City of Swords

  ‘We need to get this properly set up,’ said Matt. ‘We’re bound to stay late at the celebrations and we don’t want any of our parents finding us dead to the world in our rooms – tomorrow will be a school day here even though it’s Saturday in Bellezza.’

  ‘Ayesha will cover for us, won’t she?’ asked Isabel.

  ‘Well, she can cover for me,’ said Matt. ‘I can go round there tonight. But not for all of us.’

  ‘At least there’ll be no trouble at Nick’s,’ said Georgia. ‘David knows all about Talia and he’ll cover for Nick and Vicky. Maybe I could stay there too.’

  ‘That still leaves quite a lot of us,’ said Sky.

  ‘What about Mortimer Goldsmith?’ asked Laura.

  Everyone looked at her in surprise.

  ‘I mean, what we need is someone who knows about stravagation, don’t we? We could all tell our parents we were sleeping over at friends’ houses – apart from Nick and Vicky – but actually go to his shop. Then if we don’t get back, what our parents would see was empty beds – not comatose teenagers.’

  ‘That could work,’ said Matt.

  ‘I bet he’d be up for it,’ said Georgia. ‘That’s a brilliant idea. Let’s go and ask him.’

  *

  Once it had been explained to him, which took a while, Mortimer Goldsmith accepted the scheme with alacrity.

  ‘I have only two beds,’ he said, ‘mine and the one in my spare room. But there’s a sofa in the sitting room. Is that enough? I’ll happily stay up and watch over you all.’

  ‘That’s plenty, honestly, Mr Goldsmith,’ said Laura. ‘We’d be very grateful. All we need is for you to ring the school if we don’t wake up in time tomorrow morning.’

  ‘What should I say?’ asked Mortimer, feeling a little less enthusiastic about the idea. ‘I can hardly pretend to be everyone’s grandfather, can I?’

  ‘It probably won’t happen,’ said Sky. ‘And I’m sure you’ll think of something.’

  When they all arrived in Bellezza, stravagating from Nick’s house and the little flat above Mortimer Goldsmith’s shop, the news about Ludo was worse.

  Laura hardly took in that Vicky Mulholland had stravagated with Nick. She had arrived with them in Arianna’s parlour. Laura supposed it must be difficult for this woman to see her first son in another world and hard for Nick too, but she had no feelings left to expend on anyone else.

  She saw Vicky meet her daughter-in-law-to-be for the first time and felt like a spectator at a show. Arianna was not yet in her wedding dress but a lilac wrapper and mask, yet she still looked like a duchess.

  ‘Should you be here, Lucien?’ Vicky asked shakily. ‘It’s bad luck in our world for the groom to see his bride on the wedding morning.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Luciano. He showed no signs of leaving. In fact he gave Vicky a big hug and led her to a comfortable chair.

  ‘Can I see Ludo?’ asked Laura.

  ‘Of course,’ said Arianna. ‘I’ll get Marco to take you. But the surgeon says he is rather feverish.’

  When Laura saw the Manoush sitting up in bed with a hectic red circle on each cheek, her heart sank. He was awake and knew her, but his eyes were glittering unnaturally. The surgeon was inspecting his wound and it looked horrible, a sort of greenish-yellow colour. There was a sickly, rotten smell in the room.

  ‘Marco,’ said Laura, ‘will you please tell the Duchessa I might not make it to the wedding? I think I should stay with Ludo.’

  *

  The new Pope was to be a surprise visitor at the wedding. There was something that the Grand Duke wanted him to see and report on. Pope Candidus relished all the pomp and grandeur of his new role and felt the power and influence flowing from him.

  He had always loathed Bellezza and, now that he was Pope, employed an acolyte to dispense clouds of sweet-smelling incense in front of him, protecting His Holiness from the smells of the canals.

  He was gliding along the Great Canal in a very highly decorated mandola, reclining inside the curtained cabin, looking forward to the sensation his arrival would cause in the cathedral. Why, the Bishop would have to give up his throne to him!

  Rinaldo, who still couldn’t quite think of himself as Pope Candidus, even though he had chosen the name, lay back upon the velvet and silk cushions and considered the vengeance he and the Grand Duke would take on Bellezza and its upstart Cavaliere. Neither of them could bear to think of Luciano as Duke Consort of that troublesome city.

