Free City of Masks by Mary Hoffman

And I’m afraid to let you get caught up in it. Politics always mean trouble in the lagoon, in all Talia come to that. And if this has anything to do with the Duchessa, then there’s bound to be politics behind it. Still, Senator Rodolfo is a respectable man and if he has taken this strange boy under his wing, I don’t suppose there is any harm in your spending time with him.’
    Leonora seemed much less concerned about Lucien’s being from another world than about his being involved in one of the Duchessa’s schemes. Then she remembered the rest of the story.
    ‘But the risk you took being in the city on the forbidden day! If you had been caught you would have been arrested and put on trial for your life! Your mother was quite right to worry about you. Be a mandolier, indeed! I never heard anything like it.’
    Arianna started to argue but stopped herself. At least Leonora was going to let her see Luciano again and now that she knew he was Rodolfo’s apprentice, she was even more fascinated by the idea of him. ‘He must be a good scientist himself,’ she thought, ‘or Signor Rodolfo wouldn’t take him on. And he wants me to show him round the city, which is bound to mean adventures. At least I’ll have more chance of something interesting happening than if I’m sitting here polishing silver!’
    *
    In a bar in the north of the city, a man in a blue cloak was knocking back glasses of Strega. He felt he deserved it after his recent experience. One minute he had been spying on Senator Rodolfo’s house – the next he had found himself in Padavia. It had taken him days to walk back to Bellezza and he was in a thoroughly bad mood. In future he was going to charge his masters a lot more if he was to spy on a powerful scientist like Rodolfo – at least enough to pay for his coach fare back if he were to be spirited away from the city again.
    ‘Ancora!’ he ordered the barman. He had no thought but to get very drunk indeed and then perhaps he would go and call on his fiancée, Giuliana.
    *
    ‘You!’ said Lucien when Rodolfo’s servant let Arianna into the laboratory.
    She laughed at his discomfiture.
    ‘You seem very much at home in Bellezza now, baldy boy,’ she taunted. ‘Do you know how many natives would give their eyes to be in your shoes? Signor Rodolfo is a very important man, you know.’
    ‘Thank you,’ said the tall Senator, stepping out of the shadows. ‘I’m glad you approve.’
    Arianna fell to her knees in a clumsy curtsey and made the sign of the ‘hand of fortune’.
    ‘No need for that,’ said Rodolfo, disapprovingly. ‘There is no place for superstition in a place of scientific enquiry.’
    ‘I had no idea my guide was going to be you,’ said Lucien. ‘Let me explain what happened at the Scuola.’
    ‘I know what happened,’ said Arianna, still a trace bitterly. ‘The Duchessa saw you and liked what she saw. That’s the way it works here in Bellezza. Appearances are everything. I know it wasn’t your fault.’
    ‘It’s the way things work in Bellezza that I want you to teach Luciano,’ said Rodolfo. ‘We are giving it out that he comes from Padavia, but I think you know that is not the case?’
    Arianna nodded slowly and turned to Lucien. ‘So it’s true. You are from another world?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Lucien. ‘I’m a Stravagante.’
    Arianna couldn’t help herself; her curled hand went immediately to her brow. Everyone in the lagoon had heard the word but few knew what it meant. Only that it signified power and mystery and danger. Here was her adventure without looking further.
    ‘Will you do it?’ said Rodolfo. ‘Will you teach Luciano to pass as Bellezzan?’
    *
    The next few weeks were the happiest Lucien had ever known. His days passed slowly and painfully as before. But at night he slipped easily back into his Belezzan life. He wore velvet, drank wine, spent the morning in science lessons unlike any he had known at school and passed every afternoon with