City of Masks (13 page)

The Duchessa swept down the marble staircase of the Palazzo, magnificent in her violet satin. She had diamonds in her ears and at her throat and was wearing a diamond tiara in her dark hair. A cheer went up from the guests at the feast, who were waiting for her arrival before moving into the dining hall. But her eyes sought out only one person, Rinaldo di Chimici.

She was rewarded by seeing him start and choke on his wine.

‘Ambassador,’ she called graciously in her unmistakable musical voice. ‘Are you all right? We mustn’t keep my guests waiting.’

Di Chimici approached her like a man who has not only seen a ghost but has been ordered to take it in to dinner. He had realized straightaway that this was the real Duchessa. Something had obviously gone wrong. But what? And did the Duchessa know about the planned assassination? As she glided beside him on their way into the dining-hall, the Ambassador knew he was in for several hours of exquisite torment.

And so did the Duchessa. All the terrors of the evening had been worth it to see the Reman Ambassador’s discomfiture and she had no intention of letting him off lightly. If he had planned to have her killed by a paid murderer, she would make him suffer agonies of uncertainty and fear for his own life in the course of her celebration banquet.

‘It was a lovely day. Thank you for encouraging us to go,’ said Mum to Lucien when they got in about an hour later. ‘Gracious, is that the time? You must be starving. Let me go and see what I can rustle up in the kitchen.’

‘Certainly not,’ said Dad. ‘I bet Lucien and Tom have been living on snacks all day. Let’s have takeaway Chinese.’

Lucien had rubbed the sleep from his eyes when he heard them opening the front door. He seemed destined to survive on catnaps today, but he knew he must go back to Bellezza as soon as he could reasonably get to bed.

Over the takeaway, his parents told him all about their day and fortunately did not ask much about his. They kept exchanging conspiratorial looks but Lucien was too tired to ask them what they were hatching. His eyelids drooped.

‘Overdone it a bit today, have you?’ asked Dad, gently taking Lucien’s fork out of his hand.

‘You could say that,’ said Lucien, yawning. He had seen a fireworks display he had helped to make, dived into a stinking canal and recovered treasure and then foiled an assassination attempt on a country’s absolute ruler. Out loud he said, ‘Who’d have thought watching videos and eating popcorn could make you so sleepy?’

‘Off up to bed with you then,’ said Mum firmly. ‘We want you fresh tomorrow. There’s something we want to tell you.’

Normally, Lucien would have risen to such bait. But not tonight. He stumbled up to bed and groaned as his hand clasped the book. What wouldn’t he give for a proper night’s sleep!

An ordinary rowing-boat ploughed its way through the waters of the lagoon. It was rowed by a very good-looking young man, who carried one passenger, a plainly dressed woman, still handsome, though no longer young. She was obviously married, because she didn’t wear a mask. She sat quietly, looking out towards the islands, as they came nearer to the colourful houses of Burlesca.

The boatman moored and offered to accompany his passenger but she refused. She let him help her out of the boat then, carrying her basket, set off for the only white house in town. The handsome boatman shrugged and went off in search of something to eat.

Paola Bellini came to the door, drying her hands on her apron, but they flew to her mouth when she saw who her visitor was.

‘Can I come in, Mother?’ said the woman in a low voice. ‘There is something I must talk to you about.’

*

When Lucien materialized in Rodolfo’s laboratory the morning after the Maddalena Feast, he was surprised by the warmth of his master’s welcome. Lucien had expected him to be angry about his overnight stay, but the magician caught his apprentice in an affectionate hug, the first he had ever given him.

‘You are all right?’ Rodolfo asked, giving Lucien a long appraising look. ‘Did you get into any trouble with your parents?’

‘No, it was cool,’ said Lucien, a bit embarrassed. They had not had long to talk the night before, because Rodolfo had been anxious to rejoin the Duchessa at the feast and make sure she was properly guarded. Now Lucien felt he should explain why he had stayed on in Bellezza.

‘I know I shouldn’t have taken the risk,’ he said, ‘but I wanted to see the fireworks.’ It sounded childish and selfish as he said it.

‘And what did you think of them?’ asked Rodolfo, gravely.

‘It was brilliant,’ said Lucien. ‘Even better than I had imagined. But I know I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ said Rodolfo. ‘If you hadn’t been here, Silvia would have been killed.’ He shuddered. ‘It might even be why you were sent here in the first place – why the talisman found its way to you rather than someone else.’

