Magicians of Caprona - Diana Wynne Jones [66]
That was everyone! Paolo had not realized that even his father was a Final Reservist.
“Shut the gate, Paolo!” shrieked Aunt Maria.
Paolo was about to obey, when he remembered that he had not yet looked at the Angel. He dodged outside and stared up, while half a regiment of infantry marched past behind him. It looked as if, in the night, every pigeon in Caprona had chosen to sit on that one golden carving. It was plastered with bird droppings. They were particularly thick, not unnaturally, on the outstretched arm holding the scroll, and the scroll was a crusty white mass. Paolo shuddered. It seemed like an omen. He did not notice one of the marching soldiers detach himself from the column and come up behind him.
“I should close the gate, if I were you,” said Chrestomanci.
Paolo looked up at him and wondered why people looked so different in uniform. He pulled himself together and dragged the two halves of the gate shut. Chrestomanci helped him slot the big iron bars in to lock it. As he did, he said, “I was at the Casa Petrocchi around dawn, so there’s no great need for explanations. But I would like to know what’s the matter in the kitchen this time.”
Paolo looked. Eight baskets piled high with round tan-colored loaves stood outside the kitchen. There were agitated noises from inside it, and a curious long droning sound. “I think it’s Lucia’s spell again,” he said.
He and Chrestomanci set off across the yard. Before they had gone three steps, the aunts burst out of the kitchen and rushed towards him. Antonio and the uncles hurried down from the gallery, and cousins arrived from everywhere else. Aunt Francesca surged out of the Saloon. She had spent the night there, and looked as if she had. Chrestomanci was soon in the middle of a crowd and holding several conversations at once.
“You were quite right to call me,” he said to Rosa, and to Aunt Francesca, “Old Niccolo is good for years yet, but you should rest.” To Elizabeth and Antonio, he said, “I know about Tonino,” and to Rinaldo, “This is my fourth uniform today. There’s heavy fighting in the hills and I had to get through somehow. What possessed the Duke,” he asked the uncles, “to declare war so soon? I could have got help from Rome if he’d waited.” None of them knew, and they all told him so at once. “I know,” said Chrestomanci. “I know. No war-spells. I think our enemy enchanter has made a mistake over Tonino and Angelica. If it does nothing else, it allows me a free hand.” Then, as the clamor showed no sign of abating, he said, “By the way, the Final Reserve has been called up,” and nodded to Paolo to give the paper to Antonio.
In the sober hush that this produced, Chrestomanci pushed his way to the kitchen and put his head inside. “My goodness me!” Paolo heard him murmur.
Paolo ducked under all the people crowding round Antonio and looked into the kitchen under Chrestomanci’s elbow. He looked into a wall of insects. The place was black with them, and glittering, and crawling, and dense with different humming. Flies of all kinds, mosquitoes, wasps and midges filled the airspace. Beetles, ants, moths and a hundred other crawling things occupied the floor and shelves and sink. Peering through the buzzing clouds, Paolo was almost sure he saw a swarm of locusts on the cooking stove. It was even worse than he had imagined the Petrocchi kitchen when he was little.
Chrestomanci drew a deep breath. Paolo suspected he was trying not to laugh. They both looked around for Lucia, who was standing on one leg among the breadbaskets, wondering whether to run away. “I am sure,” Chrestomanci said to her—he was trying not to laugh; he had to start again. “I am sure people have talked to you about misusing spells. But—just out of interest—what did you use?”
“She used her own words to the Angel of Caprona!” Aunt Maria said, bursting angrily out of the crowd. “Gina’s nearly out of her mind!”
“All the children did it,” Lucia said defiantly. “It wasn’t only me.”
Chrestomanci looked at Paolo, and Paolo nodded. “A considerable tribute to