City of Swords (34 page)

Obeying orders
, thought Laura. The defence she had read over and again in her history books.

But when would the day come when soldiers would throw down their weapons and disobey orders that meant killing innocent people? It didn’t seem to be happening in the world she had left.

‘You are here,’ said a voice from the stairs. ‘How is your arm?’

‘Much better, thank you, Fabio,’ she said. ‘But how did you know I was here?’

‘Stravaganti are always aware of others nearby,’ said Fabio. ‘Can’t you feel it?’

Laura concentrated and she sensed without knowing how, that Rodolfo and Luciano were awake and would also soon be joining them.

‘I am glad your arm is better,’ said the swordsmith. ‘You have paid a terrible price for the task you did here.’

‘You really think my task is over?’

‘All I can tell you is that the Manoush surrendered almost as soon as you were injured. And now Lucia di Chimici is Princess of Fortezza.’

‘What Fabio says is true,’ said Rodolfo. He came from the stairs and took Laura’s hands in his. ‘I am so sorry you were hurt. It makes me afraid.’

‘Afraid?’

‘That the stakes in stravagation are getting higher. How long before someone from your world is killed in order to carry out their allotted task in Talia?’

Luciano joined them as if on cue but no one mentioned his death. He had enjoyed another life in Talia, a second chance after the cancer that would have killed him in his old world, even if he hadn’t been imprisoned by Enrico and separated from his talisman.

‘You are very brave, Laura,’ he said.

She thought he was looking pale and tired.

‘I’m not really,’ she said. ‘But I do need to get to the jail or wherever Ludo is. I need to say goodbye before he goes.’

‘You see?’ said Luciano. ‘Some would say it was brave to go into the middle of the di Chimici guards and find the disgraced rebel. But don’t worry. I will go with you and cast a glamour over us both. We shall seem like an ordinary young couple of Fortezzans come to gawp at the captured pretender.’

^*

There were cells within the walls at some of the bastions. Enrico was in the one next to the Manoush. In the night Ludo had tried to comfort the spy through the wall. There was a grill at the top for air and their voices had floated uncannily back and forth.

Ludo remembered that Enrico had been one of the rescuers in Padavia the night that thirty of his tribe, men, women and children, had been so close to being burned alive. Now that he had received the lesser punishment of exile, even if he didn’t have much faith in it, he wanted to try to reassure the little man about his own fate.

‘Prince Gaetano will stay the Grand Duke’s hand, I’m sure,’ he had told Enrico.

‘But Gaetano will leave with you in the morning,’ wailed Enrico. ‘And then the Grand Duke can do what he likes.’

‘There are others here that will help you, as they helped me,’ said Ludo, not wanting to say who in case they were overheard by guards.

‘Ah,’ said Enrico. Ludo imagined him tapping the side of his nose and smiled in the dark. ‘You mean Senator Rodolfo and the Cavaliere?’

‘And one other,’ said Ludo. ‘They will do their best.’

It was much harder for him than for Enrico to be confined in a cell. He had still spent less than a dozen nights in his life under a roof and he yearned for the dark sky and the bright stars.

‘Listen,’ he said now. ‘The Fortezzans are firing their cannon harmlessly – to celebrate their victory. Either of us might have died from such a shot in the siege.’

‘At least it would have been quick,’ said Enrico.

There was a long silence and Ludo wondered if the spy had fallen asleep.

‘Are you sorry you did it?’ Enrico asked at last.

‘Sorry I claimed the crown?’

‘Yes.’

‘I am truly sorry about all the people who died,’ said Ludo. ‘I should have accepted the judgment of the Signoria.’

‘So you really are half a di Chimici and old Jacopo’s son?’

‘I wish I had met him – just once,’ said Ludo. ‘Then perhaps all this would not have happened. If he had recognised me as his son, he could have decided the succession.’

‘We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t,’ said Enrico. ‘And now we have to pay.’

^*

Few people were out in the streets of Fortezza in the early dawn but no one took any notice of Laura and Luciano so she supposed his “glamour” had worked. It had not been difficult to find where the prisoners were being held. General Ciampi was there too and other prominent members of the rebellion.

And it seemed as if the two young Stravaganti were not the only ones who had come out early to gloat over the prisoners and the horrible fates that awaited them.

There had been a change of guard outside the cells and the two young soldiers on duty were full of good humour. It would not be long before they were back home in Giglia and Moresco respectively, eating good food and regaling their girlfriends with tales of their valour.

‘Can we see the traitor?’ Luciano asked.

‘Why, have you got some rotten tomatoes to throw at him?’ said the Giglian guard.

‘Nah, they ran out of tomatoes days ago,’ said the Morescan. ‘If he had any tomatoes, rotten or not, he’d be stuffing his face with them!’

‘All right,’ said the first guard. ‘Second cell along. You haven’t got long. Long enough to spit at him though. Then our prince is going to take him for a little trip.’

