*
Matt and Enrico ran down the stairs outside the Anatomy Theatre, leaving the demonstration in upheaval. They found the room where the bodies were prepared and, as they pushed their way in, Gobbi rushed out.
‘Leave him,’ said Matt, hurrying to the table, which had swung over, sending a wretched dog’s corpse to rise up to the theatre, and leaving an inanimate Luciano hanging from the straps on this side. Gobbi had effected the switch over that had been planned if anyone discovered the Professor was not operating on a criminal’s corpse.
‘Quick,’ said Matt. ‘We’ve got to unstrap him before the table goes up again. Angeli operates it from up there.’
They worked at the buckles and Luciano collapsed to the floor, just as the table started to rise up again.
He was still not able to open his eyes but felt himself being carried and smelled something pungent that seemed familiar.
‘Enrico?’ he croaked.
‘That’s me, signore,’ said the spy, desperate to get as far away from the Anatomy Theatre as possible. Matt was taking more of Luciano’s weight but they made a clumsy, shambling trio.
As they came out into the Great Court Enrico heard footsteps and signalled for Matt to stop. They took cover behind a statue of one of the founders of the University. As they watched the main entrance, two members of the city guard came running in and headed up the stone stairs to the Anatomy Theatre.
‘I hope Professor Angeli doesn’t get into any trouble,’ said Matt.
‘Nah,’ said Enrico. ‘He’ll be all right. It’s a dog, isn’t it? And no sign of any other corpse. The Cardinal though, that’s another matter. I don’t reckon the students will let him or Filippo off lightly. It’s one thing to buy stiffs off poor folk that can’t afford to bury them. But it’s quite another to go drugging and poisoning respectable young students like our Cavaliere here and then try and get them cut up while they’re still alive!’
I’m alive, thought Luciano. Stripped and drugged – poisoned he said. And not able to see anything yet. But my heart is still in my body. I can feel it beating.
*
Arianna had set out as soon as she had been able to, after explaining to Barbara and Marco that she must go to Padavia earlier than planned. She was in an agony of impatience; everything took so long to organise. Clothes for Barbara, a change of duty for Marco – the Duchessa herself was in her boy’s clothes long before everyone else was ready.
The journey to Padavia had never seemed so long: first the mandola to the top of the islands, then the ferry to the mainland and then waiting for the public coach. Arianna longed just to go to the Ducal stables and commandeer her own state carriage and urge the horses to the City of Words herself. But it would have been madness to blow her disguise.
When we have found Luciano, she told herself, willing herself to stay positive, I can be useful about the Manoush. Rodolfo said we needed more people to release them when the Dottore’s plan comes off.
The coach stopped near the Piazza dei Fiori and Arianna had to stuff her fist in her mouth when she saw the bonfires. She had banned the practice of execution by burning in her own city; it had always seemed a barbaric punishment to her, even before her own imprisonment and trial.
Rapidly, she turned her back on the square and marched, with Marco following behind her, towards the cathedral. But their way took them past the entrance to the University. Arianna stopped and clutched Marco’s arm. She had seen two people she recognised carrying the naked body of a black-haired young man into the Scriptorium.
*
Constantin was looking through some proofreaders’ corrections when there was a hammering at the Scriptorium door.
Enrico and Matt fell into the room carrying Luciano’s body.
‘It’s all right,’ puffed Matt. ‘Not dead. Drugged.’
Constantin signalled urgently to the proofreaders to clear the papers off their long table so that Luciano could be put on it. While this was going on, two more people burst into the Scriptorium, a young peasant boy and his older companion. To the astonishment of the pressmen, the boy rushed over to the inert body and started keening in a high voice. All work on the machines had stopped and Biagio automatically locked the door.
Matteo the apprentice turned to the boy and grabbed him by the arms. ‘He’s not dead,’ he said again. ‘Not dead. Adamo, do you hear me? He’s been drugged, poisoned, but he’ll be better when it wears off.’
