City of Secrets (31 page)

There was no sign of the Professor and Biagio didn't know what to do for the best. He pulled out a key to the Scriptorium and was about to go in, willing to die alongside the wooden presses rather than abandon his post.

But then he sensed a strange new smell on the air. Above the fiery reek coming from the smouldering buildings about to burst into flames, came a dank, stifling stench like the very worst of open drains or swampy marshland. Biagio stared up at the sky and rubbed his eyes.

He couldn't see anything because of the hidden moon but he sensed an even darker shadow crossing her face – an impossibly large oval shape moving slowly across the heavens. And the smell was coming from that shape. It seemed to hover in the air for a few moments before rushing down towards the centre of the city like a black cloud of swamp gas.

Other citizens had noticed it now and stood staring up at the sky. Neither they nor Biagio understood what they were seeing; some were inclined to think it was the end of the world and to lay down their bundles and themselves in the cobbled streets and give themselves up to their fate.

But Biagio realised that whatever was coming presented a new danger and flung open the door to the Scriptorium, calling everyone on Salt Street to take cover. Soon the silent presses were surrounded by a crowd of babbling hysterical Padavians. As Biagio slammed the door shut, a weight of water and weed fell on the city, pouring past the window like a slimy green rain.

The streets were awash with foul-smelling water, reeds and the occasional startled fish. Padavians ran in all directions, seeking shelter from the water in buildings they had shunned a short time before, when they were afraid of being trapped by fire.

The five Stravaganti had walked slowly in a line from the site of the swamp to the centre of the city, carrying the weight of water above and before them until Rodolfo, at one end of the line, gave the order to lower the swamp over the heart of the fire.

Matt felt the intolerable strain of lowering the swamp slowly enough to avoid drowning the citizens but he was aware of their not holding it firmly enough. It seemed to slip from their minds and land on the burning city with a sound like a magnified sigh. And then the whole of Padavia steamed and hissed like a giant bonfire in a thunderstorm.

*

Arianna paused at the gate to look back over the city. At first she could see nothing. The moon was still dark and there were no torches burning. That was right: there were no flames of any kind. It was as if the whole city had been snuffed out by a blanket.

‘The fire's gone out,' she said to Ludo, who had come to stand beside her.

‘They've done it then,' he said. ‘Saved the city as well as us.'

‘You must get away,' said Arianna. ‘Get all your people into the carts.'

‘Aren't you coming with us?' asked Ludo.

‘Of course,' said Arianna.

And she turned away from the gate. It had never been harder but she knew that her duty was to get the Manoush back to Bellezza. Yet every nerve screamed to her to run back to Luciano and the others, to check that they were all safe.

‘I'm sure they're all right,' said a familiar voice at her shoulder. It was Cesare.

As he came to stand by her, the moon slowly began appear again.

And by the time they were on the road to the coast, she had come out of the red shadow and was shining down on her people, clear and silver, with all stain of blood and fire wiped from her face.

.

Acknowledgements

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I want to thank Nigel Roche, Curator of the St Bride's Print Museum in the City of London, for his patient help and answering of queries about sixteenth century printing processes, and Dr Martin Maw, Archivist at the Oxford University Press for additional help and comments. The demonstration of a wooden press in action at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp was a revelation. Thanks too to Mafra Gagliardi and her family for their interest and hospitality in Padua, Rose Sharp for her expert help on dyslexia, Alison Debenham for providing the invaluable plot-planning template and, as always, the completely wonderful London Library.

Epilogue:
New Beginnings

The Manoush stayed in Bellezza till Christmas. They had a festival around that time too. A lot had changed since the first night of their rescue, when they had all congregated in the courtyard of the Ducal Palace to complete their rites for the Day of the Dead. It was Ottavio who convinced them that this was the right thing to do and it was true that, by daybreak, the Manoush were all sleeping peacefully on their bedrolls and the shadowy shapes that had travelled with them from Padavia were no more to be seen.

‘We can't keep them all here,' Silvia told Arianna. ‘How are petitioners to get through the courtyard? Or Senators and Councillors to come into the palace?'

‘I don't think they will stay,' said Arianna, who was looking down on the sleeping travellers from the stone gallery on the first floor. ‘They needed a refuge after their ordeal in Padavia and somewhere to carry out their rituals but I think now that they will make their own arrangements in this city as they do in any other.'

