City of Flowers (3 page)

When Sky woke, he was not in his bedroom but in somewhere that looked like a monk's cell. There was a cross on the whitewashed wall and a wooden prayer desk and he was lying on a sort of hard cot. The bottle was still in Sky's hand and the room was filled with the wonderful smell of flowers, but he knew it wasn't coming from the bottle.

He got up and cautiously opened the door. He found himself in a dark, wood-panelled room like a laboratory, filled with glass vessels like those used in chemistry lessons. But it didn't smell like a lab; it smelled like his mother's collection of essences, only much stronger. Light was coming from a door at the side of the room and Sky could see into an enclosed garden. People in robes were digging in the beds and tending plants. What a peculiar dream, he thought. There was a lovely atmosphere of calm and freedom from pressure.

He stepped out into the sunshine, blinking, still holding the bottle, and a black man, robed like the others, took him by the arm and whispered, ‘God be praised, it has found you!'

This is where I wake up, thought Sky, but he didn't.

Instead the man pushed him back into the laboratory and hurried into his cell, bending over a wooden chest.

‘Put this on,' he said to Sky. ‘You must look like the other novices. Then you can tell me who you are.'

Chapter 2

The Hounds of God

Sky felt as if he were sleepwalking, as he let the monk, or whoever he was, throw a coarse white robe over his head and then a black cloak with a hood. Underneath he was wearing the T-shirt and shorts he had gone to bed in, an odd detail for a dream to include, he thought.

‘That's better,' said the monk. ‘Now you can walk with me round the cloisters and we can talk without anyone thinking it unusual. They'll just take you for a new novice.'

Sky said nothing, but followed his companion back out into the sunshine. They were in the enclosed garden he had seen from the open door. It was a square shape, surrounded by a sort of covered walk, like the ones you get in cathedrals and abbeys in England.

‘I am Brother Sulien,' said the monk. ‘And you are?'

‘Sky.' He hesitated. ‘Sky Meadows.'

It had always been an issue for him, his hippy-dippy name, as he thought of it. And it was even worse combined with his mother's surname; it made him sound like a kind of air freshener or fabric softener.

‘Sky? That isn't a name we use here,' said Sulien, after considering it. ‘The closest would be Celestino. You can be Celestino Pascoli.'

Can I really? thought Sky. What sort of game are we playing? But still he said nothing.

‘You have the talisman?' asked Sulien, and Sky realised he was still holding the little glass bottle. He opened his fist. A strange feeling was beginning to creep over him that this was not exactly a dream, after all.

‘Who are you?' Sky asked finally. ‘I don't just mean your name.'

The monk nodded. ‘I know what you mean. I am a Stravagante – we both are.'

‘You and me?' Sky asked disbelievingly. He couldn't see how he and this mad monk, as he was beginning to think of him, could both be anything the same at all, except human beings and black.

‘Yes, we are both part of a Brotherhood of scientists in Talia.' The friar stepped out into the garden, gesturing Sky to follow. ‘Look behind you.'

Sky turned and saw nothing.

‘What?' he asked, confused.

Sulien gestured to the ground and Sky saw with a shock that, although the friar's shadow stretched out behind him, black as his robe, at Sky's feet there was nothing.

‘The talisman has brought you here from your world, because there is something you can help us with,' continued Sulien.

‘What, exactly?' asked Sky.

‘Exactly what, we don't know,' said Sulien. ‘But it will be dangerous.'

*

The night before, Sandro had stayed with his quarry until he was sure there was nothing more to be gained, then strolled back to his side of the river. A short walk through the great Piazza Ducale, where the government buildings were, brought him to the left flank of the cathedral. He felt more comfortable when he could see Santa Maria del Giglio; her bulk was reassuring and the little streets and piazzas snuggled up to her like kittens seeking the warmth of a mother cat.

Sandro felt himself to be one of those kittens; he was an orphan, who had grown up in the orphanage that stood in the lee of the cathedral. Clever as he was, and resourceful too, Sandro had never learned his letters or expected to enter any profession, so he had been delighted to be recruited by the Eel.

