Read 4 - The Iron Tongue of Midnight for Free Online

Weber. The other men straggled across the salon and into the dining room.
    Dinner had come straight from the farm to the table. Freshly caught trout, pork cutlets drizzled with a sauce of golden raisins, polenta with wild mushrooms, wine bottled in the estate’s own cantina: these delicacies and more absorbed the guests’ attention and hampered conversation.
    The meal held only one incident of note, an embarrassing one that I would rather forget. During the soup course, I was dipping my spoon when a sudden pair of blasts shook the room like an artillery discharge. I jumped and my little finger upended the flat rim of my soup plate. It was pumpkin soup, unfortunately. Bright orange flooded the white linen cloth.
    Everyone except Karl guffawed at the top of their lungs. Looking back, I believe they had all been waiting for just such an occurrence.
    “Oh, Tito, don’t worry. Sit back.” Octavia spoke through her giggles as I mopped frantically with my napkin. “The boys will take care of it.” She motioned to one of the young footmen stationed on each end of the marquetry sideboard. “Bring Signor Amato another bowl.”
    “What is that infernal racket?” I asked, for the banging continued, coursing through the villa in rhythmic volleys, now very close, now diminishing in the distance.
    “The shutters,” Octavia exclaimed, cheeks red from laughter. “Every night Ernesto closes the shutters, and every morning before breakfast he opens them. Fortunately, the morning operation is not as noisy.”
    “How many shutters do you have?” I asked, struggling to regain my dignity.
    “Oh, I don’t know,” she answered. “I can’t be bothered with the details of this place.”
    “I know,” said Emilio. “It’s thirty-eight pairs. Every slam is burned into my brain.”
    I looked around the dining room. It was an inside room; the walls were covered in moss green damask punctuated by mirrors instead of windows. Apparently I would not witness the procedure until another night.
    Carmela was no longer laughing. She ran her fingers nervously up and down the stem of her wine glass. “Why do you go to such trouble to secure the house? Is this part of the country infested with bandits?”
    Octavia dismissed Carmela’s worry with a wave of her fork. “No bandits around here. It’s quite peaceful, really. Trespassing and filching poultry are the only crimes that keep the self-styled Capitano della Compagna from his interminable riding and hunting.”
    “Who is he?” asked Carmela.
    “Captain Forti, the high constable posted at Molina Mori. He was in the army once, the hero of some battle or other, so he insists on being called Captain. As an officer of the law, he leaves much to be desired, but he’s all we have.”
    “If the country isn’t crime-ridden, then why do we endure this nightly fusillade?” Emilio looked up and down the table, perhaps seeking support for a request that the shutters remain open.
    “My husband has already fought that battle with Ernesto,” Octavia replied. “The shutters must be closed at night because they have always been closed at night. Ernesto’s father closed and latched them when he was steward, and his father before him. It’s useless to argue with the man. If he’s not begging money to repair a fence or purchase a new plow, he’s lecturing Vincenzo on the history of the estate.”
    Karl had been listening with a nasty frown. He touched his napkin to his lips, then cocked his thin face toward Octavia. The composer spoke the first words I’d heard from him with a noticeable German accent: “But Vincenzo is master, now. His word should be law.”
    Octavia narrowed her eyes and nodded thoughtfully.
    Pretending to dab at a spot of soup on my sleeve, Carmela leaned close and whispered, “Karl shouldn’t complain. If Vincenzo were truly the master, he would apply his boot to the seat of some German breeches and Karl would find himself on the public road with his bags flying past his