The Magicians of Caprona (24 page)

“Exactly,” said the Duchess, though Tonino thought, from the surprised arch of her eyebrows, that this was not at all what she expected. She pointed again at the scroll, with a long white finger like a white wax pencil. “Erase,” she said. “Word by word.”

Their heads all tipped anxiously as they looked at the lines of writing. The first word read
Carmen
. And, sure enough, the golden capital C was sinking slowly away into the metal background. Paolo moved. He had to do something. The Duchess glanced at him, a contemptuous flick of the eyebrows. Paolo found he was twisted to the spot, with jabbing cramp in both legs.

But he could still speak, and he remembered what Marco and Rosa had said last night. Without daring to draw breath, he screamed as loud as he could.
“Chrestomanci!”

There was more wind. This was one keen blaring gust. And Chrestomanci was there, beyond Renata and the cats. There was so
little room on the platform that Chrestomanci rocked, and quickly took hold of the marble balustrade. He was still in uniform, but it was muddy and he looked extremely tired.

The Duchess whirled around and pointed her long finger at him. “You! I misled you!”

“Oh you did,” Chrestomanci said. If the Duchess had hoped to catch him off balance, she was too late. Chrestomanci was steady now. “You led me a proper wild-goose chase,” he said, and put out one hand, palm forward, towards her pointing finger. The long finger bent and began dripping white, as if it were wax indeed. The Duchess stared at it, and then looked up at Chrestomanci almost imploringly. “No,” Chrestomanci said, sounding very tired. “I think you’ve done enough harm. Take your true form, please.” He beckoned at her, like someone sick of waiting.

Instantly, the Duchess’s body was seething out of shape. Her arms gathered inwards. Her face lengthened, and yet still remained the same waxy, sardonic face. Whiskers sprang from her upper lip, and her eyes lit red, like bulging lamps. Her marble skirts turned white, billowed and gathered soapily to her ankles, revealing her feet as long pink claws. And all the time, she was shrinking. Two teeth appeared at the end of her lengthened white face. A naked pink tail, marked in rings like an earthworm, snaked from behind the soapy bundle of her skirts and lashed the marble floor angrily. She shrank again.

Finally, a huge white rat with eyes like red marbles, leaped to the marble railing and crouched, chittering and glaring with its humped back twitching.

“The White Devil,” said Chrestomanci, “which the Angel was sent to expel from Caprona. Right, Benvenuto and Vittoria. She’s all yours. Make sure she never comes back.”

Benvenuto and Vittoria were already creeping forward. Their tails
swept about and their eyes stared. They sprang. The rat sprang too, off the parapet with a squeal, and went racing away down the dome. Benvenuto raced with it, long and low, keeping just beside the pink whip of its tail. Vittoria raced the other side, a snowy sliver making the great rat look yellow, running at the rat’s shoulder. They saw the rat turn and try to bite her. And then, suddenly, the three were joined by a dozen smaller rats, all running and squealing. They only saw them for an instant, before the whole group ran over the slope of the dome and disappeared.

“Her helpers from the Palace,” said Chrestomanci.

“Will Vittoria be safe?” said Angelica.

“She’s the best ratter in Caprona, isn’t she?” said Chrestomanci. “Apart from Benvenuto, that is. And by the time the Devil and her friends get to the ground, they’ll have every cat in Caprona after them. Now—”

Tonino found he was the right size again. He clung to Rosa’s hand. Beyond Rosa, he could see Angelica, also the right size, shivering and pulling her flimsy blue dress down over her knees, before she grabbed for Marco’s hand. The wind was far worse on a larger body. But what made Tonino grab at Rosa was not that. The dome was not world-sized any more. It was a white hummock wheeling in a gray-brown landscape. The hills around Caprona were pitilessly clear. He could see flashes of flame and running figures which seemed to be almost beside him, or just above him, as if the tiny white dome had reeled over on its side. Yet the houses of Caprona were immeasurably deep below, and the river seemed to stand up out of them. The New Bridge appeared almost overhead, suffused in clouds of smoke. Smoke rolled in the hills and swirled giddily out of the downside-upside houses beyond the Old Bridge, and, worst of all, the boom and clap, the rattle and yammer of guns was now nearly deafening. Tonino no longer wondered what had
scared Renata and Paolo so. He felt as if he was spinning to his death.

