The day chosen was known to be auspicious. From early the bands and companies paraded through the streets to the main square. Each guild and family represented, splendid in their livery, waving and hurling banners high into the air. Young girls came dancing after them, strewing flowers, so the couples would walk over a thick, soft carpet and sweet scents would waft up with every step they took on their way to the cathedral.

Orsin and Sebastian were crowned with flowers, their white satin suits all embroidered with gold and silver and worked with precious stones so that they glittered in the sunlight like princes from fairyland. Their brides walked beside them, arm in arm, one dark, one fair. Viola in the palest rose; my lady in the soft grey-green of oleander leaves. Their bodices were all embroidered with tiny seed pearls that I'd selected and sewn myself. Their veils were so fine that they were worked with needles as thin as hairs and single threads of silk. The delicate lawn floated before their faces like breath on a frosty day.

The cathedral was packed with guests from every neighbouring state and further, from Venice and Sicily, Tunis and Tripoli, from the Sultan's court at Constantinople, all there to celebrate this blessed day. The couples came in to fanfares of trumpets. Choirs sang as they approached the High Altar to make their vows of love and obedience before our most holy relic.

Afterwards they stood on the steps of the cathedral, smiling and blinking in the strong sunlight. The grooms kissed their brides and the people all cheered and threw their caps in the air. As the couples returned to the Duke's palace, roses rained down from every window until their shoulders were covered in petals of scarlet and white. The feasting and celebrations went on for the rest of the day and into the night. Not just in the palace, but all over the city, in each district, tables were set up in the streets, and the squares were filled with singing and dancing.

The couples were taken separately to their marriage beds, as was the custom. The men carried shoulder high, accompanied by bawdy songs and raucous laughter, wreathed in herbs known to heat the blood and sustain performance. The women wore garlands of crane's bill, lavender, lady's mantle, wheat and yarrow, to awaken their pa.s.sion and increase fertility. They were led to their bridal chambers by their ladies, who were hardly quieter than the men, quite as ribald and no less excited.

Once the couples were put to bed, the celebrations continued far into the night. The next day the bridal gowns were inspected, according to ancient tradition. Guns were fired to show that the marriages had been successfully consummated. The festivities went on until all but the hardiest had sunk from exhaustion. It was a wonderful time, full of song and laughter, each detail to be salted away, to be kept in the memory. The guests departed, wis.h.i.+ng the couples health and happiness. No one bothered much about who was absent, or stopped to think what trouble they would cause in the future.

When I think of that time, it is always summer and we're at the summer palace. Duke Orsin had it built as a wedding gift to his wife. He chose the site with such care. He loved her then. The house is on a terrace overlooking a wide, curving bay of white sand, surrounded on three sides by dense dark groves of cypress and pine. He was not the first to build there. When the workmen began to clear the ground, they found broken pillars, pieces of statues, blocks of marble. The remains of some ancient villa. The Duke sent for the very best architects, builders and craftsmen from Rome, Siena, Florence, Urbino and Ravenna, to build his own house by the sea.

The palace became a place of wonder. The Duke spared no expense. There were airy rooms with frescoed walls and mosaics set into marble floors. At the centre he made a paved courtyard shaded with orange and lemon trees, cooled by fountains. A wide terrace faced the sea, and gardens, each different from the others, descended to the sh.o.r.e with ruined arches and hidden secret places: little grottoes made from the fallen masonry and broken columns saved from the ancient site or dredged up from the sea.

Although Duke Orsin had built the summer palace for his new bride, he didn't spend much time there, staying in the town even in the hottest weather. He had matters of state to attend to, he said, fleets of s.h.i.+ps coming in and going out. When he was not attending to such matters, he was in his library, overseeing the scriptorium that he had established, working with the scholars he had gathered. On the hottest days of the year he might ride out as the day cooled to evening, to eat supper, drink wine on the terrace and listen to music made by his wife and her ladies, but the summer palace became Lady Viola's domain. She loved to be by the sea and hated the heat and stench of the summer city.

Viola soon had her own court. She gathered ladies around her: young women from the city's leading families, daughters of the local n.o.bility. Lady Olivia spent all her time there, and I with her. The days went by in idleness: singing, playing music, reciting poetry. When the day grew hot, they would swim in the sea. Any man found spying would be likely to suffer the fate of Actaeon. My Lady Olivia and Viola were as close as sisters, closer. They were always together, from when they took breakfast on the balcony overlooking the sea to when they retired at night. They lived in each other's eyes and could not bear to be separated for even a day.

