City of Ships

by Mary Hoffman

  How can I be making all this up in my sleep? thought Isabel. I scarcely know those people. Apart from Sky, of course. You don’t have to be a genius to guess how I came up with his name.

  ‘You know these other Stravaganti?’ Flavia was asking.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Isabel. ‘But I don’t know what you mean by “Stravaganti”. You said that word before, about you and me, when you found me in the bath.’

  ‘Travellers in time and space,’ said Flavia, and Isabel suddenly noticed the woman had the little red pouch in her lap. She held it out. ‘This is your talisman – the thing that enables you to travel between worlds. Every Stravagante has one. It takes him or her to the city it came from in Talia.’

  ‘So did that come from Talia?’ asked Isabel. She took the bag from Flavia and felt curiously reassured to have it back.

  ‘Yes, it came from here, the city of Classe,’ said Flavia, looking at Isabel intently. ‘I took it to your world myself.’

  Isabel smiled to think of this wealthy woman in her historical costume wandering through the streets of London. Then she did a double take.

  ‘What time is it here?’ she asked.

  ‘A little before noon,’ said Flavia.

  ‘No, I mean what year is it?’

  ‘1580.’

  ‘No kidding,’ said Isabel. So Flavia wasn’t dressed up in historical costume, like someone in a play or pageant, and nor was she. It really was the sixteenth century in this place. The Renaissance. That was if Talia really existed and it wasn’t a dream.

  ‘How do I get back?’ she asked.

  ‘You have to be holding the talisman and thinking of your destination when you fall asleep,’ said Flavia. ‘Only I recommend you not to think of the baptismal bath when you come back next time.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of it last time,’ said Isabel, annoyed. But then she realised what Flavia had meant: she would coming back to Classe again.

  *

  ‘He is my present to you,’ said Arianna, delighted by the way that Duke Germano caressed the African cat. The animal was not yet full-grown and, as it responded enthusiastically to being stroked, she thought it looked as though man and cat would get on well.

  Rodolfo smiled. He had not been at all sure about this idea of his impetuous daughter’s but the present of the beast seemed to smooth their arrival at the palazzo and the Duke was clearly pleased.

  The Duchessa Anna came into the reception room and gave a small shriek when she saw the cat.

  ‘Look what the Duchessa of Bellezza has brought for us,’ said Germano. ‘Don’t be afraid, my dear. See, he is gentle as a lamb.’

  The old Duchessa came cautiously to have her hands licked and the introductions were all made in an atmosphere of laughter and friendship.

  ‘Does he have a name?’ asked Germano, now playing with the outsize kitten by dangling a tassel on his surcoat for him to catch.

  ‘Well, I’ve been calling him Vitale, because he’s so lively,’ said Arianna. ‘But he’s yours now so you can change it if you like.’

  ‘No, no, that’s perfect,’ said the Duke. ‘And we shouldn’t confuse him – he’ll be homesick at first anyway, so we should keep his name to make him feel at ease.’

  Rodolfo thought that he needn’t worry about Arianna’s skills as a diplomat; Vitale was the patron saint of Classe.

  By the time the cat had been taken to a stable and made comfortable and his diet discussed with a nervous groom, the rulers of Bellezza and Classe were chatting like old friends. They sat down to an informal dinner with Rodolfo and Duchessa Anna and no other guests. But as was customary in Talia, no diplomatic business was discussed until the servants had withdrawn and they were sitting with glasses of digestivo in a small parlour.

  ‘These are dangerous times for our shores,’ began Rodolfo.

  The Duke nodded; he approved of coming straight to the heart of the matter and he now felt at ease with his guests.

  ‘We are both fortunate and unlucky to live in such watery cities, so close to the coast,’ said Germano.

  ‘You have suffered much from piracy?’ asked Arianna.

  ‘Probably no more than any other trading port,’ admitted Germano. ‘But it has been worse of late. There is one particularly audacious brigand, known as the Black Raider, who has caused our merchants heavy losses.’

  ‘We have heard of him too,’ said Arianna. ‘His ambition seems to be to harry all the trade routes from the east to Talia.’

