City of Ships

by Mary Hoffman

  ‘No, one of the cubs – though he’s a fair size now. Present for Duke Germano.’

  ‘We were going to keep one of the males,’ said Luciano quietly to Cesare. ‘I wish she’d told me.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not your one,’ said Enrico hastily. ‘It’s the smaller male. Anyway, don’t you want to know what she’s – I’m mean, what Her Grace – is doing in the City of Ships?’

  Of course Luciano was burning to know. It irked him that the smelly little spy knew something about Arianna that he didn’t. Why hadn’t she told him she was going on a diplomatic visit? He hadn’t seen her for ages.

  ‘There’s a rumour,’ said Enrico, ‘that the Gate people are preparing for an attack on Bellezza. Or maybe Classe. I think the Regent is hoping to combine forces with the painted city.’

  Now Luciano was really alarmed.

  ‘An attack on Bellezza?’ he said. ‘Then why am I wasting my time here in Padavia? I’m her Cavaliere as well as her fiancé. I should be there looking after her.’

  Isabel went to bed early that night, clutching the red velvet bag and trying hard to think of the Classe Baptistery without imagining the bath in the middle. This was really difficult, like being told, ‘Don’t think of a dog,’ which of course immediately produces doggy images galore. So Isabel concentrated on the mosaics she remembered from inside the dome.

  There was a baptism of Jesus she recalled; she remembered wondering at how the shimmering water up to his waist could have been made with tiny squares like those in her bag. But then, did they have Jesus in Talia? She hadn’t asked the others about things like that. There had been too much else to discuss.

  ‘You’ll be tired all the time,’ Georgia had said, and the others had agreed. Everyone except Nick had experienced the exhaustion of travelling to Talia by night and then having to live a full day back in their own world.

  ‘It’s day there when it’s night here,’ Sky had told her. She hadn’t thought about that before, the first time she ended up in Talia, but it was true.

  ‘So it’s like living each day twice over,’ Matt had told her. He was the most recent Stravagante to make the journey. Isabel gathered that he hadn’t been back since New Year, but he could, any time he wanted, as he still had his talisman. The others had decided against going back, even though they had talismans, but Isabel didn’t understand why. Still, she knew there were some tensions about it in the group.

  She was just wondering about what they were when her eyes closed and . . .

  . . . when she opened them, she was in the Baptistery. Not, thank goodness, soaking wet this time but that was not because she had avoided the bath. She was sitting in the middle of it, as before; only this time it was empty. It must have been bad luck the last time – just after someone had been baptised and before the bath had been drained. She could see the plughole in the middle and the way the marble sloped down to it.

  As Isabel climbed out over the edge she realised she was back in the old-fashioned green dress. A quick inspection showed she had her pyjamas on underneath. She opened the wooden door quietly and saw the cobbled street outside washed in winter sunshine. It was a bit warmer in Classe than in Islington – even in February.

  Cautiously she stepped out into the street. Flavia had taught her the way to her house last time and Isabel slipped quickly through the streets, very conscious of the fact that she didn’t have a shadow. She was careful not to make eye contact with any of the people she met on the way, anxious not to draw attention to herself – nothing new there. She was relieved when she reached the merchant’s house, but didn’t know whether to knock or just open the door as Flavia had before. Then she noticed a long iron bar hanging vertically beside it.

  Isabel pulled and a loud jangling reverberated through the house. Immediately the man she had taken for a guard before opened the door and peered out. He seemed to recognise her because he just nodded and opened the door wider.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said, and went off into the corridor towards Flavia’s parlour.

  Isabel loitered in the hall, examining the mosaic pattern on its floor, which hadn’t registered last time. It was an elaborate and colourful carpet of stone tesserae in geometric patterns of mainly cream, turquoise and black, with some red and green detail. Only it wasn’t old, like the ones in the Baptistery; it was as if it had been laid only a year or two before.

  ‘I see you’re admiring Fausto’s work,’ said Flavia, coming forward to greet her. ‘He designed it specially for me.’

  ‘You still make mosaics in the city?’ asked Isabel.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Flavia. ‘There are many mosaicists working here – but my friend Fausto is the best. Now, come with me. You must change your dress. We have some important visiting to do.’

