'None at all,' said Luciano. 'He's like a babe in arms.'

Chapter 8.

A Date with Doctor Death For the next week Matt needed all the stamina his rugby-playing and training gave him. By day he was working hard at school and by night he was a printer's 'devil'. Biagio told him apprentices were called that because of the black smudges that their faces got covered in while they were making ink. He was very relieved that the s.m.u.ts never travelled back with him to his own world; it would have been really hard to explain to his mother why his bedclothes were full of soot.

So far he hadn't been back into the Secret Scriptorium. Constantin had told him that most of his work there happened at night and that was the one time Matt couldn't be there. He wondered if the Professor had forgotten about that when he brought him to Talia. But he had plenty to do during the time he was there and met Luciano and Cesare only at lunch or just before he had to stravagate home.

He was bursting with questions about what he was supposed to be doing in Padavia, more than he had time to ask when he was there and he hadn't met the famous Doctor Dethridge yet. So he sought out the others at Barnsbury more often. And that was problematic too, since Ayesha would only believe he needed to talk to them about university up to a certain point.

'I don't see how Nick can help,' she said. 'He's not even applying till the year after next.'

'No, but he's pretty bright,' said Matt.

'So am I,' she replied tartly, 'but you seem to be spending more time with him than with me.'

'You can't be jealous of Nick,' Matt said, giving her a kiss.

'Don't try and get round me,' said Ayesha, pushing him away.

'I don't go out of my way to see him,' lied Matt. 'But I do need to talk to Georgia and they're never apart.'

'They're a C.O.U.P.L.E.' she spelt out. 'Couples are supposed to spend time together. You should remember that.'

And she had flounced off tossing her black silky hair. Ayesha had never been p.r.o.ne to flouncing and hair-tossing in the past but it was becoming a habit lately.

Georgia, Nick and Sky were all eager to hear every detail of his visits to Talia and there was no way he could talk to them in front of Ayesha, or Chay, come to that. The day after his third stravagation was Sat.u.r.day and he arranged to meet them again in

'You saw Cesare?' Georgia had exclaimed and Nick was no less keen to hear about the Remoran. Although Sky said he had never met him, he listened almost as intently. Only Alice seemed bored; she was beginning to wish that she hadn't come.

'It's weird to think of him and Luciano being university students together,' said Georgia.

'I don't think either of them is studying for a full degree,' said Matt. 'They said something about doing a year each.'

Nick was nodding. 'That's right. You only do a degree in Talia if you want to teach. If you are a n.o.bleman, you go to university for a year or so to, well, to cultivate your mind.'

'But Cesare's not a n.o.bleman, is he?' asked Sky. 'I thought he was a stable-boy.'

'But not just any stable-boy,' said Georgia. 'He's the best horseman of his age in Remora and remember his father is a Stravagante.'

'He said to tell you he's using your silver for his fees,' said Matt. 'Whatever that means.'

Georgia and Nick looked at each other. Nick hadn't been there the day she had won the Stellata horse race but he knew about it and how Arianna had given her a bag of silver as a reward. Georgia hadn't been able to bring it back to her world Stravaganti were forbidden to take anything between worlds, except talismans and so she had given it to Cesare.

'I'm glad,' she said at last, with a sigh. 'I'd love to see him again.'

'Are you all definitely not going back?' Matt asked.

'I'm not,' said Sky, squeezing Alice's hand. 'I couldn't stand a year of doing A levels and stravagating at night. And after that I'm off to the States.'

Nick said nothing.

Georgia said, 'We wouldn't be in the same city as you anyway. My talisman takes me to Remora and Nick's to Giglia. I don't think we could get to Padavia and back within a day.'

'Why do you think I've been sent there?' asked Matt. 'You all seem to have had a reason to go to your cities and something dramatic to do. I don't understand why I just have to work in a dirty, noisy print room all day.'

'No one ever knows why they've been chosen to stravagate,' said Nick, even though he was the only one of them who hadn't been. 'And even when they think they know, they're often wrong.'

'You just have to hang in there and wait and see what happens,' said Georgia. 'And when it does,' she added, pulling a face, 'you may wish you were still making ink.'

