The Magicians of Caprona Read online

  “As long as you write while you grumble,” said Rosa.

  “It’s a new spell-scrip for the Army,” Uncle Lorenzo explained. “It’s very urgent.”

  “It’s hard. It’s all new words,” Paolo grumbled.

  “Your father made it last night,” said Aunt Maria. “Get writing. We’ll be watching for mistakes.”

  When finally, stiff-necked and with red splodges on their fingers, they were let out into the yard, Tonino discovered that he had barely time to unwrap the parcel before supper. Supper was early that night, so that the elder Montanas could put in another shift on the army-spells before bedtime.

  “It’s worse than working on the Old Bridge,” said Lucia. “What’s that, Tonino? Who sent it?”

  The parcel was promisingly book-shaped. It bore the stamp and the arms of the University of Caprona. This was the only indication Tonino had that Uncle Umberto had sent it, for, when he wrenched off the thick brown paper, there was no letter, not even a card. There was only a new shiny book. Tonino’s face beamed. At least Uncle Umberto knew this much about him. He turned the book lovingly over. It was called The Boy Who Saved His Country, and the cover was the same shiny, pimpled red leather as the great volumes of war-spells.

  “Is Uncle Umberto trying to give you a hint, or something?” Paolo asked, amused. He and Lucia and Corinna leaned over Tonino while he flipped through the pages. There were pictures, to Tonino’s delight. Soldiers rode horses, soldiers rode machines; a boy hung from a rope and scrambled up the frowning wall of a fortress; and, most exciting of all, a boy stood on a rock with a flag, confronting a whole troop of ferocious-looking dragoons. Sighing with anticipation, Tonino turned to Chapter One: How Giorgio uncovered an Enemy Plot.

  “Supper!” howled Aunt Gina from the yard. “Oh I shall go mad! Nobody attends to me!”

  Tonino was forced to shut the lovely book again and hurry down to the dining room. He watched Aunt Gina anxiously as she doled out minestrone. She looked so hectic that he was convinced Benvenuto must have been at work in the kitchen again.

  “It’s all right,” Rosa said. “It’s just she thought she’d got a line from the Angel of Caprona. Then the soup boiled over and she forgot it again.”

  Aunt Gina was distinctly tearful. “With so much to do, my memory is like a sieve,” she kept saying. “Now I’ve let you all down.”

  “Of course you haven’t, Gina my dear,” said Old Niccolo. “This is nothing to worry about. It will come back to you.”

  “But I can’t even remember what language it was in!” wailed Aunt Gina.

  Everyone tried to console her. They sprinkled grated cheese on their soup and slurped it with special relish, to show Aunt Gina how much they appreciated her, but Aunt Gina continued to sniff and accuse herself. Then Rinaldo thought of pointing out that she had got further than anyone else in the Casa Montana. “None of the rest of us has any of the Angel of Caprona to forget,” he said, giving Aunt Gina his best smile.

  “Bah!” said Aunt Gina. “Turning on the charm, Rinaldo Montana!” But she seemed a good deal more cheerful after that.

  Tonino was glad Benvenuto had nothing to do with it this time. He looked around for Benvenuto. Benvenuto usually took up a good position for stealing scraps, near the serving table. But tonight he was nowhere to be seen. Nor, for that matter, was Marco.

  “Where’s Marco?” Paolo asked Rosa.

  Rosa smiled. She seemed quite cheerful about it. “He has to help his brother,” she said, “with fortifications.”

  That brought home to Paolo and Tonino the fact that there was going to be a war. They looked at one another nervously. Neither of them was quite sure whether you behaved in the usual way in wartime, or not. Tonino’s mind shot to his beauti-ful new book. The Boy Who Saved His Country. He slurped the title through his mind, just as he was slurping his soup. Had Uncle Umberto meant to say to him, find the words to the Angel of Caprona, and save your country, Tonino? It would indeed be the most marvelous thing if he, Tonino Montana, could find the words and save his country. He could hardly wait to see how the boy in the book had done it.

  As soon as supper was over, he sprang up, ready to dash off and start reading. And once again he was prevented. This time it was because the children were told to wash up supper. Tonino groaned. And, again, he was not the only one.