He clung to Rosa’s hand and looked desperately up at the Angel. That at least was still huge. The scroll, which it still held patiently towards them, was almost as big as the side of a house.

“—Now,” said Chrestomanci, “the best thing you can do, all of you, is to sing those words, quickly.”

“What? Me too?” said Angelica.

“Yes, all of you,” said Chrestomanci.

They gathered, the six of them, against the marble parapet, facing the golden scroll, with the New Bridge behind them, and began, somewhat uncertainly, to fit those words to the tune of the
Angel of Caprona
. They matched like a glove. As soon as they realized this, everyone sang lustily. Angelica and Renata stopped shivering. Tonino let go of Rosa’s hand, and Rosa put her arm over his shoulders instead. And they sang as if they had always known those words. It was only a version of the usual words in Latin, but it was what the tune had always asked for.

When they had finished, there was silence. There was not a sound from the hills, or the New Bridge, or the streets below. Every noise had stopped. So they were all the more startled at the tinny slithering with which the Angel slowly rolled up the scroll. The shining outstretched wings bent and settled against the Angel’s golden shoulders, where the Angel gave them a shake to order the feathers. And that noise was not the sound of metal, but the softer rattling of real pinions. It brought with it a scent of such sweetness that there was a moment when they were not aware of anything else.

In that moment, the Angel was in flight. As the huge golden wings passed over them, the scent came again and, with it, the sound of singing. It seemed like hundreds of voices, singing tune, harmony and descant to the
Angel of Caprona
. They had no idea if it was the Angel alone, or something else. They looked up and watched the golden figure wheel and soar and wheel, until it was only a golden glint in the sky. And there was still utter silence, except for the singing.

Rosa sighed. “I suppose we’d better climb down.” Renata began to shiver again at the thought.

Chrestomanci sighed too. “Don’t worry about that.”

They were suddenly down again, on solid cobbles, in the Cathedral forecourt. The Cathedral was once more a great white building, the houses were high, the hills were away beyond, and the people surrounding them were anything but quiet. Every one was running to where they could see the Angel, flashing in the sun as he soared. The Archbishop was in tears, and so was the Duke. They were wringing one another’s hands beside the Duke’s coach.

And Chrestomanci had brought them to earth in time to see another miracle. The coach began to work and bounce on its springs.
Both doors burst open. Aunt Francesca squeezed out of one, and Guido Petrocchi fell out after her. From the other door tumbled Rinaldo and the red-haired Petrocchi aunt. After them came mingled Montanas and Petrocchis, more and more and more, until anyone could see that the coach could not possibly have held that number. People stopped crowding to see the Angel and crowded to look at the Duke’s coach instead.

Rosa and Marco looked at one another and began to back away among the spectators. But Chrestomanci took them each by a shoulder. “It’ll be all right,” he said. “And if it isn’t, I’ll set you up in a spell-house in Venice.”

Antonio disentangled himself from a Petrocchi uncle and hurried with Guido towards Tonino and Angelica. “Are you all right?” both of them said. “Was it you who fetched the griffins—?” They broke off to stare coldly at one another.

“Yes,” said Tonino. “I’m sorry you were turned into puppets.”

“She was too clever for us,” said Angelica. “But be thankful you got your proper clothes back afterwards. Look at us. We—”

They were pulled apart then by aunts and cousins, fearing they were contaminating one another, and hurriedly given coats and sweaters by uncles. Paolo was swept away from Renata too, by Aunt Maria. “Don’t go near her, my love!”

“Oh well,” said Renata, as she was pulled away too. “Thanks for helping me up the dome, anyway.”

“Just a moment!” Chrestomanci said loudly. Everyone turned to him, respectful but irritable. “If each spell-house,” he said, “insists on regarding the other as monsters, I can promise you that Caprona will shortly fall again.” They stared at him, Montanas and Petrocchis, equally indignant. The Archbishop looked at the Duke, and both of them began to edge towards the shelter of the Cathedral porch.

