Enrico struggled to speak.
‘Please ... Excellency ... no games ... ’s true ... no shadow...’
The Ambassador released him. ‘You had better not be making this up,’ he said, pouring more wine for both of them. Enrico gulped his thirstily, massaging his bruised throat. But though his neck was hurting, he felt secretly elated. This had to mean good money.
When Tom rang the doorbell, Lucien was still asleep. He came down the stairs rubbing his eyes, but at least he was feeling more human.
‘Hey!’ said Tom. ‘I thought you were feeling better.’
‘I am, honestly,’ said Lucien, though he now felt bad about what he was going to do to Tom. At least they had a few hours together. Tom had brought lots of CDs and some photos of the disco. He was very chatty, because he had taken Katie and they were now an item. It was lucky that Lucien didn’t have to say much, because his mind was still on Bellezza, anticipating the night’s revels.
If you’d asked him a year ago whether he’d be more interested in a disco or watching fireworks with a lot of adults wearing masks, there would have been no contest, he thought. And there was no contest now.
The Ambassador was pacing his room in high excitement. It was all within his grasp now – Bellezza, the Kingdom, and now the key to the mystery that the di Chimici family had been pursuing for years. Then he, Rinaldo, would be one of the most important members of the family. Perhaps he would even become head of it? His ambition was without limit. A vision of a silver crown floated before his eyes.
*
‘Who is it this time?’ asked the Duchessa, but immediately became bored with the subject. ‘No, don’t tell me. Just put her in the dress, wind her up and set her off across the boats.’
She adjusted the lavender and silver mask, and went to meet the Reman Ambassador in her most formal audience chamber. It was lined with glass and mirrors and had been designed to confuse visitors. Thus, Rinaldo di Chimici found himself bowing to a reflection of a gorgeous vision in violet.
‘I’m over here,’ said the Duchessa mockingly, and at that moment the Ambassador was so furious at her treatment of him that he didn’t care any more about what was going to happen to her. By the end of the evening he would have Bellezza in the palm of his hand and a much greater goal within his reach.
The Ducal party walked the short distance to the Piazzetta, where the black and silver State mandola was moored, with an only slightly less ornate one behind it. Di Chimici handed the Duchessa formally into the first vessel, where she was instantly engulfed in a flurry of silver brocade, which was then tightly drawn around the cabin in the middle. Then he stepped into the second mandola and the two boats moved out towards the mouth of the Great Canal.
Lucien and Arianna were on the near side of the water, waiting for the fireworks. The Duchessa would step on to the bridge of boats and then, escorted by the Ambassador, walk across it to the new church and declare it open. At that moment the fireworks would begin. While the consecration service was being performed by the Bishop of Bellezza, the State mandola would glide across the canal to collect the Duchessa and bring her back to the square. A feast would be waiting in her Palazzo, for all the dignitaries of church and state. The people, in the usual manner of lagooners, would hold their own party in the Piazza.
‘I can’t wait to see the fireworks!’ said Arianna excitedly. ‘Aren’t you thrilled to think you made some of them? What’s the best one going to be?’
‘It’s a secret,’ said Lucien, ‘You’ll have to wait and see.’
He was as jumpy as a cat with new kittens. He kept thinking that any minute now, Rodolfo would realize he hadn’t stravagated back to his own world and come striding through the crowd to dispatch him home. He was also sure he had spotted the man in the blue cloak in the mass of people thronging the canalside.
He knew the sequence of fireworks and, as soon as the set piece with the Maddalena’s rainbow hair had finished, he planned to disappear. He was still feeling mean about telling Tom he was too tired for him to stay on after lunch. He thought he would never forget Tom’s face when he had sent him home, half disappointed and half what? Understanding? Lucien had a horrible feeling that Tom’s other emotion might have been relief.
