‘Are you all right?’ she asked Vicky, still not knowing who she was.
‘Oh yes,’ said Vicky Mulholland, smiling. ‘I couldn’t possibly be better.’
Chapter 16
When is it Right to Kill a Man?
At the hospital entrance, Nick and Georgia were astonished to see Luciano walking out with Vicky, with Matt and Ayesha trailing behind. Vicky was keeping herself upright and steady as she walked in silence to the car park, but it was costing her an effort. Nick and Georgia fell in beside Matt and Ayesha and spoke in whispers.
‘Did it work?’ asked Nick.
‘Yes,’ said Matt. ‘At least he’s come out of the coma. I think he’ll be all right. But it was pretty hairy.’
‘What about, you know, Luciano’s mother?’ asked Georgia. ‘Didn’t she freak out when she saw him?’
‘Yes, but that helped a lot. Luciano said he was going to create a diversion but I don’t think even he dreamed of bumping into his mother.’
‘Mine too, now,’ said Nick.
‘What do you mean, his mum?’ said Ayesha. She was completely in the dark about what was going on. ‘How can that Talian be Mrs Mulholland’s son?’ Then she remembered something and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘You don’t mean . . . not the one that died?’
There was just time for Matt to nod and then they were at Vicky’s Renault.
‘I haven’t got room for you all,’ she said brightly, fumbling in her bag for her keys.
‘That’s all right, Mrs Mulholland,’ said Matt. ‘I’ll walk Ayesha home.’
Without any consultation, Nick and Georgia got in the back and Luciano sat next to his mother. It was over two years since he had been in a car.
‘What happened to the Peugeot?’ he asked Vicky.
She turned in her seat, the keys still dangling in the lock.
‘Can I touch you?’ she asked quietly.
In answer Luciano reached over and hugged her. Vicky clung on to him tightly and the others heard her sobbing. Georgia reached out to Nick; this must be very peculiar for him.
‘How are you here?’ said Vicky at last, as Luciano got tissues out of the glove compartment and handed them to her. ‘You seem much more real than the other times.’
‘I’m getting better at it,’ he said.
‘You sound as if you have a sore throat,’ she said, concerned.
‘I’m quite well,’ said Luciano. ‘You don’t need to worry about me.’
Vicky gave a bitter laugh and blew her nose.
Nick couldn’t restrain himself any longer. ‘Are you all right, Vicky?’ he said, reaching awkwardly forward to touch her.
‘Oh, Nick,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. It’s wonderful to see Lucien again but so weird. I think I must be dreaming.’ She switched the engine on.
‘Are you OK to drive?’ asked Georgia.
‘I will be as long as no one says anything,’ said Vicky. ‘I just want to get home and call David.’
Barbara had, as predicted, managed much better this time. For a start there was no state dinner to worry about. She had dined with Rodolfo and Silvia alone, apart from the servants, and the Regent and his wife were kindness itself, introducing no topic that could trip her up. But it was still disconcerting to be waited on and she could not relax.
It was a relief when a groom brought the great cats into the salon. Barbara was used to them now and they to her. They were ready to be stroked and looked expectantly for morsels saved from her plate. It did not strike them as unusual that the maid sat where the mistress should; they cared only that she smelled familiar and was in the habit of giving them food.
When the cats had been taken away, Rodolfo dismissed the servants and Barbara immediately felt better. It was nice just to be sitting down, something maids didn’t do very often. And the dress was lovely. She smoothed the embroidered green silk of the skirt between her fingers; milady had such lovely things.
‘I wonder how Arianna is getting on,’ said Silvia, sipping the digestivo the servants had brought.
‘At least she will be well protected,’ said Rodolfo. ‘Parola tells me your fiancé has been an apt pupil, Barbara.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Barbara. She had also been wondering what was going on in Padavia. She would be glad when the Cavaliere had finished his studies and was safely back in Bellezza. ‘I think that Marco has enjoyed the lessons.’
There was knock at the door and a footman brought a message to Rodolfo on a salver.
