Chapter1
The first English person I encountered as I wandered the vast city of Rome in February of 1820 was a man I already knew.
Or at least, I thought I knew him. I spied him outside the great church of Sant’Agnese en Agone in the Piazza Navona, that plaza that glides its wondrous length where an ancient stadium once stood. I’d paused to admire the fountain designed by Bernini with its vast marble figures that represented the great rivers of the world. An obelisk—purloined from Egypt—filled with mysterious hieroglyphs, rose from its center.
I had been contemplating these hieroglyphs, which I’d grown interested in during my sojourn along the Nile, when the gentleman in question ambled from the interior of the church and into a tiny passageway that led from the piazza to narrower streets behind it.
I called out, but over the fountain’s rushing water, a sudden wind, and a group of tourists that had come to see the piazza, he had no hope of hearing me.
Curious, I left my post and followed him, wondering if I had indeed recognized the fellow. I did not know him well, but I’d been introduced to him at one of the many gatherings in England I’d attended as the guest of my friend Lucius Grenville.
My quarry seemed to be in no hurry, and I thought I’d quickly catch up to him. However, as I emerged from the passageway, the walls next to me grimy and flaking, I found myself in another narrow street crossways to mine but empty.
The fellow must have picked up his pace and plunged down yet another lane that led from this one. I heard a step and turned that direction, following an artery that ran between tall houses on one side and the bulk of a church wall on the other. I rounded the front of the church, which was shut this early in the day, and continued.
My confidence that I knew my way around these back streets began to evaporate as I turned another corner, and then another. When I’d arrived in the city a few days ago, I’d spent hours exploring it, with an entire afternoon at the ancient Forum Romano and the wreck of the Colosseum. Brewster had poked about with me, and I had thought I’d learned Rome quite well.
But at present, I had to admit I was hopelessly lost.
No sign of my gentleman either. Presumably he lodged somewhere nearby and had entered his abode when I’d been in another lane.
As I had no compelling need to speak to him and no reason to pursue him other than curiosity, I abandoned the chase. Now to find my own lodgings.
The passageway I stood in was quiet. I could hear the distant rumble of a cart, the shout of a vendor in a market hidden from me, and the clang of a bell from a watercraft on the Tiber. This small lane of private houses was deserted, shutters above me closed tightly.
I made my way back around the church, in which, if I recalled correctly, Grenville had last evening showed me a fresco by Rafael painted on its wall. The art had been dim with age but arched grandly above an alcove in a side chapel.
Then again, that might have been another church entirely. Every street in Rome had two or three churches springing up from the pavement, distinct places of worship for different guilds, great families, and foreign residents.
Grenville had hired a house near the Piazza Navona for a few days so we could see the sights before a short journey south to Napoli where I would visit the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Our wives had remained at Grenville’s villa north of the city, those ladies preferring walks in manicured parks to stumbling over muddy ruins.
I’d convinced myself another turn through an alley, empty and dark between soaring walls, would take me back to a wider road that led to the piazza, but I was wrong. I emerged instead on the bank of the river, with a finely arched bridge to my left. At the end of the bridge to my right rose the squat tower of the Castle Sant’Angelo.
That, at least, was a familiar landmark. I could stroll along this side of the Tiber and find another street to take me to my lodgings.
A few more turns into the maze showed me I was again mistaken. I rounded another corner, the fetid smell of the river fading behind me, and collided directly into a man coming the other way.
I took an instant step back, leaning on my walking stick to keep myself upright.
“I do beg your pardon, sir,” I said as politely as I could, though he had rushed intome, not paying attention to where he was going.
The fellow was Italian, as tall as I was, with a thick head of dark hair. He appeared to be about my age—a few years past forty—and dressed in a subdued dark suit made of fine material which contrasted his muddy and worn boots.
A scowl marred his face, and a pair of dark brown eyes glared at me. I tried to apologize in my faulty Italian, which only made his scowl deepen.
“Ah, you are English,” he snapped in that language. “Wandering about, getting in the way.”
“Lost, I am afraid, sir. Can you direct me—?”
“Do you not carry a map?”
His churlishness began to annoy me. I put a sterner note into my voice. “I had not planned to stray from the Piazza Navona. If you will point me in its direction, I will endeavor to keep to my allotted place before I depart your fair city, and cease disturbing you. Your errand is apparently an urgent one.”
The fact that the man remained in place during this speech instead of scoffing and striding off was encouraging. By the end, his demeanor had softened, though he had not entirely unbent.
“Forgive my temper,” he said. “My errand, as you say, is urgent. Go through this street, then around to the next one over, and another jog …” He let out an exasperated breath. “With me, sir.”
He spoke like a soldier. I fell into step behind him as we quick-marched up the lanes, my walking stick tapping, and back to the wide expanse of the piazza.