‘He could probably do with a drink,’ said Enrico, wiping his brow. ‘I know I could.’
‘Adamo’ stopped wailing. ‘Do you swear to me, Matteo?’ said the boy, deadly serious and gripping his hands. ‘Do you swear on what you hold most dear that this is not Luciano’s corpse?’
And Luciano, hearing her voice, opened his eyes at last.
‘Arianna?’ he said.
‘What did I tell you?’ said Matt. ‘He’s going to be all right.’
Chapter 25
The Moon in Hiding
All the men in the Scriptorium had stopped work. The printers were variously engaged in fetching clothes for the half-dead boy who had appeared in their midst, and ale for his rescuers. Constantin ordered enough for all the pressmen, from the youngest beater to the proofreaders and then went into his studio to contact Rodolfo through a hand-mirror.
Luciano was still half-paralysed by the powerful drug he had been given but he was propped up against the wall behind the proofreaders’ table, wrapped in Constantin’s university gown and soon some colour returned to his face. He was able to sip a little of the ale when it came.
After her initial display of grief, Arianna had given up all pretence of being male and pulled her cap off. Constantin, coming back out of his studio, assured her that the pressmen were all loyal and would keep her secret.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, raising his tankard. ‘I give you Her Grace, the Duchessa of Bellezza, visiting us in disguise.’
The pressmen drank deep and a holiday mood began to spread. It was not often that such interesting incidents enlivened their day in the Scriptorium. And there was still the mass burning to look forward to at nightfall.
Matt put the ridiculous purple hat on Luciano’s head, where it looked very well. He was beginning to feel a little drunk; the adrenalin of the rescue made a heady mix with the strong ale.
‘Can you tell us what happened?’ he asked.
‘I can’t remember,’ said Luciano, his voice sounding rusty and his throat still very dry. ‘I was coming back on Cara and then two men jumped me. I don’t think I’d be able to recognise them again. Is Cara all right?’
‘Fine,’ said Matt. ‘She just walked home.’
‘Then I was gagged and blindfolded and taken somewhere that smelled of incense.’
‘Bishop’s palace, I reckon,’ said Enrico. ‘That just proves it was the Cardinal – he’s staying there.’
‘They took the gag off and made me drink something,’ said Luciano, ‘and then it’s all a blank till I woke up on Professor Angeli’s dissecting table.’ He shuddered.
‘Dissecting table?’ said Arianna. She knew nothing about the Anatomy Theatre and wasted no time thinking about it. ‘How do you feel now?’ she asked.
‘Lucky to be alive,’ said Luciano. He gave her a shaky smile.
‘I think they really meant to do it this time,’ said Enrico. ‘Rinaldo must have employed some professionals.’
‘What day is it?’ asked Luciano. He could have been missing for an afternoon or a week, for all he knew.
‘Thursday,’ said Matt.
‘Then I must snap out of it,’ whispered Luciano, trying to shake the fog out of his head. ‘We’ve got to save the Manoush.’
*
William Dethridge had been on edge all morning. Repeatedly, he looked at the sky, frowning if any small wisp of cloud appeared. He licked his finger and held it up to the breeze, then returned to his room and repeatedly shook the stones or dealt out the cards.
When Rodolfo got Const
antin’s message through the hand-mirrors, he called the Doctor down and they left for the Scriptorium, with Dethridge on Cara. Both men were filled with unspoken relief. Ever since Luciano’s last capture, which had resulted in such a cataclysmic change to the boy’s life, they had both felt under an enormous obligation to keep him safe and well.
So it was inexpressibly cheering to find Luciano, dressed in a rather random collection of clothes, sitting cross-legged on the proofreaders’ table. And to see Arianna sitting next to him, in her boy’s disguise but without a hat, her legs dangling over the edge of the table.
