Free City of Flowers by Mary Hoffman Page B

breeches, and walked over to the piece of marble. He hadn’t seen the young Duchessa since the death of Falco and her rapid departure from Remora, but he thought about her often.
    Arianna Rossi was unfinished business. She had defied his wishes when she refused his son, just as her mother had always defied him in her resistance to any alliance with the di Chimici, and he must find a way of dealing with her. The white marble reminded him of the Duchessa’s creamy unblemished skin, and he left the sculptor’s workshop musing on youth and innocence and how little it could do in the long run against age and experience.
    *
    Sulien took Sky to walk the maze with him. At first the twenty-first-century boy was sceptical. It seemed a bit New Age-y to him, all this chanting and meditating and pacing slowly in silence. But it worked. He had stepped on to the black and white stone labyrinth with his mind all a-jangle.
    Sulien had first explained to him about William Dethridge. ‘He was the first Stravagante, an Elizabethan alchemist who was trying to make gold and instead, after an explosion in his laboratory, found the secret of travel in time and space.’
    â€˜And his laboratory was where my school and my house are now?’
    â€˜So it would appear,’ said Sulien. ‘When I brought your talisman, on the advice of both Doctor Dethridge and Rodolfo, I left it on the doorstep of what must be your home.’
    Sky smiled at the thought of the friar in Islington. But monks and nuns and people like that still wore robes in Sky’s time, so he probably wouldn’t have attracted that much attention.
    â€˜You say that Dethridge and Rodolfo advised you, but how did you speak to them? You said they both live in Bellezza now, and you don’t have telephones yet.’
    Sulien had then shown him a plain oval hand-mirror in which Sky saw not his own brown face reflected but a dark panelled room with a lot of strange instruments in it. Sulien passed his hand over its surface and closed his eyes, concentrating. And then there was a face, thin and bony, with hawk-like eyes and silvered black hair.
    â€˜Maestro,’ said Sulien. ‘Let me show you our new brother.’
    He had encouraged Sky to look full in the mirror and he found himself face to face with Rodolfo. It had been an unsettling experience. Apart from his actual travelling between the two worlds, Sky had not encountered anything in Talia that could be described as magic until that moment.
    Rodolfo was nothing but warm and welcoming, but Sky knew that he was talking to a powerful Stravagante – and doing it through an enchanted mirror. When he had stepped on to the maze a few minutes afterwards, his thoughts were a jagged and swirling mess.
    When he left it twenty minutes later, he was quite calm. Sulien was five minutes behind him.
    â€˜Incredible,’ said Sky.
    â€˜It was here when I arrived,’ said Sulien. ‘I found it under the carpet one day but the other friars didn’t know how to use it. You don’t have to believe it – just do it. I walk the maze every morning and evening, just so that I can find the centre whenever I need it.’
    Sky looked alarmed.
    â€˜Don’t worry,’ said the friar. ‘I don’t expect you to do it that often. Only when you feel the need. I just wanted to show it to you.’
    Sky was relieved. But a part of him knew he did want that experience again.
    *
    The Eel was waiting for his master outside the gates of the Palazzo di Chimici in the Via Larga. There was a new guard on duty that day who didn’t know him. But he knew the Duke all right, and was apologetic when Niccolò arrived and waved the unprepossessing little man in after him.
    â€˜I wanted to talk to you about your contacts in Bellezza,’ said Niccolò.
    â€˜That’s a coincidence, your Grace,’ said Enrico. ‘That’s what I’ve come to tell you. I’ve had a report