William Dethridge was staying with Luciano while he gave his lectures at the University. He was enormously popular with the students and they came even if they were not studying Astronomy. Students of Law, Medicine and Theology all turned up, as well as the young men studying Rhetoric and Logic. By the second lecture, there were students standing at the back of the hall and queuing up outside to hear what he was saying.

'The fixed and the moving stars' was his subject.

Luciano waited for his foster-father after the lecture.

'You were brilliant,' he said, giving the Elizabethan a hug.

'Thanke ye,' said Dethridge, giving him a shrewd look. 'Yt was notte true, of course.'

'What!' said Luciano.

His foster-father took him by the arm and walked him to the Black Horse, buying two tankards of ale for them before saying any more.

'I've seene how ye looke at me,' said Dethridge. 'Whenne I talk about the universe. I'm notte a foole. Ye come from four hundrede yeres and more in the future. Yf thatte I thynke back to what was knowne four hundred yeres past and now, I onderstonde thatte ye moste know more than I do about the motioun of the planets.'

'I'm no astronomer,' said Luciano, stalling. 'Science wasn't my best subject at school.'

Dethridge fixed him with his blue stare.

'Do not dissemble with me, sonne,' he said. 'Ye knowe whatte I cannot theories thatte have bene tested with instruments from youre twenty-first centurie. Yt most be knowne by eche and every childe thatte goes to school. But ye cannot tell mee.'

'Can I really not?' asked Luciano. 'Knowledge isn't like an object, is it? It's not like taking Talian gold back to our world or bringing medicine from our old world to this.'

'No,' agreed Dethridge, suddenly looking his age. 'Bot yt is still not allowed. Eche centurie moste discover the secrets of the universe for ytselfe.'

Luciano felt a sort of relief. He was so glad he didn't have to explain to his foster-father that men would walk on the moon in the twentieth century.

'Bot I shalle telle ye what I thynke,' said Dethridge. 'There's no need to saye yf I am righte or wronge.'

He lowered his voice. 'Yt has been a theorie for many years that we are notte the centre of the worlde. The grete starre thatte is our sunne is atte the myddel; every thynge else travels arounde yt. And the moone travels around us. Everything ordered in the grete dance of the spheres. Bot to saye yt or believe yt is a heresie thatte the Church wille not permit.'

Luciano looked at him astonished. Dethridge nodded.

'Constantine knows yt,' he said. 'Whatte do ye thinke he printes in thatte Secret Scriptorium of his?'

'I thought it was spells and things,' said Luciano.

'All secrets are the same,' said Dethridge. 'A secret is joste somme thynge that is not yet knowne to al. Bot the Chymists have set their face against lerning. Instede they want to fix al knowledge atte the poynte yt is now and controlle yt through the Talian Church. So Constantine moste do his werke hugger-mugger.'

'You're thinking about these new laws that Antonio has pa.s.sed?' asked Luciano.

'Do ye knowe who was in this citee less thanne a weke ago?' asked Dethridge, without waiting for an answer. 'Thatte Ronald the Chymist.'

Luciano looked blank.

'Ye remembire thatte emissarie from Remora, who captured ye Duke Nicholas's cozin?'

Luciano was surprised; they never talked about what had led to his permanent translation to Talia but there was no doubt that Rinaldo di Chimici had been responsible, when he kidnapped him and kept him away from his talisman for so long.

'Rinaldo di Chimici was here?' he asked.

'Here, and talked Messer Antony into adopting the newe lawes the Grand Duke Fabrice has introduced in Tuschia,' said Dethridge.

'The laws against magic,' said Luciano slowly.

'On penaltee of dethe,' said Dethridge. 'Ye remembire thatte I have escaped thatte judgemente once bifore.'

They were both silent for a moment.

'So ye see,' he continued. 'Yt is beste for us if ye nevire telle me whatte ye knowe about the worlde from your olde lyfe. Yt wolde putte us bothe in daungere.'

The first Sat.u.r.day that Matt had pa.s.sed in Talia, the day after the Sat.u.r.day in his own world, a lot of which he had spent sleeping, he was frustrated to discover that he still had to work in the Scriptorium; Talia obviously hadn't heard of weekends. Constantin explained to him that he would have Sundays free.

'Big deal,' murmured Matt.

'And all the major saints' days,' added Constantin. 'We have a lot in Talia. Next Tuesday, for example, is the Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist and the Scriptorium will be closed.'

