Arianna’s eyebrows flew up under her fisherman’s cap.
‘It’s OK,’ said Luciano. ‘I’m sure he’s one of the good ones.’
‘So you’ll do it?’ insisted Ayesha, as she and Matt clattered about his dining room with plates and cutlery.
‘I said I would, didn’t I?’ he said. ‘You can stay and watch me if you want.’
‘All right,’ said Ayesha. ‘I will.’
Matt was surprised; he hadn’t expected her to agree. Ever since the scene at Georgia’s, when he had been forced to tell her about putting the evil eye on Jago, Matt had felt afraid of Ayesha. She hadn’t screamed at him. In fact at first she had laughed and her contempt had been worse than her anger. She clearly hadn’t thought him capable of doing something so powerful, even though she had made the connection between Jago’s condition and Matt’s new secret life.
But gradually he had realised that she hadn’t underestimated him; if anything she had done the opposite. She had simply not believed that he could do anything so petty and mean.
They got through the meal somehow, with Harry chatting on cheerfully and Jan keeping a watchful eye on them. Then they pretended to watch a TV documentary about global warming, which was enough to account for their sombre mood. Even Harry’s enthusiasm had been dampened down. When the phone rang, Jan was relieved to leave the room.
It was Vicky, who had left the ICU briefly to call with an update on Jago.
‘No change,’ said Jan, when she came off the phone. ‘Are you going back to the hospital tonight, Ayesha,’ she asked awkwardly. ‘Or . . . ?’
‘I’d like to stay here, if that’s OK?’ said Ayesha politely.
So they’re back on, thought Jan. They don’t seem very happy about it. Perhaps they’ll stay up all night having what we used to call a ‘deep-and-meaningful’. She suddenly felt old and wished that Andy was here to talk to about it. But it was no good worrying; she had to be up early to fetch her aunt from the station.
Matt didn’t know where he stood with Ayesha any more. He felt shy undressing in front of her and getting into bed but he couldn’t turn up in Padavia in more than his underwear because his robes would have to fit over it. She lay on top of the covers fully clothed, watching everything he did.
‘Where’s this talisman-thing, then?’ she asked.
Matt brought the leather-bound book out from under his pillow. Ayesha took it in her hands and slowly unwound the brown leather strap from round it.
‘How does it work?’ she asked, impressed in spite of herself. ‘You don’t have to read it, do you?’
Matt winced. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘It’s all in their version of Latin.’
‘But you knew how to put that spell on Jago.’
‘Professor Constantin told me about it.’
‘What does he teach at this university of yours, then?’ she asked. ‘Black magic?’
‘He didn’t teach me about it – I said he told me. And he didn’t know I could do it. He warned me against trying, in fact. He’s a teacher of Rhetoric – that’s like sort of argument and logic.’
‘I know what it is,’ said Ayesha. ‘We learn about it in Law. Barristers still have to know the basics – they haven’t changed since Aristotle or someone.’
It was good to have her in his room again, on his bed, talking to him, even though she probably hated him now and was looking like shit. Is this what it is to love someone, Matt wondered. Not caring what they felt about you or how they looked? Just knowing them and wanting to be with them and wanting them to think well of you?
He wondered whether to tell her that the counter-spell for the Jettatura was in the book she held in her hands. If she had known Latin, she could probably have worked it out for herself and saved Jago without him. He couldn’t remember enough about it himself – something about olive oil and salt. It sounded more like a recipe than a spell.
He had warned her that there wouldn’t be anything much to see when he stravagated but in the end she was so exhausted that she fell asleep before him. He longed to put his arms round her but restrained himself. She wasn’t here for sex or love; she was more like a UN inspector at a foreign election, wanting to see fair play.
If she had stayed awake, she would have heard his breath slowing but there would have been no other sign that the essence of him had slipped away to another world.
Enrico followed the rusty-headed man back to his lodgings, taking care not to be seen. Before they got there, the man met a group of friends and Enrico spotted bright colours and ribbons under their dark cloaks.
