City of Swords

  ‘She sold it to me,’ he said. ‘I’m a dealer in antiques.’

  The frightening woman softened. ‘Ah. You are the one who sold Georgia the flying horse?’

  How could she possibly know that? Mortimer decided to go along with it.

  ‘Yes, that’s me. This is a sketch of Georgia, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is. I made it for Alice, but she used it only once.’

  There it was again: ‘used it’. Just what Eva had said.

  ‘Where am I exactly, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘You are in the workshop of Giuditta Miele, sculptor of Giglia,’ said the woman, who even Mortimer could see had a lot of marble dust in her grey hair.

  ‘And you are she?’

  Giuditta inclined her head.

  ‘Would you like some porage?’ she asked.

  It was so surprising that Mortimer said yes. He realised he was very hungry after missing supper and even if it wasn’t quite morning in his world it seemed to be in this one.

  Giuditta fetched him a dusty velvet cloak and a blanket which she tucked round him as if he were an invalid. He would have protested, but then a troop of Renaissance angels came into the kitchen for breakfast and Mortimer realised he would have been embarrassed by his skinny bare legs in front of them.

  ‘This is a visitor who knows Georgia,’ said Giuditta.

  The oldest boy – almost a young man, Mortimer could see on closer inspection – took the drawing from his hands and twirled round the room with it.

  ‘Ah, the pretty one who came to meet the black friar,’ he said.

  ‘Franco, don’t tease. Give the signor his picture back,’ said Giuditta. ‘He needs it.’

  Franco stopped. ‘Are you perhaps her grandfather? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I just like pretty faces.’ He returned the drawing.

  ‘No,’ said Mortimer. ‘She is like a grandchild to me though and so are the others.’

  He suddenly thought of the pale girl he had sold the knife to. I wonder if she is here too, he thought.

  *

  Laura was indeed in Talia, but not in Giglia. She was getting into the swing of stravagating first to Fabio’s and then to the castle, acting as a secret go-between. But tonight she was going to add meeting Ludo to the mix.

  ‘I think perhaps we were wrong to come inside Fortezza,’ Rodolfo was saying when she arrived that morning. ‘Think how useful it would be to have a member of our order in the heart of the army.’

  The word ‘embedded’ came to Laura’s mind, conjuring up twenty-first-century journalists in bulletproof vests. She hoped Rodolfo wouldn’t find a way of sending her into the invading force as well. She had quite enough to do.

  ‘I don’t think either of us would be welcome,’ said Luciano. ‘Hey, Laura.’

  ‘Good morning, Laura,’ said Rodolfo. ‘You find us in an awkward situation. We are inside the city but unable to get inside the castle. Allied in our minds with the forces that support Lucia but not able to offer them our services.’

  ‘I bet I could get you inside the castle if you wanted,’ said Laura.

  They both looked at her.

  ‘I mean. It would be easy enough to let you in from the inside if someone could distract Ludo’s men who are guarding the Rocca.’

  Rodolfo brooded on this.

  ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘It would be putting you and other innocent people in danger for no real advantage. It’s really the Grand Duke we need to get in touch with.’

  ‘Remember what Silvia said,’ said Luciano. ‘That Fabrizio will not hear us until he has tried what he can do by force.’

  They all thought in silence what this meant: that the di Chimici would soon attack and people would be killed.

  Mortimer Goldsmith woke in his bed, sweating. He was still holding the picture. He put it carefully back in its frame and looked at his alarm clock. It was only half past two in the morning. Once the apprentices had gone, the sculptor had given him a drink of camomile and verbena and told him to go back to sleep.

  ‘If you are going to make a habit of stravagating,’ she had said, ‘I will have to find you some suitable clothes. You can’t walk round Giglia in a blanket.’

  It was the first time he had heard the word ‘stravagating’ but he guessed roughly what it meant.

  ‘I didn’t intend to come here this time,’ he said honestly.

  ‘Well, just in case you visit me again,’ said Giuditta.

