Arcadia Awakens by Kai Meyer Read Free Book Online

figure clad from head to foot in the black worn in these parts by simple countrywomen stood by a grave just beyond one of the gratings. She kept raising a sledgehammer in both hands and bringing it down on the tombstone. One corner of the stone had already broken off, but the woman was not content with that. She went on hammering away without looking up, as the cars rolled slowly by, enveloping her in clouds of dust.
    Florinda leaned forward to look past Zoe and Rosa. “I know that woman,” she said.
    Rosa tore her eyes away from the bizarre spectacle and looked at her aunt.
    “Her son was a pentito , an informer who gave evidence for the prosecution against the families.” Florinda spoke without a trace of emotion. “He didn’t take the good advice the judges gave him. Instead of going into hiding abroad under a new name, he came back to visit his mother. His clan’s soldati picked him up at Messina harbor. A package was delivered to his mother every day for a week, each of them containing a part of his body.”
    Rosa looked back through the billowing dust. The old woman was leaning on the shaft of her hammer. Then she raised it again, trembling, and struck the tombstone another blow.
    “She’s begging for her life,” said Florinda. “She wants to show everyone she’s disowned him, she condemns his treachery to the families.”
    Rosa touched the glass of the window with her fingertips. “But he risked his own life to see her again.”
    “Obviously she has more sense than he did.”
    They had left the gateway with its grating behind; now there was nothing to be seen but the high walls again.
    “Will that help her?” asked Rosa.
    Florinda shrugged. “Someone will notice her gesture with approval.”
    An atmosphere of open hostility met them in the graveyard. The expensively dressed men and women waiting in a long line at the main entrance to the Carnevare family vault cast dark glances at the three Alcantara women.
    Florinda’s bodyguards, who had come in a second car, had been left at the gateway of the graveyard. The heads of dozens of families and the other family members did the same. Out of respect for the dead, the clans refrained from spectacular displays of feeling and unconcealed threats, but many here made no secret of their mutual dislike.
    It hardly affected Rosa at all. She still felt like an outsider observing a war-torn area, as if none of it had anything to do with her. But of course she was only pretending to herself. The moment she showed up here with Florinda and Zoe, there was no doubt whose side she was on. Every hostile glance directed at the Alcantaras was as much for her as for Florinda and Zoe.
    “Don’t worry,” whispered her aunt. “No one here will risk breaking the concordat.”
    “The what?”
    “An old word for a truce,” said Zoe. “None of these people like the Alcantaras, but no one would risk taking any action against us.”
    “If there’s a truce,” said Rosa, “who makes sure everyone observes it?”
    She got no answer, because the magnificent funerary chapel of the Carnevares was right ahead of them. It had to be one of the oldest structures in this graveyard; it was taller than the others and not made of marble, like some of the more modern vaults, but of the brown tuff stone used for the baroque palazzi. On both sides of the entrance, carvings of animal figures and faces went all the way up to the mighty gable.
    Alessandro Carnevare was standing at the entrance, accepting condolences. His black suit fit perfectly. He had combed his hair, but that hadn’t done much to control it; it was still tousled, unlike the rest of his family’s. Their hair was combed back and kept in place with gel.
    The last twenty yards to the chapel were slow going, as the crowd of humanity came to a near halt. Dark, reserved faces. Hostile glances their way now and then. Elegant gentlemen, but also a number of thuggish features looking out of place among the expensive designer