Stravaganza: City Of Stars Part 12

'A horse with wings?' said Duke Niccol. 'That's absurd. A child's story.'

'Would I lie to you, Master?' said Enrico. 'I've seen her with my own eyes and she's as pretty a little filly as you could wish to see in a month of Sundays.'

'And in the Ram, you say?' The Duke saw the implications immediately. If word got out that the Ram had been blessed with such a good omen, it would sway public opinion in their favour and make it harder to do deals with the jockeys of the other Twelfths in the race. Remorans were a superst.i.tious lot. The Ram would undoubtedly keep their piece of good fortune secret until just a few days before the race.

'Born in the Ram, yes, but taken to Santa Fina with her mother where she is now,' said Enrico.

Duke Niccol remembered the black filly with the blanket and cursed under his breath. He had been within inches of this secret himself and yet he had to rely on a grubby little spy to tell him what had been under his nose.

'Just say the word, my Lord, and she can be yours. And all the luck that goes with her.'

'And you're sure it's not a fake?' the Duke persisted. 'Not some sort of bird's wings stuck on to a young horse?'

'I saw her fly last night,' said Enrico. 'Round and round above the stable yard when Roderigo thought there was no one there but his faithful groom Diego. But Diego is my friend and I was hiding behind some hay bales. Of course they had her on a lunge line, but suppose it got caught in some trees and broke? They wouldn't know where she had got to then, would they? Wouldn't even know she had been stolen.'

Of course the horse was real. Niccol had known it really, even when he queried the spy's story. Everyone who had any connection with Remora knew the stories about flying horses. But it made the Duke uneasy to hear that one had been born in his time, to the Twelfth with the strongest allegiance to his toughest rival. He didn't like things to happen that were beyond his control. Well, there was something he could do to get the situation back under his control before the news leaked out.

'How much?' he asked.

'You will need a talisman,' said Luciano.

It was the first time he had used that word in front of a di Chimici and Georgia realised what it meant: they were really going to take Falco to their world. No, she corrected herself, to my world. Falco had been right to refer to it as that; Luciano was a Talian now. She resolved to stop thinking of him as Lucien. From now on, even to herself, she would call him Luciano. It would help.

'How can I get one?' asked Falco simply, without even questioning what the word meant.

'Georgia will have to bring one for you,' said Luciano. 'It has to be something from the other world, brought from there to here. Then when you are ready to stravagate, you must hold it in your hands and fall asleep in Talia thinking of the other place. You should wake up in Anglia, in England, I mean, in the twenty-first century. Though G.o.ddess knows what will happen to you after that. That's Georgia's department, too, I suppose.'

Both boys looked at her as if she could solve all the problems that they were going to set her.

'Well, what sort of thing should it be?' she asked. 'Mine is a horse and Luciano said his was a book. But they were both from Talia. I won't know what I'm looking for in England.'

'May I see the horse?' asked Falco.

Reluctantly, Georgia drew the little model of the winged horse from her pocket and showed it to him.

'A cavallo alato!' he said excitedly. 'The Ra.s.senans used to have them. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see one!'

Georgia and Luciano exchanged glances.

To distract him, Luciano said, 'Rodolfo's talisman comes from the other world. It is a silver ring that Doctor Dethridge brought him.'

An idea was beginning to form in Georgia's mind.

'I thought I wasn't supposed to bring anything from my world except my own talisman,' she said now.

Luciano shrugged. 'Those are the rules. But Doctor Dethridge brought Rodolfo's talisman. And Paolo's. And Giuditta Miele's. And the talismans of countless other Stravaganti from Talia to the other world. It's something we do. I am being trained so that one day I will be adept enough to take talismans to bring Stravaganti from the other world to this. It is a heavy responsibility.'

'Whoa!' said Georgia. 'You mean Doctor Dethridge, who invented the whole art of stravagation, is the only one who has ever brought talismans from my world to this and you're being trained to do it, and yet you expect me to pick up a little something and bring it for Falco just like that? Isn't that going to upset the whole s.p.a.ce-time-continuum-thingy?'

Luciano smiled at her and she knew that she would do whatever he asked. 'I used to compare it to Star Trek too,' he said. He sighed. It sometimes seemed to him that hundreds of years had pa.s.sed since he first stood on Rodolfo's roof garden and found he had no shadow. He missed him intensely. And Arianna too.

Quickly, he said, 'It would be used only once, if Falco is really determined to be what Doctor Dethridge calls "translated". Just the one journey like a one-way ticket.'

