City of Flowers (17 page)

The statue of the Duchessa was complete apart from the hands and face. She stood in Giuditta's studio, looking like a bird poised for flight, her marble cloak and hair streaming out behind her in the invisible wind.

‘It's wonderful,' said Arianna. She was wearing a grey velvet cloak with a hood pulled up over her masked face and was accompanied by Barbara and two bodyguards. Franco the angelic apprentice was looking at Barbara in admiration, unperturbed by the two armed Bellezzans.

‘I have never sculpted a face with a mask before,' said Giuditta.

‘It's a pity,' said Arianna. ‘But that's how I must appear, in a public statue.'

‘Still, I should like to see your face,' said the sculptor. ‘It would help if I knew what I was covering up.'

‘Then everyone else must look away,' said Arianna. ‘My guards know the penalty and would exact it.'

Giuditta gave the order and her apprentices turned away, watched over by Barbara and the guards. Arianna untied her mask and Giuditta looked long at her face, sketching swiftly with a stick of charcoal. She walked round the Duchessa for twenty minutes, drawing her face from several angles.

At last she said, ‘It is enough for today. Thank you, your Grace.'

Arianna felt dismissed. She could tell that Giuditta was itching to get back to work on the marble. She re-tied the mask and put on her cloak. The tension in the studio lifted and she was sure she saw one of the apprentices wink at her maid.

When she had gone, Franco came over to look at the sketches.

‘It can't be forbidden even to look at a drawing of her face,' he said, and the other apprentices clustered round.

‘She's as beautiful as they say,' said one.

‘She's OK,' said Franco. ‘But I like the maid better.'

‘How can you tell? She was masked too.'

But Giuditta took no notice of their chatter. She was concentrating on the macquette she was going to make of the Duchessa's head. It was taking her mind off the other thing she had agreed to do.

Chapter 14

Pictures in the Walls

Sky took the blue glass bottle in his hand with some trepidation. He had not stravagated the night before – the first time he had missed a night since his Talian adventures had started. He found it difficult to believe that he could arrive there just as easily from Devon as from London.

Everything felt different down here – the visit to Ivy Court had unsettled not just him. His mother had been unusually animated that evening, chattering about Paul and Alice, while he had retreated more into himself. He could see in his mind's eye the sort of boy Alice was supposed to get serious about – blond, rich and having ridden a horse practically as soon as he could walk – and Sky didn't fit any of the criteria.

It would be a relief to turn to his new friends in Talia and his alternative identity as a novice friar and secret Stravagante with some serious involvement in politics and strategies. For weeks now he had been leading two parallel lives, and no one who knew him in his everyday world, apart from Georgia and Nicholas, would have believed that this lanky teenager with the long dreadlocks spent his nights striding round a mighty Renaissance city, dressed in black and white robes.

At the beginning, it had been like a game for Sky – a kind of dressing-up and play-acting that gave scope to his more flamboyant side that had been suppressed for years. And it had been a welcome break from being the only fully functioning person in his family. But as Rosalind continued to get better and some of the burdens had lifted at home, Sky had got more and more involved in what he was doing in Talia. It wasn't just adventures and role-playing; he had been sent there on a mission. Only he wasn't yet sure what it was.

The more time Sky spent with Brother Sulien, the more he came to respect and admire him. He could see that Luciano practically worshipped Rodolfo and wondered if that was always how it was with Stravaganti. Georgia hadn't said much about the one she met in Remora, but Sky knew that he was called Paolo and that Georgia still missed him and his family.

Still, it wasn't just the heady company of fellow Stravaganti that Sky enjoyed. He liked Prince Gaetano, who actually made him feel less uncomfortable than Alice's father, even though he lived in palaces and was rich beyond Paul Greaves's wildest dreams of a son-in-law. And then there was Sandro, at the other end of the scale, with not much more status than the mongrel dog who trailed round after him. A novice friar was as much above Sandro as a prince was above Sky; the boy couldn't even read.