When the year turned, the summer palace was shut up and Lady Viola returned to Illyria town and became the d.u.c.h.essa. She charmed the court, bringing the light and laughter of summer back with her to the ducal palace. The Duke seemed lost in his admiration of her all over again, her wit and her brilliance. When she came into the room, every head turned towards her, and everyone wanted to be rewarded by the flash of her smile.

In Illyria, the winter festivities were always a time of great celebration, with feasting, dancing, plays and masques every day from Advent to Twelfth Night, but that first midwinter was especially blessed: Viola gave birth to a daughter, Olivia to a son, Stephano, born within hours of each other on the Feast of St Stephen. Outside, snow was falling. It covered the earth in a mantle as a soft and white as a christening gown.

VIOLETTA.

In my earliest memories I am always at the summer palace. That was the time I was closest to my mother. She liked to walk by the sh.o.r.e in the early morning, and I would go with her. I would wake early, listen for her footfall and follow. It was likely to be the only time I would be alone with her that day. She would take my hand and we would cross the wide terrace and thread our way down through the gardens while the dew was still wet. As we walked, we met statues of fauns and maidens, suddenly looming out of the mist, looking secretive and furtive, as if the rising sun had surprised them in the middle of some forbidden frolic.

The garden slopes were all in shadow and the beach was pale in the dawn light, with little waves crisping along its margins, the sand cold underfoot. The sea beyond looked greyish purple, like wine spilt on pewter. Then the sun would emerge over the rim of the hills behind and touch the water, like a molten river of gold stretching out to the horizon. My mother would loose her gown and plunge in, leaving me to watch from the sh.o.r.e. Sometimes she would take me with her. I could swim before I could walk. Then I would take her hand and we would wander barefoot as the incoming tide sewed the sand with silver. We would pick up pebbles bright from the water, collect delicately whorled sh.e.l.ls, fine-fingered starfish, fragile purple and green urchins. Then we would go back. She would return to Lady Olivia. I would hear them conversing in low voices and laughing while I added our finds to my collection. Stephano would come out yawning, rubbing his eyes with his fists. I would show him the things that I had collected with my mother and we would arrange them together.

Everyone said that he was as good-natured as he was handsome, with his mother's mild grey eyes and her fair hair, his short-cropped curls as s.h.i.+ny in the sun as a heap of gold coins. I was older by all of an hour and thought that gave me precedence. Stephano never argued. He was happy to follow my lead in the games we played. The garden was our outdoor palace, the rocks on the beach were our fleet, the forest was our terra incognita, to be explored and conquered. Through all our adventures, Stephano was my friend and my companion and we were constantly in each other's company.

He was sharp-eyed, good at finding things: tesserae from some long-crumbled mosaic floor, bits of pottery, coins scoured by the sand and worn smooth by the sea.

One day, when we were five or six years old, he found a gold ring on one of the terraces in the shape of a snake, with an eye made from a tiny red stone. He picked it up and took it to my mother and Lady Olivia, thinking one of the ladies might have lost it. No, the ladies shook their heads, it was none of theirs; it was his to keep.

*Give it to the one you love,' my mother said, thinking that he would give it to Olivia.

He turned and gave it to me. It was ancient, I could see that. The ruby eye was bright, but the finely etched scales were hardly visible, the gold worn thin on a hand long turned to bone and dust.

*It is too big for her!' his mother said, laughing.

Stephano looked up at her, his expression grave and solemn. *One day it won't be.' He took my hand in his. *Then we shall be married.'

Our mothers and their ladies rocked with laughter and then clapped their hands and cried, *Blessed be!' We were meant for each other. When we grew up, we would be married. It was our destiny.

MARIA.

There were things a child could not know. With Viola spending so much time at the summer palace, rumours grew. Some whispered that the Duke had lost interest, preferring his books to his young wife, and she, in turn, had lost interest in him.

