She led him through a passage under a big clock and then along a maze of narrow streets, up and down little bridges, across narrow waterways and through small deserted squares. It seemed as if most of the city were still asleep. Lucien followed her, silently enjoying walking without feeling breathless, being able to keep up with this incomprehensible energetic girl, aware of the sun warming his shoulders through the coarse jerkin and being happier than he could remember for a long time.
They came to a square with a small closed-up theatre in it, where sleepy-eyed stallholders were setting out vegetables and a man was opening up a café. Arianna checked her purposeful stride and eyed the man for a long time before diving into the café. Lucien went in after her.
Inside there were delicious smells, sweet and acrid mixed together. Workmen stood at the bar drinking small cups of black coffee. Arianna gestured Lucien to sit at a table, then brought over two mugs of chocolate and some crumbly pastries.
‘So,’ said Arianna. ‘What’s your story?’
‘Tell me yours first,’ said Lucien. ‘Why are you so angry?’
‘I suppose it’s not your fault,’ said Arianna, relaxing a bit for the first time since he’d met her. ‘You didn’t mean to mess everything up for me. It’s just that I’ve been planning today for a long time. If you really don’t know anything about Bellezza,’ here she lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘then you don’t know that today is the one day in the year when all visitors are banned, on pain of death. It’s the Giornata Vietata – the day after the Marriage with the Sea.’
Then, as Lucien showed no sign of recognition, ‘You do know about the Marriage with the Sea, don’t you?’
‘Just assume I know nothing about anything,’ said Lucien. ‘It will be easier that way.’ He wanted time to see what made things tick here, or at least what made Arianna tick.
‘On that day,’ she explained, ‘every May, the Duchessa has a wedding ceremony with the sea. She’s lowered into the water and when the water has reached her middle, the marriage counts as having taken place and the city’s prosperity is guaranteed for another year. I know, it’s crazy, but that’s what lagooners believe. The next day, in accordance with tradition, anyone who wants to train as a mandolier can put himself forward to the Scuola.’
‘Hang on,’ said Lucien. ‘What’s a mandolier?’
‘Someone in charge of a mandola, of course,’ said the girl impatiently. ‘The Duchessa chooses the best-looking ones and then their fortune is made. And everyone knows what she does with the very handsomest.’
She was looking at him expectantly. Lucien felt, as he had ever since he met her, that he had no idea what she wanted him to say.
‘How does that involve you?’ he asked cautiously.
‘Put himself forward,’ she stressed. ‘All mandoliers are male. Don’t you think that’s wrong? I am just as tall and strong as a boy my age, stronger if they’re like you (with a contemptuous glance at Lucien’s build), and good to look at, if that’s what matters.’
She paused again and this time he was not at a loss. ‘You are good to look at,’ he said.
Arianna hurtled on, not acknowledging the compliment she had asked for; it was just a fact she had wanted to establish. ‘I mean, this city is ruled by a woman.’
‘The Duchessa,’ said Lucien, glad to have understood something.
‘Of course la Duchessa,’ said Arianna impatiently. ‘The trouble is, she makes all the rules, so if she wants handsome male mandoliers she’ll have them.’
‘But what would happen to you if they found out?’ asked Lucien.
‘You mean what would have happened,’ said Arianna bitterly, mangling her pastry to crumbs. ‘I can’t put myself forward now, dressed as a girl, can I? I’ll be lucky not to be caught and executed. And so will you. We just have to hope no one here knows we’re not Bellezzans,’ she added in a whisper.
Lucien concentrated on eating his cake, which was something he could understand. He closed his eyes and let the almonds and sugar melt on his tongue. Nothing had tasted so delicious for a long time.
‘Have mine too, if you’re so hungry,’ said Arianna, pushing her plate over.
‘Thanks. Look, I’m sorry for messing up your plan. As you said, I didn’t know. And thanks for saving me, if that’s what you’ve done.’
‘There’s no “if” about it. Now tell me what you’re doing here, so I can see if it was worth it.’
