The Dark City

by Imogen Rossi

  ‘Mio cario, narrare storia.’

  The paint didn’t change. Marco leaned over and peered into the bowl. ‘Did it work?’

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ Bianca said. She lifted a fresh canvas onto the easel, pulled out di Lombardi’s magical paintbrush and carefully dipped it into the paint. Then she hesitated. ‘But what should I paint?’

  ‘How about me?’ Marco suggested, striking a heroic pose with his nose in the air. Bianca laughed and put her paintbrush to the canvas, drawing it across and up in a sweeping line that would form the dramatic turn of Marco’s chin.

  ‘Hey!’ Bianca almost dropped the paintbrush in shock. The paint was moving by itself! It crawled up the canvas, into the top left hand corner, and formed itself into a group of thin vertical lines.

  ‘Wow … ’ Marco dropped the pose. ‘What’s it doing?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Bianca tried again, painting a circle in the centre of the canvas – but again the paint crawled away, like raindrops running down glass but in reverse, to join the picture that was forming in the corner of the canvas. ‘It … it doesn’t want to stay where I put it. It’s like it has a painting already stored inside itself!’

  ‘Amazing!’ Marco peered at the picture as the paint settled. ‘It looks like a street and a canal, but there’s something weird about it. All the buildings are black.’

  ‘Oh,’ Bianca breathed. Was this it? Could it be? ‘Oscurita!’

  ‘Huh?’ Marco asked.

  Bianca quickly added several more large brushfuls of paint. The picture filled out. It was definitely a picture of a street in Oscurita. The areas of canvas where the paint left gaps shone out as bright lights and patches of reflection on the canal.

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ said Bianca, as she hurried to add more paint, the picture growing until it almost filled the canvas. ‘Remember when Filpepi and the Baron escaped into that painted trapdoor? Did you see what was on the other side?’

  ‘It just looked dark to me,’ Marco shrugged.

  ‘It was a city, just like this one, except there’s no sunlight, and everyone wears black. I think I’ve been sleepwalking there.’

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘I don’t know. At first I thought I was dreaming. But the other night I actually brought something back with me. Look!’ Bianca fished in her pocket and pulled out the tiny silver bracelet with its pattern of twining flowers.

  ‘This is weird,’ Marco muttered, turning the bracelet round in his hands. ‘I mean, even compared to your life normally, this is pretty weird!’

  ‘That’s all of it,’ Bianca said, running her paintbrush along the bottom of the bowl and touching the last drop of paint to the canvas. ‘I bet this is a way through to – Oh!’ She gasped as all the paint moved once more, running and swirling together and then splitting to form another picture. This time the street was pocked with holes and full of swirling smoke. ‘Maybe not,’ she said. As they watched, a glob of paint arced across the picture and hit one of the buildings. A chunk of painted masonry crumbled and fell into the canal.

  ‘It’s under attack!’ Marco breathed.

  ‘Look!’ Bianca pointed as the swirling lines of smoke parted and a shape ran through. It was a woman, her skirt and her long dark hair rippling as she sprinted along the street. Bianca just had time to notice that she was clutching a small bundle in her arms, before she ducked into a doorway and the whole painting swirled away again, splitting and re-forming into a scene in a courtyard. A man, wrapped in a dark cloak, turned as the woman ran in. His beard was shorter and his face less wrinkled, but Bianca still recognised him – it was Annunzio di Lombardi.

  ‘Isn’t that –’ Marco pointed.

  Bianca nodded.

  The woman and di Lombardi ran to each other and he put his hands on her face and kissed her forehead. Tears ran down the woman’s cheeks.

  Bianca recognised the woman. It wasn’t quite like looking into a mirror – it was more like when Duchess Catriona stood next to the portraits of her mother.

  The woman put her bundle into di Lombardi’s arms and he peeled back a flap of blanket. The paint wriggled on the canvas: a squiggle of a mouth that opened into an O and closed again, two fringed lines for closed, thickly eyelashed eyes. Bianca could almost hear the baby’s squalling. Di Lombardi pulled the blanket back and looked up at the woman. The paint shimmered, giving hints of colour to the picture – the deep purple of di Lombardi’s cloak, the green ribbon that edged the baby’s blanket, the woman’s blue eyes, just like Bianca’s.

