City of Secrets (25 page)

All day, Ludo and his kin had kept a low profile. Hurried conferences and messages passed between them had led to a change in setting for their evening rites. They agreed that the square outside the cathedral was too dangerous and instead arranged to gather near the swamp. The advantage was that the sky would be clearer to them there, unobscured by buildings with towers and the moon was only three days off the full. They would be able to see this embodiment of their goddess and she would show them any would-be pursuers.

When night fell, they gathered at the appointed place, their dark cloaks pulled round their colourful clothes. But as the ritual wore on and their chanting and dancing grew more energetic, cloaks were cast off, hair shaken loose and instruments pulled out of bags. And as their sober clothes fell from them, the Manoush reverted to type and gave themselves up wholeheartedly to their intercessions for the dead.

They called to the spirits of those they had lost, summoning them by name to come back from their wanderings. Unlike people who spent their lives in one place, the Manoush had no graves to visit; their dead were burned where they fell and their ashes given to the wind. They had nowhere to bring flowers or candles so the rituals around the Day of the Dead were all about the spirits of their lost ones, calling them to join them in celebrating the start of a new year, just as the dead had started a new chapter of their lives.

The sound of chanting and wailing was bound to draw attention to the Manoush and it was not long before the city watch discovered them. Ropes were brought and the worshippers, still pleading with the goddess, were taken away to the Palace of Justice.

They left without a struggle and the swamp returned to silence and heavy cloud hid the moon, like a thick veil drawn over a grieving face. If the spirits of the Manoush dead had come as summoned, they were now on their own.

Morning had broken over Islington and the sun rose on many school students who had stayed late at the Hallowe'en party and wished they hadn't. In Matt's house, Jan and Harry were up first as usual, while Andy slept and dreamed of playing rugby with a huge soprano.

Matt came downstairs cautiously feeling his face. It didn't hurt and he'd checked in the bathroom mirror that his bruises didn't show but it was as if he was wearing a mask and knew that underneath was a screaming mess of pain.

‘Hi, darling,' said Jan. ‘You look rough. Coffee?'

‘Mm,' said Matt. ‘Please.'

‘Good party?'

He made a noncommittal noise then said, ‘A few guys came back to sleep. Is that OK?'

‘Of course. Do you think they'll want breakfast? I bet you'll all need an early night tonight.'

‘If we could just give them cereal and coffee, that'd be fine,' said Matt.

He suddenly felt so glad to be home that he put his arms round Jan and gave her a kiss.

‘Good Lord,' she said. ‘You're in a good mood! Do I take it that you and Ayesha are back together?'

‘Maybe,' said Matt and grinned, glad that his face didn't hurt too much to do it.

There were about thirty Manoush filling the gaol in the Palace of Justice. They had to be kept together in two cells, though Antonio would have preferred it if they'd had no opportunity to confer with one another.

He was not best pleased at being got out of bed just after midnight and told that were some two and a half dozen new prisoners detained under the anti-magic laws. He had not expected to have to invoke the death penalty so soon or for so many people.

But he didn't understand why the brightly dressed and wild-eyed people, men and women, were so distraught. Almost all were weeping and some were howling like animals in pain.

‘What's the matter with them?' Antonio asked the gaoler. It was true that they were all liable to be sentenced to death, the Governor realised uncomfortably, but he hadn't expected this reaction.

‘They do not sleep indoors,' said a familiar voice. And there was his wife, wrapped in a vast shawl, who had followed him, unnoticed, from their house. ‘You know nothing about the Manoush,' said Giunta icily. ‘It is like putting a wild animal in a cage, to separate them from the stars at night.'

Chapter 22

Death by Burning

Rodolfo had told Matt not to stravagate the next night and he was glad of another day before he had to face the pain of his injuries back in Talia. School was bad enough. There didn't seem to be a single sixth former without a hangover and some had called in sick.

