City of Flowers (32 page)

And inside each were the thick ropes of pearls and rubies he had ordered as their wedding gifts. The princesses were thrilled with the jewels and held them up against their wedding dresses, kissing the Duke with their hair still loose about their shoulders. He left their rooms in high good humour.

*

The guests in the cathedral craned their necks to see the lovely Duchessa of Bellezza enter on the arm of her father and take a seat of honour near the High Altar. She was resplendent in a dress of silver so oversewn with pearls and amethysts that the brocade could scarcely be seen between them. A silver veil covered her hair and she was masked as usual, but that did not stop the Giglian crowd from declaring her the most lovely young woman they had ever seen.

The Grand Duke, sitting in his place of honour, saw her come in wearing the silver dress and smiled. He sat back and prepared to enjoy the weddings; it would not be long before there would be another, even more important one, in his family.

The Duchessa was attended by a maid in a plain but rich dark green gown, who was herself remarkably pretty, though she wore her hair twined in a double plait around her head and no jewels in it. The Pope and his attendants entered, taking their places at the altar with the Bishop of Giglia who was to assist at the ceremony.

Outside the cathedral the Ducal carriage had arrived at the edge of the square and a great flurry of dresses and veils was gradually emerging from it. Four nervous bridegrooms waited on the red carpet to receive their brides. First to extricate herself from the carriage was Caterina, in a dress of silver and white brocade. Then came the two Fortezzan princesses, the redhead in her green and gold and the brunette sister in her pure white satin scattered with white jewels.

Finally came Francesca in her Bellezzan white lace with her black hair full of pearls. Each groom thought his bride the loveliest, which was quite as it should be. They took hands under the baldachino and processed slowly into the cathedral, the three Giglian princes preceding their cousin Alfonso.

At various points around the cathedral the Stravaganti linked minds with the two of their Brotherhood who sat inside it. Power flowed back and forth among them, creating a force-field which held the great building suspended in their protection. The wedding procession music came to an end and the Pope intoned the opening words of the Nuptial Mass.

Camillo Nucci, sitting with his parents and his brother and sisters looked up at the gallery and saw the archers, their bows already strung and arrows nocked. ‘Not here, then,' he murmured to Filippo.

It took an hour and a half to marry the di Chimici nobles to their brides. By the end of the ceremony, the young Stravaganti were exhausted by their concentration on their task. As the bridal couples stepped out on to the red carpet and the crowd cheered and the silver trumpets blared and the bells rang from the slender campanile, they allowed their minds to relax.

And at that moment a dark rain cloud blotted out the sun.

Chapter 22

Blood on Silver

The Church of the Annunciation was a traditional place of pilgrimage for newly-weds. It sat at right angles to the orphanage, in the square where Luciano had fought so often with Gaetano. Three hundred years earlier a monk had painted on one of its walls a fresco of the Angel appearing to Mary with news of her expected child. At least, he had started to. The Virgin was depicted at a prayer desk and there was the body of a winged angel on the left, carrying a sheaf of lilies. But the unnamed monk didn't know how to paint the Angel's face.

The legend was that he had prayed for help and in the night the Angel himself had come and finished the picture. Over the generations a custom had developed for just-married couples to take bouquets of flowers to lay in front of the miraculous picture, so that the Angel would bless their union with children. If he did, they were fruitful and, if not, well, there was always the orphanage nearby, where there would be a supply of babies to fill the gap.

The di Chimici were no less superstitious than any other Giglian and the Duke was anxious to have grandchildren, so it had always been a part of the wedding plans that the four couples would go in procession to the Church of the Annunciation and lay their wedding flowers before the Angel. It was only a short walk from the cathedral.

The narrow street linking the two squares was lined with cheering citizens, and more hung out of the windows, greedily soaking up the sight of the fine dresses and jewels. Since the church was much smaller than the cathedral, only some selected guests followed the young people, the rest going on to the Palazzo Ducale, where another banquet was in preparation. The first fat drops of rain started to fall as the bridal procession left Saint-Mary-of-the-Lily.

Rodolfo and Arianna were among the procession, the Duchessa still accompanied by her maid. But it was a nightmare for her bodyguards in that narrow street. A thought-message from Rodolfo sent Sulien and the other Stravaganti running up the parallel side roads, so that they could reach the Piazza of the Annunciation before the wedding party. They were joined there by Guido Parola, sent on by Silvia, who was alarmed at seeing her daughter disappear up the narrow Via degli Innocenti. The square was full of spectators – all the people who couldn't get into the Piazza della Cattedrale had crowded in and were perching on the fountains and lining the arched loggias of the church and orphanage.

