The Magicians of Caprona (UK)

by Diana Wynne Jones

  Chrestomanci drew a deep breath. Paolo suspected he was trying not to laugh. They both looked round for Lucia, who was standing on one leg among the breadbaskets, wondering whether to run away. “I am sure,” Chrestomanci said to her – he was trying not to laugh; he had to start again. “I am sure people have talked to you about misusing spells. But – just out of interest – what did you use?”

  “She used her own words to the Angel of Caprona!” Aunt Maria said, bursting angrily out of the crowd. “Gina’s nearly out of her mind!”

  “All the children did it,” Lucia said defiantly. “It wasn’t only me.”

  Chrestomanci looked at Paolo, and Paolo nodded. “A considerable tribute to the powers of the younger Montanas,” said Chrestomanci. He turned and snapped his fingers into the buzzing, crawling kitchen. Not much happened. The air cleared enough for Paolo to see that it was indeed locusts on the cooker, but that was all. Chrestomanci’s eyebrows went up a little. He tried again. This time nothing happened at all. He retreated from the buzzing, looking thoughtful.

  “With all due respect,” he said to Paolo and Lucia, “to the Angel of Caprona, it should not be this powerful on its own. I’m afraid this spell will just have to wear itself out.” And he said to Aunt Maria, “No wonder the enemy enchanter is so much afraid of the Casa Montana. Does this mean there won’t be any breakfast?”

  “No, no. We’ll make it in the dining-room,” Aunt Maria said, looking very flustered.

  “Good,” said Chrestomanci. “There’s something I have to say to everyone, when they’re all there.”

  And when everyone was gathered round the tables to eat plain rolls and drink black coffee made over the dining-room fire, Chrestomanci stood in front of the fire, holding a coffee cup, and said, “I know few of you believe Tonino is not in the Casa Petrocchi, but I swear to you he is not, and that Angelica Petrocchi is also missing. I think you are quite right to stop making spells until they are found, but I want to say this: even if I found Tonino and Angelica this minute, all the spells of the Casa Montana and the Casa Petrocchi are not going to save Caprona now. There are three armies, and the fleet of Pisa, closing in on her. The only thing which is going to help you is the true words to the Angel of Caprona. Have you all understood?”

  They all had. Everyone was silent. Nobody spoke for some time. Then Uncle Lorenzo began grumbling. Moths had got into his Reservist uniform. “Someone took the spell out,” he complained. “I shan’t be fit to be seen.”

  “Does it matter?” asked Rinaldo. His face was very white and he was not having anything but coffee. “You’ll only be seen dead anyway.”

  “But that’s just it!” said Uncle Lorenzo. “I don’t want to be seen dead in it!”

  “Oh be quiet!” Domenico snapped at him. Uncle Lorenzo was so surprised that he stopped talking. Breakfast finished in gloomy murmurs.

  Paolo got up and slid behind the bench where Chrestomanci was sitting. “Excuse me, sir. Do you know where Tonino is?”

  “I wish I did,” said Chrestomanci. “This enchanter is good. So far, I have only two clues. Last night, when I was coming up through Siena, somebody worked two very strange spells somewhere ahead of me.”

  “Tonino?” Paolo said eagerly.

  Chrestomanci shook his head. “The first one was definitely Angelica. She has what you might call an individual style. But the other one baffled me. Do you think your brother is capable of working anything strong enough to get through an enchanter’s spells? Angelica did it through sheer weirdness. Could Tonino, do you think?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” said Paolo. “He doesn’t know many spells, but he always gets them right and they work—”

  “Then it remains a mystery,” said Chrestomanci. He sighed. Paolo thought he looked tired.

  “Thanks,” he said, and slipped off, carefully thinking careless thoughts about what he would do now school was closed. He did not want anyone to notice what he meant to do.

  He slipped through the coach-house, past the crumpled horses and coachman, past the coach, and opened the little door in the wall at the back. He was half through it, when Rosa said doubtfully, at the front of the coach-house, “Paolo? Are you in there?”

  No, I’m not, Paolo thought, and shut the little door after him as gently as he knew how. Then he ran.

