by Mary Hoffman
‘I’m ready,’ he said.
It was much worse than any of them had thought. Nicholas hadn’t wanted to discuss it at first, but of course Georgia had wanted to know everything about his seeing Luciano, since she had missed a day in Giglia.
‘Well, he told me he has to fight a duel with my father,’ said Nicholas. It was true, but he had found this out only later. If possible he was going to keep from the others the plot he hoped Luciano would agree to. But this news was startling enough.
‘A duel?’ said Georgia. ‘But surely he can’t beat Duke Niccolò?’
‘Grand Duke Niccolò,’ Nicholas corrected her. ‘It’s true that Gaetano won’t be able to help him. It will be weeks before he’s strong enough to hold a sword. But Sky can be one of his seconds. He’s allowed two.’
‘How can you be so calm about it?’ demanded Georgia. ‘Even if Luciano could beat Niccolò in a fair fight – which I doubt – how can we be sure the Grand Duke will fight fair?’
‘Why has he challenged Luciano now?’ asked Sky. ‘You’d have thought he’d be grateful for what he did when we got the medicine.’
‘Luciano said his challenge was about an insult to his honour,’ said Nicholas. ‘But he didn’t know what.’
‘Maybe Arianna turned Niccolò down,’ suggested Alice.
They all turned to her in horror; what she said made a kind of sense. If Niccolò was jealous, challenging Luciano to a duel was just the sort of thing he would do.
Georgia felt a pang – would Luciano fight the Grand Duke if Niccolò had proposed to her? Then the absurdity of the very idea overtook her and she laughed, a bit hysterically.
‘He’ll be killed, for sure,’ she said. ‘And there’ll be no other life for him this time.’
Nicholas couldn’t bear to see her so upset; he thought he would be able to console her.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ he said.
*
Niccolò di Chimici took possession of the palace over the river the next day. But Giglians kept the name for it; though generations of di Chimici grand dukes and princes would live there and no member of Matteo’s clan ever set foot in it again, it was never known as anything other than the Nucci palace.
Niccolò had a good reason for moving in; his sons were recovering and he wanted them back under his own eye. The Palazzo Ducale felt tainted to him; he would always connect it with the remnants of wedding-feast finery washed up against the steps, his public humiliation by his brother and his proposal to the Duchessa on the night before the weddings, which had been all in vain.
The Nucci palace, undamaged by the flood, represented a new start, and the Grand Duke was good at new starts. He walked through the fine reception rooms, admiring the taste and wealth behind their decoration and furnishings. He ordered all the Nucci portraits to be taken down and representations of his own family put in their place; the Nucci coat of arms was also hacked off the stonework and hastily painted wooden escutcheons with the arms of the Giglian di Chimici fixed in their place.
Enrico walked through the palazzo too, a few steps behind his master and the architect Gabassi. The Eel was also in need of a new project and he was as taken with the grandeur of the palace as Niccolò was. He had a vision of becoming the Grand Duke’s steward in his new home; what vistas of opportunities for skimming off silver into his own pocket were opening before him!
They moved up the grand staircase to the upper floors. The rooms were all furnished, the cupboards and chests full of linen and the library full of codices and manuscripts. All this was now di Chimici property because of the blow struck by Camillo Nucci in the Church of the Annunciation. The Grand Duke allocated bedchambers for himself and Beatrice and temporary ones for Fabrizio and Gaetano and their brides. They would keep Fabrizio here until he was well enough to go back to the Ducal palace and Gaetano until he could return to the Via Larga, where he would live as planned with Francesca.
Poor Carlo would have no more need of a palace and Niccolò made a mental note to talk again to Lucia. She would presumably want to go back to Fortezza with her parents, but she would go as a widowed di Chimici princess, one robbed of her future role as wife of the ruler of Remora.
He had already thought about Remora – Gaetano must have that title now and there would have to be another plan for Fortezza. The weddings had been such a promising scheme for increasing the number of di Chimici heirs, but the family had been robbed of two of its young men and both Fortezza and Moresco were without males to inherit their titles.
