Stravaganza: City Of Secrets Part 18

'Now, sir . . . Father?'

'If convenient,' said Rodolfo. 'If you are unwell, I can put him off. But a cardinal of the Reman Church should, of course, be received with all honour and respect.'

It was clear what he wanted her to do. Barbara nodded.

'Very well,' said Rodolfo to the footman. 'Please show His Eminence to the red drawing-room and bring further refreshment for us all there.'

When the footman had gone, Silvia said, 'I think I should absent myself from this audience.'

'No,' said Rodolfo. 'I think you should be there. We have to face the di Chimici as man and wife at some point.' He glanced towards the girl in the green silk dress. 'Will you be all right, my dear? You don't have to say much beyond a greeting. I can speak for you.'

'I shall do my best, sir,' said Barbara.

'But you must remember to call me "Father",' said Rodolfo kindly.

'I shall try, sir,' said the maid.

'Ah, there you are,' said Eva, when Matt came home alone. 'I hope you've stopped rus.h.i.+ng about all over the place. I want to have a nice chat with you.'

Jan popped her head round the door. 'Oh Matt, I've just had a call from Celia at the hospital. She said that Jago might be coming home as early as this afternoon! But you know he's better, don't you? Celia said you'd visited him this morning. That was good of you.'

'He's a good boy,' said Eva comfortably.

You don't know how wrong you are, thought Matt, but there was nothing he could do but smile. 'That's great,' he said, feeling that his face was going to crack and fall off.

'Where's Ayesha?' asked Jan.

'I took her home,' said Matt.

'Oh what a shame,' said Eva. 'I was looking forward to meeting her properly. I thought she looked a lovely girl.'

Matt said nothing. He wasn't going to tell his great-aunt, in front of his mother, what the situation was between him and Ayesha. He wasn't even sure he knew what it was himself. Yesh had been acting very strangely on the way home. Realising who Luciano was seemed to have flipped her over the edge. He'd left her at her house, telling her mother she was overtired and needed to lie down.

'Now tell me all about your university plans,' said Eva. 'Jan tells me you're thinking of Cambridge.'

Matt groaned inwardly. He wondered who had told Jan but she had tactfully withdrawn.

'Which college?' Eva was asking.

'Queens,' said Matt at random, remembering one that Georgia had mentioned.

'Oh, very good,' said Eva. 'Just down the road from my old college, Newnham. Are they good for computers?'

'Yes,' said Matt, secure that Eva was so language and literature-focused that she wouldn't be able to contradict him. 'But I thought you were at Pembroke?'

Eva laughed. 'I taught at Pembroke before I got the job at Suss.e.x, but that was a men's college when I was an undergraduate. Newnham was where I got my degree women only.'

It sounded like something out of the Ark to Matt. 'I don't suppose I'll get in, though,' he said hastily. 'It's very hard.'

'Well, at least you won't have to sit an exam,' said Eva. 'They'll go on your A level results and an interview.'

'I haven't even done my AS yet,' Matt reminded her. 'I don't have to decide until next year.'

'It's good to start thinking about it now though,' said Eva. 'Maybe if you haven't spent my birthday present yet, you could get a book about the application process?'

Matt felt guilty; he hadn't thanked her. He never did. Writing was hard for him but he could have phoned. He decided on a whim to tell her the truth.

'I got this,' he said, pulling the Talian spell-book from his jeans pocket. He never went anywhere without it now.

Eva seemed fascinated. She took the book from him and unwound the leather straps almost reverently.

'How extraordinary,' she said. 'A strange book for a dyslexic to choose.'

Matt froze. Usually Eva was rather vague about what was going on but she seemed pin-sharp today. But if she knew, really knew, about his condition, why did she persist in sending him book tokens?

'It spoke to me,' he said in the end.

'I can understand that,' said his great-aunt. 'Books have been speaking to me all my life. But it's unusual for you, isn't it? Oh, I know you think I'm a gaga old woman who can't remember what my great-nephews are like. But that isn't so. I just kept sending you the tokens in the hope that one day you'd find the right book. The one that spoke to you. I didn't think it would be a Renaissance book of spells though.'

'You know what it is?' said Matt.

'I know what it looks like,' said Eva. 'A Latin spell-book from some time in the sixteenth century. I'd like to know where you got such a valuable book for twenty pounds. In fact I'd like to go there myself.'

The scene at Luciano's old house was uncanny for all of them. He hadn't managed ever to get inside it in his previous stravagations, let alone speak to his mother, or hug her. Nick felt completely superfluous. Usurped, even though he was the usurper, the one who now slept in Luciano's old bed. As soon as Vicky had called her husband and told him to come home immediately, Georgia dragged Nick off to the kitchen to make coffee; she was as at home in his house as in her own.

'You've got to give them some time alone,' she insisted. 'Don't look so miserable. He'll be gone in a few hours you're her son now.'

But it wasn't as easy as she was pretending. She had been so used to Nick being jealous of Luciano on her account that it was hard to accept his new set of feelings about another woman, even though that woman was his foster-mother.

