Irenicon

by Aidan Harte

  “That’s different. Concord may be overstretched, but it’s not weak. If Tagliacozzo taught us anything, it’s that Guild technology trumps every alliance. Paying homage to Concord would be easier and cheaper than starting a war Ariminum can’t win.”

  Sofia remembered the day Giovanni said he had blood on his hands. She hadn’t believed him. Nobody told her love made one deaf as well as blind. What was he planning now?

  “It doesn’t make sense,” they announced together.

  John Acuto crouched awkwardly at the tent flap. His shadow fell across her. “Don’t go.”

  “I’m leaving at dawn. Of all people, I thought you would understand.” Bernoulli was engineering Rasenna’s destruction, from the inside this time, and she was the only one who knew it. She had no choice. “You were a knight, John Acuto, but you ran from your destiny. You recommend that course?”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  “General, Levi said you couldn’t disband the Company if you wanted to. What if the Company had a home?”

  “All Europa is our home.”

  “I mean a permanent home.”

  “Find me a town where violent men are welcome.”

  She waited.

  “Bah! Rasenna had its chance to join me at Tagliacozzo. It turned me down.”

  “All Etruria refused you.”

  “Concord would grind us to dust together.”

  “You could win this time.”

  “Win? Have you been paying attention? Tagliacozzo was a rout, and you told me yourself how Rasenna’s little rebellion was squashed before it started.”

  “You lost because you were betrayed. We lost because we were borgati facing an army. United, it would be different.”

  “Walls are for knocking down, not hiding behind. I’m glad you’ve stopped running from whatever chased you here, but don’t try to rope my Company in on a doomed mission.”

  “It’s already on a doomed mission. Times are changing—everyone knows it but you. Every town’s bankrupted or in vassalage to Concord, and Etruria’s just the start. If you really want to fight the Empire, this is your last chance.”

  He saw she wasn’t giving up and sat down with a heavy sigh. “Businessmen deal in Contracts. By what authority do you speak for Rasenna, girl?”

  Sofia said nothing.

  “That’s what I thought. Besides, what can Rasenna offer that Ariminum can’t? I’ll fight Concord for Ariminum and get paid. The future is here, not on a doomed crusade for a doomed town,” he said, and walked away.

  “You’re a rare fool, John Acuto, to have lived so long and found nothing worth fighting for but money.”

  Soldiers in neighboring tents stopped to watch. Acuto turned around slowly. “Remember yourself!”

  Sofia stood in front of him. “Remember yourself! They say your son died a hero. Madonna, he’d be disgusted to see you now.”

  The general growled and grabbed her by the arm. She hit him in the jaw. The blow would have felled an ordinary man. John Acuto wiped the blood from his nose and ordered the soldiers who came running to stay back.

  “You had better be gone tomorrow. There’s no place for you here anymore.”

  CHAPTER 65

  The sickly incense wafting out of the priest’s tent was an effective warning that he was not to be disturbed. He set the cauldron on the fire; messy work demanded warm water.

  The blade went in easily. The sleeping dove did not struggle.

  He prayed. “Virgin, you see everything. You see a blind and worthless and faithless priest with but one friend left. I beg you, let me help him. Leave me in darkness forever more but give me Sight one last time!”

  As the bird’s life spilled out in warm blood, its viscera did not have the familiar stench; they were tart as newly plowed earth. He spread them out among the dust and the bones and whispered, “Sweet Virgin, let me See!”

  He shook epileptically as the vision crashed upon him with the power of an ocean. When it passed over, he cried out, “You are betrayed, John Acuto!”

  He ran to the tent flap, pulled it back—and found a smiling Scarpelli standing there.

  “Going somewhere, Father Blood-and-Guts?”

  The priest stepped back, coughed, and looked down at the blade stuck in his belly. Scarpelli pushed him onto the ground.

  “Madonna! This place stinks!” he said. Disgust turned to sudden anger, and he knelt on the priest’s chest, holding him down in the dust, which was sodden with fresh blood.

  “Sorry, Father. The Company’s going through a period of restructuring.”

  “Traitor! You’ll die like a dog, with a leash for a noose.”

