The Magicians of Caprona (22 page)

“Can’t you just send for them?” Tonino suggested. “Say you need them to help in the war.”

“She’d smell a rat,” said the Duke. “She says your war-charms are all washed up anyway. Think of something that’s nothing to do with
the war.”

“Special effects for another pantomime,” Tonino suggested, rather hopelessly. But he could see that even the Duke was not likely to produce a play while Caprona was being invaded.

“I know,” said Angelica. “I shall cast a spell.”

“No!” said Tonino. “Anything might happen!”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Angelica. “My family would know it’s me, and they’d come here like a shot.”

“But you might turn the Duke green!” said Tonino.

“I really wouldn’t mind,” the Duke put in mildly.

He came to the bottom of the stairs and went with long, charging strides through rooms and corridors of the Palace. Angelica and Tonino each held on to an edge of their pockets and shouted arguments around him.

“But you could help me,” said Angelica, “and your part would go right. Suppose we made it a calling-charm to fetch all the rats and mice in Caprona to the Palace. If you did the calling, we’d fetch something.”

“Yes, but what would it be?” said Tonino.

“We could make it in honor of Benvenuto,” shouted Angelica, hoping to please him.

But Tonino thought of Benvenuto lying somewhere on a Palace roof and became more obstinate than ever. He shouted that he was not going to do anything so disrespectful.

“Are you telling me you can’t do a calling-spell?” shrieked Angelica. “Even my baby brother—”

They were shouting so loudly that the Duke had to tell them to shush twice. The military man hurrying up to the Duke stared slightly. “No need to stare, Major,” the Duke said to him. “I said Shush and I meant Shush. Your boots squeak. What is it?”

“I’m afraid the forces of Caprona are in retreat in the south, Your
Grace,” said the soldier. “And our coastal batteries have fallen to the Pisan fleet.”

Both pockets drooped as the Duke’s shoulders slumped. “Thank you,” he said. “Report to me personally next time you have news.” The Major saluted and went, glancing at the Duke once or twice over his shoulder. The Duke sighed. “There goes another one who thinks I’m mad. Didn’t you two say you were the only ones who knew where to find the words to the
Angel
?”

Tonino and Angelica put their heads out of his pockets again. “Yes,” they said.

“Then,” said the Duke, “will you please agree on a spell. You really must get out and get those words while there’s still some of Caprona left.”

“All right,” said Tonino. “Let’s call mice.” He had not seen it was so urgent.

So the Duke stood in a wide window bay and lit the cigar stub from under Angelica with the lighter from under Tonino, to cover up the spell. Tonino leaned out of his pocket and sang, slowly and carefully, the only calling-spell he knew. Angelica stood in the other pocket with her arms upraised and spoke, quickly, confidently and—quite certainly—wrong. Afterwards, she swore it was because she nearly laughed.

Another man approached. Tonino thought it was one of the courtiers who had watched the puppet show, but he was never sure, because the Duke flipped his pocket flaps down over their heads and began singing himself.

roared the Duke. Even Angelica did not sing so much out of tune.
Tonino had the greatest difficulty in keeping up his own song. And it was certainly around then that the spell seemed to go wrong. Tonino had the sudden feeling that his words were pulling a great weight.

The Duke broke off his abominable singing to say, “Ah, Pollio, there’s nothing like a good song while Caprona burns! Nero did it, and now me.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the man said feebly. They heard him scuttle away.

“And he’s
sure
I’m mad,” said the Duke. “Finished?”

Just then, Tonino’s words came loose, with a sort of jerk, and he knew the spell had worked in some way or another. “Yes,” he said.

But nothing seemed to happen. The Duke said philosophically that it would take a mouse quite a while to run from the Corso to the Palace, and strode on to the kitchens. They thought he was mad there, too, Tonino could tell. The Duke asked for two bread rolls and two pats of butter and solemnly put one into each pocket. No doubt they thought he was madder still when he remarked to no one: “There’s a cigar cutter in my right pocket that spreads butter quite well.”

“Indeed, Your Grace?” they heard someone say dubiously.

Just then, someone rushed in screaming about the griffins from the Piazza Nuova. They were flying across the river, straight for the Palace. There was a general panic. Everyone screamed and yammered and said it was an omen of defeat. Then someone else rushed in yelling that one griffin had actually reached the Palace and was sliding down the marble front. There was more outcry. The next thing, everyone said, the great gold Angel from the Cathedral would fly away too.