  Then something weird happened – half the picture seemed to lose its power. The paint dripped lifelessly down the page on the right hand side, while the other half kept swirling and moving as di Lombardi took a step back and held up an object …

  ‘My medallion!’ Bianca gasped. A flash of light seemed to burst from its surface. The dead half of the painting sprang back to life just in time to show shadowy figures recoil from the light of the medallion.

  ‘What was that?’ Marco wondered.

  ‘Maybe we got the mixture wrong,’ Bianca muttered. She pulled out the medallion, which she’d been wearing hidden under her dress, and clutched it until her knuckles went white.

  On the canvas, the paint was still telling its story. It showed di Lombardi stepping out into the bright daylight of La Luminosa; sweeping a low bow to someone who must be the Duke, Catriona’s father; settling the baby down in a crib beside him as he worked at an easel. Years seemed to pass in a moment: sketchy visions of his masterpieces came and went on the easel. A young man studied at his side.

  ‘That must be Filpepi!’ Bianca gasped.

  The crib vanished. Patches of the picture froze a couple of times, but the passage of time was clear enough: the baby grew into a toddler, chewing on a paintbrush, and then a little girl with paint on her face. Di Lombardi’s beard grew and his back hunched. The apprentices appeared – first as young children, then growing quickly until Cosimo and Rosa were as tall as di Lombardi himself. The girl who had been the baby turned and looked straight out of the painting.

  It was unmistakably Bianca.

  ‘You didn’t know any of this?’ Marco asked.

  ‘He told me I was a foundling someone left on his doorstep!’ Bianca said. She looked down at the medallion. ‘You realise what this means? I’m not from here at all … I was born in Oscurita!’

  ‘That woman has to be your mother,’ Marco said.

  ‘I think so,’ whispered Bianca.

  The story hadn’t finished. Bianca’s eyes prickled with tears as she realised that the painting of her was growing older. They were looking at a version of the future, as di Lombardi had imagined it. He’d painted himself, alive, alongside her as she grew up. The painting showed the now-adult Bianca and di Lombardi embracing, and then she walked away. Then the scene switched back to Oscurita, the paint flooding back to the top of the canvas to show the black sky. The painted Bianca walked through the front gates of the castle and up to one of the twisting circular towers …

  The painting froze. The paint that’d made the sky dark streamed down the canvas, blocking out any movement that might’ve been going on underneath. Bianca made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. But then the painting was back, only a second later, and it showed the secret passages. The black door swung open, and the woman who must be Bianca’s mother, now middle-aged, stepped through. She and Bianca embraced.

  Then the scene split apart and snaking lines spun across the canvas. It wasn’t a picture of anything Bianca could make out at first. Then symbols started to pop up: a church cross, a crown, a little house …

  ‘It’s a map!’ Marco said, as the paint slowed and finally stopped moving altogether. They both held their breath in case there was more to the story, but nothing else happened.

  ‘It must be a map of Oscurita.’ Bianca reached up and gingerly touched a finger to one of the lines. The paint was perfectly dry. She fished in a drawer for a knife and carefully cut
the canvas out of its frame. Marco took it over to a table and peered down at it, frowning at the strange pattern of criss-crossing streets.

  ‘It’s a weird shape for a city,’ he muttered.

  ‘It’s a weird city,’ Bianca said. ‘But I’ve always felt at home there. And now I know why! I have to get back.’

  Marco looked up. ‘This is your home, though,’ he said. ‘You grew up in La Luminosa – all your friends are here, your studio, your whole life. Are you sure you want to go back to this place just because you happen to have been born there?’

  ‘Of course! My mother is still alive, I’m sure I saw her last time I was sleepwalking. I think – this is going to sound mad, Marco … but I think my mother is the Duchess of Oscurita.’

  Marco raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘The Duchess. Really.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound very likely, does it?’ Bianca glanced at her reflection in the mirror. ‘I’ve always been basically nobody. No mother or father, no history, nothing that was mine except what Master di Lombardi gave me.’ She touched the medallion again. It gleamed darkly under her fingers. ‘But everyone’s got to be someone, haven’t they?’

