*
Rodolfo ran into something soft in the dark – a person coming from the opposite direction. At first he grabbed it by the shoulders to cast it out of his way, but something stopped him. A scent, a caught breath like a sob, and he had the figure in his arms. He did not know how she had survived, but this was Silvia, beyond any doubt.
‘Thank the goddess!’ he whispered.
The woman sighed and took a long, shuddering breath.
‘The goddess might have helped,’ said Silvia, in a shaky voice, ‘but I gave her a hand.’
The two seemed to stand in the dark tunnel for a long time, until their heartbeats returned to normal and they walked slowly back to Rodolfo’s side of the passage.
‘Hevene bee praysed!’ said Dethridge when he saw them emerge. ‘Wee thoghte the worste had happened.’
‘It very nearly did, Dottore,’ said the Duchessa. ‘But it takes more than a di Chimici to kill me.’
‘Luciano,’ said Rodolfo. ‘Give her some wine. She has had a shock.’
‘What happened?’ asked Lucien as he went to a cupboard and poured wine into Rodolfo’s best silver cups.
The Duchessa drank deep before she answered. She was wearing the crimson dress and feathered mask that they had seen in Rodolfo’s mirror only seconds before the explosion. Apart from a little dust and a few cobwebs picked up in the secret passage, her ensemble was undamaged. Rubies glowed at her throat and ears and the fan she still clutched was of blood-red lace.
‘I used a double for my public audience today,’ she said, with only the slightest tremor in her low voice. ‘It was a good idea as it turned out.’
Lucien was appalled. An innocent woman had gone to her death. He knew that a ruler lived with danger. He had helped her survive one assassination attempt already. But suddenly he had the horrible thought that the Duchessa had known very well what she was doing when she sent a substitute into the Glass Room.
Rodolfo obviously had the same thought. ‘You knew that something was going to happen?’
The Duchessa nodded. ‘I had a warning.’
‘Do you know who it was?’ asked Rodolfo through clenched jaws.
‘The instrument was a common rogue, who thought he was murdering Bellezza when in fact he was killing his own fiancée,’ said the Duchessa. ‘But of course the real assassin was the same as last time – Rinaldo di Chimici.’
‘How did you know all this?’ asked Lucien, still shocked that the Duchessa would send another woman to a certain death, even if that woman was somehow connected with the plot.
‘My mother, Arianna’s grandmother, makes lace on Burlesca,’ said the Duchessa, as if she were answering his question.
Lucien wondered if the shock had been too much for her.
‘I know,’ he said ‘I have met her.’
‘Ah yes, I forgot,’ said the Duchessa. ‘Well, if you have seen her work, you must know it’s very good. People come to her from all over the lagoon when they want something special made. And a young woman recently went to see her about a splendid set of wedding-clothes. That woman was boastful about the money her intended husband would be getting for a secret job for Rinaldo di Chimici.’
‘What a coincidence!’ said Lucien.
The Duchessa rubbed her eyes behind the mask. ‘I don’t believe in coincidence,’ she said. ‘It was Fate. My mother managed to get a message to me in a way that only I would have understood. When I had unravelled it, I decided to use that young woman as a substitute today – I had used her before.’
‘But why did she agree if she knew the danger?’ asked Lucien.
‘I don’t suppose she knew when it was going to happen. Probably she didn’t understand herself half the clues she had passed on to my mother. She was greedy and she liked the offer of more money. And she had broken the agreement we made on the occasion of her first impersonation.’
The Duchessa looked at them a shade defiantly, as if challenging any of them to protest against this reasoning. Lucien thought again that she was the most ruthless person he had ever met. He thanked his good fortune that he was on her side in the dangerous and violent world of Talian politics.
‘What happens now?’ asked Rodolfo. ‘Shall I send your guards to arrest di Chimici?’
The Duchessa got up and looked in the mirror which showed the wreckage of the Glass Room.
‘No. When I left my chamber, I was alone. I just wanted to get away from the noise and the confusion. But in that dark corridor, I realized that I could make today work to my advantage in another way.’
