Blood Fever Page 15

  The guard led the two boys across the piazza past an extravagantly carved fountain of Neptune on the backs of four dolphins that spouted water from their mouths.

  As they got nearer the main building James saw that it was built into the mountainside. The rooms at the rear must have been carved out of the rock. The guard took them up the steps and into a huge, gloomy marble hall whose walls were hung with oil paintings.

  ‘Aspettate qui,’ said the guard and he wandered off, leaving James and Mauro alone.

  ‘The Count must be very rich,’ said James, looking around. ‘Much money,’ he added, rubbing his fingertips together.

  Mauro gave a dismissive gesture. ‘He is Barbati.’

  ‘From the mountains?’ said James.

  ‘Sì. He is same as me,’ said Mauro. ‘From my village. He is not count. È un contadino.’

  ‘Contadino?’ said James. ‘What is a contadino?’

  ‘Pastore,’ said Mauro, then he made a bleating noise.

  ‘He’s a shepherd, you mean?’ said James, and Mauro mimed two horns. ‘A goatherd?’

  ‘Sì.’

  James laughed and they sat down on a stone bench. James rested his aching head in his hands and in a moment he was asleep, but as his head nodded forward it jerked him awake.

  He mustn’t doze off here.

  He got up and went to look at a painting to try to keep himself awake.

  It showed a grisly religious scene. In the background various unarmed men were being slaughtered, and in the foreground was a kneeling saint with a neat halo, his eyes upturned to heaven, a small smile on his lips. A barbarian with an equally calm expression was in the process of driving a sword through the saint’s head.

  ‘He looks almost happy, doesn’t he? The fool,’ said a voice, and James became aware of a sour-sweet, sickly smell of decay. He turned to see a man with his arm in a sling, his shoulder heavily bandaged. He seemed slightly feverish and had extraordinary grey eyes with irises so pale they looked almost white.

  ‘Look at him,’ said man, pointing to the saint. ‘Do you think he wants to die?’

  James didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

  ‘He wants to go to heaven and see his god,’ the man went on, his voice heavily accented. ‘I fear he will be disappointed. This painting is a lie. I have seen men die, good men, strong men, brave men. And at the end it is always the same. Terror. Do you know what every man thinks of the last thing before he dies? Even the toughest man?’

  ‘No,’ said James. ‘God maybe.’

  ‘God?’ said the man, and he laughed. ‘No, he thinks of his mother. He cries out for her. “Mama…” It is a pitiful thing to hear. I was in many battles in the war. The worst thing was knowing that I would be the same as everyone else. I knew that one day I would be sitting in the mud with my guts spilt out into my lap, trying to stuff them back inside me, crying like a baby and calling for my mother.’ He sniffed and turned to James. ‘The best you can hope for is a clean death and a quick one,’ he said. ‘One day you may have to fight in a war. One day you might have to kill a man. And you will have to have a hard heart. To look someone in the eye and see his fear, to know that this was some mother’s child, that is a difficult thing.’

  The man fell silent for a while, lost in thought and James still didn’t know what to say. Finally he snapped out of it and offered his good hand to James.

  ‘I am Zoltan the Magyar, by the way,’ he said. ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Bond, James Bond.’

  ‘Ah. Victor Delacroix’s young cousin?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know him then?’

  ‘There was talk about you at dinner last night,’ said Zoltan. ‘Ugo was expecting you to arrive with Victor.’

  ‘I… I couldn’t come before.’

  ‘But now you are here?’

  ‘I have some news for Victor, some bad news. I need to find him. A guard’s gone to look I think, but –’

  ‘Ugo’s guards are useless,’ said Zoltan. ‘I will find your cousin for you. Trust me.’

  Zoltan smiled and walked away.

  James took one last look at the painting before going to sit down again. Mauro was lying on the bench, snoring, and James envied him.

  He sat there, fighting off sleep, until he heard a clatter of footsteps and saw Count Ugo arriving with the guard. He spotted Mauro and a look of cold fury came on to his ghost-like face.

  ‘What is this dirty peasant doing in here?’ he said.

  ‘He’s with me,’ said James.

