4 - The Iron Tongue of Midnight by Beverle Graves Myers Page A

was really just a façade of masonry built over the sloping bank. From within, a flurry of movement met our ears and a shadow blocked the light.
    “Carissimo?” The question was a caress bestowed by a deep feminine alto. Not receiving a reply, the alto turned harsh. “Who’s there?”

Chapter Six
    “Friends,” I cried. “From the villa.”
    The door opened wide, framing the silhouette of a large woman outlined by candlelight. After a brief moment, she bobbed a curtsy and stepped aside.
    With Gussie on my heels, I entered a small cave with a hard dirt floor and reinforced walls. My head barely cleared the ceiling rafters as I shuffled around the pit that contained blocks of ice transported from nearby mountains. Carcasses of birds and rabbits hung from hooks suspended over the pit. An odor of stale meat and blood permeated the cool air.
    “We… came to pay our respects,” I said, noting signs of a vigil in progress.
    The stranger’s corpse rested on a shelf that would normally have held foodstuffs. The rough wood planks had been covered with a threadbare Persian carpet, the sort of thing that the lady of the villa would offer to a tenant once its usefulness was over. Candles burned at the dead man’s head and feet. His hair had been washed of gore, and his hands were crossed neatly over a winding sheet that covered him from foot to chin.
    “I was beginning to think I would be the only one to keep the watch.” The woman spoke softly, dark eyes liquid in the flickering light, black curls escaping her kerchief of snow white linen and falling to the shoulders of her short, red cape. Her face was too round and her skin too brown from the sun to be considered beautiful. But there was something about this peasant that compelled attention. An aura of calmness clung to her, like the mist encircling the moon outside.
    She continued, “Last night, after my husband and Santini brought him in, I washed and dressed him for burial. I’ve kept the candles going since, but I haven’t been able to sit with him for a proper vigil.”
    “You must be Ernesto’s wife,” I observed.
    She nodded. “I’m Pia Verdi.”
    “I’m Signor Amato and this is Signor Rumbolt.”
    Gussie favored Pia with a warm smile.
    She nodded again, grinning shyly. “I know. I saw your carriage arrive yesterday, and I asked Nita who you were. I heard the singing earlier today, and…” She paused to gesture toward Gussie. “While I was on my way to feed the pigs, I saw you out in the vineyard, drawing the grapes.”
    “I didn’t realize we were so interesting,” I replied lightly.
    “Oh, Signore, anything new is interesting in a place where one day is exactly like the next. Some may complain, but I’m glad the mistress brought the opera to the villa. I never heard such beautiful music before in all my life.”
    “I suppose we create a great deal of extra work, though.”
    She shrugged within her red cape. “I don’t mind. And Nita shouldn’t either, not since I’ve been helping her with the laundry and cooking.”
    I cocked an eyebrow at the body on the makeshift bier. “Then it’s doubly good of you to take so much care with someone you don’t know. You could have let his body stay as it was. No one would have faulted you.”
    “That wouldn’t be right. The poor man may be a stranger to me, but he has a mother somewhere, perhaps a wife and children. If one of my boys should ever chance to die in foreign parts, I hope someone will do the same.”
    “We saw one of your boys,” Gussie put in. “He wanted to help fix our carriage wheel, but Ernesto sent him back with the pig.”
    “That was Manuel. He’s fourteen. Basilio is just a year older. They’ve been working in the hemp all day.” She bit her lip and looked toward the door. “I really should be seeing to their supper.”
    “Go on, then. We’ll say a few prayers for the unfortunate stranger.”
    “God be praised,” she answered, keeping her eyes on the door and