  The whole experience had been so overwhelming that the combination of eating creamy porage and drinking a soporific tisane had enabled him to fall asleep quite easily. More so than he did now when back in his own bed.

  In the end he gave up and made himself a pot of his favourite Earl Grey tea and sat in his living room till the sun rose, thinking about what had happened. He had decided he must talk to Georgia and the others about it.

  It was midday. Laura could hear the bell of the campanile that adjoined the cathedral counting out the hour. She was alone in the room where she and Guido had met Ludo when he was still waiting for the Signoria to decide on his claim. It felt like months ago but had only been a couple of weeks.

  Would he come? She had chosen the palace because she had been there before and it was hard to stravagate to somewhere you couldn’t visualise. And she was banking on his still being entitled to use this room, now that he was virtually master of the city – at least for the time being.

  She didn’t know what she would say to him if he did come. Their situation was no different now from what it ever had been – unless it was worse. But she felt she had to meet him at least once more and tell him how she felt.

  If they were to be doomed lovers, she wanted a taste of the love as well as the doom.

  The door opened. She could see two guards stationed outside it.

  ‘Laura!’ said the Manoush. And just to see him again and hear his voice felt to Laura like coming home.

  Chapter 14

  First Strike

  The next day was Sunday and Mortimer Goldsmith spent it alternately napping and writing notes on everything he had seen and heard in his brief trip to Giglia. In mid-afternoon he phoned Eva again.

  ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’ she asked as soon as she heard his voice.

  ‘Yes, it has. But it was so extraordinary I don’t know if even you will believe it.’

  ‘Try me,’ said Eva.

  ‘Very well. But, please, whatever you say, don’t try to tell me it was a dream.’

  Then he told her exactly what had happened to him the night before, when he had fallen asleep holding the sketch of Georgia.

  Eva had become really a very close friend, and Mortimer knew that she wouldn’t think he had gone mad. But he was surprised when, after asking a few pertinent questions, she said, ‘I’m coming to London.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know you were planning a visit.’

  ‘I wasn’t. But this is something big, isn’t it? It needs another good mind on the case. I’ll ring Jan this evening and ask if I can come to stay.’

  Mortimer felt comforted when he put down the phone.

  *

  Laura slept late and heavily. When she woke, she couldn’t remember which world she was in. Then there was a knock on the door and Isabel put her head round it.

  ‘Oh good, you’re awake. We’re having a massive brunch. Do you want to come down?’

  Laura shook her head, but not to be negative: to get the images of Ludo out of it.

  ‘I’ll come,’ she said.

  No one at the kitchen table was dressed but Laura was relieved to see that everyone, including Charlie, had on firmly tied dressing gowns. She looked at Charlie curiously. He was undeniably good-looking, with his thick dark-blond hair and brown eyes, but now that she had met Ludo, she just couldn’t fancy a boy in her own world.

  She hadn’t quite realised it till she started staying with Isabel and seeing Charlie every day, but it was true.

  Maybe Charlie sensed
something of her change of heart and it made her more attractive to him. For whatever reason, he was very attentive, offering her eggs and coffee and croissants and muffins. Laura accepted as much as she could manage, having acquired a new tenderness towards anyone who showed her kindness.

  ‘What’s the plan for the day?’ asked Isabel’s father. ‘You must all be sick of revising.’

  It was a beautiful late-May morning and they jumped at the chance to spend time out of doors. It wasn’t till they were all showered and dressed that Laura realised Charlie meant to come with them to the park. Isabel had texted the other Stravaganti, to arrange to meet them there, and it was going to be embarrassing having her twin around.

  But short of telling him to get lost, it was hard to shake Charlie off. Even when the others got there and they all lay sprawled on the grass and Georgia asked Laura rather pointedly if she had any news of Ludo.

  ‘I’ve seen him,’ said Laura, trying hard to keep the colour out of her face and any tremor out of her voice.

