Magicians of Caprona - Diana Wynne Jones [79]
Paolo went unwillingly to the railing and flinched at the height. “They’ve been following us and shouting the whole way,” he said. “Get up here quickly!” he shouted.
“Thank you very much!” Marco shouted back. “Whose fault is it we’re up here anyway?”
“Is Renata all right?” Rosa yelled.
Angelica and Tonino pushed themselves between the pillars. “Hurry up!” they screamed.
The sight of them worked on Rosa and Marco as it had done on Renata and Paolo. They stared at the two tiny figures, and got to their feet as they stared. Then, stooping over, with their hands hanging, they came racing up the last of the curve for a closer look. Marco tumbled over the rail and said, as he was pulling Rosa over, “I couldn’t believe my eyes at first! We’d better do a growing-spell before—”
“Get down!” said Paolo. Benvenuto’s message was so urgent that he had caught it too. Both cats were crouching, stiff and low, and even Benvenuto’s flat ears were flattened. Rosa stooped down. Marco grudgingly went on one knee.
“Look here, Paolo—” he began.
A savage gale hit the dome. Freezing wind shrieked across the platform, howled in the spaces between the marble pillars, and scoured across the curve of the dome below. The Angel’s wings thrummed with it. It brought stabs of rain and needles of ice, hurling so hard that Tonino was thrown flat on his face. He could hear ice rattling on the Angel and spitting on the dome. Paolo snatched him into shelter behind himself. Renata feebly scrabbled about until she found Angelica and dragged her into shelter by one arm. Marco and Rosa bowed over. It was quite clear that anyone climbing the dome would have been blown off.
The wind passed, wailing like a wolf. They raised their heads into the sun.
The Duchess was standing on the platform in front of them. She had melting ice winking and trickling from her hair and from every fold of her marble-gray dress. The smile on her waxy face was not pleasant.
“Oh no,” she said. “The Angel is not going to help anyone this time. Did you think I’d for gotten?”
Marco and Rosa looked up at the Angel’s golden arm holding the great scroll above them. If they had not understood before, they knew now. From their suddenly thoughtful faces, Tonino knew they were finding spells to use on the Duchess.
“Don’t!” squeaked Angelica. “She’s an enchantress!”
The Duchess’s lips pursed in another unpleasant little smile. “More than that,” she said. She pointed up at the Angel. “Let the words be removed from the scroll,” she said.
There was a click from the huge golden statue, followed by a grating sound, as if a spring had been released. The arm holding the scroll began to move, gently and steadily downwards, making the slightest grinding noise as it moved. They could hear it easily, in spite of a sudden clatter of gunfire from the houses beyond the river. Downwards and inwards, traveled the Angel’s arm, until it stopped with a small clunk. The scroll now hung, flashing in the sun, between them and the Duchess. There were large raised letters on it. Angelus, they saw. Capronensi populo. It was as if the Angel were holding it out for them to read.
“Exactly,” said the Duchess, though Tonino thought, from the surprised arch of her eyebrows, that this was not at all what she expected. She pointed again at the scroll, with a long white finger like a white wax pencil. “Erase,” she said. “Word by word.”
Their heads all tipped anxiously as they looked at the lines of writing. The first word read Carmen. And, sure enough, the golden capital C was sinking slowly away into the metal background. Paolo moved. He had to do something. The Duchess glanced at him, a contemptuous flick of the eyebrows. Paolo found he was twisted to the spot, with jabbing cramp in both legs.
But he could still speak, and he remembered what Marco and Rosa had said last night. Without daring to draw breath, he screamed as loud as he could. “Chrestomanci!”
There was more wind. This was one keen blaring gust. And Chrestomanci