She thought that she would never forget that night journey under the full moon. Getting the Manoush to understand that they must all travel by water to the lagoon city and then ferrying them to the Piazzetta in the fleet of mandolas that Silvia had waiting for them. And all the time not knowing if Luciano and her father and their other friends had escaped the fire.

Cesare had been wonderful and, surprisingly, so had Enrico the spy. Biagio was the only one of the rescuers, apart from the Stravaganti, who had not travelled with them. Once the Manoush had been loaded into the carts, the pressman had hurried back to the Scriptorium, as anxious as Constantin about the presses and all the printed paper.

Just before dawn, Arianna had arrived, filthy and weary in her room, but before she woke Barbara to change places with her, she had run to Rodolfo's mirrors. And there they were, Rodolfo, Luciano and William Dethridge, all waiting up to send her the thought message she needed:

City saved. No one harmed.

But she did not understand the next one:
Padavia a bit wet and smelly.

She thought back as hard as
she could:
Manoush all safe too.

The two older Stravaganti disappeared out of the mirror and she was left looking at Luciano's face. It was much easier to think-speak to just one person.

You look exhausted. Go to bed. I love you.

They sent the same message.

*

Before Christmas there was a wedding in Bellezza. Not in the great silver-domed basilica but a quieter affair, in the Duchessa's private chapel. The bride wore a silver brocade dress that now had a white lace bodice where once there had been a bloodstained tear. In her hair, at her throat and ears glinted diamonds and amethysts, worth all the money her family had earned for generations. These were presents from her mistress the Duchessa, who had also promised the couple one of the four spotted African cubs who had been born to the newly named Flora the week before.

Barbara's father had died some years earlier, so Rodolfo walked her up the short aisle to where Marco waited for her. She had no bridesmaids, but Luciano and Arianna stood as witnesses to the marriage and signed their names on the marriage certificate: Arianna Maddalena Rossi, Duchessa of Bellezza and Luciano Davide Crinamorte, Cavaliere of Bellezza.

‘Us next,' whispered Arianna as she handed the pen to him.

At the party which followed a whole band of Manoush played flutes and harps and tambourines. They would not forget that Marco had been one of the rescuers who had led them out of captivity in Padavia. He and all their other saviours were honorary Manoush, as far as they were concerned.

The tall flute-player with the rusty-brown hair was particularly energetic, playing jigs and galliards with vigorous abandon. Chief among the dancers was Doctor Dethridge, twirling his wife Leonora round the palace ballroom with the enthusiasm of a man a third his age. But Luciano and Arianna were not far behind them.

‘It's so good to have you home,' said Arianna. ‘Must you go back to Padavia?'

‘Well, I'm not a fully-fledged aristocrat yet,' said Luciano smiling down on her. ‘My Rhetoric might be all right but apparently my Grammar and Logic still need a lot of work.'

‘How much Grammar and Logic do you need to be my Duke Consort?' asked the young Duchessa.

‘Oh, I don't know,' said Luciano. ‘Two terms' worth, they think.'

‘So we can't get married till the summer?'

‘It will be nicer then, won't it?' said Luciano. ‘Why don't we do it just after your next Marriage with the Sea?'

‘Then we'll be like my parents,' said Arianna.

‘I can think of worse role models,' said Luciano, watching Silvia and Rodolfo lead a stately pavane, while Ludo took a break to drink some wine. He was surrounded, as usual by a gaggle of girls, some Manoush, some not, who seemed to find him irresistible.

‘Let's announce it, anyway,' said Luciano, suddenly tired of all the secrecy. ‘I want all the world to know.'

The week before Christmas Matt passed his driving test, first time. Triumphantly he brandished his IOU at Jan and Andy as soon as he got back.

‘Ouch,' said Andy. ‘Right before Christmas.'

‘It can be my present,' said Matt.

‘But we've already got you one,' said Jan.

‘What did you say in the Golden Dragon?' asked Matt. ‘You said “On your eighteenth birthday or when you pass your test, whichever is sooner.” That sounds pretty conclusive to me. And I have witnesses.'

‘Hey, that's not fair,' objected Harry. ‘Can I have an extra Christmas present worth hundreds of pounds?'