He nodded in the dark. Manoush. Funny how they always seemed to be around wherever the Bellezzan was. But then the group broke up again and the man continued on to the main square where the Palace of Justice stood. He dodged down a side road and Enrico followed him cautiously into an alley. The man unlocked a gate and disappeared.
Enrico walked back to the square counting houses and calculating which one’s backyard now housed a Manoush.
Well, well, well, he said to himself, after checking twice. So Messer Antonio’s house is giving shelter to a goddess-worshipper!
The spy filed this piece of information for future use; he didn’t know yet what he could do with it but it was something to fall back on if the Bellezzan cast him off. For now he made his way back to the palazzo where the di Chimici was living. He had some serious infiltrating to do.
*
When Matt arrived in the Scriptorium, he felt as if he had been away for months. Several people asked him if he was feeling better and he nodded, not wanting to get drawn into difficult conversations; he had no idea what Constantin had told them and there was no sign of the Professor. Biagio soon had him knocking up ink balls and Matt forgot that he had ever been anywhere else.
But he shared a secret with Biagio ever since their session in the hidden press room, and the foreman treated him a little differently: nothing that the other men and apprentices would notice but there was a sense of shared danger that brought a form of friendship.
Every time he passed the new list of forbidden books that had to be posted up at the front of the Scriptorium, Matt read it and thought of how most of them were being printed on the secret press. And every time he felt the thrill of just being able to read the list. It was ironic that so many books were forbidden in the one place where he could have read them easily. But his work in Talia didn’t give him much time to read anyway.
As the lunch break approached, Matt became anxious. He wanted to see Luciano and ask his advice but he needed to talk to Constantin too. He was going to have to confess what he had done and he wasn’t looking forward to it.
The Refectory was full and it took him a while to see Luciano. He wasn’t alone; a finely dressed, handsome young man, a bit older, was sitting drinking wine with him. Matt felt very aware of his shabby robes and inky hands.
‘Ah, Bosco,’ said Luciano with relief, as soon as he spotted him. But he didn’t introduce him to his grand friend. ‘Excuse me a moment, Filippo,’ he said. ‘I have an errand for this young man.’
And he took Matt out into the street.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want you to meet a di Chimici yet, even though I think Filippo is trustworthy. Where were you yesterday? Why didn’t you come?’
He scrutinised Matt’s face closely. ‘Are you ill?’
‘No,’ said Matt. ‘I . . . I’ve done something stupid. I really need to see the Professor.’
Luciano looked worried. ‘I’ve got to go back to the di Chimici,’ he said. He took some coins from a purse at his belt. ‘Go to the Black Horse and get yourself some food. You’ll find a boy there called Adamo. You can trust him – I can’t say more now. I’ll make sure Constantin comes to the Scriptorium this afternoon.’
Matt walked to the inn, feeling stranger than he usually did in Padavia. He couldn’t shake off the memory that the real him was lying on his bed next to Ayesha all the time he was here. No sooner had he called for food and drink than a s
lender young man dressed as a peasant joined him at his table. But Matt thought, from his voice and his hands, that he wasn’t quite what he seemed at first glance.
‘I’m Adamo. Matteo Bosco?’ asked the boy.
‘That’s me,’ said Matt. ‘At least in Talia.’
‘You shouldn’t tell strangers you aren’t from Talia,’ said the boy.
‘Luciano said I could trust you,’ said Matt. He didn’t feel like playing games. He was desperate to get his interview with Constantin over and to get back to his world with a cure for Jago.
A woman brought his food and ale over and Matt spotted a tall man hovering round their table.
‘Friend of yours?’ he asked Adamo.
The boy leaned over to him and said in a whisper, ‘He’s my servant. And he is trained to run a sword through you if you offer me any insolence, so I’d be careful if I were you.’
Matt paused, a bite of food halfway to his mouth. ‘Who are you?’ he whispered back.
Adamo looked round the crowded inn before answering.