  ‘You are someone,’ Marco said. ‘You’re you!’

  ‘But why did my mother give me to Master di Lombardi in the first place? What was so terrible in Oscurita that she had to give me up?’ said Bianca.

  ‘Di Lombardi must’ve had his reasons for keeping all this a secret. You were an adult when you went back in di Lombardi’s version. He obviously meant for you to wait.’

  ‘He meant to be alive, too,’ Bianca said.

  An uncomfortable silence filled the room and Bianca’s hand strayed to the paintbrush. She hadn’t cleaned it, and cleaning brushes as quickly as possible was something you learned on day one of being an apprentice. She hurried over to the small porcelain sink and rinsed the bristles carefully with a dash of paint remover and some water from a copper jug.

  ‘Anyway, Duchess or not, my mother needs help,’ said Bianca. ‘If everything I saw in my dreams is as real as this bracelet, the Baron da Russo did find his way into Oscurita, and my mother’s been talking to him. He’s probably planning to betray her just like he did Catriona! What if he kills her?’

  ‘Or worse, tries to marry her?’ Marco pointed out.

  Bianca shuddered. ‘I’ve got to get back and save her before something awful happens!’

  ‘But how are you going to get there? You said you didn’t know the way.’

  Bianca’s heart sank. ‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. She’d looked for the door all over the secret passages, and she’d tried painting her own way through. All without success.

  She carefully dried the paintbrush on a scrap of cotton and turned to lean on the sink, her shoulders sagging.

  ‘All right,’ said Marco. ‘If you don’t forget your promise and help me get over my thing about heights, I’ll help you find a way into this dark city from your dreams … even though it’s obviously mad. Deal?’

  Bianca grabbed him into a fierce hug. ‘You are the best.’

  She smiled down at the mysterious map.

  I’m coming, Mother. I’ll find a way.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Mistress Bianca!’

  Bianca looked up from the map and hurriedly dropped into a curtsey. ‘Your Highness!’

  Duchess Catriona stood in the doorway, her hands planted on her hips. Behind her, Secretary Franco and Archbishop di Sarvos loomed, glaring at Bianca as if she was a street urchin who’d been caught sitting on the throne. Their glares were so alike they could’ve been brothers, except that Franco was thin and hunched like a vulture and di Sarvos was tall and solid, as if someone had put a red and white robe on a tree trunk. The top of his pointy hat nearly brushed the door frame.

  ‘Mistress Bianca, a moment of your time,’ Duchess Catriona said, packing so much haughty chill into those words that Bianca shuddered.

  ‘I’ll just … ’ Marco quickly rolled up the map of Oscurita and shrugged towards the door. ‘Excuse me, Your Highness, your worship, Secretary Franco.’ He bobbed a bow to each of them and squeezed past, turning back at the last second to gesture to the map and give Bianca a thumbs up. Bianca nodded back, but she couldn’t manage a smile.

  ‘Mistress Bianca, what are you doing here?’ Duchess Catriona demanded.

  Bianca blinked, confused. ‘Um … it’s long past sunset, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Do you think the Duchess is blind, child?’ snapped Secretary Franco, gesturing to the open window, where the deep blue-black sky was full of glittering stars.

  ‘No.’ Bianca met Duchess Catriona’s eyes, hoping for understanding, but Catriona’s expression remained stony. ‘I’m sorry, Your Highness,’ she said, bobbing a curtsey. ‘I only meant that the studio is closed.’

  ‘I’m aware,’ said the Duchess. ‘But why are you here, Bianca? And where is Archbishop di Sarvos’s commissioned painting?’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes, oh!’ barked the Archbishop. ‘You swore before the Duchess you were going to do everything you could to find it!’

  ‘Instead,’ Duchess Catriona continued for him, ‘I hear you went back to the studio and asked your apprentices to begin a new painting, and haven’t made any other enquiries!’

  Lucia, Bianca thought.

  She curtseyed again to mask her annoyance and gather her thoughts. ‘I did make enquiries, Your Highness. I found out that the painting was finished on time and left in the studio. Unfortunately, none of the apprentices made sure they were there when it was picked up, and it … it just vanished. So I just thought –’

  ‘You thought you wouldn’t even try?’ sneered Secretary Franco.

