by Mary Hoffman
Matteo Nucci stood. ‘I offer myself as hostage,’ he said, ‘if you will let my wife visit Filippo.’
‘You are in no position to bandy terms with me,’ snarled Niccolò. ‘I could have you and your beldam hanged beside your relatives here, to make food for crows – yes, and your daughters too!’
‘But you will not,’ said the Pope, appearing beside his brother on the steps of the palazzo. ‘There has been enough killing. Camillo Nucci must have his funeral rites, and these other poor wretches too. And I shall myself take Signora Graziella to see her son at the friary. As for Signor Matteo, there is no dungeon here dry enough to put him in. I suggest that he and his daughters and any of those remaining who took part in the attack surrender themselves to my authority. I shall house them at the Papal Residence under guard until they can be brought to trial.’
The Grand Duke could not show how displeased he was. His brother was Pope, after all, and ruled as Prince over the most important city in Talia, even if Niccolò was head of the di Chimici family. Never had Ferdinando defied him before – and in public too.
Rosalind was at her wits’ end. Just as she was feeling physically better than she had for years and was embarking on her first proper relationship with a man since Sky had been born, his father had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. And now Sky seemed to be going off the rails. It perhaps wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t wanted anything to do with the Warrior. But this business of injuring Nicholas, and getting hurt himself, in what had obviously been a no-holds barred fight, and then clamming up about who had treated their wounds – well, that was completely unexpected.
He had been a model son for the last three years, devoted and coping cheerfully with all the extra demands that her illness had placed upon him.
‘Perhaps that’s why,’ she said to Vicky Mulholland, the day they took the boys to the doctor. ‘It hasn’t been a natural life for a teenager, never going out and having all that extra responsibility. Perhaps, now I’m getting better, he’ll break out with all the stuff he’s been suppressing for years.’
‘But that doesn’t account for Nick,’ said Vicky. ‘He’s younger, of course, but David and I have never had any trouble with him until the last few weeks. He’s been so – I don’t know – depressed, somehow, and he never was through all that dreadful treatment and the operations.’
‘It’s a good thing they’ve got each other,’ said Rosalind. ‘And I would have said it was a good thing they had their fencing – until this morning. What do you think happened there?’
Vicky shook her head. ‘I honestly don’t know.’ She hesitated. ‘You’ll think I’m crazy, I know, but there’s always been something a bit, well, inexplicable about Nicholas.’
The Bellezzan Ambassador to Giglia was more than a little startled when his footman told him there was a man at the door with two leopards.
‘He says they belong to the Duchessa,’ explained the servant.
‘Oh, my cats,’ said Arianna. ‘The Grand Duke gave them to me. They are not exactly leopards, but they are quite tame. Perhaps I could house them in your stables until I return to Bellezza?’
Enrico entered the audience chamber, without waiting for permission, with the two spotted cats on their leashes.
‘Pardon the intrusion, your Grace,’ he said. ‘My master, the Grand Duke, asked me to deliver these to you, and a message to say that he would call on you this afternoon to see how your Ladyship is and to talk about his other gift.’
Arianna, blushing fiercely under her mask, hid her confusion by stroking the magnificent beasts. They already recognised her and rasped her hands with their rough tongues. She couldn’t believe that the Grand Duke would pursue his suit while he had one son lying in state and two others on the brink of death. But then she remembered how he had ordered Prince Gaetano to propose to her when poor Falco lay dying. He was as unstoppable as the flood.
‘Take them to the stables,’ ordered the Ambassador. ‘And tell my people how they are to be fed and exercised.’
*
Nicholas and Sky were relieved to find that they were not under several feet of water when they stravagated back to Giglia that night. Sulien’s cell was greatly damaged but more or less dry. They found Sulien himself with the wounded in the infirmary.
‘It’s over then, the flood?’ asked Sky, while Nicholas went to his brothers. They were sleeping more naturally now.
‘The waters have retreated,’ said Sulien. ‘But it will be some time before everything is back to normal. I’m glad you are both here. How are the wounds?’
He made them roll up their sleeves to show him. Nicholas was in his novice’s robe, but it was damp and muddy. Sky was still in Gaetano’s old clothes and they were stained with both blood and flood water.