‘A husband for Beatrice,’ mused Niccolò to himself. ‘Perhaps she could marry the ruler of one of the city-states we have not yet won. If Bellezza can’t be brought into the fold just yet, then I shall concentrate on treaties with Classe and Padavia.’
*
Silvia had sent for Guido Parola. He was not far; since the day she had taken him into her service as his punishment for trying to assassinate her, he had never been very many paces from her side. When he entered her presence, she gave her maid Susanna permission to leave.
‘Ah, Guido,’ she said, scrutinising him carefully. ‘You are looking pale. Are you quite recovered from your hurts?’
‘Yes, my Lady,’ said Parola. ‘I was very fortunate and took only slight flesh wounds.’
‘Sit down, Guido,’ ordered Silvia, indicating the place beside her on a chaise longue.
‘My Lady?’ asked Parola hesitantly.
‘Stop being my servant for a moment,’ said Silvia. ‘I want to talk to you properly and you are much too tall for me to do it if you don’t take a seat. You’re making my neck ache.’
He sat nervously on the edge of the chaise.
‘Don’t look so worried, Guido,’ said Silvia. ‘I am very pleased with you. You saved the life of that girl Barbara and, as far as I am concerned, the life of my daughter, since she was the one intended for that blow.’
‘Do you think it was the Nucci?’ asked Parola. ‘I went back to the church the next day, but I couldn’t say which of the bodies was the man the Duchessa dispatched.’
‘I think it was,’ said Silvia. ‘Not even Niccolò di Chimici would engineer an attack on his family to provide cover for assassinating Arianna. Besides, he hadn’t then been told that she wouldn’t marry him, and his plan was to take Bellezza by matrimony, not violence.’
‘And the Nucci thought the Duchessa might accept him?’
‘I doubt if they even knew about the proposal,’ said Silvia. ‘But she was an honoured guest of the di Chimici and wearing his handsome gift, as they thought. You can be sure that he himself had spread the rumours that Bellezza was about to form an alliance with Giglia. And he isn’t the sort of man to keep quiet about the lavishness of his presents. So as far as the Nucci were concerned, she was a fair target.’
They were silent a few moments, reliving the horror of what had happened in the Church of the Annunciation.
‘Guido,’ said Silvia. ‘I am going to release you from my service.’
He looked stricken, and started to protest, but Silvia held up her hand.
‘Let me finish. You are a nobleman. I know your family’s fortune was gambled away by your older brother, but you should be at university completing your education as a gentleman, not acting as a footman to me. You have paid many times over for your original crime – which was one of intention rather than commission – but you are now fully pardoned and should be making your own way in the world.’
‘But I don’t want to leave your service, my Lady,’ said Parola. ‘Don’t dismiss me. I want to go on protecting you.’
‘I am not dismissing you, Guido,’ she said gently, taking his hand. ‘I am, very regretfully, letting you go. You will have an ample financial reward for all that you have done for me. I forgive you for trying to kill me and I want you to regard me now as a sort of godmother. You can escort me back to Padavia. But after that, what would you say to going to university in Fortezza?’
Chapter 26
Corridor o
f Power
Rinaldo was nervous about remaining in Giglia. He had not carried a sword at the di Chimici weddings – he was a priest now, after all – but it had been frustrating, brought up as he had been, to be unarmed in the midst of such slaughter. He had helped his uncle get the women, including his sister Caterina, first to the sanctuary of the High Altar and then into the orphanage. But not before he had seen people killed and wounded.
Now he was anxious to get back to the comfortable life he lived in the Papal palace in Remora. His uncle and master, the Pope, was not loath to leave Giglia either, but he would not go until the young princes were out of danger. The Grand Duke too was in a strange mood. He had been thwarted of the bloody revenge he wanted to take on the Nucci, and this idiotic plan to move out of the Ducal palace after only a few weeks was part of his frenzy. The Pope wanted to keep an eye on him and sent Rinaldo across the river to see how his cousins were faring.