There was a definite air of celebration in the Scriptorium, with the pressmen standing around drinking ale and toasting the recovered youth, who had been brought in looking like a corpse and come back to life under their eyes. They were also intrigued by the disguised Duchessa and a bit overawed, but not as much as they would have been if they had seen her dressed as the ruler of her city.
‘Thank the goddess you are all right!’ said Rodolfo. ‘Was it the di Chimici again?’
‘Rinaldo,’ said Luciano. ‘At least, so Enrico and Matt tell me.’
And then his rescuers had to tell the story again. It was gradually dawning on Arianna how close the anatomy professor had come to killing Luciano. The drug he had been given had suppressed all his physical functions, reducing even his breathing to such a shallow level that the short-sighted Angeli would certainly have plunged his scalpel into Luciano’s chest if Matt hadn’t come in at that point and raised the alarm.
‘The only question now,’ said Luciano. ‘Is how long it takes for the drug to wear off. I still don’t think I can walk yet.’
‘I have your horse,’ said Rodolfo. ‘We will get you home and then you must go to bed and sleep.’
‘I feel as if I have been asleep for centuries,’ said Luciano. ‘What I want now is to be up and doing.’
‘Bot ye will be fitte for noughte until ye have slepte naturally and lette the poyson dissolve oute of your veines,’ said Dethridge.
‘You must rest,’ said Rodolfo. ‘You will not be present in the Piazza dei Fiori tonight unless you are fully recovered.’
Matt realised that the pressmen thought he meant that Luciano might miss the spectacle. He recoiled from their bloodthirstiness and was more determined than ever that the Stravaganti would succeed in rescuing the Manoush from the flames.
‘Time to get back to work,’ said Constantin and the pressmen put down their tankards and returned to their beating and pulling, their compositing and proofreading.
Rodolfo and Matt took Luciano’s weight between them and half dragged, half carried him out to where Cara was tethered, and hauled him on to her back. Although he had no strength in his legs, Luciano managed to stay upright while the others walked beside him back to the house.
But when they got there, he made no further protest about going to bed. Arianna went up to sit with him but he was asleep within minutes and she came down to join the other conspirators.
*
Antonio was not looking forward to the mass burning. He was a humane man but not a very imaginative one; he saw things in black and white. He had adopted the di Chimici’s anti-magic laws, they had been posted clearly in every square and public meeting-place of the city, the Manoush had disobeyed them and were thus subject to the most extreme penalty of the law. It was that simple. Why, the travelling people had not even claimed to be innocent; they had put up no defence at all!
Something deep in Antonio’s mind respected them for that. He abhorred their religion, with its pagan devotion to the moon goddess and her solar consort. But he was impressed by the manner in which they stuck by it. In some way, they had as great a sense of their duty as he had of his; the difference being, of course, that they were wrong.
His willingness to persecute the wrongdoers in the matter of religion versus superstition had received a severe blow from the bitter denunciations of his wife. Now that her worst predictions had come to pass, Giunta was now threatening to leave him, to take their young daughters and move back to Romula, where she came from. It was another city-state independent of the di Chimici and had not adopted the laws as Antonio had been persuaded to introduce. There, she said, she could practise the goddess religion, without fear of persecution.
But he would be disgraced and his children brought up as heathens! And nothing would be worse than being without the wife he loved. Yet he knew she would be safer in a city that was more tolerant of her religion. His mind was in turmoil.
Antonio could not wait for the execution of the Manoush to be over. Even the young Duchessa of Bellezza had written to ask him to reprieve them. There were moments when he felt completely alone, with nothing to support him but his own convictions. And yet he knew he was not a monster.
*
As the evening drew in, the Manoush became very quiet. They had been defeated in their attempts to celebrate their festival of the New Year and as far as they were concerned, were still accompanied by the ghosts of their dead. These spirits had been summoned but not allowed to return to the world beyond death because of the breaking off of the rituals.
In a way, this was a comfort to the Manoush. The spirits of their dead would accompany them on their painful last journey; in fact they had come to see their own impending death as a necessary sacrifice to compensate for the interruption in their ceremonies.
