The guard walked at a discreet distance behind the couple as they had made their way back through Gabassi’s corridor to the Nucci palace. And there, among the scented pines Caterina told him she was carrying a di Chimici heir.
Fabrizio had felt the pressure round his heart lift and his blood fizz like a bottle of prosecco. He lifted Caterina up and swung her around but very gently.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It will be a boy, won’t it? Our little prince.’
‘I hope so, if it will make you happy, Rizio,’ she had replied. ‘But if this one isn’t a prince then we’ll just have to make another. And princesses can be very nice too, don’t you think?’
‘Very – especially if they turn out as beautiful as their mother,’ he said.
But Caterina prayed every night to have a son; she felt it was the only thing that would bring back the cousin she had married.*
By the time Matt left for the Refectory, his head was whirling with more facts than he could cope with about Talia, the di Chimici family and a mysterious Doctor Dethridge who was due in Padavia in a few days. He felt relieved to see Luciano already sitting at a long wooden table with two pewter platters piled with bread, meat and tomatoes. He was reassured to see that Talian food was recognisable.
‘How does this work?’ he asked. ‘Am I eating a second lunch in the middle of the night? I’m going to have to work out extra hard if I keep coming to Talia.’
Luciano shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But it’s probably a good thing, because it gives you extra fuel and you will feel tired if you stravagate every night.’
He passed Matt a goblet of wine. ‘You’d better drink this. The water isn’t safe. You know that we are living over four hundred years behind your time here?’
‘Constantin tried to explain it to me,’ said Matt, sipping the wine cautiously and finding he rather liked it. He looked round at the other students all wearing black robes like Luciano. Many carried swords or daggers at their belts. ‘It’s a bit different from Barnsbury cafeteria, isn’t it?’
‘Not really. The biggest difference is that there are no female students.’ Luciano smiled as if at a private thought. ‘Apart from that, if you look past the clothes, they’re just as loud and they talk about much the same things.’
‘I don’t get why I’m here,’ said Matt suddenly. ‘I mean it’s cool, it’s a good adventure. But why bring someone like me to a place that’s all about learning and books and words? Constantin told me that Talians even call Padavia the City of Words. So why didn’t the talisman choose someone – well, someone more into words and language?’ Someone like Jago, he thought.
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ said Luciano seriously. ‘I was chosen because I was really ill. Georgia wasn’t ill but she was miserable – being bullied by her stepbrother Russell. And Sky was just ground down by years of looking after his sick mother. The only thing we had in common – and I’m guessing we have in common with you too – is that we were all unhappy.’
There was an awkward silence. Then Matt decided he had nothing to lose. If everything he had been told was true, then this boy was dead in his own world and could not reveal Matt’s secret.
‘I’m dyslexic,’ he said. ‘Not just a mild case – severely dyslexic. I have to have computers and special programs just to do my schoolwork. And I have this really clever – and beautiful – girlfriend who’s going to go to university and be a top lawyer. And . . . I’m terrified of losing her,’ he finished simply.
‘Well,’ said Luciano. ‘I can see why you’re wondering about stravagating to a city where words are everything. But maybe that’s exactly why. Maybe being here will cure you.’
‘I did read a bit of one of Constantin’s books quite easily,’ said Matt. ‘But it hasn’t made it any better back home.’
‘I had an illness,’ said Luciano. ‘One that never followed me here. Perhaps it’s the same with dyslexia – though that isn’t an illness, is it?’
Matt suddenly felt terrible. Luciano’s problem had been cancer and it had killed him in his own world. And here was Matt, strong and healthy in both worlds, whingeing because he was a poor reader and feared losing his girlfriend.
‘No, not exactly,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It must seem a pretty lame reason for being unhappy compared with what you went through.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Luciano. ‘I don’t think the reason matters. I think that the talismans just fall into the hands of people who are sad; it somehow makes them more receptive to what’s needed here in Talia.’
‘And what is that?’
‘It’s different every time,’ said Luciano. ‘But it’s always somehow connected with the di Chimici.’