  Alice in Wonderland, thought Isabel. That’s what it reminds me of. No one asks you what you’d like to do or how you are. You just get told what to do and where to go. I’m surprised the footman wasn’t a fish.

  But she didn’t really mind, because this was her adventure. OK, so some other students had done something similar but no one else had been to Classe and, most importantly, Charlie had not been found by a talisman and sent to Talia. This was the first special thing she had been chosen for on her own.

  *

  Arianna was down in Duke Germano’s stables feeding titbits to Vitale, the spotted cat. He licked her fingers, looking for more.

  ‘No more now, you greedy thing,’ said Arianna, caressing his whiskery face. ‘You’ll get fat. How cross Mariotto would be to see me giving you treats when you haven’t even been for a run. But he had to stay behind and look after the rest of your family. I hope you don’t miss them, my handsome boy, but you are going to be very happy here, I know.’

  A rustle in the straw made her turn round quickly and there was the Duke himself with a cloth package in his hand that Vitale clearly thought smelled promising. The cat turned his attention to his new master and Germano looked a bit guilty as he unwrapped his kitchen morsels.

  ‘I wondered if he might be feeling lonely,’ he told Arianna. ‘But I see you had already thought of that.’

  ‘I can see he is going to be in good hands here,’ said the young Duchessa.

  ‘He is a magnificent beast,’ said Germano, stroking Vitale’s head. ‘Quite the nicest present you could have brought me. I was wondering about having his portrait done in mosaic on the wall of the little building I’m having cleaned and whitewashed for him. We have an excellent master of the art in the city.’

  ‘Hear that, Vitale?’ said Arianna. ‘Your own house with your own picture on the wall. I doubt any other member of your family will be so honoured.’

  ‘What are you doing with the others?’ asked the Duke.

  ‘Well, I’m keeping his brother,’ said Arianna. ‘And I have given one of the females to my personal maid, Barbara. She married one of my footmen just before Christmas.’

  ‘That is a rich gift for a servant,’ said Germano.

  ‘But she is no ordinary servant,’ said Arianna. ‘She saved my life in Giglia on the day of the Nucci massacre.’

  ‘We heard about that,’ said Germano. ‘But I thought they were trying to kill di Chimici. Do they have something against Bellezza too? You must tell me if that is the case, for the parents and their remaining children live here in Classe under my protection. Matteo Nucci is an old friend of mine.’

  ‘I know, Your Grace,’ said Arianna, touching his arm. ‘I’m sorry. I make no accusation against Matteo Nucci or his family. I don’t know if the man who stabbed my maid was a Nucci or a di Chimici. In the chaos and bloodshed it could have been a random attack. But Barbara was pretending to be me so I think I was the target.’

  ‘Wasn’t the attacker questioned?’

  ‘I killed him,’ said Arianna simply. ‘I’ve never known who he was. I couldn’t have identified him among the pile of bodies in the orphanage after the massacre.’

  ‘You are very young to have experienced such things, my
dear,’ said the Duke.

  ‘But the di Chimici have attacked my family before,’ said Arianna. ‘So it could have been one of them taking advantage of the Nucci conspiracy.’

  ‘And now they might attack you again, through the Gate people,’ said Germano.

  A dark figure stooped through the stable door and Germano’s hand flew to his belt. But there was no need for a dagger.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Arianna, laughing. ‘It’s my father. And I can guess what he’s doing here.’

  ‘Arianna?’ called Rodolfo. ‘And is that you, Your Grace? You have visitors, another of my calling.’

  ‘What is that you have in your hand, Father?’ asked Arianna.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Rodolfo, trying to hide the bone he was holding behind his back. But Vitale gave him away, straining the length of his leash and snuffling at the Senator’s clothes. ‘Well, all right. I called in at the kitchen on my way. I knew you might be here and I thought you might be giving him unsuitable sweetmeats. He should be sharpening his teeth on something harder.’

  He gave the bone to the big cat and, watching the way that Arianna was looking at her father, Germano hoped his own daughters were as fond of him as she was of the Regent.