“What are you talking about?” Rinaldo said aggressively. His
dignity was damaged by being a puppet anyway. The look in his eye seemed to promise cowpats for everyone—with the largest share for Chrestomanci.

“I’m talking about the Angel of Caprona,” said Chrestomanci. “When the Angel alighted on the Cathedral, in the time of the First Duke of Caprona, bearing the safety of Caprona with him, history clearly states that the Duke appointed two men—Antonio Petrocchi and Piero Montana—to be keepers of the words of the Angel and therefore keepers of the safety of Caprona. In memory of this, each Casa has an Angel over its gate, and the great Angel stands on a pedestal showing the Petrocchi leopard entwined with the Montana winged horse.” Chrestomanci pointed upwards. “If you don’t believe me, ask for ladders and go and see. Antonio Petrocchi and Piero Montana were fast friends, and so were their families after them. There were frequent marriages between the two Casas. And Caprona became a great city and a strong State. Its decline dates from that ridiculous quarrel between Ricardo and Francesco.”

There were murmurs from Montanas and Petrocchis alike, here, that the quarrel was not ridiculous.

“Of course it was,” said Chrestomanci. “You’ve all been deceived from your cradles up. You’ve let Ricardo and Francesco fool you for two centuries. What they really quarreled about we shall never know, but I know they both told their families the same lies. And you have all gone on believing their lies and getting deeper and deeper divided, until the White Devil was actually able to enter Caprona again.”

Again there were murmurs. Antonio said, “The Duchess
was
the White Devil, but—”

“Yes,” said Chrestomanci. “And she has gone for the moment, because the words were found and the Angel awakened by members of both families. I suspect it could only have been done by Montanas
and Petrocchis united. The rest of you could have sung the right words separately, until you were all blue in the face, and nothing would have happened. The Angel respects only friendship. The young ones of both families are luckily less bigoted than the rest of you. Marco and Rosa have even had the courage to fall in love and get married—”

Up till then, both families had listened—restively, it was true, because it was not pleasant to be lectured in front of a crowd of fellow citizens, not to speak of the Duke and the Archbishop—but they had listened. But at this, pandemonium broke out.

“Married!”
screamed the Montanas. “She’s a
Montana
!” screamed the Petrocchis. Insults were yelled at Rosa and at Marco. Anyone who wished to count would have found no less than ten aunts in tears at once, and all cursing as they wept. Rosa and Marco were both white. It needed only Rinaldo to step up to Marco, glowering, and he did. “This scum,” he said to Rosa, “knocked me down and cut my head open. And you marry it!”

Chrestomanci made haste to get between Marco and Rinaldo. “I’d hoped someone would see reason,” he said to Rosa. He seemed very tired. “It had better be Venice.”

“Get out of my way!” said Rinaldo. “You double-dealing sorcerer!”

“Please move, sir,” said Marco. “I don’t need to be shielded from an idiot like him.”

“Marco,” said Chrestomanci, “have you thought what two families of powerful magicians could do to you and Rosa?”

“Of course we have!” Marco said angrily, trying to push Chrestomanci aside.

But a strange silence fell again, the silence of the Angel. The Archbishop knelt down. Awed people crowded to one side or another of the Cathedral yard. The Angel was returning. He came from far off down the Corso, on foot now, with his wing tips brushing the cobbles
and the chorus of voices swelling as he approached. As he passed through the Cathedral court, it was seen that in every place where a feather had touched the stones there grew a cluster of small golden flowers. Scent gushed over everyone as the Angel drew near and halted by the Cathedral porch, towering and golden.

There he turned his remote smiling face to everyone present. His voice was like one voice singing above many. “Caprona is at peace. Keep our covenant.” At that he spread his wings, making them all dizzy with the scent. And he was next seen moving upwards, over lesser domes and greater, to take his place once more on the great dome, guarding Caprona in the years to come.

This is really the end of the story, except for one or two explanations.

Marco and Rosa had to tell their story many times, at least as often as Tonino and Angelica told theirs. Among the first people they told it to was Old Niccolo, who was lying restlessly in bed and only kept there because Elizabeth sat beside him all the time. “But I’m quite well!” he kept saying.