He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. If his best friend in one world was getting a bit bored with the company of an invalid, at least his best friend in this world was glad to be with him. He smiled at Arianna’s animated face. She certainly knew how to enjoy herself. He decided that for the rest of the evening he was going to behave like a true Bellezzan and live for the moment.
*
Inside the State mandola it was a bit of a squash. The Duchessa, her double, and one serving-woman were squeezed together in a space only big enough for two. The second ‘Duchessa’ was obviously terrified, her eyes big behind the mask. The real one was merely bored, as she had so often been of late.
It had been getting worse since the day she had seen the brown-haired girl in the square. A restlessness and dissatisfaction with her own life had overtaken her. It was a torment to her to sit enclosed with a servant and another stupid peasant girl who would be able to enact the deception only by the thought of the purse of silver.
I don’t know how many more of these charades I can endure, she thought to herself. But at least I shan’t have to put up with that dolt of an Ambassador with his endless talk of the treaty and his horrible smelly handkerchief. Honestly, you’d think a di Chimici would have a more expensive scent, one from Giglia, where they have perfected the making of perfume.
And then he was at the cabin curtain and the Duchessa practically had to push the impostor out, so much was she trembling.
The young woman’s trembling didn’t show in the flickering light of the torches and Rinaldo di Chimici had to force himself to believe that this was not the true Duchessa he was leading carefully from boat to boat. Slowly and precisely, they stepped from vessel to vessel, the keels bobbing on the water. It was a progress that had to be undertaken with great care. A mis-step could land them both in the stinking canal. He shuddered at the thought and pressed his lace handkerchief more tightly to his nose. The crowd on either bank were cheering wildly. They loved their Duchessa and every time she appeared in public, she looked lovelier and younger to her people. The very sight of her made them feel their city was safe and the most important and splendid in the country.
When the resplendent pair reached the middle of the bridge of boats, the first rocket went up, exploding precisely above their heads, illuminating them and all the crowd with a shower of violet and silver stars.
Watching through a chink in the brocade curtains, the real Duchessa smiled. Rodolfo paid such attention to detail. He always found out what she would be wearing on State occasions when he had fireworks to make.
A little way behind the State mandola, Lucien swelled with pride. ‘That’s one of mine!’ he yelled to Arianna across the roar of the crowd. She smiled at him, her violet eyes shining like the firework breaking over her. She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back.
A tall figure slipped through the crowd towards the State mandola. No one noticed him go. All eyes were on the procession across the bridge of boats and the galaxy of light and colour that illuminated their way.
A skein of silver birds flew across the sky. Then a peacock spread its blue and purple and green tail magnificently, till it filled the horizon. A phoenix laid a golden egg then glowed from gold to red and disappeared in a spray of stars. The egg hung in the air till a new phoenix hatched out of it in a new splendour of red and gold. A silver ram walked across the black night to the hoarse cheers of Bellezzans.
And then, at the climax of the display, a massive green dragon blazed across the sky. The set-piece of the Maddalena exploded higher against the night. A huge crystal tear fell from her eye and landed on the dragon, which dissolved into
a million red and gold stars. At that precise moment the full moon came out from behind a cloud and shone through the Saint’s rainbow hair.
Lucien thought his heart would stop. With the commotion of the crowd going mad about the effects he had helped to create, he didn’t notice the State mandola gliding off through the water, nor the dark figure crouched at the opposite end from the mandolier. He saw only that Rodolfo had been right. As the last dazzling rainbow tresses seemed to fall into the water, Bellezzans began leaping into the canal.
A madness overtook Lucien. He knew he couldn’t take any silver back to his world, even if he found it. He knew too that he should go now, should stravagate before the feast. But at that moment he was a Bellezzan through and through. In the blink of an eye, he had taken a sighting on where a lock of the Saint’s multi-coloured hair had disappeared and dived into the canal himself.
