City of Masks (8 page)

‘No,’ said Rodolfo. ‘This was not his city. He came to and from Bellona, to the University. Although of course he travelled to other cities when he was here.’

Lucien was by now used to the way that Talian names were variants on the ones in his world. Bellona must be Bologna, he decided. But he hadn’t realized that each Stravagante was limited to one city for his departure and arrival. It was like only being able to use one airport. He supposed that he, Lucien, always arrived in Bellezza because that was where his purple and red notebook had come from.

‘Did William Dethridge use a – a talisman, like my notebook?’

Rodolfo nodded.

‘Yes, but to explain it, I must tell you about the way in which he came to Talia first. You have read that he was an alchemist. Do you know what that is?’

‘Someone who tries to make gold from lead?’

‘In your world, yes. Here of course our natural philosophers are striving to create silver. Getting gold is easy enough.’

Lucien remembered the name of the magazine that had carried the ‘Doctor Death’ article.

‘Is a natural philosopher what you call a scientist?’

‘A scientist, yes, like myself. But not all of us are striving to make silver, any more than all are Stravaganti. Anyway, Doctor Dethridge was trying to make gold, not from lead but from earth and salts and various minerals. He had been to university in your world’s version of Talia, in the city we call Bellona. When he was conducting one of his experiments late at night in his laboratory in Anglia – your England – there was an alchemical accident – an explosion affecting time and space. When he came to he found himself still clutching the copper dish he had been using in the experiment. Imagine his excitement and amazement when he saw that the dish now contained gold!’

‘So he did it!’ exclaimed Lucien.

‘Yes and no,’ said Rodolfo. ‘It was indeed gold, but he hadn’t made it in your world, where it is valued, but in our world, where it is not. When he looked around him, he found himself, even more to his amazement, transported to Talia, in Bellona, in the laboratory of one of our greatest scientists, Federico Bruno. From that day on, Doctor Dethridge gave up his interest in alchemy and dedicated himself to the science of stravagation.’

‘And did he never take any gold back with him?’

Rodolfo shook his head. ‘He tried. He took the copper dish back, but when he returned to your world, it contained only earth and salts. And his laboratory had been half destroyed by fire. Still, the dish was now his talisman, his most precious possession, which carried him back and forth between worlds. From then on he wasn’t interested in gold or in making his fortune; it was the pure science of stravagation that consumed him. It was Doctor Dethridge himself who established the rules about taking nothing between worlds except talismans.’

‘Talismans in the plural?’ said Lucien. ‘He brought something else to Talia besides the dish?’

‘Yes, over the years, on his many travels. Slowly, cautiously, he introduced other objects to enable other Stravaganti, whom he trained in many Talian cities, to make the perilous journey to his world. And in time he took objects from our world to yours to enable journeys in the other direction. It was only ever the dish, forged in one world but transmuted in another, which brought a Stravagante to Talia without being from Talia itself.’

Lucien remembered something.

‘It wasn’t him who brought the notebook to my world though, was it? You said it was you – and it was in my time too.’

Rodolfo sighed. ‘There is still so much we do not know. Ever since Doctor Dethridge’s first journey, twenty-five years ago, whenever one of us has made the journey to your world, it is a world that has moved on in time much faster than ours. It didn’t work like that for him; he always returned to his own time and place. The gateway he opened is clearly between your England and our Talia but there is no clear explanation about how the time changes between our two worlds. We are still working on how to travel to a parallel time as well as a parallel space.’

Lucien took a while to digest all this. In the end he hung on to the easiest bit. ‘But if he stravagated to avoid being killed, then where is he now?’

‘You are right,’ said Rodolfo, suddenly decisive. ‘I am sure he is not in Bellona. There is a strong cell of our brotherhood there and news would have reached me. It is vital we find him. He can help us against the di Chimici.’

He strode over to the magic mirrors and, working the levers, focused them on all sorts of places Lucien hadn’t seen before, walled and turreted cities, palazzos and piazzas that were still recognizably Talian but not in Bellezza.

‘This is going to take time,’ he said. ‘I think we should abandon our lessons for this morning. Do you want to go and find Arianna?’

*

Arianna was trailing her hands in Aunt Leonora’s fountain when Lucien was shown out to the garden. Her eyes brightened and she jumped up from the stone ledge when she saw him.

‘Good!’ she cried. ‘Have you been let out early?’

‘Sort of,’ said Lucien. ‘Rodolfo is too busy to teach me today.’ He looked warily at Leonora as he said it. He was never sure how much she knew about him.

‘Then we have the whole day?’ asked Arianna. ‘That’s wonderful. What shall we do?’