'But wait,' said Georgia. 'Doesn't the talisman have to find the right person? I mean, our talismans came to us and brought us to where we were supposed to go. Can we just give something to Falco and hope it will work to help him stravagate?'

Luciano looked serious. 'We can't be sure,' he said. He turned to Falco. 'Do you understand? It's one thing for you to make up your mind that you want to go to our world. But it's another for it to work. You have to accept that even if Georgia brings you something, it might not take you away from Talia.'

Falco nodded. 'I am willing to take the risk,' he said.

'Shouldn't we ask someone?' said Georgia. She knew she had already missed an opportunity to tell Paolo about it. 'What about Doctor Dethridge? Or you could try contacting Rodolfo?'

Luciano's face set hard. He didn't really believe that Arianna was seriously considering marriage to a di Chimici, but he was hurt that neither she nor Rodolfo had sent word to him about the proposal. He had a vision of them getting on with the business of governing Bellezza and making important decisions without him. He felt left out and angry. And that was when he decided not to tell anyone about Falco.

'No,' he said. 'We'll handle this ourselves. After all, we are both Stravaganti.'

'And now I shall be one too,' said Falco, smiling his angelic smile. 'At least, for a little while. I shall make one beautiful flight and then hang up my wings. And Georgia will look after me.'

Georgia had to come home early from school on Tuesday; she was tired and groggy. Maura was so worried about her that Georgia decided not to stravagate for a couple of nights. She was sick of feeling tired and there were only a few days till the end of term. It would be easier in the holidays and Luciano had a.s.sured her that it was perfectly possible that she might not miss any time in Talia at all because of the way that the portal worked.

But she had reckoned without Russell. All the time she was stravagating nightly, she had been super-careful about the winged horse, transferring it from day clothes to night clothes and back again and never letting it out of her possession. But on the Tuesday night she had been exhausted and she had known that she was not going to need it that night. So she had left it in the pocket of her jeans in the washing hamper in the bathroom. And on Wednesday morning it had gone.

Chapter 13.

A Courtship Georgia was paralysed with shock and fear. At first she tried to believe that Maura had taken the horse, but the jeans were still in the hamper and not in the washing-machine. And Maura had gone to work, leaving strict instructions for Georgia to ring the doctor for an emergency appointment. The house was silent and still, with that reverberating quiet that comes after chaos. Ralph had gone to work too and Russell to school. Georgia had heard the clatter and low murmur of their breakfast, through the fug of her exhausted sleep.

Now she sat on the side of the bath with her jeans crumpled in her lap and felt as if she really might be ill. It had to be Russell who'd taken it. Georgia knew it was useless, but she went and tried the handle of her stepbrother's door anyway. It was locked. Russell had demanded his own lock at the same time as Georgia got hers. Now she was sure that the winged horse was somewhere behind the locked door.

She walked down the stairs in a state of shock and poured herself a bowl of cereal, afraid that if she didn't eat something she would faint. But it was hard to get the food down. She phoned the doctor but was told she couldn't have an appointment till noon.

She showered quickly, her mind racing. What was she to do if Russell refused to give back the horse? Or, worse, if he threw it away or broke it? At the thought of Russell grinding the little winged figure under one of his size eleven Dockers, Georgia turned the water up till it nearly scalded her and vigorously shampooed her scalp.

It was one thing to decide to give Talia a miss for a few days. But the thought of never being able to go back, never to see Remora again, or Cesare or Paolo and his chaotic family or Luciano was an entirely different proposition. And what about Falco?

Georgia had spent a lot of time thinking about Falco recently. What he wanted her and Luciano to do for him was certainly dangerous and possibly wrong. But she had come to believe that it might have been what she was intended to do in Talia, why the talisman had found its way to her in the first place. She didn't really think she was intended to be a proper Stravagante, in the way that Luciano was. And she didn't feel specially gifted or even drawn to learn whatever mysterious arts and skills the Stravaganti had.

No, she felt she had one specific task to accomplish in Talia and that was the rescuing of Falco. Why, she was still uncertain, only that it was the thing she was supposed to do. But without the talisman she could accomplish nothing. It was agonising. How long would it take Paolo to realise that she hadn't returned to Talia because she couldn't stravagate? And would he bring her another talisman? Georgia had no idea if this was allowed or even possible.

She decided that she would go mad if she stayed in the house any longer.

'His Highness Prince Gaetano of Giglia!' announced the d.u.c.h.essa's footman.