  The rest of Bianca’s careful patience drained away. ‘Your Highness, your worship, with all due respect,’ she said, ‘I thought there was no point chasing it all over the city with no clues to go on. I made the decision to have the painting redone. It will be quicker!’

  ‘And then you left it to your apprentices!’

  Because they drove me away! Shame rose in Bianca’s throat, choking her.

  No, that’s not good enough. I let myself be driven away.

  Deep down, she knew this was ridiculous. They were only her apprentices through chance, and Cosimo and Rosa – and yes, Lucia – were just as good as she was. But that wasn’t enough. She was the mistress of the studio now, and they were her responsibility.

  ‘I … I supervised them for most of the day. But the painting was in good hands, and if I didn’t do some of the paperwork there wouldn’t be any more paint for the next commission!’

  ‘Excuses!’ Duchess Catriona snapped. She raised her voice and her face flushed deep pink, clashing horribly with the golden-red glow of her freckles and her hair. ‘This painting for Archbishop di Sarvos is the most important commission the studio has had for years, and I won’t have you cutting corners! It’s as if you don’t care what happens to Master di Lombardi’s legacy.’

  Don’t care? Bianca bit hard on her lip and looked out of the window, desperately hoping the two looming courtiers wouldn’t see the tears springing into her eyes. But it didn’t help – the glittering stars blurred together like a painting that’d been left out in the rain. How … how could she say that?

  Duchess Catriona sighed. ‘Get out, you two. I want to speak to my Master Artist alone.’

  Bianca risked a glance at the two men. They stayed where they were until Duchess Catriona spun on her heel and fixed them with the same angry glare she’d been giving Bianca.

  ‘Out! Don’t make me scream for Captain Raphaeli!’

  The Secretary and the Archbishop glanced at each other, bowed quickly and ducked out of the room. Bianca found herself smiling through her tears. Nobody would’ve wanted to be on the bad side of the Duchess if the Captain of the Guard heard her scream … he might run them through with his spear first and ask questions later.

  ‘Poor Captain Raphaeli,’ said Duchess Catriona, watching the two men s
carper. ‘He blames himself terribly for the traitors’ escape, and I repay him by using him as my personal bogeyman.’

  She turned to Bianca, who wiped her eyes hurriedly and braced herself for another bout of shouting. But Duchess Catriona’s face had softened. She walked around the table to Bianca’s side and took her hand.

  ‘Dear Bianca. You know, it’s not actually about the commission.’

  ‘It … it’s not?’

  ‘God, no. I’m sure however you want to handle it is perfectly fine. I’m sorry I had to shout at you – it was only because old di Sarvos wouldn’t shut up about it. He’s been going on at me all day. I swear, if he so much as mentions it after this I’ve half a mind to put his head on a spike outside the throne room!’

  Bianca gave a sniffly giggle. ‘You wouldn’t!’ she said.

  Duchess Catriona laughed. ‘Oh, Bianca, nobody’s had their head put on a spike since my Great-Great-Grandmother Regina’s day; I’m not going to be the one to bring it back!’ She squeezed Bianca’s hand again. ‘But I really am concerned.’

  The tears rose again.

  ‘Me too,’ she admitted.

  ‘Let me show you something, Bianca.’ Duchess Catriona crossed Bianca’s bedroom. Bianca followed, rubbing her eyes and trying to pull herself together.

  The Duchess pulled the door to Bianca’s balcony open and stepped outside. Bianca shuddered as the cool evening breeze mingled on her skin with the heat radiating from the pale stones of the palace walls. The Duchess leaned on the carved wooden balcony and looked down into the city.

  ‘Look there,’ she said, pointing down into a square just on the other side of the Grand Canal.

  Bianca looked. She recognised the building at once – it was the Royal Museum of Art. Coloured banners hung from the windows and the tiles of the courtyard were laid in a beautiful mosaic of a tree with golden leaves growing on its spreading branches. Statues of lions, sculpted by di Lombardi himself, reared up on either side of the door.

  But the courtyard was empty. Bianca frowned. Normally the Museum was open late into the night, teeming with visitors who’d come to see La Luminosa’s great artworks. But today it looked deserted, and the lights that normally blazed in the windows were dim.