City of Secrets (19 page)

He had seen Filippo of Bellona several times now and was fascinated by him. He had stared at the young noble, studying his features to see if they could be brothers. And it did not seem impossible; there was a resemblance. But he didn't know if his own mother had ever been in Bellona and since the Manoush wandered the earth and had visited every city-state in Talia, no one branch of the di Chimici was more likely than another to house his unknown father.

Ludo had fantasised about every di Chimici he knew of, including the late Grand Duke. But he knew this was a dangerous path to follow. He was Manoush and must remain so. He dragged his mind back to the array of cards; there had been something else significant, which the Dottore had not wanted to reveal. The Book. On a whim, Ludo turned his steps towards the Scriptorium.

*

When Matt arrived on Friday morning, his second Friday in a row, as he thought of it, Constantin had taken him to one side and told him that the pressmen thought he had been sent to collect a new supply of paper the day before.

‘But what happened, really?' he asked. ‘Why didn't you come? Were you unable to reverse the evil eye?'

Matt cursed himself for being a thoughtless bastard. He had forgotten Constantin didn't know what had happened with Jago and must still have been worrying. ‘I'm really sorry,' he said. ‘I was so tired I just fell asleep without stravagating. But you haven't seen Luciano then?'

‘No, I expect he thought you would tell me yesterday,' said Constantin. ‘Tell me what happened.'

Matt gave him a short version of the events at the hospital. The Professor sighed with relief. He patted Matt on the shoulder.

‘Well done,' he said. ‘We must talk again about the control of this power but I have to go to the Anatomy Theatre now.'

‘It's OK,' said Matt. ‘I've learned my lesson.'

Then Constantin had left for the dissection and, to his surprise, Biagio had called Matt over to be a beater on one of the presses. One of the pressmen was genuinely sick and Matt was to fill his place.

It meant a hard day's work ahead of him, with the tallow candles lit in the early afternoon, and Matt was glad he had managed a good sleep the night before. Still, it was better than making ink and washing type. And he was still feeling happy from his visit to Ayesha. She hadn't said she would take him back or that she had forgiven him but she was much kinder and softer than she had been towards him for days and he had begun to feel hope. At least she wasn't going out with Jago.

In the middle of the morning, the rusty-haired Manoush had walked in. Matt had been taking a break to drink watered wine, while his puller damped more paper and the compositor took the pages they had printed to the proofreaders for checking.

Biagio was talking to Ludo and Matt nodded to show that he knew him. But he was surprised to see him here; he somehow hadn't expected the Manoush to go in for reading much.

Ludo had entered the Scriptorium passing the list of forbidden books that all printers now had to have posted up in their workplace. He asked Biagio what kinds of book they were still allowed to produce.

‘Many kinds, sir,' said the foreman. ‘Works on duelling, history, music, fortifications, poetry, mathematics, maps . . .'

Ludo seemed so interested in their work, that Biagio showed him books in all stages of production.

‘Do you make the loose sheets into books here too?' asked Ludo.

‘No,' said Biagio. ‘Nando the bookbinder does that. His shop is just three doors down on Salt Street.'

Matt was eavesdropping; he had wondered about this himself. He knew, as Ludo didn't, that this Nando must also bind the forbidden books that were printed in the Secret Scriptorium.

*

Doctor Dethridge was taking Luciano to see the anatomy demonstrations. Matt had told them something about the book he had helped to print in the Secret Scriptorium and so they weren't surprised to see Professor Constantin in the theatre too.

The Anatomy Theatre in Padavia had been open only a year and its fame had spread throughout Europa. Universities in many other countries were copying its remarkable design. Six tiers of seats for spectators rose up in a funnel from the central dissecting table and it could accommodate up to three hundred students at a time.

Still there was not a spare seat to be had when Professor Angeli entered the theatre. His dissections were famous; not only medical students attended them but students from the other schools and even members of the public came to watch him work. Students got in for free but spectators from outside the University had to pay two soldi each.

The bodies for dissection were prepared in a room on the ground floor below and Luciano remembered what Matt had said. The Professor was supposed to use only the corpses of executed criminals, and those must be from another city, not Padavia.

The dissecting table was lowered by an ingenious mechanism, through a trap door into the room below. Then it returned, raised to the surface by the same feat of engineering, with the cadaver strapped to it. In this way, the body did not have to be carried in past the students and could, at the end of the demonstration, also be tidied away in a seemly fashion.