*
‘Exquisite,’ murmured the Duchessa, feeling the mandola move beneath her as the Saint dissolved, leaving the moon bathing the city in silver, its citizens afflicted with one of their regular fits of madness. She wasn’t bored any more but filled with a fierce tenderness for her silly, loyal, patriotic subjects. The thing they had in common with her was their passion for their city. The Duchessa had to suppress a tear behind her mask. It would never do to stain it.
Then the silver curtain was wrenched back and a tall red-headed young man put a dagger to her throat.
*
Lucien came up spluttering, having grabbed something from the canal. The water tasted filthy but the coldness of it brought him to his senses. He suddenly thought with horror that his notebook would be getting wet and he didn’t know if he could stravagate with a soggy talisman. Real panic set in when, shaking the hair out of his eyes, he realized he had drifted into the centre of the canal. His one thought was to get out of the water and, seeing a mandola coming past him, he grabbed at the side and, with a huge effort, hauled himself aboard.
*
The Duchessa knew she was going to die. A thousand regrets flooded her mind but not for her personal safety; they were all to do with the city, Rodolfo and the brown-haired girl.
Inside the cabin all was silent. The assassin said not a word and the waiting-woman was frozen with terror. The mandolier obviously hadn’t realized that anyone had climbed aboard and was calmly sculling his way across the canal mouth to the new church to wait, as he thought, for the Duchessa to come out after the consecration.
The assassin waited a long moment with the blade of his dagger at the Duchessa’s white throat.
And then all was chaos and water as the mandola rocked dangerously and a very wet young man flung himself into the already crowded cabin. Lucien registered all at once that he was in the State mandola with the Duchessa and his instincts took over. He knew she shouldn’t be there; he had just seen her walk across the bridge of boats. But there she was without doubt. He knew her violet eyes and her heavenly scent. And there was an unknown man holding a dagger.
In a split second there flashed through Lucien’s mind the thought that he might die here in the Bellezza Great Canal. But it also came to him that it would be worth it, to save the Duchessa. He launched himself at the startled assassin and, catching him off balance, wrenched the dagger out of his hand.
Chapter 11
The Hand of Fortune
The mandola rocked wildly on the water. There were too many people inside. The Duchessa’s waiting-woman very sensibly put her head outside the silver curtain and shouted to the mandolier. He stopped trying to steady the vessel and looked in on the mayhem in the cabin. His eyes bulged when he saw the Duchessa, a fact that Silvia immediately noted as telling in his favour. He obviously hadn’t been part of the plot.
The mandolier helped Lucien to bind the assassin with the silver cords used for holding back the brocade curtains. Lucien put the merlino-blade in his own belt. As soon as the assassin was safely trussed up, the Duchessa took command of the situation.
‘You – Marco, isn’t it?’ she said to the mandolier.
‘Yes, Your Grace,’ he said, uncertain about the person he was addressing, but taking the safe side.
‘You have done me good service tonight and you will be rewarded. But you are to say not a word about it until you appear as a witness in Council for the trial of this miserable traitor and whoever his masters are. Understand?’
‘I understand, milady.’
‘Good. But now, we must get the villain and this young hero who has saved my life back to the Palazzo. Can you do this and help us as discreetly as possible to get them into my apartments?’
‘Yes, milady,’ said the mandolier, quite convinced about the Duchessa’s identity now. Then he hesitated. ‘But what about the other lady, milady? The one who walked across the boats?’
Behind her mask, the Duchessa’s lip curled in disdain. ‘Let the Reman Ambassador bring her back in his mandola. I shouldn’t wonder if he knows something of events here on mine tonight.’
Marco went back to the end of the State vessel and sculled for dear life back to the Piazzetta. No one noticed the black mandola slipping through the water, except a tall figure on the fireworks platform, who knew that it was not supposed to be returning to that shore without collecting the Duchessa. Rodolfo immediately ordered Alfredo to take him back too.
*
The substitute Duchessa, a baker’s daughter called Simonetta, was very uncomfortable. The church service had been all right, if a bit long, and she had been drilled in when to stand and sit and kneel, which was useful, since she wasn’t much of a churchgoer herself.