It was a long time before Lucien answered. He had no explanation to offer. Everything around him was strange – the people, the language they were speaking, which he was pretty sure was Italian and yet he understood it. The fierce, beautiful girl sitting opposite him, who also seemed to be Italian, and yet could understand him. The women coming into the café, who were wearing masks. It was bizarre.
Yet nothing equalled the strangeness of how he felt inside. He was well, strong, in spite of what Arianna thought of him. He felt he could run up mountainsides, swim across the lagoon, and yet – he couldn’t explain why he was here in this beautiful, odd city and not lying in his bed in London.
If he were in a dream, it wouldn’t matter what he said. But no dream had ever been like this. In the end he just told her the truth.
‘I can’t explain how I got here but I’m from somewhere else. From London. In England. When I’m there, I’m very ill. In fact, I think I’m probably dying. I have cancer and I’m having chemotherapy. My hair has all dropped out. I’m tired all the time. I fell asleep thinking about a city floating on the water and when I woke up, I was where you found me and my hair was back.’
Arianna reached out and tugged his curls. Feeling the resistance she gave a little gasp and made a sign with her right hand, holding her thumb against her little finger and touching her forehead and chest.
‘Dia,’ she whispered. ‘It is true. I don’t understand all those words you told me but I believe you. You come from a great city a long way from here, where you are very ill, and now you are suddenly here and are well. What does it mean?’
They stared at each other. Then Arianna glanced uneasily around the café. The barman seemed to be looking quite interestedly in their direction. ‘There are too many people in here. Someone might recognize me. Let’s go.’
‘Why are all the women wearing masks?’ asked Lucien. ‘Is it for another festival?’
‘Not all of them are,’ said Arianna. ‘Only the unmarried ones. I am supposed to start wearing one as soon as I’m sixteen, in a few months. It’s another of the Duchessa’s rules. Not this one’s though. It’s been going on for years. She has to wear one herself.’
‘She’s not married then?’ asked Lucien, but Arianna only snorted in reply.
She was leading him away from the square and to a quiet backwater of the city. The houses were washed in pink and sand and ochre and little gardens sprouted from some of the roofs or from terraces halfway up. The sky was very blue and between houses he sometimes glimpsed more bell-towers with birds wheeling round them. Little canals crossed their path so often that they had to zigzag and use the bridges; there was no walking in a straight line.
‘It’s very beautiful, your city,’ he said at last.
‘Yes, that’s why it’s so rich,’ said Arianna, matter-of-factly. ‘Beauty is cash – that’s the Bellezzans’ motto – Bellezza è moneta.’
‘Where are we going?’ asked Lucien.
‘We might as well take a look at the Scuola,’ said Arianna, shortly.
They walked across another small canal, through a passageway, and arrived on the pavement alongside a much broader canal. Across a stone bridge was a grand building with ‘Scuola Mandoliera’ written on it, carved into the stone above the entrance. In front of it bobbed several black craft and people were coming and going in busy groups as if something important were happening.
‘Mandol
iers,’ said Lucien. ‘Those are the people who row the boats, right?’
Arianna gave him a withering look. ‘Scull, not row. And they’re mandolas, not boats. It’s because they’re shaped like almonds – mandole. It makes them very tricky to steer.’
‘Have you tried?’ asked Lucien, looking at the slender boats. He was thinking about how he’d been punting on the river in Cambridge with his uncle Graham, his mother’s brother. You had to stand on the stern of a punt too.
‘Of course,’ said Arianna impatiently. ‘We have canals on the islands too. And I’ve handled mandolas all my life on Torrone. Both my brothers are fishermen on Merlino.’
Her forehead creased.
‘I’ve got them into the most terrible trouble – and all for nothing! Our parents will be worried sick because they came back without me last night. I gave them the slip, you see. My parents don’t know where I am.’
Lucien said nothing but he was thinking the same about his own parents. ‘At least Arianna knows where she is,’ he thought. ‘Which is more than I do.’
Arianna clutched his arm. ‘It must be time for the selection,’ she hissed. ‘That’s the Duchessa’s mandola.’
