So this was Sulien’s surprise – for Sky to meet the mysterious Lucien! The two boys recognised each other straightaway, though one was dressed as a Dominican friar and the other as a Bellezzan nobleman.
‘This is bizarre, isn’t it?’ said Luciano, as Gaetano pretended to explain the painting to them.
‘Incredible,’ said Sky.
It was the old Lucien Mulholland, all right, alive and well. He seemed at ease in his grand surroundings and to be on friendly terms with Gaetano, who now asked the usual question, ‘How is my brother?’
‘He’s well,’ said Sky. ‘He’s teaching me to fence.’
‘Good idea,’ said Luciano. ‘You need to be careful here. Gaetano won’t mind my saying that his father and brothers are dangerous people – even if they are on their best behaviour tonight.’
Gaetano shook his head sadly. ‘But it’s not just my family. The Nucci are gathering in their old tower and I dread what they might be planning for the weddings.’
‘How’s Georgia?’ asked Luciano. ‘You do know her as well as Falco, don’t you?’
‘She’s fine,’ said Sky. ‘Off to Devon with her friend Alice. They’re both going, her and Nicholas, I mean. You know that’s Falco’s new name?’
‘Yes,’ said Luciano. ‘Georgia dreamed it up when we were planning his translation. I still find it hard to believe we actually pulled it off. It was mainly Falco, of course. It would all have fallen apart if he hadn’t been so determined.’
‘He’s still that,’ said Sky. ‘In fact he’s desperate to come here and see his family. But that would be madness, wouldn’t it? Even if his talisman could bring him to Giglia, he’d be recognised. And he’s supposed to be dead!’
‘It would be wonderful to see him again,’ sighed Gaetano.
‘Rodolfo and I are working on the talisman problem,’ said Luciano, ‘with Doctor Dethridge. You know who that is?’
‘The Granddaddy of them all,’ said Sky, ruefully.
‘We have so much to catch up on,’ said Luciano. ‘Can I come and see you at the friary tomorrow?’
Sky just had time to say yes, when dinner was announced and the Duke led the way into a dining room even grander than his salon. Just the sight of the table made Sky feel nervous. Meals at home were eaten in the kitchen with Rosalind or on their laps in front of the television, and now here was a long, marble-topped table, with silver candelabra, wine goblets and a huge silver ornament in the middle.
Luckily he was shown to a seat between Luciano and Gaetano and opposite Beatrice so, although he couldn’t talk about the things most on his mind, his position wasn’t too terrifying. Rodolfo spent most of the meal in conversation with Sulien and the Duke, and Sky knew that the two older Stravaganti were under the same constraints as him and Luciano, which made him feel better.
Servants kept the red wine coming and Sky sipped his cautiously, noticing that the other young men knocked it back easily. He wasn’t sure he liked it, but there was nothing else to drink and some of the dishes were quite salty. He noticed an extra servant, who stood permanently at the Duke’s right elbow and who tried every dish and the wine too, before Niccolò allowed himself anything. His taster, presumably. What a frustrating job, thought Sky. Either you clutched your throat and fell down with agonising stomach pains, or the food and drink were perfectly OK and you couldn’t have more than a sip or morsel of them.
The food was more recognisable than Sky had feared. There was a green soup which Gaetano said was made from nettles, but which was surprisingly tasty, and then a kind of white fish which was cold and soused in vinegar. That was not so nice but Sky was hungry. The next dish was a risotto with what turned out to be duck. But startlingly it was decorated with little pieces of silver foil – not the sort you’d wrap round a turkey in Sky’s world but more like the thin slivers he had sometimes seen on Indian sweets. By the time that the servants brought a sort of sweet pizza, with raisins and sugar and cinnamon, and a dizzyingly sweet wine to go with it, Sky was quite stuffed.
He noticed that Luciano’s attention was distracted. What had the Duke just said? He had asked after the Duchessa, Sky thought, but his brain felt a little fuddled, even after a small amount of wine.
‘My daughter is very well, thank you,’ Rodolfo was now saying.
‘Charming young woman,’ said Niccolò. ‘It was a great disappointment to me that she refused to become part of my family.’