'Good,' said Matt. 'I'll get the day off.'

'But you will still stravagate?' asked Constantin.

And he did. He needed to know more about this strange world that only some chosen people could visit and to find out what on earth his task there could be. He had discovered that throughout Talia, Padavia was known as 'The City of Words', just as Bellezza was 'The City of Masks' and Remora, 'The City of Stars. But as far as he could tell, it should really be called 'City of Secrets'.

He spent that free Tuesday wandering the streets of the city with Luciano and Cesare, who had for once left their horses at home.

'I can't understand why you guys ride everywhere,' he said. 'It's not such a big city you can walk to anywhere you need to go.'

'Luciano needs the practice,' said Cesare. 'They have no horses in Bellezza.'

'It's not like using an SUV to go to the local shop,' said Luciano, smiling.

Matt realised he had been thinking something like that.

'The horse needs the exercise as much as I need the practice,' Luciano went on. 'And a horse doesn't contribute to global warming its fuel is organic.'

'I have no idea what you two are talking about,' said Cesare. 'What's an "essyuvee"? Is it another kind of animal?'

Matt laughed. 'You don't want to know.' He couldn't imagine what Cesare would make of life in twenty-first century London. He was finding it hard enough to adjust to the cobbled streets of Padavia where all the students carried daggers or arquebuses.

'Do you think it would be harder for a Talian to go to your world then?' asked Luciano, reading his thoughts. 'Falco seems to have adapted all right.'

'Yeah, I reckon it would,' said Matt. 'Life's just so much louder. And faster. Anyway, Nick told me he was terrified of traffic when he first came.'

'I can't imagine what your world must be like,' said Cesare. 'Luciano has tried to explain it to me but it's just too different.'

'The basic things haven't changed though,' said Luciano. 'Love, death, that sort of thing. They're always the same.'

'That's why we've enrolled at the School of Fencing as well as the School of Riding,' said Cesare.

And Matt knew he wasn't talking about falling in love.

Messer Antonio was not the sort of man to be intimidated by n.o.bles but he had listened more carefully to Cardinal di Chimici's emba.s.sy than to the earlier request to hand over Luciano to Giglian justice. And he had his reasons.

Although he was a good friend to Bellezza, he had long distrusted the G.o.ddess religion which had spread from the lagoon to most of Talia. Antonio was a man of reason and he disliked anything that hinted at superst.i.tion. The Church was a different matter. This was the late sixteenth century and a rationalist couldn't just come out and say he didn't believe in G.o.d. So Antonio had compromised and taken the line that the safest set of beliefs was that contained within the Talian Church.

Rinaldo had been speaking with the blessing of the Pope, who was also a di Chimici, and Antonio had taken notice. He read through the Grand Duke's edicts against magic and all occult practices and, with a few minor modifications, had swiftly got them pa.s.sed as Padavian laws.

And then he braced himself for his wife's reaction. Signora Giunta was a Bellezzan born and bred and though she went to church every Sunday, she also kept a little shrine to the G.o.ddess in her bedroom, decked with cheap gold trinkets, ribbons and flowers that were changed every day. In all their married life together, Antonio had not been able to persuade her that this was not seemly for the wife of the Governor of one of Talia's twelve powerful city-states.

The night that he signed the laws 'contra goetiam' (or 'against black magic'), Antonio went home with dread in his heart. As always, his four daughters ran to meet him and smother him with kisses. Giunta presided over a very good dinner table and when the children had gone to bed Antonio sighed as he lingered over his coffee, not wanting to dispel the feeling of well-being his food had given him.

'Giunta, my dear,' he said at last. 'There is something I must tell you. The Council today pa.s.sed laws that will affect you.'

'Me?' said Giunta, puzzled, settling down with her lace-cushion, her fingers flying over the delicate work. 'How could your laws affect me?'

Antonio cleared his throat. 'They are laws against magic.'

'Magic? What has that got to do with me?' asked Giunta, her fingers stilling. 'Do you take me for a witch?'

But she was smiling and Antonio wished he didn't have to continue.

'It's serious, my dear,' he said. 'Magic is going to cover all superst.i.tious and occult practices including any observance of well of the old religion.'

There was a long silence. Giunta had resumed her lace-making but her full mouth was set in a determined line.

'You understand?'

'Oh yes, I understand,' said Giunta.