  “Another prediction, blind man? Please—you couldn’t foresee the one death that mattered.”

  Scarpelli slid the knife sideways across the priest’s abdomen. It went in easily. The cauldron water began to boil.

  Sofia was trapped in a deep slumber. The pit was waiting for her, as real as ever. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  She heard the hum, but as the cells’ revolution began, there was no one to scream but she. Great stones ground against each other. The lake water churned, and the coffin emerged, changed, aged as if submerged for centuries. It hissed putrid gas when it cracked open, and a hand emerged, not white and bony but flesh: live and bloody. The priest stumbled out, frightened and bewildered, viscera dangling and weeping blood.

  His voice was strangled, distant. “Sofia, it’s you; it always has been. He’s searching for you. Return to Rasenna! Every river overlaps there.”

  A bolt of blue light dropped from the sky. When it hit the water, everything shook. Heaven and Hell broke open.

  “It’s you, Sofiaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

  She woke in darkness, gasping for air, covered in sweat. Her pillow was damp with tears. The vision did not take wing like a normal nightmare but sat gloating on her chest. She’d nursed the anger since learning who Giovanni was. Now that she knew he was alive, it didn’t need nursing; it grew like a tumor until it seeped from the pit into her dreams: a bloated maggot feeding on cancerous meat and spiced with tears of betrayal, grief, and suffering, just as the Virgin had promised her. The Virgin had promised love stronger than all three, yet of that she felt nothing.

  She turned over. The dawn’s light cast a shadow against her tent. She held on to the banner as her other hand reached for her dagger.

  “Sofia?”

  “Levi?”

  By the crazy gleam in his eye she knew he hadn’t slept either. “Something’s wrong. Yuri just saw the Dwarf and John Acuto leave with an Ariminumese escort, going to sign the Contract.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “It’s impossible. There hasn’t been a new draft in weeks. It doesn’t smell right. I need help.”

  “All right. First we need to get the priest.”

  “Prayer won’t stop mutiny.”

  “I can’t explain right now, Levi. Just trust me.”

  The Dwarf reined in his horse. “We’ll wait here, General.”

  He drew a deep breath and blew a feeble whimper on a hunting horn. He threw the horn at the Ariminumese soldier. “You blow it.”

  The horn sounded lonely and strange on the empty plane. They were half a mile yet from Ariminum’s walls.

  John Acuto took off his helmet and wiped his brow. “What’s that for?”

  “Signaling, General.”

  “I realize that, but why? Are we being denied access to the city now? If they make us negotiate from the saddle, I’ll make them pay for it.”

  “No, General. Treachery is afoot.”

  “Levi, that viper!” Acuto swore, “I knew it!”

  “I daresay Levi’s dead by now,” the Dwarf said. The Ariminumese soldier stayed behind the general.

  “Good work. Was he alone?”

  “Extraordinary! You still don’t understand.” The Dwarf pointed to the party of knights riding from the town gates. “They come for you, old man.”

  It took him a moment to comprehe
nd that he had not been rescued but kidnapped, but by then a pommel had slammed into his skull. By then it was dark.

  Steam from the cauldron filled the priest’s tent. He lay beside a dove that had been cut open in the same way.

  Levi looked at her forcefully. “Be honest: You saw this, didn’t you?”

  “No! I have dreams—I can’t control it.”

  “But you knew he was in danger. Sofia, you asked me to trust you. I do. You have a power; I don’t know why you’re fighting it, but I’m asking for help.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Just think about John Acuto. Where is he?”

  “It doesn’t work like that. Something’s blocking it. Levi, I’m afraid.”

  Levi knelt beside the body. “You know, back when business was good, we’d all get paid handsomely. Some hoarded; others spent freely. Next campaign, Fortune treated the misers and profligates the same. If your time’s up, it doesn’t matter how rich or poor you are.”

  He closed the old man’s wet staring eyes. “Sofia, life’s only worth something if you live it. If you hide away from danger, you rob yourself twice, of life and of the prize that’s behind the fear.”

  “Prize? What prize?”