They also whispered about Lord Sebastian: that he resented his sister, that he was jealous of her. He was Count Sebastian, but she was d.u.c.h.essa. Not only that, but he had lost his wife to her. Olivia might have married him, but there was no doubt which twin she preferred. It was as though she'd made her vows to the sister, not the brother, they said as they laughed behind their hands, but no one said such things in his hearing. He had a violent temper on him and was always ready to draw steel.

Who knows what goes on in men's minds? Who knows what causes a canker to root there and grow to bitter hatred? Lord Sebastian attracted followers, young men who found the Duke's court as dull and boring as the dusty old books in his library. Without my lady there, her palace became more like a barracks. My Toby was supposed to keep an eye on things, but you might as well have set a sot to oversee a brew house. The men spent their days hunting in the forest, or hawking in the hills. They spent their nights getting drunk. When they weren't out hunting, the Count's men swaggered around town, dressed in his black-and-white livery, causing trouble. They often clashed with the Duke's men, and over time the two groups became sworn enemies. The young men of both courts wandered the town, seeking each other out, swapping slights and insults. Fights were frequent and often b.l.o.o.d.y. What began with single fights and skirmishes ended up in pitched battles. The followers were acting out their masters' rivalry. However much Count Sebastian might crow over siring a boy, while the Duke could only manage a girl, he bitterly resented the power that Orsin held over him.

About this time, the fortunes of our country began to decline. Illyria had always been rich and prosperous, had rarely known want, but her prosperity came from the sea. There were bad trading seasons. s.h.i.+ps were lost: argosies failed to return, or never arrived at their destination. The Duke took each loss upon himself. It was not the money or the goods. The sailors were men from the port, or the islands offsh.o.r.e, or the villages along the coast. A s.h.i.+p going down meant widows, fatherless children. The Duke grew thin and haggard busying himself to make sure that each family was provided for, the losses covered, and that there was enough food for his people.

Lord Sebastian was often absent abroad. It was said that he had grown bored with life in Illyria and was seeking excitement in Italy and Spain. Like his sister, he loved the sea and he loved adventure. The ills of the country began with his travels. He was seen in Venice, on the Rialto and at the Doge's palace. His friend Antonio was banned from the city, but they were seen together in different ports. Antonio was an Uskok, a pirate, with a particular hatred for the Duke, and Venice had long been Illyria's enemy.

None of this happened in the time it takes for night to turn to day. It takes months, years, from the day the s.h.i.+ps leave port to when they return, or are never seen again. Life went on, much the same as ever . . .

VIOLETTA.

. . . Until the year when I was ten years old and everything changed. At the end of each summer, the palace was closed up and we went back to the city. I saw less of Stephano during the winter, but that year he did not appear at the summer palace at all.

*Sebastian has claimed him,' Lady Olivia said. *Made him his page. He wants to make a man of him.' She laughed, but there were tears in her eyes as she said it.

I missed him sorely, but I hid my sorrow in the way that children do. I always had Feste to teach me new tricks and laugh me out of my misery. He's no child, but he can enter into a child's world. He can be savage and kind by turns, as children are; he sees with a child's clear and pitiless eye. He spies what lies beneath surface appearances and will punish pretension and hypocrisy with merciless mockery.

He went where he wanted, but he was the Lady Olivia's Fool, so came with her to the summer palace. He taught me to juggle and tumble, to walk a rope without falling and do magic tricks. He taught me how to whistle like a bird, hoot like an owl, how to make all manner of noises and sounds and use them for mischief and trickery.

Feste's lessons were useful to me as a currency with the boys who had been sent by their families to my father's court. In the winter months I took lessons with them. My father believed that girls should be educated like boys, and was happy to find that I had a quick mind and an apt.i.tude for learning. I counted the boys my friends and became an honorary page. Feste had shown me the value of duplicity. I created pockets of freedom within my life as the Duke's daughter. The palace was very large. Often no one knew where I was, or who was supposed to be looking after me; by telling one person one thing and something else to another, it was easy for me to pa.s.s under everybody's notice.

