By the time the boat pulled into the landing stage at Torrone, Arianna’s blazing fury had subsided into a dull, bitter misery. The lookout posted to watch the sea for her return hared off along the bank of the main canal after raising a hand in greeting and Arianna trudged homeward.
She knew better than anyone what turmoil her absence would have caused on Torrone. She was their Figlia dell’Isola – Daughter of the Island. The only child born there in the last twenty years.
Everyone on Torrone was old. Arianna had no playmates except her parents and her two much older brothers. There were few families left on Torrone at all. Arianna’s father, Gianfranco, had lived on the island all his life and was now curator of the tiny cathedral museum. The cathedral on Torrone was the most ancient building in the whole lagoon, built centuries ago while Bellezza was still a swamp. Tourists came from all over the world to see it and the magnificent silver mosaics it contained.
But there were no shops and no school. Arianna went by boat to a school on Merlino, the big island where her brothers worked and lived in their cottage by the shore. There, too, were markets, selling food and luxuries from the mainland. And every day in summer traders came to Torrone from the smaller island of Burlesca, bringing cakes and wine and lace and glass to sell to the tourists. But in winter Torrone had only fish from Merlino and whatever it could grow itself. It was through the winter months that Arianna had dreamed most of her escape.
Arianna’s mother, Valeria, rushed out of their little whitewashed house near the cathedral and embraced the runaway roughly, crying and laughing with relief that soon changed to scolding and threats. The lookout had gone on to the cathedral to find Gianfranco and give him the news.
‘Where have you been?’ Valeria kept asking. ‘We were worried sick. Tommaso and Angelo are out of their minds. They should be enjoying a good holiday today but do you know what they are doing? They’re out in their boat getting as close to Bellezza as they dare.’
Arianna mumbled something about having needed to answer a call of nature and then getting lost in the crowd. She didn’t really expect to be believed. She could have begged a ride on any boat going back to any of the islands, if she hadn’t been able to find her brothers. The imperative was to get out of the city.
She hadn’t really thought about what to tell her family if she had been accepted at the Scuola. Her plans had all stopped at her admission to the school. Perhaps, once she had been trained, she would have taken off her disguise and the Duchessa would have been forced to agree that girls could train in future. But, if she were honest with herself, Arianna would have to admit that she hadn’t expected that the school would be flooded with applications from girls after her. Her plans were all for herself.
The scoldings poured over her and went on all day, added to by her father, rushing home, and her brothers when they came back in the middle of the afternoon, hungry and upset. Neighbours, too, dropped in to see that she was safe then shake their heads in sympathy with her parents over her wickedness and disobedience.
Arianna was heartily sick of being the centre of attention and wished, as she had so often before, that there were other children on Torrone, to take some of the pressure away from her.
‘... and no one knows how long it can survive,’ finished Dad. ‘The water is rising every year and if the flood barriers aren’t built, the whole city could disappear under the sea – like Atlantis.’
So it wasn’t Bellezza. Lucien was sure that the city of his dream hadn’t been sinking, though he didn’t know how he knew it. Bellezza was as unlike a doomed city as it could be, bustling, prosperous, full of its own importance. And he couldn’t see the Duchessa, from the little he knew of her, letting the sea take her city from her.
‘Are you interested in Venice?’ asked Dad. ‘I could get you some books from the library.’
Lucien nodded, and wrote, ‘Have you ever been there?’
Dad looked a little embarrassed. ‘Only once,’ he said. ‘Before I met your mum.’
Lucien immediately guessed Dad had been there with a previous girlfriend.
‘Did you visit any of the islands?’ he wrote.
Dad looked at him oddly. ‘How did you know about the islands? I didn’t think I’d mentioned them. Yeah, we went to them. I mean I did. The one where they make the glass and the one where all the houses are painted different colours and the one with the old cathedral and the gold mosaics.’
‘Torrone?’ wrote Lucien.