While the servant waited for a reply, Rodolfo read it out loud.
‘His Eminence Cardinal di Chimici desires to wait upon us, my dear,’ he said to Barbara. The girl sat up straight.
‘Now, sir . . . Father?’
‘If convenient,’ said Rodolfo. ‘If you are unwell, I can put him off. But a cardinal of the Reman Church should, of course, be received with all honour and respect.’
It was clear what he wanted her to do. Barbara nodded.
‘Very well,’ said Rodolfo to the footman. ‘Please show His Eminence to the red drawing-room and bring further refreshment for us all there.’
When the footman had gone, Silvia said, ‘I think I should absent myself from this audience.’
‘No,’ said Rodolfo. ‘I think you should be there. We have to face the di Chimici as man and wife at some point.’ He glanced towards the girl in the green silk dress. ‘Will you be all right, my dear? You don’t have to say much beyond a greeting. I can speak for you.’
‘I shall do my best, sir,’ said Barbara.
‘But you must remember to call me “Father”,’ said Rodolfo kindly.
‘I shall try, sir,’ said the maid.
‘Ah, there you are,’ said Eva, when Matt came home alone. ‘I hope you’ve stopped rushing about all over the place. I want to have a nice chat with you.’
Jan popped her head round the door. ‘Oh Matt, I’ve just had a call from Celia at the hospital. She said that Jago might be coming home as early as this afternoon! But you know he’s better, don’t you? Celia said you’d visited him this morning. That was good of you.’
‘He’s a good boy,’ said Eva comfortably.
You don’t know how wrong you are, thought Matt, but there was nothing he could do but smile. ‘That’s great,’ he said, feeling that his face was going to crack and fall off.
‘Where’s Ayesha?’ asked Jan.
‘I took her home,’ said Matt.
‘Oh what a shame,’ said Eva. ‘I was looking forward to meeting her properly. I thought she looked a lovely girl.’
Matt said nothing. He wasn’t going to tell his great-aunt, in front of his mother, what the situation was between him and Ayesha. He wasn’t even sure he knew what it was himself. Yesh had been acting very strangely on the way home. Realising who Luciano was seemed to have flipped her over the edge. He’d left her at her house, telling her mother she was overtired and needed to lie down.
‘Now tell me all about your university plans,’ said Eva. ‘Jan tells me you’re thinking of Cambridge.’
Matt groaned inwardly. He wondered who had told Jan but she had tactfully withdrawn.
‘Which college?’ Eva was asking.
‘Queens,’ said Matt at random, remembering one that Georgia had mentioned.
‘Oh, very good,’ said Eva. ‘Just down the road from my old college, Newnham. Are they good for computers?’
‘Yes,’ said Matt, secure that Eva was so language and literature-focused that she wouldn’t be able to contradict him. ‘But I thought you were at Pembroke?’
Eva laughed. ‘I taught at Pembroke before I got the job at Sussex, but that was a men’s college when I was an undergraduate. Newnham was where I got my degree – women only.’
It sounded like something out of the Ark to Matt. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll get in, though,’ he said hastily. ‘It’s very hard.’
‘Well, at least you won’t have to sit an exam,’ said Eva. ‘They’ll go on your A level results and an interview.’
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‘I haven’t even done my AS yet,’ Matt reminded her. ‘I don’t have to decide until next year.’
‘It’s good to start thinking about it now though,’ said Eva. ‘Maybe if you haven’t spent my birthday present yet, you could get a book about the application process?’
Matt felt guilty; he hadn’t thanked her. He never did. Writing was hard for him but he could have phoned. He decided on a whim to tell her the truth.
‘I got this,’ he said, pulling the Talian spell-book from his jeans pocket. He never went anywhere without it now.
Eva seemed fascinated. She took the book from him and unwound the leather straps almost reverently.
‘How extraordinary,’ she said. ‘A strange book for a dyslexic to choose.’
Matt froze. Usually Eva was rather vague about what was going on but she seemed pin-sharp today. But if she knew, really knew, about his condition, why did she persist in sending him book tokens?