  Of course the cathedral would need to be ritually purified if cousin Fabrizio’s plan came off but that was just the beginning. A terrible omen for the couple’s marriage. And then he, Rinaldo, had a personal score to settle with Silvia the ‘late’ Duchessa. And that redheaded fellow, who was bound to be there now that he had married Princess Lucia – with indecent haste in the Pope’s view; he was another that should face a reckoning. He owed Rinaldo money!

  *

  Silvia was in charge of clothing Vicky suitably for the wedding. The two women mentally circled round each other in Silvia’s apartments for about a minute and then became instant friends.

  ‘Luciano has already told us your height and size,’ said Silvia, ‘and I have a choice of five different dresses for you here.’

  Vicky looked at the brocades and silks and taffetas and smiled. She had nothing so fine as even the least of them in her wardrobe at home.

  ‘Is there nothing you like?’ asked Silvia anxiously. ‘My maid Susanna will help you try them on.’

  ‘They are all beautiful,’ said Vicky, ‘but I can’t imagine wearing any of them.’

  ‘I have jewels and shoes ready to match any colour,’ said Silvia.

  ‘I’m happy with this,’ said Vicky, closing her hand on the miniature that now hung round her neck on a silver chain.

  ‘Well, at least you don’t need a mask,’ said Silvia.

  ‘Don’t I?’ asked Vicky. ‘Arianna was wearing one.’

  ‘But for the last time,’ said Silvia. ‘It’s only unmarried women over sixteen who wear them in Bellezza. What a pity Luciano’s father is not here with you!’

  ‘It’s all so fantastic,’ said Vicky, looking round the grand chamber. ‘I still can’t believe my son is living in your world.’

  ‘Best not to think of it then,’ said Silvia, always practical. ‘Just enjoy the day.’

  *

  Arianna’s two attendants were both di Chimici princesses, which would annoy the Grand Duke immensely when he found out later.

  Beatrice and Arianna had become great friends when the di Chimici princess stayed in Bellezza before her marriage to Filippo Nucci a few months earlier. And Francesca, Gaetano’s wife, whose acquaintance with the Duchessa had begun in the awkward circumstances of standing against her at her election, had been a friend for a long time.

  The two princesses wore dark green silk dresses, the colour of ivy, with long trains, and carried trailing white roses.

  Luciano’s groomsmen included di Chimici too: Gaetano would stand beside him with Duke Alfonso. But Cesare Montalbano was there too, come from Padavia for the occasion.

  But by far the largest group among the wedding guests was that of the Order of Stravaganti.

  Rodolfo would of course step forward to give Arianna’s hand into Luciano’s, and William Dethridge as Luciano’s foster-father sat on the other side of the great Basilica with his Talian wife, Leonora, and Vicky Mulholland, who had come further than any Talian guest and was an honorary Stravagante for the day. She was clad in dark blue brocade and receiving many admiring and curious glances.

  Brother Sulien was taking part of the service, but Giuditta Miele had come with him and Sandro from Giglia and was sitting monumentally in a row near the front, next to Professor Constantin of Padavia. Fabio the swordsmith of Fortezza sat with Flavia the merchant of Classe, and on the other side of her was her son Andrea, looking less like a pirate than he used to and with a very pretty girl on his arm.

  But there were other Stravaganti
that the Barnsbury students had not met – from all the other city-states that they hadn’t visited, men and women who knew the secret of travel in time and space yet looked like ordinary people with ordinary jobs.

  The teenagers from Islington all lined up on the groom’s side in the second row. All except Laura, who could not leave Ludo. Beside them were Aurelio and Raffaella, Ludo’s cousins, dressed in their most colourful costumes.

  In a new blue suit and having been forced to bathe to within an inch of his life, Enrico Poggi patrolled the aisles, checking on the position of every guard in the wooden superstructures that criss-crossed the upper levels of the Basilica. He had been sprayed with a perfume supplied specially for the occasion by Brother Sulien, the pharmacist.