An elaborately decorated mandola slipped smoothly through the water, sculled, Lucien couldn’t help noticing, by an extremely handsome young man. It had a covered section in the middle, hung with silver brocade. The mandolier brought his craft in skilfully to the landing stage and an official of the School, in an ornate uniform, handed out first a waiting-woman then an elegant masked figure, which could only be the Duchessa.
‘Quick!’ said Arianna. ‘Let’s go in.’
‘Is it allowed?’ asked Lucien. ‘Won’t we get caught?’
‘It’s a public selection,’ said Arianna defiantly. ‘And they won’t be expecting anyone to disobey the ban. I was banking on that. We’ll be all right as long as you don’t speak to anyone.’ Then she hurried across the bridge and Lucien had to run after her.
The wooden gates under the stone entrance were indeed wide open and Lucien soon found himself in a courtyard filled with smartly dressed people. He felt a bit shabby in his borrowed clothes but no one was looking at him. At one end of the courtyard was a raised platform. At that moment the Duchessa was ascending the platform and seating herself on a carved wooden chair. A queue of nervous-looking young men was forming to the right of the stage.
Arianna had pushed her way to the front of the crowd, no longer worried about being recognized. When Lucien had managed to squeeze his way through to her he found her enthralled, violet eyes shining and hair escaped from her scarf. This was what she had been waiting for for a year, even if it hadn’t worked out the way she meant, and she was thrilled to be here.
What was happening on the stage was a bit like a beauty pageant. The young men were led, one by one, for inspection by the Duchessa. She didn’t quite open their mouths and look at their teeth, but it was almost as bad. After each inspection, the Duchessa spoke to the School official and the unlucky candidates were led off the stage, while the successful ones were lined up sheepishly at the back.
It was clear where their families all stood in the crowd; groans and cheers greeted each decision. Lucien wasn’t at all sure that Arianna’s plan would have worked. No one seemed to have come without supporters. The eagerness of the families was causing the crowd to surge forward, pushing Lucien and Arianna closer to the stage.
Lucien found himself at the front, a few feet from the Duchessa. The line of hopeful mandoliers was coming to an end. Of the last two young men Lucien thought, going by the Duchessa’s previous choices, one was too short and one was distinctly bandy-legged. They were dispatched so quickly that Lucien was already turning to go when the Duchessa’s voice rang out.
‘That young man there. Bring him up.’
Heads turned, Lucien’s with them. Fingers pointed. At him. ‘No, it’s a mistake,’ he protested. ‘I’m not here to be a mandolier.’
But strong hands were guiding him up on to the stage. He looked round wildly for Arianna. He caught a glimpse of her face, looking absolutely furious. And then she was gone. He was pushed towards the Duchessa and found himself hypnotized by her presence.
Her eyes, glittering through the holes in her silver butterfly mask, were violet, like Arianna’s. ‘Must be common here,’ thought Lucien. Her voice was low and caressing and she smelt absolutely wonderful. Lucien, whose mother hardly ever wore scent, and who had had very little experience with girls, felt quite faint.
The Duchessa held out a hand to him, a favour she had bestowed on only one or two candidates. ‘Tell me your name, young man,’ said the Duchessa.
‘Luciano,’ said Lucien, remembering Arianna’s version.
‘Luciano,’ said the Duchessa slowly, savouring the syllables like a particularly delicious cake.
Lucien felt himself blushing. What had Arianna said? Everyone knows what she does with the handsomest ones. He felt completely out of his depth. He didn’t want to be a mandolier or one of the Duchessa’s favourites. At the moment, he just wanted to be at home, with things around him he could understand. But even as he thought about it, he realised he could be a mandolier; he was strong enough, here, and it couldn’t be so very different from punting.
‘You remind me of a young man I selected many years ago,’ said the Duchessa, and from the sound of her voice, he knew she was smiling. ‘Yes, I think you will make a fine mandolier. Welcome to the Scuola.’
The crowd was quite silent. If Arianna was still there she made no sound as Lucien was led to join the other successful candidates and the Duchessa descended from the stage. Strong as he felt in this dreamlike city, he thought he might pass out.
