City of Ships

by Mary Hoffman

  She was still guarded by Marco, who was now married to the maid Barbara and was an old friend of the younger couple. He understood that they would want to get back quickly to Luciano’s house and made himself scarce with Alfredo in the kitchen.

  ‘It’s so good to have you here again,’ said Luciano when the first rapture of their reunion had run its course. ‘I don’t think I can wait till May to come back to you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Arianna reprovingly, propping herself on her elbow. ‘We have a war to fight before then.’

  ‘All the more reason to get married sooner and be together whatever happens,’ he said.

  ‘But the Duchessa of Bellezza can’t marry her Duke in a little parish church with a few friends back for bread and cheese afterwards,’ said Arianna.

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ said Luciano, brushing a loose curl back over her shoulder. ‘I didn’t think you cared about all that stuff anyway – clothes and jewels and pomp and ceremony.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘At least the me that is Arianna doesn’t. But I’m also the ruler of my city-state and the people demand and deserve a good show. That takes time to prepare.’

  ‘Now you sound like Silvia,’ said Luciano.

  Arianna laughed, ‘Well, blood will out, I suppose. And I don’t want Fabrizio di Chimici to think we got married in a hole and corner way – because we were afraid of his plot with the Gate people.’

  ‘So you’d rather do it in full view in the cathedral of the Maddalena, where any of his assassins could kill me?’ said Luciano. ‘Or both of us.’

  ‘Don’t joke about it,’ said Arianna seriously, putting her finger on his lips. ‘It is my worst nightmare.’

  *

  Gaetano and Nick left the tavern and walked towards the Palazzo Ducale. Suddenly Gaetano clutched his brother’s arm and dragged him back behind the fountain.

  ‘It’s him!’ he hissed. ‘Fabrizio’s coming out.’

  The Grand Duke of Tuschia emerged from the Ducal Palace, where he had his office, flanked by a small band of guards. There was a murmur of greeting and deference wherever he went like the sound of a wave breaking on the shore. He looked haughty but inclined his head to a favoured few.

  ‘I wonder where he’s going?’ whispered Nick.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gaetano whispered back. ‘Not to his home in the Nucci palace. He gets there by the corridor our father had built.’

  Nick shuddered. He wouldn’t have wanted to see Fabrizio in that palazzo. The last time he had been there he had watched his father die from his own poison.

  Fascinated, he looked from behind the fountain as his oldest brother progressed slowly across the square, dispensing favourable looks and small waves to privileged Giglians who happened to be in his path. He was taking a route that would lead him up to the cathedral.

  ‘Come on,’ said Nick. ‘Let’s follow him.’

  They walked up the long straight road where the shoemakers plied their trade, Nick still revelling in being back in the city that he knew so well but as a sort of invisible tourist. When they reached the Piazza della Cattedrale and saw the great cathedral of Santa Maria del Giglio, he caught his breath. This was what he missed in London more than anything: that vast beneficent presence that could be glimpsed from almost every quarter of the city, the place where his parents had been married and in whose Baptistery every Giglian prince and princess had been welcomed into the Reman church.

  The brothers stopped when they saw the guard surrounding the Grand Duke in even tighter formation as he walked up the steps of the cathedral.

  ‘Is it a public service?’ asked Nick. ‘Can we go in?’

  There was no one to stop them and no one who would have dared deny Prince Gaetano entrance – or any companion of his. And inside the great church was full of people milling around, just as Nick remembered it. It was nothing like the churches he had occasionally visited in Islington. No one kept quiet and the service that the Grand Duke was attending was down at the main altar while tourists and pilgrims wandered around the rest of the imposing building, looking at frescoes and statues or peering up at the inside of the mighty dome.

  Among them were several monks and friars and the brothers soon spotted Sky and Isabel. They moved up to join them.

  ‘Isn’t that your brother?’ whispered Sky.

  Nick nodded.

  ‘That’s the Grand Duke of Tuschia, Fabrizio di Chimici,’ Sky told Isabel.

