City of Stars (6 page)

But within the city itself a sort of madness reigned all year round, from one Stellata to the next. It was especially so in the weeks surrounding the race itself, and the streets were more dangerous the closer they were to the Campo, which was also the racetrack. Out by the city gates, all fourteen of them, people were fairly relaxed and that's where the stables were. But the segmented pattern of the circular city meant that each Twelfth narrowed to a deadly daggerpoint aimed at the heart of the Campo. It was suicide to stray outside the boundary of your Twelfth on the day of the Stellata.

It had been a Pope who decided to remodel the city after the zodiac, in an attempt to curry favour with a population much more interested in astrology than in the church. It had taken decades to re-name all the streets and squares and develop the crests and mottoes and banners of each Twelfth, and by then the misguided Pope was long dead. But the Remorans had taken to the new system like ducks to water. The city had anciently been divided roughly into twelve and the city loyalties long established. All that the next Pope, Benedict, had to do was build the broad neutral boulevard and the famous Campo – the citizens took care of the rest.

So perhaps another Pope could modify the city again? Niccolò mused on his brother sitting in his comfortable palace fronting on to the Twins' segment in the Campo delle Stelle. He could, over time, issue pronouncements banning the excessive displays of loyalty to any city but Remora itself. Niccolò found himself looking into the eyes of his son over an empty cake plate. A twitch of annoyance passed over his aristocratic features. Perhaps the church would have been the right career for this insatiable son of his? He could have rivalled Ferdinando in paunch, given time.

But Duke Niccolò was good at concealing his emotions. ‘I'm sorry,' he said out loud. ‘I was thinking about what you said.'

‘But the real trouble is I don't know why you have brought me here,' mumbled Gaetano truculently. ‘Isn't it time you told me what you have in mind?'

‘Certainly,' said Niccolò. ‘How would you like to marry the young Duchessa of Bellezza?'

‘I don't know that much about the Etruscans,' said Mortimer Goldsmith, over an elegant cup of Earl Grey. ‘They're more the speciality of archaeologists and anthropologists. I go in for more recent history – Chippendale and Sèvres are more my line. More tea?'

‘No thanks,' said Georgia, who thought it smelt like aftershave and tasted like washing-up water. ‘But they were some sort of early Italians, weren't they?'

‘Oh yes, that's certain. Though I believe very little else is. There's no literature, you know – just a few inscriptions.'

‘And models of flying horses,' added Georgia.

‘Yes, and a few urns and things. There's one in the BM if my memory serves,' he said. ‘Or is it the V and A? I've definitely seen one somewhere.'

Georgia had spent many Sundays in the places he was talking about. ‘The British Museum,' she asked, to be sure, ‘or the one in South Kensington?'

‘I'm pretty sure it's the British Museum,' said Mr Goldsmith finally. ‘Figures from a bronze urn – something like sixth century BC. Those horses weren't winged though – just part of some barbaric race where the riders rode bareback.'

Georgia made a mental note to go to the British Museum and check – and to ask Paolo if the Stellata was run bareback.

‘I'm sorry, I have to go,' she said getting up. ‘Thanks for the tea. It was nice talking to you.'

‘My pleasure,' said Mr Goldsmith, making a formal little bow. ‘I'll get some Darjeeling in for next time,' he added, noticing her almost full cup. ‘And some chocolate biscuits. I don't often have young people to entertain.'

Georgia had to run all the way to her music lesson, her violin and music case banging against her leg. She didn't make a very good stab at her piece, because it was so hard to concentrate. She couldn't wait to get home.

‘I can't believe it,' said Luciano. ‘Another Stravagante? So soon? We must tell Rodolfo. Dottore, do you still have the hand mirror?'

‘In dede,' said Dethridge. ‘It is inne mye satchele. Bot let signor Paolo telle us more.'

‘It is my son who spent more time with her – for it is a young woman this time,' said Paolo.

They were in the comfortable sitting room of Paolo and Teresa's house in the west of the city, near the Gate of the Ram. The visitors had made a hearty breakfast indeed, of fresh baked rolls and fig jam and great bowls of milky coffee. The little children were playing in the yard under Teresa's supervision as she fed the hens and collected eggs for a lunchtime frittata.

Cesare and Luciano, after the stiff politeness of their first greetings, were beginning to relax with each other. And now that Luciano knew Cesare had met someone else from his world, all constraint was gone. It made him feel very strange. It was true that Talia was his world now but he couldn't just forget that he had been a twenty-first-century boy, and the idea that he might meet someone from his own time was excitingly disturbing. Even Doctor Dethridge, Luciano's foster-father, who had left that same world, albeit from a time many centuries before, was affected by the news.

