City of Flowers

by Mary Hoffman

  There was some whispering among the diners at that; such a signal honour coming straight after the announcement of the Duke’s new title must mean something of significance. Luciano gripped Sandro’s shoulder tightly. But there was no further announcement; the Grand Duke had no secret understanding with Arianna. The most important guests were moving into the central courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale for dancing, and Arianna passed out of Luciano’s view.

  ‘Would you like me to stay here and wait for her to come out?’ asked Sandro.

  Luciano was touched. ‘I think I’ll stay myself, thanks,’ he said.

  ‘Then I’ll keep watch with you,’ said Sandro.

  The servants were clearing the platform, so they went and sat on the edge of the scented fountain and soon found themselves partaking of leftovers from the feast – even Fratello got some fragments of goat liver that had fallen from the tables.

  In the piazza outside Saint-Mary-among-the-Vines, carriage races were being held round the wooden obelisks but Sky was not there to see them.

  In all the other piazzas of the city bonfires were lit in celebration of the new Grand Duke and of the weddings on the morrow. Silver coins were thrown into the crowds by Niccolò’s men and the people cried, ‘Long live Grand Duke Niccolò! Long live the di Chimici!’

  *

  In the courtyard of the Ducal palace, couples were forming for a dance. Arianna sought out her father for a quick conference but was forestalled by the Duke himself.

  ‘Ah, your Grace,’ he said, bowing rather carefully and unsteadily. ‘Please do me the honour of being my partner.’

  Arianna was quite startled till she realised he was just referring to the dancing. All round the first floor of the inner courtyard ran a loggia, to which the musicians had now removed. Torches flickered in iron brackets fixed just under this gallery and the players themselves had their music illuminated by many-branched candelabra. The air was heavy with the scent of lilies and high above the dancers the stars came out. It was the perfect night for romance.

  The four couples who were to marry the next day clearly thought so, and so, alarmingly, did the Grand Duke.

  ‘I have a present for you,’ he said to Arianna, as they executed the formal movements of the dance.

  ‘Your Grace has already been more than generous,’ she said.

  The Duke took from his doublet a black velvet bag.

  Goddess save us, thought Arianna, not during the dance with everyone looking. But it was not a ring. It was a silver sleeve-pendant in the shape of a mandola, encrusted with precious stones.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ said Arianna. ‘But –’

  The Duke held up his hand. ‘That is a word I do not care for,’ he said. ‘There are no conditions to accepting it – let us call it a gift from Giglia to Bellezza.’

  ‘Then Bellezza thanks Giglia,’ said Arianna.

  ‘Here, let me pin it to your sleeve,’ said the Grand Duke, and they stepped aside from the other dancers so that he could fix it to the left sleeve of her blue satin gown. When that was done, he signalled to a servant and led her into a small side chamber. She looked frantically around for Rodolfo but he was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘There is something more,’ said Niccolò.

  A servant led into the room two beautiful spotted cats, the size of boarhounds. Each wore a silver collar of entwined fleur-de-lys with a long chain attached. Arianna couldn’t help showing her pleasure; she loved animals.

  ‘You may touch them, my Lady,’ said the servant. ‘They are quite tame.’

  Arianna stroked their magnificent fur and admired their large brown eyes, which were underlined with black, like those of the most fashionable Giglian ladies. Her own eyes were shining and the Duke looked pleased.

  ‘Are they really for me?’ asked Arianna, like the girl she still was.

  ‘Another token of Giglia’s esteem,’ said the Grand Duke. ‘And a sign of the closer friendship I hope will develop between our two cities.’

  Completely captivated by the glamorous cats, Arianna was quite heedless of the way this encounter was moving. Niccolò was beginning to feel jealous of the caresses lavished on the animals and ordered his man to take them away.

  ‘You heard my announcement after dinner,’ he said, showing no signs of wanting to rejoin the dance.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Arianna.

  ‘And saw my crown?’

  Arianna noticed that the crown was displayed on its velvet cushion on a small table in the chamber. Niccolò clicked his fingers and another servant brought in a second crown. It was smaller and more delicate but equally sparkling with gems.