He drew the merlino-blade from his own belt and handed it solemnly to Lucien. Then he sat down beside him and, for the first time in Lucien’s presence, made the hand of fortune. ‘You see? By the power of the goddess, her consort and son, the circle of Silvia’s life is unbroken.’

‘Not really,’ said Lucien, self-consciously hefting the dagger and remembering what it had been intended to do. ‘Who is the goddess, and those others? And what does it have to do with me?’

‘It’s our old religion,’ said Rodolfo, ‘the one we had here before Christianity. All over the eastern part of the Middle Sea, people believed in a goddess and her consort.’

‘He was a god too, presumably,’ said Lucien.

‘Yes, but not as powerful as her. Their son was more powerful than him too. Some believe that the consort originally
was
her son and it was only later, when incest became taboo, that a husband was invented for her and that is why he is such a shadowy figure. The son has always been almost as revered as his mother. When Christianity came along, all those pagan statues of the goddess and her son were allowed to stay. Only now they were supposed to be of Our Lady and the new Lord.’

He looked expectantly at Lucien.

‘Sorry,’ said Lucien. ‘We’re Church of England. I don’t know much about well, your Lady – you know, Catholics.’

Rodolfo frowned. ‘What is the Church of England? And what are Catholics?’

Lucien was surprised. ‘You know, Henry the Eighth and all that. He wanted to marry Ann Boleyn and the Pope wouldn’t let him, because he was already married, so he started his own church.’

It was Rodolfo’s turn to look surprised. ‘Doctor Dethridge never said anything about that. In our world your England, Anglia as we call it, has the same church as ourselves, ruled by the Pope.’

‘Well,’ said Lucien. ‘In Doctor Dethridge’s time it was a dangerous subject. After Henry died, and his son too, his daughter Mary had people killed for following the King’s new kind of religion. And in Dethridge’s time, Queen Elizabeth had people killed for believing in the other one, Catholicism.’

‘Catholics is what you call the people who believe the old Christianity?’

‘Yes. Roman Catholics, we say, because of the Pope in Rome, I suppose.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Rodolfo, musing. ‘Here, the Pope is in Remora, the capital of the Republic. I must tell you some day about the founding of Remora by Remus, after he had defeated his brother Romulus. But now that we have found Doctor Dethridge again and he is a citizen of Talia, I must get him to tell me all about his England and its religion.’

‘Anyway,’ said Lucien. ‘Go back to the goddess.’

‘Lagooners are among the last people in the Middle Sea to cling on to their belief in her,’ continued Rodolfo. ‘They accepted Christianity because they had to. They build churches and go to Mass, as you’ve seen. But in their hearts they believe that it is the goddess who looks after them and after Bellezza too. That is why they have always been ruled by a woman, the Duchessa. They never really felt comfortable about a male god, or a male saviour, come to that. And least of all a male ruler.’

‘They do seem almost to worship the Duchessa,’ said Lucien, remembering the fanatical crowds last night and the infectious madness that had plunged him into the canal.

‘They do,’ said Rodolfo, simply. ‘She is their idea of the goddess personified. That is why her wellbeing is so important to them.’

‘So you don’t think the assassin could have been a Bellezzan?’ asked Lucien.

‘I don’t know; I haven’t seen him yet,’ said Rodolfo grimly. ‘But if the people ever knew that you had saved the Duchessa’s life, they would be sure that you were sent by the goddess. You would be a hero.’

‘You said last night we mustn’t let anyone know,’ said Lucien. ‘That’s cool, I mean I didn’t really think about what I was doing and I don’t want to be a hero or anything. But don’t you think people should know that someone wants to kill the Duchessa?’

‘No one should know that it wasn’t she who opened the church, or wasn’t she, as I now suspect, who performed the Marriage with the Sea. Lagooners are deeply superstitious; they would believe that the prosperity of their city was in danger.’

‘But somebody knew about the double,’ said Lucien slowly. ‘Or the assassin wouldn’t have been aboard the mandola.’

‘Precisely,’ said Rodolfo. ‘And I imagine Silvia’s torturers are hard at work as we speak, finding out who that is.’

Chapter 12

Two Brothers

As it happened, the torturers were not needed. Guido Parola was ready to confess everything. From the moment that he had entered the State mandola, Parola had been a changed man. Brought face to face with the Duchessa, he knew he could not bring himself to kill her, not even for the silver which would cure his father. And Lucien’s instinctive defence of the Duchessa had made him deeply ashamed. All his true Bellezzan feelings had resurfaced and he was ready to tell all. And, after that, to die.