‘I thought that was a sticky sweet,’ said Dad, puzzled. ‘But it is a name a bit like that. I’d better get you those books.’
When he had gone, Lucien’s mum brought him breakfast. He managed a few spoonfuls of soggy cornflakes and half a cup of tea, then sank back exhausted on to his pillows. He heard the door click as she took the tray away, then dropped into an uneasy doze.
And woke, sweating, from a dream in which he stood at the end of a sleek black boat, holding a long oar. The Duchessa sat far away in the other end, making notes in a book as if she were marking his performance.
‘If you don’t beat the record,’ she was saying, ‘I shall take my mask off.’
In the dream this had been the most terrifying threat. Lucien had forced himself awake rather than confront the horror he knew lurked behind that mask. But as he lay there, hot and damp with fear, a curious certainty settled on him. If this had been a dream, then the other hadn’t. This was ordinary B-movie nightmare stuff, with none of the logical reality of his night-time visit to Bellezza. The city where Arianna and the Duchessa lived was real; he was sure of it.
Now all he had to do was to find out how to get back.
The next day was Sunday and, though her parents were now not talking to Arianna, they didn’t deny her the annual visit to Mass in Santa Maddalena. The whole family rowed over to Bellezza early in the morning, mooring their boat at the Piazzetta, along with many other lagooners.
Inside the hushed cathedral, Arianna let her gaze wander up to the gallery that led to the Loggia degli Arieti, where she had spent the night before last so uncomfortably, with the rams. A brown-robed figure caught her eye, on one of the many wooden walkways that criss-crossed the cathedral just beneath its roof. She realized that she had seen the same figure, or one just like it, as she had climbed up to her hiding-place.
She had scarcely noticed it then, in her hurry to carry out her plan, but now, with the service droning on around her, she had time to reflect. Why had a monk been in the cathedral then and not out in the square watching the fireworks like everyone else?
Everyone in Bellezza paid more attention to state ceremonies and celebrations than they did to religion, even the priests and monks. Tradition was what mattered in the lagoon. Tradition and superstition. That’s why her family were here today, because traditionally all islanders forsook their churches, even the special one on Torrone, and came to Mass in the basilica of Santa Maddalena on the Sunday after the Marriage with the Sea. The Duchessa herself was seated prominently in the front row, slender as a new bride, dressed all in white, with a silver mask in the shape of a cat’s face.
Arianna had done this for every one of her fifteen years and it had always been the same. But today was different. As they left the cathedral, her parents steered her away from the Piazzetta and into the little streets to the north of the main square.
‘We’re going to see your aunt Leonora,’ was all the explanation offered.
They got to the house of Gianfranco’s sister-in-law, off the Campo San Sulien, which Arianna had always loved visiting because of its unexpected garden with its stone fountain. Water in the heart of the water-surrounded city was always a surprise. But it was clear this visit was to be no treat.
Leonora invited them in warmly and poured red wine for them. But the atmosphere was tense. Arianna’s brothers were perched nervously on the edge of Leonora’s spindl
y chairs. Gianfranco cleared his throat.
‘Since you disobeyed not just us, Arianna, but the laws of the city,’ he said, ‘putting yourself in danger and causing us so much worry, we have asked your aunt to have you here with her for a while. Perhaps this will get Bellezza out of your system. Perhaps you will learn to value your home, which, though it isn’t exciting, is safe and filled with people who love you.’
He blew his nose after this speech, which was a long one for him, and Arianna wanted to fling her arms round him. But she was too amazed to move. What kind of punishment was this? This was like condemning a child who steals marzipan to a whole week in a sweet shop. Arianna didn’t know Leonora at all well and she had no children. But her husband, Gianfranco’s older brother, had died a few years ago and left her his considerable wealth, made from selling trinkets to tourists. So the house was comfortable and Leonora herself was kind. And it was in Bellezza! Arianna knew she had got off lightly.
