The Magicians of Caprona (UK) Read online

  “No,” said Old Niccolo. “Rinaldo, you were wounded—”

  He was interrupted by catcalls from the Petrocchis. “Cowards! We want single combat!”

  Old Niccolo’s muddy face screwed up with anger. “Very well, they shall have their single combat,” he said. “Antonio, I appoint you. Step forward.”

  Paolo felt a gush of pride. So his father was, as he had always thought, the best spell-maker in the Casa Montana. But the pride became mixed with alarm, when Paolo saw the way his mother clutched Antonio’s arm, and the worried, reluctant look on his father’s mud-streaked face.

  “Go on!” Old Niccolo said crossly.

  Slowly, Antonio advanced into the space between the two families, stumbling a little among the loose cobbles. “I’m ready,” he called to the Petrocchis. “Who’s your champion?”

  It was clear that there was some indecision among the Petrocchis. A dismayed voice said, “It’s Antonio!” This was followed by a babble of talk. From the turning of heads and the uncertain heaving about, Paolo thought they were looking for a Petrocchi who was unaccountably missing. But the fuss died away, and Guido Petrocchi himself stepped forward. Paolo could see several Petrocchis looking as alarmed as Elizabeth.

  “I’m ready too,” said Guido, baring his teeth angrily. Since his face was plastered with mud, it made him look quite savage. He was also large and sturdy. He made Antonio look small, gentle and fragile. “And I demand an unlimited contest!” snarled Guido. He seemed even angrier than Old Niccolo.

  “Very well,” Antonio said. There could have been the least shake in his voice. “You’re aware that means a fight to the finish, are you?”

  “Suits me perfectly,” said Guido. He was like a giant saying “Fee-fi-fo-fum”. Paolo was suddenly very frightened.

  It was at this moment that the Ducal Police arrived. They had come in, quietly and cunningly, riding bicycles along the pavements. No one noticed them until the Chief of Police and his lieutenant were standing beside the two champions.

  “Guido Petrocchi and Antonio Montana,” said the lieutenant, “I arrest you—”

  Both champions jumped, and turned to find blue braided uniforms on either side of them.

  “Oh go away,” said Old Niccolo, hastening forward. “What do you have to interfere for?”

  “Yes, go away,” said Guido. “We’re busy.”

  The lieutenant flinched at Guido’s face, but the Chief of Police was a bold and dashing man with a handsome moustache, and he had his reputation to keep up as a bold and dashing man. He bowed to Old Niccolo. “These two are under arrest,” he said. “The rest of you I order to sink your differences and remember there is about to be a war.”

  “We’re at war already,” said Old Niccolo. “Go away.”

  “I regret,” said the Chief of Police, “that that is impossible.”

  “Then don’t say you weren’t warned,” said Guido.

  There was a short burst of song from the adults of both families. Paolo wished he knew that spell. It sounded useful. As soon as it was over, Rinaldo and a swarthy young Petrocchi came over to the two policemen and towed them away backwards. They were as stiff as the tailor’s dummies in the barred windows of Grossi’s. Rinaldo and the other young man laid them against the steps of the Art Gallery and returned each to his family, without looking at one another. As for the rest of the Ducal Police, they seemed to have vanished, bicycles and all.

  “Ready now?” said Guido.

  “Ready,” said Antonio.

  And the single combat commenced.

  Looking back on it afterwards, Paolo realised that it could not have lasted more than three minutes, though it seemed endless at the time. For, in that time, the strength, skill and speed of both champions was tried to the utmost. The first, and probably the longest, part was when the two were testing one another for an opening, and comparatively little seemed to happen. Both stood, leaning slightly forward, muttering, humming, occasionally flicking a hand.

  Paolo stared at his father’s strained face and wondered just what was going on. Then, momentarily, Guido was a man-shaped red-and-white check duster. Someone gasped. But Antonio almost simultaneously became a cardboard man covered with green triangles. Then both flicked back to themselves again.

  The speed of it astounded Paolo. A spell had not only been cast on both sides, but also a counter-spell, and a spell counter to that, all in the time it took someone to gasp. Both combatants were panting and looking warily at each other. It was clear they were very evenly matched.