But when she came out of the church it was all wrong. She enjoyed the cheers of the crowd, just as she had on the walk across all those boats, but where was the State mandola? Getting back into that and being given her payment was the part that had kept Simonetta going throughout the deception.
The Ambassador was at her elbow in a moment. Suppressing the joy and fear he felt at the plot obviously having worked, he guided the fake Duchessa into his own mandola. ‘We’ll go back in mine, my dear,’ he said, much more familiarly than he would have dared with the real Duchessa.
Once inside the cabin, the young girl’s terror and confusion increased. She had not been coached for anything like this. Suppose the Ambassador wanted to talk to her?
But she needn’t have worried. Rinaldo di Chimici was too full of his own thoughts to make conversation.
*
Some of the Duchessa’s personal guard were waiting at the Piazzetta and were very surprised to see the State mandola back so soon. But they quickly snapped into action when they saw the trussed-up assassin and the dripping Lucien. The man was taken straight to the dungeons and the Duchessa’s waiting-woman hurried her and Lucien up into the palazzo. Fortunately, there was hardly anyone about in the square. They were all down by the canal waiting for the return of the fake Duchessa. So they missed the real one.
Once the party had reached the safety of the Duchessa’s private apartments, more women fussed around them. A hot bath was organized for Lucien and women dabbed at the muddy marks that he had made on the Duchessa’s satin dress while struggling with the assassin.
‘Take off those wet things,’ ordered the Duchessa.
Lucien felt himself blushing as he stood dripping canal water all over the Duchessa’s priceless rug.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! Someone give him a towel! Do you think I’m going to eat you, boy? Wine, please, and quickly.’
Wrapped in a towel and taking huge gulps of the red Bellezzan wine, Lucien began to feel a bit better. He hadn’t let the waiting-women take the dagger, or the notebook, which was just a bit damp. They had giggled over his underwear, which he had made them promise to bring back as soon as it was dry.
The Duchessa drank deeply herself. If it hadn’t been for the sudden arrival of Luc
ien, she had some doubts about what would have been the outcome of this evening.
The waiting-woman from the mandola held up a dripping wet bag. ‘What shall I do with this, milady?’
Lucien remembered. When he had dived in after the rainbows, his hand had closed round the neck of a canvas bag. At the time he had been concentrating on getting back up to the surface without drinking more canal water than he had to. He supposed he must have dropped it over the side of the Duchessa’s mandola when he climbed aboard it. Not that he had known it was hers. He was still totally confused about why she had been there, when he’d seen her walk across the bridge of boats only minutes before.
‘So,’ said the Duchessa when she saw the bag. ‘You were one of the silver-divers. I’m glad the rumour of my largesse spread, though I hope I don’t have to make it an annual custom. This is a special year, you know, with the Chiesa delle Grazie having been completed, along with twenty-five years of my reign. Go on, take it. You earned it.’
Lucien prised open the wet cord around the neck of the bag and saw the glint of silver inside.
‘You know I can’t take it home, don’t you, Your Grace?’ he said, confused.
‘I don’t mind where you keep it,’ said the Duchessa, fixing him with her intense gaze. ‘You shall have fifty times what is in that bag for the service you rendered me tonight. Let Rodolfo look after it for you,’ she added, seeing that Lucien was about to protest.
‘Now leave us,’ she told her waiting-women.
Lucien had no time to feel nervous about being alone with her, because, as soon as he was, the door to the secret passage behind the Duchessa’s peacock sconce swung out and Rodolfo stepped through.
‘What has happened?’ he asked, looking anxiously at Lucien, who stood naked apart from his towel, still holding the dripping bag. ‘And what are you doing in Bellezza at this time of night?’
The Duchessa was looking at him too. ‘Oh, do get in that bath before it goes cold! Look, there is a screen, you know. I must tell Rodolfo what happened.’