Magicians of Caprona - Diana Wynne Jones [63]
“But the Duchess—” said Tonino.
“And the Duke,” said Angelica. “This is the Duke’s study.”
Benvenuto considered the Duke harmless on his own. He thought they were in the safest place in the Palace. They were to stay hidden and write him a note small enough to carry in his mouth.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we tied it around your neck?” Angelica asked.
Benvenuto had never submitted to anything around his neck, and he was not going to start now. Anyway, someone in the Palace might see the message.
So Tonino put one foot on the Report of Campaign and succeeded, by heaving with both hands, in tearing off a corner of it. Angelica passed him the huge pen, which he had to hold in both hands, with the end resting on his shoulder. Then she stood on the paper to keep it steady while Tonino wielded the pen. It was such hard work, that he kept the message as short as possible. In Duke’s Palace. Duchess enchantress. T.M. & A.P.
“Tell them about the words to the Angel,” said Angelica. “Just in case.”
Tonino turned the paper over and wrote Words to Angel on Angel over gate. T & A. Then, exhausted with heaving the pen up and down, he folded the piece of paper with that message inside and the first one outside, and trod it flat. Benvenuto opened his mouth. Angelica winced at that pink cavern with its arched wrinkly roof and its row of white fangs, and let Tonino place the message across Benvenuto’s prickly tongue. Benvenuto gave Tonino a loving glare and sprang away. He struck one ringing chord from the piano, around middle C, made the slightest thump on the windowsill, and vanished.
Tonino and Angelica were staring after him and did not notice, until it was too late, that the Duke had come back.
“Funny,” said the Duke. “There’s a new Punch now, as well as a new Judy.”
Tonino and Angelica stood stiff as posts, one on each end of the blotter, in agonizingly uncomfortable attitudes.
Fortunately, the Duke noticed the open window. “Blessed maids and their fresh air!” he grumbled, and went over to shut it. Tonino seized the opportunity to stand on both feet, Angelica to uncrick her neck. Then they both jumped. An unmistakable gunshot cracked out, from somewhere below. And another. The Duke bent out of the window and seemed to be watching something. “Poor pussy,” he said. He sounded sad and resigned. “Why couldn’t you keep away, puss? She hates cats. And they make such a din, too, shooting them.” Another shot cracked out, and then several more. The Duke stood up, shaking his head sadly. “Ah well,” he said, as he shut the window. “I suppose they do eat birds.”
He came back across the study. Tonino and Angelica could not have moved if they tried. They were both too stricken.
The Duke’s face folded into shiny wrinkles. He had noticed the corner torn from the Report. “I’ve been eating paper now!” he said. His sad, puzzled face turned towards Tonino and Angelica. “I think I do forget things,” he said. “I talk to myself. That’s a bad sign. But I really don’t remember you two at all. At least, I remember the new Judy, but,” he said to Tonino, “I don’t remember you at all. How did you get here?”
Tonino was far too upset about Benvenuto to think. After all, the Duke really was speaking to him. “Please, sir,” he said, “I’ll explain—”
“Shut up!” snapped Angelica. “I’ll say a spell!”
“—only please tell me if they shot my cat,” said Tonino.
“I think so,” said the Duke. “It looked as if they got it.” Here he took a deep breath and turned his eyes carefully to the ceiling, before he looked at Tonino and Angelica again. Neither of them moved. Angelica was glaring at Tonino, promising him spells unimaginable if he said another word. And Tonino knew he had been an utter idiot anyway. Benvenuto was dead