‘Why,’ panted Ambrogio, ‘is the professor so sure that Grignan’s at the tower?’
‘Grignan will want to kill my Guardian,’ Talina realized. ‘He knows too much and he’s no use to the Ravageurs now.’
‘Do you care, Talina?’ asked Ambrogio.
‘I don’t care about Great Uncle Uberto at all. But I care to make sure we frustrate every single plan that Grignan might have. And I need to know everything my Guardian knows. Everything. He might even know where my parents are. I wouldn’t put it past him.’
They fell silent, saving their breath to row as fast as they could along the Rio di San Giovanni Crisostomo, which soon turned into the Rio di Santa Marina.
After San Giovanni in Laterano, they took the Rio del Fonte and then the Rio di San Francesco. A thick slice of flaming roof beam dropped into the boat as they rowed into the Corte delle Gorne. The boat filled with smoke and the terrifying roar of fire. Again, the greedy little faces of the flames struck Talina with fear – they seemed to be pounding with angry fists at the wooden planks that stood between her and the water.
‘Got to kick it out!’ choked Ambrogio. But Talina’s bootlaces had caught fire, and she was fully occupied in stopping an angry slit-eyed flame from catching hold of her petticoats. So Ambrogio wrenched off his jacket, plunged it into the water and then used it to scoop the burning beam from the boat.
‘I’ll stamp on the rest of the embers,’ coughed Talina, ‘if you keep rowing. We’re nearly at the old Arsenale now.’
She wriggled out of her jacket, immersed it in the canal and dabbed the wooden deck wherever the embers glowed. But it was too late. The fire had scorched through the wooden planks in several places, and water was pooling in the bottom of the boat.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Talina. ‘I just couldn’t get all the sparks. But I can swim – can you?’
‘If I have to. Perhaps the boat will last long enough.’
The boat slid through the Canal delle Seghe. Halfway across the larger pool of the new Arsenale, it began to sink beneath them, while merciless flames were taking hold of the prow.
‘It’s burn or drown,’ cried Talina. ‘At least the water doesn’t want to kill us.’
‘Abandon ship!’ Ambrogio took Talina’s hand. ‘Let’s jump. And head towards the Porta Nuova. We just need to turn right there … we’re nearly at Quintavalle.’
The cold water took their breath away, closing briefly over their heads.
Ambrogio proved the stronger swimmer. He took the lead. As they turned into the Canal di San Pietro, Talina faltered, gripped by an agonizing stitch in her side. Treading water, she could see Ambrogio splashing a few metres ahead of her, in the shadow of a great brick wall.
‘Ambrogio, wait!’ she called, but her voice was swallowed by the sound of bricks being wrenched from their grouting, as painful as teeth being pulled from a mouth. The great wall beside them swayed. A whole row of bricks rippled off the top, landing in the water like cannon balls. One of them grazed Talina’s shoulder as it spun into the canal.
‘I think we need to go back and come the long way round,’ called Talina.
‘No,’ Ambrogio panted, treading water. ‘Come on. We just need to swim faster. We can get to the end of this stretch before the wall comes down.’
‘It’s far too risky,’ Talina argued.
An immense shadow flickered over them, blocking out the sky.
Ambrogio and Talina turned fearful faces upwards, just in time to see the bell-tower of San Pietro – in flames – crashing down towards them. Twin crests of water burst from beneath the tower as it hit the canal.
‘Talina!’ screamed Ambrogio. He could see nothing – the entire channel was blocked by the vast corpse of the fallen tower. Nor could he hear anything but the roaring flames at the uprooted base of the half-submerged tower and the distant howling of Ravageurs. He swam up to the tower and tried to scramble over it. He could not raise himself out of the water. ‘Talina!’ he cried desperately. ‘Say something!’
Only a crackle of burning roof-beam answered him.
‘It must have taken her,’ gulped Ambrogio. ‘The tower must have taken her down. She was exactly where it fell. I should never have let her get so far behind.’
He howled as loud as a Ravageur.
‘Whatever is going on at the tower, Talina would want me to find out. And then I’ll save the grannies. That’s what Talina would want.’
The salt water whipped the tears from his eyes as fast as he could weep them.