‘The Duchessa of Bellezza,’ she said quietly. ‘Arianna Rossi. Luciano’s future wife.’
The tall man was standing right behind her now and watching Matt intently. His right hand was under his cloak and he looked ready to move fast.
Matt continued to eat; at the moment it didn’t feel safe to say anything. He had no idea why the Duchessa of Bellezza was sitting at his table and he was very keen not to antagonise her bodyguard. When Matt had finished his food, they left the inn together and Arianna walked beside him back to the University, while the tall man followed them.
‘Luciano asked me to look out for you,’ said Arianna. ‘He knew that Filippo di Chimici would be around at lunchtime. He has been worried about you.’
‘Yeah, I’ve got some problems back home,’ said Matt, not knowing where to begin.
‘I am sorry for that,’ said Arianna. ‘I hope it is not because of the task you are doing here. It would not be the first time.’
‘Not exactly,’ said Matt. ‘But I didn’t want to face Professor Constantin yesterday.’
‘He is your Stravagante in Padavia, I believe,’ said Arianna sympathetically and Matt found himself wondering what she would look like dressed as a woman. He thought she would be strikingly beautiful. It reminded him again of what he had lost with Ayesha.
‘Matteo!’ someone called and he saw Cesare riding up.
‘Hi,’ said Matt, wondering how he was going to introduce his companion.
Then he was thrown into total confusion by Arianna herself.
‘Cesare!’ she cried in a musical and very un-masculine voice. The Remoran looked astonished; he leapt from his horse and obviously didn’t know whether to shake hands with the peasant boy or kneel at his feet. But she had remembered her disguise by then and managed a little bow to him.
‘I am Adamo the peasant while I’m in Padavia,’ she said quietly. ‘And as such I must defer to Cesare Montalbano, the famous victor of the Stellata.’
In the ICU Vicky Mulholland was still sitting with Jago’s mother, who had fallen into an exhausted doze in her chair. The boy was stable but still unconscious and Vicky was finding it harder and harder to stay positive for her friend. The nights were always the worst, she remembered. The lights of the ward dimmed, voices lowered and the blackness outside the window all made the hours pass more slowly and the hope that came with the dawn was often illusory.
Vicky thought back over the last three or four years. There had been the awful period of Lucien’s first illness, his chemotherapy, which robbed him of his black curls, and then what now felt like a sort of reprieve when he had been well enough to come with her and David to Venice. It hadn’t been long after that when they saw the hospital consultant and had been told that the brain tumour had returned.
But there had been something strange about Lucien’s last weeks, something that the doctors in this hospital hadn’t understood. He shouldn’t have gone into a coma but he had and all his brain activity had ceased. The day she and David had stood and watched Lucien’s breathing machine turned off had been the worst of her life. She could understand very well what Celia Jones was going through.
After the funeral of her son, Vicky had believed herself to be losing her reason. Not just mad with grief, which she recognised was part of what was happening to her, but genuinely, unpredictably mad. She had started to see Lucien in the streets of Islington. Of course David had said it was her imagination – until he saw him himself.
There hadn’t been many such sightings and they didn’t last long but the parents had to live with this secret; there was no question of telling anyone else.
And then, two years ago, the mystery that was Nicholas had landed on her doorstep, literally. A beautiful boy, with curly black hair, wounded in body and mind, needing a mother. Even though he was now a six foot plus fencing champion without even a trace of a limp, he was still the greatest single reason that she had survived Lucien’s death. Vicky had never shaken off the notion that Nick was somehow Lucien’s present to her.
It was ridiculous but no more so than seeing your dead son standing outside your house.
Vicky stretched her back muscles. She couldn’t face another cup of hospital coffee. She wanted to go home, to look in on Nick as he slept in the room that had once been Lucien’s and then to slip into bed beside her sleeping husband and take reassurance from him along with his warmth. But Celia needed her and she would stay.
When Matt got back to the Scriptorium, Biagio nodded at him.
