Magicians of Caprona - Diana Wynne Jones [34]
“And the same to you!” howled the Casa Petrocchi, crowding up behind Guido, lean and ferocious, many of them red-haired. “Filthy liars!”
The fighting began while they were still shouting. There was no knowing who started it. The roars on either side were mixed with singing and muttering. Scrips fluttered in many hands. And the air was suddenly full of flying eggs. Paolo received one, a very greasy fried egg, right across the mouth, and it made him so angry that he began to shout egg-spells too, at the top of his voice. Eggs splattered down, fried eggs, poached eggs, scrambled eggs, new-laid eggs, and eggs so horribly bad that they were like bombs when they burst. Everyone slithered on the eggy cobbles. Egg streamed off the ends of people’s hair and spattered everyone’s clothes.
Then somebody varied it with a bad tomato or so. Immediately, all manner of unpleasant things were flying about the Corso: cold spaghetti and cowpats—though these may have been Rinaldo’s idea in the first place, they were very quickly coming from both sides—and cabbages; squirts of oil and showers of ice; dead rats and chicken livers. It was no wonder that the ordinary people kept out of the way. Egg and tomato ran down the grilles over Grossi’s windows and splashed the white columns of the Art Gallery. There were loud clangs as rotten cabbages hit the brass doors of the Arsenal.
This was the first, disorganized phase of the battle, with everyone venting his fury separately. But, by the time everyone was filthy and sticky, their fury took shape a little. Both sides began on a more organized chant. It grew, and became two strong rhythmic choruses.
The result was that the objects flying about the Corso rose up into the air and began to rain down as much more harmful things. Paolo looked up to see a cloud of transparent, glittering, frozen-looking pieces tumbling out of the sky at him. He thought it was snow at first, until a piece hit his arm and cut it.
“Vicious beasts!” Lucia screamed beside him. “It’s broken glass!”
Before the main body of the glass came down, Old Niccolo’s penetrating tenor voice soared above the yells and the chanting. “Testudo!”
Antonio’s full bass backed him up: “Testudo!” and so did Uncle Lorenzo’s baritone. Feet tramped. Paolo knew this one. He bowed over, tramping regularly, and kept up the charm with them. The whole family did it. Tramp, tramp, tramp. “Testudo, testudo, testudo!” Over their bent heads, the glass splinters bounced and showered harmlessly off an invisible barrier. “Testudo.” From the middle of the bowed backs, Elizabeth’s voice rang up sweetly in yet another spell. She was joined by Aunt Anna, Aunt Maria and Corinna. It was like a soprano descant over a rhythmic tramping chorus.
Paolo knew without being told that he must keep up the shield-charm while Elizabeth worked her spell. So did everyone else. It was extraordinary, exciting, amazing, he thought. Each Montana picked up the slightest hint and acted on it as if it were orders. He risked glancing up and saw that the descant spell was working. Every glass splinter, as it hit the unseen shield Paolo was helping to make, turned into an angry hornet and buzzed back at the Petrocchis. But the Petrocchis simply turned them into glass splinters again and hurled them back. At the same time, Paolo could tell from the rhythm of their singing that some of them were working to destroy the shield charm. Paolo sang and tramped harder than ever.
Meanwhile, Rinaldo’s voice and his father’s were singing gently, deeply, at work on something yet again. More of the ladies joined in the hornet-song so that the Petrocchis would not guess. And all the while, the tramp, tramp of the shield charm was kept up by everyone else. It could have been the grandest chorus in the grandest opera ever, except that it all had a different purpose. The purpose came with a perfect roar of voices. The Petrocchis threw up their arms and staggered. The cobbles beneath them heaved and the solid Corso began to give way into a pit. Their instant reply was another huge sung chord, with