In Italy, as in Elizabeth’s England, there was a hatred and distrust of anything magical. No matter that the Queen had her own astrologer, who had chosen her coronation day in accordance with the stars. Now the unexplained equalled the unlawful and anyone, like himself, who had a connection with Italy, was immediately under suspicion. That was where the great occult masters lived – something common to the countries in both dimensions.
Dethridge trusted Rodolfo and believed him to be the most powerful Stravagante in Talia. If Talia was turning away from magic, under the di Chimici, then association with Rodolfo might well be dangerous, but Dethridge preferred trusting in the magician’s powers to staying alone in the walled city. Everywhere he went he heard the word ‘strega’, a word that he knew meant ‘witch’, as well as a strong drink. And in the centre of the town square a bonfire was being built.
The fear of death by burning was strong upon him since he had escaped the sentence in his own world. And regaining his shadow and being permanently stranded in Talia had further helped to unhinge his mind. He could not bear to think of the wife and children he would not see again, and he could not believe that he was safe from persecution. When he saw the fire being prepared, he immediately assumed that someone in Montemurato knew what he was – or what he had been.
Now, as dawn broke and the boat approached the shining silver city, he breathed easily for the first time in days. It was hard to believe that somewhere so beautiful could also be dangerous.
*
Enrico was consolidating his friendship with Giuseppe, the Duchessa’s spy, over a glass or two of his favourite liqueur. The two men had met on several occasions since that first night when their assignments had led them both to Leonora Gasparini’s doorway and they had pooled information. Now, the two men knocked back Strega in the little bar near the boarded-up theatre. As the evening wore on, they became more friendly with one another and with the normally morose man behind the bar.
‘Ancora!’ slurred Enrico. ‘Have another one on me. And you too, my friend with the bottle. Have one yourself.’
No one in Bellezza ever said things like: ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ There were no cars for drunken citizens to drive, not even any horse-carts. So they were no danger to anyone but themselves. The worse that could happen to an inebriated Bellezzan was to fall into the canal and, if he did, nine times out of ten the shock of the cold water was enough to sober him up.
Indeed, such things had happened to Enrico in the past. Now, however, he was not as drunk as he seemed. He needed information that only Giuseppe and the barman could provide and he was becoming too good a spy to miss the opportunity.
‘You know that lad we were discussing the other day,’ he now said to the landlord, judging the moment had come. ‘The one you said was here on the Giornata Vietata,’ lowering his voice.
‘What about him?’ said the landlord, looking nervously round the bar. This was dangerous talk.
‘Well, you remember that girl he was with, both times?’
‘The pretty one?’ said the landlord. ‘Yes, I know her. Lives with her aunt near San Sulien.’
Enrico looked triumphantly at his new friend. This was going to be easier than he thought. ‘You see, Beppe? It is the same one. The one you followed to the islands. Now, tell our friend here what you found out.’
‘She’s only living with her aunt for the summer,’ said Giuseppe. ‘She was born on Torrone. Her parents still live there.’
‘You see?’ said Enrico in a whisper. ‘Another traitor! That’s both of them in the city on the forbidden day!’
The landlord was uneasy. A boy was one thing; that one was almost a man. But a soft young girl, and one as pretty as that – it didn’t bear thinking of.
‘You’d both be willing to testify before the Council, wouldn’t you?’ asked Enrico and he took out his purse to pay for the evening’s drinks. Both men saw that it was heavy with silver. ‘Same terms as with the boy,’ he said to the landlord. ‘Half now and half after you’ve given evidence.’
The landlord licked his lips. After all, it wasn’t right to let the young people get away with such blasphemy. Everyone in Bellezza knew the rule about the forbidden day. He just nodded slightly, but that was enough for Enrico.
‘Ancora!’ he called at the top of his voice. He now had two witnesses who would seal the fate of Rodolfo’s apprentice and his little girlfriend. And the best part was that the Duchessa, presiding over the Council, would have to pronounce their death sentences herself. The only way they could be reprieved would be if Bellezza joined the Republic. Then the Federal law would outweigh Bellezza’s own poxy little rules.