  “It isn’t fair!” Corinna said passionately. “We slave all afternoon at spells, and we slave all evening at washing-up! I know there’s going to be a war, but I still have to do my exams. How am I ever going to do my homework?” The way she flung out an impassioned arm made Paolo and Tonino think that Aunt Gina’s manner must be catching.

  Rather unexpectedly, Lucia sympathized with Corinna. “I think you’re too old to be one of us children,” she said. “Why don’t you go away and do your homework and let me organize the kids?”

  Corinna looked at her uncertainly. “What about your homework?”

  “I’ve not got much. I’m not aiming for the University like you,” Lucia said kindly. “Run along.” And she pushed Corinna out of the dining room. As soon as the door was shut, she turned briskly to the other children. “Come on. What are you lot standing gooping for? Everyone take a pile of plates to the kitchen. Quick march, Tonino. Move, Lena and Bernardo. Paolo, you take the big bowls.”

  With Lucia standing over them like a sergeant major, Tonino had no chance to slip away. He trudged to the kitchen with everyone else, where, to his surprise, Lucia ordered everyone to lay the plates and cutlery out in rows on the floor. Then she made them stand in a row themselves, facing the rows of greasy dishes.

  Lucia was very pleased with herself. “Now,” she said, “this is something I’ve always wanted to try. This is washing-up-made-easy, by Lucia Montana’s patent method. I’ll tell you the words. They go to the Angel of Caprona. And you’re all to sing after me—”

  “Are you sure we should?” asked Lena, who was a very law-abiding cousin.

  Lucia gave her a look of scalding contempt. “If some people,” she remarked to the whitewashed beams of the ceiling, “don’t know true intelligence when they see it, they are quite at liberty to go and live with the Petrocchis.”

  “I only asked,” Lena said, crushed.

  “Well, don’t,” said Lucia. “This is the spell. …”

  Shortly, they were all singing lustily:

  “Angel, clean our knives and dishes,

  Clean our spoons and salad bowls,

  Wash our saucepans, hear our wishes,

  Angel, make our forks quite clean.”

  At first, nothing much seemed to happen. Then it became clear that the orange grease was certainly slowly clearing from the plates. Then the lengths of spaghetti stuck to the bottom of the largest saucepan started unwinding and wriggling like worms. Up over the edge of the saucepan they wriggled, and over the stone floor, to ooze themselves into the waste-cans. The orange grease and the salad-oil traveled after them, in rivulets. And the singing faltered a little, as people broke off to laugh.

  “Sing, sing!” shouted Lucia. So they sang.

  Unfortunately for Lucia, the noise penetrated to the Scriptorium. The plates were still pale pink and rather greasy, and the last of the spaghetti was still wriggling across the floor, when Elizabeth and Aunt Maria burst into the kitchen.

  “Lucia!” said Elizabeth.

  “You irreligious brats!” said Aunt Maria.

  “I don’t see what’s so wrong,” said Lucia.

  “She doesn’t see—Elizabeth, words fail!” said Aunt Maria. “How can I have taught her so little and so badly? Lucia, a spell is not instead of a thing. It is only to help that thing. And on top of that, you go and use the Angel of Caprona, as if it was any old tune, and not the most powerful song in all Italy! I—I could box your ears, Lucia!”

  “So could I,” said Elizabeth. “Don’t you understand we need all our virtue—the whole combined strength of the Casa Montana—to put into the war-charms? And here you go frittering it away
in the kitchen!”

  “Put those plates in the sink, Paolo,” ordered Aunt Maria. “Tonino, pick up those saucepans. The rest of you pick up the cutlery. And now you’ll wash them properly.”

  Very chastened, everyone obeyed. Lucia was angry as well as chastened. When Lena whispered, “I told you so!” Lucia broke a plate and jumped on the pieces.

  “Lucia!” snapped Aunt Maria, glaring at her. It was the first time any of the children had seen her look likely to slap someone.

  “Well, how was I to know?” Lucia stormed. “Nobody ever explained—nobody told me spells were like that!”

  “Yes, but you knew perfectly well you were doing something you shouldn’t,” Elizabeth told her, “even if you didn’t know why. The rest of you, stop sniggering. Lena, you can learn from this too.”

  All through doing the washing-up properly—which took nearly an hour—Tonino was saying to himself, “And then I can read my book at last.” When it was finally done, he sped out into the yard. And there was Old Niccolo hurrying down the steps to meet him in the dark.