She turned back and looked at them, then slowly, deliberately, untied her crimson mask. ‘I have decided that the Duchessa is dead.’
*
The funeral was the most magnificent Bellezza had ever seen. A public day of mourning had been declared. Six of the Duchessa’s guards carried the silver-inlaid ebony coffin into the cathedral, where the Senators and Councillors awaited it. Two of the guards had been among the first to reach the Glass Room and knew how little remained of the great lady to bury. The scraps and fragments of red silk and feathers, all stained a darker red, were the only way of identifying the pathetic human remains after the explosion. No one doubted that the elaborate coffin held the Duchessa. It was Giuliana’s last impersonation.
The Bishop of Bellezza performed the rite in the silver Basilica. Senator Rodolfo, in his public role as senior statesman and his private one as the widely acknowledged favourite of the late Duchessa, was Chief Mourner. He followed the coffin into the cathedral, his face set and grim. Behind him walked Rinaldo di Chimici, representing Remora and the Pope.
Those Bellezzans who could not get into the cathedral stood with bowed heads in the Piazza, listening to the music and the solemn sounds of the Requiem Mass coming from the great silver doors, which remained open throughout the service.
After the service, two hours later, six of the Duchessa’s best mandoliers carried the coffin to the black ‘mandola di morte’ waiting in the lagoon, as the single bell tolled from the campanile. The funeral mandola was draped with black lace, but the curtains were tied back to allow citizens their last glimpse of their beloved ruler’s coffin.
The mandoliers took it in turns to scull the vessel the length of the Great Canal and out at the northern end, towards the Isola dei Morti.
The whole city was in mourning. There wasn’t a single Bellezzan old or young who had not managed to be part of the thousands lining the canal. The two bridges across the great waterway were so thronged with people that they looked in some danger of collapsing. Bellezzans had camped out on the Rialto all night to be sure of a place near the parapet from which to bid the Duchessa farewell. Whoever owned a room overlooking the canal, or had a friend in one, was out on their balcony watching the water cortège.
A little beyond the Rialto stood a family group showing less emotion than other Bellezzans. Two middle-aged women and two men of the same years, with a young girl, not yet old enough to wear a mask. Behind them was a tall young red-headed man. The women were soberly yet well dressed, in black, like the rest of Bellezza. Even the girl had her brown curls hidden under a black lace veil. Leonora and Arianna had not attended the funeral, for the simple reason that its subject stood beside them. The handsome woman with the violet eyes was wearing one of Leonora’s dresses; luckily Leonora had a good wardrobe of mourning clothes.
As soon as the Duchessa had decided to maintain the charade of her own death, she had sent Lucien to Leonora’s to tell Arianna what had really happened and to borrow some plain clothes. The Duchessa’s senior waiting-woman, Susanna, the one who had hired Giuliana on the last day of her life, had eventually guessed what had happened and made her way through the secret passage. She was the only one who knew of its existence. Her emotion on finding her mistress alive had so moved the Duchessa that the two had pledged themselv
es to stay together in hiding.
The men of the little party by the canal were also not as inconsolable as most Bellezzans around them. Egidio and Fiorentino were two more of the small number of people who knew that their Duchessa was not in the coffin. Guido Parola was also in on the secret. He had suffered such agonies when he heard that the second assassination attempt had succeeded that the brothers, who had been told the truth by Rodolfo, had begged Silvia to let them take the young man into their confidence.
Now they watched the funeral mandola slowly making its way up the canal, followed by the State vessel with Rodolfo and the Reman Ambassador, another with the Bishop and his priests and then the Barcone, with many Councillors and Senators on deck, beside a band of musicians playing a dirge, their plangent harmonies clashing with the single note of the campanile bell.
The canal was filling up with flowers as Bellezzans hurled blooms at the passing coffin. Some landed in the mandola, so that its severe black lines were now blurred into a mass of colour. But most fell unheeded into the water, where they floated along in the wake of the cortège, alongside cheap golden ornaments representing the goddess.
And all the time the great bell of the campanile kept tolling.