  “The only thing money can’t buy in my experience: freedom.”

  Sofia looked at the steam swirling from the cauldron. She whispered, “I’m not afraid.” She watching the steam vapors snake through her fingers. Bubbles burst and spit scalding water. She closed her eyes and plunged her hand in.

  “NooooSofiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—”

  She heard Levi from far away. She floated there and waited, and looking down, she saw the dark sky and, though it, a battlefield—but it was a battle fought and lost many years ago. The vision shifted, and now it was just an ordinary field where the general waited with two others.

  The brooding sky pressed down, and the vision rose up again, repainted with more detail: John Acuto’s hoarse bellow, manly and sorrowful, a bull cut down, and blood pumping through rough hands vainly trying to halt the leak as the rivulets cascaded over fingers like ruby rings. She saw Acuto, unconscious in his saddle, and two horsemen waiting beside him, looking at the east and waiting. The earth was shaking.

  The vision shifted once more. She couldn’t control it; there was something it wanted her to see.

  Below, where the water ran cold, something old and hateful shifted and uncoiled. It smelled her fear and was hungry.

  She was in Rasenna, and the earth was still shaking. Giovanni was alone on the bridge. He was looking at her, and behind him night was falling as the Wave rose up.

  A tentacle grazed her leg, and she flinched into

  Daylight.

  “—fiaaaaa, don’t!” Levi screamed, but suddenly the water wasn’t boiling. Levi cautiously dipped a finger in. It was chilly.

  “How in the name of—?”

  “There’s no time—Acuto’s in trouble, outside Ariminum.”

  “Figures. If it’s outside their walls, they can claim ignorance,” said Levi. “You should go.”

  “Me?”

  “They’ll send knights. It pains me to say it, but you’re a better fighter than me. I’ll stay here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a better soldier.”

  “Who’s that?” said the Ariminumese soldier.

  The Dwarf squinted. A lone rider was coming from the west.

  “I’ll tell you who it’s not: Scarpelli. He said he’d fly an Ariminumese banner.”

  The soldier dismounted and loaded his crossbow.

  “Someone’s about to get a surprise,” he said.

  John Acuto’s horse reared and kicked the soldier into the mud. His arrow shot off into the sky and narrowly missed the rider.

  The general unsheathed his broad sword with a groggy roar as the Dwarf swung. He didn’t parry but let himself fall from his saddle, and landing next to the fallen soldier, he rolled over in time to see the Dwarf spurring his horse to trample him.

  Acuto flung his sword at the horse’s front legs, and there was a whinny of pain and its head met the earth with a sudden sharp crack. Momentum kept the body rolling, and it was Acuto’s turn to roar as his legs were pinned.

  The Dwarf picked himself up and walked over unsteadily, panting and wheezing.

  “How much,” Acuto asked, spitting bile and blood, “did Concord pay you?”

  “The deal was with Ariminum. Part of the deal was you.”

  “Levi was right: you’re a lousy businessman. You should’ve cut out the middleman. Concord would’ve paid more.”

  The Dwarf paused to ponder. “You think so?”

  Acuto suddenly sat up, pushed an arrow into the Dwarf’s stomach, and yanked it out again, the barbs ripping a mess of entrails with them. The Dwarf gurgled for a while, then fell facedown in the dirt.

  “That’s for the priest, you dog.” He fell back, exhausted, and waited for the lone horseman, praying Fortune had sent a friend, and knowing he had few left.

  Several mounted soldiers were waiting when Levi returned to his tent. “Scarpelli,” he shouted, “I think the Dwarf’s going to betray Acuto.”

  “There’s still time.”

  “Yes, if we hurry, we—”

  “There’s still time to join us. I wanted to involve you, but the Dwarf thought you couldn’t be trusted.”

  “A compliment of sorts.”

  “Acuto betrayed us, Levi. I didn’t sign up for a Crusade, did you? We’re here to get rich, not change the world.”

  “And the priest?”

  “He’d never have agreed to what needs to be done,” Scarpelli said impatiently.

  “What’s that?”

  “Ariminum want to deliver the Hawk with their tribute to Concord. A goodwill token.”

