City of Swords (24 page)

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Laura and Ludo were together in the palazzo; as before he had come into the room alone, but she knew there were some of his personal bodyguards outside the door.

But they had been together only minutes before the attack came. Laura could not understand what she was hearing at first. It was like thunder but magnified a hundred times, like how she might have imagined an earthquake might have sounded. The very walls of the building seemed to shake.

‘Ludo! What’s happening?’

‘It’s begun,’ he said, scrambling into his armour. ‘You must go. It’s not safe.’

It would have been sensible at that point for Laura really to go – to stravagate home and get right away from Talia. But she didn’t want to be sensible. She couldn’t just leave when Ludo was running towards the danger. They came out of the palazzo together, to find the streets full of people running and shouting. Ludo’s guards formed a protective shield around him and Laura was cut off from him.

The air was full of a choking dust and Laura saw that it was coming from smashed houses where huge stones had come up and over the city walls and landed on random targets. One building had collapsed completely and there was no way of telling how many people had been inside it. The cathedral bells started to ring – an urgent raucous clanging to call people to beware.

But how could you take care not to be hit when a huge rock might come over the wall at any time? It was like the big battle in the last Lord of the Rings film.

As she raced away from the palazzo, Laura saw her first dead body: a woman with a shopping basket sprawled beside her, onions and potatoes rolling round on the stones. A dislodged chunk of masonry from a house had landed right on top of her.

‘Laura!’ Ludo shouted back at her over his shoulder. ‘Get back home!’

He stretched his arms out to her, but it was a futile gesture. His guards were having none of it. They locked shields around him to save him from falling rocks. Like that they ran towards the walls, leaving Laura disorientated. She had to get back to somewhere safe and quiet where she could stravagate back home.

She walked hurriedly through the choking dust and the milling people to the Street of the Swordsmiths.

‘Laura! I didn’t know you were still here,’ said Fabio, letting her into his workshop and out of the chaos.

All was calm and still inside and he fetched her a glass of water while she coughed the dust up from her lungs.

‘It’s a good thing you are though. You can go home and get back to the castle and tell them what’s happening.’

‘I think they may have guessed,’ said Laura. She suddenly felt wearied by her role as messenger.

Fabio looked at her oddly. ‘Did you see what had happened in the street?’

‘I saw a body,’ said Laura. She had to put the glass down very carefully as her hand had started to shake. ‘Actually there was more than one, but I didn’t look at the others.’

Fabio put an arm round her. ‘Can I get you some wine?’

Laura suddenly thought maybe the harsh dry Talian wine might do her good. ‘Just a small glass, please,’ she said.

While he was pouring it, she asked. ‘Where are Luciano and Rodolfo?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘They went out. I hope they are somewhere safe.’

‘There is nowhere safe any more,’ said Laura.

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‘I just can’t bear it,’ said Arianna. ‘We have no idea what is happening and I have to fiddle around with wedding arrangements that don’t interest me in the least while the man I’m supposed to marry – and my father – might be blown to bits at any minute!’

‘Always so dramatic,’ sighed Silvia. ‘Do you forget that I have a husband in Fortezza too? And we do know what is happening. They communicate through the mirrors every night.’

‘It’s not the same as being there though,’ said Arianna, as she tugged at the headdress and veil a hapless milliner was trying to fix on her head. The woman was two inches shorter than the Duchessa and had to stand on a stool but Arianna kept twisting around in her agitation.

‘You are finished with “being there” in a battle,’ said Silvia. ‘Keep still or this poor woman – what is your name? – will be toppled to the floor.’

‘It’s Maria Grazia, milady,’ said the milliner, attempting to make a curtsey on the stool and wobbling alarmingly.

‘Sorry,’ said Arianna. ‘I’ll try to keep still, but imagine if your fiancé were off taking part in a battle you didn’t understand?’

‘I can’t imagine it, milady,’ said the milliner. She addressed them both the same way, to be on the safe side, because she had heard that this alarming middle-aged woman, who was supposed to be the new Duchessa’s stepmother, was actually her real mother – and the late Duchessa into the bargain!

It was common talk in the streets of Bellezza.

‘I’ll be so glad to get rid of this wretched mask,’ said Arianna.

‘I thought you liked disguises,’ said Silvia.

‘It isn’t a disguise though, is it? Just a hindrance. And you were glad enough to get rid of yours.’

They were both silent, remembering the explosion in the glass room, the body double and the hideous bloody fragments that remained of her. After that Silvia had taken off her mask for good and declared the Duchessa of Bellezza dead.

‘You will feel better when we’ve had our mirror-message tonight,’ said Silvia. ‘And so will I.’

But she was wrong.

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Laura did at last manage to stravagate back to the castle. They had heard the bombardment of course, but the Rocca had been unaffected.

‘Fabrizio knows I am in the castle,’ said Lucia. ‘We should be safer here than anywhere.’

Then I wish Rodolfo and Luciano were here with you
, thought Laura. There had still been no news of them by the time she had left Fabio’s workshop.

They went out on to the battlements to view the damage.

‘The Grand Duke has fired on fellow Talians,’ said Guido.