Only Ludo did not share in this view. He shrank from the spirits, who might have included his mother, who had died only a few months ago; he was not ready to join her in the afterlife. Ludo was terrified of the coming ordeal. But he would not show it. The children did not yet understand what was going to happen to them and he was determined that their terror should not begin any earlier than it had to because of his cowardice.
These three days in the prison had taught him a lot about himself and some of it was that he was not as Manoush as he wished to be. More than ever he wanted to be like his people, steadfast for the goddess and reconciled to their fate. Ludo just couldn’t accept that his life was about to end, without his ever having known about the other half of himself, the half that had noble blood in his veins.
He dared not hope that Matt’s plan would work. The most he allowed himself to wish for was that he would not be shamed in his death, would not scream and beg for mercy but allow himself to be martyred in as dignified a manner as was possible. For this he prayed fervently to the goddess or any other deity that would listen.
*
People had been gathering in the Piazza dei Fiori since mid-afternoon. Ordinary citizens, making sure they had a good position from which to see the burnings. There were food-sellers wandering amid the crowd with trays of frittata slices and fried seafood dipped in batter. The inns near the piazza were doing a good trade in mugs of ale and tankards of spiced wine.
At one end of the piazza a rough platform had been built on which the Governor would stand and read out the indictment of the criminals before sitting to watch their death. To either side of him would sit the Bishop of Padavia and Cardinal di Chimici as upholders of the true faith of the Church of Talia.
As the time grew nearer, young men in university gowns joined the mob. Some were medical students, interested to see the effect of fire on a living body. But most were just curious to be at an execution. There had not been a burning in Padavia for several years and now there were so many condemned.
Minstrels wandered through the square playing lutes and recorders and a few jugglers caught small coins when they had demonstrated their skills.
Half an hour before the execution was due to start, a more sober group of people entered the piazza. Rodolfo in his accustomed black had not sought to change his appearance but his daughter was still in her boy’s disguise, with Marco close beside her. William Dethridge and Professor Constantin were with them. Not far behind came Matt and Cesare, still half supporting Luciano between them.
He had insisted on coming, even though his legs still felt like overcooked pasta.
Enrico was there too, surprisingly matey with Biagio from the Scriptorium. Every single member of the group was equipped with a sharp Merlino-blade; all except Luciano, Enrico, Arianna and Marco were strangers to the weapon. But they didn’t have to get into a dagger fight. If William Dethridge was right, all they would have to do was cut the prisoners’ bonds at the right time.
A roar from the crowd greeted the Manoush as they were at last led out into the square. The children had picked up something of the atmosphere and began to cry as they were bound to the stakes along with their parents and friends. Ludo looked straight ahead, unable to focus on the mob and see from what quarter help might come. He did not register the ten rescuers, five of them Stravaganti.
And yet there was a fine view for all who had come to see the burning. It was the night of full moon and the square was illuminated as much by her round white face as by the cressets and braziers burning at each corner.
When every single prisoner had been tied to one of the stakes, Messer Antonio mounted the platform with the two churchmen. Nervously he scanned the crowd to see if Giunta were there. He very much did not want her to be.
A herald stood on the platform and blew three long notes on his trumpet. Antonio stepped forward and read from a parchment the list of names.
‘All of the prisoners so named have admitted to taking part in a ceremony of pagan worship of the Old Religion,’ he said.
A low chanting began among the prisoners. The women started it and the men took it up, even the children joining in as Antonio struggled to complete his indictment.
‘They have all been tried before the court of this city and condemned to death by burning,’ he continued.
The chanting grew louder.
‘And so it is my unpleasant duty to instruct the guards to set the flames to the pyres. Unless there is anything that any of the Manoush wish to say. Any recantation of their heathen beliefs?’
Antonio could scarcely be heard above the sound of the goddess’s people chanting now. William Dethridge was looking intently at the sky but had as yet given no signal to his followers.