  “Tonino, may I have Benvenuto for a while, please?”

  But Benvenuto was still not to be found. Tonino began to think he would die of book-frustration. All the children joined in hunting and calling, but there was still no Benvenuto. Soon, most of the grown-ups were looking for him too, and still Benvenuto did not appear. Antonio was so exasperated that he seized Tonino’s arm and shook him.

  “It’s too bad, Tonino! You must have known we’d need Benvenuto. Why did you let him go?”

  “I didn’t! You know what Benvenuto’s like!” Tonino protested, equally exasperated.

  “Now, now, now,” said Old Niccolo, taking each of them by a shoulder. “It is quite plain by now that Benvenuto is on the other side of town, making vile noises on a roof somewhere. All we can do is hope someone empties a jug of water on him soon. It’s not Tonino’s fault, Antonio.”

  Antonio let go Tonino’s arm and rubbed both hands on his face. He looked very tired. “I’m sorry, Tonino,” he said. “Forgive me. Let us know as soon as Benvenuto comes back, won’t you?”

  He and Old Niccolo hurried back to the Scriptorium. As they passed under the light, their faces were stiff with worry.

  “I don’t think I like war, Tonino,” Paolo said. “Let’s go and play table-tennis in the dining room.”

  “I’m going to read my book,” Tonino said firmly. He thought he would get like Aunt Gina if anything else happened to stop him.

  Chapter 6

  Tonino read half the night. With all the grown-ups hard at work in the Scriptorium, there was no one to tell him to go to bed. Corinna tried, when she had finished her homework, but Tonino was too deep in the book even to hear her. And Corinna went respectfully away, thinking that, as the book had come from Uncle Umberto, it was probably very learned.

  It was not in the least learned. It was the most gripping story Tonino had ever read. It started with the boy, Giorgio, going along a mysterious alleyway near the docks on his way home from school. There was a peeling blue house at the end of the alley and, just as Giorgio passed it, a scrap of paper fluttered from one of its windows. It contained a mysterious message, which led Giorgio at once into a set of adventures with the enemies of his country. Each one was more exciting than the last.

  Well after midnight, when Giorgio was holding a pass single-handed against the enemy, Tonino happened to hear his father and mother coming to bed. He was forced to leave Giorgio lying wounded and dive into bed himself. All night he dreamed of notes fluttering from the windows of peeling blue houses, of Giorgio—who was sometimes Tonino himself and sometimes Paolo—and of villainous enemies—most of whom seemed to have red beards and black hair, like Guido Petrocchi—and, as the sun rose, he was too excited to stay asleep. He woke up and went on reading.

  When the rest of the Casa Montana began to stir, Tonino had finished the book. Giorgio had saved his country. Tonino was quivering with excitement and exhaustion. He wished the book was twice as long. If it had not been time to get up, he would have gone straight back to the beginning and started reading the book again.

  And the beauty of it, he thought, eating breakfast without noticing, was that Giorgio had saved his country, not only single-handed, but without a spell coming into it anywhere. If Tonino was going to save Caprona, that was the way he would like to do it.

  Around Tonino, everyone else was complaining and Lucia was sulking. The washing-up spell was still about in the kitchen. Every cup and plate was covered with a thin layer of orange spaghetti grease, and the butter tasted of soap.

  “What did she use, in Heaven’s name?” groaned Uncle Lorenzo. “This coffee tastes of tomato.”

  “Her own words to the Angel of Caprona,” Aunt Maria said, and shuddered as she picked up her greasy cup.

  “Lucia, you fool!” said Rinaldo. “That’s the strongest tune there is.”

  “All right, all right. Stop going on at me. I’m sorry!” Lucia said angrily.

  “So are the rest of us, unfortunately,” sighed Uncle Lorenzo.

  If only I could be like Giorgio, Tonino thought, as he got up from the table. I suppose what I should have to do is to find the words to the Angel. He went to school without seeing anything on the way, wondering how he could manage to do that, when the rest of his family had failed. He was realistic enough to know that he was simply not good enough at spells to make up the words in the ordinary way. It made him sigh heavily.

  “Cheer up,” said Paolo, as they went into school.

