The soldier got in a few more whacks on the shoulder and back. Marius, now more alert, was quick to read the feint. He countered by quickly blocking the blow. Marius saw that the soldier kept to a few familiar moves. The variations were slight. Marius took advantage of the fact by getting in a few good wallops.
Bastoni called for a change.
“I am Beppo!”
“I am Marius!”
“Bravo! We need new blood to spill on sand! The Battuto you replace no last long at all!”
They no sooner tapped dowels when Beppo feinted.
Marius countered, but in the wrong direction. The blow caught him solidly above the knee. Marius hopped away. He turned and nodded to Beppo. He raised his dowel as if he was going to strike a solid blow on Beppo’s shield. Instead, he merely tapped it a glancing blow, which carried around to a solid smash into Beppo’s rump.
Beppo took a deep breath nodding toward Marius all the while. He charged, feinted, struck; and charged, feinted, struck; and again charged, feinted, struck.
Marius anticipated his next attack, but Beppo altered his moves and rained blows, one after the other.
Whenever Marius wasn’t quick enough to avoid the dowel, Sergeant Bastoni’s laughter would be a chorus to the loud whack.
Bastoni called for a break. He beckoned Marius to his side. “The better you become, the better you train my soldiers. Right now you serve merely as exercise. I purposely sent in Beppo because he really needs no more training. He is what is called a ‘finished soldier.’ You were very good. You read the first soldier’s moves. You got in some good blows. With Beppo I hope you saw that every combatant you face brings with him a new set of challenges. The better trained soldier you are, the better you will be able to counter any technique. You must be...? What is the word I’m looking for?”
“Flexible, agile,” Marius said.
“Yes, flexible. Agile. By the time I’m through with you, Patrone Marius, you may well prefer the brutality at the forge than the tenderizing of a Battuto.”
Two months had passed when Angelus asked Marius, “You never say word about being used as a whack-bag by the soldiers. I see almost always you don’t walk so good when you come back. Is there no let-up? Bastoni is a bastard? Eh?”
Rubbing his aching arm muscles, Marius lifted his head and nodded. “You know, Angelus. With each training session I find myself getting faster and faster. I find my speed has developed to the point where I find myself blocking blows without telling myself to do so. My arms, my hands, they just leave me, you know what I mean? They act on their own to protect me.
“Yes,” Angelus said, “I hear they call you Il Vortice because you spin like the wind! How is it you do that?”
Marius sipped his wine. “I really enjoy the combat. I wish I had training as a youngster. I have found out each soldier has his own technique for aiming at one spot and landing the blow at another, or doing the intended. Do you know what keeps one safe? This ‘knowing without really knowing.’ A voice inside guides you. It speaks in whispers but quickly. Then, I surmised there had to be a way to get the edge over what my opponent was about to do. Bastoni would tell me to read the eyes of the opponent. That does not always work because eyes could be hidden deep within a helmet. What is constant, Angelus, is that bodies are all the same; the arms attached at the shoulders, and hands holding the weapon. So, movements all have to be the same for the same action within the limits of the range of motion. I would let them hit me so I could watch the movement and ripple of the soldier’s muscles as he moved the dowel. I saw different blows called more on some muscles than others, and by their tensing or relaxing they would signal a direction. ‘Ah-hah!’ I said. I can read the direction of a blow to fend it off; I can use that same knowledge to take advantage of an opening in the opponent’s defense! The lessons did not come without pain, but learn I did.”
“So now what?” Angelus asked. “You want to become a soldier?”
“I don’t think that will happen as long as Bastoni is around. That prick has been watching me too closely. He’s got something in store for me. All I want to do is survive.”
The next time Marius reported to the circle, Bastoni called out, “Alphonso! This cock o’the walk Battuto is getting too cocky!” He roared at his own joke. “He has forgotten he has danced only with the ladies of the brigade! He should do a tarantella with an old war horse! Do the honors!”
Alphonso nodded, grabbed a dowel, and walked to the circle.