But he was Sky's friend nonetheless, because he liked him. Sky wondered, as he lay wide awake holding the bottle, whether Sandro ever wondered where he, Sky, had come from. He never asked. Just accepted that he was there. That was one of the things that was comfortable about Sandro.

Sandro had in fact been wondering about exactly that. He had been spending more and more time hanging round Saint-Mary-among-the-Vines and less and less with the Eel. Ever since the night of Davide's murder, his former admiration of his employer had started to wane. Certainly Enrico fed him and gave him lodgings, or at least gave him the silver that bought these things. But that was just payment for Sandro's services. Brother Sulien gave him food and shelter without wanting anything in return and Sandro loved him for it. And there was more; Sandro had a secret. Ever since the day he had helped Sulien and Brother Tino make Vignales in the laboratory, Sandro had been trying to learn to read.

Sulien was teaching him his letters from a big illuminated Bible. Sandro loved the pictures that went round the letters at the beginning of each chapter. ‘A' for Adam, with its pictures of the first man and woman and the apple and the serpent, just like another picture in a chapel he had seen on the other side of the river. Sandro hadn't understood the wall paintings then, but now Sulien told him the stories that went with all the pictures.

The first man and woman had been very unhappy; Sandro understood that. When they had disobeyed their Lord they had been banished from their garden for ever. An angel barred the way back, and that began with an ‘A' too. Sandro also knew what ‘S' looked like because it began the name of King Solomon, as well as Sulien and Sandro. And, even more amazingly, his name began with an ‘A' as well, because it was short for Alessandro. He was rapidly unwrapping the mysteries of language and the excitement of stories. And if he imagined the temple of Solomon as being rather like Saint-Mary-of-the-Lily, perhaps it did not matter very much.

No one had ever told Sandro stories before. The nuns in the orphanage had been too busy; they had taught him his catechism, so that he knew the words, but he had never known what any of it meant. Or that it related to something about which there were stories. His lessons with Sulien were nothing like those with the nuns anyway.

The pharmacist, having taught him a letter, would show him how to find it on his pots and jars. And, when Sandro's eyes were weary of letters, he would take him into the church and tell him stories about what was painted there. There were two paintings that Sandro knew now, about the poor man who had been nailed to a cross of wood. One was on a huge painted cross that hung down between the friars' stalls and the congregation's pews. It was so sad, with what looked like real drops of blood trickling from the hands and feet.

Sandro preferred the other one, which was a wall painting, showing the same melancholy scene, but with the man's father above him and a dove between the two of them. Sandro thought it must be a comfort for the red-headed man on the cross to have them there while he suffered.

‘It's not just a comfort for him,' said Brother Sulien, ‘but for all of us. You see, that Father is yours and mine, too.'

‘Nah,' said Sandro. ‘I haven't got a father – you know that.'

‘You've got that one,' said Sulien. ‘We all have. And he gave his own Son's life for us.'

‘Not for me,' said Sandro.

‘Yes, even for you,' said Sulien.

Then they would go and look at something more cheerful, like the frescoes in the Lady Chapel, showing the miracle wrought by the church's patron Saint. The first Alfonso di Chimici, when already a wealthy perfumier, had been taken ill one day during Mass and been carried through to where the infirmary now stood. The friars had not known how to help him, but a vision of the Virgin had appeared to the pharmacist-friar of the day and advised the administration of unripe young grapes from their vineyards. Within days, Alfonso was cured and gave a large sum of money to the church to build an infirmary.

Sandro liked this story, because it was about a friar curing a di Chimici. ‘Just like you and the Duke,' he told Sulien. And it had a happy ending – unlike most stories about the di Chimici.

*

When Sky at last arrived in Sulien's cell, he sighed with relief. The friar wasn't there; the room was still and quiet and Sky lay on the cot for a few minutes letting his pulse slow. He stretched his limbs in his novice's robes and felt himself adapting to his Giglian role. Brother Tino. A young man without family, history or responsibilities. He suddenly felt ravenous and set off for the refectory.