Imagine his confusion when, after a day in which he was brought clean, soft bedding, ample warm water for washing and several excellent meals, the swishing of taffeta skirts and the glimpse of a silver mask announced the arrival in his cell of the Duchessa herself. Parola flung himself at her feet and begged forgiveness.

‘Do get up,’ she said coldly. ‘No, do not offer me a corner of your mattress. As you see, my bodyguard has brought me a chair.’

She sat down, smoothing her full skirt, her well-muscled bodyguard standing behind the chair, and looked at the abject young man kneeling before her. He was very tall and had large dark brown eyes, unusually for a redhead.

‘The Chief Inquisitor tells me that you are a Bellezzan,’ she said.

‘I am, Your Grace,’ he said.

‘And that you were willing to betray your city for money?’

Parola bowed his head and said nothing. He had no defence.

‘What do you think is the appropriate punishment for such a crime?’ asked the Duchessa.

‘Death!’ said the young man, looking up with eager, shining eyes. ‘I deserve to die for what I tried to do to you, milady. The only remission I would ask is that you should hear my story and forgive me before I die. I am truly sorry.’ And he wept, genuine tears of remorse.

Then he told her everything, the death of his mother, his brother’s debauchery, his father’s illness, his meeting with a schoolfriend, who just happened to know someone willing to pay good money to a man desperate enough to do anything.

‘You were no more than an instrument,’ said the Duchessa, more kindly. ‘Just as much as that weapon you carried, you were guided by someone’s hand. Now, you have told the Inquisitor the name of the person who employed you.’

Parola nodded and would have spoken, but the Duchessa stopped him.

‘We will not say his name out loud. I know who it was. Now, it may suit my purpose better not to have a public trial, in which you and he are accused and convicted. I prefer to judge and sentence you here and now.’

‘Yes, milady,’ whispered Parola, not doubting that his last hour had come and that the Duchessa’s bodyguard would soon dispatch him with his sword. ‘Only say you forgive me and let me send word to my father before I die. Then let me make my confession to a priest, before your sentence is carried out.’

‘I do forgive you,’ said the Duchessa, smiling slightly behind her mask. ‘But it is not usual to go to confession before joining the Scuola Mandoliera. It’s not like becoming a knight you know.’

Parola looked up, confused. ‘You are releasing me, milady?’

‘Not exactly,’ said the Duchessa. ‘I am retaining you in my service. You will train at the Scuola and become one of my mandoliers – you aren’t over twenty-five, are you?’

Parola shook his head. ‘I am nineteen,’ he admitted.

‘Then it’s high time you had a respectable trade,’ said the Duchessa. ‘You can’t go round knifing people for a living.’

Lucien’s parents continued to behave mysteriously. Before going off to work, his dad gave him a wink as he hugged him and said, ‘See you tonight.’ The words and the hug were usual; the wink was not. His mother had an almost full day of lessons. But she said at breakfast, ‘I’m going to be very busy today, Lucien, but we’ll have a chance to talk at dinner.’

Talk about what, Lucien wondered, but he wasn’t bothered about being left to his own devices. He needed time to himself, to think and to doze. His mother was out most of the day but he wasn’t tempted to return to Bellezza and see what was happening there at night.

He was beginning to feel uneasy about his nightly visits to the city. The situation there was getting more dangerous. It was only a matter of luck and the element of surprise that had made Lucien the hero of the assassination attempt and not one of the victims. He wondered what would have happened to his body here in his own world if he had been stabbed in Bellezza. Would Mum or Dad have come into his room and found him lying dead in his bed with blood all over the sheets?

His imaginings became more ghoulish. Suppose they had started a murder hunt in London? No killer would ever have been found and he would have become a statistic; just one of many unsolved murder cases. And what about his body in Bellezza? Would that have just disappeared? If the assassin’s attempt had been successful, would anyone have even known he had died in the Duchessa’s defence?

The questions were all unanswerable so Lucien fell into a deep sleep till lunchtime, dreaming of a trial in which the Bellezzan assassin, still unaccountably holding the merlino-dagger, stood in a very twenty-first century witness box, saying, ‘You can’t prove I killed him without a body.’ The dagger dripped blood all over the courtroom floor and, in his dream, Lucien knew the blood was his.

In the north of the city was a small canal where fledgling mandoliers learned their skills. No visitors or tourists ever came there; it was a backwater in every sense. It was such a narrow waterway that the houses on either side were quite close to each other. Two of them were joined by a private bridge, linking their top floors; the houses belonged to Egidio and Fiorentino, Rodolfo’s older brothers.