  By this time, there were hardly any soldiers in the streets, and hardly anyone else either. Paolo ran past yellow houses, heavily shuttered, in a quiet broken by the uneasy ringing of bells. From time to time, he thought he could hear a dull, distant noise – a sort of booming, with a clatter in its midst. Wherever the houses opened out and Paolo could see the hills, he saw soldiers – not as soldiers, but as crawling, twinkling lines, winding upwards – and some puffs of smoke. He knew Chrestomanci was right. The fighting was very near.

  He was the only person about in the Via Cantello. The Casa Petrocchi was as shuttered and barred as the Casa Montana. And their Angel was covered with bird-lime too. Like the Montanas, they had stopped making spells. Which showed, thought Paolo, that Chrestomanci was right about Angelica too. He was much encouraged by that as he hammered on the rough old gate.

  There was no sound from inside, but, after a second or so, a white cat jumped to the top of the gate, and crouched in the gap under the archway, looking down with eyes even bluer than Paolo’s.

  Those eyes reminded Paolo that his own eyes were likely to give him away. He did not think he dared disguise them with a spell, in case the Petrocchis noticed. So he swallowed, told himself that he had to find the one person who was likely to help him look for Tonino, and said to the cat, “Renata. Could I speak to Renata?”

  The white cat stared. Maybe it made some remark. Then it jumped down inside the Casa, leaving Paolo with an uncomfortable feeling that it knew who he was. But he waited. Before he had quite decided to go away again, the peephole was unlatched. To his relief, it was Renata’s pointed face that looked through the bars at him.

  “Whoops!” she said. “I see why Vittoria fetched me. What a relief you came!”

  “Come and help find Tonino and Angelica,” said Paolo. “Nobody will listen.”

  “Ung.” Renata pulled a strip of her red hair into her mouth and bit it. “We’re forbidden to go out. Think of an excuse.”

  “Your teacher’s ill and scared of the war and wants us to sit with her,” said Paolo.

  “That might do,” said Renata. “Come in while I ask.” Paolo heard the gate being unbarred. “Her name’s Mrs Grimaldi,” Renata whispered, holding the gate open for him. “She lives in the Via Sant’ Angelo and she’s ever so ugly, in case they ask. Come in.”

  Considerably to his amazement, Paolo entered the Casa Petrocchi, and was even more amazed not to be particularly frightened. He felt as if he was about to do an exam, keyed up, and knowing he was in for it, but that was all.

  He saw a yard and a gallery so like his own that he could almost have believed he had been magically whisked back home. There were differences, of course. The gallery railings were fancy wrought-iron, with iron leopards in them at intervals. The cats that sat sunning themselves on the water butts were mostly ginger or tabby – whereas in the Casa Montana, Benvenuto had left his mark, and the cats were either black or black and white. And there was a gush of smell from the kitchen – frying onions – the like of which Paolo had not smelt since Lucia cast her unlucky spell.

  “Mother!” shouted Renata.

  But the first person who appeared was Marco. Marco was galloping down the steps from the gallery with a pair of long shiny boots in one hand, and a crumpled red uniform over his arm. “Mother!” Marco bellowed, in the free and easy way people always bellow for their mothers. “Mother! There’s moth in my uniform! Who took the spell out of it?”

  “Stupid!” Renata said to him. “We put every single spell away last night.” And she said to Paolo, “That’s my brother Marco.”

  Marco turned indignantly to Renata. “But moths take months—!” And he saw Paolo. I
t was hard to tell which of them was more dismayed.

  At that moment, a red-haired, worried-looking lady came across the yard, carrying a little boy. The baby had black hair and the same bulging forehead as Angelica. “I don’t know, Marco,” she said. “Get Rosa to mend it. What is it, Renata?”

  Marco interrupted. “Rosa,” he said, looking fixedly at Paolo, “is with her sister. Who’s your friend, Renata?”

  Paolo could not resist. “I’m Paolo Andretti,” he said wickedly. Marco rewarded him with a look which dared him to say another word.

  Renata was relieved, because she now knew what to call Paolo. “Paolo wants me to come and help look after Mrs Grimaldi. She’s ill in bed, Mother.”

  Paolo could see by the way Marco’s eyes went first wide and then almost to slits, that Marco was extremely alarmed by this and determined to stop Renata. But Paolo could not see how Marco could do anything. He could not give away that he knew who Paolo was without giving away himself and Rosa too. It made him want to laugh.

  “Oh poor Mrs Grimaldi!” said Mrs Petrocchi. “But, Renata, I don’t think—”

  “Doesn’t Mrs Grimaldi realise there’s a war on?” Marco said. “Did Paolo tell you she was ill?”

