City of Masks (12 page)

He knew the sequence of fireworks and, as soon as the set piece with the Maddalena’s rainbow hair had finished, he planned to disappear. He was still feeling mean about telling Tom he was too tired for him to stay on after lunch. He thought he would never forget Tom’s face when he had sent him home, half disappointed and half what? Understanding? Lucien had a horrible feeling that Tom’s other emotion might have been relief.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. If his best friend in one world was getting a bit bored with the company of an invalid, at least his best friend in this world was glad to be with him. He smiled at Arianna’s animated face. She certainly knew how to enjoy herself. He decided that for the rest of the evening he was going to behave like a true Bellezzan and live for the moment.

*

Inside the State mandola it was a bit of a squash. The Duchessa, her double, and one serving-woman were squeezed together in a space only big enough for two. The second ‘Duchessa’ was obviously terrified, her eyes big behind the mask. The real one was merely bored, as she had so often been of late.

It had been getting worse since the day she had seen the brown-haired girl in the square. A restlessness and dissatisfaction with her own life had overtaken her. It was a torment to her to sit enclosed with a servant and another stupid peasant girl who would be able to enact the deception only by the thought of the purse of silver.

I don’t know how many more of these charades I can endure, she thought to herself. But at least I shan’t have to put up with that dolt of an Ambassador with his endless talk of the treaty and his horrible smelly handkerchief. Honestly, you’d think a di Chimici would have a more expensive scent, one from Giglia, where they have perfected the making of perfume.

And then he was at the cabin curtain and the Duchessa practically had to push the impostor out, so much was she trembling.

The young woman’s trembling didn’t show in the flickering light of the torches and Rinaldo di Chimici had to force himself to believe that this was not the true Duchessa he was leading carefully from boat to boat. Slowly and precisely, they stepped from vessel to vessel, the keels bobbing on the water. It was a progress that had to be undertaken with great care. A mis-step could land them both in the stinking canal. He shuddered at the thought and pressed his lace handkerchief more tightly to his nose. The crowd on either bank were cheering wildly. They loved their Duchessa and every time she appeared in public, she looked lovelier and younger to her people. The very sight of her made them feel their city was safe and the most important and splendid in the country.

When the resplendent pair reached the middle of the bridge of boats, the first rocket went up, exploding precisely above their heads, illuminating them and all the crowd with a shower of violet and silver stars.

Watching through a chink in the brocade curtains, the real Duchessa smiled. Rodolfo paid such attention to detail. He always found out what she would be wearing on State occasions when he had fireworks to make.

A little way behind the State mandola, Lucien swelled with pride. ‘That’s one of mine!’ he yelled to Arianna across the roar of the crowd. She smiled at him, her violet eyes shining like the firework breaking over her. She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back.

A tall figure slipped through the crowd towards the State mandola. No one noticed him go. All eyes were on the procession across the bridge of boats and the galaxy of light and colour that illuminated their way.

A skein of silver birds flew across the sky. Then a peacock spread its blue and purple and green tail magnificently, till it filled the horizon. A phoenix laid a golden egg then glowed from gold to red and disappeared in a spray of stars. The egg hung in the air till a new phoenix hatched out of it in a new splendour of red and gold. A silver ram walked across the black night to the hoarse cheers of Bellezzans.

And then, at the climax of the display, a massive green dragon blazed across the sky. The set-piece of the Maddalena exploded higher against the night. A huge crystal tear fell from her eye and landed on the dragon, which dissolved into a million red and gold stars. At that precise moment the full moon came out from behind a cloud and shone through the Saint’s rainbow hair.

Lucien thought his heart would stop. With the commotion of the crowd going mad about the effects he had helped to create, he didn’t notice the State mandola gliding off through the water, nor the dark figure crouched at the opposite end from the mandolier. He saw only that Rodolfo had been right. As the last dazzling rainbow tresses seemed to fall into the water, Bellezzans began leaping into the canal.