But when her parents and brothers said goodbye, the tears gathered obstinately in her eyes. Much as life on Torrone bored her with its endless tedium of few people and fewer adventures, she felt desolated by homesickness and clung to her mother, begging to be forgiven.
*
Lucien woke in the hard little bed to see sunlight pouring in through the window. He looked out and saw a green canal under a bright blue sky.
He was back. It seemed to be the next day in Bellezza, though it had been night-time when he left his own world. He’d had an interminable dreary day in his bed in London, enlivened only by the colour pictures in Dad’s library books about Venice.
Lucien put his hand to his head, hardly daring to believe it when his fingers sank into thick curls. There was a soft knock at the door then a rather ugly old man put his head round it. ‘Quick,’ he hissed. ‘We must get you away before they realize you’ve gone.’ Without waiting for a reply, he led Lucien by the elbow out of the room, across the courtyard and down to the Scuola’s landing-stage, where a sleek black mandola was moored. He bundled Lucien into the boat, then skilfully turned it in mid-canal and set off at an impressive pace.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Lucien, not sure if he was being rescued or kidnapped. As with his last experience of Bellezza, he found himself just going with the flow, luxuriating in the feeling of being ordinarily well in the middle of this extra-ordinary setting.
‘To the laboratory,’ said the mandolier shortly. ‘Signor Rodolfo is expecting you.’
Since he could make nothing of this, Lucien remained silent until the mandola glided to a halt by a landing stage that must have been back near the big Piazza where he had found himself the day before. He could see the silver domes of the cathedral quite close above the roofs.
His guide led him up some marble steps, straight off the canal, and in through heavy wooden doors which seemed to be kept permanently open. It was dark inside the house, or palace, or whatever it was, and Lucien stumbled, having trouble adjusting his vision after the bright sunlight on the canal.
On, up many steps until he was sure he must be at the top of the building. The mandolier stopped by a thick dark wooden door and knocked before thrusting Lucien through it in front of him.
Lucien stood on the threshold, trying to understand what he was seeing. It was a mixture of a workshop, a chemistry laboratory and a library. It didn’t quite have a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling but one certainly would have looked right at home there. It was filled with leather-bound books, shelves full of jars, and glass bottles containing coloured liquids and nameless objects. There were huge globes and a weird collection of metal circles on a stand. And a model of the solar system, which Lucien was sure was moving.
In the corner by a large window with a low sill sat a man dressed in black velvet. His clothes looked expensive and Lucien immediately knew he was someone important, though this had less to do with how he was dressed than his own aura. He had silver hair and he was tall and thin. He sat hunched in his armchair like a hawk roosting.
But there was nothing frightening about him, in spite of his air of controlled power. The man told his servant, Alfredo, that he could go and Lucien heard the door close heavily behind him.
‘Welcome,’ said Rodolfo. His eyes were glittering with excitement. He looked as if he might rub his hands together with glee. ‘I have been expecting you.’
‘That’s what that man said,’ said Lucien stupidly. ‘But I don’t see how. I mean, I don’t know how I got here myself. Or why.’
‘But you must have worked out it was something to do with the notebook,’ said Rodolfo. ‘I mean, you’ve done it twice now.’
‘Yes, but...’ Lucien stopped. How did this man know about the book and how did he know it had happened twice? It had taken him all day back at home to try falling asleep with the notebook in his hand – and sleep had been reluctant to come. He had put the book back in his pocket before the strange man had burst in and it was still there now, although hidden under Arianna’s Bellezzan boy’s disguise, which he had been glad to see again.
‘I didn’t know it was you I was expecting,’ said Rodolfo. ‘But I knew it was you when I saw you at the Scuola Mandoliera.’
‘I didn’t see you there,’ said Lucien.
‘I wasn’t there to be seen,’ said Rodolfo, simply.
