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Synopsis

Ambrogio Smythe, a hypochodriacal British nobleman, is obsessed by childhood memories of Gypsies. Ambrogio leaves his ancestral estate and makes his way to Florence, always aware of the lurking menace of the hated Napoleon Bonaparte. In Tuscany, Ambrogio meets a wondering storyteller, hears a magical yarn about a Gypsy babe kidnapped by a demon, buys a shred of parchment as evidence, and begins to write his own version of the saga, vowing one day to publish it in the finest Morocco leather. Noble Smith has created a historical comedy within a historical comedy that is as absurd and enjoyable as Monty Python's The Holy Grail and Goldman's The Princess Bride. The characters leap off the page in full costume.

Excerpt

From Chapter 4: Godfrey Verrazanno sat at his cramped little desk in the tiny chamber in the tower above his father's spice shop on Zim Zam Street and scribbled furiously in an absurdly large ledger. The book was so huge that Godfrey had to rest the butt against his groin, and stretch his left arm until his elbow joint cracked merely to get a grip on the other end of the tome. He was a hunched and crooked creature, this young accountant--a careworn, lard-skinned slouch. The hump on his back was so enormous that whenever he walked past the camel merchants at the bazaar, they called out bids. In his somber black suit, sitting at his puny desk, inscribing feverishly in his giant book, he resembled a demented child possessed by some evil writing spirit. The quill, as it scratched against the rough paper, was as loud as a dozen rats scrabbling against a wall. The movement of dry quill to inkwell and back again to page, with never a smudge nor drip, was the only respite from this terrible rasping; yet, it was so practiced and quick that the pause barely lasted a second and was, in fact, the exact lull between the beats of Godfrey's heart.

Then the flowing hand suddenly ended its meticulous labor. Godfrey's quill hovered over the page as his eyes squinted to make sure everything was exact and complete. Well pleased, he set the pen into the inkwell and gave a satisfied jerk of the head. For an instant, he thought he heard the quill hiss--like a match extinguished into a puddle--as the tip touched the cool black ink. He closed the ledger with a heavy thump and sat back in his chair and stared into space. It had been a long, weary day, and now he wanted nothing more than to think of nothing.

His very long fingers absent-mindedly stroked the well-caressed edges of the ledger. These organs of touch--which would have looked quite lovely and even appropriate on a musician or a painter--appeared out of place and somewhat comical protruding from his conservative, businessman's sleeves. These graceful digits, which should have been attached to a Botticelli or a Boccherini, were instead being used to record the mind-numbingly insipid dross of commercial enterprise. Abominable! It would be like using the Holy Grail to drink jug wine. Even the style of Godfrey's penmanship was inappropriate for this mundane task, for it was indeed stunning! His numbers were bold and portentous. His dates established a place in time with the force of a capstone dedication carved in marble. And his nouns! Dear God, they leapt off the page as if they were spoken by a master orator. One could smell the exotic jungles of the Spice Islands wafting from his "nutmeg," and hear the creaking rigging and call of the seagulls from his "port duties." This ledger, which Godfrey had labored over for ten years, since he was a teenage boy, this accounting book with its dates and lists and tallies, was a work of art. Those Celtic monks, who perfected the art of the manuscript, would have turned emerald green with jealously had they lived to see Godfrey's poetical and inspired hand.

Yet all of this talent was being wasted like seeds thrown on barren ground or fancies frittered on a determined nun. Not a soul would see the fruit of his dashing hand. More sadly, no one had ever taken the time to gaze into his eyes that were not dull and lifeless, but were quite remarkably the color of polished chestnuts; they were the saddest and most soulful eyes ever to grace the visage of an accountant. Nobody would ever know that trapped inside the fleshy husk of this poor creature was beating the heart of a poet.

Copyright © 2000 by Noble Smith

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