Secrecy by Rupert Thomson Read Free Book Online

one of whom, Toldo, was a native of Messina, I found myself on a grass track that had a stone wall on one side and a row of myrtle trees on the other, and all I could hear was the occasional grunt or screech from the menagerie, and the faint click and trickle of a fountain, which reminded me of Fiore’s murdered countess and her ghostly, bouncing pearls. After a few steps, the track forked left into a paved courtyard with out buildings on three sides. I had more space than ever before. The old tack room, which looked north and backed on to a bank of earth, was cool even in hot weather, almost like being underground, and was ideal as a place in which to carry out dissections, while the south-facing stalls had been transformed into an airy studio where I could melt and model wax.
    I worked hard for the rest of the summer. Keen to prevent my techniques from becoming common knowledge, I turned down various offers from would-be assistants or apprentices. I didn’t need help, and I resented all forms of interruption. There was something private, almost sacred, about wax: it demanded vigilance, devotion, subterfuge. Secrecy could be imposed from without, like a punishment or an affliction, but it could also be cultivated, or even willed. It could offer comfort. Provide a refuge. According to Herodotus, the Persians used to cover their dead in wax before they placed them in the ground. Wax was, in itself, a form of protection, a kind of veil.
    Autumn came. Leaves scuttled across the stable yard, and a keen, metallic smell drifted down from the Casentino. The first snows had fallen in the mountains. One morning I was brushing fast, thin strips of molten wax into the inside of a mould when the Grand Duke appeared in the open doorway. He was alone. In his bottle-green silk and gold brocade, he reminded me of one of the beetles I had studied on a visit to Redi’s laboratory. I hesitated.
    ‘Please don’t stop,’ he said.
    After watching for a moment, he remarked on the quickness of my hands.
    ‘You have to be quick, Your Highness,’ I said, ‘or the wax dries on the brush.’
    While I covered the mould with a piece of muslin to protect the cooling wax, the Grand Duke surveyed the large round window I had installed in the southern wall to let in light.
    ‘It all looks so different,’ he murmured.
    I asked if he approved.
    He nodded. ‘I prefer it.’
    I led him across the courtyard to my office, where we would be more comfortable.
    ‘I don’t usually set foot outdoors at this time of year.’ He gave the clouds a rapid, fearful glance, as if they might be capable of violence, and pressed a handkerchief over his mouth and nose.
    Once in the office, I threw a log on the embers that were glowing in the grate.
    The Grand Duke coughed. ‘It was my wife who used to keep her horses here.’
    I watched him carefully. All I knew was that he had been married to Louis XIV’s cousin, Marguerite-Louise of Orléans, and that the marriage had failed, but I remembered what he had said about horses, and how he no longer found it pleasing to keep them. I had thought it an odd remark, even at the time.
    ‘They were French, of course,’ he went on, ‘like everything she surrounded herself with.’ He sniffed at the air. ‘I’m not sure I can’t still smell them. Can you smell them, Zummo?’
    I inhaled. Woodsmoke. Plaster.
    ‘Possibly,’ I said.
    ‘Our marriage was torture, from beginning to end.’
    The words had burst out of him, as if they couldn’t be contained any longer, but I had no idea why he had chosen me as an audience. I rather wished he hadn’t. The wrong kind of knowledge could be dangerous. People were always being persecuted for what they knew.
    He sank down on to a chair. ‘You wouldn’t believe some of the things she said to me.’
    Beyond him, between two outbuildings, the gardens sloped uphill, the foliage on the trees a muted gold. ‘Didn’t she appreciate these beautiful surroundings?’
    He trained his