‘Yeah, Constantin told me a bit about them,’ said Matt. ‘They’ve made some new laws about magic. God, I feel stupid even saying that.’
‘I know,’ said Luciano, grinning. ‘I used to feel that. But the very fact that you’re here means you’ve got to believe it. Still, I didn’t know about the new laws. That must be why Constantin took your talisman to your world.’
Matt noticed he didn’t say ‘our world’.
‘But there aren’t any di Chimici in this city, are there?’ he asked.
‘No, not yet,’ said Luciano. ‘That’s why my people thought I’d be safe here.’ His hand moved involuntarily to his dagger.
*
The messenger in Giglian livery cantered into the city through the Western Gate and slowed only to ask directions to the Governor’s house. His steaming horse took him to the great Palace of Justice that dominated a square in the centre of the city. But the Governor was not there.
Messer Antonio was the elected ruler of Padavia and went about his work as if he were a carpenter or baker. In fact in his private life before he went into politics he had been a blacksmith. He still lived in a modest house, which the di Chimici rulers of other city-states might have sneered at. The only difference between his old lifestyle and the new was that his present house was closer to the main square.
The Giglian messenger left his horse in the palace stables and set off on foot to find Messer Antonio. He passed an old Reman monument that looked like a tomb on legs and carried an inscription in old Talic. It was a strange city, he thought. Not many grand buildings and statues like his own Giglia but full of curiosities like this. He couldn’t understand the Governor living in an ordinary house, though. The great Nucci palace, which the young Grand Duke inhabited, was much more his idea of a fitting home for a ruler.
Antonio was wrestling with laws on carriage taxes when the messenger was shown in. He looked up in relief, till he recognised the livery.
‘Honoured sir,’ began the envoy, sweeping off his plumed hat and bowing low. ‘I bring greetings from His Grace the Grand Duke of all Tuschia.’
‘Sit down man, do,’ said Antonio testily. ‘There’s no need for all that flowery stuff. You come from Fabrizio di Chimici, I can see that. How about a cup of ale?’
The messenger, thrown off his script, sat on a plain wooden stool and nodded. He had never been received so unceremoniously.
‘What’s afoot in your city, then, lad?’ asked Antonio, when the ale had been brought.
‘Er, my master is well and trusts that you are too?’ he began hesitantly.
‘Yes, yes, fine well,’ said Antonio. ‘As are my wife and daughters. And the Grand Duchess?’
‘She expects an heir,’ said the messenger, glad to get one of his pieces of information out.
‘Then let us drink a health to the Grand Duchess and her son if it so be,’ said Antonio. ‘I have had only girls myself but have never had cause to regret that. Is this what you rode here to tell me?’
‘Not that alone,’ said the messenger, relaxing under the influence of Antonio’s strong ale. ‘The Grand Duke is concerned that the young man from Bellezza who killed his father has not been found.’
Antonio’s face turned to granite. ‘Killed his father? I thought Niccolò di Chimici died i
n a duel? You make it sound like common murder.’
The messenger shifted uncomfortably. ‘You might know that the young man, the Cavaliere Luciano Crinamorte as he is known, is no longer in Bellezza. Rumour in that city has it that he is here in Padavia.’
‘And if rumour should be right?’
This was the difficult bit.
‘My master asks that you agree to hand him over to his jurisdiction. That I . . . that he . . . that he come back to Giglia with me to stand trial.’
Antonio did nothing quickly. He supped his ale with as much deliberation and enjoyment as if he had been shoeing horses all morning.
‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t want to disoblige your master but he must know that his authority, great though it is in the Tuschian cities, does not extend to Padavia. Therefore no arrest warrant issued in Giglia has any weight here.’
‘I believe, honoured sir, that the request was made more in the spirit of a favour between rulers than one made according to the law,’ said the messenger. This was not going well.
