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her way to California with that rich Texan.
    Gio opened the library door. “Dinner is ready, Your Excellency,” he said.

5
    The napery was white and soft; the candles, gold and glowing; the silver, polished and gleaming. Gio had done himself proud. There was cold sliced eel, flecked with sparkling ice and hot steaming
scampi
in the warmer on the sideboard.
    Gio had changed to his purple and green butler’s uniform and stood proudly, holding the chair at the head of the long, white, empty table for Cesare.
    Cesare sat down and reached for a napkin. “My compliments, Gio. You are indeed a genius.”
    Gio bobbed proudly. “I try, Your Excellency.” He began to open a bottle of white Orvieto. “It is not like the old days, when the board was crowded for dinner every night. It has been a long time.”
    Cesare tasted the wine and nodded. It had been a long time. But the world had moved on. Time would not stand still, even for Gio. He looked down the table.
    ***
    It had not been like this after the war. Then they were lucky if there was food on the table, much less cloth. He remembered the night that Matteo had come to see him. It had been the same day that he had met him in his uncle’s office. He had been seated at this same table then, eating cheese and bread and apple from the naked wooden board.
    There had been the sound of a car outside and Gio had gone to the door. A moment later he was back. “Signor Matteo to see Your Excellency,” he had said.
    Cesare told Gio to bring him in. Matteo had come into the room, his quick appraising eyes seeing everything at once. The naked board, the poor food, the steel cutlery. His face told Cesare nothing.
    Cesare waved him to a seat and invited him to share the food. Matteo sat down and shook his head. He had already eaten. Cesare couldn’t care less. He was of the class to whom poverty wasn’t important. It was a point of annoyance, not of embarrassment. He was secure in his position.
    The amenities over, Gio cleared the table and Cesare leaned back in his chair, his strong white teeth biting into the apple.
    Matteo looked at him. He saw the lean rakish face, the dark, almost black, ice-blue eyes and strong jaw of the young man opposite him. He also saw the savage strength in the wrist and hands that held the apple. “Do you speak English, Major?” he asked in that language.
    Cesare nodded. “I was educated in England before the war,” he answered in the same language.
    “Good,” Matteo answered. “If you don’t mind we’ll speak in that language then. My Italian… well… I left here when I was a child of three.”
    “I don’t mind,” Cesare answered.
    “I suppose you are wondering why I am here?” Matteo had asked.
    Cesare nodded silently.
    Matteo waved his hand, indicating the castle. “My father used to tell me of the wonders of the Castolo Cardinali. How they used to look up from the village and see it all gay and sparkling with light.”
    Cesare put the core of the apple on the table and shrugged his shoulders. “It is the fortunes of war.”
    Matteo answered quickly. “Or the good fortune of your uncle.”
    “That moneylender,” Cesare said contemptuously. “He owns everything now.”
    Matteo looked directly into Cesare’s eyes. “While he lives,” he said.
    “That kind is too stingy to die,” Cesare said.
    Matteo smiled. “In America we have a name for that kind of man. Shylock. After the usurer in the play.”
    Cesare smiled back. “America has a way of expressing things very pithily. Shylock. It is very good.”
    Matteo continued as if there hadn’t been the minor diversion. “Your uncle is alone, he has no family, no other relative but you. And he has a bank with two hundred million lire.”
    Cesare looked at him. He recognized himself in the older man. “I have thought about it many times. The pig does not deserve to live. But if I were to kill him it would do me no good.”
    Matteo shook his head seriously. “True. But if he were to