After he received the second resounding blow, Marius discovered that the more experienced soldiers were going to be more difficult to read. Alphonso was swifter, and wasted no effort to gain his mark. Alphonso’s face remained stolid, deadfaced. He did not react to the blows he landed.
“Marius!” Bastoni called out, “Do you see how a veteran approaches his job? Putting down an opponent is a cut and dried. Do you now see how skill, training, and endurance makes Alphonso so formidable?”
Now fired up, Marius turned back to Alphonso. He set a goal. He would return blow for blow.
Slam! Marius took a blow that glanced off his helmet and landed on his arm plate.
Marius grunted, feinted, and tried to get a blow into Alphonso’s side. It was parried, and he suffered a stinging blow to his buttocks.
The other soldiers that were training gathered around the combatants to watch. Matters had grown very serious. As Marius grew more and more intent to even the score, Alphonso used his carelessness to knock him to the ground. Again. And again.
Finally, Bastoni called a halt. He waved Marius over to his side. “If you are going to be any good to me and my men, you must be much, much better than you are.”
“I will be!” Marius spit blood.
“No, you won’t. Do you understand why Alphonso beat you into merde?”
“All he has is experience. Give me another week or two!”
“Wrong. All you had was your arrogance. That will keep you from being trained and gaining experience. I will tell you a secret, the reason Alphonso is so good. This may be a game for you. It is not for him. He is first and last a soldier. The capital point of a soldier is that how good he is determines how long he survives the battlefield. Did you hear me? Were you listening?”
Marius stared at Sergeant Bastoni. His eyes grew wider as the understanding penetrated. A seasoned veteran exhales the stench of battlefield blood, and wants none of it to be his own. Marius inhaled his words until they bubbled in his gut. “Point well taken.”
Captain Morgana stood beside Bastoni as Marius was getting ready to go on the field. “I see Marius had changed his demeanor. He has become more and more proficient. He is able to prevent the dowel from striking his body. It makes it more challenging for the soldiers, but, at the same time, he makes them look rather amateurish. Sergeant?” Captain Morgana asked, “What sort of animal have we unleashed? I suggest you raise the ante for Il Vortice.”
“I will take care of it,” Bastoni said. He signaled to the soldier about to face Marius that he should use two dowels.
At the mid-day break, Marius walked to Bastoni. “I see your face grows darker and darker. Could it be because you see it makes me even faster?”
“Ha!” Bastoni said, “I can take care of that!” Bastoni had the circle made larger.
Marius glanced at Bastoni, who had a knowing smile cutting across his face.
Marius turned to confront two soldiers each with a dowel. He charged them with a fury. The bigger of the two said in his ear, “Fall to the ground or we’ll beat you to a pulp!”
“You try first!” Marius answered. He turned to face them with a vengeance.
When the session ended, Bastoni said to Marius, “You must be slowing down. I see for every blow you gave, you got three in return. And look at you. You are sunburned with red welts covering every bit of your exposed skin. I suppose you’re slowing down a bit?”
“The competition is not fair!” Marius started.
The sergeant interrupted,
“A subject worthy of debate in the Senate of Rome!”
Marius smiled back. “I’m not talking about myself, Sergeant. It’s not fair for your soldiers! They’re nursemaids,” Marius snapped. “Find something else to even the odds.”
At the next session the sergeant told him, “We’ve made it fair! We have made the circle smaller!”
Marius was prepared. With the smaller area and his speed, he was able to have the soldiers miss him and swat each other. Marius was also able to make his opponents tangle their legs and trip them to fall outside the circle.
Bastoni slammed his dowel against a shield. He sent in one pair of soldiers after another. By the middle of the day, Marius was exhausted. He became slower and unable to guard himself fully and was getting well tattooed.
At one point Captain Morgana stopped to speak to Sergeant Bastoni. There was little said but it was easy to see the captain spoke of the heat of the day, the leather armor, the extra exertion put on the soldiers. A short time later, the sergeant motioned to Marius. “You no more for day. Sit in shade...like baby sheep.”
Marius turned on him.
