City of Masks (17 page)

As soon as he had escorted the Duchessa back to her Palazzo, Rodolfo dropped Dethridge off at the laboratory, where the two guards who had presented the warrant were still waiting at the foot of the stairs.

‘If Lucien returns,’ whispered Rodolfo, ‘get him through the secret passage and safe with the Duchessa and I’ll come to him there. Now I must go at once to Leonora.’

Arianna’s aunt was in a terrible state. That this should have happened while her niece was in her care was unthinkable. She had not yet been able to bring herself to tell Arianna’s parents what had happened to her and Rodolfo immediately offered to make the journey to Torrone.

‘You stay here in case any message comes from the Palazzo,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, Leonora. I can promise you that no harm will come to Arianna. And I shall send my friend, Dottore Crinamorte, to sit with you as soon as I can spare him.’

The boat ride to Torrone went quickly, Rodolfo brooding the whole way about what the Duchessa had told him. He had not asked about the girl’s father but it hurt him deeply to realize that the child had been conceived while he and Silvia had been, as he thought, at their closest. It was while he was still spending much of his time in Padavia and was often away from Bellezza. But he had always thought that Silvia had been faithful to him.

Now he cursed the naïve young man he had been and questioned whether he had been deluding himself in the years since that time. Who could Arianna’s father be? Surely not Egidio or Fiorentino? That had all ended, Silvia had assured him, when he first presented himself at the Scuola. But perhaps he had been a fool to believe her? Perhaps Silvia did not love him at all? And yet… what about this year’s Marriage with the Sea? Silvia had given him good reason then to believe that her love was as strong as ever.

He thrust such thoughts aside and concentrated on the girl. Now that he thought about it, he could see that she was very like a young version of Silvia. The eyes were the same, and the smile.

He strode down the canalside towards the Gasparini house, thinking only of the girl and how Silvia could reveal enough of the truth to save her life, without putting her in new danger. And suddenly he halted in mid-stride. An image of Lucien appeared before him on the towpath. Rodolfo didn’t stop to wonder how it had happened. He just concentrated his mind on letting Lucien know that he must be careful, that his life was in danger. And then the vision dissolved and Rodolfo had to go and tell Arianna’s foster-parents what had happened to her.

*

Enrico was rapidly becoming Rinaldo di Chimici’s right-hand man. And under his influence the Ambassador was becoming impatient to force Bellezza to join the Republic.

‘Forget about the boy,’ said Enrico. ‘Or at least have another plan up your sleeve. I don’t see what’s wrong with assassination, as long as you’ve got another Duchessa lined up – one who will sign the treaty.’

‘I do have a candidate as it happens,’ said di Chimici. She is a member of my family – a cousin. She is Francesca di Chimici, from Bellona.’

‘But she has to be a citizen of Bellezza to qualify to be Duchessa,’ objected Enrico.

‘That can be arranged,’ said the Ambassador. ‘She merely has to marry a Bellezzan citizen. My family can easily ensure that, with the size of her dowry.’

‘And I suppose your family’s money would buy the election result too?’ said Enrico.

Di Chimici didn’t like Enrico’s familiar tone. ‘I am sure the citizenry of Bellezza would find my cousin a worthy candidate,’ he said stiffly.

‘Then let’s not wait for the boy. I know the trial was my idea but I think we should just go ahead and bump the lady off.’

‘My last venture did not go well,’ said di Chimici coldly.

Enrico tapped the side of his nose. ‘That’s because you didn’t have me working with you. That nancy-boy you hired was a Bellezzan – you shouldn’t trust anyone from the city to do the job for you. They all get sentimental about the lady in the end.’

‘Are you offering your services?’

‘Well,’ said Enrico, ‘for a price, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said di Chimici. ‘But I still want the boy. He has something I need.’

‘Oh, you’ll have him,’ said Enrico confidently. ‘And Bellezza too. Just trust me.’

*

Giuliana enjoyed her fitting sessions on Burlesca. The old woman was kind and a good listener. She had got a younger woman to help her with the actual dressmaking and the three of them spent so many days on the trousseau that Giuliana moved in with the young dressmaker for a while, so that she should not have to undertake the double water-journey so often.

The sessions passed with Giuliana in a dream about her impending wedding. It was ‘Enrico this’ and ‘my fiancé that’ all day long and the other women didn’t seem to mind how much she talked about him.

‘He has such an important job at the moment,’ she said. ‘But I can’t tell you what it is because it’s top secret. Only I can tell you that if he pulls it off, we’ll have enough silver to buy our own house! Imagine – I’d like one of these pretty coloured ones here on Burlesca but he says we might have to leave the lagoon after— after this job I can’t tell you about.’

‘It sounds rather dangerous, my dear.’ said Paola mildly. ‘I do hope it’s nothing illegal.’

Giuliana simpered. ‘Well, let’s just say we might be better off in Remora when it’s over. They might be very grateful to us there.’ Paola’s bright dark eyes belied her gentle manner as she spent the rest of that session probing her customer for more information. And by the end of the day she knew what she needed to know.

That evening, Paola took out her lacemaking cushion and worked over a candle until late at night, long after her husband Gentile had gone to bed.

*

Arianna was moved from her poky little cell the same night that the Duchessa visited her. The new one was bigger, with rugs on the stone flags, and was not so cold. Arianna had a soft mattress to sleep on instead of a bed of straw. But she could not close her eyes again for thinking about what she had been told. Her first thought was that the Duchessa had gone mad. But what she had said all made a weird kind of sense. Arianna’s brothers were much older than her and she had never felt truly at home on the island. And she had always been drawn to Bellezza; it was the place of her heart’s desire. Then another part of her mind would cling fiercely to all she had ever known and refuse to give up her familiar parents for a new and dangerous mother and an unknown father.