  ‘But we have a threat more dangerous still than Black Raiders,’ said Rodolfo.

  ‘The Gate people,’ said Arianna.

  Germano looked serious. ‘They have always been there,’ he said. ‘They watch our eastern coast from their shores and take advantage of any weakness in our defences. But it’s been a long time since they have taken any aggressive action.’

  ‘That time may be coming,’ said Rodolfo. ‘We have heard that they have formed an unlikely alliance.’

  ‘With the di Chimici,’ added Arianna.

  Germano paled, gripping the arms of his chair. It had been a major part of his rule to resist the di Chimici in their attempts to woo him into their fold. Years ago, a marriage had been suggested with his older daughter, but she had already made her choice of husband and was scathing on the subject of the offer.

  But Duke Germano always felt on his guard about Talia’s ruling family. The mere mention of their name was enough to conjure up the nightmare of losing his city’s independence.

  ‘To what end?’ he asked.

  ‘It is an incredibly dangerous strategy but we think the di Chimici are encouraging the Gate fleet to attack our coastline – Bellezza and probably Classe too,’ said Rodolfo. ‘If the attacks succeed, the di Chimici will let them pillage for a little while and then expect to have the control of the cities handed over to them.’

  ‘But that is like training a tiger to hunt for you and expecting him to hand over most of the kill!’ said Duke Germano, appalled. ‘They will have invited a dangerous predator right into Talia.’

  Arianna was impressed that the Duke’s first thought had been of his country rather than fear of losing power in his own city.

  ‘It may not be as bad as that,’ she said, though she couldn’t smooth her own worry out from behind her mask. ‘My father has drawn the worst picture for you, to show how serious the threat is. All we know for certain is that the Gate fleet is massing in the east and that our spies have confirmed the Grand Duke’s emissaries have been seen at the King of the Gate people’s court.’

  ‘So the rest is conjecture?’ said Germano.

  ‘Conjecture and what the Stravaganti have to able to scry,’ said Rodolfo.

  Isabel woke at the usual time in her own bed, still holding the red velvet pouch. She was wearing her own pyjamas and they were dry. She could remember putting them back on though, in Talia, so that didn’t really prove anything. She lay there a while, her thoughts whirling with all she had seen and heard during what Flavia had called her first stravagation.

  They had gone out for a walk in the streets of Classe and Isabel had seen that the city was criss-crossed by canals and little bridges. Flavia had explained that it was built on swampy land, ‘like Bellezza’. That hadn’t helped much, but Isabel gathered she meant a greater city, further north, that sounded like a version of Venice.

  They had walked through a large oblong space, which Flavia said was called the Piazza del Foro and which was being used for a market.

  ‘That is my stall over there,’ the woman had said, pointing to one of the biggest ones in the piazza. ‘My assistant is running it today, because I was waiting for you.’

  Flavia had said a lot of things like that, which all seemed to imply that Isabel had been somehow expected in Classe and her arrival looked forward to as something important. She didn’t understand any of it but it made her feel good.

  They were on their way down to the harbour when Flavia had suddenly stopped outside an imposing-looking bui
lding.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘She is here already.’

  Isabel was so used to being puzzled and confused by then that she hadn’t thought to ask who. Flavia was looking at a grand carriage bearing a crest with a silver mask on it.

  ‘The Duchessa of Bellezza has arrived,’ she said to Isabel.

  ‘Is she a Stravagante too?’ hazarded Isabel.

  ‘No, but her father is. And so is her fiancé.’

  Ah, so this Duchessa was young, even with such a grown-up title.

  What Isabel had liked best was the harbour, and it had helped her to believe that her visit to Classe hadn’t been a dream. She had never seen a harbour or port in real life so she didn’t see how she could have invented it, even with her unconscious mind. To be honest with herself, she was afraid of the water, particularly open sea, and couldn’t even swim. (Charlie of course was on the Barnsbury swimming team.)