A madness overtook Lucien. He knew he couldn’t take any silver back to his world, even if he found it. He knew too that he should go now, should stravagate before the feast. But at that moment he was a Bellezzan through and through. In the blink of an eye, he had taken a sighting on where a lock of the Saint’s multi-coloured hair had disappeared and dived into the canal himself.

*

‘Exquisite,’ murmured the Duchessa, feeling the mandola move beneath her as the Saint dissolved, leaving the moon bathing the city in silver, its citizens afflicted with one of their regular fits of madness. She wasn’t bored any more but filled with a fierce tenderness for her silly, loyal, patriotic subjects. The thing they had in common with her was their passion for their city. The Duchessa had to suppress a tear behind her mask. It would never do to stain it.

Then the silver curtain was wrenched back and a tall red-headed young man put a dagger to her throat.

*

Lucien came up spluttering, having grabbed something from the canal. The water tasted filthy but the coldness of it brought him to his senses. He suddenly thought with horror that his notebook would be getting wet and he didn’t know if he could stravagate with a soggy talisman. Real panic set in when, shaking the hair out of his eyes, he realized he had drifted into the centre of the canal. His one thought was to get out of the water and, seeing a mandola coming past him, he grabbed at the side and, with a huge effort, hauled himself aboard.

*

The Duchessa knew she was going to die. A thousand regrets flooded her mind but not for her personal safety; they were all to do with the city, Rodolfo and the brown-haired girl.

Inside the cabin all was silent. The assassin said not a word and the waiting-woman was frozen with terror. The mandolier obviously hadn’t realized that anyone had climbed aboard and was calmly sculling his way across the canal mouth to the new church to wait, as he thought, for the Duchessa to come out after the consecration.

The assassin waited a long moment with the blade of his dagger at the Duchessa’s white throat.

And then all was chaos and water as the mandola rocked dangerously and a very wet young man flung himself into the already crowded cabin. Lucien registered all at once that he was in the State mandola with the Duchessa and his instincts took over. He knew she shouldn’t be there; he had just seen her walk across the bridge of boats. But there she was without doubt. He knew her violet eyes and her heavenly scent. And there was an unknown man holding a dagger.

In a split second there flashed through Lucien’s mind the thought that he might die here in the Bellezza Great Canal. But it also came to him that it would be worth it, to save the Duchessa. He launched himself at the startled assassin and, catching him off balance, wrenched the dagger out of his hand.

Chapter 11

The Hand of Fortune

The mandola rocked wildly on the water. There were too many people inside. The Duchessa’s waiting-woman very sensibly put her head outside the silver curtain and shouted to the mandolier. He stopped trying to steady the vessel and looked in on the mayhem in the cabin. His eyes bulged when he saw the Duchessa, a fact that Silvia immediately noted as telling in his favour. He obviously hadn’t been part of the plot.

The mandolier helped Lucien to bind the assassin with the silver cords used for holding back the brocade curtains. Lucien put the merlino-blade in his own belt. As soon as the assassin was safely trussed up, the Duchessa took command of the situation.

‘You – Marco, isn’t it?’ she said to the mandolier.

‘Yes, Your Grace,’ he said, uncertain about the person he was addressing, but taking the safe side.

‘You have done me good service tonight and you will be rewarded. But you are to say not a word about it until you appear as a witness in Council for the trial of this miserable traitor and whoever his masters are. Understand?’

‘I understand, milady.’

‘Good. But now, we must get the villain and this young hero who has saved my life back to the Palazzo. Can you do this and help us as discreetly as possible to get them into my apartments?’

‘Yes, milady,’ said the mandolier, quite convinced about the Duchessa’s identity now. Then he hesitated. ‘But what about the other lady, milady? The one who walked across the boats?’

Behind her mask, the Duchessa’s lip curled in disdain. ‘Let the Reman Ambassador bring her back in his mandola. I shouldn’t wonder if he knows something of events here on mine tonight.’

