifth movement of their daily symphony.

“Mr. Lammiter!” The voice was young, surprised, and soprano. “Why, Mr. Lammiter!”

If only to silence a third “Mr. Lammiter!” ringing out over the countryside, he halted and looked around. The two American girls he had avoided in the town had been standing to one side of the gateway, studying the posters plastered up on the old wall. Now they ran towards him, bare feet sure in flat-heeled sandals, their wide skirts and crisp blouses looking cool and uncrushed even in this wilting heat. They had broad smiles on their pretty faces, flashing sets of very white and even teeth at him in delight. He didn’t share it. Who the hell are they? he wondered.

The blonde one said, tossing back her horsetail of hair like a young colt, “Mr. Lammiter—don’t you remember me?” Her voice, fortunately, had dropped back to normal.

“Sorry,” he said, “I’m not Lammiter.” He tried to walk on, but her child’s blue eyes looked at him so accusingly that the moment of escape was lost.

“But you are, too,” she said, hurt. Her friend with the Italian haircut was fixing the strap of her camera most tactfully. Then the blonde suddenly smiled again. “Oh—you’re travelling
incognito
! I see—” She looked at the red-haired girl with relief. “He’s travelling incognito, Julie. They always do that. I
told
you.”

“Goodness,” said the soft puzzled voice of Julie, “all my friends spend all their free time writing novels and things. But I don’t think
any
of them know they’ll have to travel incognito. I don’t think any of them know
that.
Or they wouldn’t be writing. I mean, why do you
get
famous if you don’t want to be known?”

“Oh Julie!” the blonde said, taking charge. Then to Lammiter. “We saw you before. I thought it was you. I waved, but—”

“Was that in the piazza?” he asked quickly. He hadn’t noticed any waving.

“No. In a little street, about half an hour ago. Just after the bus arrived.”

“Did you point me out to the others from the bus?” He was smiling, playing it as easily as he could. But, again, his stomach muscles knotted and tightened.

“No!” the little blonde said most decidedly. Then she laughed. “We aren’t speaking to
them!”

“We’re isolationists, temporarily,” Julie said with a giggle.

“We’ve been abandoned,” the blonde said, “abandoned on
the doorstep of a little hill town. And it’s
frustrating.
Because over there,” she waved to the north section of the wall, “you can look out of a gate and
see
Perugia on a hill of its own.”

“Look—this sun’s pretty hot,” Lammiter said. The approach to the town felt more open with every passing minute. His eyes searched for the nearest adequate cover. And it lay, unfortunately, in that row of trees at the edge of the road almost opposite the farmhouse. He looked in despair along the trail that circled the outside of the wall. At some distance, there was a patch of trees and another farmhouse. “What about walking along here?” he suggested. “There’s shade among those trees.” He pointed northwards.

“Too far,” the blonde said, shaking her head. “These trees here are much nearer,” and she set off down the main road, Julie following her, handbags and cameras swinging blithely. Lammiter hesitated, debating whether it would be possible to steer them away from the direction of the farmhouse and on to the subject of the guide instead.

“Could you give us a lift to Perugia?” the blonde girl asked suddenly, turning around to wait for him.

“I haven’t a car. Sorry.”

“Then we really are stuck here until the five o’clock bus,” she told Julie.

“Four hours!” Julie said in despair. “And we’ve photographed
everything
already. Except the white bulls.
Where
have they all gone? They
were
here. I saw two beauties just in front of the gate as we arrived—and a wooden yoke—and bells on the ends of their horns—and now there isn’t even
one
in sight. It’s
maddening!”
She stopped and opened her camera. “Just a moment! This might be something interesting.”

Lammiter walked on quickly, veering towards the opposite side of the road from the farmhouse. “Why don’t we sit here for a few minutes?” He stepped on to the grass, and then behind a tree. “Did your guide tell you what happened to the olives last winter? It seems that—”

“You
don’t
remember me,” the blonde said in a low voice, giving a quick look over her shoulder to make sure Julie was far enough away. “But it was only yesterday, and I sat on your suitcase and you wrote—”

“Of course I remember,” he said quickly. He did, now. “Today you’ve got a green bow on your hair instead of blue. Very mixing.”

“I’m Sally—Sally Maguire.” She looked around again. But Julie was still on the road, her head bent over her camera’s view finder.

“Burbank, California.”

“Now I feel much better!” She smiled delightedly.

He wished he did. He’d have to wait at least three minutes before he mentioned the guide again. “Have a seat,” he suggested.

She looked at the sparse dry grass doubtfully, but she sat down, gathering her wide skirts tightly and carefully around her legs. “Where are you stopping?”

“Oh, I just walked up here for exercise.”

“You
walked?
From the valley?” She was horrified.

“I’m walking back for lunch, right now.”

“Goodness!” she said. That prospect didn’t rouse much enthusiasm. “Do you know Italian, Mr.—Mr.—?”

“A little,” he admitted. “And Smith’s the name at present. Original, isn’t it?”

“If you could do some talking for us—I mean, could you come back to town with us? I hate to ask you to do any extra walking, but—”

“I haven’t very much time,” he said awkwardly. “What’s the trouble, anyway?”

“Transportation,” she said gloomily. “You see, this guide— Oh hallo Julie! Any luck?”

Julie came over to where they sat, closing her camera. “The light is wrong or something,” she said ruefully. “All that scenery and nothing to take... The hills just flatten out like split peas. It’s—”

“Maddening,” Lammiter said abruptly. “Now, Sally—what about this guide?”

Julie didn’t sit down. Perhaps she didn’t like hearing herself quoted. She stood, looking around her. “I can see a farmhouse over there,” she said, suddenly pointing across the road. “Haystacks... Why, there may be white bulls, too. And there’s the farmer! Hi, there!” She called, and began to run towards Joe.