Luciano and Gaetano both tensed and Gaetano started to blush.
‘Not that I am not perfectly happy for Gaetano to marry his cousin,’ the Duke continued smoothly.
‘Indeed, Francesca di Chimici is also a very lovely young woman,’ said Rodolfo.
‘I have sent her a gift,’ said Niccolò.
‘Francesca?’ asked Rodolfo, as if he didn’t know all about it.
‘The Duchessa,’ said Niccolò. ‘A paltry garment, which I hope she will do me the honour of wearing to the wedding.’
‘The honour will be hers, I am sure,’ said Rodolfo.
‘Tell me,’ said the Duke casually, ‘do you think the young Duchessa would be equally averse to all members of my family?’ Everyone round the table was surprised. Sky thought the Duke might be going to suggest yet another nephew or cousin of his, but all the others knew that the choice of di Chimici suitors would be very limited. The forthcoming weddings would tie up most eligible di Chimici males.
‘I have been thinking,’ continued the Duke, ‘of re-marrying myself. And I think perhaps I erred in sending the Duchessa so young and inexperienced a suitor to court her, fond though I am of Gaetano. It perhaps proves the truth of the saying “Never send a boy to do a man’s job”. What do you think your daughter would say to the suggestion of becoming my Grand Duchess?’
There was silence around the table, but Sky had seen Rodolfo’s eyes move straight to Luciano and the boy was fixed in his place only by the intensity of the message that gaze was sending. Both Rodolfo and Luciano had turned quite pale but it was Brother Sulien who spoke first.
‘Does this mean you are taking the title of Grand Duke, your Grace?’ he said. ‘May we offer our congratulations?’
It was clear that most of his children hadn’t known what the Duke was intending; only Carlo looked less than amazed.
‘I shall make a public announcement of my intention the night before the weddings, at the feast,’ said the Duke. ‘That is, as far as my new title is concerned. I think the time is right to become Grand Duke of Tuschia.’
‘Then we must congratulate your Grace,’ said Rodolfo diplomatically, raising his goblet as if in a toast. ‘As for my daughter, I’m sure she will hear your suit with the honour due to it when she arrives in Giglia.’
Fabrizio was very torn. He had no objections to inheriting an even grander title when his father died, but Niccolò’s plan to marry again appalled him. He didn’t want a stepmother younger than himself, however beautiful, and he could see that Gaetano and Beatrice at least shared his view. None of them had any doubt that their father’s courtship would succeed. Who could refuse such a man and such a title?
For Luciano, the rest of the evening was sheer torment. He couldn’t wait to get out of the palace. In fact, the four Stravaganti left the palace together, after much tedious ceremony, and Gaetano had time only to whisper that he would meet the others at the friary the next day.
Sky knew that Luciano was still being restrained by the silent force of his master’s will until they were well away from the Via Larga. But as soon as that control was relaxed, Luciano exploded.
‘So that was what the dress was all about! And the grand dinner! We’re supposed to be impressed. But I’ll never let Arianna marry that monster. I’ll kill him myself first!’
Chapter 11
Daggers Drawn
Sky woke up in the middle of the afternoon with a mini-hangover. He was surprised to find he could still taste the sweet dessert wine that he had gulped down in his nervousness at the Duke’s announcement. He
got up and showered and brushed his teeth extra thoroughly and drank two glasses of water before Rosalind got in.
He was just wondering what to eat and what meal to call it when he heard his mother’s key in the lock. She was in a good mood but tired.
‘Tea!’ she moaned, falling into her chair in mock exhaustion.
‘How was your lunch?’ he asked, as he made Rosalind tea and himself toast and marmalade.
‘Good,’ said Rosalind. ‘Laura’s always a tonic. She’s a Councillor now, you know. I bet she’ll end up an MP herself one day, instead of looking after them.’
‘Perhaps she’ll be Prime Minister?’ suggested Sky. ‘Imagine – there’d be laws making it illegal not to have parties every weekend.’
Rosalind giggled. ‘I don’t know where she gets her energy from. I used to think she’d stolen some of mine. Is that your breakfast, by the way? I know you said you wanted a lie-in, but I hope you didn’t mean till four o’clock.’