He was walking near the great cathedral when he glimpsed a tall figure he thought he recognised coming out of one of the palazzi. He had noticed him before in the Church of the Annunciation, fighting and later taking care of the Princess Lucia, but in the chaos of the slaughter and its aftermath during the flood he had forgotten all about him. It niggled at the back of Rinaldo’s mind, the sight of this red-headed youth; he knew he had seen him somewhere before but couldn’t think where.
*
Luciano was waiting for Sky and Nicholas at the friary when they stravagated to Giglia. He had bumped into Sandro, almost unrecognisable in robes just a little bit big for him.
‘So you are Brother Sandro now?’ asked Luciano, smiling.
‘Yes,’ said Sandro. ‘And Fratello is Brother Dog. He works in the kitchens. You are waiting for Tino and Benvenuto?’
Luciano nodded. He had to remind himself that Benvenuto was Nicholas, who once had been Falco. Was he going to be Falco again? Luciano thrust the thought down. He needed to talk to them both and to Brother Sulien.
The boys arrived within minutes of one another and came out to find Luciano and Sandro in the cloister. They went together to the infirmary and found Gaetano sitting on the edge of his bed. There were no other friars about so Nicholas threw his arms around his brother.
Sandro suddenly realised who he was. He had seen the memorial statue of Prince Falco many times but never made the connection until he saw ‘Benvenuto’ in Gaetano’s embrace. He turned to Luciano, eyes wide, but the Bellezzan just put his finger to his lips. Sandro understood. He was a friar now, not a spy, and was going to have to learn how to keep secrets, not pass them on.
‘Gaetano!’ said Nicholas. ‘You really are all right? Where is Fabrizio?’
‘Gone with Sulien and Beatrice to Father’s latest palace. I shall join them soon. You know that we have taken over the Nucci place?’
‘I wanted to talk to you about that,’ said Luciano. ‘Your father has challenged me to a duel tomorrow and he wants us to meet in the gardens of the Nucci.’
Gaetano looked horrified. His arm was in a sling and his head was bandaged but he made as if to grab his sword, then realised he didn’t have one.
‘A duel?’ he said. ‘But why?’
Luciano shrugged. ‘What does it matter? He’s made up his mind to fight me. I don’t think anyone refuses a challenge from the Grand Duke.’
‘This is terrible,’ said Gaetano. ‘I won’t be able to lift a rapier for several weeks.’
‘But you’ve given me lots of lessons,’ said Luciano. ‘I’m not going to learn any more in a day. I’m either ready to meet him or I’m not.’
*
Georgia was not going to miss another day in Talia. And she had the idea that she might be better able to persuade Nicholas out of his crazy idea if she could get him on his own in Giglia and show him how impossible it would be to return there as if nothing had happened. But the awful thing was, although she knew it was a fatally flawed plan for Nicholas, she couldn’t get it out of her mind that it could work to save Luciano’s life – which would certainly be at risk if he fought this duel with the Grand Duke.
If Vicky and David were somehow made to understand, they could be ready to take their restored son away somewhere far from Islington. And one day Georgia could go and find him, wherever he was. It would put him for ever out of the reach of Arianna, just as she would have gone out of Luciano’s if she had accepted the Grand Duke. And who else in the world would the new Lucien turn to if not Georgia?
There was so much wrong with this picture that Georgia knew it was really a fantasy, and yet she couldn’t shake it out of her head. There was only one thing to do: she must talk to the Stravaganti about it, the way they hadn’t when she and Luciano had helped Falco translate across worlds.
She started with Giuditta, who was beginning to pack up Arianna’s statue when Georgia arrived at her workshop that morning. The head, with its streaming hair, was still poking out of the layers of straw and sacking, the Duchessa’s masked face staring out defiantly. Georgia felt a bit guilty about her thoughts; she had come to admire Arianna, even if she could never stop feeling jealous of her.
‘Good morning,’ said Giuditta. ‘I think we can stop for a while, boys. You can have half an hour’s break.’