  On Arianna’s side, Silvia sat with her sister, Valeria, and husband, Gianfranco, and their tall fisherman sons – the family that until three years ago Arianna had regarded as her own. At the last minute Paola, Arianna’s grandmother, slipped into the seat beside her husband, Gentile.

  ‘All well?’ asked Silvia, who knew her mother had been making final adjustments to Arianna’s dress.

  ‘More than well,’ said Paola. ‘My best bride yet.’

  ‘You are prejudiced, dear,’ said her husband.

  ‘Well, you wait and see.’

  Waiting without seeing was what was happening inside the Basilica, the crowd was good-natured and patient, eating and drinking and gossiping about every arrival in front of the great doors. The bronze rams gazed down at them placidly.

  There was a sudden kerfuffle in the Piazzetta and a flustered herald sounded a few awkward notes in order to clear a path through the crowds, who had spilled over there from the Piazza Santa Maddalena.

  From Ludo’s room, which overlooked the Piazzetta, Laura heard the sound. She looked out at the seething mass of people and the man dressed all in white.

  ‘I think the Pope has come,’ she said. ‘That’s odd. He wasn’t supposed to.’

  Ludo was drifting in and out of consciousness and often said things that did not make sense.

  ‘The Pope is my enemy,’ he said now. ‘I would kill him but I lost my dagger.’

  Laura remembered Luciano giving it to him in the jail.

  ‘You aren’t going to kill anyone,’ she said. ‘And no one is going to kill you. Just rest.’

  ‘I might die though, all the same,’ said Ludo, sitting up in a moment of sudden lucidity.

  Laura didn’t know what to say to him. She was sure his wound was infected and that he needed antibiotics. She would have braved Rodolfo’s wrath to bring something back for him from her world, but she had no idea how to get hold of any in Islington without a prescription. And most of the people she might have asked to help her were here in Bellezza. Even Vicky.

  Enrico Poggi had heard the herald too and rushed out to see who the unexpected visitor was. His lip curled when he saw his old employer, Ambassador Rinaldo di Chimici, now elevated as Pope Candidus, picking his way fastidiously through the crowd.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ asked Enrico out loud. He had his own scores he’d like to settle with Rinaldo one day, but at the moment all he saw him as was what Luciano would call ‘a huge security risk’.

  But before Enrico could get near to him, a wild figure had risen from out of the crowd and lunged at the Pope. He had his hands round Rinaldo’s throat.

  ‘Fire!’ Enrico screamed at the guards, pushing his way through the people and taking out his own musket. ‘Fire, why don’t you!’

  Later, he would tell the Senate that he didn’t know who had fired first, himself or one of the arquebusiers positioned on the roof. But the attacker released his hold and sank to the ground. It was only then that Enrico saw the scarlet flowering on the Pope’s white robes; the musket ball had passed through the attacker and into his victim. Rinaldo di Chimici fell to his knees with his arms held out in supplication.

  ‘Goddess, Consort and Son!’ swore Enrico. And then he recognised the other man, who lay stretched out on the Piazza tiles.

  ‘I got the bastard,’ said the dying man.

  *

  ‘I can’t see Enrico anywhere,’ Luciano whispered to Gaetano. ‘And there’s a lot of noise in the square. Do you think everything’s all right?’

  ‘Can you use your mirror to contact Rodolfo,’ Gaetano whispered back.

  Luciano discreetly took out a small hand-mirror and concentrated.

  ‘Look at the Cavaliere!’ said one of the choirboys. ‘Is he checking that he’s handsome enough to get married?’

  ‘Silver velvet!’ said his friend admiringly. ‘Only a noble could get away with that.’

  But the Stravaganti in the row behind him knew what Luciano was doing.

  ‘Make a Circle of Minds,’ hissed Sky. ‘There’s something up, and if we link with the Talian Stravaganti we might be able to keep this wedding safe.’ He was the only one of them who had seen what happened inside the Church of the Santissima Annunziata in Giglia when so many people died just after a wedding.

  Luciano saw Rodolfo’s face in the glass.

  Is everything all right? he thought-spoke. Is Arianna with you?

  There has been a … an unexpected development, came the reply. But all is well. I know of no other danger. We are coming.