Sky just grinned. ‘Want some?’ he asked. He couldn’t decide if he felt tired because of spending a day and most of a night in Giglia or refreshed by having spent nearly sixteen hours in bed.
The phone rang. It was Nicholas. Sky took the phone into his bedroom. ‘How did it go, dinner with my family?’ was Nick’s first question.
‘OK, I suppose,’ said Sky. ‘I mean, no one got poisoned and I didn’t spill my soup. But I still feel a bit drunk.’
‘Who else was there?’
‘Luciano and Rodolfo. Luciano recognised me straightaway.’
‘He’s nice, isn’t he?’
‘Yeah. I can see what Georgia saw in him.’
There was an awkward silence at the other end of the line.
‘You know that, then?’ said Nicholas quietly.
‘Pretty obvious, I’d have thought.’
‘Like you and Alice?’
‘Touché,’ said Sky. ‘Don’t worry – there’s no future in it, with him stuck in the past, if you see what I mean.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ said Nicholas. ‘She’s as keen as I am to go back, if something could be worked out about the talismans.’
‘Luciano said something about that. I think Rodolfo and Doctor Dethridge are on the case.’
‘I think the only thing that stops her is that Luciano is in love with Arianna,’ said Nicholas.
‘Um . . . about that,’ said Sky. ‘Your father made an announcement at dinner that didn’t go down too well with Luciano.’
Sandro hadn’t gone back to his lodgings. He had hung about the friary with his dog, feeling left out while Sulien and Tino were at the di Chimici Palazzo, and had eventually curled up in a corner of Sulien’s laboratory, wrapped tightly in his thin cloak, with Fratello sleeping on his feet. The pharmacist found them after Sky had stravagated back home.
Brother Sulien covered the boy with his own thick black robe and didn’t wake him then or when he got up early to walk the maze. Sandro was only beginning to stir when the friar came back from the church.
‘Breakfast?’ asked Sulien, and took the boy to the refectory for porridge and honey and milk still warm from the friary’s goats. Fratello was banished to the yard but Sandro begged a bone for him from Brother Tullio.
It was only when they had both satisfied their appetite that they spoke.
‘You seem to have moved in,’ remarked Sulien conversationally.
‘Only for one night,’ said Sandro. ‘I’ve got to be back outside the Nucci place tomorrow, so I thought why go home?’
‘Where is home?’ asked Sulien.
Sandro shrugged. ‘Don’t really have one. Not family, anyway. Just lodgings, up near where you were last night.’
‘I know you were found by the orphanage near the Duomo,’ said Sulien. ‘Was there never any search for your mother?’
‘Not that I know of,’ said Sandro. ‘She was probably glad to get rid of me. I expect she was an unmarried girl – or a whore, I suppose.’
‘You are still bitter about it,’ said Sulien. ‘Come with me. I’d like to show you something, if you don’t have to go on duty straightaway.’
They picked up Fratello and walked in the direction of the Duomo, but branched off left into a little piazza, called Limbo. It was quiet and deserted, with a tiny old church in one corner. In front of it was a little graveyard, full of small white stones.
‘You know what this is?’ asked Sulien.
‘Yes, it’s where they bury the babies.’
‘The unbaptised ones, whose souls are in limbo,’ nodded Sulien. ‘They were born dead or died too soon after their birth to be given their names and welcomed into the church.’
‘What are you trying to tell me?’ said Sandro.
‘There are lives which have a bad start, like yours, and there are those that don’t start at all, like those of these innocent children,’ said Sulien. ‘But we are all in limbo unless we choose to let our lives begin and take us somewhere.’
‘I must be getting back to the Nucci now,’ said Sandro. But Sulien had given him something to think about.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Georgia flatly. ‘If she wouldn’t have Gaetano, who’s a really nice guy, she won’t take the Duke. Arianna hates the di Chimici – him most of all.’
But even as she said it, a little green devil lodged in her brain was thinking, But if she did marry the Duke, that would take her out of Luciano’s reach for ever.