So the Duchessa’s greatest friend and admirer would be turned to the di Chimici side, persuading her to sign the treaty so the boy could be saved. And the boy would be persuading Rodolfo, because of the girl. Neat. Absolutely foolproof. Enrico tossed off another glass; there was no need to keep a cool head now. He would tell Giuliana she could order her trousseau tomorrow.
*
Arianna was feeling sad. There were only a few days left when she could spend her afternoons with Lucien and now that they had quarrelled, she didn’t know if they would have even those. Of course he would only be away for a week, but she knew that everything would be different when he got back. The summer would be coming to an end and she would have to go back to her life on Torrone.
She didn’t know how she was going to bear it. The pressure would begin to build up on her to marry once she was sixteen and she didn’t know who in Talia could suit her after her friendship with the black-haired boy from another world.
She heaved a big sigh, then shook herself. This was not the Bellezzan way. Live for the moment. Enjoy the day. When Lucien arrived at the fountain, Arianna was waiting for him with the usual sparkle in her eyes and no hint of her previous dejection. She was so relieved to see him that she didn’t refer to their quarrel.
‘We are going somewhere different today,’ she said straightaway and led him out of the garden and through the maze of calles down to a spot on the Great Canal where they could catch a ferry. The ferries were cheaper than travelling by mandola, just as they were in the Venice of Lucien’s world. They criss-crossed the Great Canal like moving bridges.
And once they were across, Lucien and Arianna did not stop to explore the quarter on the far side of the Great Canal. They walked quickly through it and found themselves walking alongside another canal and crossing a stone bridge. On the other side was a boatyard where half a dozen black mandolas were drawn up out of the water.
‘What is this place?’ asked Lucien.
‘The Squero di Florio e Lauro,’ said Arianna. ‘They were two saints. See – that big church over there is dedicated to them.’
‘Who were they?’ asked Lucien. He didn’t know all that many saints and he certainly hadn’t heard of these two.
‘Oh, just some pair of twins,’ said Arianna airily. ‘They are supposed to have saved the island from invaders by praying. But some people think they were the Great Twins – you know, the Gemelli who are in the stars.’
‘And are they the patron saints, or gods, of mandolas?’ asked Lucien, who was getting used to the Bellezzans’ belt-and-braces approach to religion.
Arianna shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. The Squero is just named after them because it’s near the church.’
The mandolas were having their keels scraped and re-caulked. But behind them Lucien spotted a new mandola being built. It was the most beautiful vessel of them all. It was black, like all of them, but there was something extra graceful in its clean lines. Lucien was seized with a desire to stand on its stern and take it through the Bellezzan waterways. He turned and saw that Arianna had the identical expression. She grinned at him and he smiled back. Who knew? Maybe one day he would have a mandola in Bellezza, that one or one very like it.
*
When Lucien turned up for his last morning of lessons with Rodolfo before his trip to Venice, he found to his surprise William Dethridge sitting in an armchair.
‘Gretinges, yonge Lucian,’ said the old man. ‘Thou didst not thinke to finde mee here?’
‘No,’ said Lucien, ‘but I am pleased to see you.’ Slightly awkwardly, he shook Dethridge’s hand.
‘Youre apprentiss hath godly maneres,’ the old man said approvingly to Rodolfo, who was over by his magic mirrors.
Rodolfo turned and smiled. Then he bowed.
‘It is an honour to me to have two Stravaganti from the other world in my laboratory,’ he said.
‘Nay,’ said Dethridge. ‘I am that noe more. Just a naturall philosophere now.’
‘Has it occurred to you that you could go back as a Stravagante from this world?’ asked Rodolfo.
Dethridge paled. ‘I wolde not goe backe to that terrabyl worlde where they wolde burne mee.’
‘No,’ said Rodolfo, soothingly. ‘As a Stravagante from this side, you would find yourself in the future of your old world. You would be in Luciano’s time, a visitor to the twenty-first century. All you need is a talisman which originated from that world. And I suppose you still have the copper dish?’
