City of Flowers

by Mary Hoffman

‘Is it true that you are going to Luciano’s old world?’ Arianna asked the sculptor.

  ‘Yes. Please don’t tighten your fingers. Thank you.’

  ‘Giuditta has of course been before, more than once,’ said Rodolfo. ‘But not to take a talisman for another Stravagante.’

  ‘What will it be?’ asked Arianna and saw Giuditta’s dark eyes glance up, startled.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ Rodolfo answered for her. ‘It must be from Giglia and Giuditta must choose it herself.’

  ‘Do you think that Georgia will come?’ Arianna asked Rodolfo.

  ‘I think she will want to,’ he said, looking thoughtful. ‘And she is brave and loyal. But it would mean giving up her connection with Remora, and that will not be easy for her.’

  Giuditta was listening, though she appeared to be totally concentrated on her work. So this girl she had to fetch was going to be difficult to persuade. Giuditta had hoped that, since Georgia was already a Stravagante, her work would be almost done. Now she could see this was far from true.

  ‘Give up the flying horse?’ said Georgia. ‘Why on earth would I want to do that? They must have gone mad!’

  ‘It’s the only way to get you to Giglia at the moment,’ Sky explained. ‘And they all seem to think you’ll be needed there. As well as Nicholas.’

  Georgia was flattered, but the enormity of what she would need to do overwhelmed her.

  ‘Can’t I just take the other talisman and leave the horse here?’ she asked.

  ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ said Sky. ‘Don’t ask me why. They all know more about that sort of thing than I do. If Doctor Dethridge says that’s the way it is, I’m not going to argue.’

  ‘And they’ll be here in a few days, as soon as we get back to London?’

  It cast a shadow over the three of them for the rest of the weekend, making them edgy and anxious. Alice picked it up but had no explanation for it. Her time with Sky had started so well but now, inexplicably, he seemed to want to be with Nicholas and Georgia more than with her. And Georgia herself was remote and scratchy; the only times when things felt right were when they were out riding.

  As for Nicholas, he was moodier than Alice had ever known him. Normally they got on well; it had been hard at first to accept him, but he and Georgia were so close that, over time, Alice had come to like him in his own right. But now he had become just a monosyllabic teenage boy and whenever they were all together, no one had anything to say except Alice. Paul was hardly ever there; he seemed to be spending a lot of time with Sky’s mother.

  In the end, Alice could think of only one reason for their behaviour, and she decided to confront them. It was the afternoon before they were due to go back and the weather had turned very warm. The boys had finished their fencing practice and were flopped on the lawn at the back of the house. Georgia had been watching them as usual. And Alice had been watching them all, from her bedroom window.

  The three of them were talking quite animatedly. What did they find to talk about when they would say nothing to her? As soon as she reached the garden, the others fell silent.

  ‘There’s no need to stop,’ said Alice. ‘I’ve worked out what it must be. If you two want to be together,’ she said to Sky and Georgia, ‘then that’s all right.’

  Then she turned and walked back to the house, so that they wouldn’t see she was crying.

  Chapter 15

  Visitors

  Luciano’s swordsmanship was improving. Twice he had managed to disarm Gaetano and hold a rapier to his throat. He was naturally quick and light on his feet and getting better at predicting his opponent’s moves. When he wasn’t practising in the piazzas and parks of Giglia, he often fought imaginary assailants with invisible weapons, whirling and twisting in the largely empty rooms of the Bellezzan Embassy. Many were the innocent statues and mirrors menaced by his increasing skill.

  ‘You are quite alarming, even without a sword,’ said Arianna, coming upon him alone on one such occasion.

  He stopped, confused. They had hardly been alone together since Arianna had come to Giglia and he felt self-conscious. Here, in the Embassy, she was still very much the ruler of her city, and he felt more distant from her than ever. He still didn’t know whether Rodolfo had told her about Niccolò’s marriage plans and couldn’t bring himself to ask.

  ‘Why are you doing all this?’ she asked now. ‘I know Gaetano has been teaching you to fight. Do you know of some danger you are keeping from me?’