In the living room, Vicky was bombarding Luciano with questions. Where was he living? Was he really well? Had he sent Nicholas to them? And, worst of all, was he ever coming back permanently?

'It wasn't me, Mum,' said Luciano. 'It was Georgia who arranged for Nick to live here.'

'Georgia?' said Vicky, utterly flummoxed. 'But how is that possible?'

Luciano spread his hands in a gesture that unconsciously echoed one of his master Rodolfo's. 'How is any of it possible? You can ask Nick and Georgia the details. It must have been killing them these last two years not being able to say anything to you.'

'Two years?' said Vicky. 'It's been three, Lucien. A lot of this I don't understand but don't expect me to believe I haven't been grieving every day of three years and more.'

'That's something else Georgia and Nick will have to explain,' he said. 'I'm going to have to go soon. It's night in my world and I have a big day at university tomorrow. I've got to give a sort of speech.'

'You're at university?' asked Vicky. 'Oh, don't go yet. Wait for David. It would be too cruel if you disappeared before he got here. There's so much to ask you.'

'OK,' said Luciano. 'But, Mum, can we phone up for pizza?'

Rinaldo di Chimici was enjoying himself. He knew that the Regent's supposed second wife was the old d.u.c.h.essa he had recognised her at the duel in Giglia and he was determined to let her know that he knew it. Of the new young d.u.c.h.essa, he took hardly any notice at all, even though his emba.s.sy was to her.

'I used to be Amba.s.sador here, ma'am,' he said. 'From Remora. That was before I entered the Church, of course.'

'Indeed,' said Silvia, uncomfortable in spite of Rodolfo's rea.s.suring presence.

'Yes,' he continued. 'Unfortunately, I was here at the time of the late d.u.c.h.essa's unfortunate demise.'

'And what brings you here this time?' asked Rodolfo, anxious to change the subject.

'Ah yes,' said the Cardinal. 'My visit.'

After his unexpected success in Padavia, Rinaldo had taken it upon himself to visit all the independent city-states to see if he could get them to put the anti-magic laws on their statute books. His motives were twofold: if he succeeded, he would be high in the Grand Duke's regard, but he also wanted to take on the task because he thought it was right.

He had always distrusted the G.o.ddess-religion, even though he knew that some older di Chimici practised it alongside the official observances of the Reman Church. And now that he had entered that Church himself, with his eye on the highest prize within it, he embraced with zeal the mission to wipe out all superst.i.tion and supernatural beliefs that were outside the official faith.

He didn't have much hope of succeeding in Bellezza but he wanted to start there just to see the Regent's so-called second wife with his own eyes; he had a score to settle with her.

'I'm sure it has not escaped your attention,' he said to the young d.u.c.h.essa, suppressing a desire to call her 'my dear', 'that your near neighbour and ally, Padavia, has adopted the new laws introduced by my cousin, the Grand Duke?'

The girl looked at him like a sheep and it was her father that answered.

'Messer Antonio has informed us of his new laws, of course,' said Rodolfo. He gave Barbara a tiny frown, as if to say 'leave this to me'.

'Naturally, the Grand Duke would be very pleased if Bellezza saw fit to follow her neighbour's wise decision,' said Rinaldo.

'Naturally,' said Rodolfo.

'May I take it then that you will consider his request?'

'It seems that Your Eminence's role in the Church benefits from your past experience here as Amba.s.sador,' said Rodolfo. 'We will, of course, "consider" any request from a fellow head of state. My daughter will ask her Senate and we will convey their answer to you in Remora. But enough of business will you take some brandy?'

Rinaldo did not stay long. He was mollified that the Regent hadn't dismissed his request out of hand and intrigued to discover how little power the new d.u.c.h.essa seemed to exercise. 'A mere puppet,' he would tell Fabrizio, 'manipulated by her parents, if indeed her parents they really be. I saw her make that primitive hand of fortune sign those low-cla.s.s lagooners use. Perhaps that midwife witness lied? In any event, she is no threat to us. Take away the Regent and she would need a new puppetmaster. Forget about any violence towards the d.u.c.h.essa of Bellezza. It is the father we need to eliminate.'

The Cardinal rode back to Padavia, well-pleased with his visit. Even if the Regent persuaded the Senate to block the anti-magic laws, if his new plan succeeded, Arianna, the d.u.c.h.essa of Bellezza, would soon be without her lover or her father and then Bellezza would fall into di Chimici hands like a ripe plum.

'You turn up here after three years, won't tell us anything and then say you've got to get back to write an essay?' Luciano's father had said when he got in, sounding almost angry. But he had clutched his head and started to cry, so that Luciano could not feel anything other than sympathy.

But he did have to get back, much as he wanted to stay. Luciano was behind with his studies. With all the worry over Matt, Arianna's visit and his developing friends.h.i.+p with Filippo, he hadn't been giving his university work enough time. And he had been neglecting his riding and fencing too. He was ashamed at how often Cesare had been to their training sessions without him.