‘I know that,’ said Sky. ‘But Rodolfo seems to think she can’t just turn him down. And he’s going to make himself Grand Duke now, whatever that means.’
‘It means that my family will be even more important in Tuschia,’ said Nicholas stiffly.
They were in Sky’s room, discussing his latest visit to Talia.
‘I’m sorry, Nick,’ said Georgia. ‘But you’ve got to stop thinking of them as your family. Vicky and David are your family now, not the di Chimici, and I can’t pussyfoot around your feelings every time we talk about them. You know what your father is capable of.’
‘It is not easy to stop thinking of those who are in Talia just because you can’t see them any more,’ said Nicholas, staring at Georgia till she changed colour.
‘The point is,’ said Sky patiently, ‘I think it’s going to mean more trouble. Luciano won’t give her up without a fight – literally. Rodolfo was able to control him yesterday but that won’t last for long. Arianna’ll be in the city soon, for sittings with Giuditta the sculptor, and things will come to a head then.’
‘What does Gaetano think?’ asked Georgia.
‘I don’t know,’ said Sky. ‘He’s coming to see me tomorrow. So is Luciano.’
‘This is unbearable,’ said Nicholas. ‘I must find a new talisman and get back to Giglia. Can’t you bring me something? You could have picked up a spoon or something at my father’s table.’
Sky had a vision of what the Duke would have said if he had caught him smuggling silverware out of the palace.
‘Don’t be so stupid, Nick!’ said Georgia, really angry. ‘You know that Sky isn’t trained to do that – only the Talian Stravaganti bring talismans from world to world.’
‘You did it for me,’ said Nicholas.
‘It wasn’t the same,’ said Georgia, exasperated. ‘That was the eyebrow ring I had with me all the time in Talia. But, while we’re on the subject, I did it because you were so desperate to come here, remember?’
It was the closest Sky had ever seen them get to a row. Nicholas was flushed, his hands clenched, and Georgia looked as if she wanted to slap him.
‘And now I’m desperate to go back!’ Nicholas retorted. ‘And so are you, admit it!’
Luciano hadn’t slept all night. He tangled himself in the bed covers, thinking of what he would do if Arianna even pretended to listen to the Duke’s offer. He drove himself mad with visions of her as Niccolò’s Grand Duchess, wearing dresses every day like the jewel-encrusted monstrosity she had been sent for the di Chimici weddings.
Ever sin
ce she had become Duchessa, the Arianna he had known and explored the canals of Bellezza with had seemed to be drifting away from him. She was still friendly and warm towards him, even flirtatious sometimes, but her many official duties and her necessarily grand lifestyle made her seem more and more remote in his eyes. And what was he? A Cavaliere of Bellezza, waiting to go to university. He didn’t have a real aristocratic title, like a di Chimici, or even a job that would make him rich.
Now he longed to ride back to Bellezza and grab Arianna’s hand and lead her, laughing, into a rowing boat and take her to empty her foster-brothers’ lobster pots on Merlino or to eat cakes in her grandparents’ house on Burlesca.
But it was no good. In a few days, the Duchessa would be here in Giglia, escorted by Dethridge – and Silvia, who could never keep away from where the action was, or from Rodolfo, for long. And here Arianna would have to be every inch the Duchessa, with her maids and her dressmakers and her hairdresser and her footmen and her bodyguards, and Luciano would be just another admirer she had to fit into her schedule.
He got up and dressed, and went downstairs, where he found Rodolfo already sitting having an early breakfast, served by their landlord.
‘So, you couldn’t sleep either?’ said his master. ‘I’m not surprised. These are deep waters we are in.’
The landlord, catching the last words, said, ‘Indeed, masters, the Argento hasn’t run so high in spring for a hundred years, or so people are saying in the city. It’s the heavy winter rains we had. They reckon there’s a real danger of flood by Easter.’
‘Then I hope it drowns the Duke,’ said Luciano gloomily.
The landlord looked shocked to hear such seditious words in his house.
‘Take no notice of my young friend,’ said Rodolfo. ‘He drank too freely of the Duke’s wine last night. And now he needs coffee and eggs.’
The man backed out hastily.