Sulien nodded approvingly. ‘You are healing well, with no fever. But you can’t wear those wet clothes. All the robes in my chest were ruined, but go to Brother Tullio and he will kit you both out in dry ones. He rescued so much from the ground floor. Then come back to me – I have an errand for you.’
Brother Tullio had laid all the logs for his ovens out to dry in the sun in the Lesser Cloister; there had been no porridge for the friars that morning. But there had been beer saved from the barrels that floated on the flood and a great deal of Easter bread consumed. Sandro was eating some of it on the cloister wall, sunning himself beside his dog.
When Sky and Nicholas were newly clad as novices in clean dry robes, he joined them. Sandro had no desire to find his official master or to go back to the orphanage, where he had seen dead bodies. All his instincts kept him tied to the friary and the life-giving Sulien.
Sulien told them that Brother Tullio had rescued his parchment with the precious recipes and kept it safe on the top floor. Now he wanted Sky to go up to the Franciscan friary in Colle Vernale above the city and collect fresh herbs to restock the pharmacy.
‘Do you think you could drive the cart?’ he asked.
Sky hesitated just a little; he was honoured to be entrusted with such a mission but he really was not comfortable with horses.
‘I can,’ said Nicholas.
‘And I know the way,’ said Sandro eagerly. ‘I’ll go with them.’
So the three boys and the small dog left the city and rose above the smells and the factions and up the hillside to the friary. Sky couldn’t believe how much had happened since he had first gone there with Sulien less than two months before. Giglia lay spread out beneath them, calm and beautiful in the sunshine. From here there was no sign of the violent events of the day before; it was hard to think that so few hours had elapsed since the outbreak of carnage and the flood that had overtaken it.
They rested the horses in the village and Sandro dropped off the cart to race Fratello to the top of the hill.
‘I love it up here, don’t you?’ asked Sky.
‘Yeah,’ said Nicholas. ‘You can forget what a stinking mess the city is and just enjoy the beauty.’
‘Are you all right, really?’ asked Sky. ‘I’m sure your brothers will get better. Sulien knows his stuff.’
‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘I’m not all right. Look, could you drop me off before we get back to the friary? The horses will know the way and I want to see Luciano. I guess he’ll be at the Embassy with Arianna.’
*
Arianna was longing to get back to Bellezza but she couldn’t leave while Gaetano’s life was in danger. Both Francesca and Barbara needed her; her friend was in an agony of fear for her new husband’s life and her maid was still in a lot of pain.
‘Whatever I put my hand to seems to bring disaster,’ Arianna said to Rodolfo. ‘I should never have become Duchessa. It is too hard.’
‘We are in a tight corner now, I agree,’ said her father. ‘But we have been in tight corners before and come out of them. You have to be brave a little longer – just long enough to refuse the Grand Duke without offending him.’
‘And do you think he’ll just accept my answer and let me g
o back home without taking any revenge?’
Rodolfo was silent. He had believed that he and all the other Stravaganti would have been able to prevent the kind of attack that had followed the di Chimici weddings. True, Arianna was safe, but many others had died or been injured. Could they still keep her safe if Niccolò di Chimici turned against her?
He pressed her hand. ‘You’ll have me and Luciano and Doctor Dethridge. Once you’ve refused the Grand Duke we won’t leave your side till you’re back in Bellezza.’
‘His Holiness Pope Lenient the Sixth and the Grand Duke of Tuschia,’ announced the footman.
*
Luciano was in the courtyard at the Embassy, making a few desultory passes with a rapier at a statue in the middle of a fountain. It was mud-stained up to its middle. He was relieved when the figure of a tall Dominican novice was shown into the court.
‘Your technique isn’t quite right,’ Nicholas told him and took the weapon from him, showing him how to improve his grip. ‘That’s why Filippo Nucci was able to disarm you.’
‘How is Filippo?’ asked Luciano. ‘And your brothers?’
‘Sulien thinks they will all recover,’ said Nicholas.
‘That’s wonderful. You must be so relieved.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Nicholas. ‘But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Luciano, do you ever feel homesick?’