  They went back into the Ducal Palace and Arianna hurried to wash and change to meet the woman Rodolfo told her was another Stravagante. But when she entered the Duke’s smaller reception room, hastily smoothing her silk skirt, she saw two people waiting to be presented to her.

  From Isabel’s point of view, a young woman as stunning as a film star had just entered the room. She was wearing a sort of lilac dress, quite simple but obviously expensive, and, surprisingly, a silver mask, so that only part of her face was visible. But she was slender and elegant and had abundant dark reddish-brown hair. More than that, she was surrounded by an aura of confidence and command, even when a little hurried as she seemed now.

  Isabel thought she could never in a million years enter a room the way Arianna just had. Arianna! So this was the famous Duchessa, who was engaged to the Barnsbury student who had died in his real world. It seemed all too fantastic to be true.

  ‘Ah, Your Grace,’ said Duke Germano. ‘Allow me to present a very valued member of our trading community, Signora Flavia. And her friend, Signorina Isabella.’

  Arianna made a deep and graceful curtsey to them both.

  ‘And now, if you will excuse me,’ said the Duke, ‘I know that you and your father have private matters to discuss with Signora Flavia. I shall have refreshments brought to you and leave you to talk in peace.’

  ‘My dear,’ said Rodolfo, ‘Flavia I have told you about before. As you know, she is one of our Brotherhood. But Isabella is an unexpected bonus. She is a new Stravagante from Luciano’s world.’

  ‘Oh, you know Luciano!’ said Arianna, turning a hundred-gigawatt smile on Isabel.

  ‘Not really, Your . . . um . . . Grace,’ said Isabel.

  ‘Oh, please call me Arianna when there is no one by,’ said the Duchessa, suddenly seeming much closer to Isabel in age. (Indeed she was only a year older.) ‘Do you know Georgia and Tino and Matteo?’

  ‘I know Georgia and Matt,’ said Isabel. ‘But no one called Tino.’

  ‘He was called Sky in Isabella’s world,’ said Rodolfo.

  Now it was Arianna’s turn to see how Isabel’s face changed when Sky was mentioned.

  ‘Is he your boyfriend?’ she asked. ‘But I thought there was another girl. What was it? Aleechay.’

  ‘We say Alice,’ said Isabel. ‘And I’m afraid she’s still around. Sky doesn’t really notice me.’

  Why am I telling this stranger such a private thing? she thought. It must be because this is another world.

  ‘I’m so glad to meet another girl from Luciano’s world,’ said Arianna. ‘Especially one who “doesn’t really know him”. It was a bit hard to be friends with Georgia, though we were all right by the end.’

  She had a twinkle in her eyes, which Isabel noticed were an unusual violet colour, like a darker version of her dress. Isabel felt Arianna would be so wonderful to have as a friend that it would be worth coming to Talia just for that. But she filed away for future attention the fact that Georgia seemed to have been the Duchessa’s rival at one time.

  ‘And if you know Georgia, you must also know . . . what is he called there? . . . Nicholas Duke?’

  ‘Yes, he and Georgia are pretty full on,’ said Isabel.

  ‘Full on?’ asked Arianna. ‘I don’t know what that means exactly but I like the sound of it. Are they engaged?’

  ‘No,’ said Isabel. ‘Nick’s only sixteen.’

  Arianna shrugged. ‘That would not be a barrier here. But I think we live our lives a bit faster than you do in the future. I am happy for Falco and so would his brother be. I wonder if I can get a message to Gaetano.’

  Rodolfo had been talking quietly to Flavia while the young women got to know each other, but now he came to join them. He looked at Isabella with such a penetrating gaze from under his bushy eyebrows that she shrank further into the stiff brocade dress Flavia had lent her.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said at last, relaxing into a smile that transformed his stern face. Then he did the strangest thing. He put a hand on her arm and said, ‘I sense a second person. Did you come on your own?’

  Chapter 5

  Exiles

  William Dethridge was in his new laboratory in his wife’s house in Bellezza. He was still working on the difficult question of why talismans brought Stravaganti from the other world only to the city that the talismans came from. It would be so much more useful to the Brotherhood if their allies could arrive in whatever city they chose. Because they had to stravagate back home by nightfall, it was a real limitation that they could travel only to cities that were less than half a day’s journey away.

