City of Masks (23 page)

‘Just let me examine him,’ said the consultant. ‘We’ll need to run some tests.’

In Bellezza, Lucien was wide awake, though it was the middle of the night. He kept rerunning in his head the scene that would be playing out in his home world. It was such an agony to imagine what his parents would be going through that it was a relief when the door of his room opened, even though he feared for his life.

With his eyes still blindfolded, Lucien’s other senses were heightened. There was the rank smell of his captor and then a sharp, strong scent, like aftershave. Two people then, and they were whispering. Through the coarse cloth, he could see a bright light, as if someone were holding a lantern close to his face. Then it moved away a bit and there was a sharp intake of breath.

Lucien couldn’t stand it. ‘Why have you brought me here?’ he said, in a voice that sounded pathetic in his own ears. ‘I want to go home.’

‘Ah,’ said a cultured voice. ‘But where exactly is home? And can you go there? Or do you need something we have taken from you?’

Lucien’s heart sank. They knew he was a Stravagante! They must be di Chimici. But perhaps they didn’t know which of the items they had robbed him of was the talisman? After all, the book was Bellezzan. Perhaps they were now going to torture him to find out?

‘You have no right to take my things,’ he said. ‘I want to go back to Signor Rodolfo.’

Smelly and Stinky was how Lucien thought of the two men. Smelly said something he couldn’t hear and Stinky said, ‘Of course you can go back to the Senator. Eventually. My friend here will take you.’

‘And I want my things back,’ said Lucien.

‘You can have them,’ said Stinky, adding, ‘all except the book, of course.’

Lucien couldn’t help wincing and he heard the little grunt of satisfaction from Smelly. ‘Brilliant,’ he thought. ‘Now I’ve told them what they need to know. At least they won’t torture me. But perhaps there’s no reason to keep me alive now?’ He imagined Smelly taking him through the back streets to Rodolfo’s and silently sliding the merlino-blade between his ribs. In a way, he almost hoped for it, because perhaps that would return him to his real body in the other world. But alive or dead? Maybe he would just live long enough to tell his parents he was sorry.

*

Dethridge was sober now. Before Rodolfo returned from presenting Arianna to the people as their new Duchessa on the Loggia degli Arieti, he had ordered Alfredo to take the old man into the roof garden and hold his head under the pump. The wet and chastened alchemist was holding his aching temples and trying to think of something he could do to help.

‘Wee coulde looke in the glasse,’ he said eventually. ‘Methinks I can telle whethir hee is in his bodie or nay.’

Rodolfo sprang to the mirror. He had forgotten about the window which Dethridge had opened on to Lucien’s world. It always showed Lucien’s room, with him in his bed, although Luciano was in Bellezza. A few movements with the levers and the mirror showed the accustomed room. Sunlight streamed through the window but the bed was empty.

‘That meneth noughte,’ said Dethridge, looking at Rodolfo’s anguished expression. ‘Hee will be aboute his lyf, like as not.’

‘No,’ said Rodolfo bitterly. ‘He has not gone back. I know it and it is my fault. His parents have taken his body somewhere, perhaps to their physician. Goddess save us if they think he is dead.’

‘Ay,’ said Dethridge, now troubled too. ‘Pepyle oftimes thoghte that I was dede when I was merely stravayging.’ He was moved to reveal one of his worst fears. ‘Mayhap I was enterred in my coffin and coulde not brethe? That may have bene how I came to be stronded hire.’

Rodolfo clapped the old man on the shoulder. ‘We must make sure nothing like that happens to Luciano. We have to find him and get him back.’

*

The sun poured into the new Duchessa’s bedchamber as Barbara flung back the wooden shutters. Arianna woke from a deep, sound sleep, at first unsure where she was. Then she remembered: she was Duchessa now.

The events of yesterday came crowding back – the madness of the election, the roomful of dresses, dressing up in a blue satin gown full of pins to make it fit and standing on the Loggia degli Arieti with Senator Rodolfo. He had been even more remote than usual, though she had longed to talk to someone about the last time she had been on that balcony, the night of the Marriage with the Sea.

‘I wish Luciano could be here,’ was all she had said, waving graciously to the crowd beneath. She assumed he had stravagated back home but she was sorry he had not said goodbye.

But Rodolfo had turned his big black eyes on her and said quietly something that sounded like, ‘I wish he were not.’

She hadn’t been able to ask him what he meant. She was learning what the life of a Bellezzan Duchessa was like and it involved never being on one’s own. There were always servants and guards in the way and a hundred little decisions to be made every hour. Arianna wondered how her mother had borne it for a quarter of a century.

It was starting again now, as she sat up in bed sipping her hot chocolate. Barbara was prattling away about clothes, when the dressmaker would be summoned to make all the garments she would need, including a coronation gown.