‘Is she coming back?' asked Luciano.

‘I'm sure she will if she can,' said Cesare. ‘She was so interested in the flying horse.'

That of course raised more questions than it answered and the horsemen of the Ram had to explain everything about the black filly, the visit of Duke Niccolò and their night-time expedition to Santa Fina to hide Merla and her mother.

‘It lyketh me noghte thatte such a felawe is in the citee,' said Doctor Dethridge. ‘The Duke is up to noe goode, I trowe.'

‘He is officially visiting his brother the Pope,' said Paolo. ‘But taking the opportunity to check on horses in his rivals' stables at the same time.'

‘It's all just a show, though, isn't it?' asked Luciano. ‘Rodolfo told us that the race is rigged every year for one of di Chimici's favourites to win.'

‘That's what usually happens,' admitted Paolo. ‘But we don't usually have a winged horse born in the city. I'm hoping that means victory for the Ram.'

*

‘The Duchessa of Bellezza?' said Gaetano stupidly; he was too surprised to stop himself. ‘What for?'

His father sighed. ‘It will take a lot to make a diplomat of you,' he said. ‘To make you Duke of course, and bring Bellezza into the fold.'

‘Into the family, you mean,' said Gaetano, playing for time. But he didn't hate the idea. Surely as Duke of Bellezza he would have ample time for his books and his music? ‘What is she like?' he asked.

‘Very pretty,' said Niccolò dryly, ‘and I should think about as easy to handle as Zarina.'

It took Gaetano a moment or two to remember that Zarina was the Lady's spirited grey mare.

Supper was fish and chips, followed by ice cream. It was usually Georgia's favourite because there wasn't anything Maura or Ralph could do to ruin it. Only tonight she just wasn't hungry. She wanted to rush through her homework and get an early night. Even Russell wasn't making much impression on her.

‘Homework on a Friday night?' was all he could manage to hiss at her. ‘You're turning into a real geek as well as a freak.'

She didn't remind him that it was her Saturday for riding tomorrow. She just wanted to keep her head down and not draw attention to herself. But the evening dragged on interminably. Maths, English, French, then bed. And once in bed no chance of sleep. She had the winged horse in her tracksuit pocket and a clear vision of the hayloft in Remora in her mind, but sleep refused to come. Perhaps it was because she was so eager to get there. Or it might have been something to do with Russell's metal music blaring out in the room next door.

‘Please,' she wished as hard as she could. ‘Let me be in the City of Stars.'

Luciano was pacing excitedly up and down the room. ‘I bet it has something to do with Arianna's visit here,' he said. ‘I don't know how much you know about my stravagation, but Rodolfo thought I was brought to Bellezza to save the last Duchessa. Perhaps this girl from my world is needed because of a plot against Arianna? You know that's why we are here, because she has been invited to the Stellata?'

‘Yes, wee are supposed to lerne al thatte we canne about the citee,' nodded Dethridge, ‘and its wayes and maneres during this race of such grete importe.'

‘And I bet the Duke is up to something too,' added Luciano. ‘It's too much of a coincidence that he's here at the same time as us.'

There was a light tap at the door. Paolo went to open it while Luciano continued his pacing.

‘I really don't think it's safe for her to come here,' he was saying. ‘Everything we know about the city makes it seem a hotbed of villainy – I mean, it's the centre of the di Chimici's world, isn't it?'

His pacing had brought him opposite the door. His jaw fell open when he saw the slight short-haired figure with the silver eyebrow ring.

And the effect on Georgia was no less dramatic. She recognised the black-haired boy. She had been staring at his photograph only a few hours ago at her violin teacher's house.

‘I promised you two more Stravaganti, didn't I, Georgia?' said Paolo smiling.

‘Lucien!' said Georgia – and vanished.

Chapter 5

The Shadow of Doubt

Georgia woke suddenly in her bed in London, her heart racing, but it wasn't morning. The house was quiet and dark. She was in a whirl of confusion. Dreaming of a city with flying horses was one thing – even if it turned out not to be a dream and the city was real. But coming face to face with someone from her own world, someone she knew to be dead – that was something else again.

She lay in the darkness, holding the flying horse in a tight grip, waiting for her heart to slow and her thoughts to settle. Half of her wanted to go back to Remora immediately, but the other half was still terrified. It had definitely been Lucien that she had seen in Paolo's house. There was no way she could have mistaken him, even in his sixteenth-century Talian clothes. Georgia was an expert where Lucien Mulholland was concerned.