Tonino was taking advantage of the confusion to bash a piece off his roll with the Duke’s lighter, when the Duke bellowed,
“Nonsense!”
There was sudden quiet. Tonino dared not move, because everyone was certainly looking at the Duke.

“Don’t you see?” said the Duke. “It’s just an enemy trick. But we in Caprona don’t frighten that easily, do we? Here—you—go and fetch the Montanas. And you go and get the Petrocchis. Tell them it’s urgent. Tell as many of them to come as possible. I shall be in the North gallery.” And he went striding off there, while Angelica and Tonino jigged against bread and tried not to tread in the butter.

When he got to the gallery, the Duke sat down on a window seat. Angelica and Tonino stood half out of his pockets and managed to eat their bread and butter. The Duke amiably handed the cigar cutter from one to the other and, in between whiles, seemed lost in thought, staring at the white puffs of shells bursting on the hills behind Caprona.

Angelica was inclined to be smug. “I told you,” she said to Tonino, “my spells always work.”

“Iron griffins,” said Tonino, “aren’t mice.”

“No, but I’ve never done anything as big as that before,” said Angelica. “I’m glad it didn’t knock the Palace down.”

The Duke said gloomily, “The guns of Pisa are going to do that soon. I can see gunboats on the river, and I’m sure they aren’t ours. I wish your families would be quick.”

But it was half an hour before a polite footman came up to the Duke, causing him to flip his pocket flaps down and scatter buttery crumbs in all directions. “Your Grace, members of the Montana and Petrocchi families are awaiting you in the Large Reception Saloon.”

“Good!” said the Duke. He leaped up and ran so fast that Tonino and Angelica had to brace their feet on the seams of his pockets and hang on hard to the edges. They lost their footing several times, even though the Duke tried to help them by holding his pockets as he ran. They felt him clatter to a stop. “Blast!” he said. “This is always happening!”

“What?” asked Tonino breathlessly. He felt jerked out of shape.

“They’ve told me the wrong room!” said the Duke and set off again on another swaying, jolting run. They felt him dive forward through a doorway. His pockets swung. Then they swung the other way as he slid and stopped. “Lucrezia, this is too bad! Is this why you always tell me the wrong room?”

“My lord,” came the coldest voice of the Duchess from some way off, “I can’t answer for the slackness of the footmen. What is the matter?”

“This,” said the Duke. “These—” They felt him shaking. “Those were the Montanas and the Petrocchis, weren’t they? Don’t fob me off, Lucrezia. I sent for them. I know.”

“And what if they were?” said the Duchess, rather nearer. “Do you wish to join them, my lord?”

They felt the Duke backing away. “No. No indeed! My dear, your will is always my pleasure. I—I just want to know why. They only came about some griffins.”

The Duchess’s voice moved away again as she answered. “Because, if you must know, Antonio Montana recognized me.”

“But—but—” said the Duke, laughing un easily, “everyone knows you, my dear. You’re the Duchess of Caprona.”

“I mean, he recognized me for what I am,” said the Duchess from the distance. The sound of a door shutting followed.

“Look!” said the Duke in a shaky whisper. “Just look!” While he was still saying it, Angelica and Tonino were bracing their feet on the seams of his pockets and pushing their heads out from under the flaps.

They saw the same polished room where they had once waited and eaten cakes, the same gilded chairs and angelic ceiling. But this time the polished floor was littered with puppets. Puppets lay all over it, limp grotesque things, scattered this way and that as people might lie if they had suddenly fallen. They were in two groups. Otherwise there was
no way of telling which puppet was who. There were Punches, Judys, Hangmen, Sausage-men, Policemen, and an odd Devil or so, over and over again. From the numbers, it looked as if both families had realized that Tonino and Angelica were behind the mysterious griffins and had sent nearly every grown-up in the Casas.

Tonino could not speak. Angelica said, “That hateful woman! Her mind seems to run on puppets.”

“She sees people that way,” the Duke said miserably. “I’m sorry, both of you. She’s been too many for us. Terrible female! I can’t think why I married her—but I suppose that was a spell too.”

“Do you think she suspects you’ve got us?” Tonino asked. “She must be wondering where we are.”