When they had gone, Franco lingering to give Georgia a lascivious backwards look, the sculptor boiled a pan of water on her kitchen stove and made a tisane of lemon verbena for them both.
‘You look as if you need it,’ she said to Georgia. ‘Drink it while you wait for the others to get here.’
Georgia was grateful. ‘There’s something I want to ask you about,’ she said. And then she told Giuditta Nicholas’s plan.
*
‘We should go and meet Georgia,’ said Sky to Nicholas, when Gaetano had been removed to the Nucci palace.
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Luciano.
The three of them walked in silence to Giuditta’s bottega. The cleaning-up operation was continuing in the city, helped by the cloudless sky in which the sun burned as if rain were an unknown phenomenon. Sky had to admit that the Grand Duke was a good administrator. Everywhere they went they saw bands of citizens and soldiers working together to burn debris, clean monuments and repair damage. Their route took them through the Piazza Ducale and they saw that the banqueting platform had been taken down as quickly as it had been erected; there was no sign of all the canopies, flowers and lanterns that had adorned the square the night before the weddings.
Notices had been pasted to various columns proclaiming the exile of the Nucci and the sequestration of all their lands, houses and goods, even down to the least lamb in their flocks, by the house of di Chimici in compensation for the treasonous uprising against their authority and the loss of Prince Carlo. An idealised woodcut of Carlo appeared on the handbills but Nicholas scarcely noticed. He walked, head down, with his hood pulled over his eyes.
When they reached the Piazza della Cattedrale, unusually Giuditta was waiting for them outside her bottega, with Georgia.
‘I want Luciano and Brother Benvenuto to come with me,’ she said seriously. ‘Georgia and Tino can meet us later. We are going to the Bellezzan Embassy.’
So Sky and Georgia were left on their own, making an odd couple – the friar and the artist’s model. In order to escape curious looks, they went into the baptistery and sat one behind the other. It was a much smaller building than the cathedral, and the clearing up from the flood had finished there, so that they could talk relatively undisturbed.
‘She’s going to see if the other Stravaganti can make them see sense,’ said Georgia.
‘Them?’ asked Sky. ‘I thought it was only Nick who wanted to do it. Luciano’s surely too sensible?’
‘Yes, well, you’d have thought so, but with this duel hanging over him, I think Nicholas is going to try to persuade him to take the easy way out,’ said Georgia. ‘Drink poison in Giglia and stravagate to Islington before it works. Nicholas does the same, maybe with sleeping pills, in the Mulhollands’
house. Then, Bob’s your uncle: they both end up with real bodies, complete with shadows in the worlds they started from.’
‘I never heard anything so ridiculous,’ said Sky. ‘Surely Luciano would never buy it? I mean he’s got a lot going for him here, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yes,’ said Georgia calmly. ‘You mean Arianna.’
‘Among other things,’ said Sky. ‘And what would people say here?’
‘That he killed himself rather than face the Grand Duke in a duel,’ said Georgia. ‘That part would be just about believable, at least by outsiders.’
‘But what about Nick? What would Vicky and David tell everyone, even if they were in on the swap?’
‘That he had been depressed and difficult lately,’ shrugged Georgia. ‘He wouldn’t be the first fifteen-year-old to kill himself.’
‘I don’t buy it,’ said Sky. ‘I mean, they’re pretty attached to him, aren’t they?’
‘But just imagine if he were giving them the chance to have their own son back. I bet they’d consider it.’
‘There isn’t time for all this anyway,’ said Sky. ‘Nick would have to explain it all to them and get them to agree tomorrow, if Luciano was going to – you know – take poison before the duel.’
‘I think,’ said Georgia slowly, ‘that if they both agreed to do it, it could just about work as far as the time is concerned. But the Stravaganti would have to give their blessing within the next few hours.’
‘And you said Giuditta was against it, so they’re not likely to give their blessing, are they?’
‘I would have said not, but Sky, if Luciano doesn’t do this, he might be killed by Niccolò tomorrow. With no second chances. Finito!’