He stood up and motioned Lucien to follow him to a dark corner of the room, where a silver brocade curtain hung on the wall. When Rodolfo pulled it back, Lucien wasn’t sure at first what he was looking at. He would have said it was a bank of television screens, except that sounded modern and high tech and this was anything but.
Six small oval mirrors, ornately framed in what might have been ebony, showed moving pictures of scenes, some of which Lucien recognized. There was the Scuola and the Piazza where he had first seen Arianna, something that might have been the interior of the great cathedral and three other places, all richly decorated rooms, which he didn’t know but which were obviously Bellezzan.
Under them was a complicated collection of knobs with knurled edges and brass levers aligned with what looked like signs of the zodiac, though some of them were new to Lucien. He gave up trying to understand. It was easier really to go back to thinking of Bellezza as a dream.
Rodolfo pointed to the mirror which showed the Scuola Mandoliera and Lucien realized how he had been seen the day before. And even as he watched, fascinated, he saw a tiny mandola glide into the frame and an elegant miniature figure step lightly out of it and into the School amid much bowing and scraping of officials.
‘Is that the Duchessa?’ Lucien asked.
‘She has come to inspect her new recruits,’ said Rodolfo. ‘She will wonder what has happened to you.’
‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall,’ said Lucien. Rodolfo looked at a loss.
‘Magic,’ said Lucien.
‘Not at all,’ said Rodolfo, with an expression of distaste. ‘Science.’
‘So that’s how you saw me,’ said Lucien. ‘But how did you know I was the person you were expecting? Is it because I don’t look Bellezzan?’
Rodolfo scanned his face hard. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’ he said. ‘Come with me and I’ll show you something.’
He strode over to the deep window, opened the casement and swung his long legs out over the sill. Lucien was startled until he realized there was some sort of roof garden outside. Rodolfo beckoned and the boy followed him out.
It was an oasis in the heart of the city. But Lucien saw immediately that it took up more space than it should have done. It covered an area much larger than the roof of the building they were standing on. It stretched away into the distance and Lucien thought he could see peacocks at the far end.
Huge pots held full-size trees and there were flowers everywhere, filling the air with their heavy scent. In the middle of the roof garden, a fountain played – more
science, thought Lucien. Most of the garden was shaded and there was even a hammock slung between two orange trees, but close to the stone balustrade that enclosed it, the sun beat down on a tiled terrace.
Rodolfo stood in the sunshine and waited for him. When Lucien came up to him, he took the boy gently by the shoulders and encouraged him to look down.
‘What do you see?’ he asked.
Lucien looked first through the balustrade at the incredible beauty of Bellezza, its silver spires and bell-towers dazzling against the blue sky, but Rodolfo didn’t mean that. He directed Lucien’s gaze on to the tiles, with their intricate astronomical patterns. Just the sort of garden you’d expect a magician to have, thought Lucien.
And then he saw what he was meant to see. At their feet stretched out the black silhouette of only one figure.
‘I have been waiting for someone without a shadow.’
Chapter 4
The Stravaganti
Time seemed to have stood still on the roof garden. Or at least slowed to a sluggish trickle. Lucien was still staring at where his shadow should have been. Rodolfo had gone back inside and now came out holding two glasses of a sparkling blond drink.
‘Prosecco,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a shock.’
Lucien started to say he didn’t drink but then realized he was very thirsty and had no idea what the water was like in this city. Where he might be was one thing, but the time he was in was clearly not the twenty-first century and all the city’s beauty could not disguise the bad smell coming off the canals.
He drank the prosecco. It was cold and a bit sharp and to Lucien quite wonderful. Alfredo, the old mandolier who had brought him from the Scuola, had followed Rodolfo out of the window, with the bottle in one hand and a tray in the other, laden with untidy ham sandwiches. Lucien discovered he was ravenous. When had his last meal been? Pastries in the café with Arianna? Or the few spoonfuls of scrambled egg he had managed to get down before bedtime in his other life?