As the mandola bearing the coffin passed by the little family party, Silvia observed closely the citizens around her. All were weeping, many fell to their knees and crossed themselves as the mandola went by, or made the ‘hand of fortune’. Many cried out ‘Goddess bless her!’ or ‘Bellezza is dead!’ or other laments. An old woman near Silvia said, ‘There will never be another Duchessa like her – not in my lifetime!’ Silvia had to pull her veil low over her face to hide the smile of pleasure she felt forming there, but she was genuinely moved.
Then the State mandola passed by them. ‘Hypocrite!’ she whispered. Rinaldo di Chimici was holding his handkerchief to his face as if afflicted by grief.
‘He does that because he just can’t stand the smell of the canal,’ she muttered.
Rodolfo sat upright beside the Ambassador, as if frozen in grief. But in fact the little party knew that he was rigid with nervousness at the part he had been called upon to play. His face looked more deeply lined, as if the events of the past few days had aged him. The crowds were all sympathetic to him, seeing in him the romantic figure of a man who has lost the love of his life as well as his ruler like the rest of the city.
‘Poor fellow!’ said a bystander. ‘I’ve heard she led him a hell of a dance.’
Silvia darted him a vicious look, but he had already been suppressed by the people around him, who would take no criticism of their Duchessa today.
Round a bend in the Great Canal, Lucien and William Dethridge were among the watchers. Lucien felt the unreality of the spectacle and stood dry-eyed as the funeral mandola passed by. But William Dethridge wept openly for the Duchessa, even though he knew her to be alive.
‘She was a grete ladye,’ he said to Lucien, who knew he was not play-acting. ‘What will the Citie doe without hir?’
And then Lucien found himself caught up in the great wave of emotion. He knew that Silvia still lived, but in a way it was true that the Duchessa had died. Never again would he see her in one of her fantastic masks, wearing her beautiful jewels and gorgeous dresses. She was just plain Silvia Bellini, a citizen of Bellezza, and he couldn’t imagine what she was going to do with the rest of her life.
The crowds remained, still and silent at their posts, while the funeral mandola, the mourners and the Barcone went out to the Isola dei Morti. The interment there was short and solemn and then the funeral mandola returned the way it had come. There was not a sound as it retraced its way down the Great Canal, now empty of its burden, except for the occasional soon-stifled sob from the banks. No more flowers were thrown and the musicians had ceased playing.
When the mandola reached the jetty, the bell stopped tolling and all Bellezza seemed to let out a collective sigh. The Duchessa was gone indeed.
*
In the north of the city, the little party held their own wake. They were soon joined by Lucien and Dethridge. Bellezza was now like a ghost town. There was no one on the streets. It would change later, when everyone had consumed enough wine at home. Then the streets would be full again and eventually the citizens would start to sing and some sort of impromptu parties would break out, but for now each home needed time to recover from the emotions of the morning.
Gathered in Fiorentino’s house were under a dozen people who knew that the Duchessa had survived. Silvia herself, Arianna, Valeria and Gianfranco, Lucien, Leonora and Dethridge, who were now firm friends, Egidio, Fiorentino, Guido Parola and Susanna the waiting-woman. They were soon joined by Rodolfo, who had absented himself from the funeral banquet. No one had questioned his decision, assuming he was too overcome by grief to remain longer in public.
With his arrival, the group was complete and there was a sense of expectation. Everyone looked to Silvia to make some sort of speech, but in the end it was Rodolfo who asked, ‘What happens now?’
‘First,’ said Silvia, ‘we drink to the memory of the Duchessa, like all the other loyal citizens of Bellezza.’
‘To the Duchessa!’ The voices overlapped and the group drank their red wine.
‘And now—’ Silvia tried to go on but Rodolfo stopped her.
‘Before you say any more, we should drink to the unfortunate woman whose remains are in that coffin, and pray for her soul.’
Silvia looked for a moment as if she was going to argue, but raised her glass anyway. ‘To Giuliana, family name unknown, may she rest in peace.’
They all drank again.