The water cackled like witches in his wake. The poles in the lagoon seemed to be clasped in prayer.
Behind him, the city continued to burn. Plumes of pale blue smoke rose over it, lightening the black sky.
the Canal di San Pietro, a minute later
TALINA CAME BACK to consciousness to find herself floating on her back in the water, with an aching bump on her forehead.
‘Ambrogio!’ she cried. There was no answer except the roiling of the waves and the snarl of the flames on either side.
‘He must be under the tower,’ she wept. ‘He was ahead of me, just where it fell. I should never have let him go ahead on his own. He was too brave.’
For a few minutes she abandoned herself to grief, her tears mixing with the water of the canal.
Then she thought, ‘The grannies! If the fire has reached San Pietro, they’ll be in danger already.’
She rolled onto her belly and began to swim as fast as she could towards the stump of the church tower. Pulling herself ashore, she ran to the first house and battered on the door. ‘Nonna! Nonna!’ she screamed.
Blinking and coughing, Nonna Angelina emerged. ‘Talina, child, what is it?’
‘You must all make for the boats!’ Talina pointed back towards the dozens of craft moored on the fringes of the island. ‘This fire will sweep through the orchards and then it’ll take Quintavalle in minutes.’
‘I’ll start the message off immediately,’ said Nonna Angelina, fastening a scarf around her neck. It’ll be over the garden gates in a flash.’ She disappeared indoors and could be heard calling over her fence to the next granny.
‘Good!’ called Talina after her – ‘Oh, and bring lanterns and your cats and your knitting. And buns. You might be gone a good while!’
Talina saw the first lick of flame catch the granny underwear drying on the clothes line above her. The sound of grannies calling to one another rose above the roar of the fire. And in minutes a stream of old ladies was to be seen pouring out of Nonna Angelina’s door, clutching their cats, their knitting, lanterns and paper bags full of buns. They made their way in a single file to the boats and climbed in, with a surprising amount of dexterity.
Talina ran to and fro anxiously, making sure that everyone was accounted for. When she was satisfied, she shouted, ‘Weigh anchors and lift ropes! Let the boats float to the lagoon on the tide. I’ll send help as soon as I can.’
‘We cannot lift the anchors,’ Nonna Meghin panted, struggling with the ropes.
Talina shouted, ‘Anyone thought to bring a knife?’
‘I’ve got scissors,’ said one of the grannies, burrowing into her knitting bag.
‘That’ll have to do.’ Talina held them above her head as she leapt into the water. As she snipped its rope, she gave each boat a sharp kick towards open water.
When the last was floating free, she set off in a steady dogpaddle towards the tower. She dared not walk. There were too many beams falling. Too many apple trees lurching down. Too much granny underwear flaming above the street. Too many roof tiles crashing onto the pavement.
As Talina waved goodbye to the last granny, the loss of Ambrogio hit her hard. She sobbed into the dark-green water. All the time she’d been saving grannies, she’d almost managed not to think about Ambrogio, or her parents, at all.
the tower at Quintavalle,
deeper into the night of May 17th, 1867
JUST AS AMBROGIO swam his last sad and solitary strokes to t
he Guardian’s tower, he saw a haze of sparrows hovering over a mound of foam approaching the drawbridge from the opposite direction.
‘Ambrogio!’ screamed Talina.
At the same moment, each of them cried out in confusion and delight, ‘But I thought you were dead!’
Then Ambrogio turned away and cast his eyes down.
Paddling up to the guardrail, panting, Talina explained, ‘I couldn’t get past the fallen bell-tower, so I just turned around and swam in the opposite direction – you know that the island of Quintavalle is olive-shaped. So after I got the grannies into boats, when I still couldn’t get past the tower that fell, well, I just turned around and came the other way … Oh Ambrogio, it’s all right, you can look at me sometimes. Actually—’
A howl above them silenced her.
They clambered up the bank, across the drawbridge and hurtled through the gaping doorway. The door had been torn off its hinges. Bitter wisps of sage-leaf smoke hung in the air. The tower was brightly lit, yet there was no sign or sound of life apart from the faint hissing of the gas-lamps.