  ‘You should not bring your servant in here,’ said Ugo. ‘He is filthy. Look at him.’

  ‘He’s not my servant, he’s my friend,’ said James and he shook Mauro, telling him to wake up.

  As Mauro got groggily to his feet Ugo spoke to him viciously in Italian.

  Mauro looked half asleep and confused, not sure where he was or what was going on. He’d been through a lot and his face was still horribly bruised from the fight.

  ‘Pastore,’ he muttered to James and sniggered.

  Ugo snapped at him, yelling now. Mauro replied, equally angrily, and James saw the Count’s eyes go wide and his nostrils flare.

  He slapped Mauro hard across the face. Then, before James could do anything, the boy snorted, and spat once at Ugo’s feet, leaving a sticky gob of saliva on the tiled floor.

  Ugo shrank back and put a hand to his mouth, gagging. ‘Look what he has done!’ he screamed at James. ‘How dare he spit on my floor! He is a disgusting peasant. I will beat him for this.’

  ‘No,’ said James. ‘You shouldn’t have slapped him. He’s not your servant. He’s with me.’

  ‘I am going to hurt that boy so badly.’

  ‘No,’ said James again. ‘You will do nothing to him.’

  Ugo glared at James, and for the first time James saw colour in his chalk-white face. His cheeks and neck were flushed red.

  ‘How dare you give me orders,’ he said quietly.

  Thank God, Zoltan came back at that moment.

  ‘Come now, Ugo,’ he said casually. ‘It is not so bad.’ He pulled out a handkerchief and quickly wiped up the mess. ‘There,’ he said. ‘It is gone.’

  But Ugo hadn’t finished with James.

  ‘This is your fault, boy,’ he said coldly. ‘You should have more control of your servants.’

  Before James could speak Zoltan put his good arm across his shoulders. ‘Really, Ugo,’ he said. ‘He is just a boy. And he is looking for his cousin. Come along, James, I think I know where he is.’

  Zoltan said this all in a rush and ended by sweeping James and Mauro out of the building.

  ‘Keep walking and don’t look back,’ he said. ‘I think the more distance we put between ourselves and Count Ugo, the better.’

  ‘Thanks for helping me,’ said James.

  ‘My pleasure.’ Zoltan smiled at him. ‘But I think you should get your friend well away from here. Ugo is a dangerous man when he is angry.’

  ‘I have to find Victor,’ said James. ‘Do you really know where he is?’

  ‘I believe he is at the dam,’ said Zoltan. ‘Come, I will take you.’

  A second funicular railway led from the piazza up to the dam. They found Poliponi waiting there for a car to arrive. He was so wrapped up in his own bizarre world he didn’t seem in the least surprised to see the two boys there,

  ‘Is it not magnificent?’ he said before James could say anything. ‘This palazzo! It is the most pure expression of surrealism I have ever seen. I am in love with it. I want to live here forever! La Casa Polipo seems dull next to it. Count Ugo is a god!’

  ‘There’s been a robbery,’ James blurted out and Poliponi stopped, his mouth hanging open.

  ‘What? Here? What are you saying?’

  ‘No. At the villa. Bandits. They’ve taken everything… All your pictures. Everything…’

  ‘My pictures?’ Poliponi’s skin turned grey and all the life went out of him. ‘But surely you are joking…’
>
  ‘No.’

  Mauro took over and explained what had happened in Italian. The artist became very anxious and agitated, not quite believing what he was hearing.

  Soon the railway car rolled into view, stopped and emptied water from its tank into a sluice. Poliponi had to be helped on, and he collapsed on to one of the padded benches, too devastated to say anything more.

  As they began to move James looked up at the dam, towering above them, cutting right across the sky.

  ‘It is quite a set-up Ugo has here, isn’t?’ said Zoltan.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said James.

  ‘But is it a palazzo or a fortress, I wonder? Everything must come up the mountain or go down it on the railway. There is no other way. Apart from through the mines, which are guarded by Ugo’s men. Oh, and there is his beloved Sikorsky, of course.’

