by Imogen Rossi
The Duchess smiled softly. ‘My dear, I’m so sorry. Come, sit.’ She took Bianca’s elbow and led her to another bench. They sat together, and Edita slipped her arm around Bianca. Bianca felt all the tension of the last few days falling away, and she started to well up again as she smiled at her mother.
‘I’ve wanted to talk to you,’ she said.
‘Oh, me too,’ said Duchess Edita. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been able to spend much time with you. I’ve been so busy. I’m sorry to say that Oscurita is not the safe, happy place it once was. But let’s not talk about that now … I want to talk about you! How are you, my love?’
‘Oh, I’m … I’m very well,’ said Bianca.
Duchess Edita frowned. ‘Truly?’
‘Everything’s marvellous,’ Bianca said, but she heard the tightening in her own throat as she said it, and Duchess Edita obviously heard it too. Her eyebrows twitched. She stared at Bianca for a second, and Bianca felt as if everything she was feeling was written across her face in bright red paint.
Duchess Edita looked up and smiled at her entourage. ‘I think we need to have a chat. Mother to daughter.’
Bianca felt her heart lift as the Duchess’s courtiers and Lady Margherita curtseyed and bowed out of the garden.
Duchess Edita put her arms around Bianca and hugged her close, wrapping her up in folds of purple silk and strands of dark, flowing hair.
‘Tell me everything, darling,’ she said. ‘I’ve been terrible to leave you alone this long. I want to know everything about you.’
Bianca smiled as she looked into her mother’s deep brown eyes. This is all I ever wanted. Bianca would give up everything to stay here, like this, with her mother.
Chapter Fourteen
‘But the smoke was too much for him,’ Bianca said, sniffing back tears. ‘And he died. He was poisoned by the traitors. The ones I’ve been trying to –’
‘How terrible,’ Duchess Edita said. ‘My poor dear di Lombardi. And he never told you anything about where you’d come from or about your family?’
‘Nothing,’ said Bianca. ‘Until he left me a message in his will.’
‘And the medallion?’ Duchess Edita asked. ‘That was when he left you the medallion, too?’
‘Yes,’ Bianca said. ‘The message showed you giving me to him, and then it showed me growing up in La Luminosa and coming back here with the medallion. Then it turned into a map so I could find my way between the magic paintings to the one that opens into Oscurita.’
‘And you came,’ said Duchess Edita. She looked away, but Bianca saw the tear as it rolled down her cheek before she wiped it away. She turned back and clasped Bianca’s hands in hers. ‘I can’t believe it – my daughter, so clever, so talented. I’ll never forget di Lombardi’s kindness in helping return you to me. And saving my medallion, too.’
‘The medallion’s yours?’ Bianca asked.
‘Oh yes. You see, it’s not just a piece of jewellery. It will help me secure the safety of Oscurita! Did you bring it with you?’
Bianca flushed. ‘I thought it was safer to leave it in La Luminosa. The Baron –’
‘Well, never mind!’ Duchess Edita pulled Bianca close again and planted a kiss on her cheek. ‘Perhaps one day you can fetch it. But not now. The medallion means nothing, as long as we’re together.’
Bianca smiled into her mother’s shoulder. Despite the corset and the embroidery and the curtseying, she would never regret coming to Oscurita.
A low, resounding bell rang out and Duchess Edita pulled away. ‘I must go, it’s time to dress for dinner. I’ll see you there, darling.’ She kissed Bianca’s cheek again and left her alone in the garden, watching the flickering lights of the lux aurumque flowers and breathing more deeply and calmly than she had for days.
‘Now, remember your protocol,’ said Lady Margherita, walking a few steps ahead of Bianca as they approached the great hall. ‘Stand whenever the Duchess stands. Speak equally to the people sitting on either side of you. Be careful not to confuse your cutlery, and never drink with your left hand.’