Luciano was taken aback. ‘Sometimes, yes,’ he said. ‘Is this about you? About wanting to come back?’ Georgia had filled him in a bit.
‘Not just me,’ said Nicholas. ‘It’s about your parents too – Vicky and David, I mean.’
Luciano had never asked Nicholas about his living arrangements in the other world; it was too painful.
‘What about them?’ he said, his face closed.
‘They haven’t got over it, you know,’ said Nicholas. ‘Losing you, I mean. I’m a good substitute but that’s all I’ll ever be. It’s not like being their real son.’
‘Why are you saying this?’ asked Luciano. ‘You know there’s nothing I can do.’
‘That’s just it – there is,’ said Nicholas. ‘I’ve got a plan.’
*
Upstairs in the Embassy, the Bellezzan Ambassador was serving the famous red wine of his city to his most illustrious guests. The Pope was interested in the almond cakes that the Duchessa had brought with her from Bellezza; he was a great authority on sweetmeats.
‘I have never been in the Embassy before, Ambassador,’ he said good-humouredly. ‘Perhaps you would care to show me around? I could bless any parts damaged by the flood. My chaplain here has a phial of Holy Water.’
‘Certainly, your Holiness,’ said the Ambassador. ‘I would be honoured.’
‘Won’t you join us, Regent?’ the Pope said to Rodolfo. ‘I believe you were acquainted with my nephew when he was Ambassador to Bellezza, before he found his present vocation?’
Rodolfo and Rinaldo exchanged the thinnest of smiles; there had been no love lost between them at that time.
Rodolfo did not want to leave Arianna with the Grand Duke but she motioned him to go. She wanted to get the forthcoming audience over with and she didn’t believe she would be in immediate danger. After all, she had killed a man since Niccolò made his proposal. Arianna shuddered, remembering the feeling as she had plunged her dagger into the chest of the man attacking Barbara. There was no doubt that she had killed him, and she had no idea who he had been. For a moment she had understood what it must be like to be Grand Duke Niccolò di Chimici and to regard another human being as completely expendable.
But even while she was thinking these thoughts, the Duchessa of Bellezza had already asked after the princes and seen that Niccolò was genuinely concerned about them.
‘I shall be happy to entertain your Grace’s daughter-in-law Francesca here as long as I am in the city,’ she said.
‘That is most kind,’ said the Grand Duke. ‘And only what I would expect from such a gracious lady. I believe one of your own retinue was also injured. I am greatly relieved to see that you yourself are unhurt.’
‘My maid took the force of the blow intended for me,’ said Arianna. ‘She will make a complete recovery.’
‘I was honoured to see you wear my gift at the wedding,’ said Niccolò. ‘May I take it that you look kindly on my proposal? Of course we must delay the announcement until after Carlo’s funeral and until Fabrizio and Gaetano are quite recovered, but it would give me great joy to be able to look forward to it.’
‘What would you expect to happen to my city if I were to be your Grand Duchess?’ stalled Arianna. Her mouth was dry and her heart pounding.
The Grand Duke was delighted; this was going better than he had hoped. ‘Well, my dear,’ he said confidentially, ‘you would of course live here with me in Giglia. Perhaps the Regent could look after Bellezza for a while, but he will not live for ever. And your city is used to a female ruler. I thought perhaps my daughter the Princess Beatrice could become its Duchessa in due course.’
‘So it would be a di Chimici city,’ said Arianna softly. ‘And I a di Chimici bride. Forgive me, but that does not seem a very safe occupation this morning.’
‘Nowhere is safe in Talia,’ said the Grand Duke. ‘Least of all Bellezza if it stays out of alliance with my family. Come, my dear, it is time to put aside all enmity – what is your answer?’
‘I prize the independence of my city too much to put it in your hands,’ said Arianna.
‘But you wore the dress,’ said the Grand Duke impatiently. ‘The dress was to have been your answer.’
‘I did not wear it,’ said Arianna. ‘That was my maid. And she suffered for it. The blow was meant for me.’
