“You’re an archaeologist, then?”
“An Egyptologist and philologist. There’s a difference, you know—we study a great deal more than dirt, pots, and bones. We’ve been excavating the tomb of a Nineteenth Dynasty scribe, full of fascinating hieratic inscriptions. Of course, the tomb was looted in antiquity, but fortunately all the looters wanted were the gold and gems. They left the scrolls and inscriptions intact. We found the scribe himself in his sarcophagus, holding a bundle of mysterious scrolls full of magical formulas which we have yet to unroll and translate. They’re exceedingly delicate.”
“Fascinating.”
“And then, come spring, I go to Cornwall, the family place.”
“Spring, in England?”
She laughed. “I love mud. And freezing rain. And sprawling on a fur rug in front of a roaring fire reading a good book. How about you, Mr. Pendergast? What do you love?”
The question seemed to take Pendergast by surprise, and he covered his confusion with a sip of wine. “I love this wine of yours. Fresh, simple, unpretentious.”
“It’s made from malvasia vines brought to the island almost four thousand years ago by Minoan traders. For me, the flavor somehow evokes history itself, the Minoans crossing the wine-dark sea in trireme ships, bound for distant islands . . .” She laughed, sweeping her black hair from her face. “I’m an incurable romantic. When I was a child, I wanted to grow up to be Odysseus.” She looked at Pendergast. “And you? When you were a child, what did you want to be?”
“A great white hunter.”
She laughed. “What a curious ambition! And did you become one?”
“In a way. But on a hunt in Tanzania . . . I discovered quite suddenly that I had lost the taste for it.”
More silence. D’Agosta gave up trying to make sense of what tack Pendergast was taking. He sipped the wine with renewed interest. It was very pleasant, if a bit dry. And the bread was fabulous, thick and chewy, the olive oil so fresh it was spicy. He dipped a piece of bread, stuffed it in his mouth, followed with another. He hadn’t eaten breakfast and had been a bit too severe with his diet. He glanced surreptitiously at his watch. If Pendergast didn’t hurry things up, they’d miss the ferry.
Then, to D’Agosta’s surprise, the woman brought the subject up herself.
“Speaking of history, there’s quite a lot of that in my own family. You know of my great-grandfather, Luciano Toscanelli?”
“I do.”
“He did two things in life exceptionally well: playing the violin and seducing women. He was the Mick Jagger of his age. His groupies were countesses, baronesses, princesses. Sometimes he would have two or three women in a day, and not always at different times.” She laughed lightly.
Pendergast cleared his throat, took a piece of bread.
“He had one great love, however, and that was my great-grandmother. The Duchess of Cumberland. He gave her an illegitimate daughter, my grandmother.” She paused, looked at Pendergast curiously. “This is why you came, isn’t it?”
It took Pendergast a moment to reply. “Yes, it is.”
She sighed. “My great-grandfather ended up like so many in the days before penicillin: with a bad dose of venereal disease.”
“Lady Maskelene,” said Pendergast hastily, “please don’t think I have come to pry into your family’s private affairs. I really only have one question that needs answering.”
“I know what that question is. But first, I want you to know the history of my family.”
“There is no need—”
Maskelene blushed, her hand touching the buttons of her shirt. “I want you to know it up front, that’s all. Then we won’t have to speak of it again.”
D’Agosta listened with surprise. I want you to know it up front. Up front of what? Pendergast seemed equally nonplussed. In any case, when he had no answer for this, she began again.
“So my great-grandfather got syphilis. It eventually progressed to the tertiary stage, where the spirochetes attack the brain. His playing changed. It grew bizarre. He gave a concert in Florence where he was pelted by the audience. The family who owned the violin demanded it back. He wouldn’t give it up. He fled to escape them and their agents, traveling from city to city, driven by a rising insanity and aided by countless women. The family’s agents and private detectives pursued him doggedly—but quietly, because keeping the family name secret was of the utmost importance. My great-grandfather stayed one step ahead. He played in his hotel rooms at night: insane, shocking, even terrifying renderings of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, executed—so the story goes—with enormous technical virtuosity but cold, strange, all wrong. Those who heard him say it was as if the devil himself had taken up the violin.”
She paused.