  The name echoed round the open space as others mouthed it too. Di Chimici was a potent word in this city and many who had come to look at the cathedral were drawn instead to stare at Giglia’s ruler, so young and handsome and rich.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ asked Isabel.

  ‘It seems to be some sort of service of dedication,’ said Gaetano, then slapped his head. ‘Of course! I remember now. He told me. He ordered some fancy new armour to wear into battle. That’s it there on the altar. The Bishop of Giglia is blessing it for him.’

  ‘Battle?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Yes. He invited me to come but I forgot,’ said Gaetano. ‘He has some new plan brewing about dominating other cities.’

  ‘It’s Classe,’ said Isabel softly. ‘He’s planning to invade Classe with the Gate people.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Gaetano, appalled. ‘But Classe is a Talian city and the Gate people are our enemies. Or they were.’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ said Nick bitterly. ‘The Gate people will invade from the sea and Fabrizio will head an army from the land. Wearing his fancy new armour. The City of Ships will be caught like a nut in a pair of crackers.’

  Isabel felt a kind of despair overwhelm her. Now that she had seen the Grand Duke with her own eyes she began to think his battle plan might work. And then what would happen to all the wonderful buildings in Classe, the churches and temples and private residences with their mosaics dating from one and a half thousand years ago to the present-day work of Fausto?

  ‘What can we do to stop him?’ she asked.

  ‘We can give him something else to think about,’ said Nick.

  And as the Grand Duke made his way back to the cathedral’s entrance with one of the guard carrying the burnished silver armour, Nick threw back his hood and stepped into his path.

  Fabrizio stopped, clutching his chest as if his heart were trying to leap out of it.

  ‘Falco!’ he said faintly. Then, as people clustered around him and the figure he had seen slipped away behind a pillar, he cried out more strongly to the guards. ‘After him! That fellow in the robes of the Black Friars. Leave me – I am fine. Just catch that man.’

  Isabel called Georgia from the coffee shop next morning.

  ‘Come and join us,’ she said. ‘Nick’s here. He wants you to come.’

  It had been a close thing in the cathedral. Nick had slipped away and gone back to Brother Sulien’s. The guards had, quite naturally, captured Sky and brought him to the Grand Duke, who had spat out his disappointment at their catching the wrong friar.

  And Gaetano had appeared out of nowhere to calm his brother and say he must have been having hallucinations.

  Fabrizio had given orders to release Sky, who had played dumb throughout the whole incident, and to search the cathedral for another friar in the black and white robes of the Hounds of God. Isabel and Sky had eventually left Gaetano comforting his brother and had gone back to Saint-Mary-among-the-Vines, to find that Nick had already left.

  ‘What did you think you were doing?’ Sky asked Nick now. ‘You could have blown everything if he’d caught you.’

  ‘And what would he have done to me?’ demanded Nick aggressively. ‘Aren’t I his special little brother that he named his own kid after, miraculously back from the dead?’

  ‘I remember when you showed yourself to your father,’ said Sky.

  ‘So do I,’ said Nick. ‘It helped to kill him. I’m not likely to forget that. But there was no danger of that with Fabrizio. I just wanted to distract him from attacking
Classe.’

  The atmosphere in the coffee bar was very tense between Sky and Nick. Matt and Isabel, who had not been in Giglia before and knew about the massacre and the duel only at second hand, couldn’t imagine what it had been like and why Sky was so angry with Nick now. They were relieved when Georgia joined them.

  ‘Hi,’ she said nervously, looking at everyone but Nick.

  He suddenly relaxed and put his arms out to her.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, rubbing his chin on the top of her head.

  ‘You got back safely then?’ she said, looking up at him.

  ‘Just about,’ Sky answered for him.

  And then the whole story had to be told again for Georgia’s benefit. She looked horrified at the risk Nick had taken but was so glad that he was speaking to her again that she didn’t press the point.

  ‘And how was it – apart from nearly getting caught?’ she asked.

  ‘It was fantastic,’ said Nick, his eyes sparkling. ‘Just – I don’t know – being there again. And seeing Gaetano. Even seeing Fabrizio was good in a weird way.’