  Again there was a space when nothing seemed to happen, except a sort of flickering on both sides. Then suddenly Antonio struck, and struck so hard that it was plain he had all the time been building a strong spell, beneath the flicker of trivial spells designed to keep Guido occupied. Guido gave a shout and dissolved into dust, which swept away backwards in a spiral. But, somehow, as he dissolved, he threw his strong spell at Antonio. Antonio broke into a thousand little pieces, like a spilt jigsaw puzzle.

  For an ageless time, the swirl of dust and the pile of broken Antonio hung in mid-air. Both were struggling to stay together and not to patter down on the uprooted cobbles of the Corso. In fact, they were still struggling to make spells too. When, at last, Antonio staggered forward in one piece, holding some kind of red fruit in his right hand, he had barely time to dodge. Guido was a leopard in mid-spring.

  Elizabeth screamed.

  Antonio threw himself to one side, heaved a breath and sang. “Oliphans!” His usually silky voice was rough and ragged, but he hit the right notes. A gigantic elephant, with tusks longer than Paolo was tall, cut off the low sun and shook the Corso as it advanced, ears spread, to trample the attacking leopard. It was hard to believe the great beast was indeed worried, thin Antonio Montana.

  For a shadow of a second, the leopard was Guido Petrocchi, very white in the face and luridly red in the beard, gabbling a frantic song. “Hickory-dickory-muggery-mus!” And he must have hit the right notes too. He seemed to vanish.

  The Montanas were raising a cheer at Guido’s cowardice, when the elephant panicked. Paolo had the merest glimpse of a little tiny mouse scampering aggressively at the great front feet of the elephant, before he was running for his life. The shrill trumpeting of Antonio seemed to tear his ears apart. Behind him, Paolo knew that the elephant was stark, staring mad, trampling this way and that among terrified Montanas. Lucia ran past him, carrying Lena clutched backwards against her front. Paolo grabbed little Bernardo by one arm and ran with him, wincing at the horrible brazen, braying squeal from his father.

  Elephants are afraid of mice, horribly afraid. And there are very few people who can shift shape without taking the nature of the shape they shift to. It seemed that Guido Petrocchi had not only won, but got most of the Montanas trampled to death into the bargain.

  But when Paolo next looked, Elizabeth was standing in the elephant’s path, staring up at its wild little eyes. “Antonio!” she shouted. “Antonio, control yourself!” She looked so tiny and the elephant was coming so fast that Paolo shut his eyes.

  He opened them in time to see the elephant in the act of swinging his mother up on its back. Tears of relief so clouded Paolo’s eyes that he almost failed to see Guido’s next attack. He was simply aware of a shattering noise, a horrible smell, and a sort of moving tower. He saw the elephant swing round, and Elizabeth crouch down on its back. It was now being confronted by a vast iron machine, even larger than itself, throbbing with mechanical power and filling the Corso with nasty blue smoke. This thing ground slowly towards Antonio on huge moving tracks. As it came, a gun in its front swung down to aim between the elephant’s eyes.

  On the spur of the moment, Antonio became another machine. He was in such a hurry, and he knew so little about machines, that it was a very bizarre machine indeed. It was pale duck-egg blue, with enormous rubber wheels. In fact, it was probably made of rubber all through, because the bullet from Guido’s machine bounced off it and crashed into the step
s of the Arsenal. Most people threw themselves flat.

  “Mother’s inside that thing!” Lucia screamed to Paolo, above the noise.

  Paolo realised she must be. Antonio had had no time to put Elizabeth down. And now he was barging recklessly at Guido, bang-bounce, bang-bounce. It must have been horrible for Elizabeth. Luckily, it only lasted a second. Elizabeth and Antonio suddenly appeared in their own shapes, almost under the mighty tracks of the Guido-machine. Elizabeth ran – Paolo had not known she could run so fast – like the wind towards the Arsenal. And it may have been Petrocchi viciousness, or perhaps simple confusion, but the great Guido-tank swung its gun down to point at Elizabeth.

  Antonio called Guido a very bad name, and threw the tomato he still had in his hand. The red fruit hit, and splashed, and ran down the iron side. Paolo was just wondering what use that was, when the tank was not there any more. Nor was Guido. In his place was a giant tomato. It was about the size of a pumpkin. And it simply sat in the road and did not move.