‘May I make a suggestion?’ said Leonora. ‘If you’re supposed to be showing Luciano round Bellezza, he ought to see more of the lagoon. Why don’t we take a boat to the islands?’

Arianna was delighted. ‘But do you think my parents would allow it?’ she asked, suddenly doubtful. She hadn’t seen them for weeks, since they brought her to Bellezza for her ‘punishment’ and she still wasn’t sure of its terms.

‘I will be with you,’ said Leonora firmly. ‘We’ll start in Merlino, and if we can find your brothers, we’ll ask them if you’d be welcome on Torrone.’

Lucien’s heart sank. He wouldn’t be able to tell Arianna what he had discovered with her aunt around. But Arianna’s enthusiasm was infectious. She was suddenly homesick for the islands, and to swap the rank Bellezzan canals for the clean smell of salt water. She bounced round Leonora as her aunt organized a hasty lunch basket and they set off to the Piazzetta to find a rowing-boat and a willing oarsman.

*

In the Reman embassy, Enrico had to wait a long time to be seen. The Ambassador was suddenly very busy when he heard who it was in the ante-room. Enrico shrugged; he could wait. He understood that the Ambassador was annoyed with him. He probably thought that Enrico had abandoned his post when Rodolfo had spirited him miles away. But di Chimici’s tune would change when he heard what his spy had to tell him. Curling up on the hard wooden bench as comfortably as if it had been a feather bed, Enrico wrapped his blue cloak around him and went to sleep.

*

In the rose-coloured palace, the seamstress had fin1ished measuring the Duchessa for her new dress and was backing out of the room, her arms full of violet satin. The Duchessa yawned and stretched in a very un-ducal fashion and drifted over to the window.

Below, in the square before the cathedral, she saw Luciano, carrying a large basket for a plump, respectable-looking Bellezzan woman. But it was the third member of the party that caught her eye, the leaping, laughing brown-haired girl with them. She must be under sixteen, since she was unmasked. And she looked intolerably familiar.

‘So,’ breathed the Duchessa. ‘That is the little companion Rodolfo has chosen for our young friend.’

She summoned her youngest waiting-woman, Barbara, the one who had been so excited about the Marriage with the Sea.

‘You see that group crossing the square? The woman and the boy and girl. I want them followed. See to it immediately. And I want all the information that can be found about the girl.’

As the woman ran from the room, the Duchessa leaned her forehead against the cool glass. Her head throbbed. At that moment she would have given anything to change places with the light-hearted girl dancing her way down to the Piazzetta.

Chapter 7

Where Beauty Wears a Mask

Arianna’s heart sang as the oarsman rowed them out into the salty water of the lagoon. Fascinated as she was by the beautiful city which hovered like a dream on the edge of her childhood, she was a true daughter of the islands.

They had to skirt round the south of the city and up to the north-east where Merlino lay. But first they had to pass a cypress-veiled island and Arianna was quiet for the first time since Lucien had come to her aunt’s house that morning. He noticed the change in her mood.

‘What is it?’ he whispered.

But it was Leonora who answered. ‘That’s where we bury our dead. The whole island is a cemetery now. It wasn’t always so but we needed many more graves at the time of the plague. Now it is almost full and there is talk of starting a new graveyard on the mainland. The Isola dei Morti, we call it – the Island of the Dead. My husband is there.’

They all bowed their heads instinctively as the oarsman rowed slowly under the lee of the cypresses. Lucien could see a small church at the centre of the island and one or two huge marble tombs between the trees. He shuddered involuntarily, although the island itself was quite calm and peaceful.

Their spirits lifted as they left the sombre island behind them and could see the larger shape of Merlino ahead of them. The boat nosed into the small harbour, its oarsman glad to rest. Leonora spoke to him about their plans and he nodded as they set off into the town.

‘We might as well let Luciano see the sights before we look for Tommaso and Angelo,’ she said.

There seemed to be a lot of people seeing the sights. The harbour was packed with boats, some quite large ones. The main street of Merlino was thronged with people who were clearly visitors to the lagoon. Lucien didn’t know how he knew that. They were dressed in clothes of four hundred years ago, not wearing shorts and carrying cameras, but they still didn’t look as if they belonged.

For a moment Lucien wondered if he looked that way too; after all, he was more of a tourist than any of them. He was glad to be with two lagooners, who knew the islands like the back of their hands.

‘Where are they all going?’ he asked.

‘To the museum,’ said Arianna. ‘Everyone comes to see the glass. We should go too.’