  Luciano said nothing. If Rodolfo hadn’t told her, then he had his reasons. Or if he had told her perhaps she didn’t see it as a danger. In the old days, he would just have asked her, but now that she was Duchessa, he had to think before he spoke.

  ‘Of course if you think it is safer for me not to know . . .’ she said, turning her head away so that he should not see the sadness in her face. It pained her that Luciano no longer confided in her; the old Luciano of their early friendship in Bellezza would not have been capable of keeping anything a secret from her. She was longing to share her fear of the Duke’s proposal with him but she couldn’t raise it herself, couldn’t talk to Luciano, of all people, about being asked to marry another di Chimici.

  ‘It is nothing,’ said Luciano stiffly. ‘Just that, you know, Rodolfo and Doctor Dethridge and Sulien all seem sure that something bad will happen at the weddings. Even Gaetano seems to think the same. I just want to be ready if there’s trouble.’

  ‘And that’s why they want more Stravaganti here? Even though bringing Falco back would be such a risk?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Luciano. ‘I think Sulien and Giuditta are going to take the new talismans tomorrow.’

  ‘Together? That’s unusual, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s ever been done, but Giuditta hasn’t taken a talisman before and she’s a bit nervous, so Sulien offered to go at the same time.’

  ‘Giuditta – nervous?’ Arianna laughed, and Luciano smiled too.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to think of her being scared of anything.’

  ‘I find her quite terrifying,’ said Arianna. ‘I’m glad she’s on our side.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Luciano. ‘She makes me feel about five years old. But I don’t think she means to – it’s just that she’s so involved with her work that she doesn’t see anything else as being important.’

  ‘Well, she must think stravagation is important, or she wouldn’t have done it.’

  ‘How’s the statue going?’

  ‘Pretty well, I think,’ said Arianna. ‘We have only a few sittings left before the weddings.’

  ‘Will you go back to Bellezza straight afterwards?’ asked Luciano.

  ‘Yes. I have invited Gaetano and Francesca to come back there for their honeymoon. It was where their courtship began – even though Gaetano was supposed to be wooing me at the time.’

  ‘Did you ever consider accepting him?’ asked Luciano. He had never dared to ask before but now he really needed to know.

  ‘I had to consider it, Luciano,’ said Arianna seriously. ‘As Duchessa I have to think for my city, not for me,’ she added, thinking of the coming proposal more than the last.

  It wasn’t an answer that Luciano found reassuring.

  *

  Carlo had been jumpy ever since the murder of Davide. He was unnerved by the apparent lack of reaction of the Nucci clan and he kept a bodyguard with him at all times. His bride was due to arrive in the city in a few weeks, with her sister and parents, and his uncle Jacopo would demand to know how his daughters were to be kept safe. Carlo didn’t know the answer.

  Several Nucci would be present at his wedding to Lucia, when the four couples would process into the great cathedral. Each couple would have their own entourage and it would be possible to introduce some armed guards into the procession; the bridegrooms themselves would all wear swords as part of their ceremonial dress. But it was unimaginable that they should be drawn in the cathedral. The very thought of it brought Carlo o
ut in a cold sweat.

  ‘I wish these accursed weddings were over and we were all married!’ he said to Fabrizio.

  ‘That’s no way to talk about your approaching nuptials,’ laughed his brother. ‘Lucia wouldn’t find it romantic at all.’

  ‘You know what I mean!’ said Carlo. ‘I’ve no objection to marrying Lucia, but the more I hear about Father’s plans for the occasion, the more certain I am that the Nucci will strike then.’

  ‘Still, what would you have him do?’ asked Fabrizio. ‘Three di Chimici princes and a duke all marrying on the same day cannot be a jug of wine and a plate of olives affair!’

  ‘I know, but Father has decided to make it the biggest exhibition of di Chimici wealth and power in the history of Talia! And if he can also announce the Grand Duchy and his betrothal to the Duchessa of Bellezza at the same time . . .’