‘It spoke to me,’ he said in the end.
‘I can understand that,’ said his great-aunt. ‘Books have been speaking to me all my life. But it’s unusual for you, isn’t it? Oh, I know you think I’m a gaga old woman who can’t remember what my great-nephews are like. But that isn’t so. I just kept sending you the tokens in the hope that one day you’d find the right book. The one that spoke to you. I didn’t think it would be a Renaissance book of spells though.’
‘You know what it is?’ said Matt.
‘I know what it looks like,’ said Eva. ‘A Latin spell-book from some time in the sixteenth century. I’d like to know where you got such a valuable book for twenty pounds. In fact I’d like to go there myself.’
*
The scene at Luciano’s old house was uncanny for all of them. He hadn’t managed ever to get inside it in his previous stravagations, let alone speak to his mother, or hug her. Nick felt completely superfluous. Usurped, even though he was the usurper, the one who now slept in Luciano’s old bed. As soon as Vicky had called her husband and told him to come home immediately, Georgia dragged Nick off to the kitchen to make coffee; she was as at home in his house as in her own.
‘You’ve got to give them some time alone,’ she insisted. ‘Don’t look so miserable. He’ll be gone in a few hours – you’re her son now.’
But it wasn’t as easy as she was pretending. She had been so used to Nick being jealous of Luciano on her account that it was hard to accept his new set of feelings about another woman, even though that woman was his foster-mother.
In the living room, Vicky was bombarding Luciano with questions. Where was he living? Was he really well? Had he sent Nicholas to them? And, worst of all, was he ever coming back permanently?
‘It wasn’t me, Mum,’ said Luciano. ‘It was Georgia who arranged for Nick to live here.’
‘Georgia?’ said Vicky, utterly flummoxed. ‘But how is that possible?’
Luciano spread his hands in a gesture that unconsciously echoed one of his master Rodolfo’s. ‘How is any of it possible? You can ask Nick and Georgia the details. It must have been killing them these last two years not being able to say anything to you.’
‘Two years?’ said Vicky. ‘It’s been three, Lucien. A lot of this I don’t understand but don’t expect me to believe I haven’t been grieving every day of three years and more.’
‘That’s something else Georgia and Nick will have to explain,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have to go soon. It’s night in my world and I have a big day at university tomorrow. I’ve got to give a sort of speech.’
‘You’re at university?’ asked Vicky. ‘Oh, don’t go yet. Wait for David. It would be too cruel if you disappeared before he got here. There’s so much to ask you.’
‘OK,’ said Luciano. ‘But, Mum, can we phone up for pizza?’
Rinaldo di Chimici was enjoying himself. He knew that the Regent’s supposed second wife was the old Duchessa – he had recognised her at the duel in Giglia – and he was determined to let her know that he knew it. Of the new young Duchessa, he took hardly any notice at all, even though his embassy was to her.
‘I used to be Ambassador here, ma’am,’ he said. ‘From Remora. That was before I entered the Church, of course.’
‘Indeed,’ said Silvia, uncomfortable in spite of Rodolfo’s reassuring presence.
‘Yes,’ he continued. ‘Unfortunately, I was here at the time of the late Duchessa’s unfortunate demise.’
‘And what brings you here this time?’ asked Rodolfo, anxious to change the subject.
‘Ah yes,’ said the Cardinal. ‘My visit.’
After his unexpected success in Padavia, Rinaldo had taken it upon himself to visit all the independent city-states to see if he could get them to put the anti-magic laws on their statute books. His motives were twofold: if he succeeded, he would be high in the Grand Duke’s regard, but he also wanted to take on the task because he thought it was right.
He had always distrusted the goddess-religion, even though he knew that some older di Chimici practised it alongside the official observances of the Reman Church. And now that he had entered that Church himself, with his eye on the highest prize within it, he embraced with zeal the mission to wipe out all superstition and supernatural beliefs that were outside the official faith.
He didn’t have much hope of succeeding in Bellezza but he wanted to start there just to see the Regent’s so-called second wife with his own eyes; he had a score to settle with her.
