Stravaganza: City Of Stars Part 9

'It wouldn't be for the first time,' said Cesare. 'We hear such stories in Remora all the time.'

'But it can't hurt to introduce them to your Rodolfo, can it?' asked Georgia. 'I mean, he probably won't be able to do anything for Falco, anyway.'

'I will tell you one thing,' said Luciano. 'If there is anything Rodolfo can do, he won't refuse to just because Falco's a di Chimici.'

Among the many pa.s.sers-by who stopped to listen to the harp playing in the Twelfth of the Ram that morning, n.o.body paid any attention to a short stocky figure in a dirty blue cloak. Enrico had naturally followed Niccol and his sons from the Papal palace and it was a good opportunity to get a closer look at the stables of the Ram. He slipped through the listeners in the yard and on round to the back of the stable-block, meaning to check up on the horses while everyone was occupied.

He put his eye to a knot-hole in the wood. And there were the young Rams, deep in conference the boys that he had followed to Santa Fina and a third, that must be the one who had been with them in the square when they first met the musician. He was Senator Rodolfo's apprentice from Bellezza that the spy knew well but seeing him so close to brought back uncomfortable memories.

Enrico quickly made the 'Hand of Fortune', the sign made on brow and breast with the middle three fingers of the right hand. It was what Talians did to ward off ill fortune. 'Dia!' he whispered and broke out into a sweat. There was something uncanny about that boy. Even though Enrico had had him in his grasp and knew him to be made of flesh and blood, there was something inexplicable about him. He used not to have a shadow and then, just when Enrico and his master had been on the verge of exposing him as some kind of freak, his shadow had materialised. He remembered how interested his old employer, Rinaldo di Chimici, had been in that.

Enrico didn't know what it meant and that bothered him. He was a spy and it was his job to know more about his victim than anyone else and if possible also about his employer. And Luciano had foiled him. Enrico didn't like failure and he didn't like to be reminded of it. It made him link the boy in his mind with that other disturbing mystery what had happened to his fiancee Giuliana.

Now he moved his eye from the hole and put his ear to it instead. They were talking about Senator Rodolfo and that was interesting in itself. Why would the Senator's favoured apprentice chat about him to a couple of stable-hands? They seemed on very friendly terms.

'The Duke seems to be making a habit of visiting us,' said one of them now.

'Thank goodness Merla is safe in Santa Fina,' said another, younger, voice.

'Wouldn't he like to know about her?' said the voice that Enrico recognised as Luciano's.

'He wouldn't leave us alone for a minute if he knew what had happened in the Ram,' said the older boy.

Enrico stopped listening; he had heard enough. His instincts had told him that there was a secret up in Santa Fina and it looked as if he had been right. Time to pay his new friend Diego a visit.

Chapter 10.

Luciano's Story It was a relief when Duke Niccol left the stables of the Ram. But he was willing for his sons to stay.

'If that is agreeable to you, Signor Paolo,' he said to his host, who of course was in no position to object.

'It likes me not to see these sonnes of oure enemy consorting with oure yonglinges,' said Dethridge to Paolo when the Duke departed. He left his carriage for Falco and strode off into the city about his business.

Paolo shook his head. 'Perhaps that is the way of the future,' he said. 'Perhaps the old enmities will come to an end. I have heard nothing against these two young men.'

'Mayhap they are doing their fathire's will nonetheless,' said Dethridge, 'and will finde oute more from the yonge folk than they sholde knowe?'

The Manoush packed up their bedding and made to move off too.

'We thank you for your kind hospitality,' Aurelio said formally to Paolo and Teresa. 'But we must now be on our way. We wish to revisit old friends in the city.'

They both bowed, touching their foreheads with clasped hands. Then they spoke in their own language, translating: 'Peace on your house and on your people may you fare well and your enemies come to grief.'

And then they were gone, like bright birds flying south.

'Strange people,' said Teresa, 'but I liked them.'