Marco went back to the end of the State vessel and sculled for dear life back to the Piazzetta. No one noticed the black mandola slipping through the water, except a tall figure on the fireworks platform, who knew that it was not supposed to be returning to that shore without collecting the Duchessa. Rodolfo immediately ordered Alfredo to take him back too.

*

The substitute Duchessa, a baker’s daughter called Simonetta, was very uncomfortable. The church service had been all right, if a bit long, and she had been drilled in when to stand and sit and kneel, which was useful, since she wasn’t much of a churchgoer herself.

But when she came out of the church it was all wrong. She enjoyed the cheers of the crowd, just as she had on the walk across all those boats, but where was the State mandola? Getting back into that and being given her payment was the part that had kept Simonetta going throughout the deception.

The Ambassador was at her elbow in a moment. Suppressing the joy and fear he felt at the plot obviously having worked, he guided the fake Duchessa into his own mandola. ‘We’ll go back in mine, my dear,’ he said, much more familiarly than he would have dared with the real Duchessa.

Once inside the cabin, the young girl’s terror and confusion increased. She had not been coached for anything like this. Suppose the Ambassador wanted to talk to her?

But she needn’t have worried. Rinaldo di Chimici was too full of his own thoughts to make conversation.

*

Some of the Duchessa’s personal guard were waiting at the Piazzetta and were very surprised to see the State mandola back so soon. But they quickly snapped into action when they saw the trussed-up assassin and the dripping Lucien. The man was taken straight to the dungeons and the Duchessa’s waiting-woman hurried her and Lucien up into the palazzo. Fortunately, there was hardly anyone about in the square. They were all down by the canal waiting for the return of the fake Duchessa. So they missed the real one.

Once the party had reached the safety of the Duchessa’s private apartments, more women fussed around them. A hot bath was organized for Lucien and women dabbed at the muddy marks that he had made on the Duchessa’s satin dress while struggling with the assassin.

‘Take off those wet things,’ ordered the Duchessa.

Lucien felt himself blushing as he stood dripping canal water all over the Duchessa’s priceless rug.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! Someone give him a towel! Do you think I’m going to eat you, boy? Wine, please, and quickly.’

Wrapped in a towel and taking huge gulps of the red Bellezzan wine, Lucien began to feel a bit better. He hadn’t let the waiting-women take the dagger, or the notebook, which was just a bit damp. They had giggled over his underwear, which he had made them promise to bring back as soon as it was dry.

The Duchessa drank deeply herself. If it hadn’t been for the sudden arrival of Lucien, she had some doubts about what would have been the outcome of this evening.

The waiting-woman from the mandola held up a dripping wet bag. ‘What shall I do with this, milady?’

Lucien remembered. When he had dived in after the rainbows, his hand had closed round the neck of a canvas bag. At the time he had been concentrating on getting back up to the surface without drinking more canal water than he had to. He supposed he must have dropped it over the side of the Duchessa’s mandola when he climbed aboard it. Not that he had known it was hers. He was still totally confused about why she had been there, when he’d seen her walk across the bridge of boats only minutes before.

‘So,’ said the Duchessa when she saw the bag. ‘You were one of the silver-divers. I’m glad the rumour of my largesse spread, though I hope I don’t have to make it an annual custom. This is a special year, you know, with the Chiesa delle Grazie having been completed, along with twenty-five years of my reign. Go on, take it. You earned it.’

Lucien prised open the wet cord around the neck of the bag and saw the glint of silver inside.

‘You know I can’t take it home, don’t you, Your Grace?’ he said, confused.

‘I don’t mind where you keep it,’ said the Duchessa, fixing him with her intense gaze. ‘You shall have fifty times what is in that bag for the service you rendered me tonight. Let Rodolfo look after it for you,’ she added, seeing that Lucien was about to protest.

‘Now leave us,’ she told her waiting-women.

Lucien had no time to feel nervous about being alone with her, because, as soon as he was, the door to the secret passage behind the Duchessa’s peacock sconce swung out and Rodolfo stepped through.