  “I’m all right,” Tonino said. He was surprised Paolo should think he was miserable. He was not miserable at all. He was wrapped in delightful dreams. Maybe I can do it by accident, he thought.

  He sat in class composing strings of gibberish to the tune of the Angel, in hopes that some of it might be right. But that did not seem satisfactory, somehow. Then, in a lesson that was probably History—for he did not hear a word of it—it struck him, like a blinding light, what he had to do. He had to find the words, of course. The First Duke must have had them written down somewhere and lost the paper. Tonino was the boy whose mission it was to discover that lost paper. No nonsense about making up words, just straight detective work. And Tonino was positive that the book had been a clue. He must find a peeling blue house, and the paper with the words on would be somewhere near.

  “Tonino,” asked the teacher, for the fourth time, “where did Marco Polo journey to?”

  Tonino did not hear the question, but he realized he was being asked something. “The Angel of Caprona,” he said.

  Nobody at school got much sense out of Tonino that day. He was full of the wonder of his discovery. It did not occur to him that Uncle Umberto had looked in every piece of writing in the University Library, and not found the words to the Angel. Tonino knew.

  After school, he avoided Paolo and his cousins. As soon as they were safely headed for the Casa Montana, Tonino set off in the opposite direction, towards the docks and quays by the New Bridge.

  An hour later, Rosa said to Paolo, “What’s the matter with Benvenuto? Look at him.”

  Paolo leaned over the gallery rail beside her. Benvenuto, looking surprisingly small and piteous, was running backwards and forwards just inside the gate, mewing frantically. Every so often, as if he was too distracted to know what he was doing, he sat down, shot out a hind leg, and licked it madly. Then he leaped up and ran about again.

  Paolo had never seen Benvenuto behave like this. He called out, “Benvenuto, what’s the matter?”

  Benvenuto swung around, crouching low on the ground, and stared urgently up at him. His eyes were like two yellow beacons of distress. He gave a string of mews, so penetrating and so demanding that Paolo felt his stomach turn uneasily.

  “What is it, Benvenuto?” called Rosa.

  Benvenuto’s tail flapped in exasperation. He gave a great leap and vanished somewhere out of sight. Rosa and Paolo hung by their midriffs over the rail and craned after him.
Benvenuto was now standing on the waterbutt, with his tail slashing. As soon as he knew they could see him, he stared fixedly at them again and uttered a truly appalling noise.

  Wong wong wong wong-wong-wong!

  Paolo and Rosa, without more ado, swung towards the stairs and clattered down them. Benvenuto’s wails had already attracted all the other cats in the Casa. They were running across the yard and dropping from roofs before Paolo and Rosa were halfway down the stairs. They were forced to step carefully to the waterbutt among smooth furry bodies and staring, anxious green or yellow eyes.

  “Mee-ow-ow!” Benvenuto said peremptorily, when they reached him.

  He was thinner and browner than Paolo had ever seen him. There was a new rent in his left ear, and his coat was in ragged spikes. He looked truly wretched. “Mee-ow-ow!” he reiterated, from a wide pink mouth.

  “Something’s wrong,” Paolo said uneasily. “He’s trying to say something.” Guiltily, he wished he had kept his resolution to learn to understand Benvenuto. But when Tonino could do it so easily, it had never been worth the bother. Now here was Benvenuto with an urgent message—perhaps word from Chrestomanci—and he could not understand it. “We’d better get Tonino,” he said.

  Benvenuto’s tail slashed again. “Mee-ow-ow!” he said, with tremendous force and meaning. Around Paolo and Rosa, the pink mouths of all the other cats opened too. “MEE-OW-OW!” It was deafening. Paolo stared helplessly.

  It was Rosa who tumbled to their meaning. “Tonino!” she exclaimed. “They’re saying Tonino! Paolo, where’s Tonino?”

  With a jolt of worry, Paolo realized he had not seen Tonino since breakfast. And as soon as he realized that, Rosa knew it too. And, such was the nature of the Casa Montana, that the alarm was given then and there. Aunt Gina shot out of the kitchen, holding a pair of kitchen tongs in one hand and a ladle in the other. Domenico and Aunt Maria came out of the Saloon, and Elizabeth appeared in the gallery outside the Music Room with the five little cousins. The door of the Scriptorium opened, filled with anxious faces.