There was total silence in the theatre except for the clanking of the machinery as the table with the corpse rose into view. Luciano was surprised to see that it was that of a young well-nourished man. He had been expecting someone older and more battle-scarred. But he had to admit that he still wasn't sure which crimes were punishable by death in the cities near Padavia.

Why, this dead man might be from Bellezza, might have been condemned to death by Arianna's Senate and the warrant signed by her own hand! It made him shiver.

‘Observe the arrangement of the muscles in the arm,' Professor Angeli was saying, calmly lifting away the skin of the man's left arm and exposing his biceps as if he were carving a roast chicken.

Luciano swallowed. He could see the smaller table containing all Angeli's dissection instruments; it looked like the equipment for a torture chamber. Luciano tried to remind himself that even in a modern autopsy room in his old world there would be things going on that might be sickening to watch.

He could tell by looking at the faces around him which spectators were medical students and which not. The medics were all absorbed, intent on watching what Angeli was doing and listening to his commentary. The rest had a greenish tinge to their faces and tended to find things of interest on the ceiling to look at. Some held handkerchiefs to their mouths. There wasn't a woman among them.

As Angeli cut into the breastbone and turned back two large flaps of skin to show the muscles of the chest, someone made a dash for the exit. Luciano thought from the glimpse he caught of the disappearing back that it might have been Enrico.

*

After the dissection was over, Dethridge took Luciano down the theatre stairs to where Professor Angeli was wiping his instruments. The mechanism was lowering the table, now fouled with blood and organs, through the trap door.

The two men shook hands; they knew each other slightly and Angeli had been to Dethridge's Astronomy lectures. Luciano hoped very much that he would be let off shaking the Anatomy professor's hand when he was introduced. He could see that his foster-father now had blood on his.

‘Whatte an ingenious machine ye have installed,' said Dethridge, looking with interest at the descending table taking the gory remains away.

‘Come and see the other end of the operation,' said Angeli.

He signalled to an assistant to finish cleaning the instruments, pulled off his bloody apron and led them to the floor below. The table had just reached the ground. A servant was waiting to remove the cadaver and its detached portions into a plain deal coffin, while a second held a bucket and cloths to clean the table. When these grisly tasks had been performed and the body taken away, Professor Angeli showed them a lever on the side of the table.

To Luciano's surprise, the whole top flipped over, revealing another dissecting surface, complete with straps. Tied to it was a large dead dog. Luciano thought he would be sick.

‘Ah,' said Dethridge. ‘For substitutioun?'

‘We cannot always get the criminal bodies,' said Angeli. ‘And then I take what I can get. But I always have an animal here, in order to make a quick exchange, just in case the authorities turn up.'

‘And is this one an executed criminal?' asked Dethridge in a whisper.

‘No,' replied Angeli equally quietly. ‘I couldn't get one. And I need the bodies to be fresh. This man died last night.'

Luciano looked at the dog. And at Professor Angeli.

‘Please excuse me,' he said. ‘I think I need some fresh air.'

Chapter 18

The Watcher Watched

Rinaldo di Chimici's messenger was beginning to feel weary. He had ridden from Bellezza to Giglia with letters for the Grand Duke and now, as soon as he had taken some refreshment, would be off to Padavia. His master had told him he was going straight to the City of Words from Bellezza and the messenger couldn't understand why. They had been there only a few weeks before and he didn't see what Church business took his master there again.

But one good thing was that the Cardinal would be staying in the Bishop's palace, which was very comfortable. The Bishop of Padavia was Chancellor of the University and lived in a very grand style; even the servants benefited from it.

Of course the messenger couldn't read, in common with most of the people the di Chimici employed in this role. And even if he had been able to, he wouldn't have dared break the seal on his master's letters.

He might have wondered why young Fabrizio di Chimici's eyes lit up at his cousin's letter but the doings of nobles were as far out of his sphere above him as the scurrying of ants on the road under his horse's hooves was beneath him. The messenger was just happy to work for such great men and have such a good horse to ride and fine livery to wear.

And he was glad not to be going back to Bellezza. What kind of city banned horses? He had been made to leave his fine beast on the mainland when the Cardinal took the ferry over to the lagoon city. And he knew that his master felt the same way. Of all the cities in Talia, this was the only one where horses were not allowed. Why, he had even heard that there were people within the City of Masks who had never seen a horse, let alone ridden one!

