City of Masks (2 page)

A bedraggled and sneezing girl, not now looking much like a duchess, was half carried down the stairway to the cabin by the waiting-women.

‘Get her out of those wet things,’ ordered the Duchessa. ‘That’s better. Rub her hard with the towel. And you, take the diamonds out of her hair.’ The Duchessa patted her own elaborate coiffure, which was the exact duplicate of the wet girl’s.

Giuliana’s face, though pleasant enough, was very ordinary. The Duchessa smiled behind her mask to think that the people had been so easily deceived.

‘Well done, Giuliana,’ she said to the shivering girl, who was trying to curtsey. ‘A fine impersonation.’ She glanced at the amulet on a chain round the girl’s neck. A hand, with the three middle fingers extended and the thumb and little finger joined. It was the islanders’ good luck token, the
manus fortunae –
hand of Fortune – signifying the unity of the circle and the figures of the goddess, her consort and son, the sacred trinity of the lagoon. But it was doubtful that this child knew that. The Duchessa wrinkled her nose, not at the symbolism but at the tawdriness of the cheap gold version of it.

Giuliana was soon warm and dry, wrapped in a warm woollen robe and given a silver goblet of ruby red wine. She had taken off the peacock mask, which would be preserved, along with the salt-stained dress, along with twenty-four others in the Palazzo.

‘Thank you, Your Grace,’ said the girl, glad to feel the iciness of the lagoon’s embrace receding from her legs.

‘A barbarous custom,’ said the Duchessa, ‘but the people must be indulged. Now, you have heard and understood the conditions?’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’

‘Repeat them.’

‘I must never tell anyone how I went into the water instead of Your Grace.’

‘And if you do?’

‘If I do – which I wouldn’t, milady – I will be banished from Bellezza.’

‘You and your family. Banished for ever. Not that anyone would believe you; there would be no proof.’ The Duchessa glanced, steely-eyed, at her waiting-women, who were all utterly dependent on her for their living.

‘And in return for your silence, and the loan of your fresh young body, I give you your dowry. Over the ages many young girls have been so rewarded for lending their bodies to their betters. You are more fortunate than most. Your virtue is intact – except for a slight incursion of sea water.’

The women dutifully laughed, as they did every year. Giuliana blushed. She had the suspicion that the Duchessa was talking dirty, but that didn’t seem right for someone so important. She was longing to get home to her family and show them the money. And to tell her fiancé they could now afford to be married. One of the waiting-women had finished undoing her hair and was now briskly braiding it into a coil around her head.

*

Tommaso and Angelo rowed behind the Barcone as it travelled slowly back across the lagoon to Bellezza, the biggest island. On deck the Duchessa stood in a red velvet dress with a black cloak thrown over it, which blurred the lines of her figure. The setting sun glinted off her silver mask. She now matched the colours of the Barcone, was one with her vessel and the sea. The prosperity of the city was assured for another year.

And now it was time for feasting. The Piazza Maddalena, in front of the great cathedral, was filled with stalls selling food. The savoury smells made Arianna’s mouth water. Every imaginable shape of pasta was on sale, with sauces piquant with peppers and sweet with onions. Roasted meats and grilled vegetables, olives, cheeses, bright red radishes, dark green bitter salad. Shining fish doused with oil and lemon, pink prawns and crabs and mounds of saffron rice and juicy wild mushrooms. Soups and stews simmered in huge cauldrons and terracotta bowls were filled with potatoes roasted in olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and spikes of rosemary.

‘Rosmarino – rose of the sea!’ sighed Angelo, licking his lips. ‘Come, let’s eat.’ He tied up the boat where they would easily find it after the feasting and the young people went to join the throng in the square. But no one would eat just yet. All eyes were fixed on the balcony at the top of the cathedral. There stood four brazen rams and in a moment a scarlet figure would come out and stand between the two pairs.

‘There she is!’ the cry went up. And the bells of Santa Maddalena’s campanile began to ring. The Duchessa waved to her people from the balcony, unable to hear their wild cheers because her ears were firmly stopped up with wax. She had failed to take this precaution on her first appearance at the Marriage feast – but never since.