  ‘And we found out something that will help in Classe,’ said Isabel. ‘We think Fabrizio’s planning a land attack to coincide with the Gate people’s sea invasion. I’ll tell them in Classe tonight.’

  ‘You’re going to stravagate?’ asked Matt.

  ‘Yes,’ said Isabel. ‘I know I don’t usually on a Saturday but I think they need to know as soon as possible. I’ll go to Padavia next Friday, just to complete my talisman-testing mission.’

  ‘Should I go with you?’ asked Matt. ‘Just to make the full set?’

  ‘You can if you want,’ said Isabel. ‘The more the merrier.’

  ‘I think I should spend some time with Ayesha till Friday,’ said Matt. He glanced uneasily at Sky, making it clear he had been going to say something about his girlfriend getting tired of his involvement with Talia but thought better of it.

  *

  Charlie had started spying on Isabel, in spite of what she had told him. He was intrigued by having met her with two boys from school and then Nick’s visit. His sister had never been so popular. And her whole demeanour was different; she sort of sparkled.

  Isabel had had her hair cut to a shaggy collar-length bob; they were looking more like twins than ever. Charlie couldn’t wait to have a growth spurt and be more than the inch taller than her that he was already. It wasn’t that he wanted to leave his sister behind; he just wanted to emphasise the differences rather than the similarities.

  And he had a feeling that Isabel had some sort of secret life she wasn’t letting on about. He almost wondered if she was leaving the house at night to go to some private rave or house party because she always seemed elated but exhausted in the mornings. Their mother had been having to yell at her to get up for school ever since half-term and she always used to be good about waking early.

  And the parents had gone ballistic when they saw the dolphin tattoo on her arm, which Charlie secretly admired. The old Bel would never have gone and got that done on her own.

  So he had decided to keep tabs on her.

  Isabel was blissfully unaware of this new development. On Monday, she and Matt met in the café after school to talk about what she would find in Padavia.

  ‘I’ve seen your Professor Constantin in the mirror,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t tell him you were coming. It’s getting to be a habit. I’ve no idea what Rodolfo or Doctor Dethridge would say if they knew you were all coming back.’

  ‘Don’t you think Paolo or Sulien would have said something by now?’ asked Matt. ‘And no one ever said we weren’t to go back. It’s just that the others had reasons to decide not to.’

  ‘What about you?’ asked Isabel.

  ‘Well, I sort of didn’t want to keep doing something that Yesh wasn’t a part of. I reckoned I’d done my bit – at least whatever it was Talia wanted me for – and I came so near to losing her for ever.’

  ‘You old romantic,’ said Isabel. ‘But I think you’re pretty safe. What did she say about you coming to Padavia with me?’

  ‘She’s cool about it – reckons you need some muscle to look after you.’ He grinned at Isabel and she thought what a good mate he was. He wasn’t her type and she presented no threat to Yesh, who was one of her best friends, but it was nice to think she’d have a well-built companion on her next trip to Talia. That business with the guards in the cathedral had unsettled her.

  ‘Did you enjoy stravagating with Sky?’ he asked innocently.

  Isabel wondered how much Yesh had told him.

  ‘And Nick,’ she corrected him, trying not to look embarrassed. But then her own happiness spilled out.

  ‘It was great actually, till Nick did that stupid thing in the cathedral. We went to see that sculptor Stravagante Sky thinks so much of. And she looked me over quite carefully and then nodded to him and said, “This one isn’t afraid of Talia” – which was weird.’

  ‘She meant compared with Alice, I suppose,’ said Matt.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Isabel, who couldn’t keep the smile off her face. ‘He said, “Bel isn’t afraid of anything,” which is so not true, but still . . .’

  ‘I think you’re in with a chance there,’ said Matt, smiling. ‘But hadn’t I better describe the Scriptorium to you?’

  They were deep in conversation when Charlie walked into the coffee bar.

  ‘Hi,’ he said brightly. ‘Can I join you?’

  They agreed a little too enthusiastically and made worried faces at each other while Charlie was at the counter.

  ‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’ he asked as he sat down at their table.