My favourite among the pages was Guido, the son of an Italian duke. He was small, with a ma.s.s of curly brown hair springing out from under his blue-and-red cap. He was a handsome boy, with clear olive skin spattered with freckles, and large green eyes flecked with black. His friends called him Gatto, Italian for cat. He could usually smile and talk his way out of anything, no matter how stern the master, or how serious the sc.r.a.pe. He was wild and mischievous and now that Stephano had gone from my life, he was the perfect subst.i.tute. I taught him tricks, swearing him to secrecy. If Feste found out, he would be furious. A Fool does not divulge his secrets, and I was the Fool's Girl. We would outdo each other in feats of daring: walking along the battlements and roof ridges, mounting raids deep into Count Sebastian's territory, south of the Stradun, the wide thoroughfare that divides the city. We would go there to steal peaches, shout insults, steal buckets of blue wash to daub the Duke's colours and his motto on their walls.

It was the end of August. I'd come back early from the summer palace. I'd missed Stephano. Without him there, I was expected to join the ladies. I was ten and no longer a child. I felt the adult world close in on me: sewing and poetry. I could not wait to get back to the city to be free.

When Guido suggested we went on a raid, I was more than willing. We collected a bucket of blue wash from outside a house that was being painted and set off through the twisting narrow alleys, steep flights of steps and hidden squares that make up Illyria town. We were safe enough in our territory, but more cautious after we crossed the Stradun. The alleyways often lead nowhere, or turn in on one another like a maze. It is easy to get lost in an unfamiliar district, possible to turn a sudden corner and be face to face with an enemy without any warning, avenues of escape limited, or absent.

The noise from the Stradun should have warned us, but we paid it no attention. We were right up the other end, and fights were always breaking out down by the market. Insults and name calling easily turned into scuffles and the flash of steel with stalls overturned, the fruit and vegetables used as missiles or crushed underfoot in the melee. We heard the shouts, the city guard running to sort it out, but we thought that we would be safe.

*This'll do.' Guido stopped in front of a high wall. He looked up at the expanse of cream stucco, as a painter might eye a canvas. *I'll get started. You stand lookout.'

He dipped his brush and daubed VV, short for Veritas Vincit, my father's motto. He was just finis.h.i.+ng the open triangle with a bar across the top, which had come to mean my father's insignia, the eagle, when I heard men coming up the steps. Not just one or two, but a lot of them. I went to look. There must have been ten, walking five abreast, blocking the steps. They were talking loud, laughing and bragging, as men do when they have been fighting. Their black-and-white tunics and hose were torn; one or two were b.l.o.o.d.y.

*Count's men, Guido! Quick!'

I was already running. I expected Guido to follow me, but when I looked back he was standing at the top of the steps, laughing, with the bucket in his hand. He'd thrown the paint all over them. I heard their roar of fury, the stamping of their boots as they took the steps two at a time to get him. He hurled the bucket for good measure and took off into a tangle of little alleys that led up to the walls. This part of the town had been abandoned, the houses tumbled in an earthquake. There were plenty of hiding places in the ruins and overgrown gardens, so I wasn't worried; besides, I had problems of my own. One of the Count's men was following me, running swiftly and gaining. He was shouting my name. He'd recognised me. That made me run even faster. I didn't stop to think how he knew me; I was in trouble enough. I hitched up my dress, but the skirts twisted and tangled round my legs. He would outrun me for sure.

He caught me at the top of the steps that led down to the gates, where I knew I would be safe, grabbing me from behind and pulling me back. I had no weapon, but I thought I could take him. He was a page, not much bigger than me. Feste had taught me how to fight, and fight dirty. I kicked back and felt my heel connect with bone, then I jabbed him in the midriff. As he doubled over, I planned to grab him and pitch him down the steps. I caught hold of his collar, twisting so he couldn't breathe, and got ready to push and kick him on his way.

*Violetta!' He wriggled to get free of my grip. *It's me!'

I let go of him then, looking down the long, steep flight of stone steps. He could have broken his neck. I could have broken his neck. It was Stephano. I hardly recognised him. I hadn't seen him for a year and more and he looked different. Older. I'd never seen him in his father's black-and-white livery before.

*We have to go after the boy who was with you,' he said.

*Guido? He can look after himself.'

*My father's men a" they took a licking on the Stradun. They will be after blood.'

*There's plenty of places to hide up there,' I said. *He'll be all right.'

*You don't understand!' He looked around. *My father has had the buildings blocked up to keep out beggars and people living there without a permit. The alleys lead nowhere a" they are just dead ends.'