Bianca nodded, but she wasn’t really listening – almost all her concentration was focused on just walking in a straight line in the incredible gown she’d been strapped into. She thought she’d been stiffly bound up with lace and corsets and stockings before, but now she realised that had just been practice. This evening, Lady Margherita had presented her with a dress that was as beautiful as anything she’d ever seen Duchess Catriona wear, but weighed almost as much as she did. The corset kept her back pulled up straight and the layers of underskirts felt like walking through a field of silk with every step. The long lines of the flowing bright blue gown made her feel tall and lithe – neither of which she’d ever felt before – and the heavy dark blue velvet coat dragged her shoulders back and down. And then on top of that, her forehead and neck and arms wore a jingling waterfall of silver chains dripping with sapphires and onyx and glittering diamonds.
‘You look like a real princess,’ said Lady Margherita with a genuine smile as they reached the door to the great hall.
‘I feel like one, too,’ said Bianca. Apparently real princesses feel like they’re about to topple over, she added, but only inside her head.
The doors swung open.
‘Her Royal Highness, Lady Bianca di Oscurita,’ announced the footman. A few of the courtiers whispered to each other or turned their heads away, while others smirked a bit too widely.
She stepped inside, keeping her back tall and trying to walk with confidence, and looked up at the high table at the far end of the room to find her mother.
She was sitting between two men, their heads bent close together so Bianca couldn’t make out any of their faces. The Duchess was listening to some intense counsel. Then one of the men pushed back his black hair from his forehead. Bianca’s stomach dropped into the pointy toes of her velvet shoes.
It was the traitor, Filpepi.
Bianca picked up her heavy skirts and ran the last few feet to the high table.
‘ … patience,’ she heard her mother say. ‘There’s no profit in rushing this.’
‘But Your Highness, we must begin soon,’ said the other man.
The Baron da Russo.
‘You!’ Bianca yelled. A mutter of shock and scandal went up from the courtiers, but Bianca ignored them.
‘Bianca! Are you all right?’ Duchess Edita asked as Bianca approached the high table.
Bianca sucked in the deepest breath she could manage – the corset was laced so tight she was barely able to breathe even if she wasn’t trying to run. ‘Mother, these two are traitors! The two traitors I tried to tell you about! They’re criminals! They –’ She paused to gasp, silently cursing whatever idiot had come up with the idea of corsets in the first place. ‘They only want power!’ She glared at Filpepi. ‘Don’t you remember me, Filpepi? ’
Filpepi said nothing, but gazed calmly at Bianca, a supercilious smile playing on his lips. The Baron puffed out a heavy sigh.
‘Duchess Edita, this girl knows nothing,’ he said.
‘Don’t listen to them!’ Bianca pleaded. ‘They killed Master di Lombardi, and they tried to kill the Duchess of La Luminosa!’
A gasp of shock echoed around the room.
‘Silence!’ Duchess Edita commanded, getting to her feet. The court instantly fell silent, until the only sound was the rasping of Bianca’s breath in her throat. ‘I won’t have my court disrupted by such talk. Filpepi, da Russo – I think it’s best if you leave for now.’
The two traitors rose and bowed deeply to Duchess Edita. Bianca felt sick as they smiled to each other and walked out of the hall.
‘Send the guards after them!’ she said. ‘Who knows what damage they can do in the castle if they’re not watched?’
‘Bianca, I won’t imprison or spy on any of my subjects without knowing what crime they’re supposed to have committed. Why don’t you sit down and tell me everything?’
Bianca sank into the
chair beside her mother. ‘I’ve told you most of it already – you just didn’t know they were the ones I was talking about! They were going to kill Duchess Catriona, and they poisoned di Lombardi and tried to burn him alive. Marco and I would have died in that fire too if di Lombardi hadn’t shown us the way out!’ Before she could go on, her mother reached over and took her hands.
‘These crimes sound terrible!’ Bianca’s shoulders sagged with relief. But her mother hadn’t finished. ‘But they were not committed here. I understand you are fond of the City of Light, but it isn’t even in my world, let alone within my power.’
Bianca’s jaw dropped. ‘How can you just let them get away with murder? Simply because it happened in La Luminosa and not Oscurita?’