They were both still handsome men, although Egidio, at forty-five, was quite old for a Bellezzan. When they were at home, in one house or the other, or walking over the canal by the little bridge that linked them, the two brothers often amused themselves with watching the efforts of the newly enrolled mandoliers.

In their day, they had been the best mandoliers in Bellezza, as well as the best-looking. They had rowed the Barcone to the Marriage with the Sea and had made good money taking tourists up and down the Great Canal. At twenty-five, like all other mandoliers, they had been generously pensioned by the Duchessa. For that, if for nothing else, they would have always been grateful to her.

Egidio had started a shop which sold paper and notebooks and pencils, all decorated with the swirly marbled designs that also covered Lucien’s talisman. As years went by and Rodolfo set up his laboratory in the palazzo next to the Duchessa’s, his designs and skills had improved Egidio’s stock until it was the envy of all Europa. His shop, in a small calle near the cathedral, was always busy with tourists.

Fiorentino had a flair for cooking and, with his money from the Duchessa, he opened a café on the Piazza Maddalena. It started modestly but soon expanded; he bought the shops on either side of it and it was soon a flourishing and expensive restaurant. ‘Fiorentino’s’ of Bellezza became a byword for fine cooking in the Middle Sea. Both brothers had prospered since they ended their mandoliering days but neither had married. It seemed that no woman held any attraction for someone who had once enjoyed the favour of Silvia, the Duchessa. They were still her devoted servants, prepared to do anything she asked. And if they were jealous of their little brother, who had scarcely left her side for nearly a score of years, they never showed it.

On this day, the two brothers were enjoying a glass of wine on the terrace of Egidio’s house. They had been watching a young novice learning how to turn his mandola in mid-canal, while talking knowledgeably to a boat-load of ‘tourists’, who were in fact examiners at the Scuola. For every mandolier had to sit exams in Bellezzan history, music, literature and art, as well as pass a proficiency test on his water-skills.

This particular specimen, though undeniably handsome, was clearly finding his task difficult. The brothers slapped their thighs and whooped with laughter as the youth lost his oar and had to be paddled back to retrieve it by his cargo of examiners. Then Fiorentino spotted another mandola, much more expertly sculled, cutting through the canal and stopping at Egidio’s landing stage.

‘
Dia!
’ said Fiorentino. ‘It’s Silvia!’

It wasn’t her State mandola, just a black one, but with a curtained cabin, denoting a person of importance. The brothers didn’t wait to see who was in it; they ran down the stairs like the young men they had once been.

On the landing stage a tall red-headed young man was handing out a well-dressed masked woman. He was obviously nervous. The black panelled door to the landing stage swung inwards and he escorted the Duchessa inside, where she was affectionately greeted by the two distinguished-looking older men. The whole party returned to the terrace, where she accepted a glass of prosecco and a plate of pastries.

‘This is Guido,’ she said. ‘I am enrolling him in the Scuola Mandoliera.’

‘Isn’t it a bit late?’ asked Egidio. ‘The new recruits have been practising for weeks.’

‘They owe me a mandolier,’ said the Duchessa calmly. ‘Besides, Guido is a special case. He tried to kill me.’

Guido hung his head and felt the blood rising to his cheeks. He wished she wouldn’t talk like this but accepted it as part of his punishment. Both brothers had involuntarily put their hands to the hilts of the merlino-daggers they carried in their belts. Guido had noticed them straightaway, being something of an expert, and admired the workmanship.

‘Don’t be silly, boys,’ said the Duchessa, looking at the serious frowns on the brothers’ foreheads. ‘He’s a reformed character. The point is, I want him to lie low for a while. Let’s say, it suits my purposes. He will be inconspicuous in the Scuola – you must agree he looks the part.’

There was no chance of Guido’s regaining his composure while all three gazed at him, assessing his looks. He blushed to the roots of his red hair, which was unusual enough in Talia to ensure he was considered handsome, even without his slim figure and his regular features.

‘Now, now, Fiorentino, don’t be jealous. You know I’ve given all that up,’ laughed the Duchessa. ‘Besides, I do not find attempted murder an aphrodisiac.’

‘What do you want of us?’ asked Egidio simply.

‘To give him a home under your roof,’ replied the Duchessa. ‘Yours or Fiorentino’s. And to teach him the rudiments of mandoliering, so that he doesn’t fall behind in his studies. And to keep him from all unwanted attention, especially from the Reman quarter.’

‘For you, Silvia, if this is what you really want, you know we will do it,’ said Egidio seriously.