  ‘I know,’ said Fabrizio. ‘I have the same fears as you. It’s just going to provoke the Nucci and their allies. But Father’s chief spy is working to find out what he can and he will be in charge of our safety at the weddings.’

  ‘The Eel?’ said Carlo, uneasily. ‘I hope he knows what he’s doing.’

  Sky was utterly miserable. He had tried to explain to Alice that he had no interest in Georgia and they had sort of made up. But he couldn’t give her any reason for why he needed to spend so much time with Georgia and with Nicholas. It wasn’t just his secret, so he made a poor fist of being convincing. Their sunny holiday had fizzled out in suspicion and jealousy.

  And to make it worse, Rosalind hadn’t noticed anything wrong and had chattered happily about Paul Greaves all the way home. Laura seemed almost as peeved as Sky about this. She knew Paul’s ex-wife Jane, Alice’s mother; they were councillors together in Islington and had sat on several of the same committees. Since Jane was Laura’s friend, she couldn’t believe that Paul could possibly be a good person.

  ‘You know why they got divorced?’ she demanded, driving too fast as usual, with the window open, so that she had to shout over all the noise.

  ‘Because he was a serial killer? He held orgies at Ivy Court? He beat her up?’ suggested Rosalind, stung by Laura’s know-all attitude.

  ‘Because he was controlling and didn’t want Jane to lead her own life,’ said Laura. ‘He was always sure he was right about everything.’

  ‘Alice says it was because they were too different,’ said Sky. Wretched as he felt about his own relationship, he didn’t want Laura to squash his mother’s happiness. He couldn’t remember when he had last seen her as carefree and relaxed as she had been over this long weekend.

  Rosalind had been exhausted by the time they got back to London though and had gone straight to bed. After a not very satisfactory phone call with Alice, Sky had followed suit and hurled himself towards Talia for a quick dip into his Giglian life – just long enough to tell Sulien that they were back.

  The next morning he was up early, making breakfast, determined to be first to the door when the Talian Stravaganti arrived. He didn’t know how he was going to get his mother out of the flat. Remedy wound round his legs, torn between pleasure at having him back and indignation at having been fed by a neighbour for so long. Sky picked him up and held his long, purring body over his shoulder. The doorbell rang.

  It was Nicholas and Georgia. Rosalind came into the kitchen, looking young and tousled, in her dressing gown.

  ‘Oh, hello, you two,’ she said, smiling. ‘Can’t keep away, can you? Alice not with you?’

  Everyone mumbled something uncomfortably and Sky smoothed the moment over with offers of coffee and toast, while his mother went off to shower.

  ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get rid of her,’ he said. ‘She’s so tired after yesterday’s journey. I can’t just shove her out of the house.’

  ‘Perhaps we should wait outside for them,’ suggested Georgia.

  ‘It’ll look a bit odd, won’t it?’ said Nicholas. ‘Us just hanging around on the doorstep all day.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be all day,’ said Sky. ‘They’re going to get here some time this morning.’

  There was a muffled knocking from the front door in the hall.

  ‘Too late,’ said Georgia. ‘I bet that’s them.’

  Sky came out of the flat and listened. He could hear voices outside the front door of the house and then it opened. His neighbour, Gill, from upstairs, the one who had been feeding Remedy, was letting herself in. She had a newspaper under her arm and a paper bag from the local patisserie in her hand; he could smell the warm, fresh croissants.

  ‘Sky,’ said Gill. ‘There’s a sort of priest here, asking for you. Shall I let him in?’

  Beatrice was adapting to her new home in the Palazzo Ducale. She had a much larger chamber than her old one in the Palazzo di Chimici and a pretty little sitting room with green silk on the walls, next to her father’s suite of rooms and sharing its view of the river. Her life was busier than ever, turning the lofty, elegant rooms into something that felt like a home, and she would soon have guests to welcome at the old palazzo in the Via Larga. Members of the di Chimici family would be converging on Giglia from all over Talia, to celebrate the weddings.