‘That is the way it is, sweetest,’ Edita said, reaching up to stroke back one of the elaborate braids in Bianca’s hair that had untwisted itself.
‘But, Mother,’ Bianca pleaded. ‘If they betrayed Duchess Catriona for her throne, how do you know they aren’t plotting to steal yours too?’
‘Ah, if they showed any sign they were traitors to Oscurita, then I certainly could do whatever I liked with them,’ said Duchess Edita. ‘But I don’t believe they will.’
‘Why on earth not?’ Bianca asked, feeling totally at a loss.
‘The Baron and Filpepi were visitors to La Luminosa, but they are citizens of Oscurita – just like you are now. They felt no loyalty to the little child duchess in the City of Light – but they have always been exceptionally loyal to me.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Bianca muttered.
‘I don’t have to just believe,’ said Edita gently. ‘They’ve both proved themselves to me. How much did Annunzio tell you about the Civil War?’
‘Nothing,’ Bianca said. Then she remembered the first few scenes of the painting. ‘But the story did show the city under attack when you smuggled me out. What happened?’
‘Only a few days after you were born, a vile pretender to the throne took the opportunity to attack me. I sent you with Annunzio because I was afraid you were their next target. Years of war tore the city apart. Even now, supporters of the pretender lurk in the city, plotting to kill me and take my throne. During the war, the Baron da Russo and Master Filpepi both proved their loyalty to me many times over.’
‘But how?’ Bianca asked.
Duchess Edita shook her head. ‘You don’t want to hear those stories,’ she said. ‘They’re not for children.’
‘I do!’ Bianca protested. ‘How can I trust that they’re really loyal if I don’t know the truth?’
Her mother looked at her and smiled softly. ‘Dearest, you trust me, don’t you?’
‘Well, yes … but –’
Duchess Edita snapped her fingers, and Lady Margherita materialised by her elbow. ‘Lady Margherita, I think Lady Bianca would rather have her dinner in her rooms tonight,’ she said.
Bianca bristled – wasn’t her mother even going to ask how she felt about it?
The weight of her outfit seemed to double as she let Lady Margherita escort her out of the great hall. It took almost as long to get her out of it as she’d actually spent wearing it, but as soon as she could do without Lady Margherita’s help Bianca shooed her out of the room with her best imperious glare.
She paced the room, strewing underskirts and slinging silver chains over the backs of chairs and the edges of mirrors, until she was down to the base layer and she could finally move freely. She sank down on the edge of her bed, clenched her fists in the black and purple silk eiderdown and punched the feather pillows.
This wasn’t right, not at all. She had to believe her mother’s statement that Baron da Russo and Filpepi had been loyal citizens of Oscurita, once. But they’d been loyal to La Luminosa too, or pretended to be. The Baron had even been Duchess Catriona’s regent, in charge of running the city until she came of age. He’d bided his time. The Baron was a schemer. Whatever he was doing, he’d be in it for the long haul. Bianca knew it in her bones. One day, maybe not this week or this year, but one day, he would work his schemes on her mother too.
She got up and walked through to her drawing room, looking out through the distorting glass to the faint glow of the lux aurumque flowers in the garden beyond.
If only she could prove just how long the Baron had been scheming with Filpepi to take over La Luminosa, if she could just show her mother why they were on the run …
Bianca turned, slowly, looking up at the painting of the old lady with the white hair.
They’re on the run. That’s it.
Filpepi and the Baron had escaped to Oscurita with Captain Raphaeli and the palace guards right on their heels – and she knew for a fact that Filpepi’s study had been left just as it was, because clearing it was a job she’d been avoiding!
If she searched his room, and the Baron’s room at the palace, maybe she could find some evidence that would sway her mother. Maybe whatever they were planning could be stopped before they could put it in motion!
It had to be worth a try.
Bianca hurried back to her room and changed into her old dress. She tipped out the contents of the jewelled purse and stuck the paintbrush key into her pocket. She paused, picking up the lux aurumque flower she’d snipped from its stem in the garden earlier. It obviously held a life force of its own, because the petals were still fleshy and glowing, casting a shifting golden light around the room. She smelled it – its scent was strange, a bit like a sunflower, with a strange undertone of ether and heavy oils. She carefully slipped it into her pocket as she opened the door behind the dragon lady.