Down in the square the feasting began. Arianna sat under one of the arches, with her legs tucked under her, a large heaped plate on her lap. Her eyes darted everywhere. Tommaso and Angelo steadily ate their way through mounds of food and kept their eyes on their plates. Arianna was content to stay with them for the time being; the moment to slip away would be when the fireworks started.

*

Inside the Palazzo, a rather more refined feast was in progress. The Duchessa was disinclined to eat much while wearing her silver mask; she would have a substantial meal sent up to her room later. But she could drink easily enough and now that the day’s farce was over, she was happy to do that. On her right sat the Reman Ambassador and it took a lot of the rich red Bellezzan wine to put up with his conversation. But it was her single most important task for the evening to keep him sweet, for reasons of her own.

At last the Ambassador turned to his other neighbour and the Duchessa was free to look to her left. Rodolfo, elegant in black velvet, smiled at her. And the Duchessa smiled back behind her mask. After all these years, his bony hawklike face still pleased her. And this year she had a particular reason to be glad of that.

Rodolfo, aware as so often of what she was thinking, raised his glass to her.

‘Another year, another Marriage,’ he said. ‘I could get quite jealous of the sea, you know.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said the Duchessa. ‘It can’t beat you for variety and slipperiness.’

‘Perhaps it’s your young oarsmen I should envy, then,’ said Rodolfo.

‘The only young oarsman who ever meant anything to me was you, Rodolfo.’

He laughed. ‘So much you wouldn’t let me become one as I recall.’

‘Mandoliering wasn’t good enough for you. You were much better off at the university.’

‘It was good enough for my brothers, Silvia,’ said Rodolfo and he wasn’t laughing any more.

It was a delicate subject and the Duchessa was surprised he had brought it up, especially tonight. She hadn’t even known of Rodolfo’s existence when his brothers Egidio and Fiorentino had applied to the Scuola Mandoliera in the first year of her reign. As was her right, she had selected them for training and, as was her practice with the best-looking ones, she had taken them as her lovers.

It was only when the youngest brother turned up at the School a few months later that her heart had been touched. She had sent Rodolfo to university in Padavia and, when he had returned, equipped the finest laboratory in Talia for him to do his experiments in. And then they had become lovers.

The Duchessa reached out and briefly brushed the back of Rodolfo’s hand with her silver-tipped fingers. He took her hand and kissed it.

‘I must go, Your Grace,’ he said in a louder voice. ‘It is time for the fireworks.’

The Duchessa watched as his tall thin figure walked the length of the banqueting-hall. If she had been an ordinary woman, she would have wanted a confidante at this moment. But she was Duchessa of Bellezza, so she rose from her seat and everyone stood with her. She made her way alone to the window-seat, which overlooked part of the square and the sea. The sky was a dark navy blue and the stars were about to be rivalled in brightness.

In a minute, she must gesture to the Reman Ambassador, Rinaldo di Chimici, to take his place beside her. But for a moment, with her back to the throng of Senators and Councillors, she removed her mask and rubbed her hand over her tired eyes. Then she caught sight of her reflection in the long window. She regarded it with satisfaction. Her hair and brows might have been helped to stay dark and glossy, but her violet eyes owed nothing to artifice and her pale skin was only lightly etched with lines. She still looked younger than Rodolfo, with his silver hair and slight stoop, though she was five years older than him.

*

The crowd in the square was getting merry with wine and the sheer pleasure of a three-day holiday. The Bellezzans and islanders knew how to enjoy themselves. Now they were dancing in ragged circles, arms linked, singing the bawdy songs that traditionally accompanied the Marriage with the Sea.

The climax of the evening was coming. Rodolfo’s mandola had been spotted making for the wooden raft floating in the mouth of the Great Canal, which was loaded with crates and boxes. Everyone was expecting something special for the Duchessa’s twenty-fifth Sposalizio – her Silver Wedding.

