City of Swords (29 page)

‘I’m fine, but Laura got hurt in Talia.’

He was instantly concerned. ‘What kind of hurt?’

‘Stabbed,’ said Isabel briefly. ‘Oh, not too badly. But she’s gone to A & E.’

‘On her own?’

‘No. I called Nick Duke and his mum has taken her. There’s no way her parents or ours must find out. They’d all believe she’d done it to herself again.’

‘And you’re doing the washing because she bled over the sheets? Jesus, Bel, that sounds serious enough.’

‘Yeah, it was horrible.’

Isabel sat down suddenly on a plastic chair in the utility room and put her head in her hands. Charlie put his arms round her.

‘This stuff is getting serious,’ he said. ‘And weird. I mean, weirder.’

‘It’s always been dangerous,’ said Isabel. ‘I could have been killed in the sea battle.’

‘How is she going to get back here?’

‘Vicky will bring her. Nick’s going to call me.’

‘He’s at the hospital too?’

‘With his mum. That’s where things are getting really weird,’ said Isabel. ‘Between Vicky and Nick.’

Ludo was at his wits’ end. Firing had stopped on both sides and there was a kind of unexpected lull. In this breathing space he had to decide what to do next, but now his head was full of images of Laura as he had last seen her – covered in blood and then disappearing. Why had she smiled? Did it mean she wasn’t badly hurt? And would he ever see her again? He was pacing on the battlements but on the inner side, out of the army’s sightlines, watched over by his bodyguards.

Riccardo was deeply penitent, seeing how his leader was in agony about the girl, but he couldn’t really believe he would do anything differently if such a thing happened again.

‘She’s a witch,’ he told Roberto, the older bodyguard. ‘I tell you she just appeared out of nowhere, holding a dagger. What was I supposed to do? You’d have attacked her too.’

‘Maybe,’ said Roberto. ‘Or maybe I’d have tried to disarm her first. She was only a slip of a thing, by your account.’

‘But she has him enchanted,’ said Riccardo. ‘Look at him! We need our leader to be strong and that . . . siren has him under a spell. He’s like a sleepwalker.’

‘Well, your attempt to kill her can’t have made him any less enchanted,’ said Roberto. ‘He doesn’t know if she’s still alive – that’s what’s haunting him.’

Riccardo shook his head. ‘She just disappeared, the way she came,’ he said. ‘Vanished. And I know she can do the same to get into the castle. I saw her there.’

‘Not all enchantments are evil though, are they?’ said the older man. ‘Maybe she was acting for the good.’

‘What do you mean? You can’t be on Prince Ludovico’s side
and
on Lucia di Chimici’s,’ said Riccardo. ‘It’s one or the other that has to be our ruler.’

Roberto sighed. The young were always so certain that it must be one way or another. The older he got, the more he learned that ways tended to merge. But he was beginning to think he had thrown in his lot with the wrong side in this battle.

^*

There had been no fresh food in the city since the siege began over a fortnight earlier, and the citizens were beginning to grumble. One of the houses that had been destroyed by cannon fire had belonged to a man who grew tomatoes and lettuces in pots, and his surviving neighbours had fallen on the produce, squashed and crushed as it was and covered in dust, to put something fresh into their diets. The city gardener and his family had all died in the house.

Fabio and Rodolfo had tightened their belts and got on with it but Rodolfo did wonder if Luciano would take advantage of his second stravagation back to his old world to vary his diet.

‘I worry about him every time he goes back there,’ he told Fabio. ‘It seems to be taking hold of him again, even after all these years.’

‘Even though he is about to marry your daughter?’ asked Fabio.

‘Yes, even in spite of that,’ said Rodolfo. ‘I know he loves her but he needs to sever his ties to his old world, as Doctor Dethridge has done.’

‘I believe even the old Maestro went back once,’ said Fabio.

‘Yes, he went with Luciano when Matteo was in trouble,’ said Rodolfo. ‘But his family and his life in his old world all died out hundreds of years ago. Luciano’s parents are still alive and he also has to see his place taken in their family by Falco di Chimici. It is very hard for him.’

‘It will be easier when he is settled as Duke Consort of Bellezza,’ said Fabio.

‘I hope so,’ said Rodolfo. ‘But I feel uneasy about this latest stravagation. I shan’t rest till he is back.’

‘We always seem to meet in the hospital,’ said Luciano.

Vicky jumped at the sound of his voice. And so did Nick.

‘Lucien!’ she said, putting her arms round the young man who had not been there in the chair beside her a moment before.

‘I guessed Laura would be in this A & E,’ he said to both of them. ‘But I didn’t expect to find you here. How is she?’

Vicky couldn’t answer. Although she had longed and waited for another visit from Lucien, this was the last thing she had expected.