‘Gierch-it!’ shouted Talina, tripping over the dead dog.
His throat had been gouged by five long scratches.
‘Your pet dog?’ Ambrogio asked sympathetically.
‘Hardly a pet. He’d have eaten me and Drusilla on toast, given half a chance. But even I wouldn’t wish this on him.’
Gierch-it must have been taken by surprise. Apart from the pool of blood around him, the kitchen was tidy.
‘Too tidy,’ thought Talina. ‘Where are my cookbooks? Where are my special cake tins? Where’s A Wizard in the Kitchen – Thirty Second Banquets? Where’s Magical Means on a Budget?’
A curl of suspicion began to wind itself around her spine.
‘Look!’ pointed Ambrogio. Bloodied paw prints led to the stairs, and then up them. Everywhere on the next floor were signs of a violent struggle. Pictures hung awry. Bookshelves were toppled. Murano glass lamps lay in glittering fragments.
‘The other dogs put up a fight,’ said Talina.
‘Let’s hope they won,’ said Ambrogio without much hope in his voice. ‘Ooops!’
He tripped over a broken jar and slid across the floor, colliding with a table leg. Licking a finger, he asked, ‘Golosi’s Mostarda?’
‘You know who loves that?’
‘I can guess.’
On the next floor, they found Futfallo, or what was left of him. Talina turned away. Then she caught sight of the empty walls.
‘This is my bedroom,’ Talina told Ambrogio. ‘I mean, it used to be.’
Her voice was as hollow as the loneliness she used to feel in that room.
‘But there’s nothing here. Nothing. Just dust.’ Ambrogio was quiet with shock.
Talina herself could barely recognize it. The circular room had been stripped of everything that had been hers.
‘He didn’t waste any time disposing of me and my things!’
She wrenched open the wardrobe door. A solitary empty coat hanger jangled inside.
‘All my books, my bed, my hanging pencils, my pictures, my clothes … all gone. The photograph of my parents. All gone. It is as if I never lived here. As if I never lived. I suppose he thought I was dead, and good riddance. But this – this is cruel,’ Talina whispered. ‘There is no place in the whole world that belongs to me. And now it is as if he’s obliterated even the memory of me. It is as if I am dead,’ she sniffed. ‘I suppose it makes him happy to think I am.’
Ambrogio put his hand on her shoulder. ‘You’re more alive than six ordinary people,’ he ventured.
She shook him off. ‘Don’t be nice to me. Even non-existent girls can cry, you know,’ she said gruffly. ‘Let’s go up again. The next floor is the parlour. And the floor after that is the best parlour. After that, I don’t know. I’ve never been allowed that high.’
‘Whooah!’ The colour drained from Ambrogio’s face as he rounded the last stair and came face to face with the Child-Mauling Thingy looming above him, mouldy sawdust spilling out of its gruesome stitching.
Talina said, ‘And now we know who the Thingy really is! Or was. Meet Verpillion Grignanne – what’s left of him! Do you know, I think he does really look quite a lot like Grignan, stuffed and mounted. Something about the eyes.’
‘Verpillion’s well dead – so what’s that moaning?’ asked Ambrogio.
In the best parlour, Razin was rolling on the floor in agony, his eyes white and his muzzle foamy. A smouldering sage-leaf cigar lay beside him.
‘Rabies!’ cried Talina. ‘Grignan’s infected him.’
Razin had just enough strength to lunge before collapsing in pain.
‘That cigar is warm,’ said Ambrogio. ‘Grignan’s still here. Come on!’
The Guardian’s private apartments commenced on the next floor. Backed up against the wall, Talina stopped dead. This was the last thing she expected to see. All around the walls were pictures of two laughing babies. Not only were there old brown daguerreotypes and sketches, but also locks of hair, little knitted booties, and two old-fashioned blue bonnets.
‘Not such a child-hater after all?’ Ambrogio was puzzled.
‘Perhaps,’ suggested Talina darkly, ‘these poor little babies are the victims in his next book. Without me to model for him, he’s having to resort to pictures of real children and the poor things’ toys.’
Above the fireplace hung an oil painting of a beautiful young woman with shining, happy eyes. She wore the fashion of fifty or sixty years earlier – a dress gathered high above the waist and bonnetless hair dressed in a simple classical style.