‘We knew that would happen,’ said Lucia. ‘It is Ludo’s fault, not my kinsmen’s. None of this was necessary.’

‘It was necessary for Ludo,’ said Laura.

‘But did he really think of the consequences?’ asked Lucia. ‘From what little I saw of him, he did not seem to be a bloodthirsty or vengeful man.’

‘I really think he isn’t,’ said Laura. ‘But, anyway, I came to tell you that there have been deaths in the city and Luciano and Rodolfo seem to be, well, missing.’

Lucia crossed herself. And Guido made a curious gesture that was similar, putting three fingers of his right hand to his chest and forehead.

I wish I believed in something
, thought Laura.

‘What will happen next?’ asked Lucia.

‘If Ludo is serious about carrying on this war, he’ll fire back on the army,’ said Guido. ‘And it won’t be rocks he answers with.’

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Rodolfo had been restless ever since they had arrived in Fortezza; he believed they had made a mistake in coming inside the city, because he couldn’t get any sense of what was going on in the army.

That day he had insisted on going out into the streets to see if there was any way he hadn’t thought of to get outside the walls undetected. Luciano had gone with him.

They were close to the cathedral when the siege-engines loosed their loads and catapulted tonnes of rock into the city. Immediately all was chaos and panic; people were running around even though they had no idea where to go. It was a basic instinct to run when there was danger.

The bombardment couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes, but to Luciano, sheltering behind an overturned market stall, it felt like centuries. He had lost sight of Rodolfo after the first strike. At first he had thought it was cannon fire because the air was so thick with dust and debris it seemed like smoke.

But gradually the dust cleared and there was no smell of gunpowder.

Dia!
thought Luciano.
If that was just rocks, what will it be like when the big guns start?

There was a hush in the cathedral square. Luciano crawled out from behind the stall and started to search for Rodolfo.

At last, after closing the eyes of several dead men and women and covering their faces with their cloaks, Luciano spotted a pair of familiar feet sticking out from under a door which had been wrenched off its building. The image of the Wicked Witch of the West was irresistible.

Luciano fought down his hysteria and forced himself to haul the door off the person who lay underneath it, dreading what he might see.

But Rodolfo was not dead; he was unconscious. He had fallen awkwardly, knocked by the flying door, Luciano supposed, and one arm was bent underneath him. There was an ugly gash on his forehead. But he had a strong pulse, and when Luciano slid an arm under his shoulders to prop him up, Rodolfo’s eyelids fluttered.

What’s the use of being a Stravagante in the middle of an attack?
thought Luciano. Then he heard his name being called.

It was Fabio.

‘Thank the Goddess!’ he said when he saw them, though his expression changed when he saw Rodolfo’s injuries.

‘We must get him back to my workshop,’ he said. ‘What a pity Laura has left. But we’ll send her a message.’

‘Where is she?’ asked Luciano.

‘In the Rocca with the Princess,’ said Fabio. ‘Here, between us we can get him back.’

The swordsmith was formidably strong in the arms and shoulders and bore more of the magician’s weight than the slighter Luciano. Together they half carried, half dragged him back to the workshop and laid him on a wooden table.

Luciano fetched a bowl of warm water and bathed the dust and blood from Rodolfo’s head. Fabio supported his neck and trickled some fiery liquor between his lips.

Rodolfo spluttered and sat up of his own accord, then groaned as he realised his arm was broken. But Fabio had already sent one of his apprentices for help.

‘I should think surgeons in the city will be keeping busy,’ said Rodolfo, shakily. ‘Not to mention the undertakers.’

‘Maestro,’ said Luciano, ‘you will be all right.’

It was a statement but there was a question underneath it.

‘Yes,’ said Rodolfo, ‘I will be all right. But many will not – today and in the days to come. We must get a message to Gaetano. We can’t let this go on.’

Luciano was with him on that. The bodies he had ministered to in the cathedral square were not the first he had seen in Talia. But seeing so many of them killed so quickly in such a small area had been a shock. And they weren’t combatants – just ordinary citizens going about their business.

For all the di Chimici army knew, as many of Lucia’s supporters would have died or been injured as followers of Ludo. Indeed, Rodolfo was one of those supporters and he might have been killed. Luciano despaired to think how many lives would be lost or ruined before the Fortezzan inheritance was settled.

‘I can do it,’ he said. ‘If you let me.’

‘How?’ asked Rodolfo.

‘I can stravagate back to my old world and, if you agree, take a second talisman from here, so that I can choose where to arrive. I can think of the army and get into the midst of it.’

‘But that is fantastically dangerous,’ said Rodolfo. ‘You will be in the middle of ten thousand men and obviously not one of them.’

‘And you think I’d be safer here?’ asked Luciano. ‘Look at you – you could be dead!’

‘I don’t think anyone has ever travelled with two talismans of their own at once,’ said Rodolfo.

‘Do we have a choice? If I can find Gaetano and talk to him, we might find a way of bringing this to an end before it gets worse.’

Rodolfo was silent. Luciano realised he could not rely on his old master this time; he was going to have to take the decision himself.

Chapter 15

Retaliation

Laura was revising hard for her French exam the next day when Isabel got a text from Georgia: