City of Masks (6 page)

‘Master,’ he panted. ‘The Reman Ambassador is downstairs. He wants an audience with you.’

Swiftly, as he spoke, the servant pressed the thumb and little finger of his right hand together and touched brow and breast with the middle fingers.

‘Tell him I am not here,’ said Rodolfo, frowning.

‘I tried that, Master, but he has seen your mandola moored below,’ said the old man. ‘And he says “his man” hasn’t seen you go out today.’

‘His man?’ said Rodolfo, outraged. ‘So, they set spies on me now, do they?’ He turned quickly to Lucien. ‘Quick, into my laboratory. If their spy has been watching my door, he will have seen you come in. But there is more than one way of leaving. We must get you away.’

Lucien followed Rodolfo over the low window-sill but he was confused. How was he to get away? And what was the Reman Ambassador to him? Rodolfo strode over to the wall and grasped a candle-holder in the shape of a peacock with its tail at full spread. It was the most beautiful piece of workmanship and Lucien wondered that he hadn’t noticed it when he first entered the laboratory. It was made of silver, with every colour of every feather picked out in bright enamels. The blue of the peacock’s breast and the greens and purples of its tail shone in the darkness of the room like a beacon signalling a safe harbour.

Rodolfo wrenched the peacock’s head round and the wall behind it swung back. Lucien couldn’t believe his eyes. A secret passage! ‘Just like
Cluedo
,’ he murmured. But Rodolfo was already hurrying him into the passage and grasping the peacock’s head again. Lucien could hear footsteps outside the laboratory door.

‘Just follow the passage,’ he said to Lucien. ‘It will bring you to the Duchessa’s palace. Push lightly on the door when you come to the other end and you will find yourself in her private apartments.’

Lucien stopped on the threshold at this alarming information. He had absolutely no intention of being alone with the Duchessa in her private apartments! He’d rather come face to face with a tigress in her cage. The Duchessa was definitely the most alarming person he had ever met.

‘Whoa!’ he said. ‘Why would I want to do that?’

Rodolfo leaned close, his large dark eyes fixing Lucien’s like a hypnotist’s. ‘Because the person coming up the stairs is Rinaldo di Chimici,’ he said softly. ‘And if he ever finds you, he will happily kill you for that book. Now go. And I will follow as soon as I can. Take this firestone to light you on your way.’ Here he searched inside his robes and thrust something into Lucien’s hand about the size and shape of a large egg.

‘Tell Silvia I sent you.’

Then he pushed Lucien inside the passage and the wall closed up behind him before he could ask, like the Elizabethan poet, ‘But who is Silvia?’

Lucien stood inside the secret passage, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the dark. It was pitch black inside. Then he held up the ‘egg’ and watched, fascinated, as it started to glow. Soon it was warm to the touch and glowing red. It gave out a soft light but enough for him to see that he was in a narrow stone corridor with an uneven floor. It smelt musty but not damp. After listening for a while at the door behind the peacock sconce and finding he could hear nothing through its thickness, he shrugged and headed down the passage, the firestone making weird patterns on the walls as he went. Again he saw that he cast no shadow.

‘Duchessa, here I come,’ he muttered.

*

‘Ambassador, what can I do for you?’ Rodolfo greeted Rinaldo di Chimici with icy politeness but inwardly he was seething at the audacity of this aristocratic spy and his lesser spy at the gate.

‘Senator,’ said di Chimici, bowing formally but his eyes darted round the room. He had received information that a boy had been brought from the Scuola Mandoliera to Signor Rodolfo’s laboratory and was intrigued. But he could hardly ask where the boy was.

‘I am giving a dinner for the Duchessa at the embassy next week,’ he improvised, ‘and I was hoping you would join me.’

‘It would be my pleasure,’ said Rodolfo. ‘but you do me too much honour to issue your invitation in person.’

Both men were saying one thing but meaning another, and their meeting did not last long. Rodolfo got rid of the Ambassador as quickly as he politely could but did not follow Lucien down the secret passage immediately.

Instead, he adjusted the setting of his mirrors and focused one on the canal outside his apartments. There, on the nearest bridge, slouched a figure in a blue cloak, apparently idly watching the murky waters. As Rodolfo murmured under his breath the figure looked up, startled, as if he was aware of the magician’s gaze on him. And then the bridge was empty. Rodolfo smiled. ‘So much for their spy,’ he said.

*

Lucien inched cautiously along the secret passage, bathed in red light. At times he thought he heard music but it was very faint. The stone walls were massively thick. At last he reached the far end and found a door very like the one at the laboratory end. Here he stopped to think.

Silvia must be the Duchessa. Was she friend or foe? She was clearly Rodolfo’s friend, so that made her on the right side. Then, she was a much more alarming person than Rodolfo. Perhaps he should just hide in the passage until the Reman Ambassador had gone.

Thinking of the Ambassador, though, recalled Rodolfo’s words: ‘If he ever finds you, he will happily kill you for that book.’ Suddenly, Lucien felt not just afraid but very vulnerable. Life here in Bellezza was certainly more exciting than lying in bed feeling sick but he didn’t want to be stranded here for ever, which he would be if the book were stolen. And what would happen to the other Lucien if he were killed here?

These thoughts were enough to propel him through the door. He had to screw up his courage all the same and his eyes were closed as the door swung round.

‘Well, well, what have we here?’ asked a voice he recognized.

Lucien opened his eyes and blinked, dazzled by the opulence of the room he found himself in. Seated opposite him, without her mask, was the Duchessa. Her face wasn’t terrifying at all; she was stunningly beautiful, although not young. Her large violet eyes pierced him as he gazed at her and her lips curved in amusement at his open-mouthed admiration.

‘Do you like what you see, boy?’ she said in a soothing tone. Then, rapidly changing: ‘Is it worth dying for?’

She clicked her fingers at her waiting-woman. ‘Call the guards. Tell them we have an intruder.’

‘No, wait!’ stammered Lucien. ‘Rodolfo sent me here.’

The Duchessa gestured to the woman to wait. ‘I didn’t imagine you’d be using his secret entrance without his knowledge. But who are you?’ She got up and took his chin in her hand. He found himself looking slightly up at the tall woman. ‘Aren’t you one of my new mandoliers?’

She didn’t wait for an answer.

‘Whatever is Rodolfo thinking of? He knows as well as anyone that it is death for any outsider to see me without my mask.’

Lucien was panicking. It seemed as if death waited at both ends of the passage. ‘He told me to come here because Rinaldo di Chimici was coming up the stairs. He said he would kill me.’

The Duchessa froze. ‘That will be all,’ she said imperiously, dismissing her waiting-woman.

‘The guards, Your Grace?’ she asked tentatively and was rewarded with a stare that would have turned a lesser woman to stone.

‘Tell them to polish their weapons,’ said the Duchessa finally.

When the woman had left the room, the Duchessa pointed to a chair next to hers.

‘Any foe of the di Chimici must be a friend of Bellezza’s. And I
am
Bellezza. Now tell me who
you
really are.’

Chapter 5

Lagoon City

Much to her surprise, Arianna was bored. True, she was off the island and away from the prying eyes of its tiny population. But here on Bellezza she was nothing special, just another young girl. As she queued with her aunt at the fruit and vegetable stall, a basket on her arm, no one greeted her by name or asked after her grandfather’s bad leg. Arianna’s eyes roved towards the cathedral. This was all her big adventure had led to. Instead of sculling rich tourists round the canals of the big city, she was acting like a housewife, with no more thrilling prospect than choosing the shiniest aubergine.

Arianna sighed. Not for the first time, she wondered what would have happened if she had stayed with Luciano. She could have said she was his sister and then perhaps taken his place once the Duchessa had gone. The Duchessa! It simply wasn’t fair that she had so much power when Bellezzan women had so little. Arianna hated her.

There was a sudden flutter in the queue as the women made way to let a tall, black-clad figure pass. ‘Good morning, sir,’ ‘Greetings, Senator,’ they murmured, curtseying and nodding. Arianna looked up, mildly intrigued as the Senator paused to talk to her aunt. Leonora looked quite flustered. Perhaps she had a new beau? He was handsome enough and a fine match for a wealthy widow, but weren’t there rumours about him and the Duchessa?

‘This afternoon then. Good-day. Good-day, ladies,’ and he was off, striding across the Piazza, leaving many hearts beating faster behind him.

‘What was that about?’ asked Arianna, on their way back to Leonora’s house. ‘I didn’t know you knew Signor Rodolfo.’

‘Only slightly. He helped my husband once,’ said her aunt, glancing furtively around to make sure they were not overheard. ‘It’s you he seems to be interested in.’

Arianna was astonished. ‘Me? Why ever?’

‘I have no idea. But he’s coming to visit us this afternoon and he told me to tell you especially that he will bring news of your friend, Luciano.’

Arianna snorted. ‘Some friend!’ But she wouldn’t say any more and as Leonora knew no more, they passed the next few hours in anxious anticipation. Leonora worked off her curiosity by cleaning every inch of her already immaculate house and polishing a treasured silver coffee-pot. Arianna did what she was asked to do but her mind was elsewhere.

As the great bell of the campanile struck three, the Senator was shown into the courtyard garden. He looked round with approval before seating himself and greeting Leonora. Then he turned his penetrating gaze on Arianna. In spite of herself, she blushed. He was such a very composed and distinguished figure and she had the strangest feeling that he knew all about her ill-fated attempt to become a mandolier. Luciano must have told him, the unfeeling brute! But Arianna’s embarrassment soon turned to fear as she realized that it was dangerous for anyone to know what she had tried to do.

When the coffee and pastries had been brought out, Rodolfo leaned forward and addressed Arianna courteously.

‘I believe you are familiar with my young apprentice, Luciano?’

‘Your apprentice, sir? I thought he was to be a mandolier.’ Arianna couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. ‘Didn’t the Duchessa choose him?’

‘Yes,’ said Rodolfo. ‘But I persuaded her of her error. A natural mistake, but he had not come to the Scuola to enrol. He was on his way to see me.’

What is he playing at? thought Arianna. Luciano wouldn’t have known Senator Rodolfo from a dish of herrings when she had rescued him a few days ago. As for becoming his apprentice... But she realized that she was happy to hear he wasn’t going to be a mandolier, happier than she had been for days. Now she could stop being cross with him.

‘Would you like to see him?’ asked Rodolfo, turning immediately to Leonora to add, ‘I mean, if that is acceptable to you, Signora. He knows no people of his own age in Bellezza and I thought your niece would be a suitable friend for him. He is new to the city and she could perhaps show him around?’

Leonora looked thoughtful as she said goodbye to their visitor an hour later. She fixed Arianna with a thoughtful stare.

‘So Signor Rodolfo’s apprentice is not a Bellezzan and yet he was at the Scuola on the day after the Marriage with the Sea? That makes two of you in the city on the forbidden day. Would you like to explain to me how you met him?’

Lucien woke to find his mother looking into his face. This was so startling that it took him a while to register that he was no longer in Bellezza.

‘Oh, Lucien,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘You gave me such a fright. I couldn’t wake you. How are you feeling?’

It was a question he couldn’t answer. On one hand he was feeling just as wretched as he always did nowadays in the real world. But he was also wildly elated and the adrenalin was making him strong. Bellezza was real and he had safely negotiated his first voluntary journey there and back. He had practised ‘stravagation’, as Rodolfo called it, and it had been surprisingly easy.

He smiled at his mother. ‘Fine. Really. I’ve had a really good sleep. A deep one – I suppose that’s why I didn’t hear you.’ He stretched and yawned elaborately and saw the fright recede from her expression. She smiled back at him.

‘Would you like some breakfast?’

‘Yes thanks. Could I have a bacon sandwich?’

She went off happily. He hadn’t asked for anything like that for weeks and it would be a pleasure to make it for him.

Lucien fell back on his pillows, his head whirling. He had thought his time was up when he had come face to face with the Duchessa, but fortunately Rodolfo had soon followed him through the doorway and explained everything to her. It was amazing how much less alarming she seemed when Rodolfo was around. They had obviously known one another for a long time and Rodolfo equally obviously wasn’t intimidated by her.

