Chapters 8-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, graphic violence, and death.
Chapter 8 Summary
In the morning, Fabrizio and Mangus discuss their approach to handling the king’s mission. Later, Fabrizio goes to the kitchen to ask about getting a meal for Mangus. The staff is impressed with Fabrizio and Mangus, as they appreciate their alleged magical capacities. Fabrizio performs a few sleights of hand, which dazzle the workers. The cook introduces Fabrizio to a young kitchen boy who helps him deliver food to Mangus.
Chapter 9 Summary
In the hall, the young boy introduces himself as Rinaldo. He confesses that he was afraid to address Fabrizio in the kitchen, as he almost lost his job for speaking out of turn in the past. By way of explanation, he leads Fabrizio down the corridor to the chapel. He asserts that the castello is controlled by evil men, and Pergamontio needs a good leader like Fabrizio.
Rinaldo then reveals that if Lorenzo doesn’t return from his mission, Teresina will inherit the throne; should something befall her, Scarazoni will seize power. Suddenly, someone enters the chapel and interrupts their conversation. Rinaldo closes himself inside a cupboard, and Fabrizio ducks into hiding.
Chapter 10 Summary
From his hiding place, Fabrizio watches Scarazoni and Addetto enter the chapel. He eavesdrops on their conversation. Addetto expresses his concerns with Scarazoni’s plans. He has supported Scarazoni’s attempts to take power, but he didn’t anticipate the ghost or Mangus’s involvement, which terrify him. Scarazoni suspects that Teresina “has invented the ghost so as to avoid her marriage” to him (74). He assures Addetto that her scheme will never work because Lorenzo is already dead.
After Fabrizio and Rinaldo reemerge, Scarazoni approaches them. Fabrizio fears he will hurt them for eavesdropping. Instead, Scarazoni demands a meeting between Teresina and Mangus. On his way back to his chambers, Fabrizio decides not to tell Mangus about Rinaldo.
Chapter 11 Summary
Fabrizio informs Mangus that Scarazoni expects him to meet with Teresina. He also reveals the details of Scarazoni and Addetto’s conversation. Fabrizio suspects this entire debacle is of Scarazoni’s making. He wants to disprove the ghost’s existence and calls upon Mangus to do so because he knows that Mangus doesn’t believe in ghosts. The bit about Lorenzo’s disappearance and possible death also unsettles the companions.
Mangus agrees to question Teresina about these events but reminds Fabrizio that he won’t go along with her claims—he suspects she has a mental illness. Fabrizio begs Mangus to change his mind; he wants Mangus to prove the ghost is real to free Teresina from Scarazoni and secure a good fate for himself. Addetto comes to the door, calling for Mangus and interrupting the companions’ conversation.
Chapter 12 Summary
Scarazoni orchestrates a meeting between Teresina, Mangus, and Fabrizio. Mangus interviews Teresina about her ghost sightings. Teresina asserts that the only remarkable thing about the ghost is that he has her brother’s face. She knows the ghost won’t hurt her because Lorenzo wouldn’t hurt her, but believes the ghost wants to avenge his death. Mangus asks about Lorenzo’s fate and Teresina’s imminent marriage. A visibly upset Scarazoni reluctantly allows her to answer. Teresina explains that Claudio consulted the stars about the marriage; she and Scarazoni are to marry in two days or wait two years.
Mangus asks Teresina to lead him to the place where she saw the ghost. She takes him to the niche outside the chapel, which Mangus guesses once housed a statue. He studies the inlet, finding a small chip of painted wood. He wonders when and why the statue was removed.
Chapter 13 Summary
Mangus and Fabrizio return to their chamber, where they discuss the likelihood of the ghost existing or not. Fabrizio still thinks it does, but Mangus is convinced it doesn’t. He hypothesizes that Teresina invented the specter to upset her superstitious father and disrupt her marital arrangements. He tasks Fabrizio with investigating the fate of the statue in the niche. He suggests that Fabrizio discover the truth first and then question the princess about it to catch her in a lie.
A reluctant Fabrizio obeys his master. He wanders the castello and eventually finds “a wooden statue of Our Blessed Lady” (101), whose wood matches the chip of wood Mangus found in the niche. Rinaldo appears behind Fabrizio, asserting that the statue is his.
Chapter 14 Summary
Fabrizio is surprised when Rinaldo reveals that the queen gave him the statue. He now thinks the statue led to the ghost sightings, as the ghost always appears in the statue’s former niche. As Rinaldo turns to leave, he informs Fabrizio that it would be best for him to accept Rinaldo’s friendship.
An unsettled Fabrizio heads down the hall, where he runs into the queen. The queen informs Fabrizio that she knows about his conversations with Teresina. She asserts that her daughter is having hallucinations. She tasks Fabrizio with befriending Teresina and reporting their conversations back to her.
A confused Fabrizio asks the queen about the statue. She confirms that she gave it to a kitchen boy because she no longer cared for it. The two abruptly end their conversation when they come upon Addetto’s dead body lying in the corridor.