We found him in a small square surrounded by tall tenements, their doors blocked with stone, their windows roughly bricked up. He was propped against a well surrounded by the Count's men, their black-and-white livery flecked with blue splashes. They were taking their time with him. His mouth was swollen. Blood glistened on his hair and ran in a thick streak down his face, dripping on to his tunic. The fun was nearly over. One of them drew his stiletto. Another was easing his sword from his scabbard. Guido was looking up at them, death in his eyes. The Cat's luck had run out. He'd used up all his lives.

Stephano started forward, dagger drawn. He would likely be thrown aside by his father's men, but he would not stand by and watch Guido butchered.

A sudden shout of command held his step. The Count's men turned, disconcerted, as the first shout was answered by another. Then came the tramp of marching feet, the sound of men approaching the square from all directions. The Count's men stepped back from their quarry. Their leader reached down, his stiletto angled for a quick thrust up into the chest, ready to gut the boy like a fish, but a loud command stayed his hand. He turned. The rest of the square was deserted. The shouting seemed to come from nowhere. The marching feet were getting closer. New orders rang out, although there was no one to be seen. The Count's men crouched, swords drawn, standing back to back, ready to strike out. The echoing shouts became too much. It was as though an invisible army of ghosts and spirits was coming for them. They turned tail and ran.

I looked about, trying to work out what had happened, and then I saw Feste, seated cross-legged on the bal.u.s.trade of a balcony, wiping the tears from his eyes. When I looked again, he had gone.

I saw him. *Here. Through here.' Feste was pus.h.i.+ng loose bricks from a window. He beckoned to us.

We carried Guido between us, and Feste took us through the ruined house and out into a garden hard against the city wall. The garden was cultivated, with fig trees, orange trees, flowers and herbs. Broken steps led to a little door that opened directly into the wall.

We followed a winding staircase up to a long, narrow room. On one side, pointed windows opened on to the sea; on the other, they showed a jostling tide of terracotta roofs. Swallows and swifts flew in and out, swooping up to nests high in the rafters. The room was loud with their shrilling and chirruping. I looked about in wonder. There were birds perched about everywhere: some drab little sparrows, others far more exotic with bright plumage. Not all of them were real. Some were carved from wood, cloaked in feathers and painted in artful imitation of their living counterparts. The room was full of carvings: birds, animals, human figures. Puppets hung by their strings from the rafters. Saints and angels, devils and Madonnas stood grouped in corners as though whispering one to another.

Richly patterned fabrics covered the rough stone walls. A loom stood at one end, and from a corner came the sound of a spinning wheel. The spinner looked up as we stumbled into the room.

*We need your help, Mother,' Feste called.

She stilled the wheel, taking care not to break the thread, and came towards us. She was dressed like one of the wandering people, or those who came from the East: her headscarf fringed with little copper discs, the bodice of her red-and-purple dress heavy with rows of silver coins. As she walked the coins jingled together, and I had to plait my fingers behind my back to fight the temptation to cross myself. I knew her by reputation. Her name was Marijita and she was vjestica, a witch.

She smiled, as if she knew what I was thinking.

*Don't believe all you hear, my pretty.'

Feste called her *mother', but there was no look of him about her. She was tall, her dark face lined, especially about the eyes, which sparked as dark and bright as those of the hoopoe that perched on her shoulder, its feathered crest erect, its orange head turned at the same angle as hers. Some whispered that her birds were so tame that they had to be the captured spirits of her enemies. She uttered a light trilling sound and the bird flew up to perch on a rafter, where it continued to stare down at us with beady black eyes.

*Like I say,' she said, looking at me, *don't believe everything you hear.'

I began to introduce myself and her laughter chimed like the coins she wore.

*I know who you are, little d.u.c.h.essa. Does your father know you are here? Your mother?' The gleam in her eye grew needle sharp. *Do they care?' She took my chin in a firm grip. *You look like her. Lady Viola a" she's a strange one. From the sea she came, and the sea will claim her. And what about your father?' She pinched my cheeks harder. *I don't see much of him about you.'