Dethridge pulled it out of his jerkin. Such an ordinary object to have started the whole business of stravagation, thought Lucien. Now the Elizabethan was looking at it as if it were the most precious thing he had ever seen.
‘I thanke ye, Maister Rudolphe. Ye have given me hope of escape if thinges goe not wele for mee hir. They doe not burn wyches in yonge Lucian’s time?’
‘No,’ said Lucien. ‘I’ve seen people who call themselves witches on daytime TV.’
The two men looked at him as if he spoke of arcane mysteries.
‘But never mind that now,’ said Rodolfo. ‘I think I have found the reason for your fears in Montemurato, Dottore.’
He beckoned them over to the mirrors and showed them the one trained on the city of twelve towers. It was showing the bonfire in the main square. William Dethridge trembled at the sight of it. As they watched, tiny people were heaving what looked like a straw-stuffed scarecrow up to the top of the pile of brushwood.
Lucien understood. ‘It’s a guy!’ he said. ‘They’re going to burn a guy, Doctor Dethridge, not a person. You know, just as we do in England on Guy Fawkes Night. “Remember, remember, the fifth of November” and then we have the fireworks – though they’re nothing like as good as Rodolfo’s.’
He looked up and saw two blank expressions. Lucien’s knowledge of history was really being tested by all this stravagation. ‘I suppose Guy Fawkes hadn’t happened when you left England,’ he said to Dethridge. ‘He tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. I think it was a Catholic plot.’
Dethridge was obviously amazed.
‘Ah, yes, Catholics,’ said Rodolfo. ‘I wanted to talk to you about them, Dottore. But to return to Montemurato, the figure on the bonfire is indeed that of a witch as the Dottore surmised. It is a harmless festival – the Festa della Strega – always held in the walled city at this time of year. It is connected with a story of a witch, a ‘strega’ who flew over the walls a hundred years ago and brought a curse on the city. They keep the curse at bay by ‘burning the witch’ once a year and drinking a lot of the liqueur called Strega too. You must have moved to Montemurato shortly after the last Festa, Dottore. That’s why you haven’t come across it before.’
Dethridge relaxed. ‘So ye doe not burn peple for magicke in Talia?’
Rodolfo did not answer straightaway. He obviously did not want to alarm the old man. ‘We used to,’ he said at last. ‘And then things got better. There is so much of what you call magic in your world and what we call science in Talia. But the di Chimici have been stirring up fear and hatred against the kind of thing I do here. I think it will not be long before they start to persecute the Stravaganti, if only to wrest their secrets from them. But for now, you have nothing to be afraid of.’
‘Come on – we’ll miss the plane,’ said Dad, as Mum checked for the umpteenth time on passports, tickets and money. Lucien havered for a long time about whether to take the notebook, but it didn’t feel safe to leave it behind. He liked to have it with him.
At last, they were on their way to the airport. Lucien spent most of the flight dozing. He had had a busy day in Bellezza the night before, studying stravagation principles with two masters, one from each side, and spending his last afternoon with Arianna exploring the south of the city, before heading back to the laboratory to get home for an early start in his own world.
They landed at a much smaller airport than Heathrow and, using Mum’s guidebook, went into Venice by a variety of means. As their bus travelled across the causeway, Lucien thought of his boat-rides with Rodolfo when they went to Montemurato. The causeway made travel to the city so much easier.
‘Now we get a vaporetto!’ said Mum triumphantly. She had done her homework and led them to a landing stage to catch the number 82. ‘It will take us all the way down the Grand Canal to the Piazza San Marco,’ she said confidently. And it did.
Lucien could not volunteer a word for the whole water journey. His heart was in his mouth. This was, and was not, his city. The canal was so busy with vaporetti, barges and motorboats it took a while to notice the gondolas. But there they were, black and sleek. If Lucien concentrated on them alone, it seemed as if he really were in Bellezza. Except that most of the gondoliers were much too old and fat to please the Duchessa. It made Lucien laugh out loud.