'The Manoush are always welcome here,' said Paolo. 'They remind us of older times and better ways.'

The Duke had tried to reward Aurelio for the music but Gaetano had whispered to him and the silver had been quietly pa.s.sed to Raffaella instead. Georgia was surprised that the young n.o.ble had also noticed who held the purse-strings in that couple. And then she remembered that she still didn't know whether they were a couple. The Manoush seemed open enough in their dealings with other people but now that they had gone, it was hard to pin down anything about them.

Luciano was not surprised that the two di Chimici brothers wanted to stay; he knew that Gaetano was determined to find out more about the Stravaganti. But he felt very odd about what seemed to be a sort of friendship beginning between the sons of this powerful family and the people of the Ram.

'Come for a drive with us,' Gaetano said now. 'If that's all right with your father, Cesare. We have the carriage and it's easier for my brother if he can sit in comfort.'

Paolo gave his permission and the five young people got into the di Chimici carriage, with its plumed horses and velvet upholstery. It made Luciano feel very strange indeed, to be riding out with people he had been taught to consider his enemies. And Cesare had been brought up from birth to fear and distrust them.

Georgia had no such worries. Everyone in Talia had told her that the di Chimici were bad and dangerous and she could believe that the Duke was someone you wouldn't want to meet on a dark night. But once you got over their fancy clothes and elaborate manners, Gaetano and Falco were just boys. They were much nicer than Russell and his cronies, anyway.

'Take the South road,' Gaetano now commanded, and the carriage rolled out over the cobbled streets of the Ram, skirted the Campo and turned south down the broad Street of the Stars to the Moon Gate.

Gaetano leaned forward to talk to Georgia. 'We need your help,' he said, getting straight to the point. 'If my brother cannot be cured, he will be made to enter the church.' He didn't say by whom, but it was obvious.

'And you don't want to do that?' Georgia asked Falco, playing for time.

The younger boy looked pensive. 'Not really,' he said slowly, 'not if I had a choice. I'd rather go to university like my brother and find out about philosophy and painting and music.'

Georgia tried to imagine what university might be like in sixteenth-century Talia. Falco didn't have a wheelchair, so presumably Talians didn't know about them or ramps and things. Unless he could walk properly, he'd have to be carried to lectures.

'Is there anything the Stravaganti can do that would help my brother?' Gaetano asked Georgia. 'He has had the best doctors in Talia and they can do no more. Only a superior skill, such as you natural philosophers know about, could give him a chance of recovery.'

Georgia was at a loss. She wasn't any kind of philosopher but this young n.o.ble was treating her like a learned scholar. She was prepared to believe that the mysterious Rodolfo might be a person like that, or the Elizabethan doctor, or even Paolo, who had an air of natural authority. Perhaps even Lucien, since he had inexplicably ended up here in another world, had some remarkable powers she had never suspected. But she was just a skinny Year 10 schoolgirl, whose only power was to be able to get from one world to another. How could that help the boy with the big dark eyes and the shattered leg?

Falco was watching her and he suddenly turned to his brother and said, 'I don't think that she can do anything for me.'

The atmosphere in the carriage was electric and Georgia felt the colour rising in her face.

'She?' said Gaetano. 'The Stravagante is a woman?'

Luciano came to the rescue. 'She needs to be disguised here in Talia. We Stravaganti do not draw attention to ourselves.'

He had certainly drawn attention away from Georgia. Both di Chimici turned to him, eager with questions.

'You are a Stravagante too?' said Gaetano. 'So that is what you are learning from the Regent!'

'Please,' said Falco. 'If there is anything you know, share it with us. Can what the Stravaganti do heal bodies?'

When the Duke left the Ram, he was followed by a man in a blue cloak. When he reached the Campo delle Stelle, he whirled and faced his pursuer, relaxing when he saw who it was.

'I hope you are usually more discreet,' Niccol said to Enrico. 'Otherwise your value as a spy will be limited.'