Gaetano was shown into a large reception room, whose long windows overlooked a ca.n.a.l. At the far end was a wooden dais supporting an elaborate mahogany throne. To the side of it on a much less ornate chair sat a man dressed in black velvet with a lot of silver in his black hair. This was obviously the Regent, Rodolfo, father and adviser to the young d.u.c.h.essa and a powerful Stravagante.

Gaetano found his heart pounding so much at the sight of one of his father's greatest enemies that he couldn't focus properly on the slight figure on the throne.

'Principe,' came a sweet musical voice, 'Bellezza welcomes you. I trust you are comfortably lodged in the Amba.s.sador's palazzo? May I present to you my father, Senator Rodolfo Rossi, the Regent of the city?'

Rodolfo paid the young di Chimici the honour of getting up from his seat and taking a few steps towards him before bowing.

Gaetano returned the courtesy, then went forward to kneel before the d.u.c.h.essa and kiss the hand she held out to him. She raised him to his feet and he found himself looking through a silver mask into amused violet eyes. Gaetano had been brought up in palaces and castles and had never met anyone without a t.i.tle, except the servants, until his voice had broken. So he was no stranger to formality and courtly ways and not easily intimidated. But when he at last concentrated on the object of his journey, he found himself blushing and stammering like a stonemason in a lady's boudoir.

She was beautiful; that much he could tell in spite of the mask. Slender and tall, with an abundance of glossy chestnut-brown hair coiled in an elaborate style, revealing the perfect shape of her head, poised on her neck like a flower on its stem. Several small curls had escaped from the coiffure and strayed down on to her neck and brow, making the whole effect more natural, in spite of the formality of her dress. And those eyes! So big and l.u.s.trous and of an unusual colour that matched the dark amethysts in her hair and at her throat.

He thought fleetingly of Luciano. Lucky dog! he thought, if she returns his affections. Then Gaetano remembered what he was there for. He pulled himself together and the rest of the audience pa.s.sed in pleasantries and pastries, which the servant brought in and set on a low round bra.s.s table along with a blond sparkling wine that Gaetano had never tasted before. The same servant brought a chair for the visiting prince and soon the three of them were conversing easily about Remora and the Race of the Stars.

'I met a friend of yours in the city, Your Grace,' he said to the d.u.c.h.essa, 'and of yours, I believe,' turning to Rodolfo. 'A young man named Luciano.'

He was rewarded by seeing a deeper rose tinge the d.u.c.h.essa's fresh complexion, just under her mask.

'Indeed,' said the Regent. 'He is my apprentice and a distant family connection. Is he well? And his foster-father, my good friend Dottore Crinamorte, did you see him too?'

'Yes, they are both well,' replied Gaetano. 'I met them in the Twelfth of the Ram, at the Horsemaster's house, along with Luciano's friend, Giorgio.'

Rodolfo betrayed no emotion at this news and talk turned to the coming journey to the city to see the Race of the Stars. No mention was made on this first occasion of the underlying purpose of the young Prince's visit. Gaetano went back to Rinaldo's old lodgings, his mind in a whirl. If he had to marry this d.u.c.h.essa, it would be no unpleasant experience, he thought. But would she have him? It was clear where her preference lay. But she might have no more choice in the matter than he did.

Mr Goldsmith's smile at seeing Georgia soon turned to a concerned frown.

'How delightful! But why aren't you at school? Are you ill? You don't look very well,' he said.

All it took was one sympathetic look; Georgia burst into tears. Mr Goldsmith was horrified; he gave her his clean white handkerchief and made her sit down in his little office at the back of the shop. He even put up his 'closed' notice in the door, although business was bad and he couldn't afford to miss any customers.

He brought Georgia some tea, regretting that he hadn't got any biscuits this time. She felt better as she sipped the hot drink; she didn't go in for tears much, only when Russell had been unusually horrible.

'Now you must tell me what's the matter,' said Mr Goldsmith, who wasn't used to seeing people cry.

'It's Russell,' sniffed Georgia. 'My stepbrother. I think he's stolen the horse.'

Her expression was so tragic that Mr Goldsmith knew he mustn't make light of her loss. Though it was only a museum replica and, theoretically, not impossible to replace.

'Oh dear,' he said. 'I am sorry. What makes you think he's taken it?'

Georgia explained and the old man soon realised that she was telling him a lot more about her family than he had known before. This stepbrother was obviously a nasty piece of work. And there was clearly more.

