Magicians of Caprona - Diana Wynne Jones [35]
There was total confusion. Paolo staggered for safety, with his hair singed, over cobbles that quaked and heaved under his shoes. “Voltava!” he sang frantically. “Voltava!” Behind him, the flames hissed. Clouds of steam blotted out even the tall Art Gallery as the river answered the charm and came swirling up the Corso. Water was knee-deep around Paolo, up to his waist, and still rising. There was too much water. Someone had sung out of tune, and Paolo rather thought it was him. He saw his cousin Lena almost up to her chin in water and grabbed her. Towing Lena, he staggered through the current, over the heaving road, trying to make for the Arsenal steps.
Someone must have had the sense to work a cancel-spell. Everything suddenly cleared, steam, water and smoke together. Paolo found himself on the steps of the Art Gallery, not by the Arsenal at all. Behind him, the Corso was a mass of loose cobbles, shiny with mud and littered with cowpats, tomatoes and fried eggs. There could hardly have been more mess if Caprona had been invaded by the armies of Florence, Pisa and Siena.
Paolo felt he had had enough. Lena was crying. She was too young. She should have been left with Rosa. He could see his mother picking Lucia out of the mud, and Rinaldo helping Aunt Gina up.
“Let’s go home, Paolo,” whimpered Lena.
But the battle was not really finished. Montanas and Petrocchis were up and down the Corso in little angry, muddy groups, shouting abuse at one another.
“I’ll give you broken glass!”
“You started it!”
“You lying Petrocchi swine! Kidnapper!”
“Swine yourself! Spell-bungler! Traitor!”
Aunt Gina and Rinaldo slithered over to what looked like a muddy boulder in the street and heaved at it. The vast bulk of Aunt Francesca arose, covered with mud and angrier than Paolo had ever seen her.
“You filthy Petrocchis! I demand single combat!” she screamed. Her voice scraped like a great saw-blade and filled the Corso.
Chapter 7
Aunt Francesca’s challenge seemed to rally both sides. A female Petrocchi voice screamed, “We agree!” and all the muddy groups hastened towards the middle of the Corso again.
Paolo reached his family to hear Old Niccolo saying, “Don’t be a fool, Francesca!” He looked more like a muddy goblin than the head of a famous family. He was almost too breathless to speak.
“They have insulted us and fought us!” said Aunt Francesca. “They deserve to be disgraced and drummed out of Caprona. And I shall do it! I’m more than a match for a Petrocchi!” She looked it, vast and muddy as she was, with her huge black dress in tatters and her gray hair half undone and streaming over one shoulder.
But the other Montanas knew Aunt Francesca was an old woman. There was a chorus of protest. Uncle Lorenzo and Rinaldo both offered to take on the Petrocchi champion in her place.
“No,” said Old Niccolo. “Rinaldo, you were wounded—”
He was interrupted by catcalls from the Petrocchis. “Cowards! We want single combat!”
Old Niccolo’s muddy face screwed up with anger. “Very well, they shall have their single combat,” he said. “Antonio, I appoint you. Step forward.”
Paolo felt a gush of pride. So his father was, as he had always thought, the best spell-maker in the Casa Montana. But the pride became mixed with alarm, when Paolo saw the way his mother clutched Antonio’s arm, and the worried, reluctant look on his father’s mud-streaked face.
“Go on!” Old Niccolo said crossly.
Slowly, Antonio advanced into the space between the two families, stumbling a little among the loose cobbles. “I’m ready,” he called to the Petrocchis. “Who’s your champion?”
It was clear that there was some indecision among the Petrocchis. A dismayed voice said, “It’s Antonio!” This was followed by a babble of talk. From the turning of heads and the uncertain heaving about, Paolo thought they were looking for a Petrocchi who was unaccountably missing. But the fuss died away, and Guido Petrocchi himself stepped forward. Paolo could see several Petrocchis looking as