‘You know,’ said Antonio confidentially, pouring more ale for the messenger. ‘If we were sitting here discussing an ordinary murder – or assassination as it would have been – I would be sympathetic to the Grand Duke’s request. But death in a duel is never subject to prosecution – unless, of course, one duellist played dirty.’
He looked the messenger in the eye and the poor man changed colour. It was common knowledge in Giglia that Grand Duke Niccolò had poisoned the foils. He said nothing.
‘As it is,’ said Antonio. ‘I don’t find that the Cavaliere has any charge to answer and it would be foolhardy for him to return to any Tuschian city while the new Grand Duke is so unreasonably angry with him.’
‘So that is the answer I must take my master?’ asked the messenger.
‘Say to him that I rejoice in his good news and recommend him to look forward to the good fortune of a healthy child, not backward to the death of a father. And if the Cavaliere should find himself in my city, I will accord him all the welcome and protection that Padavia can afford.’
When Matt woke in his room after his second stravagation, he no longer doubted that he had become a traveller in time and space. For whatever reason, he was being transported to Talia every night and both of the people he had met there were in danger from the family called di Chimici. Luciano was basically on the run from a murder rap, though he hadn’t in fact done anything wrong. And Professor Constantin was printing illicit material that would get him into serious trouble if it got outside Padavia and into di Chimici hands.
‘The penalty for practising what they call magic is death,’ Constantin had said. ‘And what they call magic covers everything that the Stravaganti do.’
‘Stravaganti?’ said Matt. ‘Including me?’
‘Including you,’ agreed Constantin.
It was all very well to feel unhappy in his own world about girlfriend problems or difficulties with schoolwork. But in his Talian life, which was clearly going to continue, it seemed that if he set foot outside the city, Matt was going to be as much a di Chimici target as Luciano.
He looked at his mobile phone and found a text message from Ayesha. He froze as he deciphered the dreaded words ‘We need to talk.’
Chapter 6
University Students
When he got to the gates of Barnsbury Comp that morning, Matt found his best friend Chay waiting for him. He was relieved to see him. If they bumped into Ayesha, she would hardly dump him in front of someone else.
‘What’s up?’ asked Chay. ‘You look rubbish.’
‘Cheers,’ said Matt but the bathroom mirror had told him much the same thing. He had dark circles under his eyes like someone who hadn’t slept. And in a sense that was true.
‘Girlfriend trouble?’ said Chay.
Matt looked up sharply. ‘Has she said anything to you?’
Chay shifted uncomfortably and kicked at a little bit of gravel with his trainer. ‘Might’ve,’ he said, looking down.
‘Come on,’ said Matt. ‘What did she say?’
‘Just that you seem to have gone off her,’ mumbled Chay. ‘If you haven’t, I think you need to tell her soon – before she gets in first and dumps you.’
Matt felt a weight lift off his heart. ‘Of course I haven’t gone off her! She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. But I’ve got a lot of stuff going on. I’ll tell her, don’t worry.’
‘What sort of stuff?’ asked Chay. ‘And what do those guys in the upper sixth have to do with it?’
Matt was absolutely stumped. How on earth could he tell Chay, who had been his best mate since junior school, that he’d found a book of spells that transported him to another world? And as he realised that there was no way to do it, his heart sank again. If he couldn’t think of a cover story to tell Chay, then how could he explain it to Ayesha?
Guido Parola was a good teacher and he found Marco an eager pupil. There was a moment’s embarrassment when they met for their first lesson and Marco recognised the red-haired assassin. When Guido had attempted to stab the previous Duchessa in her state mandola, Marco had been the mandolier in charge of the vessel.
But the old Duchessa, in reward for his service, had made Marco footman in the Ducal Palace and given him a handsome uniform and a bag of silver. In a few months he would be twenty-five and entitled to a generous mandolier’s pension. Then he would marry his Barbara but meanwhile he must learn how to protect the young Duchessa and who better to teach him than a reformed assassin?