  The cries and shouts from the square had died down and everything was quiet. Then a different sound reached the ears of those waiting inside the Basilica. It was like the sighing of waves. Gradually the Stravaganti, who were straining their ears, realised that it was the sound of sighs: it was the citizens of Bellezza catching their first sight of their young Duchessa in her wedding dress.

  As Arianna and Rodolfo reached the big doors, everyone stood up.

  ‘Here we go!’ Gaetano said to Luciano, who was gazing steadfastly forward.

  *

  The surgeon had called in to see Ludo again. Laura was glad that he hadn’t been invited to the wedding or, if he had, put duty before pleasure.

  But he looked worried when he uncovered the Manoush’s wound. There was redness and swelling all round where the musket ball had gone in and Ludo was sweating profusely.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Laura. ‘It’s infected, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think the cause must be inside, where the musket ball was lodged,’ said the surgeon. ‘He said he had lain in a ditch outside the butcher’s and we know that he was in the dirty water of the canal. It is possible that some pollution entered his flesh and is hindering his recovery.’

  Laura bit her lip. It was no good discussing antiseptic or antibiotics with this sixteenth-century doctor; he wouldn’t know what she was talking about and she could see he had done his best to save Ludo.

  But the Manoush was looking alarmingly ill and the surgeon’s frown was getting ever more serious.

  Laura was beginning to think there was only one thing she could do.

  *

  ‘Who gives this woman?’ asked the Bishop of Bellezza.

  Rodolfo Rossi stepped forward and took Arianna’s hand. He placed it in Luciano’s. No words were said, but the younger Stravagante received a very vivid picture in his mind of exactly what would happen to him if he ever did anything to hurt this young woman. He smiled and Rodolfo received a very reassuring message back.

  It was as well that Brother Sulien was helping the Bishop, because the young couple needed a friend at this moment. Had there ever been such a marriage, with soldiers everywhere in the church?

  Arianna had been acutely aware of every one of them when she entered the Basilica but now she was aware of nothing and no one but Luciano. She remembered every detail of meeting him after the night she had spent with the bronze rams on the Loggia degli Arieti. He had been a complete innocent, unaware of anything about Bellezza and Talia.

  But then too their lives had both been in danger. She smiled to remember it and exulted that they had survived and would survive many other dangers in order to spend their lives together.

  Luciano sensed that
smile under her veil and moved it away from her face. He was no expert on dresses, but he had seen Arianna on many state occasions and yet he had never seen anything as grand and as simple at the same time as the white lace dress her grandmother had made for her. There were tiny pearl buttons at the neck and sleeves and layers of complicated airy lace patterns that were like the frost on an English windowpane in winter – something Paola could never have seen.

  Once they had made their vows and the Bishop had pronounced them husband and wife, Rodolfo stepped forward to do his last formal action in the service, untying the white lace mask that had hidden almost all her face apart from her violet eyes.

  Luciano bent to kiss his bride and the Basilica erupted with cheers. He glimpsed his mother out of the corner of his eyes, weeping openly and being comforted by his foster-mother Leonora.

  And then he heard the rumour whispering its way round the Basilica.

  ‘The Pope is dead! Rinaldo di Chimici is dead!’

  Epilogue: Saved

  The A & E doctor was baffled. The unconscious young man who had been brought in by an even younger girl and an older man was dressed in nothing but a beautifully stitched white nightshirt. He was barefoot and wearing a silver charm bracelet.

  The girl said that the man had been shot but it wasn’t a fresh wound. And it wasn’t like any gunshot wound he had ever seen.

  It was just Laura’s bad luck that this was the same doctor who had been on duty the night she had come in with her short-sword injury from Fortezza.

  ‘I know you, don’t I?’ he said. ‘You’re Laura, Laura Reid. Let me look at your arm.’ He admired the neat line made by the stitches he had put in less than a fortnight earlier.

  ‘You seem always to turn up in the middle of the night,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not Laura who’s been injured this time though,’ said the man. ‘What can you do for, er, Luke?’

  Laura was very grateful to have David Mulholland with her. He had been the only person she could think of when she got Ludo back to Mortimer’s shop after taking him the talisman of a silver charm bracelet, which the antiques dealer had found for her in the shop. It wasn’t very masculine but it was the first thing made of silver they could find and Laura had been in a hurry.