Secrecy - By Rupert Thomson Page 0,3

if he knew of an inn called the House of Shells. I had come too far, he said. It was on Via del Corno, behind the Palazzo Vecchio.

Rain fell, but not heavily, and I hurried on through the damp, curiously muted streets.

When I found the inn Borucher, the Grand Duke’s agent, had recommended, I passed beneath an archway and into a cramped courtyard. Soiled grey walls lifted high above me, the sky a black lid at the top. I doubted the sun would ever touch the ground, not even in the summer. Was this the right place? It didn’t look like much.

I was about to knock on the door when a girl of eleven or twelve appeared.

‘Is this the House of Shells?’ I said.

Her pale, square forehead reminded me of a blank sheet of paper, and she had threaded plants and bits of straw into her long, lank hair. Her shoes were the size of rowing boats.

‘This is the back entrance,’ she said. ‘And anyway, we’re full.’

‘I reserved a room.’

‘Who are you?’

‘The name’s Zummo.’

She led me down an unlit passageway that smelled of vinegar.

‘My mother will know what to do with you,’ she called out over her shoulder.

If her manner was grand, her gait was awkward and ungainly. Her whole torso heaved ceilingwards with every step, then slumped back again, as if, like a puppet, she was being manipulated from above by hidden strings. It occurred to me that she might have a club foot, or that her legs might not be of equal length.

We passed through another doorway and into a second courtyard, where a middle-aged woman in an orange shawl was bent over a flapping guinea fowl. She gave its neck a sudden, brutal twist, then straightened up and faced us, the dead bird dangling limply from her fist like a flower needing water.

‘You’re the sculptor,’ she said.

‘That’s right.’

‘I was expecting you a week ago.’

‘I walked from Siena. It took longer than I thought.’

She gave me a searching look, as if my words were a code that had to be deciphered. Her ash-coloured hair, which she had drawn back tightly over her skull, hung down like a rope between her shoulder blades. One of her top front teeth was missing.

‘Your luggage arrived,’ she said. ‘A mountain of stuff. I had it taken to your room.’

I thanked her.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll be charging you for those extra nights.’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m Signora de la Mar, by the way.’

‘That’s Spanish, isn’t it?’

‘My husband was Spanish, God rest his worthless soul.’ She crossed herself in a desultory way, then handed the guinea fowl to the girl. ‘Put this in the kitchen.’ When the girl had gone, she turned to me again. ‘Her name’s Fiore. I hope she doesn’t bother you.’

‘Is she your daughter?’

‘Yes.’

She showed me to my room, which was on the fifth floor, with dark beams on the ceiling and walls painted a dusky shade of rose. There was a writing desk, a fireplace, and a bed with a black metal frame. My luggage had been piled into an alcove, behind a brown velvet curtain.

‘The chimney works,’ she said, ‘but wood’s expensive.’

That night I slept fitfully. My chest felt tight, and there was a tangling inside my head, my brain made up of thousands of bits of string that were being knotted randomly, and at great speed. In the small hours I left the bed and parted the strips of oiled cloth that hung against the window. A view of towers and domes, and beyond them, darker than the sky, the ridge where I had stood a few hours earlier.

As I leaned on the sill, a dream came back to me. I had been climbing a steep staircase in the dark. When I reached the landing, I stumbled towards a door that opened as I approached. Inside the room was a man sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. I knew him to be the Grand Duke, though he lacked the ripe lips and protruding eyes the Medici family were famous for. In fact, with his ruddy cheeks and his fair hair, he resembled my brother Jacopo – Jacopo the source of all my hardship and misfortune. The Grand Duke acknowledged me, but appeared preoccupied. He was gazing at his right hand, which had closed into a fist. I thought he might have caught a fly in it, and listened for a faint, furious buzzing. I heard nothing.

Later, he led me out into the garden. Though it was evening,