The other guard laughed nastily and Laura’s heart sank. Did anyone believe that Ludo would get safely to Romula?

‘Thanks,’ said Luciano, hurrying her away. ‘We’ll do that.’

Then he whispered to Laura, ‘I’m taking the glamour off you.’

They had to pass Enrico’s cell first, but the spy was asleep on a pile of straw. In the next cell Ludo was standing, gazing at a shaft of light from a vent far above him.

‘Laura!’ he gasped when he saw her and came to the bars of the cell.

‘Traitor! Rebel! How do you like your chains?’ shouted Luciano, pulling terrible faces at Ludo so the Manoush could see he was providing cover for him to speak to Laura.

‘It’s Luciano,’ whispered Laura. ‘In disguise.’

Ludo tried to put his arms round her through the bars.

‘Bastard!’ shouted Luciano. ‘Devil! Serves you right, whatever they do to you. Look what’s happened to our city . . .’

He kept up a high level of abuse and complaint against Ludo all the time they were there.

‘I thought I would never see you alive again,’ said Ludo, pressing his face against the bars so that he and Laura had some contact. ‘Are you all right? Your poor arm!’

‘It’s going to be fine,’ said Laura. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m so worried about you. No one seems to trust Fabrizio’s promise.’

‘I trust Prince Gaetano,’ said Ludo. ‘And you must too. It is enough for me to know that you will be well in your world. And happy, I hope.’

‘How can I be happy without you?’ said Laura bitterly. ‘Wait for me in Romula. I’ll find some way to reach you there.’

‘I will wait for you for ever,’ said Ludo.

‘Time’s up,’ yelled one of the guards. ‘The party for Romula is just about to leave!’

Luciano came close to the bars and slipped Ludo his Merlino-dagger. ‘They won’t search you again,’ he whispered. ‘If you sense treachery, use it. Though not on Gaetano.’

I wish I had thought of that
, thought Laura. There were dozens of weapons in Fabio’s shop.

‘I hope you rot in hell!’ shouted Luciano at Ludo, holding up both hands with his fingers crossed.

‘That means he doesn’t mean it,’ whispered Laura through the bars. They kissed as best they could, a kiss full of the taste of iron and despair.

‘Your missus didn’t say much,’ said the Morescan guard as they left. ‘All I could hear was you shouting.’

‘She lost her mother, didn’t she? Because of that gypsy pig,’ said Luciano. ‘Look at her – she couldn’t say anything.’

Tears were indeed streaming down Laura’s face and she was glad to find a handkerchief in the pocket of her blue Talian dress.

‘Poor bitch,’ said the guard.

They might have got away with it if Enrico hadn’t been woken by the shouting.

He had never seen Laura before, but something about the young man with her struck a chord with him. Perhaps Luciano was careless and his own glamour was beginning to wear off.

‘Cavaliere!’ Enrico called out. ‘Cavaliere Luciano?’

At that moment the Grand Ducal party arrived. Luciano cursed himself for not having realised Fabrizio would come for a final gloat before the prisoner left Fortezza. He could feel the last of his disguise falling away as he was called by his true name.

‘Yes, Enrico,’ he said quietly, turning to the man in the cell. ‘I’m here. Don’t worry. We’ll look after you.’

‘Arrest that man!’ shouted Fabrizio as soon as he saw the young Bellezzan. The Grand Duke’s eyes were bright with triumph. ‘He is subject to a warrant in Fortezza. This is the scoundrel who killed my father, Grand Duke Niccolò. And now he will pay for it.’

Chapter 20

Trial and Execution

Fabrizio was burning with excitement. After all the frustration he felt with Lucia and her refusal to go along with his plans – the second woman to reject Filippo of Volana! – here was something he could achieve. He had been hunting the Cavaliere for over a year and he had proved elusive, hiding in cities like Bellezza, Padavia and Classe, where the di Chimici arrest warrant had no validity.

And now he had just walked into the Grand Duke’s custody!

What the Cavaliere was doing in Fortezza was beyond Fabrizio’s guess, but he didn’t care. He had in his power at last the nobody who had dared to go hand to hand with his father, the first Grand Duke and head of the family, and had struck the blow that killed him.

And now he could have his vengeance on the Bellezzan and on the Fortezzan rebels at the same time. It made up not only for Lucia’s intractability but for having to let Ludo go free, at least for the time being.

‘Send for General Tasca,’ he told his servant. ‘We will need to build a scaffold.’

‘Arrested?’ said Isabel. ‘Oh my God.’

Laura had stravagated back in the middle of the night and woken her friend with the news.

‘How did you get away if you were with him?’

‘Fabrizio wasn’t interested in me,’ said Laura. ‘He was totally focused on Luciano.’

‘He might have been more interested if he’d known you were a Stravagante.’

‘I went back to Fabio’s and told him and Rodolfo. Surely they’ll save Luciano?’

‘I wish I could be so sure,’ said Isabel.

And there was no more sleep for them that night.