City of Swords (2 page)

‘I suppose,’ said Nick at last, ‘you could work it out by seeing what you lot have in common. I mean how you found your talismans and what was going on in your lives just before.’

‘You were working on that, weren’t you, Georgia?’ asked Matt.

Georgia drew out a scruffy piece of paper from her jeans pocket and passed it round the group.

‘I don’t know why I carry it round with me,’ she said. ‘It didn’t help in the end with the business of getting us to different cities. It was the Talian Stravaganti who cracked that. Doctor Dethridge really.’

This was what it said:

Lucien Notebook Skip in Waverley Road. Ill with cancer

Georgia Flying horse Mortimer Goldsmith’s shop. Bullied

Sky Perfume bottle found on doorstep. Looking after sick mother

Matt Spell-book Mortimer Goldsmith’s. Dyslexic

Isabel Bag of tesserae found at Barnsbury Comp. Overshadowed by twin

It was a bit stark for all of them, reading in such brief, blank terms what had made them unhappy. Except for Lucien. He wasn’t there, even though he had been the first from their school to stravagate. In a way his place in the group had been taken by Nick, who had once been Prince Falco di Chimici, the youngest son of the most powerful family in Talia.

Not long after Lucien had begun his new life in the other world, Falco had chosen to come to this one to cure his broken body and become Nick for ever. He lived in Lucien’s old home, as the adopted son of Lucien’s bereft parents.

The Stravaganti didn’t need to talk about that; they all knew why Nick’s talisman wasn’t on the list and why Lucien’s was. This was a list of magical objects that transported their owners from twenty-first-century England to a sixteenth-century version of Italy – not the other way.

Nick had a talisman to take him back to Talia, but he hadn’t stumbled across it; he had been given it by Brother Sulien of Giglia. It was a black feathered quill pen and now his most treasured possession.

‘What’s the link?’ asked Sky. ‘Two came from Mortimer’s shop; the other three are quite different.’

‘Hang on,’ said Georgia. ‘Mortimer told me that my flying horse came from a house in Waverley Road that used to belong to an old lady that died, so that’s another link.’

‘We live in that house,’ said Sky. ‘It’s next to the school. After the owner died it was turned into flats.’

‘And both the school and that house are near where Doctor Dethridge’s house and laboratory used to be,’ said Isabel. ‘In Elizabethan times.’

‘You went there, didn’t you?’ asked Nick.

It was true and Isabel shuddered at the memory. There had been one disastrous night – was it really only a month ago? – when her twin, Charlie, had taken her talisman and ended up not just in Talia but also in Elizabethan England in the middle of an earthquake.

‘Don’t remind me,’ she said. ‘It was terrifying. I thought we wouldn’t get back here or even to Talia but just be stuck back there for ever.’

Sky reached out to take her hand. ‘But you did get back. And it wasn’t your fault – it was stupid of Charlie to take your talisman without knowing what it did.’

It was Georgia’s turn to shudder. Her brutal stepbrother, Russell, had stolen her flying horse – twice. Only now did she wonder what would have happened if he’d fallen asleep holding it and ended up in the city she used to visit in Talia. Russell in Remora did not bear thinking of – though losing him for ever somewhere in the past was quite appealing.

‘What about the spell-book, Matt?’ asked Isabel. ‘Did Mortimer say where it came from?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But it could have come from that same house, couldn’t it?’

‘Or your Stravagante in Talia might have brought it to Mortimer’s?’ said Georgia.

‘It’s a bit odd the way the talismans make their way there,’ said Nick. ‘Maybe Mortimer’s a Stravagante himself?’

The others looked at him as if he’d suggested the old antique dealer was from Mars.

‘Moving on,’ said Isabel. ‘All the talismans are connected with the school or the house on Waverley Road and/or Mortimer Goldsmith’s shop – is that right?’

No one disagreed.

‘So those places are where the next one will turn up, and I think we can rule out Sky’s flat as a one-off. There are no other teenagers there.’

‘And they are always teenagers,’ said Nick. ‘The new Stravaganti.’

‘And always miserable,’ said Georgia. It was now Nick who took her hand.

‘So,’ said Sky. ‘We need to be on the lookout for a potential talisman in school or in Mortimer’s shop and for a person our age, who is really miserable?’

‘Laura,’ said Isabel without thinking. Then, more confidently, ‘I think it will be Laura.’

^*

Laura was sitting alone in her room with the curtains drawn, even though it was mid-morning. Her door was locked and she had rolled up the long sleeves of her top, to get at her inner arm. It was already criss-crossed with scars, some faint and silver as snail trails, others still angry red.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she took the razor blade from the jewellery box where several lay hidden under a tray full of rings and bracelets she hardly ever wore. She hated doing this, hated that she needed to do it, but every time it happened – and she always put it off for as long as she could – there was such a sweet relief that it made it all worthwhile.