‘You can have a car when you pass your test, like Matt,' said Andy. ‘Or maybe we'll insure you to drive his.'

‘No way am I sharing a car with Harry,' said Matt. ‘I'll be at university by the time he passes, anyway.'

‘Stop teasing him, Andy,' said Jan.

‘Come on then,' said Andy and took them round the corner to where he had parked a second-hand silver Toyota two days before. ‘I knew you'd pass,' he told Matt, handing him the keys.

It was a car Matt had shown Andy on the forecourt of the local garage the week before and he couldn't believe his luck.

‘Can I drive it now?' he asked. ‘Am I insured?'

‘Yes,' said Jan. ‘At a premium you wouldn't believe, with a huge excess, so just go carefully.'

‘I'm only going to Yesh's,' said Matt. ‘I haven't told her I've passed yet.'

He climbed in and put on the seat belt. The car started first time and he pulled out like a star pupil. His parents and brother waved him off and he waved back at them in the rear-view mirror.

‘Both hands on the wheel!' shouted Jan.

‘Yeah, yeah,' muttered Matt. He felt great.

He had hardly thought about Talia for the last few weeks and hadn't been there for over a month but he suddenly thought of Luciano stranded there for ever. He would never drive round to see his girlfriend and take her out for a pizza, even though he did live in a sort of Italy.

Poor sod, thought Matt. And at that moment he wouldn't have changed places with anyone in the world.

Ludo took a longer break from flute-playing and slaked his thirst with a tankard of Bellezzan ale. Doctor Dethridge came to join him and they sat drinking companionably on the terrace, watching the dancers whirling round inside the ballroom.

‘The Lovers,' said Ludo, smiling, nodding at Luciano spinning Arianna around.

‘Aye,' said Dethridge. ‘The Prince of Fishes that is to bee. Skilled in debate. And his Princesse – courageous and headstrong. They make a fine paire.'

‘You saw that in your reading the night that Luciano had dinner with Prince Filippo?' asked Ludo.

Dethridge drank deep. ‘There were two wayes to divine the meaninge of that arraye,' he said. ‘The Boke with the Scales and the Dethe carde so close to the Magician and the Salamandires mayde me fear its meaning was dethe by burning as the penaltie justice would deal out for the use of magycke or the printinge of the secret bokes.'

‘So that could have been me or Matteo or even Luciano if the Governor had found out he was a Stravagante,' said Ludo.

‘Aye, yt coulde have bene ony of us,' said Dethridge. ‘Myself, or Professire Constantine or even Maistre Rudolphe.'

‘But in the end it was me,' said the Manoush. ‘Me and my people, just for following our religion.' He shuddered in the cold night air, remembering how close he had come to losing his life in the flames of the Padavian bonfires.

‘Bot there was anothire way to rede it whenne the tyme came,' said the Doctor. ‘The Dethe carde was a skeleton and I beganne to thynke it was the Anatomie that was meant and thatte whenne yonge Lucian escaped the knife he wolde overcome the verdicte of the courts with his fine powers of argument.'

‘You weren't sure though?' asked Ludo.

‘Nay, bot there was anothire carde next to the Boke – remembire?' said Dethridge, his eyes twinkling. ‘Yt was the Moone and yt reminded me thatte I had bene explaining to the studentes how to reckon the tyme of an eclipse. Some werke with my chartes and tables and I knew the moon would hide hirself thatte nyghte.'

‘Thank goddess for your learning, master,' said Ludo, standing up and making the Elizabethan a deep bow.

Doctor Dethridge raised him up and clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Backe to the danse,' he said. ‘Yt is notte a nyghte for darke thoghtes.'

Ludo followed him back into the ballroom but it took several dances for him to shake off his sombre mood.

*

A week after Christmas, on New Year's Day a state visitor came to Bellezza. Messer Antonio, the Governor of Padavia, wanted to see the Duchessa and her parents. He was one of the few people who knew that Silvia, the previous Duchessa had not died in the Glass Room two and half years before but was living privately as the wife of the Regent.

‘Antonio,' said Silvia, when he was shown in. ‘It is a pleasure to see you.'

Her daughter, the Duchessa, was altogether frostier and more formal. The last time she had seen this man he was standing on a wooden platform reading the names of thirty prisoners condemned to a horrible death.