A Songbird's Lament

Chapter 5

Author's Note: Did you know I had to look up the moon phases in September of 1710? Anyways, happy holidays and a belated Merry Christmas to anyone who celebrates it! 

Water clinging to his hair and forehead, Gabriele breathed slowly and shallowly. The barber tightly wrapped his heavily bleeding wounds with a strip of cloth before his assistant began to carry him to the bed next to the room where the boy had sung for them. The process was organized, they had without a doubt done this countless times before. As one man placed him in bed, the other lit a candle. Together, they crept out of the room silently.

"Sleep well, little bird," the barber said, almost mockingly. The boy didn't respond. Hours passed before he would ever stir again.

Empty. The boy's hands sluggishly searched for his brother, his mother, anyone. No, the bed was too soft. This was not his bed. This was not his house. Gabriele finally mustered up the energy to open his eyes. His head felt as though he had been lifted up and spun around for a long time in the air.

As soon as he opened his eyes, his jaw fell open. Gabriele had been right about the bed being too soft to be his own. Where was he?

A candle sat on a table made of the finest polished wood, and possibly the only polished wood he had ever seen in his life. Wax had dripped all over the table, and Gabriele wanted to scratch it off with his fingernails; no, he needed to. But what if he scratched the wood? He couldn't touch something so nice. Never. He wouldn't risk damaging it.

Gabriele smiled to himself, wondering if the chamber in the room was made of solid gold. As he slowly leaned over to see under the bed, he yelped. Something felt missing and it wasn't just his family. One hand immediately went between his legs, and then he threw off the blanket as best as he could in his weakened condition. As he did, he felt as though his brain had rattled inside his skull. Gabriele and the white sheets below him were stained a rusty red from his dried blood. A large amount had leaked from the cloth tightly wrapped around him. Oh, God. He felt his stomach drop.

Everything that had happened began to come back to him. The carriage, the rain, his father leaving him with the strange man in the wig, his mother on the ground unconscious. He could hear the men clapping for him after he had finished singing, the wine, and then the sudden heaviness of his limbs. But why was he even there, singing for unfamiliar people?

Gabriele's jaw tightened, and he grabbed the sheets in front of his crotch, his fingers locked in a fist. He felt dizzier than ever. The water was warm. His legs were warm...it hadn't been the short bath he had been given. It was the blood flowing from his freshly severed family jewels that were covering his thighs. The men had taken something from him.

Gabriele's surroundings began to spin. His head flew in the sky as his body was on the bed, feeling the pain worsen. The color drained from the boy's face and he fell backward onto the bed, his eyes cast upwards to the ceiling. Nothing was worth sounding as divine as Lorenzo. The last of the candle burned out.

"Oh heaven..." He croaked before going limp. The ray of light from the window couldn't wake him.

The barber and his assistant, who were in an adjoining room for their midday meal, hearing a noise from Gabriele's room abruptly looked up.

"Do y'suppose he is even still alive," the assistant asked, an expression of genuine concern crossing his face for a fleeting moment, "It would certainly be a shame if he had..."

"Yes, he was rather weak last night," The barber replied, hastily wiping his hands on his shirt, "I believe that he could have become quite famou-"

"There is a chance that he has not died yet, is there not?" the assistant interjected, standing up.

Silently, the two men crept into the room where the boy was lying. His chest rose and fell ever so slightly. Mouthing a few words to his assistant, the barber approached the bed. He pressed two fingers to Gabriele's neck, then waved over his assistant. The barber looked down, seeing the cloth had soaked through with blood. The color began to drain from the boy's face.

"Hurry Nicolò, fetch some bandages for him," the barber hissed to his assistant, "These are filthy!"

While the men were rewrapping him in some fresh cloth and disposing of the old ones, Gabriele's brows furrowed.

"Have I become an angel yet, Father...?" he mumbled in his sleep.

The two men glanced at each other. The barber's assistant raised his eyebrow.

"Poor boy, he may be going mad from the blood loss," the barber said, ruffling Gabriele's hair, "We may have to send him to an asylum rather than that school of singing that Pagnotto was going to have him attend..."

As the barber left Gabriele's room, his assistant glanced out the window. A man in a white wig stepped out of a carriage in front of the shop.

"Er, speaking of Pagnotto..." he said at a dangerously loud whisper.

"Speak quieter! What is it, Nicolò?" the barber whispered back even louder.

"He is here, for some reason I cannot comprehend..."

"You asinine son of a bitch! Obviously, he's here for the boy!"

"My mother is your siste-"

From downstairs in the shop came the sound of knocking. The barber muttered a string of profanities under his breath, then straightening his shirt, left to answer the door.

"Ah, Signor Pagnotto. We were not expecting y-" the barber said, looking at the man in the doorway.

"There has been a change in plans, I am to take him to Napoli now." the man in the wig said brusquely shouldering his way into the shop.

"Ah, are you sure? The boy appears to be feeling unwell-"

"A bed and a warm room should do him better than whatever rat-infested living quarters you have provided him here,"

"You bastard! Take the boy and never come back ever again!"
"I suppose that works for me, the last few boys you cut have all died. Let us pray that this one does not turn out like the others,"

Making his way up to the room where he had heard Gabriele sing the night before, the man breezed past the barber's assistant and into the room where the boy was sleeping. He looked down at Gabriele. The barber was right, he had bled a dangerously large amount and was clearly in no shape to travel to Napoli. But who was he to deny his superiors the new soprano he had promised to bring by Sunday night? Picking him up, the man in the wig sighed.

"Oh Stefano, this was not the life of a distinguished man you had desired to have when you moved to Napoli..." he thought, walking out the door.

A light rain fell on the man and the boy as they entered the carriage. Behind them, the angry barber shook his fist at them.

"I shall have you hanged for insulting me and my business like that, you filthy dog!" the barber spat, watching the carriage roll away.

"Do you think the boy'll survive, Uncle?" the barber's assistant and nephew asked, joining him at the doorway.

The man in the wig, or rather, Stefano Pagnotto, was having regrets about his job as he dressed the still sleeping Gabriele in spare clothes that he had bought with money from his own pockets. He sat back after he finished, staring at the fields the carriage had passed but not really seeing them.

Shifting slightly in his sleep, Gabriele's eyelids fluttered open.

"Signor, are you taking me back home?" he asked groggily from where he was sprawled out.

"Hush, my boy. Napoli and the school you will be attending will be your new home," Pagnotto replied, almost kindly.

The light of a full moon shone down on the carriage as it arrived at the school in Napoli. The building was silent but a few windows were illuminated with candlelight. Somebody inside shouted or laughed in amusement, Pagnotto couldn't tell. The human silhouettes moved.

"Oh God," Pagnotto thought, "He is to be butchered for a second time."