  ‘You got on to the walls?’ asked Sky. ‘Wasn’t that rather dangerous?’

  ‘No,’ said Laura. ‘We met in the palazzo. The walls aren’t safe.’

  ‘How is he?’ asked Matt. Of all of them, he was the only other Stravagante unwilling to give up a feeling of friendship for the Manoush.

  ‘I think he’s wishing he’d never started on this,’ said Laura.

  Charlie was looking back and forth between her and the others. ‘Who’s this Ludo guy?’ he whispered to Isabel. ‘Did I meet him?’

  ‘No,’ his sister whispered back. ‘I only met him once. He’s very attractive,’ she added, just to see Charlie’s reaction.

  He started pulling small tufts of grass out of the ground in front of him.

  Laura knew they were talking about her but was concentrating on Matt, who was saying, ‘Surely there is something we could do to help him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Everyone in Talia seems to think it’s my task to help Lucia, not Ludo. But I’d find it much easier to do if it was something to get him out of this.’

  The Grand Duke had been as contemptuous of Ludo’s offer about Lucia as the Manoush had been of his. Gaetano had known what his reaction would be, but had to pass on what had been said.

  ‘You must go back and tell him that since all negotiation between us has been unsuccessful, we shall proceed to the next stage of the siege,’ said Fabrizio.

  ‘You will attack?’ asked Gaetano.

  ‘We will attack,’ said Fabrizio coldly. ‘Have you forgotten that our cousin – our almost sister – is imprisoned in her castle by this … vagabond … who dares to take her birthright from her? He should count himself lucky we even offered to negotiate. After what he’s done, we are entitled to loose our siege-engines and cannons on him without any warning.’

  ‘We must obey the rules of engagement,’ said Gaetano. ‘There are courtesies of war that should be observed, even in matters of life and death.’

  ‘And we have observed them,’ said Fabrizio. ‘I don’t need instruction from you on how to conduct a siege in a manner befitting our family. But since I … since we are not countenancing this mountebank’s ridiculous offer, we are now at liberty to attack.’

  ‘I can’t argue with that,’ said Gaetano. ‘And nor will General Tasca. But you don’t think it is worth considering other options, like starving them out or cutting off their water supply?’

  ‘Did you observe nothing when we were last in Fortezza?’ asked Fabrizio. ‘Our uncle Jacopo knew how to protect his city. It is far too fully provisioned for us to starve them out, and they have plentiful wells and water supplies. There is nothing for it but to bombard the walls.’

  *

  Laura and Ludo were together in the palazzo; as before he had come into the room alone, but she knew there were some of his personal bodyguards outside the door.

  But they had been together only minutes before the attack came. Laura could not understand what she was hearing at first. It was like thunder but magnified a hundred times, like how she might have imagined an earthquake might have sounded. The very walls of the building seemed to shake.

  ‘Ludo! What’s happening?’

  ‘It’s begun,’ he said, scrambling into his armour. ‘You must go. It’s not safe.’

  It would have been sensible at that point for Laura really to go – to stravagate home and get right away from Talia. But she didn’t want to be sensible. She couldn’t just leave when Ludo was running towards the danger. They came out of the palazzo together, to find the streets full of people running and shouting. Ludo’s guards formed a protective shield around him and Laura was cut off from him.

  The air was full of a choking dust and Laura saw that it was coming from smashed houses where huge stones had come up and over the city walls and landed on random targets. One building had collapsed completely and there was no way of telling how many people had been inside it. The cathedral bells started to ring – an urgent raucous clanging to call people to beware.

  But how could you take care not to be hit when a huge rock might come over the wall at any time? It was like the big battle in the last Lord of the Rings film.

  As she raced away from the palazzo, Laura saw her first dead body: a woman with a shopping basket sprawled beside her, onions and potatoes rolling round on the stones. A dislodged chunk of masonry from a house had landed right on top of her.

  ‘Laura!’ Ludo shouted back at her over his shoulder. ‘Get back home!’

