City of Swords (14 page)

But the only air she breathed next morning was on the fume-filled main road between her house and Nick’s. And then she was just as indoors as she would have been in her own room. But it was a change of scene. And she hadn’t seen any of the boys since her sudden hospitalisation.

They looked as embarrassed as she felt but the awkwardness soon passed. She wanted to know about Matt’s stravagation and they all wanted to know if she would go back to Talia – always supposing she could get her talisman back.

‘I know it’s a terrible time to be out of the action,’ she said. ‘but I’m not up to going back there yet.’

‘Just as well, since you can’t anyway,’ said Georgia. It sounded blunt, but she was thinking of the times her stepbrother had taken her own talisman of the winged horse. The first time, he had broken it; the second time he had hidden it for a whole year.

‘Could one of us get you another one?’ asked Isabel. ‘I mean, we could go to one of our own cities and find something that originally came from Fortezza, I’m sure.’

‘Nothing is going to get out of Fortezza at the moment,’ said Sky. ‘From what we’ve heard it will soon be under siege.’

‘But if it’s so famous for its weapons, other people we know will have them too,’ said Matt. ‘What do you reckon, Nick?’

He was the only one of them likely to know.

‘Apart from Merlino daggers, which you hardly see outside Bellezza,’ said Nick, ‘Fortezzan blades are certainly the Talian weapon of choice.’

‘Hang on,’ said Ayesha. ‘Wouldn’t Laura’s parents go mental if they found she had another dagger?’

Ayesha wasn’t a Stravagante herself but she was studying law and was often quick to see things the others didn’t.

‘Good point,’ said Georgia. ‘Don’t they make anything else in Fortezza?’

‘They make what they make in every city, I imagine,’ said Nick. ‘But you wouldn’t live in Giglia and buy your – I don’t know – saucepans from Fortezza!’

Even in her current state, Laura had to laugh at the idea of using a saucepan as a talisman.

‘Wouldn’t it just be easier to steal Lol’s knife back?’ asked Ayesha.

There was silence while they all contemplated just how difficult this would be.

‘You could try asking for it back, I suppose,’ said Matt.

The girls looked at him as if he were a Neanderthal. But then Georgia shrugged.

‘It’s worth a try, I suppose.’

‘But what if they say no?’ said Isabel. ‘Then it would be ten times more difficult for anyone to steal it.’

‘You could ask them to give it to one of you,’ said Laura.

‘They’d make us promise not to give it to you though,’ objected Ayesha. ‘We’d have to swear on our parents’ lives.’

‘It would be worth breaking the promise if it got Laura back to Fortezza,’ said Nick. ‘Every night she’s not there, we’re just wasting time. There must be a reason she was chosen to go there.’

The castle was a fortress within a fortress. It had been built centuries before at the same time as the massive city walls and been appropriated by the di Chimici family when they took over the city nearly a hundred and fifty years earlier.

It had nothing graceful or stylish about it; it was designed to repel attack and that it could do magnificently. Surrounded by two semicircular curtain walls that linked it to the city wall at the north-east corner, the Rocca di Chimici looked like what it was – a secure fastness rather than an elegant palace. It had been the home of Fortezzan princes from the first, Carlo, to the most recent, Jacopo the Elder, whose death had thrown the city into such disorder.

Princess Lucia was the great-great-granddaughter of that first di Chimici prince and had expected to be the fifth ruler of that line when the time came. Now she was shut up inside the inner fortress of her home with archers positioned day and night on the inner, crenellated wall that rose slightly above the outer wall, which was similarly topped with bowmen.

When Ludo had launched his challenge, enough of the army had fought their way to the Rocca under General Bompiani to be able to defend both walls from any further attack. A handful of them had been killed and the injured were cared for inside the castle walls by the princesses themselves and those servants who had been indoors when the attack came.

There was only one entrance to the castle: a gateway in the south-west with two towers and a drawbridge, now raised, over a moat that filled the space between inner and outer walls. The route between the two was another curtain wall to the west of the gate, and even when that had been negotiated, the inner gateway was set in the east, so that all the entranceways could be defended at every point.

So Lucia was not afraid. But she was deeply worried. Her position as future ruler had been severely weakened by this revolt even if it was, as she fully expected it to be, crushed by a di Chimici army. It had shaken her to realise how many of the citizens and soldiery believed her unfit to rule, even though they had shown nothing but loyalty up to that point.

Guido Parola was her rock, armed to the teeth and not leaving her side. He slept on a pallet outside her door, his fiery hair blazing like a beacon as a warning to any enemy who might conceivably approach her room.

‘Not that I think anyone could,’ he reassured her nightly.

‘My father always told me that the Rocca of Fortezza was impregnable,’ Lucia had told him.

But it did enable her to sleep better, knowing he was on watch.

‘The only thing we have to fear is treachery from within,’ said Carolina.