‘Thank goodness Guy Fawkes' Night is on a Saturday this year,' said Jan Wood in the staffroom. ‘Or we'd have all this to go through again. It's like teaching eighteen bowls of cold porridge.'

Her son, of course, was one of the few who were not the worse for drinking too much at the party, for the simple reason that he had not been there. But somehow everyone assumed that he had, including Chay, and thought that was why he looked a bit rough.

Matt didn't correct them. What could he say? I was really in another world, getting a vicious beating, and I might have died if it hadn't been for my friends there?

He shuddered whenever he thought of it. He had never been so pleased to see anyone as when Enrico had come back to Luciano's house and pulled the book out of his jerkin. He had just been so glad to hold it in his hands, like a lifebelt.

‘Thanks, mate,' was all he could say. ‘You've saved my life.'

Rodolfo had made him stravagate home straight away so he didn't see if Enrico got any kind of reward.

And what a homecoming! His room full of friends, Ayesha kissing him as if she meant never to stop and, inexplicably, Luciano and his Elizabethan foster-father standing in the middle of the room silently cheering. He was glad they had stravagated back almost immediately. Four extra Barnsbury students to find breakfast for was just about OK; Jan had coped with more than that in the past. But two sixteenth-century Talians, one of them talking like Shakespeare, would have been a bit much to explain.

Ayesha joined him for lunch just as usual and it was enough just to look at her, smiling across at him. But she wanted it put into words.

‘You gave me such a fright last night,' she began. ‘Promise me you won't do anything like that again.'

‘I can't promise not to go to Talia,' said Matt. ‘I don't know if what I went there to do is done yet. But I can promise to try not to be captured again. I'll be extra careful.'

‘You said you were pretending to be Luciano when you were taken prisoner,' said Ayesha. ‘Maybe that's what you were supposed to do. Sort of take the bullet for him. Not that they hurt you, of course.'

Matt hadn't told her what the di Chimici servant had done. There was no point. She'd only worry and there was nothing to see in this world. He wondered whether it would have shown if they'd broken his nose. And what would have happened if they'd killed him?

‘But the main thing is you're here and we're OK, aren't we?' Ayesha was asking.

‘We are as far as I'm concerned,' said Matt. ‘Have you forgiven me for what I did to Jago?'

‘Well, it was incredibly stupid,' said Ayesha. ‘But it doesn't seem to have done any lasting harm. And now that you've explained about stravagation I can understand about why you wanted to be with the others so much.'

‘You see why I couldn't tell you before?' asked Matt.

‘I wouldn't have believed you,' said Ayesha. ‘Not if I hadn't seen what happened to Jago and then you bringing Lucien here. I still don't understand most of it but I do believe that's what's happening to you.'

‘You don't fancy a quick trip to Talia, like Alice?' Matt asked.

Ayesha shook her head. ‘No. I've talked to her about that and she said it was horrible. She had to wear pantomime clothes and there was this scary big sculptor lady who terrified her and everyone was carrying knives and swords. And she said that Sky and Nick both got stabbed.'

Matt made a mental note to ask them why their wounds had come back to this world with them when his hadn't. He wasn't as confident as Ayesha that his mission in Talia had been fulfilled. But he was happy just to be able to hold her hands over the table and know that they were back together.

The Manoush were on trial in the Palace of Justice. The public benches were packed. It was the first public prosecution under the new anti-magic laws and some, like the di Chimici cousins and Enrico, had come out of curiosity. Others were there because they had been harbouring the Manoush in their homes and didn't want to become suspect by staying away.

Messer Antonio was extremely ill at ease with the whole process. Of course he didn't approve of goddess-worship; it was anathema to him. But it had rattled him seeing the distress of the Manoush in his city's prison. It wasn't just their hatred of sleeping indoors; they had seemed genuinely to believe that the New Year could not begin properly without their rituals being completed.