So he had left from his old house to return to Padavia as soon as he'd had a pizza and a shower. When he got back, Arianna was fast asleep in the chair beside the bed. He covered her gently with a quilt and, groaning, went to his little study and stayed up the rest of the Talian night writing his 'Disquisitio' for Professor Constantin's cla.s.s.

It had been more than usually difficult to concentrate. Seeing his old home and his parents had been more than unsettling. Of course he had known that he was running a risk in offering to accompany Matt, but he hadn't expected to run into his mother in ICU. That had actually been a wonderful bonus, being able to talk to her and to convince her that he was well and living another life.

But two things had been unbearably painful: one, the hope that Vicky still held that he would come back to them, the other seeing Nicholas, the old Falco, so settled into his place. He had even had to stravagate back by lying on Nick's bed, which had been his own not much more than two years ago.

David had asked all the awkward questions, even more than Vicky, and in the end Luciano had been longing to get away. Now his body was still tingling from the hot shower and the warm fluffy towel and he could still taste the pizza; it had been so good.

When is it right to kill a man? Luciano forced himself to focus on the subject. In a few hours he would have to give his oration, making all the right gestures, using all the approved metaphors and similes and laying down a convincing case in favour of the proposition. All the Rhetoric students had to do it. Even the Professors had to take part in public 'Disputationes' once a term, to demonstrate their continued skills and provide a model for their students.

Luciano had missed two of Constantin's lessons. He could have followed the practice of the richest students in Padavia and sent a servant to take notes for him but that felt like cheating.

So he slaved over his paper as the candles guttered, marshalling his arguments and dreading the dawn.

In the end, Matt took Eva to Mortimer Goldsmith's antiques shop. She was delighted with it and hit it off with Mortimer immediately. They soon unearthed the Cambridge connection 'my great-nephew is applying to Queens', you know' and then they were away.

'I was a Trinity man myself,' said Mortimer. 'But my late wife was at Newnham. Perhaps you knew her?'

Amazingly it appeared that Eva had known, slightly, the woman that Mortimer later married; she had been in her last year when Eva came up to Cambridge. Matt soon felt like a spare wheel. He could have just left them to it and they would have chatted all afternoon.

He leafed through some more old books in Mortimer's shop but there was nothing like his spell-book and they were no easier for him to read than anything else. It was giving him a headache trying to decipher them.

Mortimer decided to close the shop up for lunch and suggested that Eva and Matt should join him for a bite at a nearby cafe.

'That's OK,' said Matt. 'You go ahead. I expect you have lots to talk about. I ought to see Chay. Will you be OK to get back afterwards, Eva?'

'Don't worry about that,' said Mr Goldsmith. 'I shall, of course, walk Mrs Holbrook back to your house.' He raised his hat gallantly as Matt left the shop.

Eva seems to have made a hit there, thought Matt. If only his own love life was so easy. Ayesha had been so shocked by realising who Luciano was that he hadn't been able to ask her if she had forgiven him for what he had done to Jago. And he didn't know yet if Jago would really be all right.

Matt called Chay on his mobile and arranged to meet him in the park. It wasn't long before he saw his friend jogging towards him. He felt a surge of affection for Chay who knew nothing of spells and magic and Talia and was just a regular bloke, who went to the gym and had been his mate for years.

'Hey, Chay,' he said, stepping out to greet him.

'Hey, man,' said Chay, giving him a big grin and a high five. 'What's up?'

'Well,' said Matt, falling into a slow jog beside him. 'Jago's better.'

Chay stopped. 'That's fantastic! Do you mean he's out of Intensive Care?'

'Even better,' said Matt. 'He's leaving hospital later today.'

'So what was wrong with him?' asked Chay, resuming their training pace.

'I don't think they ever knew,' said Matt. 'He just opened his eyes and the doctors said he was OK.'

'So it wasn't anything you did to him?' asked Chay. 'I never thought it was, you know.'

'No,' lied Matt. 'It wasn't anything to do with me.'

The cla.s.s was full and Luciano saw to his unease that Filippo de Chimici was in the front row. He believed Filippo was his friend and some of the things he was going to say were going to be hard to get out with him there. Constantin had a slate on which he was going to award marks for arguments, how they were arranged, expression, memory of facts and delivery.

He would ask the cla.s.s what they thought before coming up with a final mark.

Luciano cleared his throat nervously and began: 'When is it right to kill a man? Any honourable person's first reaction to this question will be a horrified "Never!" but a moment's thought will tell us that there are occasions when it might be the lesser of two evils. For example, if you saw someone about to stab a child, you would act without thinking to save that child, even if it meant killing the attacker. I shall list the cases where it is appropriate, even desirable to kill another human being.' And then he delivered a fine coup de theatre. 'As someone who himself has killed a man, I feel I am in a unique position to tackle this topic.'

He certainly had his audience's attention now.

Luciano moved steadily through the arguments about defending the weaker and more vulnerable, through coming to the aid of one's comrade-in-arms, fighting to defend one's country in time of attack, protecting one's family, property and finally oneself.