  “Yes,” Paolo said glibly. “My mother’s great friends with Mrs Grimaldi. She’s sorry for her because she’s so ugly.”

  “And of course she knows about the war.” Renata said. “I kept telling you, Marco, how she dives under her desk if she hears a bang. She’s scared stiff of guns.”

  “And it’s all been too much for her, Mother says,” Paolo added artistically.

  Marco tried another tack. “But why does Mrs Grimaldi want you, Renata? Since when have you been teacher’s pet?”

  Renata, who was obviously as quick as Paolo, said, “Oh, I’m not. She just wants me to amuse her with some spells—”

  At this, Mrs Petrocchi and Marco said, “You’re not to use spells! Angelica—”

  “—but of course I won’t,” Renata continued smoothly. “I’ll just sing songs. She likes me to sing. And Paolo’s going to read to her out of the Bible. Do say we can go, Mother. She’s lying in bed all on her own.”

  “Well—” said Mrs Petrocchi.

  “The streets aren’t safe,” said Marco.

  “There was no one about at all,” Paolo said, giving Marco a look to make him watch it. Two could play at that.

  “Mother,” said Renata, “you are going to mend Marco’s uniform, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Mrs Petrocchi.

  Renata at once took this as permission to go with Paolo. “Come on, Paolo,” she said, and raced under Marco’s nose to what was obviously the coach-house. Paolo whizzed after her.

  Marco, however, was not defeated. Before Renata’s hand was on the latch of the big door, an obvious uncle was leaning over the gallery. “Renata! Be a good girl and find me my tobacco.” An obvious aunt shot out of the kitchen. She looked like Aunt Gina with red hair, and she hooted in the same way. “Renata! Have you taken my good knife?” Two young cousins shot out of another door. “Renata, you said you’d play dressing-up!” and Mrs Petrocchi, looking anxious and undecided, was holding the baby boy out, saying, “Renata, you’ll have to mind Roberto while I’m sewing.”

  “I can’t stop now!” Renata shouted back. “Poor Mrs Grimaldi!” She wrenched open the big door and pushed Paolo inside. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

  It was obvious to Paolo what was going on. It was so like the Casa Montana. Marco had broadcast – not an alarm, because he dared not – a sort of general uneasiness about Renata. “Marco’s trying to stop us,” he said.

  “I know that,” Renata said, hurrying him past the sleek Petrocchi coach and – to Paolo’s interest – past four black cardboard horses as crumpled and muddy as the Casa Montana ones. “Why is he? How does he know?”

  Behind them was a perfect clamour of Petrocchi voices, all wanting Renata. “He just does,” Paolo said. “Be quick!”

  The small door to the street had a big stiff key. Renata took it in both hands and struggled to turn it. “Does he know you?” she said sharply.

  Like an answer, Marco’s voice sounded from behind the coach. “Renata!” Then, much more softly, “Paolo – Paolo Montana, come here!”

  The door came open. “Run, if you’re coming!” Paolo said. They shot out into the street, both running hard. Marco came to the door and shouted something, but he did not seem to be following. Nevertheless, Paolo kept on running, which forced Renata to run too. He did not want to talk. He wanted to absorb the shock of Marco. Marco Andretti was really Marco Petrocchi – he must be Guido’s eldest son! Rosa Montana and Marco Petrocchi. How did they do it? How ever did they manage it? he kept wondering. And also – more soberly – How ever will they get away with it?

  “All right. That will do,” Renata panted. By this time they had crossed the Corso and were down beside the river, trotting along empty quaysides towards the New Bridge. Renata slowed down, and Paolo did too, quite breathless. “Now,” she said, “tell me how Marco knew you, or I won’t come a step further.”

  Paolo looked at her warily. He had already discovered that Renata was, as Aunt Gina would say, sharp enough to cut herself, and he did not like the way she was looking at him. “He saw me at the Palace of course,” Paolo said.

  “No he didn’t,” said Renata. “He drove the coach. He knows your name and he knows why you came, doesn’t he? How?”

  “I think he must have been standing behind us on the Art Gallery steps, and we didn’t see him in the fog,” said Paolo.

  Renata’s shrewd eyes continued the look Paolo did not like.