‘Ah, I understand now,’ said Niccolò. ‘You fear for your life if you marry me? Be assured that I shall look after you. No harm will come to my Granduchessa.’
‘You could not protect Carlo,’ said Arianna, more bluntly than she had meant to. The Grand Duke flinched. ‘But that is not my only reason,’ said Arianna, bracing herself. ‘I cannot marry where I do not love.’
‘That is a girl’s answer, not a ruler’s,’ said Niccolò impatiently. ‘I am not offering love, but good political sense.’
‘I am a good ruler of my city,’ said Arianna. ‘But I am a girl too. And I am in love with someone else. If I can’t marry him, I shall stay single.’
Niccolò was furious but remained icily polite. ‘Might I ask who is my rival for your Grace’s hand? Who can equal the offer of a Grand Duke of Tuschia?’
‘That is a matter for my own heart,’ said Arianna. ‘There is no other offer and no engagement. I am very sensible of the honour you do me but I must decline. I cannot marry without love.’
And then it was over. The Grand Duke swept out of the room, white-lipped with rage. Arianna was shaking. She had always known that she could not accept his offer but she hadn’t known how to do it. And in the end she had been on her own, without Rodolfo or Luciano to support her. She had gone head to head with the most powerful person in Talia and had no doubt that he would exact a terrible revenge.
*
Sandro and Sky got the cart safely back to Saint-Mary-among-the-Vines and unloaded Sulien’s supplies. While the sacks of dried herbs were being used to restock the unbroken jars in the pharmacy, the Eel wandered in.
‘Good day, Brothers,’ he said, doffing his rather bedraggled blue velvet hat. ‘I came to enquire after the princes. But I see my little Sparrow is here helping you. Good, good.’
‘The princes are recovering well,’ said Sulien. ‘And I am grateful for the loan of the boy – Sandro has been most useful. Indeed, if it had not been for his efforts yesterday, I doubt the princes would have lived to see this day.’
Enrico was surprised. He couldn’t imagine what Sandro could have done that would be medically useful, but he made a mental note that the boy was well regarded by the pharmacist-friar.
Sandro looked from Sulien to Enrico and made a decision. He wa
s not officially apprenticed to the Eel; no papers had been signed. What he knew of his master was that he had taken Carlo to find a Nucci to murder. And he didn’t doubt there were other murders in the Eel’s past. But all his experience of Sulien was of healing and care for others, even to the point of teaching a street boy his letters and telling him stories. Sandro didn’t want a life of running errands and telling tales for the Eel.
‘I’d like to stay here,’ he said to Enrico.
‘Good idea,’ said Enrico. ‘You can bring me messages as to how the princes are getting on. And I want that Nucci kept an eye on too,’ he added, lowering his voice.
‘I don’t mean that,’ said Sandro. ‘I mean I want to be a friar here at Saint-Mary-among-the-Vines.’
Sky and Sulien were as surprised as the Eel.
‘But you can’t even read or write,’ said Enrico. ‘How could you be a friar?’
‘I think you’ll find that he can read,’ said Sulien. ‘And we can teach him to write. That is, if you are serious about this, Sandro?’
‘I am,’ said Sandro. ‘I want to be a Brother, like Tino and you.’
Enrico didn’t like it. He felt in some way that he had been robbed. But he made no objection; somewhere under the layers of his years of crime he had a glimmer of conscience that told him Sandro had made a good choice.
*
‘You are seriously insane!’ said Luciano, throwing aside his rapier and pacing up and down the courtyard. ‘There is so much wrong with that idea, I don’t know where to begin.’
‘Why?’ asked Nicholas. ‘We’ve both done it before. And it would make everything right for our families.’
‘Let’s see, shall we?’ said Luciano, ticking off reasons on his fingers. ‘We’d both have to die again – I can’t believe I’m even saying this – my parents would have to lose their foster-son and all my friends here would have to lose me. Then, if it did work, my parents and I would have to move away somewhere so that they didn’t have to explain how come their son who had been dead for two and a half years had suddenly turned up again. And, oh yes, Prince Falco would also have suddenly risen from the dead, much to the delight and surprise of his family in Giglia. Good God, Nick, this is la-la land!’