One of their number, a man called Ottavio Camlo, seemed to be a sort of spokesman. He was about Antonio's own age, his grizzled hair worn long and tied back by a black ribbon. He had explained to the Governor that, if they were prevented from celebrating the Day of the Dead in the way their traditions demanded, there was a danger that spirits summoned up on the night the Manoush were arrested would continue to walk the streets. The fact that he was in imminent danger of losing his life seemed to bother him less than this possibility.

The guards who had arrested the Manoush were the prime witnesses to their impious acts. But they were hardly needed. The group of travellers did not deny that they were goddess-worshippers; they would have scorned to.

‘Do you plead guilty to an act of pagan worship and ceremony in Padavia last night?' asked Antonio.

‘We were indeed performing our annual ceremony to welcome the Day of the Dead,' said Ottavio, speaking for the whole group. ‘We see no guilt in that. It is our religion.'

‘Well,' said Antonio, not wanting to be impressed. ‘It is not the religion of this city-state. And the laws of Padavia clearly declare it illegal to practise it here. There are notices in all the public places. The Zinti can read, can't they?'

Ottavio looked straight ahead. ‘The Manoush read the notices,' he said.

‘Then the verdict of this court must be Guilty,' said Antonio. ‘You knew the law and yet you went ahead and broke it.'

‘We respect the law,' said Ottavio. ‘But we cannot put law above religion. We have a greater duty, to the goddess.'

There was a buzz of agreement from the other prisoners.

It was just as Giunta had warned him that terrible night when he told her about the new laws; these goddess-worshippers were brave, there was no doubt about that. But it chilled him to think what he must now do.

There was no way out for Antonio, no tiny chink in the law through which the travellers could escape and move to another city, whose laws were less strict.

‘It is therefore my solemn and disagreeable duty to pass the most severe sentence on you and all your people arrested last night,' said Antonio. ‘It is this court's verdict that the prisoners be taken from this place and held in captivity two more nights until the legitimate church festival of All Saints is concluded. Then on Thursday they must suffer the full penalty of the law and be subject to death by burning.'

Before he went to bed that night, Jan called Matt to the phone. It was his great-aunt Eva.

‘Hello, Matt,' she said. ‘How are you?'

‘Fine,' he said. ‘Well, actually, I'm pretty tired. Going to have an early night.'

‘I won't keep you,' said Eva. ‘I just wanted to tell you something. I've been thinking about it ever since I got back. My father had the same problem as you.'

‘Needed an early night?' said Matt. He didn't really feel like a profound conversation.

‘He had problems with reading and writing. It wasn't called dyslexia in his day and I think he suffered terribly at school from teachers who thought he wasn't very bright.'

‘I know how he felt.'

‘The thing is, Matt, he was one of the most intelligent people I have ever known. He worked hard all his life and he valued education. He was so proud when I got into Cambridge. He really wanted me and your grandfather to have a better life than he had. But reading and writing were a mystery to him.'

‘Well, thanks for telling me,' said Matt. He had been told by one of his ed psychs that dyslexia was hereditary. But this was the first time he'd heard of any family member with reading problems; he'd thought till now that they were all brainy bookish types on Jan's side and all musical or arty ones on Andy's.

‘Why haven't you mentioned it before?' he asked.

‘I think I've been rather a foolish old woman,' said Eva. ‘I've been putting my head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich. I didn't really want to accept that you were the same as my dad. I hoped you would grow out of it in time. But Jan really put me right on my last visit. I understand now that you have to have all the extra help you can get. And if you do go to Cambridge, or any other university and there's anything I can do to help with computers or extra tuition, please ask me first. I've got far more money than I need.'

‘Thanks, Eva,' said Matt. But her acceptance of his dyslexia meant more to him even than the offer of money. He wouldn't have to pretend with her any more.

‘That's all right,' said Eva. ‘And thank you for introducing me to that delightful Mr Goldsmith. He's coming to visit me in Brighton in a few weeks. I think I really do need to get rid of some of my books.'

Go, Eva, thought Matt, as he staggered up to bed.