‘What’s so funny, Lucien?’ asked Dad.
Lucien just gave a big grin.
His parents exchanged contented looks. They didn’t know what he was laughing about but they could see the happiness radiating out from him.
Lucien could see his shadow on the floorboards of the vaporetto and it filled him with joy.
The knock on the door was loud and urgent. The maid answered it and was roughly elbowed aside. The two city guards pushed past her and out into the water-garden, where Leonora sat attempting to teach her niece how to embroider a border of strawberry leaves. Arianna was almost relieved to see them, until one said, ‘We have a warrant for the arrest of Arianna Gasparini on a charge of treason.’
Leonora dropped her frame. ‘What nonsense is this?’ she demanded. ‘My niece is not yet sixteen. How could she be any threat to the dukedom?’
‘By flouting one of its most ancient laws,’ said the guard sternly. ‘There is evidence that she was in the city on the Giornata Vietata and that she is not a citizen of Bellezza.’
Aunt Leonora coloured and her hand flew to her mouth. But Arianna stood immobile. She had always known of the risk, when she decided to hide in the Maddalena three months before. Now she knew she must face the consequences of her action.
*
Two different guards were hammering on the door of Rodolfo’s laboratory.
‘Open! In the name of the Bellezza City Watch! We have an arrest warrant!’
They were about to kick down the door when Rodolfo let them in. They looked round the room, expecting a boy, and found only a cowering old man.
‘Where is the boy?’ demanded the senior guard. ‘We have a warrant for the arrest of one Luciano, surname unknown, on a charge of treason.’
‘Yonge Lucian!’ said the old man, uncurling from the armchair. ‘What treasoun colde sich a yongling doe? Ye are mis-taken.’
‘There is no mistake, old man,’ said the second guard. ‘Senator, you are in charge of the youngster?’
‘He is my apprentice, yes,’ agreed Rodolfo.
‘Then where is he? Shouldn’t he be here at his lessons?’
‘He is somewhere in the city,’ said Rodolfo, almost truthfully. ‘Show me the warrant.’
He read the scrap of vellum and his heart sank when he saw the words ‘Giornata Vietata’, but he stayed outwardly calm.
‘We do not have lessons in the afternoon,’ he said, handing back the warrant. ‘You cannot wait here.’
‘Yes we can,’ said the first guard.
‘In that case, my friend and I shall go out,’ said Rodolfo calmly.
‘You can’t do that,’ said the second guard.
‘Oh,’ said Rodolfo, raising an eyebrow. ‘Do you have a warrant for my arrest too? And for that of this eminent Anglian Dottore, Guglielmo Crinamorte?’
Dethridge gave the Senator a quizzical look, but stood up and walked to the door with him.
‘Alfredo,’ said Rodolfo to his manservant, who was just behind the door. ‘Please take care of my guests. They will be here some time, so see they have everything they need. After you, Dottore.’
And the two Stravaganti swept out of the room.
It wasn’t till they got to the bottom of the stairs that Rodolfo said, ‘Quick, into my mandola. I’ll scull us. We need to find Silvia as soon as possible. Thank God the boy is not in Talia.’
The Mulhollands were staying in a little hotel on the Calle Specchieri. The lift was so tiny that only three people could fit in it together. So the family went up in it while a red-jacketed bellboy ran up the stairs with their bags. Their rooms were next to one another on the third floor. Dad gave the bellboy a huge tip.
The boy was back a few minutes later bearing a tray with three slim glasses and a bottle in an ice-bucket. Lucien was in his parents’ room, opening their shutters to see what they had a view of.
‘I didn’t order anything,’ said Dad. ‘There must be some mistake.’
‘Offerto dalla casa,’ said the bellboy, grinning.
‘It’s prosecco,’ said Lucien. ‘It’s a bit like champagne. And I think he said it is on the house.’
‘The ’ouse, sì,’ said the bellboy. ‘Salute!’