The sergeant held up his hands, “Not my idea! I make you work in ring until you fall morte! Morte! Your Captain Morgana pet sheep!”
Soon Sergeant Bastoni became aware that the garrison’s sympathy had turned to Marius. It was discernable to him that the contestants did not strike Marius as hard as they could. Many of their blows seemed to be full swung, but actually they were lightly taken and all aimed for the padding and not the exposed flesh.
The next week, Bastoni called Marius before him. “I notice my men are developing a weakness when they practice with you. For a soldier, that weakness means their own death. I see as the day goes on and your skin turns to fire and dark colors, my soldiers show you compassion and either do not strike you as hard as they could, or as often as they are able. Compassion has no place on the battlefield, don’t you agree?”
Marius nodded, narrowing his eyes.
“For the first match, you will not wear a helmet. Let us see what we shall see?”
Marius understood Bastoni’s lecture to his men on compassion went across clearly.
Back in the ring, the first man gave him a glancing blow to the back of his head, and then Marius took a solid blow to the side of his head that knocked him to the ground.
Bastoni signaled he should get his helmet back.
“Would you like to rest?” Bastoni asked?
“Fuck you!” Marius said.
“Good!” Bastoni said. “This time, would you like your right or your left hand tied behind your back?”
“My right hand,” Marius said, “if you’re only putting three men in the ring against me; my left hand if there will be more.”
“You little prick,” Bastoni said, “I warned you not to try me! Three it is!”
Captain Morgana asked the sergeant to consult with him out of earshot of the men. “Sergeant Bastoni, I see you have an asp by the tip of its tail. It is ready to spread its venom. You have made your conflict with Marius much too personal. It is apparent to everyone. You are making all Rome and this garrison look very, very bad. Remember, Marius was merely a spoiled wastrel. The tide has changed from being against him, to you. I am ordering you to find a solution that would not make the garrison look bad. If you don’t, you will lose the respect of the soldiers. I cannot have such a sergeant in charge of my troops. If you do not take care of this in a proper manner, you may plan to spend the rest of your days here at the forge.”
“Captain Morgana, I have not served Rome for 20 years to have a dandy take me down. You need not concern yourself with me ending up at the forge. I will close out this problem with Marius or I will be dead.”
12
Moments after leaving the Vatican, Roberto and Diura caught a cab. When Roberto spotted a sidewalk café, he ordered the driver to drop them off.
“Are you absolutely sure we shouldn’t go to the hotel and let you rest a bit?” Diura asked.
Roberto caught her concern. Standing together on the sidewalk, the passersby unseen, Roberto was absorbed by the sunlight playing off of her. A deep, red-purple sheen highlighted her hair. He watched as the breeze caught a corn silk wisp of it making her reach up to shield her face and hold it at bay, a disarmingly simple but provocative touch. He saw the dazzle of the traffic reflected in her sunglasses. Nervously, she held her lips tightly together as she licked at them. He reached out to put his hand to her arm. “Bella! I’m fine. Fine! Let us bask in the moment.”
“How Italian!” she said. “That would be nice.” He stared hard at her. “What?” she said.
“Diura, you are irresistible,” he said enticingly nodding his head toward the café. “I cannot wait. We must...”
Roberto held her elbow as he guided her to a table. He stopped a waiter. As he looked around, he spoke very slowly but firmly. “Last year, I proposed at this same table. We must have it again. Save it for us.” He handed some Euros to the waiter. “We’re going inside for a moment, and when we come out, you can bring us the luncheon specialty of the house with a bottle of Asti. Ai capitto?”
The waiter nodded.
Roberto guided Diura into the darkness of the restaurant. As they walked in, a waiter asked if he could help. Roberto waved him off. Diura looked back at him questioningly. He peeped into the men’s room only to come right back out. Just as he grabbed the knob of the ladies room door a woman walked past him, pushed it open, and walked through it.