  That was the winning stroke. Paolo could tell it was from the look on Antonio’s face as he walked up to the tomato. Disgusted and weary, Antonio bent down to pick up the tomato. There were scattered groans from the Petrocchis, and cheers, not quite certain and even more scattered, from the Montanas.

  Then somebody cast yet another spell.

  This time, it was a thick wet fog. No doubt, at the beginning, it would not have seemed so terrible, but, after all the rest, just when the fight was over, Paolo felt it was the last straw. All he could see, in front of his eyes, was thick whiteness. After he had taken a breath or so, he was coughing.

  He could hear coughing all round, and far off into the distance, which was the only thing which showed him he was not entirely alone. He turned his head from trying to see who else was coughing, and found he could not see Lucia. Nor could he find Bernardo, and he knew he had been holding Bernardo’s arm a second before. As soon as he realised that, he found he had lost his sense of direction too. He was all alone, coughing and shivering, in cold white emptiness.

  “I am not going to lose my head,” Paolo told himself sternly. “My father didn’t, and so I shan’t. I shall find somewhere to shelter until this beastly spell is over. Then I shall go home. I don’t care if Tonino is still missing—” He stopped then, because a thought came to him, like an astonishing discovery. “We’re never going to find Tonino this way, anyway,” he said. And he knew it was true.

  With his hands stretched out in front of him and his eyes spread very wide in hopes of seeing something – which was unlikely, since they were streaming from the fog, and so was his nose – Paolo coughed and sniffed and shuffled his way forward until his toes came up against stone. Paolo looked down, but he could not see what it was. He tried lifting one foot, with his toes scraping against the obstruction. And, after a few inches, the obstruction stopped and his foot shot forward. It was a ledge, then. Probably the kerb. He had been near the edge of the road when he ran away from the elephant. He got both feet on the kerb and shuffled forward six inches – then he fell upstairs over what seemed to be a body.

  It gave Paolo such a shock that he dared not move at first. But he soon realised the body beneath him was shivering, as he was, and trying to cough and mutter at the same time. “Holy Mary—” Paolo heard, in a hoarse blurred voice. Very puzzled, Paolo put out a careful hand and felt the body. His fingers met cold metal buttons, uniform braid, and, a little above that, a warm face – which gave a croak as Paolo’s cold hand met its mouth – and a large furry moustache beneath the nose.

  Angel of Caprona! Paolo thought. It’s the Chief of Police!

  Paolo got himself to his knees on what must be the steps of the Art Gallery. There was no one around he could ask, but it did not seem fair to leave someone lying helpless in the fog. It was bad enough if you could move. So hoping he was doing the right thing, Paolo knelt and sang, very softly, the most general cancel-spell he could think of. It had no effect on the fog – that was evidently very strong magic – but he heard the Chief of Police roll over on his side and groan. Boots scraped as he tested his legs. “Mamma mia!” Paolo heard him moan.

  He sounded as if he wanted to be alone. Paolo left him and crawled his way up the Gallery steps. He had no idea he had reached the top, until he hit his elbow on a pillar and drove his head into Lucia’s stomach at the same moment. Both of them said some extremely unpleasant things.

  “When you’ve quite finished swearing,” Lucia said at length, “you can get between these pillars with me and keep me warm.” She coughed and shivered. “Isn’t this awful? Who did it?” She coughed again. The fog had made her hoarse.

  “It wasn’t us,” said Paolo. “We’d have known. Ow, my elbow!” He took hold of her for a guide and wedged himself down beside her. He felt better like that.

  “The pigs,” said Lucia. “I call this a mean trick. It’s funny – you spend your life being told what pigs they are, and thinking they can’t be, really. Then you meet them, and they’re worse than you were told. Was it you singing just now?”

  “I fell over the Chief of Police on the steps,” said Paolo.

  Lucia laughed. “I fell over the other one. I sang a cancel-spell too. He was lying on all the corners of the stairs and it must have bruised him all over when I fell on him.”

  “It’s bad enough when you can move,” Paolo agreed. “Like being blind.”

  “Horrible,” said Lucia. “That blind beggar in the Via Sant’ Angelo – I shall give him some money tomorrow.”