'Certainly, my Lord,' said Enrico smoothly. 'I was of course not shadowing your Grace I would not have such presumption. I was merely following you, so that I could report to you some news.'

Duke Niccol raised one eyebrow. He had no illusions about Enrico; his nephew had told him all he needed to know about the man.

'The Ram have a secret they are keeping from you, my Lord,' Enrico continued. He had the Duke's complete attention now; he had known there was something going on in the Ram, for all their deference.

'Something that will help them in the race?' he asked now.

'More than likely,' said Enrico. 'The secret is in Santa Fina. I am on my way there now, to try to find out more.'

'Let me know as soon as you do,' said the Duke. 'And if you need any help in Santa Fina, or somewhere to stay out of sight, use my summer palace there.' He scribbled something on a sc.r.a.p of paper. 'Give this to my major-domo. He will see to it that you have anything you need.'

Luciano had made up his mind.

'If I tell you what happened to me,' he said, 'you must both swear not to tell anyone else, particularly your father.'

There was a short silence, while Gaetano wrestled with his feelings about his family. The two brothers looked at one another, one so ugly but physically strong and vigorous, the other so beautiful and so damaged. They nodded at the same time.

'We swear,' they both said. And to the surprise of the others, Gaetano stopped the coach, so that they could both kneel to Luciano and proffer him their daggers. It was not possible for Falco to kneel properly, but he leant forward and bent his better leg, his face creased with pain.

Both brothers solemnly chanted together: g By the house of the City of Flowers May its strength never dwindle or ail Ever true is the word that is ours Take our lives if our promise should fail.

g They urged Luciano to take the daggers by the hilts and make a small nick in their wrists.

They're going to become blood brothers, thought Georgia, but it wasn't that. The two young n.o.bles held their wrists out to Luciano, each bright with scarlet beads of blood, and motioned him to put his lips to each. Georgia shuddered but Luciano didn't hesitate. As soon as he had tasted the blood voluntarily shed by the di Chimici, Georgia felt Cesare relax beside her, and she realised that he had been as tense as a tight violin-string.

The whole atmosphere in the carriage had changed.

'Drive on!' ordered Gaetano, sheathing his dagger, which Luciano had handed back to him, and the coachman urged the horses on. They were now through the Gate of the Moon and heading south, but no one inside the carriage paid any attention to where they were going.

No one now had any doubt that the di Chimici would keep whatever they were told to themselves. Georgia realised that she was going to hear for the first time what had really happened to Lucien.

It was clear to her that it was an edited version of his story, but it was amazing enough.

'I was a Stravagante from another world, like Georgia,' he began. 'In that world I was very sick not in the way that Falco is, but with a slow creeping illness that was devouring my body.'

Gaetano nodded. 'We know of such a sickness. We call it the malady of the Crab, because it grasps and pinches the organs of the body.'

'When I first stravagated here,' Luciano continued, 'or rather to Bellezza, which is my city, I felt completely well again.'

Falco's eyes lit up and Gaetano gasped. 'Does that mean if Falco went to your world, he would be healed?'

'I don't think so,' said Luciano. 'He might feel better, but I don't think his broken bones would be mended. At most his strength would be improved. And it wouldn't last when he returned here.' He paused.

'Although I was always well in Talia, I got worse in my own world. And then I was captured in Bellezza. The thing about stravagation is that it is night-time in the other world while it is daytime in Talia. If one of us stays for a Talian night, he will be discovered in his own world during the day as a sleeping body that cannot be awakened. I was unable to return to my world while I was held captive, and during that time my body appeared to be in a coma you know, when someone is still breathing but seems otherwise dead?'

'Yes,' said Gaetano. 'We call it "Morte Vivenda" the living death. It happens sometimes after a riding accident. But such victims almost always die in truth soon afterwards.'

Luciano nodded. 'It was like that for me. Soon my otherworldly body could not even breathe for itself.'