Among them was Enrico the spy. He hadn't been invited to the wedding, the blessing or any of the banquets and he was feeling a bit peeved about it. Hadn't he been involved in all the safety precautions and kept the Duke informed every step of the way? He could see now that the procession was virtually unguarded and he shrugged. Amateurs, he thought.

The red carpet that had been laid all the way from the cathedral to the church was darkening with the rain and the brides were jostled by the crowd as servants tried in vain to cover their heads against the worsening weather. The archers and soldiers from the Duke's private army streamed into the piazza, pushing spectators out of the way, aware that they had been held up by the crush on the way there.

Sulien and Dethridge tried to marshal the Stravaganti into a new circle of strength, but the rowdiness of the crowd, who had been drinking from their wineskins since early in the morning, and the confusion developing round the procession, made it hard for them to concentrate. Sulien could feel the younger ones slipping out of the link.

*

To the east of the city was a tributary of the river Argento. It had been filling all winter and the rains of earlier in the month had taken it to the top of its banks. As the di Chimici couples had left the cathedral in the city below, a thunderstorm had broken out and the tributary had overflowed. The Argento, already full to the brim, could not sustain any more water and broke its banks. Waves of turbulent river water spilled out over the city, hurrying through the centre.

*

The di Chimici newly-weds were glad to get into the safety and cover of the church. They filed along the aisle to the fresco in a chapel to the side of the High Altar, where they were greeted by the priest in charge. The Grand Duke, the Pope, the Duchessa and many other notables, including the Nucci, crowded into the church behind them. But there was not enough room for all the di Chimici armed men and many of them were stuck in the atrium outside the church's front door.

And that was when the Nucci struck. Camillo had been seething ever since he had seen the little dog snarl at Carlo in the Piazza Ducale. He had sat all through the long wedding service, watching the man he was now sure was his little brother's cold-blooded killer, while he smiled at his pretty bride, surrounded by all the pomp and splendour the di Chimici coffers could provide. And now he was being blessed by another priest with the promise of children. Where was the bride for Davide and the hope of his descendants? Locked in the grave.

As the couples walked slowly back up the aisle, accepting the greetings and congratulations of their friends, Camillo leapt in front of Prince Carlo and stabbed him in the chest.

The church erupted. Lucia snatched a candlestick from a side chapel and brought it down hard on Camillo's head. Fabrizio, who had been just in front of them, swiftly slit the Nucci's throat. Filippo Nucci, howling with rage, hurled himself into the fray. And then all was a confusion of knives and swords.

More soldiers pushed into the little church. But Sky, Nicholas and Luciano, alerted by the cries from within, were before them. The Grand Duke and Fabrizio were both fighting with Filippo but he wasn't without supporters. There had been more Nucci and Nucci-sympathisers in the church than anyone had realised. The priest and the Pope and his chaplain were trying to herd the women up to the altar and away from the fighting, but Luciano arrived in time to see a young man strike at a slender figure in a pearl and silver dress.

Luciano ran through the crowd, his rapier drawn, but a red-haired figure had already tackled the assailant and was engaging him in fight. Before Luciano had reached them the Duchessa's maid had whipped out a merlino-dagger and stabbed her mistress's attacker.

Out of the corner of his eye the Grand Duke saw the famous silver dress, stained with bright blood, and saw its wearer collapse in the arms of two young men. He had time only to notice that one of them was the black-haired Bellezzan who had been Falco's friend, before he had to fight off the opponent who pressed him.

Fabrizio and Alfonso were also in single combat with Nucci. Nicholas snatched up a fallen blade and went to fight beside them. Guido Parola left the wounded woman with Luciano and ran to the side of Lucia, who was lying over the body of her dead husband, and dragged her with him back to the altar. She was hysterical. The clergymen were having the greatest difficulty keeping Caterina and Francesca out of the fray.

When the frantic Georgia at last managed to get into the church, ducking between blades, she saw a scene of chaos. She ran to Luciano, who was uninjured, but stricken, holding the body of Arianna in her fantastic dress.

‘She isn't dead,' said the Duchessa's maid in a familiar voice and Georgia found herself looking into violet eyes. ‘She mustn't be dead,' repeated the maid, who was not Barbara at all. Luciano continued to hold the inert body of the real Barbara, who was still breathing. Arianna in the maid's dress was holding a wicked-looking blade, still dripping with blood.