‘Master wants you,’ he said. ‘In the studio.’
With a feeling of dread Matt knocked at the studio door. It was a relief to find Luciano in there with Constantin even though it made the small room seem crowded.
To his surprise, the Professor clasped him warmly in his arms. Matt found himself looking down at his pink scalp, covered with his neatly cropped grey hair.
‘Welcome back,’ Constantin was saying. ‘We were all worried about you.’
For one awful moment Matt felt he was going to cry. Neither of these two Stravaganti knew what he had done yet and he felt he had failed a test of character. Surely when he told them they would no longer care about him? And he wanted desperately for them to approve of him – even more than he wanted Ayesha to.
He swallowed. ‘Professor, I need your help,’ he said. ‘You remember how we talked about the evil eye? Well I did it. I put it on someone and now he’s in danger. He might die. Can you please help me to take it off?’
There. It was done now.
Luciano and Constantin were looking at him gravely.
‘Guilt is a terrible burden,’ said Constantin and he reached out and put one hand on Matt’s head. He closed his eyes and murmured a few words.
Matt felt a sensation like being in a bath while the water drains out. He was temporarily suspended between elements and when he came to himself again he felt clean and forgiven.
‘Thanks,’ he said, feeling that was inadequate. ‘But does this mean that Jago’s better now – because I’m sorry for what I did?’
‘Unfortunately not,’ said Constantin. ‘You will have to use the counter-spell in your book. I can explain it to you again but it is too much for you to bear the burden alone. I will come back to your world with you.’
‘No,’ said Luciano. ‘It is too dangerous for you, Professor. I will go with Matt.’
Chapter 15
A Face from the Past
The afternoon in Padavia dragged for Matt. He had agreed to go to Luciano’s house before stravagating back to his world. He was enormously grateful that the older boy was coming back with him. But he had no idea how it was going to work. Lucien Mulholland was dead; wasn’t it crazy for him to risk being seen so near to where he used to live?
At the end of their long working day, the pressmen left the Scriptorium, rolling down their filthy sleeves and talking loudly about the need to slake their thirsts. Matt walked to Luciano’s house near
the cathedral, feeling that he would need at least a pint of ale before being ready to stravagate.
Alfredo let him in and took him into the elegant dining room. It took Matt a while to adjust to the candlelit scene. He recognised Luciano and Dethridge and Cesare, but also present was a beautiful young woman with chestnut-brown hair and violet eyes, in a low-cut dress of grey taffeta. It could only be the Duchessa with her disguise cast off; in fact he could also see the tall bodyguard a few paces behind the woman’s chair.
Matt felt completely inadequate standing in the doorway in his printer’s devil clothes. He had thought perhaps his mysterious trips to Talia had something to do with feeling out of place in his own life but he didn’t feel as if he belonged here either. Maybe he would end up lost somewhere between Padavia and Islington and spend the rest of his days wandering in the void, with nothing to bind him to either world.
‘There you are,’ said Luciano warmly, and the feeling dissipated. ‘Will you eat with us before we leave?’
‘Can I have a wash first?’ asked Matt.
‘Of course. Alfredo will show you where,’ said Luciano. ‘I’d offer you a change of clothes but you’re quite a bit taller than me – broader too.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Matt. ‘I probably need to stay in these clothes for when I come back.’
‘You’re right,’ said Luciano, disconcerted by how much he had already forgotten about stravagating when you weren’t a Talian.
When Matt came back, feeling a little less disreputable, he found a place laid for him between Luciano and Cesare, opposite the Duchessa.
‘Welcome,’ she said as he sat down. ‘Refresh yourself – you work hard here in Talia, I think?’
Matt didn’t need a second invitation. He ate and drank heartily, noticing that Luciano himself took little. His host looked pale and tired. Matt saw how often Arianna looked towards him and realised that she was worried about the coming visit to his old world.
‘We mustn’t linger, Matt,’ said Luciano, looking out of the window. ‘The night is coming on and the morning will be wearing away in your world.’