Reformed assassin! Guido was sick of the sound of those words but that was how his mistress, Silvia Rossi, Regent Rodolfo’s wife, always referred to him and it was a punishment he had to bear. For he had indeed, tempted by money he sorely needed, agreed to kill the old Duchessa. And he was one of the small number of people who knew his mistress’s secret – that she was the same Duchessa he had tried to kill and who had also survived the second assassination attempt that was supposed to have killed her.
Marco certainly didn’t know that. He had never seen the old Duchessa without a mask or the Regent’s wife with one. But he saw how Guido blushed when Signora Rossi referred to his criminal past.
‘Guido is very handy with a dagger and a sword,’ she said pleasantly. ‘And those skills which would kill a ruler may also protect her. Teach Marco all you know, Guido, for my stepdaughter’s life will be in his hands every time she travels to Padavia.’
She caught his eye as she said ‘stepdaughter’ and Guido nodded slightly; he knew how important Arianna’s safety was to her real mother, standing before him.
‘You mustn’t mind Signora Rossi,’ he told Marco, as soon as she had left them. ‘It’s just her way.’
‘How long have you worked for her?’ asked Marco.
‘Oh, quite a while,’ said Guido vaguely. He didn’t tell the footman that Silvia had in fact released him from her service in the spring but he had needed to stay in Bellezza, to look after his dissolute brother, and hadn’t quite been able to detach himself from the palace. But one day soon he would leave for Fortezza and begin his studies at the University there. He envied Luciano his life in Padavia.
‘Well, let’s get started,’ he said. ‘The most important thing to be prepared for is attack from behind.’
And he threw Marco to the floor, taking him completely off-guard.
*
Luciano was riding back home from the University when he heard another horse behind him. There was nothing unusual in that but he urged his own horse a little faster. The following rider speeded up to match him and Luciano felt the first chill of fear. He was caught between longing to get to the relative safety of his home and not wanting any pursuer to know where he lived. While he hesitated about which route to take, the other rider gained on him and a familiar voice called out, ‘Luciano?’
Luciano pulled on the reins. ‘Cesare?’ he said. ‘What on earth are you doing here? You frightened the life out of me!’
> The two horses drew together, tossing their heads and taking in each other’s scent, while the two young riders clasped arms. Cesare laughed at his friend’s bemusement.
‘I’m a student, like you,’ he said. ‘Just started.’
‘But why?’ asked Luciano rather bluntly.
‘Do you think only cavalieri should be educated then?’ teased Cesare. ‘I have the money to pay my fees and lodging – remember the silver Georgia gave me? – and my father thought I could do with having some of the rough edges knocked off me.’
‘Of course,’ said Luciano. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . But it’s wonderful to see you! I’m just surprised they can spare you from home and the stables.’
‘Well, the race is over for another year,’ said Cesare. ‘And I’m not doing a full degree. Just a year, to see how the other half lives.’
‘Me too,’ said Luciano. ‘Look – come back home with me. We can have something to eat.’
‘Fine,’ said Cesare. ‘I want to hear all you know about our friends,’ he lowered his voice, ‘from far away. Have you any news of Georgia and Falco?’
‘He’s not Falco any more,’ said Luciano. ‘Come back with me and we’ll share our news.’
The two friends turned their horses towards the cathedral square.
‘I’m glad to see you’re keeping up the riding,’ said Cesare.
‘I don’t get the chance in Bellezza,’ said Luciano. ‘And I was pretty sore after the ride here but Cara is a docile beast.’ He patted his bay mare. ‘Who’s that you’re riding? I don’t recognise her.’
‘No, Fiorella is new – since your time in Remora. She’s Arcangelo’s daughter.’
‘Is she going to be a racehorse too?’ asked Luciano, admiring the elegant lines of the chestnut.
‘Maybe,’ said Cesare. ‘I bought her myself and when I get back home I’ll train her up for the Stellata and see what she can do.’
His friend was used to the Remoran’s modesty. He was the best rider Luciano had ever known and as good a judge of a racehorse as many much older men in Talia. If Cesare thought Fiorella had a chance of competing in the Stellata race, she was probably a future winner.