‘Who’s she?’ asked Ambrogio.
‘Another victim, no doubt. Just a bit older than usual.’
The next floor contained a narrow iron bed, and a lamp on a stool. Their feet raised puffs of dust from the threadbare rug. The remains of a frugal meal lay on a tray by the window. Great Uncle Uberto, it seemed, dined on bread and water.
‘This must be where your Guardian sleeps. It’s rather empty, isn’t it? He lives like a prisoner. Rather pathetic, if you ask me,’ said Ambrogio.
Talina was about to reply when a low growl and a weak moan could be heard from the floor above.
‘We have to keep going,’ said Talina, hesitating with her hand on the banister.
Another growl, and a heart-rending scream.
‘Now!’ Holding hands, they raced up together.
At the top of the tower, they found Grignan at the Guardian’s throat.
A seething mixture of feelings flooded into Talina’s heart, none of them pleasant, and each worse than the last. Uberto Flangini was her enemy. There was no doubt about that. He had tried to kill her and Drusilla. He had betrayed her parents. But he was a human being, and a Venetian. And the Ravageur Lord was a creature fuelled by baddened magic and set on murder.
She felt the prickle of whiskers under her nose and the reds dissolved from her vision again. Her heartbeat quickened.
‘Talina, you look …’ quavered Ambrogio.
‘The least I can do is make a distraction,’ she thought. ‘I cannot watch the Ravageur tear out a man’s throat.’
Talina screamed at the top of her voice, ‘STOP!’
Grignan stopped growling and turned his massive head. With a sinking heart, Talina faced the Ravageur Lord himself.
‘Just what do you think you are doing?’ she asked in her most fierce and impudent voice.
‘What,’ snarled Grignan, ‘does it look like, not-quite-girl?’
He turned back to Great Uncle Uberto.
‘Talina!’ gulped Ambrogio. ‘You are starting to look like him!’
‘Speak for yourself!’ she retorted.
Ambrogio glanced over to a mirror on the mantelpiece and howled at the sight of his new opal eyes, black pointed ears and lolling red tongue.
‘Where have all the colours gone?’ he cried.
‘They’ll come back, when you’re calm again,’ Talina growled, ‘but w
e need to stay as angry as possible now. If we are Ravageurs, partly anyway, then we can fight like Ravageurs!’ She pointed her hairy hand at Grignan.
Grignan turned again, holding the unconscious Guardian by the neck. Now he tossed the man aside and prepared to attack. Then he took a second look, and hesitated.
Ambrogio and Talina crouched on the floor, manes of fur growing at a furious pace from their sloping backs, their teeth lengthening and sharpening in their mouths. Grignan, outnumbered, took a step back towards the stairs – and screamed in surprise and pain.
His back leg was clamped in the jaws of Razin, who had not been completely destroyed, but had roused himself to take revenge on the creature who had murdered his companions and might well have killed his master.
Faced with three of them, Grignan made a sudden jump over the banister and tore down the stairs, with Razin in valiant pursuit.
‘Your great uncle!’ cried Ambrogio. ‘Is he dead?’
‘No.’ The voice was feeble but audible. There was fear in his eyes as they flickered over the Ravageurish features of the children.
‘Where are my parents?’ screamed Talina.
‘I cannot …’ The Guardian buried his head in his hands. ‘I cannot tell you because Grignan never gave me the information. I begged.’
‘I’d like to have seen that,’ growled Talina.
Uberto Flangini was bleeding profusely from the jagged wound to his neck. But with one final throat-tearing effort, he rasped, ‘Get Signorina Tiozzo.’
Then his head fell limp against the floorboards.
‘The cat woman?’ Talina yelled at her unconscious Guardian. ‘Why? You hate cats!’
the top of the tower, dawn of May 18th, 1867,
Saint Giovanni’s Day
‘YOU STAY WITH him,’ Ambrogio said, ripping a strip off the curtain to staunch the blood. ‘Hold this down on the wound, hard. I’ll go to fetch Signorina Tiozzo, and Professor Marìn. And some Venetian Treacle.’
‘You’ll have to swim …’