Bunches of herbs hung down from the beams along with other things: dried and scaly, dark and leathery, the desiccated remains of snakes and lizards, toads, frogs and bats' wings. Many came to her for charms, to ward off the evil eye, to guard against the sprites and spirits that haunt graveyards and deserted places, gather at crossroads, lurk under gateways or hover close to running water. Illyrians are a credulous people, ready to see malevolence everywhere, but she was no ordinary market charm seller or fortune-teller. My mother had never been to her, as far as I knew, but other ladies consulted her, including the Lady Olivia, who was of the country and as superst.i.tious as any. Even my father sometimes summoned Marijita to find out which days were auspicious. My people keep the feast days and go to church on Sunday, but they are ever mindful of other forces at work around them and she was a mistress of that invisible world.

*Let me see that wound.' She examined the gash on Guido's head, gently probing with her long, thin fingers. *Looks worse than it is. Boys have thick skulls. You, Count's boy, fetch me some water.'

Stephano filled a basin while she went to a long cupboard set against the far wall. The shelves were crammed with different-coloured bottles and pottery jars. She took what she wanted and came back to Guido. She washed his face and swabbed at his matted hair, parting it carefully to find the long, jagged cut still oozing blood on his white scalp. She dabbed the wound with sharp-smelling liquid that made him wince. Then she threaded a needle and Guido did his best not to flinch as she held the edges of the gash together and sewed it as neatly as she would sew a seam.

*There!' She stood back to admire her handiwork. *That will heal clean and leave no scar.'

Feste leaned against a bench covered in carvings at different stages of completion. He whistled softly to himself and whittled away at a piece of wood, while above our heads the swallows whirled about like birds on a child's stick.

*Feste, stop whistling at my birds. You are confusing them.'

While she tended Guido I stood by the window, looking at a stone set on the sill: a milky white moonstone about as big as a man's fist. I found my eyes drawn to it, to the different hues of violet and blue playing across its s.h.i.+ning surface. This was the seeing stone that she used to tell the ladies' fortunes. It was like looking up into the sky on a cloudy day. I began to see shapes there, and then something else in its depths: little dancing spots like agitated grains of sand. It was like being in that state between waking and dreaming when fancies take form. The spots began to come together and turn themselves into a fleet of tiny s.h.i.+ps. I blinked, thinking it was a trick of the light, that an image had been captured from outside, like the pictures cast on to the wall in Father's dark chamber, his camera obscura. I looked out of the window. The s.h.i.+ps moving across the sea below were small carracks, coastal craft, nothing like the long war galleys that I had seen in the stone.

When I looked back, the stone was opaque. I could see nothing beneath the s.h.i.+ning surface.

*My shewstone.' Marijita held the stone cradled in her two hands. *Before you came, I had a reading. I put the stone there for the sun to burn away any lingering darkness. You saw something.'

It was not a question and she did not need me to confirm it. She knew. Her hand went to the charm she wore round her neck, a cimaruta, an amulet, made in the shape of a branching sprig of rue and hung with tiny charms: a key, the moon and a serpent. I'd seen them before; many women wore them who held to the Old Belief. The charms represented the G.o.ddess in her triple form: the key of Hecate, the moon of Diana, the serpent of Persephone.

*Is it finished, Mother?' Feste asked. He had left off whistling and was inspecting her carvings, as though looking for something.

*Not yet,' she replied. *You must be patient.'

She drew a cloth from the piece she had been working on, exposing it to Feste's scrutiny. I had no idea what it could be. It looked just like a lump of wood to me.

Guido had recovered enough to wander over to where a sword hung on the wall. It was a Turkish yataghan, a fine weapon, with a hilt of mother-of-pearl and verses in silver and gold laid along its slender, curving blade.

*Sharp enough for a man to shave himself,' she said, as Guido tested the blade with his thumb. *When you have a beard to cut, perhaps it will be yours.'

She turned to where Stephano stood admiring a vest of chain mail covered in beaten silver discs which s.h.i.+mmered like fish scales.

*Fine work.' Her fingers fluttered over the s.h.i.+ning surface. *It is said to have been worn by great Saladin himself and to have been blessed by the Prophet Mohammed, may peace be upon him. It is covered with verses from the Holy Qur'an.' Although the majority wors.h.i.+p Christ, there are those in Illyria who follow different faiths. Muslim and Jew live side by side with Christians. She made obeisance to other religions, like many in the town. *A gift from a soldier who had no further need for it.' She plucked it up and measured it against Stephano. His fair hair had grown darker, it would be like his father's, and his face had lost a child's roundness, but he was still only halfway to a man. His chest was narrow and the yoke of the mail s.h.i.+rt stretched well past his shoulders; the s.h.i.+mmering length of it fell almost to his knees *Too big for you yet, boy.' She threw the s.h.i.+rt aside and clapped her hands. *Do not wish to grow up too soon. Go away now and be children. When it is time, you will come back.'