‘May I continue?’ asked Silvia, looking around the room. There was silence.
‘As most of you know,’ she resumed, ‘when the explosion happened, I was in my chamber alone. I ran to Rodolfo’s by a hidden passage, terrified by the noise and the smell of burning. I had no plan about what to do next. But I am tired. I have been Duchessa of this great city for twenty-five years, serving it as well as I could. I decided that I would take this opportunity to lead the life of a private citizen again.’
Lucien still had not got used to seeing her without her mask, but it was a perfect disguise. Hardly anyone outside this room had seen her without it for quarter of a century. With the action of a moment, she had rendered herself invisible.
‘But I shall not give up my opposition to Remora and the di Chimici,’ she continued. ‘It will just take a new form, working behind the scenes.’
‘Where will you live?’ asked Fiorentino. ‘You know you can always have a home here.’
‘Or with me,’ added Egidio hastily.
‘Or me,’ said Leonora. Rodolfo said nothing, though Lucien could see that William Dethridge was very obviously nudging him in the ribs.
‘Thank you all,’ said Silvia. ‘But I shall not continue to live in Bellezza. It will be too dangerous, even on the islands. I was thinking of going to Padavia. It is less than a day’s journey away, so that I can return here easily if I am ever needed. Susanna has brought me enough of my private fortune through the secret passage for me to set myself up under a new identity, as a wealthy widow from Bellezza. Susanna will come with me and, I hope, young Guido.’
Parola blushed and leapt to his feet. He bent over Silvia and kissed her hand. Lucien felt fiercely jealous. The last time he had seen Parola he had been trying to kill the Duchessa and it was hard for him to believe that he would now be her protector, even though he had been told the assassin was a reformed character. Lucien wanted to offer his own services but what could he do? He wasn’t even sure that he would be able to come to Talia for much longer.
‘What about di Chimici?’ asked Fiorentino. ‘Are you going to let him get away with it, like last time?’
‘No,’ said Silvia smiling, ‘but there are better ways of punishing him than taking hi
m to law. Besides I could hardly give evidence in Council of my own death, could I?’
Lucien could stand it no longer. ‘But I don’t understand what is going to happen. Who is going to be the next Duchessa? What will happen to Bellezza? How can you just walk away from it? Surely the di Chimici will make it part of the Republic now?’
‘I don’t doubt that Rinaldo di Chimici has a candidate of his own lined up, Silvia,’ said Rodolfo.
‘You are probably right,’ said Silvia, turning her violet gaze on him. ‘But then so do I.’
‘Who do you mean?’ asked Lucien.
‘You don’t know much about our political system, do you, Luciano?’ asked Silvia. ‘But perhaps you have heard that Duchesse can be succeeded by their daughters. They have to be elected, of course, but no other candidate has ever won against a Duchessa’s heir. And I think that Arianna will make an excellent Duchessa!’
Chapter 18
Viva Bellezza!
Lucien woke with a start. His alarm clock was ringing violently in his ear and for a moment he couldn’t remember why he had set it. Then it came back to him; today was the big day – his check-up. It seemed almost impossible after what he had been through earlier in the year, but he had been so caught up in the events in Bellezza that he hadn’t been giving today any thought, even though he’d had another scan two days before.
Not so Mum and Dad. But they tried not to show their nervousness throughout breakfast and the journey to the hospital. Somehow that made Lucien more apprehensive.
He knew that he felt a lot better than when he was having treatment. He had lost that awful tiredness, which had been replaced by a much more healthy feeling of never having quite enough sleep, because of his night-time activity in Bellezza. And the returns from Bellezza were no longer as agonizing as that first one, when it felt as if he were re-clothing himself in a suit of lead.
But as he entered the swinging rubber doors to Outpatients, all his old fears returned. It was something to do with the smell, he decided. It was a mixture of disinfectant used on the floors, the pink Hibiscrub liquid that the doctors washed their hands in and the distant smell of overcooked cabbage coming from the kitchens. It was irrational but it made Lucien’s stomach bunch into a knot.