Now he could afford to throw a few small coins to the ragamuffins who played in the street outside the orphanage even at this late hour. He had been one of them not so long ago and it made his heart swell to think how far he had come.

He stopped in the little square where people played bowls; he had a ghoulish interest in it because of the horrible murder that had happened there a generation ago. One of the di Chimici had stabbed one of the Nucci to death; that was all the boy knew, but it fascinated him. He imagined the blood staining the paving-stones and the cries of ‘Help!' as the young nobleman bled to death under the flickering torches of the piazza. Santa Maria had not been able to protect him. Sandro shuddered enjoyably.

He walked on past shops and taverns selling all kinds of delicious-smelling food and drink, feeling secure in the knowledge that he would get supper. He cut up the Via Larga, the broad street leading away from the cathedral towards the di Chimici palace. The Eel didn't live there, of course; Duke Niccolò was too canny for that. But he wasn't far away, either. He lodged close enough to the Duke to be with him in minutes if sent for.

*

‘Why don't I have a shadow if we are both Strav . . . what you said?' asked Sky. ‘You seem to have one.'

‘I have a shadow because I am in my home world,' said Brother Sulien. ‘When I stravagate to yours, as I did to bring the talisman, I am without one, just as you are here.'

Sky was beginning to understand that he had travelled in space, and almost certainly in time, but he still couldn't quite believe it. Brother Sulien explained that they were in a great city called Giglia, in the country of Talia, but it looked to Sky as he imagined Italy to be. He couldn't speak Italian, yet he understood what Sulien was saying to him – at least he understood the words; the meaning was still impenetrable.

‘What do you mean by helping you?' he asked, trying another tack. ‘What can I do?'

They had walked, slowly, all the way round the square cloisters, back to where they had begun, and stopped by the door into the laboratory. Again Sky felt overwhelmed by the scent coming from the room.

‘What is this place?' he asked. ‘Some sort of church, or what?'

Brother Sulien gestured to him to resume their walk. ‘It is a friary – Saint-Mary-among-the-Vines. We have a church, certainly, a most beautiful one, which is reached through the Lesser Cloister, but also an infirmary and a pharmacy, of which I am the friar in charge.'

‘Is that the same as a monk?' asked Sky. He felt very ignorant about all this. He had only ever been in churches with his mother, as a sightseer.

Sulien shrugged. ‘More or less,' he said. ‘It depends what order you belong to. We are Dominicans. “The Hounds of God”, they call us. “Domini canes” is Talic for God's hounds.'

‘And that laboratory?'

‘Is where I prepare the medicines,' said Sulien. ‘And the perfumes, of course.'

‘Of course,' said Sky, ironically.

Brother Sulien gave him a quizzical look, but just then a bell started clanging in the tower above them, and all the other friars, as Sky supposed they were, downed tools and set off towards an archway in the corner.

‘Time for prayers,' said the friar. ‘The Office of Terce, but today I shall miss it and take you out into the city. I want to show you something.'

*

The Eel was feeling pleased with himself. He had comfortable lodgings, ample pay and the best of everything to eat and drink. Most satisfactory of all, he had power. As the Duke's right-hand man, he felt himself to be only a heartbeat away from the very seat of government. And it could so easily have gone the other way; he had at one time feared that Duke Niccolò would dispose of him by having his throat cut, after that business in Remora. Instead he now wore velvet, in his favourite blue, and carried a hat with a curling plume in it, and kept a horse of his own in the Duke's stables.

In fact, the Eel did not cut as impressive a figure as he thought, being short and a bit skinny. But he was well pleased with his new life, especially his little crew of spies. He liked Giglia better even than Remora, and much better than Bellezza. In a very short time, he had memorised its streets and squares and alleys, particularly the alleys – the Eel was an alley kind of fellow, even if he aspired to boulevards and avenues. You couldn't skulk in an avenue and skulking was his forte.