Early the next morning the door opened and the Duchessa was there again, this time with servants bringing furniture. When it had all been arranged to her satisfaction, she dismissed them and signalled to Arianna to sit beside her on the sofa. Arianna sat, pulling the last stalks of straw out of her hair. She was determined not to speak first.

‘You are angry with me,’ said the Duchessa quietly.

‘What did you expect?’ said Arianna bitterly. ‘You gave me away and forgot about me for more than fifteen years. I don’t know why you decided to tell me now, unless it was to save my life.’

‘Of course that’s a part of it,’ said the Duchessa. ‘But everything is changing now. I have known for some months that a crisis was coming in my affairs and those of the city.’

‘How? What crisis? I don’t understand,’ said Arianna.

‘Let me try to explain,’ said the Duchessa. ‘Perhaps it would help if you could see more of my face.’

And she lifted her hands to the silver ribbon and undid the blue silk mask she was wearing. She looked steadily into Arianna’s eyes and the girl felt her heart lurch. If all she had been told was true, she was seeing her mother’s face for the first time. And in the back of her brain a little voice told her that she was also looking on the unmasked face of her city’s absolute ruler, the most powerful person she was ever likely to meet. It was all too much. Arianna had to look away. But not before she had realized that she and the Duchessa were very much alike.

‘When I knew that I was going to have a child,’ the Duchessa continued, speaking to the back of Arianna’s head, ‘I was afraid for myself and for you. Knowing that I had someone so dear to me would have been an awful weapon in the hands of my enemies. I had long since decided to remain unmarried and without children. My city was family enough for me. So I decided – and perhaps I was wrong, but you will be my judge – to have the child looked after by someone I could trust, someone who would never betray me. My own sister. Valeria agreed, when I sent for her, and she was rewarded with a daughter, something she had longed for after her two sons.’

‘But how did you manage it?’ asked Arianna, her natural curiosity getting the better of her. ‘I mean, didn’t anyone notice that you were, well, getting bigger? And what about my mother, I mean, your sister?’

The Duchessa smiled. ‘It wasn’t easy. I have one serving woman whom I trust above all others. Her name is Susanna and she knew everything. I could not have carried off the deceit without her. For a long time there was nothing to see, but as the child grew, I took to wearing looser fashions and it was given out that I was unwell with a stomach disorder that lasted some months. At the same time, Valeria took to padding her undergarments and she let her women friends know that she was expecting again. They were very surprised.’

‘Yes,’ said Arianna. ‘I’m always being told what excitement there was on Torrone when they knew I was coming.’

‘That was the hardest part,’ said the Duchessa. ‘The women of Torrone had put their childbearing years behind them and they were so interested in the coming baby. Of course they wanted it to be one of them that delivered it. But Gianfranco said he would have a midwife from the city, since there had been no call for one on the island for many years.’

‘And when the midwife came, she brought me with her, I suppose?’ said Arianna.

‘That’s right. I had taken to using substitutes on State occasions, once my body’s changes were beyond concealment. A young woman was appearing in my place, wearing my gorgeous clothes at the Epiphany banquet, while I lay upstairs in my chamber, with only Susanna and the midwife to attend me, getting on with the business of giving birth to you.’

There was silence in the cell. ‘Didn’t you care about giving me away?’ asked Arianna.

The Duchessa took her hand. ‘I had made up my mind to do it. I could not let myself care. I made no sound when I bore you and I said no word when I gave you away. I had already chosen your name and that was all I could do for you then. That and giving you to my sister was all I honestly believed I could do for you.’

‘But couldn’t you have pretended to be my aunt at least? I mean I never knew till last night that my… that Valeria even had a sister, let alone that it was you.’

‘That was also for the best. Of course people knew when I was first elected that I had come from the islands, though I too was born in Bellezza, as the Duchessa must be. Your grandmother, Paola, was on a shopping trip to the city when I was born. I, like you, was in a hurry to enter this world and came before my time. But people’s memories here are short and even if they remembered that my parents lived on Burlesca, it would have taken a very persistent enemy to track down a sister on Torrone. And even if they had, then there would be no reason to doubt that you were her child.’

‘But if it’s worked for all these years, why change things now?’ asked Arianna, moving her hand away.

The Duchessa sighed. ‘A few months ago Rodolfo came to me with a strange story. He had been making his divinations as he does every full moon, and had come up with a repeated pattern that he could not quite understand. Whether he asked the cards, or cast the stones or threw the dice, an urgent message was being revealed to him but he lacked the one piece of information he needed to interpret it. He didn’t know about you.’

‘What was the message?’ asked Arianna.

‘About a young girl and danger, about a mage and a young man, about a talisman and a new Stravagante from the other side, about the dukedom and the number sixteen. Once he told me about it, I knew that some of it referred to you and your coming birthday and that I must take steps to ensure your future safety. So I sent messages to my sister and mother and waited to see what plan of my enemies would bring danger to you – or to me through you.’

Arianna was silent for a while. ‘Is Rodolfo my father?’ she asked in a low voice. The Duchessa got up with a gesture of impatience and walked to the other side of the cell.

‘Don’t you think you owe me the truth about that too?’ Arianna persisted.