They were not disappointed. The display began with the usual showers of shooting stars, rockets, Reman candles and Catherine wheels. The faces of the Bellezzans in the square turned green and red and gold with the reflected light from the display in the sky over the water. All eyes were now turned away from the Palazzo and from the silver-masked figure watching at the window.

Arianna and her brothers were in the square too, jostled and crowded by their fellow-islanders.

‘Stay close to us, Arianna,’ warned Tommaso, ‘We don’t want you going missing in this crush. Hold Angelo’s hand.’

Arianna nodded, but she had every intention of going missing. She took the hand that Angelo held out to her, brown with the sun and calloused from fishing, and squeezed it affectionately. They were going to get into such trouble when they went back to Torrone without her.

After a pause, the dark blue sky began to brighten with the fire-pictures of Rodolfo’s set pieces. First a giant brazen bull pawing the sky, then a blue and green wave of the sea, out of which grew a glittering serpent. Then a winged horse flying above them and seeming to sweep down into the water of the canal, where it disappeared. Finally, a silver ram seemed to emerge from the sea and grew massively large above the watchers before it dissolved into a thousand stars.

Angelo let go of his sister’s hand to join in the applause.

‘Signor Rodolfo has excelled himself this year, hasn’t he?’ he said to Tommaso, who was also clapping. ‘What do you think, Arianna?’ But when he turned to look at her, she had gone.

Arianna had laid her plans well. She had to stay on Bellezza overnight. The day after the Sposalizio was the city’s great holiday and no one but a native-born Bellezzan was allowed to stay on the main island. Even the other lagooners, from Torrone, Merlino and Burlesca, had to return to their islands at midnight. The penalty for breaking this rule and remaining in Bellezza on the Giornata Vietata – the forbidden day – was death, but no one in living memory had taken the risk.

Arianna was not taking any chances; she knew exactly where she was going to hide. At midnight, the bells of Santa Maddalena would ring out once more and at the end of their peal every non-Bellezzan, whether islander or tourist, must be away in their boats across the water. Tommaso and Angelo would have to go without her. But by then Arianna would be safely hidden.

She slipped into the cavernous cathedral while everyone outside was still gasping ‘Ooh!’ as the fireworks were let off and ‘Aah!’ as they fizzled out. Santa Maddalena was still ablaze with candles but it was empty. No one to notice a slight girl running up the worn, steep steps to the museum.

It was Arianna’s favourite place in all Bellezza. She could always get into it, even when the cathedral was so thronged with tourists that they had to queue all round the square and be let in in batches, like sheep going through a dip. They didn’t seem to care much for the museum, with its dusty books and music manuscripts in glass cases. Arianna hurried through the room with the four original brazen rams and out on to the balcony where the Duchessa had stood an hour or two earlier, between the two pairs of copies.

Arianna looked down into the square, milling with people. So many, it would be easy to mislay one. She couldn’t pick out her brothers from the many swaying revellers but her heart went out to them. ‘Don’t be soft,’ she told herself sternly. ‘This is the only way.’ She settled down beside one brazen leg, clinging on to it for comfort, as she got the best grandstand view of the end of Signor Rodolfo’s display. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable night.

*

Lucien woke to feel the sun on his face. His first thought was that his mother had been in and opened the window, but when he came to more fully, he saw that he was out of doors.

‘I must still be dreaming,’ he thought, but he didn’t mind. It was a lovely dream. He was in the floating city, he knew that. It was very warm and yet still early in the morning. The beautiful notebook was still in his hand. He put it in his pyjama pocket.

He stood up; it was easy in the dream. He was in a colonnade of cool marble, but between the columns, where the bright sun splashed in, were warm pools of light, as comforting as a hot bath. Lucien felt different; he reached up to his head and felt his old curls. This was definitely a dream.

He stepped out into the square. There seemed to have been some huge party going on; the few people who were about were sweeping up and putting rubbish into bags – not plastic bin-bags, he noticed, but more like sacks made of rough cloth. Lucien gazed at the huge cathedral opposite him. It was vaguely familiar, but something about it was not quite right.