The letter he was bearing from the Grand Duke to the Cardinal needed the utmost secrecy; Fabrizio di Chimici had impressed upon him that he was not to hand it over to anyone but his cousin himself. In it the young Grand Duke authorised the planning of an assassination in Bellezza and the stepping up of a devious plot to kill another man in Padavia.

‘Take this letter too,' he had told the messenger, giving him extra silver. ‘It is for another of my family, Filippo of Bellona, who is also staying in Padavia. It will be easy for you to find out where he is lodging and I should like the Cardinal to be in touch with him.'

Filippo di Chimici would need no urging from Fabrizio to do everything in his power to entrap Luciano. He had sat seething during the Bellezzan's ‘disquisitio'. True, his uncle hadn't been named but many people in Padavia knew about the duel already and, after the speech, many more would ask Luciano for the details.

The di Chimici took their family honour very seriously and to hear the black-haired youth justify killing his uncle had been a purgatory for Filippo. Since that day he had employed his own spies, to keep watch on the Bellezzan and bring news if he did anything, however small, that could have been seen to infringe the anti-magic laws.

But this was not enough for Filippo; he wanted to do something to provoke Luciano. He had tried to win his confidence and friendship and the Bellezzan had been responsive, but only up to a point. On the subject of the Stravaganti he had refused to be drawn.

‘To my cousin, the heir apparent of Bellona, Prince Filippo di Chimici, greetings,' began Fabrizio's letter. After many flowery phrases commending himself and his Grand Duchess and expressing his wishes for Filippo's good health, in the manner of the time, he got down to business.

‘It is imperative that we discover the secrets behind the Brotherhood of which we have spoken. There is some mystery involving travel to another world and it is vital that we discover the mechanism by which this is effected. There must be some spell or enchantment which they use. Study the Bellezzan, observe his companions. There must be something we can use to get him into trouble with the Padavian authorities. And if there is no other way, then take him captive and search him. It has been done before. Our cousin Rinaldo will be in the city by the time this reaches you. Join forces with him; there are things he knows about the Cavaliere.'

*

Ever since stravagating to his old world with Matt, Luciano had been restless. In the end, he decided to get in touch with his old master and personal Stravagante, Rodolfo. In his palazzo next to the Ducal Palace of Bellezza, Rodolfo had a set of mirrors, which he kept trained on various places in Talia, in order to keep in touch with other Stravaganti. Each member of the Brotherhood had a big cheval glass in their home and a hand-mirror when travelling so that they could communicate with one another, but no one had more looking-glasses than Rodolfo.

Luciano hadn't used his hand-mirror to reach Rodolfo since coming to Padavia, except once, so that the older Stravagante could see he had arrived safely – a bit like sending his parents a text message. Now, although they wouldn't be able to hear each other, he wanted to see Rodolfo's face.

He took out the ebony-backed mirror and concentrated. At first there was nothing to see but his own face – like phoning a number and hearing it ring without being answered. But Stravaganti were very well attuned to one another's wavelengths and it wasn't long before another face became superimposed on Luciano's reflection.

It was a wise face, lined by cares to look older than its owner, and framed by once-dark hair that was now nearly all silver. And it looked concerned. Without hearing the words, Luciano felt them forming in his mind.

Luciano! Are you well? Is anything wrong?

No, master
, Luciano thought back,
I just wanted to see you
.

The face in the mirror relaxed into a smile and Luciano could see beyond the lines to the handsome young mandolier who had melted the heart of the last Duchessa of Bellezza.

It is good to see you, too, Luciano. Arianna tells me your studies are going well.

She heard my rhetorical speech. I'm glad I didn't know she was there.

She said you stayed up late to write it . . . after you had stravagated.

You know about that? I had to, to help Matt – Matteo – the new Stravagante.

And did you?

Yes. He'd got himself into trouble, using a hex he'd learned about here. But he's put it right now. Constantin was going to go but if he'd been found out in Padavia it might have led to a search of his Scriptorium. Then they might have found the secret printing press.

I see. And how did you find the stravagation?

Rodolfo always knew what was troubling Luciano; it was a relief really.

I saw my parents
, Luciano spoke-thought.

That must have been unsettling. Did you speak?

Yes, and touched and hugged. And they were upset, particularly my dad. I think perhaps I've been cruel to them.

And to yourself.

Well, I got a pizza and a shower out of it.

Pizza? Did it have a sheep's stomach on it?

