He would have come to the throne anyway, but he accepted Amalasunta as a bride anyway, to calm the hearts of the many people who sided with the woman. Teodato was a ruthless man, who cared for nothing else but to make sure he had a peaceful life by surrounding himself with wealth and ease, without worrying about the well-being of his people. Teodato always pretended: he probably would have liked to get rid of Amalasunta as soon as he got married to her, but he thought that it was safer to commit the crime far from the places where she was loved and cared for. So he deceived her and brought her to Tuscany, with the excuse of seeing their possessions, and then went to Rome where she could have expressed the faith that she had always believed in. But Amalasunta never got to Rome: in fact, on a stretch of the road that was going around Lake Bolsena, she was taken out from the cart that was carrying her, and pushed into a boat that took her to the Martana island, where it is said that she was exiled and then eventually died. Teodato let her live for a short time. It was too dangerous to postpone her killing, not so much because she could ask for help from the Romans, but as for the many Goths who despised Teodato and would think of her with pity being left in a lost island . The way Amalasunta was killed is not very clear, but the legend tells that she was thrown from the top of the cliff on which we are standing now.»
Ernesto finished his story, and Greta was lost in God knows what thoughts: she was thinking about Ernesto, about what he had said to her, she thought about Amalasunta, queen of the Goths, about the stories that were intertwined with those boulders scattered on the ground.
She was wondering how much history those stones could witness.
Surely they knew Amalasunta, and today they had seen Greta surrender for the second time in her life to the sweet and painful delights of her feelings.
6.
The day was coming to an end: the sun now low on the horizon was lighting up the clouds still high in the sky with colorful lights and the emotions going over the two of them like calm, unpredictable and devastating tides. Going down from the top of the mountain, through the stairs carved into the rock, Greta saw some specimens of prickly pear and told Ernesto how gigantic those plants were in Sicily, and what a beautiful scenery they create: in Greta's words there was nostalgia and affection for a land, her own, which she had not seen for nearly six years.
They quickly reached the small boat they had left on the shore, gently lapped by the lake's waters. Ernesto broke away from the shore of the island pushing with an oar to the ground: the lake was slightly rippled by a cool wind that crept annoyingly under their light clothes touching their skin, causing slight chills.
Although it was already late, they decided to go around the island by boat, before returning to the land. The dark cliffs, almost gloomy from which Ernesto kept a distance of fifty meters,
they were going down towards the water, one on top of the other, as if to give the feeling that in a few moments they could slip into the depths of the lake, disappearing as if they had never existed. They got to an easterly tip of the island, they found themselves in front of a block of stone that had slipped and remained out of the water in an almost vertical position.
It looked like a funeral stele.
The inlets carved, with dark shadows, the cliff that rose high in the sky, and with its semicircular shape reminded Greta of a gigantic ruined amphitheater, the only witness to a burnt crater of a volcano. The stones of the tower, and of the several settlements, scattered rubble, which seemed so huge and majestic before from a short distance, they were indeed so far away, on top of that jagged wall, which seemed frightening by the shadow of the night that advanced rapidly. Even Ernesto seemed so distant, from those moments, dripping with night dew. The thought of him was so unreal ... his words were only a faint echo brought by the dark wind of dusk.
Finally they came out of the fearful shadow that the island projected on the lake's waters making them gloomy, to find the sun, the last glimmer of a large orange, which had already coloured the whole sky with a red halo that reflected with vermilion waves on the surface of the lake, as far as the boat and the depth of their hearts.
The late hour and the strange light of the setting sun caused a sense of dismay in their hearts, as if the end was now near, as if the end of that journey could only represent a sad and painful farewell.
* * *
It was now almost dark when Greta, standing on the pier again, waited for Ernesto to finish mooring the boat. The lights came on one at a time, reflecting their glow on the slightly rippled surface of the lake.
She felt embarrassed like the first time she agreed to date Alberto, eight years earlier.
"Alberto".
The thought of him struck her like a slap in the face, reawakening her from her dreams: in a way that day betrayed, even without realizing it, the memory of that love that she had sworn would remain the only one. She had betrayed him by taking Ernesto's curly head in her arms.