  “The one with white eyes?” said Paolo. “Yes, so shall I. And I never want to see another spell.”

  “To tell you the truth,” said Lucia, “I was wishing I dared burn the Library and the Scriptorium down. It came to me like a blinding flash – just before I fell over that policeman – that no amount of spells are going to work on those beastly kidnappers.”

  “That’s just what I thought!” exclaimed Paolo. “I know the only way to find Tonino—”

  “Hang on,” said Lucia. “I think the fog’s getting thinner.”

  She was right. When Paolo leant forward, he could see two dark lumps below, where the Chief of Police and his lieutenant were sitting on the steps with their heads in their hands. He could see quite a stretch of the Corso beyond them – cobbles which were dark and wet-looking, but, to his surprise, neither muddy nor out of place.

  “Someone’s put it all back!” said Lucia.

  The fog thinned further. They could see the glimmering doors of the Arsenal now, and the entire foggy width of the Corso, with every cobblestone back where it should be. Somewhere about the middle of it, Antonio and Guido Petrocchi were standing facing one another.

  “Oh, they’re not going to begin again, are they?” wailed Paolo.

  But, almost at once, Antonio and Guido swung round and walked away from one another.

  “Thank goodness!” said Lucia. She and Paolo turned to one another, smiling with relief.

  Except that it was not Lucia. Paolo found himself staring into a white pointed face, and eyes darker, larger and shrewder than Lucia’s. Surrounding the face were draggled dark red curls. The smile died from the face and horror replaced it as Paolo stared. He felt his own face behaving the same way. He had been huddling up against a Petrocchi! He knew which one, too. It was the elder of the two who had been at the palace. Renata, that was her name. And she knew him too.

  “You’re that blue-eyed Montana boy!” she exclaimed. She made it sound quite disgusting.

  Both of them got up. Renata backed into the pillars, as if she was trying to get inside the stone, and Paolo backed away along the steps.

  “I thought you were my sister Lucia,” he said.

  “I thought you were my cousin Claudio,” Renata retorted.

  Somehow, they both made it sound as if it was the other one’s fault.

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Paolo said angrily. “Blame the person who made the fog, not me. There’s an enemy enchanter.”

&nbs
p; “I know. Chrestomanci said,” said Renata.

  Paolo felt he hated Chrestomanci. He had no business to go and say the same things to the Petrocchis as he said to the Montanas. But he hated the enemy enchanter even more. He had been responsible for the most embarrassing thing which had ever happened to Paolo. Muttering with shame, Paolo turned to run away.

  “No, stop! Wait!” Renata said. She said it so commandingly that Paolo stopped without thinking, and gave Renata time to snatch hold of his arm. Instead of pulling away, Paolo stood quite still and attempted to behave with the dignity becoming to a Montana. He looked at his arm, and at Renata’s hand holding it, as if both had become one composite slimy toad. But Renata hung on. “Look all you like,” she said. “I don’t care. I’m not letting go until you tell me what your family has done with Angelica.”

  “Nothing,” Paolo said contemptuously. “We wouldn’t touch one of you with a barge-pole. What have you lot done with Tonino?”

  An odd little frown wrinkled Renata’s white forehead. “Is that your brother? Is he really missing?”

  “He was sent a book with a calling-spell in it,” said Paolo.

  “A book,” said Renata slowly, “got Angelica too. We only realised when it shrivelled away.”

  She let go of Paolo’s arm. They stared at one another in the blowing remains of the fog.

  “It must be the enemy enchanter,” said Paolo.

  “Trying to take our minds off the war,” said Renata. “Tell your family, won’t you?”

  “If you tell yours,” said Paolo.

  “Of course I will. What do you take me for?” said Renata.

  In spite of everything, Paolo found himself laughing. “I think you’re a Petrocchi!” he said.

  But when Renata began to laugh too, Paolo realised it was too much. He turned to run away, and found himself facing the Chief of Police. The Chief of Police had evidently recovered his dignity. “Now then, you children. Move along,” he said.

  Renata fled, without more ado, red in the face with the shame of being caught talking to a Montana. Paolo hung on. It seemed to him that he ought to report that Tonino was missing.