‘I’m sure it has not escaped your attention,’ he said to the young Duchessa, suppressing a desire to call her ‘my dear’, ‘that your near neighbour and ally, Padavia, has adopted the new laws introduced by my cousin, the Grand Duke?’
The girl looked at him like a sheep and it was her father that answered.
‘Messer Antonio has informed us of his new laws, of course,’ said Rodolfo. He gave Barbara a tiny frown, as if to say ‘leave this to me’.
‘Naturally, the Grand Duke would be very pleased if Bellezza saw fit to follow her neighbour’s wise decision,’ said Rinaldo.
‘Naturally,’ said Rodolfo.
‘May I take it then that you will consider his request?’
‘It seems that Your Eminence’s role in the Church benefits from your past experience here as Ambassador,’ said Rodolfo. ‘We will, of course, “consider” any request from a fellow head of state. My daughter will ask her Senate and we will convey their answer to you in Remora. But enough of business – will you take some brandy?’
Rinaldo did not stay long. He was mollified that the Regent hadn’t dismissed his request out of hand and intrigued to discover how little power the new Duchessa seemed to exercise. ‘A mere puppet,’ he would tell Fabrizio, ‘manipulated by her parents, if indeed her parents they really be. I saw her make that primitive hand of fortune sign those low-class lagooners use. Perhaps that midwife witness lied? In any event, she is no threat to us. Take away the Regent and she would need a new puppetmaster. Forget about any violence towards the Duchessa of Bellezza. It is the father we need to eliminate.’
The Cardinal rode back to Padavia, well-pleased with his visit. Even if the Regent persuaded the Senate to block the anti-magic laws, if his new plan succeeded, Arianna, the Duchessa of Bellezza, would soon be without her lover or her father and then Bellezza would fall into di Chimici hands like a ripe plum.
*
‘You turn up here after three years, won’t tell us anything and then say you’ve got to get back to write an essay?’ Luciano’s father had said when he got in, sounding almost angry. But he had clutched his head and started to cry, so that Luciano could not feel anything other than sympathy.
But he did have to get back, much as he wanted to stay. Luciano was behind with his studies. With all the worry over Matt, Arianna’s visit and his developing friendship with Filippo, he hadn’t been giving his university work enough time. And he had been neglecting his riding and fencing too. He was ashamed at how often Cesare had been to their training sessions witho
ut him.
So he had left from his old house to return to Padavia as soon as he’d had a pizza and a shower. When he got back, Arianna was fast asleep in the chair beside the bed. He covered her gently with a quilt and, groaning, went to his little study and stayed up the rest of the Talian night writing his ‘Disquisitio’ for Professor Constantin’s class.
It had been more than usually difficult to concentrate. Seeing his old home and his parents had been more than unsettling. Of course he had known that he was running a risk in offering to accompany Matt, but he hadn’t expected to run into his mother in ICU. That had actually been a wonderful bonus, being able to talk to her and to convince her that he was well and living another life.
But two things had been unbearably painful: one, the hope that Vicky still held that he would come back to them, the other seeing Nicholas, the old Falco, so settled into his place. He had even had to stravagate back by lying on Nick’s bed, which had been his own not much more than two years ago.
David had asked all the awkward questions, even more than Vicky, and in the end Luciano had been longing to get away. Now his body was still tingling from the hot shower and the warm fluffy towel and he could still taste the pizza; it had been so good.
When is it right to kill a man? Luciano forced himself to focus on the subject. In a few hours he would have to give his oration, making all the right gestures, using all the approved metaphors and similes and laying down a convincing case in favour of the proposition. All the Rhetoric students had to do it. Even the Professors had to take part in public ‘Disputationes’ once a term, to demonstrate their continued skills and provide a model for their students.
Luciano had missed two of Constantin’s lessons. He could have followed the practice of the richest students in Padavia and sent a servant to take notes for him but that felt like cheating.
So he slaved over his paper as the candles guttered, marshalling his arguments and dreading the dawn.