  ‘Can you guess who this is for?’ he asked.

  Arianna said nothing.

  ‘I had it made for my Granduchessa,’ said Niccolò, taking the slender silver crown from the servant. ‘I should like to see if it would fit your Grace.’

  Arianna protested. ‘I couldn’t wear it,’ she said, adding, ‘and I know not how to address you, my Lord, under your new title.’

  ‘Niccolò is my name,’ he said, lifting the small tiara of diamonds from her hair and putting the crown in its place. ‘There! A perfect fit, I would say. It looks well on you, my dear – Arianna, as I would call you. Won’t you honour me by wearing it always and being my Granduchessa?’

  It has happened, thought Arianna, and it feels like one of those dreams when you try to run and your legs won’t move and everything slows down. At that moment a battery of rockets went up and stars of purple and green and gold exploded above the courtyard, so she was excused from speech. Not as good as Father’s, she thought, but they came just at the right moment.

  The new Grand Duke looked annoyed. Arianna took off the crown and restored her tiara. ‘Do let us return to the courtyard to see the fireworks,’ she said, as calmly as she could manage.

  ‘There is no need to answer straightaway,’ said Niccolò, raising his voice over the sound of Reman candles. ‘You can tell me tomorrow, after the weddings. I’d like to make an announcement in the evening. In fact, you do not have to tell me. Just wear the dress I sent you and I will know your answer is favourable.’

  At that moment, all Arianna could think of was getting away from him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That would be acceptable.’

  Then she hurried out of the room, leaving Niccolò to look at the pair of crowns. Among the crowd whose upturned faces were illuminated by the fireworks was Rodolfo, and Arianna almost ran to his side, she was so relieved to see him. He put his arm round her.

  ‘He has asked me,’ she said simply and pressed herself close to her father’s side, suddenly shivering in the warm night air.

  ‘I hoped I had let off the rockets in time to prevent it,’ he said.

  ‘They saved me from having to give him an answer now,’ said Arianna. ‘But the fireworks aren’t yours, are they?’

  ‘I was taking a professional interest,’ said Rodolfo, with the ghost of a smile. ‘Unfortunately for the firework master, I set off the display a little ahead of time.’

  Arianna was exhausted and, as they made their excuses and farewells and slipped out into the night, her bodyguards closed up around her, carrying torches to light her back to the Embassy. The fireworks continued to explode over the Palazzo Ducale and Luciano, waiting in the square, saw that Arianna’s face was bereft of all colour except what their light shed on her.

  *

  Next morning the Palazzo di Chimici on the Via Larga rang with the cries of ladies’ personal maids calling for warm water, curling irons, hairpins and combs, as four brides were arrayed for their weddings. In the Piazza della Cattedrale a baldachino of blue velvet studded with silver stars was erected to provide a covered walkway to the cathedral’s east door, and a red carpet decorated with silver fleur-de-lys was unrolled underneath it to reach right to the end of the piazza, where the princesses would descend from the Ducal carriage.

  The cathedral itself was filled with lilies – and soldiers. Members of the Duke’s private army
lined the walls, and up in the gallery above the High Altar a body of archers encircled the base of the dome. In the vestry the Pope was being helped into his silver brocade cope. All morning guests kept arriving and filled up the pews of the body of the building.

  Rodolfo and Sulien were invited but not Dethridge, Giuditta, Luciano or Sky. And certainly not Nicholas or Georgia, who weren’t even known to be in the city. So two Stravaganti would be inside the cathedral and the remaining six outside among the celebratory crowds. Silvia and Guido would also be among the observers. Many Giglians had been up since dawn establishing their viewpoints and bringing their own food and drink. Every window and balcony that overlooked the Piazza della Cattedrale was filled with spectators.

  In the Embassy, Arianna was in a panic of indecision. The cursed di Chimici dress was laid over her bed alongside the equally elegant – and much more comfortable – green and blue brocade she had brought from Bellezza. She paced up and down in her lace shift, her chestnut hair loose and tangled about her shoulders, to the despair of Barbara the maid, who was trying to dress it.