  The last time so many family members had been together in the city had been for Falco’s funeral, and Beatrice was determined to chase that memory away with the warmth of their welcome for the happier occasion. She wondered if her father had the same idea as she heard more about his elaborate plans for the celebrations. Three days of feasting, tournaments, pageants and processions were being prepared for, and the princess, as the only female di Chimici of the Giglian branch, had to oversee everything as hostess.

  She had very few moments to herself and, though she was glad of the help she was offered by Enrico, her father’s confidential agent, she wearied of the way he seemed always to be there, one step behind her.

  On this day, a week after having moved into her new home, Beatrice stood at the window of her sitting room, enjoying a few minutes of solitude. The year was warming up; it would be April soon and the weddings were just over three weeks away. The river was running very high, she noticed, remembering how wet the winter had been. At least the rains seemed to be over now; it would be an awful shame for the brides to have their finery drenched, she thought. She looked across to where the new Nucci palace stood and its grand gardens beyond.

  Beatrice sighed. She didn’t understand why things had got so bad between the two families; she could remember a time when they visited with one another reasonably civilly. Although rivals with a bloody history, they were the two wealthiest families in the city and that meant at least some social intercourse. A smile played round her mouth as a day came back to her from childhood when the three Nucci boys and their two sisters had visited the di Chimici in the Via Larga. The grown-ups had been interminably talking and drinking wine and the children had all been turned out like puppies into the courtyard. Camillo Nucci and her own brother Fabrizio had devised a plan to clothe the bronze Mercury in the middle of the flower beds.

  It had been Beatrice who had fetched the scarves and necklaces and a petticoat from her mother’s room, but Camillo, Fabrizio and Carlo had done the draping, while the little princess had looked on with Filippo Nucci and the little boys and girls. It had been before Falco was born and Davide had been no more than a toddler in his big sister’s arms, thought Beatrice, looking back fondly on how ridiculous the Mercury had looked in his finery and how the Duke and Matteo Nucci had scolded them.

  And now Davide and Falco were both dead and the families were bitter enemies. On the few occasions when Beatrice had passed any of them in the street, they had looked sternly ahead, even though Graziella had sat and mourned with them after Falco’s death and Beatrice had sent words of sympathy on their own bereavement.

  A knock at the door roused her from her reverie.

  ‘The confectioner is here, your Highness,’ said Enrico. ‘Wanting to speak to you about marzipan.’

  ‘I shall c
ome directly,’ said Beatrice.

  It would take a quantity of sugar to sweeten the inevitable coming together of the two families.

  Sulien and Giuditta stood on the doorstep. Brother Sulien looked just like a monk or friar from any modern monastery or friary; his robes were a kind of uniform that hadn’t changed over more than four centuries. But Giuditta did not look as if she belonged in the twenty-first century at all. She wore a long green velvet cloak with its hood flung back over her ordinary working clothes, and Sky was sure he could see marble dust in her hair. But she was as calm and impassive as she was in Giglia, with the stillness of one of her own statues.

  ‘Can we come in?’ asked Sulien, and Sky couldn’t think of any way of saying no.

  They walked along the short passage to the kitchen and suddenly he found himself introducing four Stravaganti to one another. Giuditta recognised the young di Chimici prince, changed though he was, but Nicholas had not met Giuditta before. The Giglians were looking round the kitchen with interest when the freshly showered Rosalind came in and saw them.

  ‘Good heavens,’ she said, startled. ‘We are having a lot of early visitors this morning. Who are your friends, Sky?’

  Sky had no cover story ready; he had been banking on getting his mother out of the way before the Stravaganti arrived. But it was, surprisingly, Giuditta who handled the situation.

  ‘I am Giuditta Miele, the sculptor,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘And this is Fratello Suliano Fabriano. He brought your son to my studio and I saw that he was interested in sculpture.’

  It was one of the longest speeches Sky had ever heard her make and he could see it was full of holes. But his mother was nothing if not polite and she latched on to the bit she could understand.

  ‘Yes, he’s very good at art; it’s always been one of his favourite subjects. Can I offer you some coffee, Ms Miele? And Frat . . .’

  ‘Please call me Sulien,’ said the friar, with a winning smile. ‘Sky always does. I’d love some coffee.’