Standing in the aisle holding Diura, Roberto looked around. Their waiter marched in. He was preoccupied with his order book, and then looked up in time not to crash into the couple. Just then, a woman exited the ladies room, gave Roberto a dirty look, and walked away. The waiter watched her go, glanced at the ladies room door, and then looked at Roberto. He stared at Diura, then back at Roberto. The waiter’s eyebrows went up. He fanned his hand. He hesitated for only a moment, then raised his chin to Roberto, and tossed his head in the direction over Roberto’s shoulder.
Roberto turned around.
He spotted the coat closet. It was put to little use at this time of year. He led Diura inside the darkened cubicle, closed the half-door, and leaned her against the wall where she was partially hidden.
“Roberto...” she barely whispered.
“Cara...! I must hold you.” He unbuttoned her jacket. She took a deep breath. He put his arms around her to draw her close, then tighter and tighter.
Barely speaking, she said, “You are taking my breath away.” She searched out his lips. The kiss was hard, intense. She dropped her hands to grab and hoist her skirt out of the way.
In one quick twist she was free and available.
Her leg encircled him. Her heel dug into his thigh urging him to her.
Locked, he buried his face in her shoulder to muffle the moan.
She found him and held him still to let the sensations course throughout her body.
“Diura!” he signaled.
She rocked down against him harder, more urgently. “...wait...” she whispered.
“Cara! Cara!” he murmured.
Her body tensed. She grabbed his face between her hands. He felt her contractions around him. Her movements became more urgent.
“Cara! Cara!” he warned.
“...Wait!” she commanded. “...Oh! God!”
Finally, he collapsed hard against her. “I adore you.”
She let her arms drop heavily on his shoulders. “God! I love you!”
After long moments, he pushed away from her. “I could not wait. The moment ...was imminent,” Roberto breathed heavily.
“After all these months, how is this possible for you?” Diura asked. “Tell me! How is it possible? What happened in the Vatican?”
“Nothing happened. It is not known as a place of miracles. Perhaps simply a spontaneous cure. I just don’t know. Are we now engaged?”
Diura tilted her head backwards to laugh, her mouth wide open, then kis
sed him quickly. “You got your wish!”
In the sun at the table, they ate ravenously. They were totally unaware of the world around them so absorbed were they in each other. The waiter knew enough to leave them alone and tried to be less than a shadow.
“Now tell me about our engagement,” Diura said. “I will not go to arbitration.”
“Then agree with me.”
“Madness is no choice at all,” she said fishing for the calamari and a small shrimp and taking them with a bit of the pasta.
Expertly twirling pasta above the clam, Roberto tried to catch her eye. “In this life we are all involved with someone else’s madness. We look for the involvement, not the subject nor the success.”
“Sei matto, sai?” she said.
“I know I’m crazy. Sei bella, sai?”
“Then do as I say. Forget this insanity of the fourth nail,” she said her dark looks shadowing her face. “Don’t you realize you could have died on me down there? A holy death! Sure! Now answer me, how much time do you have left, Roberto? Your father said you would have the answer in a year. You are a thief! You have stolen time away from us! From me! We could have had these days in our pockets. They could have been ours! You’re not even going to leave me with warm memories!”
“The fourth nail answer is seconds away!”
“No!” she spat. “You can’t even tell me if you’re going to be alive before you finish your pasta! Am I to wait for my heart to stop and stop and stop every time you struggle to take a step? Or second by second by second worrying about whether or not I will forget to give you your medicine again? It’s cruel and unsaintly treatment! You want me to go on taking this nonsense? Then I would be as crazy as you are. No! No! No!” She deliberately, carefully put her fork and spoon down.
His eyebrows shot up and down. He toyed with his glass of wine. He sighed deeply. “How many times have we gone over this? It has become worse each time.”
“Because each time there is a further accumulation of detritus; because each time we have thrown away precious moments! Because each time we vomit counting the wasted hours! That is how we turn our lives into husks! Monuments are not erected to failed efforts; they are used only to bury the pitiful ashes of unrequited dreamers.” She reached across the table to take his hand. “I have gone your way for so long. Give me the Italian honeymoon you promised.”
The Fourth Nail: An Historical Novel Page 6