“Maybe, maybe,” said the Duke. He marched up and down the room, while they leaned out of his pockets and looked down at the crowd of strewn floppy puppets. “She doesn’t care now, of course,” he said. “She’s done for both families anyway. Oh, I am a fool!”

“It’s not your fault,” said Angelica.

“Oh, but it is,” said the Duke. “I never show the slightest resolution. I always take the easiest way—What is it?” Darkness descended as he flipped his pocket flaps down.

“Your Grace,” said the Major whose boots squeaked, “the Pisan fleet is landing men down beyond the New Quays. And our troops to the south are being rolled back into the suburbs.”

They felt the Duke droop. “Almost done, in fact,” he said. “Thanks—No, wait, Major! Could you be a good fellow and go to the stables and order out my coach? The lackeys have all run away, you know. Ask for it at the door in five minutes.”

“But, Your Grace—” said the Major.

“I intend to go down into the city and speak with the people,” said the Duke. “Give them what’s-it-called. Moral support.”

“A very fine aim, sir,” said the Major, with a great deal more warmth. “In five minutes, sir.” His boots went squeaking swiftly off.

“Did you hear that?” said the Duke. “He called me ‘sir’! Poor fellow. I told him a set of whoppers and he couldn’t take his eyes off all those puppets, but he called me ‘sir,’ and he’ll get that coach and he won’t tell her. Cardboard box!”

The hangings whipped by as the Duke charged through a doorway into another room. This one had a long table down the middle. “Ah!” said the Duke, and charged towards a stack of boxes by the wall. The boxes proved to have wine glasses in them, which the Duke proceeded feverishly to unload on to the table.

“I don’t understand,” Tonino said.

“Box,” said the Duke. “We can’t leave your families behind, for her to revenge herself on. I’m going to be resolute for once. I’m going to get in the coach and go, and dare her to stop me.” So saying, he stormed back to the reception room with the empty box and knelt down to collect the puppets. Angelica was bounced on the floor as his coat swung. “Sorry,” said the Duke.

“Pick them up gently,” said Tonino. “It hurts if you don’t.”

Tenderly and hastily, using both hands for each puppet, the Duke packed the puppets in layers in the cardboard box. In the process, Montanas got very thoroughly mixed with Petrocchis, but there was no way of preventing that. All three of them were expecting the Duchess to come in any moment. The Duke kept looking nervously around and then muttering to himself, “Resolute!” He was still muttering it when he set off, awkwardly carrying the cardboard box in his arms. “Funny to think,” he remarked, “that I’m carrying almost every spell-maker in Caprona at the moment.”

Boots squeaked towards them. “Your coach is waiting, sir,” said the voice of the Major.

“Resolute,” said the Duke. “I mean, thank you. I shall think of you in heaven, Major, since I’m sure that’s where most of us are going soon. Meanwhile, can you do two more things for me?”

“Sir?” said the Major alertly.

“First, when you think of the Angel of Caprona, what do you think of?”

“The song or the figure, sir?” the Major asked, more wary now than alert.

“The figure.”

“Why—” The Major was becoming sure that the Duke was mad again. “I—I think of the golden Angel on the Cathedral, Your Grace.”

“Good man!” the Duke cried out. “So do I! The other thing is, can you take this box and stow it in my coach for me?” Neither Tonino nor Angelica could resist peeping out to see how the Major took this request. Unfortunately, his face was hidden behind the box as the Duke thrust it at him. They felt they had missed a rare sight. “If anyone asks,” the Duke said, “it’s gifts for the war-weary people.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” The Major sounded amused and indulgent, humoring the Duke in his madness, but they heard his boots squeaking briskly off.

“Thank the lord!” said the Duke. “I’m not going to be caught with them. I can feel her coming.”

Thanks to the Duke’s charging run, it was some minutes before the Duchess caught up with them. Tonino, squinting out under the flap, could see the great marble entrance hall when the Duke skidded to a stop. He dropped the flap hastily when he heard the cold voice of the Duchess. She sounded out of breath but triumphant.

“The enemy is by the New Bridge, my lord. You’ll be killed if you go out now.”

“And I’ll be killed if I stay here too,” said the Duke. He waited for
the Duchess to deny this, but she said nothing. They heard the Duke swallow. But his resolution held. “I’m going,” he said, a mite squeakily, “to drive down among my people and comfort their remaining hours.”