But Arianna was only mildly diverted by the thought of a whole new wardrobe. Unlike Silvia, she was not vain. What was worrying her now was all her State duties, sitting in Council and the Senate, appearing in public, dealing with the Reman Ambassador. She gave Barbara her cup and burrowed back under the bedclothes. It would have been much easier to be a mandolier.

Lucien was in intensive care. He had had another MRI scan, X-rays and an electro-encephalogram. It was eight o’clock in the evening and he had not woken up. Now he lay in his pyjamas in the hospital bed, his face pale but peaceful, while his mother sat beside him holding his hand.

Mr Laski studied the chart and was looking serious. ‘The tumour is a little bigger than at the last scan,’ he said. ‘But there is nothing to explain why he should be unconscious.’

‘So why is he?’ asked his father, trying to hold down the panic he felt.

Mr Laski shook his head. ‘I simply don’t know. But it’s early days yet. I’d like to monitor his breathing and his brain activity for twenty-four hours and see if there’s any change. And he’ll be examined by a neurologist. Try not to worry too much. This unit has seen a lot of patients come out of comas.’

‘Coma?’ said Mrs Mulholland. ‘Is that what it is?’

Rodolfo had not been to bed. He stayed up all night training his mirrors on likely places in Bellezza and even other cities in Talia where Luciano might be. When day broke, after a hasty breakfast, he left for the Duchessa’s palace by the open route, not the secret passage. He walked slowly through the Piazza, where people were clearing up after last night’s celebrations. How was he to tell Arianna that Luciano was missing? He hadn’t even told her that the boy was ill again. And there was something even more momentous that he had to tell her. But he could not face everything at once.

He stopped and rubbed his tired eyes. Although the di Chimici had not succeeded in killing Silvia and in spite of the fact that the new Duchessa was a replacement of her own choosing, this morning Rodolfo felt for the first time for many months that the enemy were winning.

He found Arianna in a temporary audience chamber.

‘Good morning, Your Grace,’ he said, bowing formally.

‘Good morning, Senator,’ said Arianna, ‘but I’m not yet, am I? Your Grace, I mean, not till my coronation.’

‘That is so,’ said Rodolfo, ‘and one of the things we must discuss is arrangements for that ceremony. We have to consider how long it will take to make the necessary robes and so on.’

If Arianna hadn’t been sitting down, she would have stamped her foot. ‘Clothes again! Is that what being a Duchessa is all about? I want to know how much money I’ve got, how many hours a day I have to work and when I can start making laws. Otherwise, I’m not sure I want to go through with the coronation, election or no election.’

Rodolfo looked at Arianna for a long time before answering, then sighed and brushed his hand over his face.

‘You are quite right,’ he said at last. ‘No one asked you if you would like to be Duchessa. You are scarcely more than a child and, though I am sure you will one day be an excellent ruler of the city, it will be years before you can make decisions unaided. There will be many tedious duties and the work will rarely be glamorous or enjoyable. But if you believe, as Silvia and I do, that the di Chimici are not to be trusted and that their dominance of our country must be stopped, there is nothing to do but carry on with the resistance in Bellezza. And that we can do only if you go ahead with the coronation.’

He paused and searched her face with his penetrating eyes. ‘And you did think about all this on Torrone? You did talk to your parents?’

‘Foster-parents,’ corrected Arianna. ‘Yes. We talked about it all for ages. But I didn’t know it would be so hard.’

For all her spirit, Rodolfo saw her for the first time as a little girl. He pushed aside his fears for Lucien for the moment and smiled wearily. ‘Let me try to answer your questions. Firstly, money. Silvia, as you know, has taken her personal jewellery and some other precious objects. She has left almost all her grand clothes, some of which could perhaps be altered to fit you. And there are a great number of State jewels, which you will wear on important occasions.

‘Silvia has taken enough silver to start her new life in Padavia as a wealthy private citizen. But every new Duchessa has considerable wealth from the taxes paid by citizens. It is carefully allocated to the city coffers to pay for things which all citizens enjoy, but there is a substantial sum which will be yours to spend in whatever way you choose. I shall be here to help you with any advice you need and you also have a State treasurer.

‘As to laws, they have to come before the Senate, your twenty-four senior advisers. But anything proposed by the ruling Duchessa would be favourably looked upon, I’m sure. Did you have something in mind?’

‘I want to make a law that says girls can train as mandoliers,’ said Arianna, sniffing slightly. It seemed such a little thing now that she had the burden of ruling Bellezza on her shoulders, but she wanted to make that small difference as soon as possible, even though she would never now benefit from it herself.

‘Once you have been crowned, I shall make sure it is on the agenda for the first Senate meeting,’ said Rodolfo.

‘And I want to get rid of the horrible custom of young women having to wear masks,’ said Arianna.