  Arianna had not slept the night before and was glad of a mask to wear to conceal the dark circles under her eyes – but was it to be the diamond-studded silver one sent by the Grand Duke to match the dress or the green and blue shot-silk one that went with her Bellezzan gown? Rodolfo had advised against wearing Niccolò’s present, once he had heard about the proposal and this way of giving an answer. But Silvia thought not wearing it would provoke a dangerous diplomatic incident at the weddings.

  ‘How can you be so unsure, my Lady?’ asked Barbara, who was about Arianna’s age and on very confidential terms with her mistress. ‘I would love to have the chance to wear that diamond one.’

  Arianna stopped her pacing. ‘That’s it!’ she said. ‘You shall, Barbara! Why not? My mother used a double often enough and you and I are much of a size. If I wear the dress, the Duke will take that as my consent to his proposal. But if I can later say it wasn’t myself in it, I will have bought myself a little more time. Say you’ll do it!’

  *

  The Grand Duke was visiting the young brides in the Via Larga. There was a flutter of screens and towels and dressing gowns when he put his head around their doors. But the Duke just laughed; he was in an excellent mood and all these pretty young relatives of his just served to remind him that he might have a young bride of his own soon. He had brought them their wedding chests, each cassone painted with the scene that was soon to take place at Saint-Mary-of-the-Lily, of the four couples entering the cathedral under the di Chimici baldachino.

  And inside each were the thick ropes of pearls and rubies he had ordered as their wedding gifts. The princesses were thrilled with the jewels and held them up against their wedding dresses, kissing the Duke with their hair still loose about their shoulders. He left their rooms in high good humour.

  *

  The guests in the cathedral craned their necks to see the lovely Duchessa of Bellezza enter on the arm of her father and take a seat of honour near the High Altar. She was resplendent in a dress of silver so oversewn with pearls and amethysts that the brocade could scarcely be seen between them. A silver veil covered her hair and she was masked as usual, but that did not stop the Giglian crowd from declaring her the most lovely young woman they had ever seen.

  The Grand Duke, sitting in his place of honour, saw her come in wearing the silver dress and smiled. He sat back and prepared to enjoy the weddings; it would not be long before there would be another, even more important one, in his family.

  The Duchessa was attended by a maid in a plain but rich dark green gown, who was herself remarkably pretty, though she wore her hair twined in a double plait around her head and no jewels in it. The Pope and his attendants entered, taking their places at the altar with the Bishop of Giglia who was to assist at the ceremony.

  Outside the cathedral the Ducal carriage had arrived at the edge of the square and a great flurry of dresses and veils was gradually emerging from it. Four nervous bridegrooms waited on the red carpet to receive their brides. First to extricate herself from the carriage was Caterina, in a dress of silver and white brocade. Then came the two Fortezzan princesses, the redhead in her green and gold and the brunette sister in her pure white satin scattered with white jewels.

  Finally came Francesca in her Bellezzan white lace with her black hair full of pearls. Each groom thought his bride the loveliest, which was quite as it should be. They took hands under the baldachino and processed slowly into the cathedral, the three Giglian princes preceding their cousin Alfonso.

  At various points around the cathedral the Stravaganti linked minds with the two of their Brotherhood who sat inside it. Power flowed back and forth among them, creating a force-field which held the great building suspended in their protection. The wedding procession music came to an end and the Pope intoned the opening words of the Nuptial Mass.

  Camillo Nucci, sitting with his parents and his brother and sisters looked up at the gallery and saw the archers, their bows already strung and arrows nocked. ‘Not here, then,’ he murmured to Filippo.

  It took an hour and a half to marry the di Chimici nobles to their brides. By the end of the ceremony, the young Stravaganti were exhausted by their concentration on their task. As the bridal couples stepped out on to the red carpet and the crowd cheered and the silver trumpets blared and the bells rang from the slender campanile, they allowed their minds to relax.

  And at that moment a dark rain cloud blotted out the sun.