*

Brother Sulien led Sky through an archway in the corner of the Great Cloister into a smaller one and then in through a door into the church. Up at the far end Sky could see quite a number of black-robed friars on their knees and could hear the low murmur of voices. His eyes scarcely had time to adapt to the gloom inside the church before they were out in the sunshine again, under a clear blue sky.

Sky inhaled deeply and looked around him. The church fronted on to a large square, at either end of which stood a strange wooden post in the shape of an elongated pyramid. There were no cars or buses or motorbikes, but across the square there was a jumble of poor-looking houses and shops and then, every block or two, a noble building standing impressive among its surroundings like a racehorse in a field of knackered nags. Definitely the past, thought Sky. Then there was the dazzling sunshine which brought a warmth unknown in an English March, sunny though they could be. Definitely Italy, he thought.

They walked briskly along a street whose gutters were overflowing with debris, and Sky couldn't help noticing an unhealthy smell of rotten vegetables and worse. Two young men rode past; they were evidently noblemen, since everyone got out of their way and they paid no attention to their route but chatted to one another oblivious of the people scattering before their horses' hoofs. Sky saw they both wore long shining swords dangling from their belts and remembered what Sulien had said about danger.

A short walk brought them to a halt in front of what was the biggest building Sky had ever seen. It was familiar to him though, from art lessons at school.

‘This is Florence, isn't it?' he said, pleased to have recognised where he was.

‘I believe you do call it something like that, but for us it is Giglia,' corrected Sulien patiently. ‘The City of Flowers, we call her, because of the meadows around that bring her such wealth. Her and the di Chimici,' he added, lowering his voice. Then, more naturally, he continued, ‘It could as easily be called the City of Wool, since almost as much of her wealth comes from sheep, but that's much less pretty, don't you think?'

This is like
Alice in Wonderland
, thought Sky. There seems to be logic in it but it doesn't quite hang together.

‘And this is the best flower of all,' said Sulien, gazing up at the bulk of the cathedral. ‘Even if my heart lies among the vines, I must admire Santa Maria del Giglio – Saint-Mary-of-the-Lily.'

The walls of the cathedral were clad in white marble, with strips of green and pink marble in geometric patterns; Sky thought it looked like Neapolitan ice cream but sensed it would be unwise to say so. Though he noticed that the front was unfinished, just rough stone. A slender bell-tower in the same colours rose beside it, and the whole was dominated by a vast terracotta dome, encircled by smaller ones.

‘In this cathedral in eight weeks' time,' Sulien continued, ‘three di Chimici princes and a duke will marry their cousins. Now let me show you something else.'

He walked Sky round to a little piazza where people were playing bowls. ‘In that square,' said Sulien, ‘twenty-five years ago, a member of the di Chimici clan stabbed to death a young noble of the Nucci family.'

‘Why?' asked Sky.

‘Because of an insult to the di Chimici over a marriage arranged between the two families. Donato Nucci was to marry Princess Eleanora di Chimici – a fine match for him, but he was twenty and she was thirty-one. And perhaps not one of the most beautiful of her kin, though intelligent, pious and accomplished. On the day of the wedding young Donato sent a messenger to say he was indisposed. Indisposed to marry Eleanora, as it turned out, for he was also in negotiations with another family and another, younger, bride.'

‘Poor Eleanora,' said Sky.

‘And poor Donato,' said Sulien grimly. ‘He had the gall to show himself at a game of bowls the next evening and Eleanora's younger brother, Jacopo, stabbed him in the heart.'

‘What happened to Jacopo?'

‘He left the city. He had only come to Giglia for the wedding; his family lived in Fortezza, another great city of Tuschia, where his father Falco was Prince. The next year old Prince Falco died and Jacopo inherited the title. Some say the old Prince was poisoned by the Nucci, but he was a good age.'

‘And what happened to Eleanora – and Donato's other girl?'

‘No one knows what happened to the other girl. Eleanora di Chimici took the veil and so did her younger sister. Jacopo himself married – and had two daughters, one of whom is going to marry Prince Carlo di Chimici here in a few weeks. The other will marry her cousin Alfonso di Chimici, Duke of Volana.'