With that, we were dismissed. We left her and followed the walls round, down into the town. The sun had fallen below the level of the battlements, the bright blue of the sky was darkening to purple and lavender, the air was loud with the sound of birds coming home to their roosts, bats just flying out. We linked arms, jumping down the steps that led down to the Stradun. The market had righted itself. The first lamps were lit and the wide street was busy with people coming out into the cool of the evening. There was little sign of the fighting that had broken out earlier, only a few rusty stains on the white paving stones. Feste stationed himself at a corner, set his battered hat in front of him and played and sang until he had collected enough to buy us lemon drinks sweetened with sugar, honey cakes and sweetmeats from the vendors. We went out into the harbour and sat on the wall together to watch the sun go down over the water. We ate and drank and laughed until the curfew bell summoned us back inside the city walls. I remember it better than yesterday. It was the last time that I was happy.

8.

*The spinsters and the knitters in the sun'

VIOLETTA.

*From the sea she came, and the sea will claim her.'

Marijita was a soothsayer. That is the trouble with prophecies. Once they are made, you wait for them to come true. I could not get it out of my mind. I found myself watching my mother, listening to her conversation for any hint that she might be going on a s.h.i.+p, or taking a voyage, but it didn't happen like that at all.

Two years pa.s.sed. It was the summer when I was twelve. We were at the summer palace when my mother disappeared. Her clothes and sandals were found on the beach, left in a neat pile as if she had gone for her early morning swim. She was never seen again. Servants and soldiers searched the coast for miles in both directions. Lookouts stared out to sea until their eyes were red and aching with tiredness, but they saw nothing but the restless waves.

My father ordered boats both large and small to take up the search, ranging far out to sea, along the coast and out to the offsh.o.r.e islands, in case she had been swept out by tide and current. The fishermen coming into port were questioned as to whether they had seen anything and sent straight back out again. Day after day the search went on, but there was no sign of her, living or dead.

At last my father called off the searching. He declared a period of mourning and made arrangements for an elaborate funeral. The empty coffin was draped with her purple colours and paraded through the town on a splendid bier drawn by six matching black horses. It was buried in the family vault with full funerary rights and all due ceremony, but people were struck by the strangeness and muttered that no good would come of it. Such things fed their superst.i.tions. The spectre of the empty coffin was to haunt the city for a long time to come.

MARIA.

My lady went into the deepest mourning, deeper by far than for her father or brother. She went triple-veiled and dressed in cypress black. She gave the running of her household over to Sebastian, which is what he had always wanted, and withdrew from the world. She took to the upper rooms of the palazzo, cutting herself off. She allowed no one to see her, not even me, not even Feste. She lived like an anch.o.r.ess, taking food through a small shuttered window. The only person allowed to see her was Marijita, who arrived at the dead of night and left in the early morning, speaking to no one, as if she'd taken a vow of secrecy.

Feste took it badly. He had been in my lady's household from a small child. They had played together and he had taught her all sorts of tricks: how to walk on stilts and whistle like a bird. He had been her father's Fool, then hers. He won't thank me for telling you, but he pined like a dog, sitting outside her door for weeks, for months. He climbed up to her balcony and sang and played so sweetly that the birds stopped their voices and the bees their buzzing, just to listen. All to no purpose. She would not let him see her, or even acknowledge that he was there. He worried himself to a shadow and was like to die of grief, until I told him to look to Violetta. She was motherless, her father otherwise occupied, Lady Olivia too immersed in her own sorrow to take notice of anybody else. Who would care for her now? I thought they might comfort each other. At last he took himself off to the palace. In truth, I wanted him out of the way. Lord Sebastian had never liked him, and the hatred was returned in br.i.m.m.i.n.g measure. Feste has a sharp mocking tongue and does not try to guard it. He was safe while my lady was there to laugh at his wit, but without her protection he was vulnerable. One word out of turn and Lord Sebastian would snuff him as quickly as he would pinch out a moth.