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as if he must govern his country, as well as reign.
    â€œI’ll certainly leave you the option of the Holy Office, if what I offer is repugnant.” The King folded his hands behind his back and looked unreasonably content to wait for Conrad to recover himself.
    â€œSir?”
    â€œI don’t share your atheistic views, Conrad. That doesn’t mean I decry them. On the contrary. I believe that you may be exactly the man to write my opera for me.”
    Sunlight off the sea below made Conrad flinch, caught between scepticism, hope, and misgiving. He prompted, “And?”
    â€œAnd I need an opera written with the same kind of power that was generated by Il Terrore di Parigi .”
    Conrad fidgeted with his chain, seeking the link that Luka Viscardo had sealed, running his thumb over the smooth surface of the steel. The King of the Two Sicilies watched him with a hawk’s gaze.
    Be honest. No matter what it may cost .
    â€œI’m… not sure I could do it again.”
    King Ferdinand did not immediately jump up and summon a detachment ofriflemen, or a palace aide to shove Conrad out of the front door and into the hands of the Inquisition.
    â€œSir, I don’t say this to spread guilt away from me. I say it to give credit where it’s due. I didn’t get the Teatro Nuovo struck down. It took a whole company of singers and musicians and stage crew to achieve that, as well as Giuseppe Persiani as composer and myself as librettist.”
    â€œA company, yes. Every man’s words, music, and voice create the opera together. But as things stand, your composer and the singers appear to have left Naples. I have the librettist left.”
    The complexity of Ferdinand’s expression was startling, on a man who at first appeared bland. He spoke with a direct, dignified, intent excitement, restrained by absolute control.
    â€œConrad—you were a part of something powerful enough that it called down fire out of the heavens. Something born of Aristotle’s catharsis in drama—the purging of pity and terror in the human heart—coupled with the magia musica , that Pythagoras knew connects us with the heavenly spheres above. That is power. Yes, music and the singers and everything else is part of it. Your words give it shape. They create those situations which draw people in, make them cry, laugh, feel love or hatred, indignation or sorrow. If you assisted in causing that once, Conrad—I believe you might do so again.”
    The smalt blue of Sorrento and the southern Bay blurred in Conrad’s gritty vision, as if on a watercolourist’s palette. He hadn’t blinked as the King spoke, he realised.
    â€œConrad, I need a man who will write me a particular kind of opera. The Two Kingdoms needs this. So, it seems that I need you.”
    â€œBecause I’m an atheist.”
    Ferdinand’s amused smile made a reappearance. Along with his tension.
    â€œPrecisely because you’re an atheist!”
    â€œAnd…”
    Conrad pulled his thoughts together. Now we come to it.
    â€œâ€¦If I’m understanding you, sir—you want me to attempt to cause another ‘opera miracle’?”
    Ferdinand of the House of Bourbon-Sicily shook his head.
    â€œNot exactly. No. I want you to stop one.”

CHAPTER 5
    â€œS top a miracle.” Conrad fumbled his chains. Coils of metal slithered and crashed to the paving stones, bruising his feet through his shoes. “How—! What—? Stop?”
    He forced away panic, striving for rationality.
    â€œA miracle, caused by a Mass—or by another opera? Porco miseria , this is different! Stop a miracle! But who—? Why?—Has that even been done before?”
    Ferdinand’s look was both sympathetic and reproving. “On rare occasions. A sufficiently intense outpouring of emotion has been known to overwhelm something lesser.”
    Just how magnificently written must an opera be, to