  He stretched his arms out to her, but it was a futile gesture. His guards were having none of it. They locked shields around him to save him from falling rocks. Like that they ran towards the walls, leaving Laura disorientated. She had to get back to somewhere safe and quiet where she could stravagate back home.

  She walked hurriedly through the choking dust and the milling people to the Street of the Swordsmiths.

  ‘Laura! I didn’t know you were still here,’ said Fabio, letting her into his workshop and out of the chaos.

  All was calm and still inside and he fetched her a glass of water while she coughed the dust up from her lungs.

  ‘It’s a good thing you are though. You can go home and get back to the castle and tell them what’s happening.’

  ‘I think they may have guessed,’ said Laura. She suddenly felt wearied by her role as messenger.

  Fabio looked at her oddly. ‘Did you see what had happened in the street?’

  ‘I saw a body,’ said Laura. She had to put the glass down very carefully as her hand had started to shake. ‘Actually there was more than one, but I didn’t look at the others.’

  Fabio put an arm round her. ‘Can I get you some wine?’

  Laura suddenly thought maybe the harsh dry Talian wine might do her good. ‘Just a small glass, please,’ she said.

  While he was pouring it, she asked. ‘Where are Luciano and Rodolfo?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘They went out. I hope they are somewhere safe.’

  ‘There is nowhere safe any more,’ said Laura.

  *

  ‘I just can’t bear it,’ said Arianna. ‘We have no idea what is happening and I have to fiddle around with wedding arrangements that don’t interest me in the least while the man I’m supposed to marry – and my father – might be blown to bits at any minute!’

  ‘Always so dramatic,’ sighed Silvia. ‘Do you forget that I have a husband in Fortezza too? And we do know what is happening. They communicate through the mirrors every night.’

  ‘It’s not the same as being there though,’ said Arianna, as she tugged at the headdress and veil a hapless milliner was trying to fix on her head. The woman was two inches shorter than the Duchessa and had to stand on a stool but Arianna kept twisting around in her agitation.

  ‘You are finished with “being there” in a battle,’ said Silvia. ‘Keep still or this poor woman – what is your name? – will be toppled to the floor.’

  ‘It’s Maria
Grazia, milady,’ said the milliner, attempting to make a curtsey on the stool and wobbling alarmingly.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Arianna. ‘I’ll try to keep still, but imagine if your fiancé were off taking part in a battle you didn’t understand?’

  ‘I can’t imagine it, milady,’ said the milliner. She addressed them both the same way, to be on the safe side, because she had heard that this alarming middleaged woman, who was supposed to be the new Duchessa’s stepmother, was actually her real mother – and the late Duchessa into the bargain!

  It was common talk in the streets of Bellezza.

  ‘I’ll be so glad to get rid of this wretched mask,’ said Arianna.

  ‘I thought you liked disguises,’ said Silvia.

  ‘It isn’t a disguise though, is it? Just a hindrance. And you were glad enough to get rid of yours.’

  They were both silent, remembering the explosion in the glass room, the body double and the hideous bloody fragments that remained of her. After that Silvia had taken off her mask for good and declared the Duchessa of Bellezza dead.

  ‘You will feel better when we’ve had our mirrormessage tonight,’ said Silvia. ‘And so will I.’

  But she was wrong.

  *

  Laura did at last manage to stravagate back to the castle. They had heard the bombardment of course, but the Rocca had been unaffected.

  ‘Fabrizio knows I am in the castle,’ said Lucia. ‘We should be safer here than anywhere.’

  Then I wish Rodolfo and Luciano were here with you, thought Laura. There had still been no news of them by the time she had left Fabio’s workshop.

  They went out on to the battlements to view the damage.

  ‘The Grand Duke has fired on fellow Talians,’ said Guido.

  ‘We knew that would happen,’ said Lucia. ‘It is Ludo’s fault, not my kinsmen’s. None of this was necessary.’

  ‘It was necessary for Ludo,’ said Laura.