‘We must get you both out of this madness,' said Georgia.

She could see Sky fighting beside Gaetano, the two of them assailed by three Nucci, and Gaetano went down even as she watched. And then Rodolfo was there, wielding a sword that she had assumed was merely ceremonial, defending Sky and wounding two of the attackers.

But gradually the Nucci riot was put down, as more and more di Chimici men got into the church. The remaining Nucci, including old Matteo, were held; they had suffered many casualties. Camillo was not the only one dead and Filippo was seriously injured. But the di Chimici had lost Prince Carlo and both Fabrizio and Gaetano were badly wounded. It looked as if three of the new brides could be widows before the day was out.

The Grand Duke strode round the church from body to body, blood welling from a gash on his forehead. Flowers lay trampled and stained underfoot. Sulien came and stood by his side, laying a hand on his shoulder.

‘All my sons,' said the Duke wildly. ‘They want to take all my sons!'

‘Prince Carlo I cannot save,' said Sulien. ‘But trust me with the others. Let me take them back to Saint-Mary-among-the-Vines and I will do all I can.'

But by the time litters had been made for the wounded and they had been carried out into the square, they found it inches deep in flood water – and rising rapidly. All the spectators had left, running back to save what they could of their own property. But such had been the noise and chaos within the church that no one had heard the shouts of warning outside.

‘Quick,' said Giuditta, who had been out in the square with Dethridge and had organised everything. ‘We must get the survivors to the upper floors of the orphanage.'

The door of the Ospedale was already open and the nuns waiting to help nurse the injured. One by one they were carried up – Fabrizio, Gaetano, the Duchessa and even, at the insistence of Beatrice, Filippo Nucci. Four soldiers carried the dead prince and laid him in a room on his own. The body of Camillo Nucci was tossed unceremoniously into a corner. The walking wounded followed, including Sky and the Grand Duke, but not before the latter had ordered any surviving Nucci to his dungeons, even the women.

The Pope brought the four brides up too, since there was nowhere else safe to take them in time, above the level of the swirling waters. So, gradually, all the remaining guests at the most splendid weddings the city had ever seen found their way to the upper floors of the orphanage. Babies were crying, temporarily abandoned by their nurses, who were all needed to tend the wounded.

Giuditta corralled the shocked Georgia into tearing up bandages, cutting away clothes and fetching basins of warm water. Silvia materialised as if from nowhere, ashen when she heard that Arianna had been wounded.

‘Where is she?' she asked, tight-lipped.

‘Luciano is with her and her maid,' whispered Georgia. ‘I think they swapped clothes.'

Silvia closed her eyes and Georgia thought for a moment she was going to laugh. But she just hugged her and said, ‘Goddess be thanked!'

Sulien was going back and forth among the wounded. Fabrizio, Gaetano and Filippo were the most seriously injured and were unconscious. Sky had a slash on his arm that hurt like hell but he knew he had been lucky.

‘Have you seen Nick?' he asked the friar.

‘No,' said Sulien. ‘Is he not among the uninjured?'

Duke Alfonso of Volana, though he had fought bravely, had suffered no hurt and had been put in charge of the women and of the other unwounded who had been taken up to the top floor.

‘I'll go and look,' volunteered Sky. ‘How's Gaetano?'

Sulien looked worried. ‘They are all badly hurt. I don't know how I'm to help them if I can't get back to my pharmacy.'

‘How bad do you think the flood will get?' asked Sky. ‘When will we be able to leave here?'

‘Not today,' said Sulien. ‘We have had many such floods in the city before. Some are worse than others – usually the spring ones are less severe than the autumn ones. But even they can rise to six feet or more.'

Sky knew that would mean he and Nicholas couldn't stravagate back from the friary but he decided not to worry about it yet. He had more pressing worries, such as where Nicholas was.

*

In the Piazza Ducale the water had risen above the level of the loggia steps and invaded the banqueting platform. Servants had carried all they could into the palazzo as soon as the flood hit the square, and wedding guests who had not been invited to the Annunciation blessing had taken shelter inside the building, swarming up the great staircases to the upper floors. They now looked down over the wreckage of the feast and the shining surface of the waters, where only the day before young nobles had jousted in the sun.

Some startled guests came face to face with two large spotted cats who had been brought up to the roof by their handler. But the beasts were well-behaved and chained to a pillar by their silver collars. They shared a side of meat that the cooks had provided.