Luciano laughed and saw Rodolfo's lips curve back at him. They were both remembering their first conversation when Luciano had turned up in Talia over two years ago and tried to explain twenty-first century life to Rodolfo. Luciano said then that you could get anything put on top of a pizza, even haggis.

No, it had anchovies and chilli peppers and olives and artichokes.

It sounds delicious. But it has made you sad.

It was a statement not a question.

It has unsettled me, master.

Luciano felt the long pause in Rodolfo's thoughts, at least the ones he could read.

It is a privilege to be able to return. Not a right. The dead do not return.

Only ghosts, master.

You are not a ghost but a living and vigorous young man. One who will soon be my son under the law. But you could turn into something no better than a ghost.

Master?

You, like young Falco, can live in only one world, Luciano. He made his choice and it was for your old world. You had no choice and this is the only world for you now. You cannot dip back into your old life for the food and luxuries you miss in this. And you can't just visit your parents whenever you feel like it. It would drive you mad.

That is what is happening.

Then I am sorry you went back with Matteo. Shall I come to you in Padavia?

Luciano was touched. Rodolfo would not hesitate to put aside the demands of a being Regent of an important city-state to come and comfort his old apprentice.

No, it's fine. I'm fine. The Dottore is still with me here. But I didn't want to tell him. He has his own sadnesses about his old life.

To tell him of yours will not add to his. Remember, you are both Stravaganti. He will understand.

*

After a second day of covering for the sick beater, who had been injured in a tavern brawl, Matt found himself spending Sunday in Constantin's Secret Scriptorium. The Professor looked more troubled than Matt had ever seen him. He kept glancing at the door of the secret room and in the end propped it open so that he could see into the larger room, though Matt couldn't see how this would make things safer.

‘We have three more clear days,' said Constantin.

‘How come?' asked Matt.

‘Well, tomorrow is All Hallows' Eve, then we have All Saints' Day followed by All Souls' Day. The Scriptorium will be closed for three days, so we can work in here.'

Matt wondered how Biagio explained to his family why he never took a day off. Perhaps he didn't have one? He hoped Constantin was giving the foreman lots of extra money.

‘Are ordinary people allowed to celebrate that?' he asked. ‘I thought it was just the Manoush?'

‘It is a three day festival of the Church,' said Constantin. ‘There will be special services in all the churches and in the basilica. But the Manoush, if they celebrate at all, will do it in a different fashion.'

It had been only a week since the Manoush had come to Padavia and Matt had first met Ludo. During that time, he had seen him a few more times, looking far less colourful. Matt liked him a lot better dressed in black and without the ribbons. He wondered, as he worked, what risks the Manoush would be taking on the next day. And what had brought Ludo to the Scriptorium two days before.

When Matt left the Scriptorium for a short lunch break, he walked instinctively towards the Black Horse. And didn't notice a figure slipping after him. But that spy also didn't notice the man following him, who was wrapped in a black cloak and had reddish-brown hair. And Ludo was unaware that he was being followed by Enrico, who had somewhere found a feathered, and somewhat battered hat in his favourite blue.

*

‘Pregnant!' said Arianna. ‘How can he be?'

‘Because he's a she, Your Grace,' said Mariotto, who was standing in the Duchessa's parlour, looking very awkward in his stable-boys' clothes. ‘I did try to tell you before. Florio is a female. I always said it was a daft name for a girl, saving Your Grace.'

Arianna laughed. ‘Quite right. So you did. She must be renamed Flora. So that was why she was putting on weight – nothing to do with my table morsels?'

‘Seems not, milady,' said Mariotto sulkily.

‘But this is splendid news,' said Arianna. ‘When do you think she will have her babies? And how many? I wonder if it is like kittens.' She loved the idea of a whole litter of baby African spotted cats.

‘I don't know, milady,' said Mariotto. ‘Little cats take nine weeks but it stands to reason that a bigger cat will take longer. And we don't know when she got pregnant. We are working in the dark here. Perhaps Your Grace could find an expert on African cats?'

‘Perhaps I could. I shall look into it immediately.' Arianna was already wondering what Rodolfo would say if she said she'd like to keep all the babies.

As Mariotto was leaving, he bowed to make way for the Regent, who was coming to see his daughter.

‘You look happy,' he said, smiling at Arianna.

‘My African cats are going to have African kittens,' said Arianna. ‘I never realised they were a pair like that.'

‘Are you ignorant of what Luciano tells me are called “the facts of life” in his world?' asked Rodolfo.