City of Secrets Page 9

  ‘I’m no astronomer,’ said Luciano, stalling. ‘Science wasn’t my best subject at school.’

  Dethridge fixed him with his blue stare.

  ‘Do not dissemble with me, sonne,’ he said. ‘Ye knowe whatte I cannot – theories thatte have bene tested with instruments from youre twenty-first centurie. Yt most be knowne by eche and every childe thatte goes to school. But ye cannot tell mee.’

  ‘Can I really not?’ asked Luciano. ‘Knowledge isn’t like an object, is it? It’s not like taking Talian gold back to our world or bringing medicine from our old world to this.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Dethridge, suddenly looking his age. ‘Bot yt is still not allowed. Eche centurie moste discover the secrets of the universe for ytselfe.’

  Luciano felt a sort of relief. He was so glad he didn’t have to explain to his foster-father that men would walk on the moon in the twentieth century.

  ‘Bot I shalle telle ye what I thynke,’ said Dethridge. ‘There’s no need to saye yf I am righte or wronge.’

  He lowered his voice. ‘Yt has been a theorie for many years that we are notte the centre of the worlde. The grete starre thatte is our sunne is atte the myddel; every thynge else travels arounde yt. And the moone travels around us. Everything ordered in the grete dance of the spheres. Bot to saye yt or believe yt is a heresie thatte the Church wille not permit.’

  Luciano looked at him astonished. Dethridge nodded.

  ‘Constantine knows yt,’ he said. ‘Whatte do ye thinke he printes in thatte Secret Scriptorium of his?’

  ‘I thought it was spells and things,’ said Luciano.

  ‘All secrets are the same,’ said Dethridge. ‘A secret is joste somme thynge that is not yet knowne to al. Bot the Chymists have set their face against lerning. Instede they want to fix al knowledge atte the poynte yt is now and controlle yt through the Talian Church. So Constantine moste do his werke hugger-mugger.’

  ‘You’re thinking about these new laws that Antonio has passed?’ asked Luciano.

  ‘Do ye knowe who was in this citee less thanne a weke ago?’ asked Dethridge, without waiting for an answer. ‘Thatte Ronald the Chymist.’

  Luciano looked blank.

  ‘Ye remembire thatte emissarie from Remora, who captured ye – Duke Nicholas’s cozin?’

  Luciano was surprised; they never talked about what had led to his permanent translation to Talia but there was no doubt that Rinaldo di Chimici had been responsible, when he kidnapped him and kept him away from his talisman for so long.

  ‘Rinaldo di Chimici was here?’ he asked.

  ‘Here, and talked Messer Antony into adopting the newe lawes the Grand Duke Fabrice has introduced in Tuschia,’ said Dethridge.

  ‘The laws against magic,’ said Luciano slowly.

  ‘On penaltee of dethe,’ said Dethridge. ‘Ye remembire thatte I have escaped thatte judgemente once bifore.’

  They were both silent for a moment.

  ‘So ye see,’ he continued. ‘Yt is beste for us if ye nevire telle me whatte ye knowe about the worlde from your olde lyfe. Yt wolde putte us bothe in daungere.’

  *

  The first Saturday that Matt had passed in Talia, the day after the Saturday in his own world, a lot of which he had spent sleeping, he was frustrated to discover that he still had to work in the Scriptorium; Talia obviously hadn’t heard of weekends. Constantin explained to him that he would have Sundays free.

  ‘Big deal,’ murmured Matt.

  ‘And all the major saints’ days,’ added Constantin. ‘We have a lot in Talia. Next Tuesday, for example, is the Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist and the Scriptorium will be closed.’

  ‘Good,’ said Matt. ‘I’ll get the day off.’

  ‘But you will still stravagate?’ asked Constantin.

  And he did. He needed to know more about this strange world that only some chosen people could visit and to find out what on earth his task there could be. He had discovered that throughout Talia, Padavia was known as ‘The City of Words’, just as Bellezza was ‘The City of Masks’ and Remora, ‘The City of Stars. But as far as he could tell, it should really be called ‘City of Secrets’.

  He spent that free Tuesday wandering the streets of the city with Luciano and Cesare, who had for once left their horses at home.

