Magicians of Caprona - Diana Wynne Jones [6]
Among his tears, he thought for a moment that one of the more distant griffins had left its stone perch and come trotting round the parapet towards him. It had left its wings behind, or else had them tightly folded.
He was told, a little smugly, that cats do not need wings. Benvenuto sat down on the parapet beside him, staring accusingly.
Tonino had always been thoroughly in awe of Benvenuto. He stretched out a hand to him timidly. “Hallo, Benvenuto.”
Benvenuto ignored the hand. It was covered with water from Tonino’s eyes, he said, and it made a cat wonder why Tonino was being so silly.
“There are our spells everywhere,” Tonino explained. “And I’ll never be able—Do you think it’s because I’m half English?”
Benvenuto was not sure quite what difference that made. All it meant, as far as he could see, was that Paolo had blue eyes like a Siamese and Rosa had white fur—
“Fair hair,” said Tonino.
—and Tonino himself had tabby hair, like the pale stripes in a tabby, Benvenuto continued, un perturbed. And those were all cats, weren’t they?
“But I’m so stupid—” Tonino began.
Benvenuto interrupted that he had heard Tonino chattering with those kittens yesterday, and he had thought Tonino was a good deal cleverer than they were. And before Tonino went and objected that those were only kittens, wasn’t Tonino only a kitten himself?
At this, Tonino laughed and dried his hand on his trousers. When he held the hand out to Benvenuto again, Benvenuto rose up, very high on all four paws, and advanced to it, purring. Tonino ventured to stroke him. Benvenuto walked around and around, arched and purring, like the smallest and friendliest kitten in the Casa. Tonino found himself grinning with pride and pleasure. He could tell from the waving of Benvenuto’s brush of a tail, in majestic, angry twitches, that Benvenuto did not altogether like being stroked—which made it all the more of an honor.
That was better, Benvenuto said. He minced up to Tonino’s bare legs and installed himself across them, like a brown muscular mat. Tonino went on stroking him. Prickles came out of one end of the mat and treadled painfully at Tonino’s thighs. Benvenuto continued to purr. Would Tonino look at it this way, he wondered, that they were both, boy and cat, a part of the most famous Casa in Caprona, which in turn was part of the most special of all the Italian States?
“I know that,” said Tonino. “It’s because I think it’s wonderful too that I—Are we really so special?”
Of course, purred Benvenuto. And if Tonino were to lean out and look across at the Cathedral, he would see why.
Obediently, Tonino leaned and looked. The huge marble bubbles of the Cathedral domes leaped up from among the houses at the end of the Corso. He knew there never was such a building as that. It floated, high and white and gold and green. And on the top of the highest dome the sun flashed on the great golden figure of the Angel, poised there with spread wings, holding in one hand a golden scroll. It seemed to bless all Caprona.
That Angel, Benvenuto informed him, was there as a sign that Caprona would be safe as long as everyone sang the tune of the Angel of Caprona. The Angel had brought that song in a scroll straight from Heaven to the First Duke of Caprona, and its power had banished the White Devil and made Caprona great. The White Devil had been prowling around Caprona ever since, trying to get back into the city, but as long as the Angel’s song was sung, it would never succeed.
“I know that,” said Tonino. “We sing the Angel every day at school.” That brought back the main part of his misery. “They keep making me learn the story—and all sorts of things—and I can’t, because I know them already, so I can’t learn properly.”
Benvenuto stopped purring. He quivered, because Tonino’s fingers had caught in one of the many lumps of matted fur in his coat. Still quivering, he demanded rather sourly why it hadn’t occurred to Tonino to tell them at school that he knew these things.
“Sorry!” Tonino hurriedly moved