He had been in the year above her when she joined Barnsbury Comprehensive, and she had seen him once or twice at his mother's when she went to violin lessons after school. But it had been only in Year 10 that she had begun to feel differently about him. Russell was quite wrong about her; she
was
interested in boys – at least in one boy. But Georgia was shy as well as unhappy and her butch image had been developed to protect her feelings.

If Lucien had been aware of those feelings, he had never shown it. They both played in the school orchestra and the irony of being second fiddle to Lucien wasn't lost on her. But once Georgia had joined the orchestra, it not only gave her more chance of seeing him, it meant that when they met at his house, he would actually talk to her. Gradually she had realised that he was shy too. He didn't have girlfriends; that was one blessing at least.

But just when she was hoping that they could be friends and that perhaps one day he might return her feelings, he had become ill. Lying there in the dark, Georgia re-lived last year's agony of discovering that Lucien was seriously ill, that he had to be off school for weeks having chemotherapy, that he had lost his beautiful hair. His mother stopped teaching and Georgia was cut off from all news of him, except what she could glean from the school gossip machine.

There had been a few weeks last summer when she had believed that he was getting better, that he would return to school in the autumn term cured. Georgia had even seen him again when she had resumed violin lessons. He seemed older somehow and a little remote, but not unfriendly, just preoccupied. She had made up her mind to tell him how much she liked him, but then terrible news had filtered through and put an end to all her plans: Lucien was in hospital, he was in a coma, he was dead.

She had gone to the funeral like a zombie, not believing that the only boy she had ever liked could be lost to her for ever. Only seeing his grieving parents and hearing his best friend Tom's voice cracking as he read a poem convinced her that Lucien had really gone.

And now there he was again in Talia, looking gorgeous and as healthy as when he sat in front of her in orchestra and she watched his hair curl over the collar of his shirt. What could it possibly mean? She now began to wonder if Talia was a fantasy world which her unconscious had created for her to escape to. Horses, flying ones even, and now the resurrection of a boy she had had a huge crush on – it was all too symbolic for words.

But what was she to do? Seeing Lucien was going to be painful – a quick glimpse had convinced her of that – but how could she give up going to Talia? Georgia looked down at the little black horse in her hand. It had to mean something, the way it had come into her life. There must be something she was meant to do in Talia or she wouldn't have stravagated there. Was that what Lucien had done? Why was he there, and did it have anything to do with why he had died?

Georgia felt seriously frightened. In her short experience of Remora, she had been like a member of the audience at a play, watching the story unfold. But seeing Lucien there had felt like being dragged up on the stage and made to participate in the action. From now on, if she went back to Talia, she knew she would have an active role in whatever drama was being played out there. And now she realised that it was dangerous.

In Paolo's house chaos reigned. Luciano had turned deathly white, Cesare was clearly terrified and both Paolo and Dethridge were completely at a loss. ‘Do you know her?' asked Paolo, and Luciano had just had time to say he did, when Georgia was back.

Luciano was the only one who understood what had happened. He led Georgia to a chair and asked Paolo to bring her a drink. Georgia sat in silence gulping some rough red wine, letting herself be looked after, enjoying the sensation of having Lucien's attention focused properly on her for the first time.

She was feeling a bit woozy now and didn't really understand why she had re-entered the same scene she had left so precipitately. It had taken hours to get back to sleep – which was what Paolo had explained that she had to do to stravagate back to Talia. She must go to sleep holding the talisman and thinking of Remora. It had been much easier earlier in the night, before her fright over seeing Lucien.

Back in Talia it was as if someone had pressed a ‘Pause' button and the scene had been frozen at the point where she had left it.

‘If you stravagate twice during the same period of time,' Luciano was saying, ‘the same day or the same night, you end up back in Talia only moments after leaving it.'

‘But why did she leave us at all?' asked Cesare, looking warily at Georgia as if she were a ghost.

‘I think she must have fainted when she saw me,' said Luciano. ‘And she must have been holding her talisman. If you lose consciousness in Talia, while you have the talisman, even if you aren't thinking of home, you will end up in our world. It's a sort of default setting.'

He was speaking directly to Georgia now, who nodded; it made a sort of sense.

‘Georgia comes from the same part of our world as I did,' continued Luciano. ‘We went to the same school. She knew I was dead. I expect you thought you had seen a ghost,' he said, looking straight at her.

Georgia nodded again, incapable of saying anything yet.

‘Can I see your talisman?' Luciano asked gently.

She uncurled the fingers of her right hand. The wings had cut into her fingers leaving red marks; she had been clinging on to it so hard. She let Luciano take the little horse and examine it.

‘It's just like our Merla,' said Cesare.