This awareness came down on her like the shadow of an unexpected storm.
She was startled when Ernesto squeezed her waist with his strong, muscular and warm arm.
Her dark hair, disheveled by the wind, was moving about before her eyes: he moved it away to see once again that face that stirred so many feelings all together: he would have liked to be able to read in those dark eyes like a moonless night.
«Greta, it's all so strange ... tonight, now, it feels like a farewell, as if we are saying goodbye and never see each other again. The Martana island often causes melancholy in the heart of those who visit it, but tonight I am afraid of what I feel inside ... you are so sad, my love.»
«It's not the Martana islands' fault, it's not your fault... it's me, no matter where I am, I can only cause pain, even to a sweet person like you. There are days when I feel so different from the people around me, that I seem to be like one of those animals that are kept inside the cages, in a circus: a freakshow used to frighten children and to impress adults. I don't know what happens to me, even now, here with you.
I can't understand what I have inside: a hundred, a thousand voices murmur, shout out loud their opinion, their story and I am doomed not to understand anything. Just a lot of confusion, thats all I get. I would like so much that the relaxing sound of the sea that laps the shore or some rocks only at night, could stand above all this.»
Ernesto was speechless.
That girl attracted him so much, but at the same time it was as if she rejected him with all her difficulties, with all her problems that to a normal person could just sound as nonsense. He saw the desperation in the girl's mind, he saw it as light filtering through a crack, he felt it running down the skin like water, he breathed it in the air like incense in the churches, he wanted to escape it like the shadow of a terrible omen.
He held her in his arms.
He kissed her lips gently, then they hugged for a long time, motionless under the moon, an iridescent scythe barely visible in the blue sky surrounded by black clouds.
They said goodbye. From a distance, Ernesto stood watching Greta move forward until she was swallowed up by the shadows of the night, already wondering if that girl had really existed.
Greta got to the front of the door and she hesitated, she didn't want to go into her house: she didn't want to sleep, but above all she didn't want to be alone. Then she knocked lightly on Giacomo's door: she hoped with all her heart that he was still awake.
The door opened with a slight squeak, which echoed in the air of the square until it was completely filled: Giacomo appeared with his dark face, and his snow white eyebrows. They were furrowed, as if to ask Greta the question that his lips would have never afford to say: what was the reason she was there, at that time?
«Giacomo, I need to speak with you. This afternoon I was on the Martana island with that fisherman who had already taken me to the Bisentina island ...»
«You work too hard ... did you have to go now to the Martana island? I have to go and talk to that notary myself .»
The old man interrupted her, to play the situation downe: he saw them coming back, he saw them on the pier, he saw the way they hugged. He had probably seen more than Greta herself could understand.
«No, its not like that, I didn't go there for work, I wish that was the reason, I went with Ernesto to visit the island and ... oh my God, I made a holy mess, a really holy mess! My mother told me, I'm always the same. Giacomo, what should I do? You tell me, what should I do? »
« First of all, come in, and then we'll talk about it. Come on in.»
Greta would have liked to have a peaceful existence so much, perhaps with Ernesto, but she could not even think about it, at least until she managed to shake off the ghosts that constantly besieged her, at every step of her life. Giacomo was right, only that was her real problem.
The door opened with a slight squeak, which echoed in the air of the square until it was completely filled: Giacomo appeared with his dark face, and his snow white eyebrows. They were furrowed, as if to ask Greta the question that his lips would have never afford to say: what was the reason she was there, at that time?
«Giacomo, I need to speak with you. This afternoon I was on the Martana island with that fisherman who had already taken me to the Bisentina island ...»
«You work too hard ... did you have to go now to the Martana island? I have to go and talk to that notary myself .»
The old man interrupted her, to play the situation downe: he saw them coming back, he saw them on the pier, he saw the way they hugged. He had probably seen more than Greta herself could understand.
«No, its not like that, I didn't go there for work, I wish that was the reason, I went with Ernesto to visit the island and ... oh my God, I made a holy mess, a really holy mess! My mother told me, I'm always the same. Giacomo, what should I do? You tell me, what should I do? »