November 12, 1741
VeniceI slept fitfully for weeks after that visit to the cemetery. Antonio Vivaldi, my nemesis, was A.V., but how could a rose be delivered to Rachel's gravesite long after the musician had left this world?
This morning, I went to Manola's house to interrogate her. They lived down a narrow street in a poor quarter of Venice, respectable and clean, but without the light of the sun nor the smell of the sea, both conditions long enjoyed by my people and those of means.
When I laid my knuckles on her door, it opened after only a single knock. Manola stood there and her husband, a rugged man of the sea stood behind her.
“May I ask you some questions?”
“Yes, sire,” was her reply, but she pushed her two little children back from the encounter and came outside the house to s