  ‘No,’ said Matt, wildly trying to think of a reason he might be talking to Isabel. ‘We were just talking about . . . that guy who runs the antiques shop.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Charlie. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he seems to be going out with my auntie Eva – my great-aunt she is actually,’ said Matt.

  ‘But aren’t they, like, really old?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Don’t be ageist!’ said Isabel, playing along. ‘I think it’s sweet.’ (Though this was the first she had heard of it.)

  ‘They’re both widows or whatever you call it for a man,’ said Matt. ‘I introduced them before Christmas and now they seem quite full on.’

  But Charlie wasn’t really interested in the love life of two senior citizens and started to ask Matt about the school rugby fixtures. Isabel was churned up with frustration inside. She would just have to talk to Matt again later.

  When Luciano and Arianna went into the kitchen, suddenly ravenous, they found not only Marco but Enrico. He and kitchens had an affinity; he would stuff his face whenever he could, although his frame remained scrawny. Now he scrambled off his chair and attempted a bow, with a half-eaten pasty still in his right hand.

  ‘Your Ladyship,’ he said. He had seen the Duchessa in her boy’s disguise before and was not deceived.

  ‘Signor Enrico,’ acknowledged Arianna. She had come to a sort of acceptance of this man who had tried to kill her mother. He had recently shown himself to be a friend to the Stravaganti and she knew he would never return to working for the di Chimici.

  ‘Enrico,’ said Luciano, ‘I have a task for you.’

  ‘Anything, Cavaliere,’ said Enrico, gobbling the last of his pasty.

  ‘I want you to go to Classe,’ said Luciano. ‘You will find there a merchant called Flavia and occasionally her young friend, Isabella. They are both members of my . . . Brotherhood.’

  ‘What do you want me to do there?’ asked Enrico.

  ‘I want you to keep your nose to the ground and find out anything you can about the di Chimici in that city. I know that the Grand Duke wants to take Classe, by sea and by land, and I can’t believe he has no spies set there. So keep your eyes open, and, if you need to, you can get a message to me through Flavia.’

  ‘Well, that might cause a bit of expenses, Cavaliere,’ said the spy.

&n
bsp; Luciano gave him a small bag of silver, resisting the temptation to toss it to him like a character in an Elizabethan play.

  ‘All reasonable expenses will be paid, Enrico,’ he said. ‘But no more than two glasses of strega a day.’

  ‘Understood, master,’ said Enrico, stashing the bag in his jerkin with one hand and tapping the side of his nose with the other. ‘If there’s anything to be found out in Classe, I’m your man.’

  Chapter 16

  The Reality and the Dream

  Luciano raced towards the Scriptorium in Padavia on the Friday morning, skipping yet another class. Constantin greeted him at the door.

  ‘Your studies are suffering, Luciano,’ he said, but he was smiling.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be teaching, Professor?’ asked Luciano innocently.

  ‘No,’ said Constantin. ‘I think you have forgotten it’s Good Friday and you don’t have any lectures to skip. But come, I have visitors.’ He led him into his private studio.

  Luciano had expected Isabel, but Matt was a surprise. Isabel watched amused as the two young men clasped each other in their arms. Matt would never be so emotional in Islington, she thought. He was behaving as Georgia had in Remora.

  But looking at them together, equally tall but one so slender and the other so broad-shouldered, she marvelled even more at Rodolfo’s skills. Matt had told her the whole story of how the Bellezzan Stravagante had made him and Luciano resemble each other enough to fool a di Chimici. That must have been some pretty powerful magic, she thought.

  At last Luciano turned to her.

  ‘Isabella,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Padavia! You have now proved that Doctor Dethridge’s method works for four cities. I’m sure that means the English Stravaganti can go anywhere.’

  ‘What about you?’ said Isabel, who had heard about Luciano’s last stravagation. ‘Does that mean with your talisman you could go to . . . I don’t know . . . Glastonbury or Edinburgh if you wanted?’

  Luciano looked at her in amazement. ‘I never thought of that,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask the Dottore as soon as I can. What a great idea!’