‘She’s going to be OK,’ said Nick.

‘Why did
you
bring Laura here?’ Luciano said to his mother. For all his bravado, it had been a shock to find her there.

Again it was Nick who answered. ‘She’s been staying at Bel’s. There was a lot of blood and Bel didn’t want to wake her parents. And Laura didn’t want
her
parents to know.’

‘She didn’t want them to find out I gave her the talisman back,’ said Vicky.

‘
You
did?’ asked Luciano.

Vicky nodded. The rubber doors swung open and Laura came out, looking pale and leaning on a nurse; there was another great big bandage on her arm, the right one this time.

She staggered a bit when she saw Luciano but the nurse interpreted it as a reaction to pain and local anaesthetic.

‘She needs to get home now, Mrs Reid,’ said the nurse.

Luciano looked quizzical.

‘Of course,’ said Vicky firmly. ‘I’ll drive her.’

‘And keep her off school for a few days.’

‘I don’t have any more exams till next week,’ said Laura. ‘I’m on study leave.’

The nurse gave Vicky some painkillers for Laura and they all left the hospital. Luciano looked round the car park, remembering the last time he and Vicky and Nick had been there. He wished Georgia was with them.

Vicky opened the car door.

‘Mum!’ said Luciano. ‘It looks like a slasher movie in here!’

‘Well, what could I do?’ said Vicky impatiently. ‘I had to get her here, didn’t I?’

‘Are you really going to phone the police?’ asked Laura.

‘Of course not,’ said Vicky, settling her into the car. ‘I’m going to get you back to Isabel’s and hope we can sneak you back in without waking the Evans up.’

She drove fast on the empty streets, but when the car reached Isabel’s road, she braked suddenly and turned to Luciano and Nick in the back.

‘OK. I’ve been very patient, being woken up in the middle of the night to take a teenager, dripping with blood, to hospital. But now I want the full story.’

They told her as best they could. Only Laura knew what had really happened and why. But Nick had experienced bringing a wound back from Talia, even though his had been stitched by Brother Sulien.

‘So how are you going to explain it to your parents?’ Vicky asked.

‘I’m not,’ said Laura. ‘I’m going to hide it.’

They all looked at her heavily bandaged arm.

‘I can wear long sleeves, and I’ll get Bel to unwind the bottom of it so it doesn’t show,’ she said.

But she did wonder if she would get away with it with her therapist the next day.

‘Ludovico is asking for another parley,’ General Tasca told the di Chimici brothers.

It was the last thing they had been expecting to hear. This time the Grand Duke himself went with Gaetano and their guards, in full armour, hoping to intimidate their enemy with his glittering military splendour.

‘Is your offer still open?’ asked Ludo, without preliminaries.

The brothers looked at one another. He seemed scarcely to have noticed Fabrizio or his armour.

‘You mean for your safe conduct?’ asked Gaetano.

Was Ludo surrendering?

‘Yes,’ said the Manoush. He looked like a haunted man, gaunt-faced and unshaven, as if he hadn’t slept or eaten – which was the case.

‘Do you know who I am?’ said Fabrizio.

Ludo pulled himself together.

‘Yes, Your Grace. I am sorry. We have suffered a loss on our side.’

Fabrizio had no idea who he could possibly mean. Even the death of his General should not have caused a leader to collapse like this. But he was thrilled. Lucia was going to win back Fortezza.

‘And you are willing to talk terms?’ Fabrizio said, trying to hide his elation.

‘If you are still willing to give me safe conduct to a city in the south, I will withdraw my claim to Fortezza and go to Romula and join my people.’

‘You have caused much loss of life in our ranks,’ said Fabrizio.

‘As you have in the city,’ answered Ludo.

‘I shall need to discuss it with my General and my
condottieri
,’ said Fabrizio, nodding to Gaetano that they were leaving.

‘Of course – I have already told my General my decision,’ said Ludo. ‘And while you talk to yours, can both sides agree to suspend hostilities?’

‘Naturally,’ the Grand Duke threw back over his shoulder, as if Ludo had questioned an elementary piece of court etiquette. ‘My men will stand down until we have concluded these negotiations.’

Behind Ludo’s back, the younger bodyguard was in anguish. He had no doubt this had been his doing. If he hadn’t stabbed the witch, his leader would not have given way like this. And the glorious revolution wouldn’t all have been for nothing. But Roberto stood solid and four-square, his expression revealing nothing. He knew better than Riccardo what it would mean to have chosen the losing side in a civil war.

^*

Fabrizio was triumphant as they made their way back to the camp. ‘Lost someone on his side! Well, of course he has. Dozens of people have died on both sides. What a spineless creature!’