Aunt Francesca’s challenge seemed to rally both sides. A female Petrocchi voice screamed, “We agree!” and all the muddy groups hastened towards the middle of the Corso again.
Paolo reached his family to hear Old Niccolo saying, “Don’t be a fool, Francesca!” He looked more like a muddy goblin than the head of a famous family. He was almost too breathless to speak.
“They have insulted us and fought us!” said Aunt Francesca. “They deserve to be disgraced and drummed out of Caprona. And I shall do it! I’m more than a match for a Petrocchi!” She looked it, vast and muddy as she was, with her huge black dress in tatters and her grey hair half undone and streaming over one shoulder.
But the other Montanas knew Aunt Francesca was an old woman. There was a chorus of protest. Uncle Lorenzo and Rinaldo both offered to take on the Petrocchi champion in her place.
“No,” said Old Niccolo. “Rinaldo, you were wounded—”
He was interrupted by catcalls from the Petrocchis. “Cowards! We want single combat!”
Old Niccolo’s muddy face screwed up with anger. “Very well, they shall have their single combat,” he said. “Antonio, I appoint you. Step forward.”
Paolo felt a gush of pride. So his father was, as he had always thought, the best spell-maker in the Casa Montana. But the pride became mixed with alarm, when Paolo saw the way his mother clutched Antonio’s arm, and the worried, reluctant look on his father’s mud-streaked face.
“Go on!” Old Niccolo said crossly.
Slowly, Antonio advanced into the space between the two families, stumbling a little among the loose cobbles. “I’m ready,” he called to the Petrocchis. “Who’s your champion?”
It was clear that there was some indecision among the Petrocchis. A dismayed voice said, “It’s Antonio!” This was followed by a babble of talk. From the turning of heads and the uncertain heaving about, Paolo thought they were looking for a Petrocchi who was unaccountably missing. But the fuss died away, and Guido Petrocchi himself stepped forward. Paolo could see several Petrocchis looking as alarmed as Elizabeth.
“I’m ready too,” said Guido, baring his teeth angrily. Since his face was plastered with mud, it made him look quite savage. He was also large and sturdy. He made Antonio look small, gentle and fragile. “And I demand an unlimited contest!” snarled Guido. He seemed even angrier than Old Niccolo.
“Very well,” Antonio said. There could have been the least shake in his voice. “You’re aware that means a fight to the finish, are you?”
“Suits me perfectly,” said Guido. He was like a giant saying “Fee-fi-fo-fum”. Paolo was suddenly very frightened.
It was at this moment that the Ducal Police arrived. They had come in, quietly and cunningly, riding bicycles along the pavements. No one noticed them until the Chief of Police and his lieutenant were standing beside the two champions.
“Guido Petrocchi and Antonio Montana,” said the lieutenant, “I arrest you—”
Both champions jumped, and turned to find blue braided uniforms on either side of them.
“Oh go away,” said Old Niccolo, hastening forward. “What do you have to interfere for?”
“Yes, go away,” said Guido. “We’re busy.”
The lieutenant flinched at Guido’s face, but the Chief of Police was a bold and dashing man with a handsome moustache, and he had his reputation to keep up as a bold and dashing man. He bowed to Old Niccolo. “These two are under arrest,” he said. “The rest of you I order to sink your differences and remember there is about to be a war.”
“We’re at war already,” said Old Niccolo. “Go away.”
“I regret,” said the Chief of Police, “that that is impossible.”
“Then don’t say you weren’t warned,” said Guido.
There was a short burst of song from the adults of both families. Paolo wished he knew that spell. It sounded useful. As soon as it was over, Rinaldo and a swarthy young Petrocchi came over to the two policemen and towed them away backwards. They were as stiff as the tailor’s dummies in the barred windows of Grossi’s. Rinaldo and the other young man laid them against the steps of the Art Gallery and returned each to his family, without looking at one another. As for the rest of the Ducal Police, they seemed to have vanished, bicycles and all.
“Ready now?” said Guido.
“Ready,” said Antonio.
And the single combat commenced.
Looking back on it afterwards, Paolo realised that it could not have lasted more than three minutes, though it seemed endless at the time. For, in that time, the strength, skill and speed of both champions was tried to the utmost. The first, and probably the longest, part was when the two were testing one another for an opening, and comparatively little seemed to happen. Both stood, leaning slightly forward, muttering, humming, occasionally flicking a hand.
Paolo stared at his father’s strained face and wondered just what was going on. Then, momentarily, Guido was a man-shaped red-and-white check duster. Someone gasped. But Antonio almost simultaneously became a cardboard man covered with green triangles. Then both flicked back to themselves again.
The speed of it astounded Paolo. A spell had not only been cast on both sides, but also a counter-spell, and a spell counter to that, all in the time it took someone to gasp. Both combatants were panting and looking warily at each other. It was clear they were very evenly matched.
Again there was a space when nothing seemed to happen, except a sort of flickering on both sides. Then suddenly Antonio struck, and struck so hard that it was plain he had all the time been building a strong spell, beneath the flicker of trivial spells designed to keep Guido occupied. Guido gave a shout and dissolved into dust, which swept away backwards in a spiral. But, somehow, as he dissolved, he threw his strong spell at Antonio. Antonio broke into a thousand little pieces, like a spilt jigsaw puzzle.
For an ageless time, the swirl of dust and the pile of broken Antonio hung in mid-air. Both were struggling to stay together and not to patter down on the uprooted cobbles of the Corso. In fact, they were still struggling to make spells too. When, at last, Antonio staggered forward in one piece, holding some kind of red fruit in his right hand, he had barely time to dodge. Guido was a leopard in mid-spring.
Elizabeth screamed.
Antonio threw himself to one side, heaved a breath and sang. “Oliphans!” His usually silky voice was rough and ragged, but he hit the right notes. A gigantic elephant, with tusks longer than Paolo was tall, cut off the low sun and shook the Corso as it advanced, ears spread, to trample the attacking leopard. It was hard to believe the great beast was indeed worried, thin Antonio Montana.
For a shadow of a second, the leopard was Guido Petrocchi, very white in the face and luridly red in the beard, gabbling a frantic song. “Hickory-dickory-muggery-mus!” And he must have hit the right notes too. He seemed to vanish.
The Montanas were raising a cheer at Guido’s cowardice, when