'So you died?' asked Falco, his huge dark eyes seeming to fill his face.

Luciano hesitated. 'I come from a time far in the future,' he said, choosing his words carefully. 'The doctors can keep people alive for a while with machines. I don't know exactly what happened to me, but I think that I was kept breathing in that way for a while and that then the doctors believed that I was dead in my brain and the machines were turned off.'

There was a long silence in the carriage and Georgia found that she was holding her breath. Lucien looked terrible.

'Anyway,' he continued in a hurry. 'At a particular moment, I suddenly knew that I was alive here in Talia but dead in my own world. From that day, now nearly a year ago, I have been a citizen of Talia, under the protection of my master the Regent and living with my foster-parents Doctor Crinamorte and his wife.'

'And you can't go back?' asked Falco.

'Not permanently, no,' said Luciano. 'This is the only life I can lead now.'

'And these doctors of the future,' said Gaetano, focusing on what was for him the most important thing in the whole story. 'Could they help my brother?'

'Again, I don't really know,' said Luciano. 'What do you think, Georgia?'

'I don't know much about medicine,' she said truthfully. 'They might be able to do operations to make it easier for him to walk. And even if they couldn't do that, he could have an electric wheelchair and get about more easily.' She stopped. 'There's not much point in my telling you all this,' she said.

'Can you bring the doctors here?' asked Gaetano.

Luciano and Georgia both shook their heads.

'They wouldn't be much use by themselves,' said Luciano, 'even if we could bring them.'

'They'd need all their equipment,' explained Georgia. 'Operating theatres, electricity, anaesthetics, instruments and drugs.'

'Then there's only one thing for it,' said Falco calmly. 'I must go there. You must help me to stravagate.'

The Horsemasters of Remora were meeting to discuss the pacts that would be made between Twelfths during the Stellata. This was a meeting of allies, where Twelfths got together according to their elemental allegiances, Fire with Fire and Air with Air. So Paolo was hosting the meeting for the three Fire Twelfths in the Ram and sat in a tavern with his opposite numbers from the Archer and the Lioness.

In other taverns of Remora similar meetings were going on. Riccardo as Horsemaster for the Twins hosted the Air Twelfths the Scales and the Water-Carrier; Emilio, Horsemaster for the Lady, entertained the Earth Twelfths the Bull and the Goat; and Giovanni, the Scorpion's Horsemaster, bought the drinks for the other Water Twelfths the Fishes and the Crab.

Ancient traditions of enmity prompted these annual meetings. It was the prime consideration that the Twelfths of opposing elements would block one another's jockeys in the Stellata. So all Water jockeys would block all Fire horses and all Earth riders would foul the path of all Air mounts. But within this general opposition, each rider would reserve special hostility for one particular enemy, like Ram and Fishes, or Twins and Bull.

Then there were the city allegiances that pitted Twins and Lady against the Ram; all in all there were few horses who would be viewed by their neighbouring riders as neutral once the race got under way. All riders wore their Twelfth's colours but it still required a lively mind to keep up with all the planned strategies once the dazzling kaleidoscope of a high-speed race whirled round the circular Campo.

And planning could go only so far. The order in which the horses were to take up their positions at the start was drawn by lot only just before the race. Until then, however, the allied Twelfths would mull over tactics and dig to find out any information about rivals' mounts and their riders that might prove useful.

And today the topic of most discussion in three out of the four groups was the Ram's secret weapon. Paolo trusted absolutely in his allies of the Lioness and Archer; they would be happy about an advantage to any of the three Fire Twelfths. So he told them about Merla.

'G.o.ddess be praised!' was the response from the other two Horsemasters.

They knew of the legend of the flying horse, of course; all Remora knew that such creatures were possible, if rare. No one had ever seen one, but everyone knew someone who had, even if it was a friend's great-grandfather. And everyone believed in the power of such a good omen.