Lucien had read about Murano glass in his Venice books but that was nothing like what he saw in the Merlino glass museum. Coloured glass there was, all the colours of the rainbow, but what was spectacular was the shapes. You could buy vases and paperweights and cheap ornaments from the many stalls in the street, but the objects in the museum were true works of art.

The finest were in the rooms dedicated to the anonymous Glass Master of the fifteenth century. There were turreted castles, fully rigged ships, winged rams, peacocks and whole gardens of glass trees and flowers, with delicate spider webs, accurate right down to the dewdrops on them.

Lucien had to be dragged away.

‘Come and see the beastly mask,’ said Arianna.

In a corner of the Glass Master’s main room was an ornate glass case, displaying on a black velvet cushion an intricate mask. It was so elaborate and beautiful that it was hard to believe it had all been made from glass. It had a faint pearly blue sheen and should have been quite exquisite. But something about it was sinister. Lucien shifted uneasily.

‘You feel it?’ asked Arianna. ‘This was the cause of our horrid custom of masking all women. Well, not this one but its partner. Come outside and I’ll tell you. It’s too crowded in here.’

As they left the museum, Arianna pointed out the motto carved in stone above the doors –
Ove Beltà porta una Maschera
.

‘Where Beauty Wears a Mask,’ she translated from the Old Talian. ‘That’s the real Bellezzan motto, ever since the Duchessa’s accident.’

They walked to a little grassy square near one of the canals – for Merlino, like Bellezza, was an island made of numerous smaller ones. Leonora unpacked their lunch basket and sat on the stone wall round the central well, while Lucien and Arianna stretched out on the grass. Lucien let the sun warm the chill out of him brought on by the mask.

‘The Glass Master made the mask at the request of the Duchessa,’ said Arianna, munching on a radish. ‘Not this one of course. It happened about a hundred years ago. It was his masterpiece, created to her own design, and she was going to wear it at Carnival.’

‘It must have been very uncomfortable,’ said Lucien.

‘More than that in the end,’ snorted Arianna. ‘She was wearing it at the great ball that comes at the end of Carnival, in the Piazza Santa Maddalena, outside the cathedral. Her partner was the young Prince of Remora, Ferrando di Chimici. Faster and faster he whirled her round the square, all the people watching and cheering. And then, she tripped. Tripped and fell and the mask shattered.’

‘Ouch!’ winced Lucien.

Arianna nodded. She was taking a ghoulish delight in this story.

‘The Duchessa’s screams nearly started a war. Her guards were sure the young di Chimici had tried to assassinate her. There was total panic and confusion.’

‘What happened to her face?’ asked Lucien, not really wanting to know the answer.

‘No one ever saw it again,’ said Arianna dramatically. ‘She wore a mask in public ever afterwards. And made it law that all unmarried women over sixteen must wear one too. I suppose she thought that young girls and married women were no rivals. She was very vain before the accident apparently. And she made the Senators and Councillors wear masks when the Senate and Council are in session. I don’t know why.’

‘So that the arguments themselves carry sway, not the reputations of the speakers,’ said Leonora mildly.

‘Huh!’ said Arianna. ‘You think you wouldn’t know Senator Rodolfo if he wore a mask over his big black eyes?’

‘But why is there a mask in the museum?’ asked Lucien. ‘Why did the Glass Master make another one?’

‘Because the Duchessa made him do it,’ said Arianna. ‘And then,’ after a dramatic pause, she added gleefully, ‘she murdered him!’

‘Really, Arianna,’ said Leonora. ‘There is no proof of that.’

Arianna shot her a scornful look. ‘All right then. By a great coincidence, the day after the replica mask was put on display in the museum, the Glass Master was taken ill with a violent stomach disorder, which looked just like the symptoms of poisoning. He died in agony.’

Lucien didn’t like to admit it but Arianna’s interpretation did sound convincing. Maybe all Duchesse were ruthless egomaniacs; perhaps they had to be.

‘What happened to the young Prince?’ he asked.

‘He died too,’ said Leonora. ‘Of a fever.’

Arianna swung round in astonishment. ‘I didn’t know that! I bet that was the Duchessa’s doing too.’

‘Possibly,’ said Leonora. ‘Or possibly the idea of one of her courtiers. Or possibly he just had a fever. Bellezza was very unhealthy at the time. It was a legacy of the old swamps she was built on.’

‘So all this mask business started a hundred years ago?’ asked Lucien. ‘It isn’t the present Duchessa’s idea?’

‘No,’ said Arianna. ‘Before the accident, people only wore them at Carnival. But this one could change it. It’s only a law, like the one about mandoliers, and she makes laws all the time.’