  He thought about what his foster-son, Luciano, had told him about twenty-first-century travel and sighed. It was no good wishing for metal flying-machines in Talia, when the only forms of transport were horses, sailing ships or feet. And even horses weren’t an option in Bellezza, where they had been banned; that was a hardship to the old alchemist, who loved the beasts and was a fine horseman.

  As if he had been conjured up by Dethridge’s thoughts, Luciano burst into the laboratory.

  ‘Sonne!’ the old man cried. ‘Whatte make ye here? Is some thinge amiss in Padavia?’

  ‘No,’ said Luciano, embracing his foster-father warmly. ‘It is here that something is wrong – or so I am told. Enrico tells me that Bellezza faces a naval attack so I thought I should be here.’

  Dethridge shook his head.

  ‘Ah, ye are soo hotte in the hede all ways! There is no daungere yet. And Arianne and Rudolphe are in Classe.’

  ‘I know,’ said Luciano. ‘Enrico told me. But aren’t they coming back soon?’

  ‘Nay, ladde, I thinke notte,’ said Dethridge.

  ‘Then I must go to them,’ said Luciano. ‘My horse is on the mainland – it won’t take long to get to Classe.’

  ‘Woll ye haste away so quick as ye came?’ said Dethridge. ‘Leonora woll notte be pleased with me if I lette ye goe.’

  Luciano sighed. He had hoped that Arianna and Rodolfo would be back soon after he got to Bellezza. But now that he was here, he couldn’t really leave again immediately without giving his foster-parents some time. He knew they missed him while he was away at university.

  ‘I’ll stay for one night,’ he said. ‘And then I really must go to Classe. I’m skiving off my lectures to be here.’

  ‘Welle thenne,’ said Dethridge. ‘Lette us goe and finde Leonora and shee woll make grete plannes for dinner, I trow.’

  ‘In a minute,’ said Luciano, smiling. He was very fond of both his new parents, even though they were so different from the real ones he had left behind in his old world when he became stranded in Talia two and a half years earlier.

  ‘What are you working on?’ he asked, looking at the parchment on Dethridge’s
desk. It was covered in strange squiggles and symbols, some like signs of the zodiac, others unfamiliar.

  ‘Yt is thee olde conundrum,’ said Dethridge. ‘How we Stravaygers mighte travell with ease between cities in Talie.’

  ‘And how are you getting on?’

  ‘Well, sonne, verray well,’ said Dethridge. ‘I thynke we woll attayne whatte we wish in the end.’

  Luciano looked round the laboratory, which was different from Rodolfo’s. It was fantastically untidy and he never knew how Dethridge could find anything in it.

  ‘Is it like your old laboratory in England?’ he asked.

  ‘Some whatte,’ said Dethridge. ‘Yt is straunge to thynke thatte my old laboratorie is under your schole.’

  ‘Not my school any more,’ said Luciano ruefully. ‘That’s now the School of Rhetoric in Padavia and I suspect I’m going to be in trouble for skipping lectures when I do get back.’

  He walked over to an elaborate arrangement of mirrors on the back wall.

  ‘Can I get in touch with Rodolfo?’ he asked. ‘I should let them know I’m coming to Classe.’

  *

  The Nucci family were in Classe, slowly recovering from their losses. Like many bankers, Matteo Nucci had sent a large quantity of his wealth away from his native city and after his banishment from Giglia had found comfortable sanctuary in the City of Ships.

  The loss of his great palace in Giglia would have irked him but he had experienced injuries worse than that. First his youngest son Davide had been killed by Carlo di Chimici and then, when his oldest boy, Camillo, had attempted to take revenge, Fabrizio di Chimici had slit his throat.

  Now the only son he had left was Filippo, himself badly injured in the massacre at the Church of the Annunciation. But there were two girls too and his grief-stricken wife, Graziella, to think of. Matteo had put his shoulder to the wheel and set about rebuilding the family’s fortunes.

  They lived in a fair-sized house on the Piazza del Foro, which put them right in the thick of the trading heart of Classe, just where Matteo wanted to be. It was less than a year since the murder of Davide and the death of Camillo that followed a month later and Graziella Nucci and her daughters were still in black.