  ‘I can’t understand why you guys ride everywhere,’ he said. ‘It’s not such a big city – you can walk to anywhere you need to go.’

  ‘Luciano needs the practice,’ said Cesare. ‘They have no horses in Bellezza.’

  ‘It’s not like using an SUV to go to the local shop,’ said Luciano, smiling.

  Matt realised he had been thinking something like that.

  ‘The horse needs the exercise as much as I need the practice,’ Luciano went on. ‘And a horse doesn’t contribute to global warming – its fuel is organic.’

  ‘I have no idea what you two are talking about,’ said Cesare. ‘What’s an “essyuvee”? Is it another kind of animal?’

  Matt laughed. ‘You don’t want to know.’ He couldn’t imagine what Cesare would make of life in twenty-first century London. He was finding it hard enough to adjust to the cobbled streets of Padavia where all the students carried daggers or arquebuses.

  ‘Do you think it would be harder for a Talian to go to your world then?’ asked Luciano, reading his thoughts. ‘Falco seems to have adapted all right.’

  ‘Yeah, I reckon it would,’ said Matt. ‘Life’s just so much – louder. And faster. Anyway, Nick told me he was terrified of traffic when he first came.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what your world must be like,’ said Cesare. ‘Luciano has tried to explain it to me but it’s just too different.’

  ‘The basic things haven’t changed though,’ said Luciano. ‘Love, death, that sort of thing. They’re always the same.’

  ‘That’s why we’ve enrolled at the School of Fencing as well as the School of Riding,’ said Cesare.

  And Matt knew he wasn’t talking about falling in love.

  *

  Messer Antonio was not the sort of man to be intimidated by nobles but he had listened more carefully to Cardinal di Chimici’s embassy than to the earlier request to hand over Luciano to Giglian justice. And he had his reasons.

  Although he was a good friend to Bellezza, he had long distrusted the goddess religion which had spread from the lagoon to most of Talia. Antonio was a man of reason and he disliked anything that hinted at superstition. The Church was a different matter. This was the late sixteenth century and a rationalist couldn’t just come out and say he didn’t believe in God. So Antonio had compromised and taken the line that the safest set of beliefs was that contained within the Talian Church.

  Rinaldo had been speaking with the blessing of the Pope, who was also a di Chimici, and Antonio had taken notice. He read through the Grand Duke’s edicts against magic and all occult practices and, with a few minor modifications, had swiftly got them passed as Padavian laws.

  And then he braced himself for his wife’s reaction. Signora Giunta was a Bellezzan born and bred and though she went to church every Sunday, she also kept a little shrine to the goddess in her bedroom, decked with cheap gold trinkets, ribbons and flowers that were changed every day. In all their married life together, Antonio had not been able to persuade her that this was not seemly for the wife of the Governor of one of Talia’s twelve powerful city-states.

  The night that he signed the laws ‘contra goetiam’ (or ‘against black magic’), Antonio went home with dread in his heart. As always, his four daughters ran to meet him and smother him with kisses. Giunta presided over a very good dinner table and when the children had gone to bed Antonio sighed as he lingered over his coffee, not wanting to dispel the feeling of well-being his food had given him.

  ‘Giunta, my dear,’ he said at last. ‘There is something I must tell you. The Council today passed laws that will affect you.’

  ‘Me?’ said Giunta, puzzled, settling down with her lace-cushion, her fing
ers flying over the delicate work. ‘How could your laws affect me?’

  Antonio cleared his throat. ‘They are laws against magic.’

  ‘Magic? What has that got to do with me?’ asked Giunta, her fingers stilling. ‘Do you take me for a witch?’

  But she was smiling and Antonio wished he didn’t have to continue.

  ‘It’s serious, my dear,’ he said. ‘Magic is going to cover all superstitious and occult practices – including any observance of – well – of the old religion.’

  There was a long silence. Giunta had resumed her lace-making but her full mouth was set in a determined line.

  ‘You understand?’

  ‘Oh yes, I understand,’ said Giunta.

  ‘Such practices will be punishable by death,’ insisted Antonio. He didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding between them.

  ‘It will be interesting then, won’t it?’ said his wife.

  ‘Interesting, my love?’

  ‘Yes, if the lawgiver’s wife is found to have an innocent statue of the Lady in their chamber. What would happen to her?’