  “With their tribute? They never intended to do business?”

  “Oh, they did—just not with John Acuto. Come on, Levi! It’s the obvious choice. Concord’s winning.”

  “Just tell me one thing: Who betrayed us at Tagliacozzo?”

  Scarpelli shifted in his saddle.

  “They killed Harry!” Levi cried. “You were his friend too.”

  Scarpelli laughed bitterly. “That’s funny. Harry was a condottiere born, and if he were still alive, he would be sitting with me. It’s you who betray his memory if you don’t join us.” He laid his hand on his sword.

  “Like you said, the choice is obvious.”

  Yuri and a company of archers emerged from the surrounding tents. Some of Scarpelli’s men tried to flee, some tried to fight; they were all cut down. Stunned, Scarpelli dropped the sword he had not even had the chance to raise.

  “You were always a better politician than a soldier,” Levi said with contempt. “Take him. John Acuto can judge him.”

  “Levi! Help me, please—for old time’s sake!”

  “You betrayed the Hawk. This is for old time’s sake.”

  Pushing with her legs, Sofia managed to move the horse’s body enough for the general to roll free.

  “Where’s Levi?” he groaned.

  “I got the easy job, saving your ungrateful hide. Levi’s saving your Company.”

  Acuto touched the wound on his head tenderly. “I’m done for, girl. Get out of here.”

  Sofia tore an Ariminumese banner into strips and did not answer.

  Acuto continued, “I know Rasenneisi can handle themselves in a fight, but no one survives a cavalry charge. Do an old man one last favor and go.”

  He doubled over, coughing. Sofia quickly counted the approaching horsemen. The knights rode in a body, the wet earth sinking under the weight of their armor.

  “I’m staying.”

  “Today’s youth worry me. In my day, we only made selfless gestures when there was someone around who’d live to sing about them.”

  “You’ll live.”

  Acuto grinned, showing bloodstained teeth. “You’re a doctor too? It’s worse than you know. Listen—” He held his nose and blew.


  Sofia heard a hissing wind and congealing blood popping.

  “Skull fracture,” she said quietly.

  “Aye. Not something I’ll shake off with chicken soup.”

  “Then die well—not in this mud over a petty money squabble.”

  “That’s my profession you are slandering. Sadly, there’s no demand for heroism these days.”

  “I know a place.” She bandaged the general’s wound quickly.

  “Even if you could persuade an old brain-damaged general, why would his Company follow? No, my story ends here.”

  “Damn you, then!” She turned angrily, calculating her chances. There were twelve knights in heavy armor. The horses made it harder. An advance body of four broke off and spurred their mounts into a full gallop.

  “I’ve waited a long time to see my son again . . .”

  Sofia didn’t look away from the approaching knights as she answered. “I thought you were a fighter, John Acuto, but you’re just a weak old fool. Rasenna’s got too many of those already. Maybe I was wrong to invite you.”

  “Damn you, Sofia. I know what you’re trying to do, but it’s too late. Go, before they’re upon us!”

  She readied herself.

  The lead knight drew closer; he tilted his lance and charged. She sidestepped and tapped his lance as it passed. It dug into the earth, vaulting the knight into the air. He landed hard, metal breaking on bone.

  When the next two riders came, Sofia leaped for the first, swinging around his horse’s neck with a kick to the chin. She took his place in the saddle just as he crashed to the ground. He got up, dazed but lucid enough to unsheathe his sword. She pulled hard on the warhorse’s reins; it reared and came back to earth, crushing its master into the mud.

  The next knight was already charging. “Yaaah!”

  Sofia charged too, but before they passed she leaped from the saddle onto the knight’s lowered lance, sprang off, and kicked—not his breastplate but the body encased within.

  The armor bent like paper. Metal is the weakest element, no match for water.

  He was unconscious before he landed.

  Sofia picked up a lance and broke off the handle. With one eye on the horizon, she took a banner from her satchel and unrolled it; black and gold gleamed darkly. She fastened it to the stick and then closed her eyes, testing the weapon with a combination, listening for the snap—and hearing it. The Vanzetti made their banners to last.