  ‘I was wondering about that,’ said James. ‘How do you land a seaplane halfway up a mountain?’

  Zoltan didn’t answer for in the process of trying to sit down he had knocked his bad arm against the side of the carriage and now he cursed loudly.

  James had been longing to ask him about his injury and, although it was perhaps not polite, he couldn’t stop himself.

  ‘How did you hurt your arm?’ he said.

  ‘I got into a fight with a mermaid,’ said Zoltan.

  ‘I didn’t know mermaids were so dangerous,’ said James.

  ‘Oh, they are,’ said Zoltan. ‘People think of them as pretty little girls with fishes’ tails from fairy stories, but they are vicious creatures, James. They have sharp teeth. Keep away from mermaids.’

  ‘I will.’ James said no more. If Zoltan didn’t want to talk about the wound he wasn’t going to press him.

  The carriage trundled into shadow and stopped inside a wooden winch-house. As James got out he saw that the cable attached to the front of the car wound round a giant drum and then snaked off down a second track.

  ‘This way,’ said Zoltan and James followed him out of the winch-house into the sunlight.

  Behind the dam, completely hidden from the outside world by high cliffs, was a wide lake. A smart motor launch was moored here next to the Sikorsky, which sat in the water like a giant ungainly white bird. So that answered James’s question.

  ‘There is your cousin,’ said Zoltan, pointing, and James spotted Victor at the far end of the dam, studying the cliffs with a pair of field glasses.

  James set off towards him, but felt nervous all of a sudden.

  He hated being the bearer of bad news.

  How was Victor going to take it?

  15

  Su Compoidori

  ‘Everything? They have taken everything? I cannot believe it. I thought I was safe there.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said James.

  ‘No, James,’ said Victor. ‘You could not have done more. You were very brave. I didn’t want to bring you here to the mountains, in case of trouble, and look what happened…’

  ‘What will you do?’ James asked.

  ‘If it was local men,’ said Victor, ‘if they were just bandits, then they will probably try and sell the paintings back to me. That is their way. The paintings will be of no value to them. It just goes to show you, James, you cannot hide from the world.’

  As they walked slowly back to the winch-house James glanced over the edge of the dam. There was only a very low wall here and it was an awfully long way down. He tested himself, walking right next to the wall to see if the height unnerved him. He was relieved to find that the drop didn’t scare him. He didn’t feel dizzy and he had no desire to throw himself off. The dive from the rocks seemed to have cured him of his vertigo.

  When they reached the railway carriage Victor spent a few minutes talking to Mauro and Poliponi. James and Zoltan stood outside by the artificial lake, watching the light play on the water. James was mesmerised by the dancing golden sparkles and went into a trance, half-asleep on his feet.

  ‘You look like you could do with a bed,’ said Zoltan.

  ‘It was a long night,’ said James.

  The peace was disturbed by a splash. One of Ugo’s bored guards was throwing stones into the water. James watched the ripples spread out across the surface and disappear where a long overhanging shelf of rock shaded the right-hand side of the lake.

  The sound of horns and drumming drifted up from the valley.

  ‘The carnival will be starting soon,’ said Zoltan. ‘Will you stay?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said James. ‘It’s up to Victor.’

  ‘I will have to go back immediately,’ said Victor on the way down in the carriage. ‘I am so sorry, James. This has ruined your holiday. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if you should come back with us. It might still be dangerous. But what else can you do?’ He looked out of the window and slammed his hand on the glass. ‘I should never have come here.’

  He sat down heavily on one of the benches, his head slumped in his hands.

  James decided to try and change the subject to take Victor’s mind off his troubles.

  ‘What were you doing up at the dam?’ he asked. ‘I saw you looking at something through your field glasses.’

  ‘I was inspecting the rocks,’ said Victor, raising his head and wiping his face. ‘Ugo is crazy. He should never have built a dam there. Any engineer would have told him so. It is not safe.’