  But Classe harbour was beautiful, thronged with the bobbing masts of sailing ships of all sizes, full of the cries of gulls and the smells of just-caught fish and a salty wind off the sea. Flavia had pointed out her own ships, one just arrived and one about to set out on a voyage to the east. It was a thriving, bustling centre of activity, the waterside equivalent of the busy buying and selling they had just seen in the Piazza del Foro.

  It was down at the quayside that Flavia had whispered to Isabel to notice their shadows. The merchant’s stretched darkly across the wet cobbles in the afternoon sunshine. But of Isabel’s there was no sign. It had made her feel weak and insignificant all over again.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Flavia had said. ‘No Stravagante has a shadow in the other world. I didn’t have one when I came to where you live.’

  But soon after that she had said it was time for Isabel to go home.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here too long on your first stravagation,’ Flavia said, and had taken her back to her house and made her put her dry pyjamas back on under the green dress. Then they had walked back to the Baptistery.

  ‘You have to fall asleep holding the tesserae, remember,’ Flavia had said.

  Fortunately, the Baptistery had been empty and it hadn’t appeared necessary to get back in the bath to stravagate. There were wooden benches around the octagonal walls and Isabel had lain down on one of them, clutching the velvet bag, certain she wouldn’t go to sleep, half believing still that she was asleep already and dreaming.

  But just as she was wondering if it was possible to dream of falling asleep when you already were, she had lost consciousness and the next thing she knew, she was awake in her own bed.

  Her mother’s voice calling up the stairs about breakfast startled Isabel out of her reverie. Whether Talia and Classe were real or not, Barnsbury Comp certainly was and she needed to get showered and dressed or she would be late.

  But when she reached the school gate with her friends, something odd happened. Matt was there and she thought he was just waiting for Ayesha. But he looked straight past his girlfriend and fixed Isabel with a penetrating stare. She felt very uncomfortable, especially since she had been talking about him in her dream.

  Matt flashed Ayesha a smile and said, ‘Can I borrow Isabel a moment, Yesh?’

  And he took her aside to where a knot of other students stood waiting. Georgia and her boyfriend Nick, Sky and Alice. These were all people mentioned by Flavia, except for Alice.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Isabel uneasily.

  ‘That’s what we wanted to ask you,’ said Sky. That was the second time he had noticed her existence, and Isabel registered that Alice didn’t look too pleased about it. ‘Did anything happen with the velvet bag?’

  That would have been a really weird question to ask. Except that something had happened. Isabel suddenly had a very strong sense of their all looking at her as if they knew she had been transported to Talia.

  And in that moment, she was sure that what had happened to her had been no dream.

  Chapter 3

  Belonging

  It was an eerie feeling having five fellow students looking as if they would hang on her every word and Isabel felt very self-conscious. She didn’t know how she was going to explain it to Laura, who had gone on ahead.

  ‘There’s no time to talk now,’ said Georgia. ‘Can you sit with us at lunch?’

  ‘What about the people you usually sit with?’ said Isabel.

  ‘Well, Ayesha’s OK,’ said Matt. ‘She knows.’

  ‘But you’ll have to lose Laura,’ said Georgia harshly. ‘She mustn’t suspect anything.’

  Suspect what? thought Isabel all morning. And what did Matt mean by saying Ayesha knew?

  She couldn’t concentrate on any of her lessons and drew some unwanted attention from her teacher in History. At break, she took Laura to one side and said she couldn’t have lunch with her. Laura looked hurt but didn’t ask why. So Isabel blundered on.

  ‘I’ve got to talk to these, er, people. Friends of Ayesha,’ she said. ‘See you at going home?’

  Laura just nodded and Isabel felt even more of a rat. Her best friend was so fragile. She tried to forget her guilt by spending the next two periods communing with the imaginary Charlotte, telling her all about Talia. By lunch break she was a wreck, dithering over what to put on her tray and looking out nervously for the group of what she found herself thinking of as Stravaganti.

  When she spotted them, she was glad to see that Alice wasn’t with them. Sky indicated a place next to him and Isabel sank into it with relief. Whatever they were all going to tell her, it would soon be over.

  ‘So. This velvet thingy – it’s a talisman, isn’t it?’ asked Georgia, without any preliminaries.