‘Is she safe?' asked Georgia. ‘Did you get her away?'

‘Yes,' answered Paolo. ‘She and Starlight are in Santa Fina. We trust that the di Chimici won't find her there. Though there is still a risk. Unfortunately, they have a summer palace in Santa Fina too, but they won't use it while they're visiting the city. And we can trust Roderigo.'

‘Could I go and see her?' asked Georgia.

‘I'm sure you can,' said Paolo. ‘It's not far. You could be there and back in hours.'

Luciano gave her back the little model.

‘Keep it safe,' he said. ‘The di Chimici would be as interested in your winged horse as in the real one.'

‘And in the mayde hirselfe, I trowe, if mayde she bee,' said Dethridge. He had been looking at Georgia's stable-boy's clothes in some puzzlement.

‘She is a boy in Talia,' said Paolo, ‘even though a girl where she comes from.'

‘Ah,' said Dethridge. ‘It is a disguise. I understonde. We use such a devyse in monye of the playes in our citee playhouses.'

‘Why does he talk like that?' Georgia whispered to Luciano.

He smiled. ‘You hear it too? It's because he comes from our world, from England in Elizabethan times – four-and-a-half centuries ago. Let me present to you Doctor William Dethridge, founder of the Stravaganti. Though here in Talia his name is Guglielmo Crinamorte and he is a great man in Bellezza.'

Dethridge bowed.

‘My name here seems to be Giorgio,' said Georgia.

‘I have been re-named too,' said Luciano. ‘I'm Luciano now, Luciano Crinamorte. Dottore Crinamorte and his wife Leonora are my foster parents.' Quickly he looked away from Georgia.

But she had noticed something else.

‘There's something I don't understand,' she said. ‘I'm a Stravagante from another world, or so Paolo tells me and he could tell that because I don't have a shadow. But you and Doctor Dethridge both clearly have shadows and yet you come from the same world as me, even if he is from centuries ago. Will someone please explain it all?'

*

Rinaldo di Chimici was profoundly glad to be back in Remora. His sojourn in Bellezza had been uncomfortable and at times frightening and he was not a brave man. He had hated the city with its smelly canals and the unreasonable cheerfulness of its citizens. And its unnatural absence of horses. Above all he had hated its Duchessa, so clever and beautiful and so much more experienced at diplomacy than him that she made him feel like a callow boy.

Still, he had got his own back on her with a vengeance. The formidable Duchessa of Bellezza was no more and, even though he had not succeeded in replacing her with one of his family, the daughter who had taken her place was only a girl, and surely no match for his uncle, Duke Niccolò?

Rinaldo made his way down to the stables of the Twins. He wasn't sure what direction his career would take him in next, but in the meantime, there was nothing he wanted more than a fast ride on a fresh horse.

Since his father's death two years ago, when his older brother Alfonso had become Duke of Volana, Rinaldo had been at a loose end. There was no other title for him to inherit and no obvious work for him to do, so he had drifted to Remora and settled in one of the many rooms of his uncle Ferdinando's palace, until Duke Niccolò had sent him to Bellezza as his ambassador.

Rinaldo now felt as at home in the Twelfth of the Twins as he ever had in the rather gloomy family castle in Volana many miles to the north-east. He had stopped off there on the way back from Bellezza, to visit Alfonso and their younger sister Caterina, but it no longer felt as if he belonged there. His brother had been preoccupied with the idea of getting married, wondering whether the Duke had someone in mind for him. Rinaldo was supposed to find that out.

He wondered whether to suggest their cousin Francesca, his failed candidate for Duchessa of Bellezza. The di Chimici were quite keen on inter-marriage, so Niccolò might look kindly on the idea. One of Rinaldo's current missions in Remora was to get Uncle Ferdinando to dissolve Francesca's first marriage, which Rinaldo had rather hastily arranged to a much older Bellezzan Councillor, in order to qualify her for election to the city's rulership.

‘Good morning, Excellency,' said the Twins' Horsemaster. ‘I have a mount saddled and ready for you – Bacio, the bay mare.'

‘Superb!' said Rinaldo, looking affectionately at the mare. She was his favourite horse in the Twins' stables, not a race-winner like Benvenuto, but a smooth ride and a beautiful animal.

‘In good shape, isn't she?' observed a familiar voice from the shadows, and Rinaldo jumped at the sound.

He flinched when he saw the speaker. Enrico had been picked up in Bellezza like a bad smell that the young ambassador could not shake off. The city had not been a place that either of them wanted to stay in after the Duchessa had been assassinated. The di Chimici and anyone associated with them were highly suspect after the explosion, even though there had been no evidence to link them with the crime.