  Chapter 22

  Blood on Silver

  The Church of the Annunciation was a traditional place of pilgrimage for newly-weds. It sat at right angles to the orphanage, in the square where Luciano had fought so often with Gaetano. Three hundred years earlier a monk had painted on one of its walls a fresco of the Angel appearing to Mary with news of her expected child. At least, he had started to. The Virgin was depicted at a prayer desk and there was the body of a winged angel on the left, carrying a sheaf of lilies. But the unnamed monk didn’t know how to paint the Angel’s face.

  The legend was that he had prayed for help and in the night the Angel himself had come and finished the picture. Over the generations a custom had developed for just-married couples to take bouquets of flowers to lay in front of the miraculous picture, so that the Angel would bless their union with children. If he did, they were fruitful and, if not, well, there was always the orphanage nearby, where there would be a supply of babies to fill the gap.

  The di Chimici were no less superstitious than any other Giglian and the Duke was anxious to have grandchildren, so it had always been a part of the wedding plans that the four couples would go in procession to the Church of the Annunciation and lay their wedding flowers before the Angel. It was only a short walk from the cathedral.

  The narrow street linking the two squares was lined with cheering citizens, and more hung out of the windows, greedily soaking up the sight of the fine dresses and jewels. Since the church was much smaller than the cathedral, only some selected guests followed the young people, the rest going on to the Palazzo Ducale, where another banquet was in preparation. The first fat drops of rain started to fall as the bridal procession left Saint-Mary-of-the-Lily.

  Rodolfo and Arianna were among the procession, the Duchessa still accompanied by her maid. But it was a nightmare for her bodyguards in that narrow street. A thought-message from Rodolfo sent Sulien and the other Stravaganti running up the parallel side roads, so that they could reach the Piazza of the Annunciation before the wedding party. They were joined there by Guido Parola, sent on by Silvia, who was alarmed at seeing her daughter disappear up the narrow Via degli Innocenti. The square was full of spectators – all the people who couldn’t get into the Piazza della Cattedrale had crowded in and were perching on the fountains and lining the arched loggias of the church and orphanage.

  Among them was Enrico the spy. He hadn’t been invited to the wedding, the blessing or any of the banquets an
d he was feeling a bit peeved about it. Hadn’t he been involved in all the safety precautions and kept the Duke informed every step of the way? He could see now that the procession was virtually unguarded and he shrugged. Amateurs, he thought.

  The red carpet that had been laid all the way from the cathedral to the church was darkening with the rain and the brides were jostled by the crowd as servants tried in vain to cover their heads against the worsening weather. The archers and soldiers from the Duke’s private army streamed into the piazza, pushing spectators out of the way, aware that they had been held up by the crush on the way there.

  Sulien and Dethridge tried to marshal the Stravaganti into a new circle of strength, but the rowdiness of the crowd, who had been drinking from their wineskins since early in the morning, and the confusion developing round the procession, made it hard for them to concentrate. Sulien could feel the younger ones slipping out of the link.

  *

  To the east of the city was a tributary of the river Argento. It had been filling all winter and the rains of earlier in the month had taken it to the top of its banks. As the di Chimici couples had left the cathedral in the city below, a thunderstorm had broken out and the tributary had overflowed. The Argento, already full to the brim, could not sustain any more water and broke its banks. Waves of turbulent river water spilled out over the city, hurrying through the centre.

  *

  The di Chimici newly-weds were glad to get into the safety and cover of the church. They filed along the aisle to the fresco in a chapel to the side of the High Altar, where they were greeted by the priest in charge. The Grand Duke, the Pope, the Duchessa and many other notables, including the Nucci, crowded into the church behind them. But there was not enough room for all the di Chimici armed men and many of them were stuck in the atrium outside the church’s front door.

  And that was when the Nucci struck. Camillo had been seething ever since he had seen the little dog snarl at Carlo in the Piazza Ducale. He had sat all through the long wedding service, watching the man he was now sure was his little brother’s cold-blooded killer, while he smiled at his pretty bride, surrounded by all the pomp and splendour the di Chimici coffers could provide. And now he was being blessed by another priest with the promise of children. Where was the bride for Davide and the hope of his descendants? Locked in the grave.