City of Swords
Authors: Mary Hoffman
For Adam Priestley, a loyal reader
And remembering all those emails from Emz
‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’
William Shakespeare,
As You Like It
Contents
Prince Jacopo of Fortezza was dying. However much his wife tried to pretend it wasn’t happening and however much his daughters wished it wasn’t true, the red-headed giant of the di Chimici family was close to breathing his last. His personal physician looked solemn and the Prince had called for his priest to hear his final confession and give him the last rites.
After Father Gregorio left the royal bedchamber, the women washed back in like the tide and found the Prince calmer than when they had left him.
‘My dear,’ said Princess Carolina, smoothing his no longer vivid hair from his forehead. ‘Is there anything more I can do for you?’
‘Stay with me,’ said Jacopo. ‘You and the girls.’
The ‘girls’ were their two daughters, Bianca, the Duchessa of Volana, and Lucia, the widow of Prince Carlo di Chimici, a husband who had been murdered within an hour of their marriage. Bianca’s marriage had taken place at the same time and her husband, the Duke of Volana, had been the only di Chimici bridegroom to escape injury that terrible day not much more than a year before.
Lucia had returned home to Fortezza to be tenderly looked after by her parents. Princess she might be, but she was neither married nor single: she was that rarest of women, a virgin widow. She was twenty-three years old and believed her life to be over.
Not that she was thinking of her own situation now; every feeling she had was caught up with her father. It was impossible to believe that his constant presence in her life might be gone within hours.
‘Did Father Gregorio bring you peace, dearest?’ asked Carolina.
The Prince had a long coughing fit and it was some time before he could answer.
‘He gave me absolution,’ wheezed Jacopo, ‘and that is all I could ask. He has known my worst crime for many years.’
The women were silent. When Jacopo had been young, he had killed a man, a noble who had jilted his older sister, Eleanora, and this noble had been Donato Nucci. What had happened in that little piazza in Giglia so many years ago had been the first link in a chain of events that had led to the murder of Lucia’s brand new husband and left many others dead or dying.
‘Don’t think of the Nucci now,’ said Princess Bianca. ‘They are nothing to us.’
‘We can never forget them,’ said her father, looking at Lucia. ‘What they have done to us and what we – I – have done to them.’
‘You did what you had to for your sister’s honour,’ said Carolina.
‘The Nucci would say the same, I expect,’ said Lucia. She was sickened by the way that Talian nobles carried their vendettas from generation to generation.
Jacopo sought her hand with his.
‘I don’t mean to distress you, my dear, by bringing up the old feud.’
But you do distress me
, she thought.
You are dying. How can I bear it?
‘It is an old grief, Papa,’ she said, bending her head so he shouldn’t see her tears at her new one.
*
Not far from the Prince’s castle, in the Street of the Swordsmiths, a man was looking into a mirror. But not from vanity. He was a Stravagante and he wanted to get in touch with the leaders of his Order in Bellezza. In that lagoon city lived Guglielmo Crinamorte, the English alchemist who, when he was still William Dethridge, had accidentally discovered the secret of travelling between worlds: the art of stravagation.
There too was Rodolfo Rossi, father to the young Duchessa of Bellezza, and his former apprentice Luciano, the young man from the other world who, like William Dethridge, had permanently translated to Talia. The swordsmith of Fortezza was in awe of these mysterious beings.
A lined, intelligent face, with dark hair almost all silver, appeared on the surface of the mirror.
Fabio!
The image sent a message without speaking:
How do things stand in Fortezza?
Rodolfo looked serious.
Badly, Maestro
, Fabio thought-spoke.
The Prince is really dying
.
I am sorry to hear that. He was a good friend at the wedding massacre in Giglia
.
His doctor says he has never been quite the same since then – something about catching a chill during the flood
.
He was working with me to bring warmth and food to the victims. I should be sorry if he was now paying such a heavy price for that
.
I am worried about what happens next, Maestro
.
Princess Lucia will become ruler, will she not?
She is the heir
, said the swordsmith,
but I am troubled by certain divinations I have made.
The face in the mirror nodded; Rodolfo set great store by his own monthly divinations.
What have they told you?
There is much I don’t understand, involving the goddess and battles. But I was thinking it was time for me to stravagate to the other world
.
It sounds as if you are right
, agreed Rodolfo.
And he looked very grave indeed.
Chapter 1
‘Well, who do you think is going to be next?’
The Barnsbury Stravaganti were gathered in Nick’s attic room the first Saturday in May. Matt, Georgia, Sky, Isabel and Nick had all played dangerous parts in Talia. Isabel was almost back to normal after the harrowing experiences of the Sea Battle of Classe; her recovery had been greatly helped by Sky making it public that they were now an item.
So she had voiced something that she had been wondering about for some time. No one replied straight away. They could have pretended not to know what she meant, but in that room were four people who had already been ‘chosen’ by talismans to travel in time and space to the world where Talia was still in the sixteenth century.
And the fifth, Nick, had come from Talia to this world, dying out of one life to be re-born in another. All were students at Barnsbury Comprehensive, with Sky and Georgia in their last year there. And they all knew that Isabel meant that their task in Talia was not complete. A new Stravagante could be called by their talisman at any time.