‘I dare say she has her reasons for not changing this one,’ said Leonora. ‘You will soon get used to wearing the mask, Arianna. And you know we marry young in the lagoon. I wore it only two years myself.’

They stood up and brushed the crumbs from their clothes. ‘Let’s go and find my brothers,’ said Arianna.

They went down to the shoreline and walked along the shingle till they got to where the fishing-boats were moored. The smell was terrible. Fishermen lounged around, eating their lunch. The morning catch had been cleaned and sold and they would spend the afternoon mending their nets and in other occupations while they waited for the evening catch.

Lucien could not distinguish one fishing-boat from another and even the fishermen all looked much the same to him, but Arianna ran straight to a pair of them and was caught up and hugged in their strong arms.

Lucien hung back a bit shyly with Leonora until Arianna beckoned them over and introductions were made. He liked the brothers straightaway; they were brown-skinned and hearty and they shook his hand with healthy vigour. They were obviously devoted to their little sister and very pleased to see her.

‘What are all those bones?’ he asked after a while, noticing the small white piles lying round on the beach. Some fishermen were whittling them.

‘Those are the bones of the merlino-fish which we find washed up on the beach,’ said Tommaso, making the hand of fortune. ‘Worth more to us than any live fish we catch.’

‘You make daggers from them,’ explained Angelo, unsheathing a terrifyingly sharp example from his own belt and giving it to Lucien to inspect. ‘Very highly valued in Bellezza. We pass the time between catches sharpening them into blades and then ship them to the mainland to have the handles fixed on.’

‘And they’re very expensive,’ said Arianna, eyeing the dagger with envy.

‘We wouldn’t be able to afford them if we weren’t part of the business,’ said Tommaso.

‘And you know,’ teased Angelo, ‘that you’re not going to get one till you’re sixteen and can be trusted to handle it.’

Arianna pouted.

‘A dagger
and
a mask,’ whispered Lucien. ‘You’re going to be even more dangerous in a few months’ time then.’

Arianna smiled. Leonora began negotiations with the brothers about how welcome the party would be on Torrone. Lucien and Arianna walked away from the shore to get out of the overpowering presence of the smell of fish.

‘It’s sad, really,’ said Arianna. ‘The dagger I get may be one of the last. Still, it’ll make it more valuable.’

‘Why?’ asked Lucien.

‘The merlino-fish seems to be dying out,’ she replied. ‘Or rather, the supply of bones is running out. No one has seen a live merlino for years. The fishermen think it may be extinct. It’s a pity, because my brothers make more money from the trade in merlino-blades than they do from the fishing.’

‘Who buys the daggers?’ asked Lucien.

‘Tourists,’ said Arianna. ‘And assassins of course,’ she added.

*

The Reman Ambassador was more interested than he1 wanted to show. If the Duchessa used a substitute on State occasions, then she would be at her most vulnerable and unguarded wherever she herself was during the impersonation. But he wasn’t going to take the word of this scruffy spy for it.

‘Bring me the girl,’ he said. ‘I want to hear all about it from her own lips.’

*

Instead of going straight to Torrone, Leonora asked the oarsman to take them next to Burlesca. Tommaso and Angelo both thought it would be better if the whole family were there when the family reunion took place and suggested the Bellezzan party could pass the time on that island until the brothers had finished work on Merlino.

‘So we’re going to see your Nonna first,’ said Leonora.

Arianna clapped her hands. ‘Goodee! We’ll get some of Nonno’s cakes. We’re going to see my grandparents,’ she explained to Lucien. ‘They are my mamma’s parents and they live in the funniest little house on Burlesca. You’ll see.’

As the boat neared the next island, Lucien could see it was a riot of colour. As soon as they were close enough to make out the houses, he could see that every one was painted a different colour – bright blues and pinks and oranges and yellows jostled side by side. It would have looked awful in a London suburb but somehow, under the blue skies of the lagoon, it seemed perfect.

‘Look! There’s their house,’ shouted Arianna, when the boat had moored. ‘Isn’t it funny?’

Lucien suddenly saw what she meant. Amid all the greens and turquoises and purples there was one pure white house. It stood out from all the others like the white chocolate in a continental assort- ment. Various tourists stopped to look at it as they passed and Lucien guessed that, in his world, this would be the house to feature on the most popular postcards.

Outside the front door sat an old woman dressed in black. She had pure white hair and on her lap on a small black cushion rested a heap of snowy white lace. She was working it with her crooked fingers, so fast that they seemed to blur, but all the time saying hello to passers-by and chatting to her neighbours, who were similarly occupied. She never looked at the work once.