Chapter 15 Summary
Fabrizio immediately guesses that Rinaldo was behind Addetto’s death. A horde of soldiers, followed by Scarazoni and Claudio, floods the hall. The king demands to know how Addetto was killed and insists that Fabrizio seek Mangus’s counsel.
Fabrizio sneaks into Teresina’s room, where he informs her of Addetto’s death. She seems unfazed and changes the conversation to her earlier interview with Mangus. She is delighted with herself for having deceived Mangus. She loves twisting the truth, which she often does with her mother, too. A confused Fabrizio realizes he doesn’t know the real Teresina. However, she tells him how to sneak away from her chamber undetected. In the hall, Fabrizio catches a shadow racing out of sight. He finds Scarazoni’s stray glove on the floor and is terrified that he might have been listening.
Chapters 8-15 Analysis
Fabrizio’s ongoing involvement in the ghost mystery at the castello continues to develop the novel’s theme of Loyalty Tested by Competing Obligations. The longer Fabrizio is at the castello, the more his alliances are tested. When Fabrizio first arrives, his only objective is to serve his master, Mangus the Magician. He believes wholeheartedly in Mangus as a person and a master, and little can test his faith in his mentor. However, the longer Fabrizio is at the castello, the more confused he becomes about who to trust, who is in possession of the truth, and to whom his loyalties belong. He still loves and believes in Mangus, but he also worries that Mangus’s fixation on solving everything with reason will compromise his fate. He wants Mangus to believe in the ghost because he is desperate for Mangus to prove his own capabilities, earn the princess’s favor, and liberate them from the castello.
As these chapters continue, however, because Mangus is reluctant to oblige Teresina’s superstitions, Fabrizio starts to lose faith in him. Meanwhile, Fabrizio’s ongoing entanglements with Princess Teresina, Queen Jovanna, and Rinaldo the kitchen boy tear Fabrizio in different directions. The princess begs Fabrizio to keep secrets from his master while implying that she is manipulating her mother, father, and the count. The queen then indicates that she doubts Teresina’s state of mind and orders Fabrizio to spy on her daughter on her behalf. Rinaldo also begs for Fabrizio’s silence and loyalty, sharing secrets with him and insisting he can’t reveal them to anyone else. Soon, Fabrizio is caught in a complex web of lies, half-truths, and conflicting facts. As a result, his loyalties to his master and new friends are tested as he struggles under the pressure of their demands.
To navigate this complicated, dangerous realm, Fabrizio must learn to rely on himself, beginning his coming-of-age character arc. He is accustomed to leaning on Mangus’s theories, viewpoints, and counsel to navigate the world. However, the more he disagrees with his master and the more conflicting stories he hears, the less reliable Mangus’s worldview appears. When Teresina’s, Jovanna’s, and Rinaldo’s accounts also start to compete, Fabrizio must rely on his own wits, and Signore Addetto’s sudden and inexplicable death only intensifies Fabrizio’s need for self-reliance. His internal monologue in the wake of the murder captures Fabrizio’s attempt to make sense of his new circumstances on his own: “Who could have done such a thing? And why? The first one he thought of was Rinaldo. […] Then Fabrizio remembered Scarazoni […] kept a blade on his hip, too. For that matter, he recalled, so did the king. Or perhaps […] it was the ghost who had done it” (112). The succession of questions in this passage affects an interrogative, searching tone as he follows his own deductive reasoning rather than relying on someone else’s interpretation, furthering the theme of Critical Thinking as a Counter to Superstition. Fabrizio is seeking answers to both Addetto’s death and the larger mysteries penetrating the castello. The more questions he asks, the less certain he is of what to believe, but at the same time, Fabrizio’s newfound willingness to question the truth captures his growth. He asks himself if Rinaldo, Scarazoni, Claudio, or the ghost could be involved in the castello conspiracies, testing the boundaries of what he knows and relying on his own wits to navigate his increasingly unpredictable world.
Fabrizio’s interactions with Rinaldo and Teresina similarly complicate his sense of truth and loyalty, and their positions in the royal household, even Rinaldo’s role as a kitchen boy, highlight the power dynamic between them and develop the theme of Vulnerability of Those Serving Powerful Institutions. When Rinaldo “mak[es] an offer of friendship” to Fabrizio (105), Fabrizio is unsure if his new acquaintance is threatening or comforting him. Later, when Teresina informs Fabrizio that she has been manipulating the count and her parents, Fabrizio “marvel[s] at how changeable [she is], a real actor” (119). Fabrizio’s loyalties continue to shift between the characters, because each character proves mutable and potentially untrustworthy. Because Fabrizio is a character of integrity, he takes people at face value and accepts their words as truth. The more uncertainty he faces, however, the more he must lean into critical thinking. At 12 years old, he is learning how to navigate the world as an independent young man. Much like the rules of magic and trickery, Fabrizio is discovering that not everything or everyone is as they seem.
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