No one would understand why she was so unhappy or even that she
was
unhappy. Even her best friends at school, like Isabel and Ayesha, rarely saw her outside the school day and she usually managed to put on a good enough front from nine till going-home time. But there were things they didn’t know. Things she had not shared with anyone in her new school.

At home, her parents, who should have realised, would have been appalled to think that their beloved child was so miserable she had to cut herself to relieve the pain.

Laura didn’t completely understand it herself.

It had started with secondary school and she knew why but it got worse a year and a half ago when she was feeling the pressure of school exams, trying to keep up with work and envying girls who seemed naturally popular. Everything was just such a lot of effort. She would have liked a boyfriend but that had never happened and her two closest friends were now in a cosy foursome with Matt Wood and Sky Meadows, two of the best-looking boys in the sixth form.

The only boy she had ever really liked was Isabel’s twin, Charlie, and he was one of what she thought of as the ‘golden people’. Not a chance he would ever look twice at her.

She ran the edge of the blade across the surface of her skin as lightly as a whisper. It always took a while to summon up the courage to cut herself. The unhappiness would increase over a period of days and it was only at the weekend, as it stretched before her without any social life to distract her, that it would drive her to the point where the only way out was to inflict real physical pain.

Laura flicked the hair away from her face and wiped the tears from her cheeks with one of the tissues she had ready. Steeling herself against the initial pain, she dug deeper with the razor, but not deep enough to reach a vein, and scored a new red signature on the waiting page of her skin.

Fabio was in his workshop, still shaken by his stravagation to the other world. He had been there before, several times, but this time he had taken a talisman to be found by one of the mysterious beings from the future who had helped his Brotherhood before. He had never met one in Talia but he had heard of the heroic deeds of the young people who had fought the di Chimici in many encounters, bringing strength of purpose and great bravery to the task.

It was a heavy responsibility and he hoped he had chosen the right place, where it would be found by the right person. He had certainly made the talisman to the best of his ability.

Fabio had no doubt that his city was going to need outside help, and very soon. There was a restlessness in the air and a feeling that the very walls were waiting for Prince Jacopo to die.

There was a faction in Fortezza that did not believe that a woman should inherit the title and the leadership of the City of Swords. If Lucia’s husband, Prince Carlo of Giglia, had lived, they would have accepted them as joint rulers. But the sad-faced young widow, only recently out of black, did not seem to them like the right successor.

Fabio did not doubt that if there had been another candidate a part of the citizenry and even some of the army would rise up in support. But they were also loyal to the di Chimici family so there were all kinds of tensions abroad on the streets.

It was always noisy in the workshop, with the clang of metal on metal or the hiss of new blades being quenched. It didn’t normally bother the swordsmith; it was as natural to him as the sound of his own breathing. But today he had a headache. Maybe the last stravagation had disturbed his equilibrium.

He stepped out into the street for a breath of fresh air and almost knocked over a tall figure. It was one of the wandering people known as Manoush, a young man dressed soberly for one of his kind, but Fabio remembered that the goddess-worshippers were in danger in any city with a di Chimici ruler. Prince Jacopo had enacted the laws against magic which outlawed the practice of the Manoush religion.

This one was polite enough, bowing to the swordsmith though it was Fabio who had crashed into him. There was much courteous brushing down of clothes and mutual apology. In the course of it, Fabio spotted a dagger at the young man’s waist.

‘May I see?’ he asked.

The rusty-haired Manoush graciously offered it for Fabio’s professional inspection.

‘A fine blade,’ was his verdict, after hefting it for weight and balance. ‘May you rarely have need of it.’

‘Is that a swordsmith’s blessing?’ asked the young man, smiling and revealing very pointed canine teeth, as he tucked the dagger back in his belt.

‘Something like that,’ said Fabio. ‘I spend all day making weapons which are beautiful in themselves, but when I think of what they can do . . .’

‘What they are made to do,’ said the Manoush.

Mortimer Goldsmith made himself a pot of Earl Grey tea and poured himself a cup using some nice antique bone china. Over his drink he reread a letter from his new friend Eva. He had turned the sign on his door to CLOSED during his tea break but now he was aware of a girl looking in the shop window.

He sighed but the shop wasn’t making so much money that he could afford to turn away custom. He peered closely at the girl through the glass before turning the sign and opening the door.

He didn’t know this one, but he had a surprisingly large circle of teenage friends from the local comprehensive school. And he had a reason to be on the lookout for more.

‘Can I help you, my dear?’ he asked. ‘I was just having a cup of tea but I’m open really.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt your break,’ said the girl. ‘I wasn’t looking for anything in particular.’

She was a nervous thing, he thought.

‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘You come in and have a browse and I’ll finish my tea. I’m here if you need me.’

She drifted aimlessly round the shop, looking at antique jewellery and lace collars. Her arm was still stinging from what she’d done to it in the morning, but her long sleeves made sure no one else knew about it. It was going to be harder when summer came; Laura thrust that thought to the back of her mind.