  Antonio was appalled. It had never crossed his mind that Giunta would simply not obey the laws, however much she resented them. If she was going to be so defiant, he had put her in terrible danger.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said now, fear making his voice harsh. ‘You of all people must be seen to obey the law. How would it look if I can’t even count on obedience from my own wife?’

  ‘So that is what you care about? Your reputation as a husband?’

  Giunta sounded so contemptuous it made Antonio squirm. He tried to take her in his arms but she was as unresponsive as a plank of wood.

  ‘No,’ he said tenderly, though anger was taking the place of fear at the situation he had put them both in. ‘What I care about is that if you are found out to be a practising goddess-worshipper, then you will die – horribly, by fire! And I could not bear to lose you.’

  Giunta softened then and they sat together for a long time until the candles burnt down and they were in the dark.

  Then he heard her say in a low voice, ‘You haven’t understood about the people of the Lady, Antonio. They have a higher law they must obey than that of any earthly city. I fear the consequences of your laws will be terrible – and not just for me.’

  *

  On Friday, Dethridge gave his third lecture. It was about what Luciano realised were eclipses of the moon, though he started by talking about ‘nyghte blacknesse oute of sesoune’ and about primitive beliefs that these sudden disappearances of the moon were caused by her being devoured by werewolves. ‘Varcolaci’ they were called and the red rim at the bottom of the moon was said to be her blood dripping from their mouths.

  At the end there was a bit Luciano couldn’t fully understand about how to calculate when such an eclipse might come again. When the group of students had finally dispersed, it was late afternoon and Matt emerged from the Scriptorium just as Luciano and Dethridge walked out of the colonnaded courtyard.

  ‘Hey Matt!’ called Luciano. ‘Come and meet my father.’

  Matt felt suddenly shy as the old man turned his piercing blue gaze on him. He was aware of his many smudges and smuts and wiped his hand on his breeches to make it clean enough to shake Dethridge’s.

  ‘Gretinges, Mattheus,’ said Dethridge, and Matt saw straight away what Luciano had meant about his old-fashioned English. ‘How do ye fare in Talie, yonge manne?’

  ‘Very well,’ said Matt politely. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your lectures but I am working in the Scriptorium.’

  ‘Aye, with Professire Constantine. How do ye lyke werking with the presses?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t had much chance to work the press,’ said Matt. ‘The nearest I’ve got is spreading the ink on the print.’

  They walked to where Luciano and Dethridge had tied up their horses. The two beasts were contentedly munching something in their nosebags, which the Stravaganti unhitched and slung on to their pommels.

  ‘Come back with us,’ said Luciano.

  ‘I can’t stay long,’ said Matt. ‘You know – the sunset rule.’

  ‘I do,’ said Luciano. ‘Come for a bit. We’ll just walk the horses. Or would you like to ride Cara?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Matt, looking at the mare. She was a docile beast but still looked huge when viewed from up close. ‘I’ll walk.’

  It was the first time he’d been to Luciano’s lodgings and he looked around with amazement at all the luxurious carpets and hangings, while Dethridge took both horses round to the stables. ‘He used to be an ostler, you know,’ said Luciano. ‘When we found him living in Montemurato.’

  Alfredo brought them all red wine and Matt drank deeply. When Dethridge got back from the stables, he quizzed Matt about his life in England and Matt did his best to satisfy him, stumbling a bit over the Elizabethan’s language.

  When he’d answered all his queries, Matt had some of his own. He’d heard about how all the stravagating had begun, with William Dethridge’s accident. And Luciano had told him about how his foster-father had sometimes been discovered by people who thought he was dead when he was only stravagating. He was known as ‘Doctor Death’ by some.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you,’ said Matt. ‘How do you feel about England now? Do you feel like a real Talian? Or do you still feel English?’

  Dethridge sighed. ‘There is no holpe in thinking about the past,’ he said. ‘There was to be no going back for mee.’ But he was looking at Luciano as he said it.

  Chapter 9

  New Allies

  There was an impromptu concert in front of the cathedral. A group of gaily dressed, dark-skinned people with flutes, recorders, tambourines and fiddles had camped near the great bronze statue of a soldier on a horse. The centre of the city was filled with the alien sound of their music and singing.

