Magicians of Caprona - Diana Wynne Jones [83]
There he turned his remote smiling face to everyone present. His voice was like one voice singing above many. “Caprona is at peace. Keep our covenant.” At that he spread his wings, making them all dizzy with the scent. And he was next seen moving upwards, over lesser domes and greater, to take his place once more on the great dome, guarding Caprona in the years to come.
This is really the end of the story, except for one or two explanations.
Marco and Rosa had to tell their story many times, at least as often as Tonino and Angelica told theirs. Among the first people they told it to was Old Niccolo, who was lying restlessly in bed and only kept there because Elizabeth sat beside him all the time. “But I’m quite well!” he kept saying.
So, in order to keep him there, Elizabeth had first Tonino and then Rosa and Marco come and tell him their stories.
Rosa and Marco had met when they were both working on the Old Bridge. Falling in love and deciding to marry had been the easiest part, over in minutes. The difficulty was that they had to provide themselves with a family each which had nothing to do with either Casa. Rosa contrived a family first. She pretended to be English. She became very friendly with the English girl at the Art Gallery—the same Jane Smith that Rinaldo fancied so much. Jane Smith thought it was a great joke to pretend to be Rosa’s sister. She wrote long letters in English to Guido Petrocchi, supposed to be from Rosa’s English father, and visited the Casa Petrocchi herself the day Rosa was introduced there.
Rosa and Marco planned the introductions carefully. They used the pear-tree spell—which they worked together—in both Casas, to Jane’s amusement. But the Petrocchis, though they liked the pear-tree, were not kind to Rosa at first. In fact, some of Marco’s aunts were so unpleasant that Marco was quite disgusted with them. That was why Marco was able to tell Antonio so vehemently that he hated the Petrocchis. But the aunts became used to Rosa in time. Renata and Angelica became very fond of her. And the wedding was held just after Christmas.
All this time, Marco had been unable to find anyone to act as a family for him. He was in despair. Then, only a few days before the wedding, his father sent him with a message to the house of Mario Andretti, the builder. And Marco discovered that the Andrettis had a blind daughter. When Marco asked, Mario Andretti said he would do anything for anyone who cured his daughter.
“Even then, we hardly dared hope,” said Marco. “We didn’t know if we could cure her.”
“And apart from that,” said Rosa, “the only time we dared both go there was the night after the wedding.”
So the wedding was held in the Casa Petrocchi. Jane Smith helped Rosa make her dress and was a bridesmaid for her, together with Renata, Angelica and one of Marco’s cousins. Jane thoroughly enjoyed the wedding and seemed, Rosa said dryly, to find Marco’s cousin Alberto at least as attractive as Rinaldo, whereas Rosa and Marco could think of almost nothing but little Maria Andretti. They hurried to the Andrettis’ house as soon as the celebrations were over.
“And I’ve never known anything so difficult,” said Rosa. “We were at it all night—”
Elizabeth was unable to contain herself here. “And I never even knew you were out!” she said.
“We took good care you didn’t,” said Rosa. “Anyway, we hadn’t done anything like that before, so we had to look up spells in the University. We tried seventeen and none of them worked. In the end we had to make up one of our own. And all the time, I was thinking: suppose this doesn’t work on the poor child either, and we’ve played with the Andrettis’ hopes.”
“Not to speak of our own,” said Marco. “Then our spell worked. Maria yelled out that