‘I’ll be back,’ she promised herself, as if she was speaking to the old lady. ‘I’ll come back and make those traitors pay for what they did to Master di Lombardi.’
The old lady didn’t move, but Bianca could almost imagine that her half-smile was a sign of approval.
She stepped into the passages and closed the door behind her.
Chapter Fifteen
As soon as she was in the passages, Bianca realised her mistake.
‘Marco’s got the map,’ she groaned. Slumping against the wall, she ran her fingers over its stone-cool and canvas-scented surface. She hadn’t noticed before, but the range of colours spattered over the walls were a bit different here – there were more greys and dark colours, and at the same time the bright colours and the glimmering sparks of light were even brighter. Perhaps she’d come out in the palace if she went through a door surrounded by sun-bleached stone, copper, pale shady blues and greens and terracotta.
‘At least there’s only one way to go,’ she sighed, and set off away from the black and red door.
She wandered down quite a long stretch of passage before there were any more doors, and when her corridor finally opened onto a crossroads, she didn’t recognise any of the paintings she looked out through. She seemed to be in a complex, twisting path of people’s private houses, and it wouldn’t help her to get caught climbing out of a portrait of someone’s grandmother.
What’s more, it was night-time – the night-lamps and the starlight still made La Luminosa brighter than Oscurita, but it meant she couldn’t just go leaping out of paintings into people’s bedrooms and hoping for the best.
Finally, when it seemed as if she’d been walking for hours, she turned into a corridor and felt a spark of familiarity. She’d been here. But where was she? From beyond a heavy iron door, she heard a ticking noise, like a clock. A low bell rang out, just once.
Of course – the Via del Orologica, the street of clockmakers! That was all the way across La Luminosa, but if this was where she and Marco had been exploring before they’d found their way to Oscurita, that meant that the door on the other side …
She leapt across the corridor and pressed her face to the glass panel in the door. Yes! There were the dancers, trailing coloured silk as they spun and swirled around the great golden throne. And beyond them, she could see into the Museum of Art.
But Bianca frowned. The Muse
um was empty and dark. The night-lamps hadn’t been lit, and even the guards who normally stood by the paintings all night had gone.
She peered through the doorway again, and this time she noticed a sign, illuminated by the starlight:
TOMORROW HER ROYAL MAJESTY
DUCHESS CATRIONA DI LA LUMINOSA
WILL JUDGE THE FINAL ENTRIES IN HER MAJESTY’S COMPETITION
TO CHOOSE THE NEW ROYAL-ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE AND MASTER OF THE STUDIOS
A surge of dread paralysed her to the spot. She’d forgotten about the competition. It was far too late for her to enter now. She expected to feel relieved – after all, the studio had been too much for her, hadn’t it? But instead, she just felt guilty and sad – especially when she thought of how much faith Catriona had placed in her. She was supposed to be di Lombardi’s successor, and she hadn’t painted anything in days. But it was more than that. Art was what defined her, her whole world, until she’d found out that her mother was alive. And she had just given that up. Was it something she could only do if she chose La Luminosa over her own mother?
And you’re the only one who knows the magic paint recipes, said a voice at the back of her mind. You left your studio without even giving them instructions. You ran away to play at being a princess in a magic castle.
Bianca shuddered violently. It was true, she shouldn’t have left them like she did. But who wouldn’t have run away if it meant meeting their mother for the very first time?
A heavy feeling settled in the pit of Bianca’s stomach and she slid to the floor, her back against the painted stone passage wall.
Could she really go back to the studio, rummage through Filpepi’s things and then vanish again, without stopping to help the other apprentices? But it would take months to teach them everything she knew, and she couldn’t leave Filpepi and the Baron free in Oscurita when she guessed they were up to no good.
She pulled the paintbrush and the flower from her pockets and stared at them until her eyes stung.