There he found both Sulien and Sandro, tucking into bowls of frothy warm milk with cinnamon and freshly baked rolls.

‘Ah, Brother Tino, come and join us,' called Sulien, moving along the bench. Most of the other friars had finished eating, so there was plenty of space.

‘What news?' asked Sky, pouring himself some milk from an earthenware jug.

‘Niccolò di Chimici has given us a farm,' said Sulien.

‘Really?' said Sky. ‘Why?'

‘Because we saved his life,' said Sulien. ‘Prince Fabrizio sent me the deeds. It's only a little homestead, on the other side of the Argento, but Brother Tullio is pleased, because he can grow more vegetables there.'

Wow, thought Sky. Fancy being so rich you could just hand over a farm as a thank-you present!

‘And the Duchessa has arrived,' said Sandro, who had been bursting to tell what he knew. ‘I've seen her.'

‘What's she like?' asked Sky.

Sandro shrugged. ‘Hard to say. She wears a mask. But she's got a pretty figure and lots of hair.'

‘You shall see for yourself, Tino,' said Sulien. ‘We are invited to the Bellezzan Embassy for morning refreshment. Don't eat too many rolls now.'

‘But “we”'s not me,' said Sandro, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. ‘I haven't the manners for it. I'll see you later.'

*

Rodolfo was waiting when they arrived at the Embassy. He introduced Sky to William Dethridge and the Elizabethan held out both hands to the boy and studied him carefully, in much the way that Giuditta Miele had done.

‘Aye,' he said at length. ‘Ye'll do. Tell mee, how fares yonge George?'

It took Sky a moment or two, thrown by Dethridge's way of talking, to realise that he meant Georgia.

‘She's fine,' he said. ‘But anxious to get back to Talia. Almost as keen as, you know, Falco,' he added under his breath. ‘Any luck with the talismans?'

It was Sulien who answered. ‘We are to go to your world again, Giuditta and I, taking new talismans for Georgia and the young prince. Ones that will bring them here.'

‘The only problem,' said Rodolfo, ‘is that they will need to give up their old ones. How do you think they will respond to that idea?'

‘I think that Georgia will not like it,' said a low voice, and Sky realised that the Duchessa had silently entered the room. He jumped to his feet, confused.

A beautiful young woman in a green silk dress was approaching. He had no doubt that she was beautiful, in spite of her mask. Behind it, violet eyes sparkled, and her glossy hair – lots of it indeed, Sandro, thought Sky – tumbled in carefully arranged long curls over her shoulders. She was followed by a woman Sky didn't recognise, an elegant middle-aged one, who stopped to talk to Rodolfo.

‘Your Grace,' stammered Sky, attempting a bow.

‘Call me Arianna, please,' she said, taking his hand and leading him to a new seat beside her. ‘You are a friend of Georgia and Falco and a member of the same Brotherhood as my father. You are welcome in Talia.'

‘Yow moste ask the yonglinges,' said Dethridge. ‘Ask them if they wolde give up their olde talismannes to make the journeye to this grete citee where they are needed.'

‘But they aren't in London at the moment,' said Sky. ‘They are on Easter holiday with me, in Devon. I've come from there tonight – I mean today.'

‘Easter?' said Sulien. ‘I never thought to ask. Is it Easter in your world already?'

‘It was Good Friday there today,' said Sky. ‘When is it in Talia?'

‘Not for another four weeks,' said Rodolfo.

‘Is that because there's been another time shift in the gateway?' asked Sky.

‘No,' said Sulien. ‘It is because of the fact that Easter is a movable feast and your world is more than four hundred years ahead of ours. It would have been unlikely for the dates of Easter to match.'

‘I can still ask the others about the talismans,' said Sky. ‘But you mustn't stravagate to my world until we're back in London.'

‘It is an unwelcome delay,' said Rodolfo. ‘It means we shall have less time to accustom them to this city before the wedding.'