Together, the three of them had worked on a cover story for Lucien. He was Luciano, a young cousin of Rodolfo’s, from Padavia, who had come to be his apprentice. He would be given Bellezzan clothes in keeping with his position and a room in Rodolfo’s palazzo. But in order to protect him, he must genuinely learn from Rodolfo. Quite apart from anything else he mustn’t disappear back to his own world involuntarily and must be taught the science of stravagation.

There was much that Lucien still didn’t under- stand. He had worked out for himself how to get to Bellezza from this world and it seemed to involve falling asleep clutching the book and thinking about the floating city. The first time he had made the journey back home it had been a matter of chance, but it seemed that if he lost consciousness in Bellezza, he would return to his own world – but only if he had the book in his hand.

‘Does this mean I can’t sleep in Bellezza?’ he had asked, when he was back with Rodolfo in the laboratory.

‘Not if you are touching the book,’ said Rodolfo, who had questioned him hard about the mechanics of his previous journeys.

‘And I can only get here when I’m asleep in my own world?’ pursued Lucien. ‘I’ve noticed it seems always to be day here when it’s night at home.’

‘So it would seem,’ said Rodolfo. ‘It worked that way for Doctor Dethridge too, although even he did not know why. All we know is that it is easier for Stravaganti from your world to enter and leave ours than it is for us to travel in either direction. Perhaps because the first of the brotherhood, Doctor Dethridge, opened the way through and he was from your world. We still know very little about the time differences between the two worlds.’

For whatever reason, Lucien had been able to get back by holding the book and concentrating on his home. He had even returned briefly to Bellezza that same night, to report to his new master on how the journey had gone. It seemed to be the rule that he arrived in the same place he had departed from and after the lapse of only a few moments, although it had taken him hours to get back to sleep in his own world.

Perhaps that was why he was so exhausted now. But when the bacon sandwich came, he was able to eat almost all of it, to his mother’s delight. Lucien had a secret hope that all the activity in Bellezza – walking, eating, behaving normally – might carry over into his everyday life and strengthen him there. Now all he could think of was going back to the city and being there every night.

‘You must learn everything you can about Bellezza,’ Rodolfo had said, just before Lucien returned home at dawn, as the evening candles were being lit in Rodolfo’s house. ‘I shall arrange for someone to take you around and teach you everything you need to know.’

How on earth was he going to fill the time in his world before nightfall?

Arianna was at a loss. In the end she told her aunt exactly what had happened. ‘And when I saw the Duchessa was going to pick him, I ran away and went back home,’ she finished.

Leonora paced up and down the small courtyard. ‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘None of it makes sense. And I’m afraid to let you get caught up in it. Politics always mean trouble in the lagoon, in all Talia come to that. And if this has anything to do with the Duchessa, then there’s bound to be politics behind it. Still, Senator Rodolfo is a respectable man and if he has taken this strange boy under his wing, I don’t suppose there is any harm in your spending time with him.’

Leonora seemed much less concerned about Lucien’s being from another world than about his being involved in one of the Duchessa’s schemes. Then she remembered the rest of the story.

‘But the risk you took being in the city on the forbidden day! If you had been caught you would have been arrested and put on trial for your life! Your mother was quite right to worry about you. Be a mandolier, indeed! I never heard anything like it.’

Arianna started to argue but stopped herself. At least Leonora was going to let her see Luciano again and now that she knew he was Rodolfo’s apprentice, she was even more fascinated by the idea of him. ‘He must be a good scientist himself,’ she thought, ‘or Signor Rodolfo wouldn’t take him on. And he wants me to show him round the city, which is bound to mean adventures. At least I’ll have more chance of something interesting happening than if I’m sitting here polishing silver!’

*

In a bar in the north of the city, a man in a blue cloak was knocking back glasses of Strega. He felt he deserved it after his recent experience. One minute he had been spying on Senator Rodolfo’s house – the next he had found himself in Padavia. It had taken him days to walk back to Bellezza and he was in a thoroughly bad mood. In future he was going to charge his masters a lot more if he was to spy on a powerful scientist like Rodolfo – at least enough to pay for his coach fare back if he were to be spirited away from the city again.