‘Or if Ludo decides to use me to bargain with the besieging army,’ said Lucia calmly.

Her mother looked at her in horror. ‘But surely he would not do that!”

‘He might if he was losing,’ said Lucia. ‘It’s nearly a week since he forced us back into here. Which means it can’t be long till Fabrizio gets here with an army. And it’s not going to be a small one.’

‘Fortezza can hold out against a long siege,’ said Carolina.

‘But not for ever, Mamma,’ said Lucia. ‘There will come a time when he might be forced to come to terms with the besiegers. And that will be the most dangerous time for me.’

‘I never thought I would be sorry that our defences and provisions were so strong,’ said Carolina.

‘If I may interrupt, Your Highness,’ said Guido, who had been listening to them. ‘It is not only the city that is well provisioned. Here within your castle walls you could be safely defended by fewer men than we have. We have a good water supply and the storerooms are full.’

‘Yes, Jacopo never relaxed his guard,’ said his widow. ‘Even though we lived all our lives together here in peace, he never stinted on such precautions.’

Guido tried not to show it, but he was more worried than he sounded. They were safe enough within the Rocca with the drawbridge up but the outer curtain wall was surrounded by a division of Ludo’s men. No one could get out to seek news in the city or the wider world. Guido longed to get a message to Fabio so that he could communicate with the other Stravaganti, but it was impossible.

What they needed was a Stravagante here in the castle, who could set up a mirror and talk to the others. Day after day Guido hoped that Laura would come but there was no sign of her.

He dared not voice his fears to Lucia. But he wondered if Laura was still on their side or, driven by feelings too strong to resist, had thrown in her lot with Ludo.

No Stravagante from the other world had ever done such a thing, but then there had never been such a rapid and deep attachment formed between a Stravagante and someone who had proved himself an enemy.

For now all that Guido could do was watch and wait.

^*

On the plain below Fortezza a great army was mustering. It was too far away for lookouts on the city walls to see but when they did it would surely strike terror into their hearts.

The Grand Duke had his own tent pitched in the centre and daily strode up and down outside it, looking important in his shiny silver armour. Actually, he
was
important. His own army owed him allegiance as their paymaster, but the soldiery gathering on the Fortezzan plain were from all over north Talia, nominally in the pay of their various di Chimici princes and dukes, but needing an overall leader to pay homage to.

And the shining young Grand Duke outside his pristine tent where the pennant of Giglia fluttered cut a very romantic figure.

The day-to-day business of planning the siege was being done in a grubbier tent nearby, where Prince Gaetano studied maps rolled out on a rough trestle table by General Tasca.

Ever since the land battle of Classe, which had not been that many weeks before, the Giglian General had realised he must pursue a separate strategy from his leader. It was clear that Grand Duke Fabrizio knew nothing about military matters and thought it was enough to have impressive armour and superior forces.

And this even after the Giglian army had been roundly defeated at Classe by a smaller, ragged force of desperate men, many of whom had only just fought in a brutal battle at sea. And the men of Classe had lost their leader too! Duke Germano had been killed, crushed by masonry under his own city walls but yet the army, rallied by the man who became the next Duke, had beaten back the Giglians.

Fabrizio might have forgotten but Girolamo Tasca had not. He still smarted at having been led into such a bloodbath by the overconfident young Grand Duke, who had expected little resistance.

This time there would be no such mistake. Let the shiny Grand Duke be nominal head of the joint army. However many di Chimici princes were with them, General Tasca would be the actual leader of the combined forces of Giglia, Bellona, Volana, Moresco and Remora, with five reliable
condottieri
under him.

Prince Gaetano was studying the layout of the city, where he had so recently been a guest at ‘old Uncle Jacopo’s’ funeral.

‘My cousin Lucia should be well protected in the family’s castle,’ he said to General Tasca. ‘It will be defended by what is left of the loyal Fortezzan army.’

‘Yes, and encircled by a division of rebels,’ said the General, sweeping his hand over the semicircular walls of the castle in the map.

‘And the rest of Ludo’s forces – the remainder of the army – will be manning the walls of the city.’

‘It will not be easy,’ said General Tasca, ‘even though we have so much greater a force. We will have to use trickery and subterfuge as well as our siege-engines and cannon. We need to get spies inside the walls as soon as we can.’

‘I think we will soon be able to manage that,’ said Gaetano. ‘The Stravaganti are on their way.’

Chapter 9

Deceptions

The Stravaganti were not in fact as quick about mustering as they might have been – mainly because of a massive row in Bellezza. After Rodolfo had told Luciano and Arianna they were going to be helping Grand Duke Fabrizio, Arianna had stormed out.

A few hours later she had called an official state meeting with Senator Rossi, her mother the previous Duchessa, and Luciano her Cavaliere. Doctor Dethridge was summoned too.

Instead of her small parlour, where such an intimate family group usually met, they were in the audience chamber which had replaced the Glass Room, where a woman had once died.