  ‘That’s what Flavia called it,’ said Isabel.

  ‘Is she your Stravagante?’ asked Sky. ‘I had a woman one too, a sculptor. Is yours an artist?’

  ‘Where did you go?’ asked Nick eagerly. ‘Was it near Giglia?’

  ‘You know no one else is going to go there, Nick,’ said Georgia. She seemed annoyed with her boyfriend, though Isabel couldn’t see why.

  ‘Don’t crowd her,’ said Matt. ‘Let her take her time.’ Ayesha looked at him approvingly.

  ‘She said she was a Stravagante,’ said Isabel slowly. ‘And she said I was one too but I still don’t understand it.’

  ‘Matt said it takes a while to get used to,’ said Ayesha.

  ‘Have you been, you know, to Talia?’ Isabel asked her.

  Ayesha shook her head. ‘No, not me. But the others all have.’

  ‘And Alice went once,’ said Sky. ‘But she didn’t like it.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I liked it exactly,’ said Isabel. ‘It was weird. I mean, I arrived in this big bath of water and Flavia found me and took me to her house to dry out.’

  ‘Bath of water?’ said Nick.

  ‘Yes, it was in the Baptistery in a place called Classe,’ said Isabel.

  ‘Ah,’ said Nick. He seemed a bit disappointed. ‘That’s more like Bellezza than Giglia.’

  ‘Flavia mentioned Bellezza,’ said Isabel. ‘The Duchess of it had just arrived in Classe.’

  ‘Duchessa,’ said Georgia. ‘Was she on her own?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see her,’ said Isabel. ‘But Flavia said something about her father – and her fiancé. She said they were both Stravaganti. Do any of you know her?’

  ‘All of us do,’ said Nick. ‘In a way. And her father. But her fiancé, as you call him, is even better known here. He used to go to this school.’

  Isabel felt really out of her depth.

  ‘You mean it’s possible to go to Talia and not come back?’ she asked.

  ‘Only if you die,’ said Georgia.

  Cardinal Rinaldo di Chimici had not told the Grand Duke about his experiments, with their cousin Filippo, in stravagation. Rinaldo was wild with frustration. He had captured and tortured a young man who he was sure was a traveller from another world, confiscated the book that he believed was the key to the youth’s travel to the futu
re, and heard Filippo’s account of how he had briefly visited that world.

  And then, nothing. They still had the book but it never worked again. Rinaldo had gone back to Remora but felt so restless that he had summoned Filippo to visit him there.

  ‘We must go over again what we know about the Stravaganti,’ he said, as soon as Filippo arrived.

  ‘Not again,’ said his cousin wearily. ‘I’m not going to let you keep on hitting me, cardinal or no cardinal.’

  Rinaldo glared at him. ‘No. Obviously, that didn’t work. We need to make a list or chart of what we learned about stravagation together and what I knew about it already.’

  ‘We’ve been through all this before,’ said Filippo. ‘Why is it so important to find out more?’

  ‘We’ve been through that too,’ said the Cardinal. ‘This brotherhood has the secret of time travel, I am sure. And possibly the secret of travel to other worlds as well. If we could only find out how they do it, it would give the family a huge advantage.’

  Filippo sighed. He had hated his brief trip to the future or to another world, whichever it had been, and was in no hurry to return. It had been a nightmare place, full of flames and smoke and demons, and his own view was that he had experienced a vision of hell. Perhaps that was where the Stravaganti came from? But some were definitely Talians, like the Regent of Bellezza.

  Rinaldo sat at his desk with parchment and quill. He would not trust a clerk with this task. After half an hour he put down his quill and looked over the list he had just written:

  .

  Known Stravaganti in Talia

  .

  Rodolfo, Regent of Bellezza

  .

  Suspected Stravaganti

  .

  Luciano Crinamorte, Cavaliere of Bellezza

  Dottore Guglielmo Crinamorte of Bellezza

  Georgio Gredi, rider of Remora, now vanished

  Brother Sulien, pharmacist-friar of Giglia

  Brother Tino, friar of Giglia, now vanished