All the young men chosen to train as mandoliers – and they all looked a fair bit older than Lucien – were shepherded off to their new quarters. The others all had families to hug them and give them tearful but proud farewells. Lucien even found himself hugged a couple of times by over-enthusiastic mothers and sisters.
At last he was alone in a little room with a wooden bed, old-fashioned carved wooden chest and a china jug and bowl. The friendly guide who had shown him in had said, ‘See you in the morning at first light,’ then left him. Lucien sat on the bed and put his head in his hands. He couldn’t begin to make sense of his situation and all of a sudden a great weariness overtook him. He swung his legs up on to the hard mattress and rested his head on the pillow. Trying to get comfortable, he felt something digging into him and, reaching inside his woollen jerkin, pulled the Venetian notebook out of his pyjama pocket.
Lying there with the notebook in his hand and wondering if he would ever see his own home again, he soon fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter 3
A Garden in the Air
Lucien returned to his body with a jolt. At least, returning to his body was what it felt like. He was immediately weighed down by his exhaustion. If he hadn’t already been lying in bed, he would have fallen. His throat was dry and sore. He put his hand up to feel his hair and met his bare scalp. Tears seeped under his eyelids; it was somehow much worse losing his hair the second time.
So it had been a dream. But an amazing dream. So real. And how could he have invented Arianna and the Duchessa and the whole incredible city, that was and yet wasn’t Venice? It still felt so much like the reality, and his life confined to bed like the dream, that Lucien almost believed he would still be wearing Arianna’s jerkin and trousers. But of course he wasn’t. Just the blue pyjamas in which he had been transported to Bellezza.
There was a knock and his father came in.
‘Morning, son. You’re looking a bit better. Got some colour back.’
Lucien was astonished. He felt like hell. But he had to admit that was in contrast to how alive and well he’d been in Bellezza. Perhaps he did feel a bit better than when he’d last been in this bod
y. Or in this bed. Whichever it was.
‘Throat still hurting?’ asked Dad sympathetically. ‘You can write in the book, don’t forget.’
The book! Lucien slid it out of his pocket and wrote, ‘Tell me some more about Venice.’
Arianna’s parents were furious with her but she scarcely noticed. After the Duchessa had called Lucien up on to the stage, she had run, cheeks burning, back through the side streets to Santa Maddalena and the Piazzetta, where a few boats were moored. There she had bribed a boatman to take her back to Torrone, with the money she had saved to pay her entrance fee to the Scuola Mandoliera.
It took all of that to persuade any native-born Bellezzan to leave his city on the day after the Marriage with the Sea. He had grumbled all the way to the island, but Arianna hadn’t paid any attention to him. She gripped the side of the boat with one hand and stuffed the knuckles of the other into her mouth to stop herself from screaming with frustration.
It was so unfair. That boy, that Luciano, had thwarted all her plans and then coolly stepped in to take her place. She knew with a part of her mind that it had not been his fault, that he hadn’t deliberately set out to catch the Duchessa’s eye. He was such a simpleton, knowing nothing about the Duchessa, or mandoliering, or Bellezza even.
But another part of her brain was fiercely jealous of him. He, with his dark eyes and curly hair and shy smile, would soon be sculling tourists along the Great Canal, making his fortune, his future assured. She didn’t have a moment’s doubt that the Duchessa would have chosen him. Though he looked barely old enough to meet the Scuola’s entry criterion of fifteen and his build was slight, his looks would have assured him a place. And he wasn’t even Talian, let alone Bellezzan!
Arianna relaxed her grip and dipped her hand into the water, splashing her face with it. They were out in the open lagoon now, far from the brackish waters of the canals. Luciano said he was Anglian and that she believed, though he spoke Talian, but she no longer trusted the rest of his story. How could she? He said he was ill when he was clearly healthy, that he was bald, when— bah! She snorted at the thought. He must have been deceiving her. His story didn’t make sense. Perhaps he wasn’t simple, but very cunning.