'I need the horse,' Georgia was saying. 'I can't explain to you why you wouldn't believe me anyway but I have to have it in order to do something I've promised to do. And I mean that one it can't be any other winged horse.'

Mr Goldsmith could sense her hysteria mounting; he had no idea why the winged horse had become so important to her, but he recognised obsession when he saw it.

'Then we'll just have to make sure that Russell gives it back, won't we? I don't think there's much point in your asking him nicely, given that it's something he's done to what do you call it? wind you up. Isn't that what you say? Good expression. I know what it does to my clocks if you over-wind them. Still, how about going straight to your parents and telling them what you think has happened? Surely he'll find it harder to lie to them?'

Georgia agreed that he was probably right, but talking about clocks reminded her of her doctor's appointment. Mr Goldsmith's clocks all showed different times, but her watch told her it was quarter to twelve and she must run.

Doctor Dethridge arranged his cards in the pattern he had made at his last reading. He had pondered long over the meaning of it and now decided to show it to Rodolfo. He used his hand-mirror to reflect the cards and peered into it himself at intervals until he found his old pupil looking back out at him.

'Gretynges, Maister Rudolphe!' the old Elizabethan said. 'Whatte thinke ye of this arraye?'

'I think it most remarkable, old friend,' said Rodolfo, looking intently at the cards, 'for the reason that I got the very same reading at the new moon.'

'The G.o.ddesse does notte appeare at newe moon withoute goode cause,' mused Dethridge.

'Perhaps she is interesting herself in our affairs?' suggested Rodolfo.

'Thenne we moste hope hir meddlinge is for oure goode,' said Dethridge.

Luciano was not surprised that Georgia didn't turn up in Remora the next day; after all, he had advised her to take a break. But Falco was clearly disappointed when the Bellezzan Stravagante arrived at the Papal palace on his own.

'There are things we can discuss without Georgia being here,' Luciano said gently.

But Falco only nodded and Luciano thought he saw him brush away a tear. Here was a development. Was Falco's wish to be translated to the modern world being influenced by a desire to be near Georgia? It was too delicate an area to probe straightaway. Luciano decided to go ahead with the practical details and worry about this new problem later.

'There are arrangements to be made at both ends,' he said in a businesslike way. 'Georgia can sort things out about your new life and bring you a talisman. But you need to plan how you are going to leave here. You understand that if you stravagate to my old world and stay there overnight, your body will appear asleep here during the day?'

'Yes,' said Falco, 'you said. And if I stay away, it will look as if I have the Morte Vivenda. Until one day I shall actually die here. How long do you think that will take?'

Luciano shook his head. It amazed him how calmly this thirteen-year-old could talk about his fate.

'I really don't know. For me it was a matter of weeks, but as I told you, I was being kept alive artificially. It might be only days. The point is, there should be some sort of reason. We don't want your father to suspect what will really have happened.'

'I shall ask to go back to Santa Fina,' said Falco. 'I can say it's because Gaetano has gone to Bellezza and I want to go back to the summer palace until the race. It will be easier to escape from up there; the servants aren't as vigilant as my father.'

'But there still has to be a reason,' pressed Luciano.

'I've thought about that, too,' said Falco. 'I think the easiest thing would be if I pretended to try to kill myself.'

Luciano was thoughtful on his way back to the Ram. But all thoughts of Falco were driven out of his head when he saw the carriage drawn up outside the stables. William Dethridge was leaning out of the window waving to him.

'Haste ye, yonge Lucian. Word has come from Saint Fyne. The marvele has flown awaye!'

Gaetano went back to the d.u.c.h.essa's palazzo for a grand dinner that night. He was guest of honour, seated at her right, while Rodolfo was on her other side. But the young di Chimici was astonished to find that his other neighbour was his cousin Francesca.

'Greetings, cousin,' she said, smiling at his obvious surprise. 'Didn't you know I am a Bellezzan citizen now?'

Gaetano was completely nonplussed. He had heard the rumours about Francesca but hadn't expected to meet her in the city. She was more lovely even than he remembered her, with her glossy black hair and sparkling dark eyes. He took her proffered hand and kissed it, summoning all his courtesy to ask after her health. She was dressed in red taffeta, which rustled as she spoke. Gaetano felt as if he had drunk deep of the red Bellezzan wine, even though his gla.s.s was still untouched.

'I see you are enjoying your family reunion,' said a musical, mocking voice behind him and Gaetano realised, to his horror, that he had turned his back on the d.u.c.h.essa.