  Luciano saw them on his way to meet Matt at the Scriptorium and stopped to listen. He knew the look and sound of the Manoush. He scanned the group but there was no sign of Aurelio and Raffaella, the two he knew best.

  One member of the group stood out from the rest. He was tall and lighter-skinned with rusty brown hair. Like all the Manoush, he wore it long, below his shoulders and some of it was plaited with coloured ribbons. As if aware of Luciano’s gaze on him, the young man looked towards him and the Bellezzan found something in his grey eyes that attracted him.

  The Manoush detached himself from the group and, tucking a flute into his belt, walked over to where Luciano stood watching them.

  ‘Greetings,’ he said, making a formal bow. ‘I am seeking a Bellezzan named Crinamorte, a friend of my cousin Aurelio Vivoide. Can you help me?’

  ‘I am he,’ said Luciano, matching the Manoush’s formal style.

  The Manoush nodded. ‘You look like his description.’

  Luciano didn’t object that Aurelio was blind and had never seen him; Raffaella could have described him to their cousin.

  ‘I am Ludo Vivoide,’ said the Manoush, bowing again. ‘My people are here for the Day of the Dead.’

  His tone was so matter-of-fact that it didn’t seem sinister to Luciano but he still didn’t know what he meant.

  ‘Is that today?’ he asked cautiously.

  Ludo threw back his head and laughed, showing perfectly white teeth, the canines very pointed. Luciano was a little surprised – he had seen an awful lot of bad teeth since living permanently in Talia – but the Manoush’s wide smile made him laugh too.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I really still don’t know much about your festivals.’

  ‘We are coming to the end of the old year,’ said Ludo, serious again. ‘We shall spend a week and a day preparing and then have the three-day festival in which we remember those departed from us. I think your Talian Church calls it the Feast of All Souls.’

  Something stirred in Luciano’s memory from what had happened in Bellezza the year before and light dawned.

  ‘It’s l
ike Hallowe’en!’ he said.

  It was Ludo’s turn to look puzzled. Luciano wondered what he’d make of pumpkin lanterns and trick-or-treating. He didn’t think he’d like the sharp-toothed Manoush to play a trick on him.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s . . . just another tradition from another place. Anyway, tell me about Aurelio, and Raffaella. Are they well? Are they coming here?’

  ‘They were excellently well when I last saw them,’ said Ludo. ‘They were in Romula. I think they will celebrate the Day of the Dead there.’

  ‘So it doesn’t matter what city you are in?’ asked Luciano, remembering how large numbers of the Manoush had converged on Remora in the middle of August the year before, to celebrate the Day of the Goddess.

  ‘The year closes and opens in the same way wherever we are,’ said Ludo simply. ‘My cousin wanted me to give you his good wishes and,’ he lowered his voice, ‘a warning.’

  Luciano shivered in the warm autumn sunlight. The Manoush saw more than most people and the blind Aurelio was the most perceptive of all of them.

  ‘Are you free to talk now?’ he asked Ludo. ‘I was just going to see a friend. Someone that, like me, came to Talia from a long way away.’

  He could tell from the sudden light in Ludo’s clear grey eyes that he understood him.

  ‘Another like you?’ he asked. ‘I would be honoured to meet him.’

  *

  Fabrizio di Chimici was delighted with the Cardinal’s embassy to Padavia. He hadn’t had such a success anywhere else in Talia. The other five independent city-states, Bellezza, Classe, Montemurato, Romula and Cittanuova, had all refused to introduce the laws against magic. With the six cities that were in di Chimici hands, Antonio’s cooperation had ensured that just over half Talia was now vigilant against the kind of enchantments practised by the Stravaganti. And although he could not make Padavia yield Luciano up to Giglia, all the cities of Tuschia were closed to the Bellezzan.

  What he felt he needed now was a new ally, a family member he could trust to carry out his wishes unquestioningly, without any sympathy towards the mysterious Brotherhood which so irked him. That ruled out his younger brother Gaetano, who was a friend of the Bellezzan Cavaliere’s. Fabrizio loved his brother, but he could not understand why Gaetano refused to hate the young man who had killed their father and he could not trust him with the important business of revenge.