  “Good try,” she said. Paolo tried to break off the look by turning and sauntering on along the quays. Renata followed him, saying, “And I was meant to get all embarrassed and not ask any more. You’re sharp enough to cut yourself, Mr Montana. But what a pity. Marco wasn’t in the fight. They wanted him for the single combat, that’s how I know, and he wasn’t there, so Papa had to do it. And I can tell that you don’t want me to know how Marco knows you. And I can tell Marco doesn’t, or he’d have stopped me going by saying who you were. So—”

  “You’re the one who’s going to cut yourself,” Paolo said over his shoulder, “by being too clever. I don’t know how Marco knew me, but he was being kind not say—” He stopped. He sniffed. He was level with an alleyway, where a peeling blue house bulged out on to the jetty. Paolo felt the air round that alley with a sense he hardly knew he had, inborn over generations of spellmaking. A spell had been set here – a strong spell, not long ago.

  Renata came up behind. “You’re not going to wriggle out—” She stopped too. “Someone made a spell here!”

  “Was it Angelica? Can you tell?” Paolo asked.

  “Why?” said Renata.

  Paolo told her what Chrestomanci had said. Her face went red, and she prodded with her toe at a mooring-chain in the path. “Individual style!” she said. “Him and his jokes! It’s not Angelica’s fault. She was born that way. And it’s not everyone who can get a spell to work by doing everything wrong. I think she’s a sort of back-to-front genius, and I told the Duchess of Caprona so when she laughed, too!”

  “But is the spell hers?” asked Paolo. He could hear gunfire, from somewhere down the river, mixed with the dull booming from the hills. It was a blunt, bonking clomp, clomp, like a giant chopping wood. His head went up to listen as he said, “I know it’s not Tonino. His feel careful.”

  “No,” said Renata, and her head was up too. “It’s a bit stale, isn’t it? And it doesn’t feel very nice. The war sounds awfully close. I think we ought to get off the quays.”

  She was probably right. Paolo hesitated. He was sure they were hot on the trail. The stale spell had a slight sick feeling to it, which reminded him of the message in the yard last night.

  And while he hesitated, the war seemed suddenly right on top of them. It was deafening, brazen, horrible. Paolo thought
of someone holding one end of an acre of sheet metal and flapping it, or of gigantic alarm clocks. But that did not do justice to the noise. Nor did it account for some huge metallic screeches. He and Renata ducked and put their hands to their ears, and enormous things whirled above them. They went on, whatever they were, out above the river. Paolo and Renata crouched on the quay, staring at them.

  They flapped across in a group – there were at least eight of them – gonging and screeching. Paolo thought first of flying machines and then of the Montana winged horse. There seemed to be legs dangling beneath the great black bodies, and their metal wings were whirling furiously. Some of them were not flying so well. One lost height, despite madly clanging with its wings, and dropped into the river with a splash that threw water all over the New Bridge and spattered Renata and Paolo. Another one lost height and whirled its iron tail for balance. Paolo recognised it as one of the iron griffins from the Piazza Nuova, as it, too, fell into a spout of water.

  Renata began to laugh. “Now that is Angelica!” she said. “I’d know her spells anywhere.”

  They leapt up and raced for the long flight of stairs up to the Piazza Nuova. The din from the griffins was still drowning all but the nearest gunfire. Renata and Paolo ran up the steps, turning round at every landing to see what was happening to the rest of the griffins. Two more came down in the river. A further two plunged into the gardens of rich villas. But the last two were going well. When Paolo next looked, they seemed to be struggling to gain altitude in order to get over the hills beyond the Palace. The distant clanging was fast and furious, and the metal wings a blur.

  Paolo and Renata turned and climbed again.

  “What is it? A call for help?” panted Paolo.

  “Must be,” gasped Renata. “Angelica’s spells – always – mad kind of reasonableness.”

  An echoing clang brought them whirling round. Another griffin was down, but they did not see where. Fascinated, they watched the efforts of the last one. It had now reached the marble front of the Duke’s Palace, and it was not high enough to clear it. The griffin seemed to know. It put out its claws and seemed to be clutching at the zig-zag marble battlements. But that did no good. They saw it, a distant black blot, go sliding down the coloured marble facade – they could even hear the grinding – down and down, until it crashed on to the roof of the marble gateway, where it drooped and lay still. Above it, even from here, they could see two long lines of scratches, all down the front of the Palace.