  ‘Not safe?’ asked Zoltan. ‘I don’t like the sound of that. Will we be drowned in our beds?’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Victor, trying to smile. ‘But the rock ledge along the northern side of the lake does not look stable. Ugo has drilled deep into the mountain; he will have weakened something that was already weak. These mountains are mostly limestone, which is very soft. He was lucky that one of his explosions didn’t loosen anything. It would not take much to undermine that rock ledge. The water in the lake may already be doing it.’

  ‘Ugo always did have big ideas,’ said Zoltan. ‘But he will listen to no one.’

  At the piazza Zoltan said goodbye and Victor and Poliponi went off to collect their belongings from the palazzo. James and Mauro transferred to the other funicular railway and when the adults returned a few minutes later they all made their way down to the valley.

  Sant’ Ugo was even more crowded than before and it was a struggle moving through the packed streets. When they reached the main square James was surprised to see Peter Love-Haight and a group of Eton boys, including Perry Mandeville.

  ‘Look!’ he said excitedly to Victor. ‘It’s my friends from Eton.’

  James called over to them and shoved his way through the milling throng.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he yelled, delighted to see some familiar faces.

  ‘Mister Cooper-ffrench heard about the carnival and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss,’ said Haight. ‘We’re all staying in a campsite just outside town with a lot of Sardinian schoolboys.’ Haight stopped and frowned at James. ‘How are you?’ he said. ‘Are you all right? You look done in.’

  James introduced Victor and Poliponi to Haight and told him what had happened.

  ‘This is awful,’ said Haight, shaking his head. ‘Quite appalling. You must be particularly upset, Signor Poliponi.’

  ‘My paintings are my children,’ said Poliponi, who had never married and had no real children.

  ‘What will you do?’ said Haight.

  ‘I am driving straight back,’ said Victor. ‘But I don’t know what to do with James. There will not be a very happy atmosphere at Casa Polipo.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he stay with us?’ said Perry, who had been listening intently. ‘We’ll look after him.’

  Victor turned to Peter Haight now, with a questioning look on his face.

  ‘It’s certainly an option,’ said Haight. ‘We’re off tomorrow to look at some caves near Dorgali. Thye’ve got the largest stalagmite in Europe’

  Victor turned back to James. ‘It makes sense for you to stay with your school party,’ he sa
id. ‘Until I am sure it is safe and the villa is back in order. Then I will send a telegram and you can spend the last few days of your holiday with us in Capo d’Orso.’

  ‘All right,’ said James. ‘And please – don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Do you have anything with you?’

  ‘I brought my bag with me. Just in case.’

  ‘Always prepared, eh, James?’ Victor smiled.

  ‘We’ll look after him for you, Monsieur Delacroix,’ said Haight, ‘and make sure we send him back to you in one piece.’

  ‘Thank you, Peter,’ said Victor. ‘But I sometimes think that James can look after himself. Now, where is Mauro?’

  They found him lying on a bench, fast asleep.

  ‘The poor boy,’ said Victor. ‘He is exhausted. He cannot travel like this. His village is not far from here. He should go there and rest for a few days with his family. He has had quite a shock.’ Victor put a hand on James’s shoulder. ‘James, we will go quickly before he wakes. Otherwise I know he will insist on driving me. Tell him that I said he must go home. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  James took Victor to the Hispano-Suiza and fetched his bag, but, just as they were about to drive off, Poliponi became agitated and tried to get out of the car, muttering something about saying goodbye to Count Ugo.

  ‘Forget about him,’ said Victor, pulling the artist back in. ‘He is a fool.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ said Poliponi angrily. ‘When you have seen with your own eyes all that he has achieved.’

  ‘It is because I have seen it that I can say it,’ Victor snapped. ‘I have seen his palazzo and I have seen his insane dam. Everything here is fake. Nothing is what it seems. His fine buildings, they are not stone. Their fronts are plaster. One heavy rainstorm and they will crumble. Everything about this place is a lie.’

  ‘You are just jealous,’ said Poliponi.

  ‘Of what?’ Victor scoffed. ‘Ugo wants to show off. But he has nothing to show off about. There is no silver here. There never was. I have seen many silver mines in my time, Poliponi. This is the wrong kind of rock to bear silver. He is an actor playing at being an emperor. Come, we are going. Goodbye, James.’