‘What has happened?’ he asked, looking anxiously at Lucien, who stood naked apart from his towel, still holding the dripping bag. ‘And what are you doing in Bellezza at this time of night?’

The Duchessa was looking at him too. ‘Oh, do get in that bath before it goes cold! Look, there is a screen, you know. I must tell Rodolfo what happened.’

Lucien found the screen – a ridiculously elaborate set of embroidered silk panels – and sank gratefully into the hot, scented water. He thought he would never get the smell of canal out of his nose or the taste out of his throat. He ducked his head under the water and soaped his hair. He stayed in the bath till it was nearly cold, having nothing to put on but the towel and desperately not wanting the Duchessa to offer him the loan of one of her dressing-gowns.

He listened to her and Rodolfo talking in fierce whispers and, when he put his head round the screen, saw that Rodolfo was pale with fright. His master saw him and strode over.

‘You have saved Silvia and I am forever in your debt. So is all Bellezza, but the details must not be known.’

He stopped and looked at Lucien.

‘Where are your clothes?’

‘The women took them. And I’m not sure if I can get home – the book is damp. Look!’

Rodolfo looked thoughtful and took the book in his hands.

‘I can do something about this,’ he said. ‘But you must tell me everything before you stravagate.’

He had run all the way from the Piazzetta and up through his own palazzo and was still wearing his black velvet cloak, which he now took off and wrapped round Lucien. Then he walked to the empty fireplace and set his firestone in it. Soon warmth began to fill the room.

The Duchessa got to her feet rather stiffly and rang her little silver bell. ‘Why don’t you take him back to your side, Rodolfo? I can’t stay here. I must go and rescue that poor child who impersonated me at the Feast tonight. She must be petrified.’

Lucien understood at last. The Duchessa used a body double! And he saw from the expression on Rodolfo’s face that he hadn’t known about it until now either.

*

Arianna didn’t know if she was more worried or furious. She hadn’t been able to see Lucien surface after his impulsive dive. So she searched the canalside and later the Piazza Maddalena, but it was hard to find anyone in the crowds. In the end, she had to return home to her aunt, hoping that Lucien had managed to stravagate back to his home world before his parents got back. For now she must do what aunt Leonora always referred to as ‘containing her soul in patience’ – something Arianna was very bad at.

*

Simonetta walked across the Piazza on the arm of the Ambassador, as if in a dream. Cheering Bellezzans lined the short distance to the rose-coloured Ducal Palazzo and she managed to wave graciously to them, but inwardly she was quaking. Something must have gone wrong; the Duchessa’s senior waiting-woman had been so specific about her duties and they should have ended half an hour ago.

How relieved she was to see that same waiting-woman inside the doorway of the Palazzo! The woman approached and firmly guided her away from the Ambassador.

‘Excuse me, Excellency,’ she said. ‘Her Grace must have a few minutes to refresh herself before the feast. Please await her in the reception hall.’

The Ambassador bowed. He didn’t know that this was the waiting-woman who had been in the State mandola. He had given orders that whoever was with the Duchessa was to be dispatched, including the mandolier if necessary. Now he could hardly contain his excitement. It would not be long before the floating mandola and the bodies would be found and the assassin would be far away by now. Rinaldo di Chimici took a proffered goblet of wine and drank deep. To Bellezza, he made a mental toast, the jewel in the crown of the di Chimici Republic.

Lucien was relieved to find himself back on his bed. The clock said five and the house was quiet. His parents were not back. Anxiously he checked his clothes. He was back in what he had been wearing before he went to Bellezza this morning, apart from his boxers, which were still drying out somewhere in the Duchessa’s Palazzo. He had given the merlino-blade and the bag of silver to Rodolfo to look after for him. The notebook was not much the worse for its immersion in the canal, though the colours on the cover had run a bit. Rodolfo had carried it over to the fireplace and dried it carefully in the warmth of the glowing red stone.

Anyway, it had got him back. He sniffed cautiously. No smell of canal, thank goodness. Carefully, he put the notebook on the bedside table and fell into a deep natural sleep.