City of Swords by Mary Hoffman Page A

outrage and had grabbed him by his jerkin and nearly hauled him off the floor.
    ‘Hush, Rizio!’ said Grand Duchess Caterina. ‘You are frightening Bino.’
    Only his wife could have got away with hushing Fabrizio in this mood. ‘Bino’, his baby son and heir, obligingly began to whimper.
    Fabrizio relaxed his grip on the messenger.
    ‘Not exactly taken her hostage, Your Grace,’ he said, flashing the Grand Duchess a grateful look. ‘She is safe in the castle with Princess Carolina. A small remnant of the army loyal to your family is guarding them against the rebels.’
    ‘A small remnant? You mean the rest of the army have gone over to that, that gypsy’s camp?’
    ‘The rebel leader, Ciampi, overthrew General Bompiani, Your Grace, and most of the army followed him.’
    ‘So what is going to happen next?’ asked Caterina. ‘Are the princesses safe in the castle?’
    ‘I tell you what is going to happen next,’ said Fabrizio. ‘What is going to happen next is that I am calling out the Giglian army to lay siege to Fortezza!’
    ‘Excuse me, Your Grace,’ said the unfortunate messenger. ‘Princess Lucia asked me to say that if you could spare some messengers of your own to visit your other family members, the news would spread faster than I could take it by myself.’
    ‘Certainly we will organise that,’ said Caterina. ‘Rizio, don’t you see this poor fellow is dropping with exhaustion and fear? He must be properly entertained while you write messages for our allies. And he should not go anywhere himself until he has recovered.’
    ‘Of course, of course,’ said the Grand Duke. He gave the man some silver. ‘My seneschal will look after you. And I must get a message straight away to Gaetano. He won’t believe this has happened. Then Volana, Moresco, Remora, Bellona . . . There’s no point asking Classe for help now that Beatrice has betrayed the family by marrying a Nucci . . .’
    Caterina quietly led the Fortezzan messenger from the room and gave orders to her staff to see he was well fed and housed. She could see that Fabrizio would be absorbed for hours in his preparations for war.
    *
    As soon as the message reached Gaetano, the Prince groaned and dropped his head in his hands. He had only recently got back from Fortezza and he knew that his older brother would insist on their setting back out again.
    The last thing he wanted was to mount up on his horse and ride back to Fortezza with Fabrizio at the head of an army. And he did not want to leave his wife, Francesca. She had just told him she was expecting their first child.
    ‘Then don’t go,’ said Francesca. ‘He can’t order you to.’
    ‘But he can make our lives a misery,’ said Gaetano. ‘I’ll have to go. You know I can’t bear to leave you again so soon – especially now, but I must help to sort this business out.’
    ‘You sound as if it were a dispute about the price of flour!’ said Francesca. ‘But it’s a war – the Giglian army against the Fortezzan one. You could be killed!’
    Gaetano had to admit that was true. He wondered if he should write his will. But at that moment a footman admitted a black friar dressed in black and white robes.
    ‘Brother Sulien,’ said Gaetano. ‘I am so glad to see you. Have you heard the news?’
    ‘I was away from the city when Rodolfo contacted me,’ said the friar. ‘I came back as fast as I could.’
    Brother Sulien was one of the two Stravaganti in Giglia. The other was Giuditta Miele, but she was hard at work on a new sculpture and had become absent-minded about consulting the mirrors. Sulien had told her about developments in Fortezza himself.
    ‘That was good of you,’ said Gaetano.
    ‘What will your brother do?’ asked Sulien.
    ‘He is mustering his army and wants me to go with him to besiege Fortezza and put down the rebellion.’
    ‘And you don’t want to go?’
    ‘No,’ said Gaetano. ‘May I tell Sulien why, Francesca?’
    ‘I am expecting a child,