“The Palace is awful,” he said. “No one in it but Punch and Judys. Somehow I don’t fancy them like I used to.”
What with the wine, the cakes, and the good food baked in the Casa Petrocchi kitchen, the evening became very merry. Somebody found a barrel-organ and everyone danced to it in the yard. And, if the six footmen forgot to serve cakes and danced with the rest, who was to blame them? After all, the Duke was dancing with Aunt Francesca – a truly formidable sight.
Tonino sat with Paolo and Renata beside a charcoal brazier, watching the dancing. And while they sat, Benvenuto suddenly emerged from the shadows and sat down by the brazier, where he proceeded to give himself a fierce and thorough wash.
They had done a fine, enjoyable job on that white rat, he informed Tonino, as he stuck one leg high above his gnarled head and subjected it to punishing tongue-work. She’d not be back again.
“But is Vittoria all right?” Renata wanted to know.
Fine, was Benvenuto’s answer. She was resting. She was going to have kittens. They would be particularly good kittens because Benvenuto was the father. Tonino was to make sure to get one for the Casa Montana.
Tonino asked Renata for a kitten then and there, and Renata promised to ask Angelica. Whereupon, Benvenuto, having worked over both hind legs, wafted himself on to Tonino’s knees, where he made himself into a tight brown mat and slept for an hour.
“I wish I could understand him,” said Paolo. “He tried to tell me where you were, but all I did was see a picture of the front of the Palace.”
“But that’s how he always tells things!” said Tonino. He was surprised Paolo had not known. “You just have to read his pictures.”
“What’s he saying now?” Renata asked Paolo.
“Nothing,” said Paolo. “Snore, snore.” And they all laughed.
Sometime later, when Benvenuto had woken up and drifted off to try his luck in the kitchen, Tonino wandered in to a room nearby, without quite knowing why he did. As soon as he got inside, though, he knew it was no accident. Chrestomanci was there, with Angelica and Guido Petrocchi, and so was Antonio. Antonio was looking so worried that Tonino braced himself for trouble.
“We were discussing you, Tonino,” said Chrestomanci. “You helped Angelica fetch the griffins, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Tonino. He remembered the damage they had done and felt alarmed.
“And you helped in the kitchen-spell?” asked Chrestomanci.
Tonino said “Yes” again. Now he was sure there was trouble.
“And when you hanged the Duchess,” Chrestomanci said, to Tonino’s confusion, “how did you do that?”
Tonino wondered how he could be in trouble over that too, but he answered, “By doing what the puppet show made me do. I couldn’t get out of it, so I had to go along with it, you see.”
“I do,” said Chrestomanci, and he turned to Antonio rather triumphantly. “You see? And that was the White Devil! What interests me is that it was someone else’s spell each time.” Then before Tonino could be too puzzled, he turned back to him. “Tonino,” he said, “it seems to me that you have a new and rather useful talent. You may not be able to work many spells on your own, but you seem to be able to turn other people’s magic to your own use. I think if they had let you help on the Old Bridge, for instance, it would have been mended in half a day. I’ve been asking your father if he’d let you come back to England with me, so that we could find out just what you can do.”
Tonino looked at his father’s worried face. He hardly knew what to think. “Not for good?” he said.
Antonio smiled. “Only for a few weeks,” he said. “If Chrestomanci’s right, we’ll need you here badly.”
Tonino smiled too. “Then I don’t mind,” he said.
“But,” said Angelica, “it was me who fetched the griffins really.”
“What were you really fetching?” asked Guido.
Angelica hung her head. “Mice.” She looked resigned when her father roared with laughter.
“I wanted to talk about you too,” said Chrestomanci. He said to Guido, “Her spells always work, don’t they? It occurs to me you might learn from Angelica.”
Guido scratched his beard. “How to turn things green and get griffins, you mean?”
Chrestomanci picked up his glass of wine. “There are risks, of course, to Angelica’s methods. But I meant she can show you that a thing need not be done in the same old way in order to work. I think, in time, she will make you a whole new set of spells. Both houses can learn from her.” He raised his wine glass.
“Your health, Angelica. Tonino. The Duchess thought she was getting the weakest members of both Casas, and it turned out quite the opposite.”
Antonio and Guido raised their glasses too. “I’ll say this,” said Guido. “But for you two, we wouldn’t be celebrating tonight.”
Angelica and Tonino looked at each other and made faces. They felt very shy and very, very pleased.
Read The Land of Ingary trilogy.
Discover the the land of Ingary, where magic and adventure awaits… Howl’s Moving Castle is the first book in this spellbinding trilogy from ‘the Godmother of Fantasy’, Diana Wynne Jones.
Click on the cover to read more.
Read The Chrestomanci Series by Diana Wynne Jones.
Click on the cover to read more.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The world of Chrestomanci is not the same as this one. It is a world parallel to ours, where magic is as normal as mathematics, and things are generally more old-fashioned. In Chrestomanci’s world, Italy is still divided into numbers of small States, each with its Duke and capital city. In our world, Italy became one united country long ago.
Though the two worlds are not connected in any way, this story somehow got through. But it came with some gaps, and I had to get help filling them. Clare Davis, Gaynor Harvey, Elizabeth Carter and Graham Belsten discovered for me what happened in the magicians’ single combat. And my husband, J.A. Burrow, with some advice from Basil Cottle, actually found the true words of the Angel of Caprona. I would like to thank them all very much indeed.
OTHER WORKS
Other titles by Diana Wynne Jones
Chrestomanci Series
Charmed Life*
Witch Week*
The Lives of Christopher Chant*
Mixed Magics*
Conrad’s Fate
The Pinhoe Egg
Archer’s Goon*
Black Maria*
Castle in the Air*
Dogsbody
Eight Days of Luke
The Game
The Homeward Bounders
Howl’s Moving Castle*
The Ogre Downstairs
Power of Three
Stopping for a Spell
A Tale of Time City
Wilkins’ Tooth
For older readers
Fire and Hemlock
Hexwood
The Time of the Ghost
The Merlin Conspiracy*
For younger readers
Wild Robert
*Also available on tape
COPYRIGHT
The official Diana Wynne Jones fansite
is at www.leemac.freeserve.co.uk
First published by Macmillan Children’s Books 1980
First published in hardback by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2000
This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2008
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The Magicians of Caprona (UK) Page 20