by Ken Hood
Floorboards creaked outside, then Bartolo's great bulk filled the doorway. His normally rubicund face was pale as parchment.
"Well?" Toby demanded, stamping his feet into riding boots.
"Two hundred and three thousand. Still coming."
"From Lucca, too? Well, they won't be much good for a few days." Nevil's fondness for exhausting his armies with inhuman marches would betray him sooner or later — but not this time, because there was no enemy to oppose him. "You can stop counting now. Did you organize the bell towers?"
"We have reliable watchers in every campanile, and a sharp-eyed youngster as well. If they try any sort of sneak attack anywhere, the nearest bells will start ringing. The guards on the walls have been told how to use the bells to call for help."
"Good work. Put the criers into the streets right away — I've been appointed comandante in capo."
The friar beamed. "Well, that is certainly the best—"
Toby buckled on his sword. "And the Magnificent is dead."
Bartolo's gurgle of horror was a fair warning of how Florentines would react. Florence without a Marradi to run it was unthinkable, and there was no obvious heir ready to take over.
"What? How?"
"Murdered. Announce my appointment first!" Toby squeezed around him to reach the door. "Keep the other thing under your" — he ran along the gallery—"cowl!" He avalanched down the stairs. Clerks scattered out of his way like chickens.
* * *
He rode first to the Porta al Prato, near the stadium, which was an obvious site for an attack and close to where he guessed the army from Lucca would have pitched camp. The myriad campfires starting to shine in the gathering dusk showed him that his instincts had been correct. Nor was he alone in his inferences, for there he found Antonio Diaz.
The Catalan was haggard with exhaustion, but his dogged confidence had inspired his troops. The cheers with which they greeted Toby were both gratifying and appalling, so he did not know whether to weep or clap his hands over his ears and scream. Instead of doing either, he made a rousing speech from Smeòrach's back. What lies he told hardly mattered, because he kept twisting his head around to speak to everyone, and also his horse was very restless, clattering hooves on the cobbles all the time. Besides, his accent was so bad that no one would be able to catch much of what he said, but they cheered him again anyway, even louder. It was bad enough that he was condemning most of these men to die, but far worse that he must deceive them into thinking their deaths would serve some useful purpose.
Before leaving, he drew Diaz aside. "San Miniato is going to kill us. We'll have to sortie at dawn, before they're ready to open fire. Spike the guns at worst, drag them into town at best."
The Catalan nodded resignedly. "I know. And I know they'll be waiting for us to try just that. You want me to lead it?"
"Please. I'll join you if I can."
"No. You're too valuable."
"I have never felt more worthless," Toby said, but he knew there was truth in what Diaz was saying. A commander who threw his life away on a suicidal mission at the opening of the battle was not serving his cause. He ordered Diaz to get some sleep and rode away, despising himself from the bottom of his heart.
That was only the beginning. The night became a repeating nightmare of torch-lit faces. He circled around the city walls, crossing and recrossing the Arno, inspecting, approving, encouraging. Everywhere he found men of the Don Ramon Company and the Florentine militia together — gnarled veterans husbanding their strength for the morrow in among peach-faced apprentices shivering with excitement. All of them seemed glad to see him, cheering and jesting. Not even the crabbiest old trooper showed doubts or threw angry questions at him: Why have you locked us up here to die? What difference can we make? How will anyone benefit from our deaths? No one asked. He would have had no answers if they had. They all stood a little straighter when he left.
The Fiend had bridged the river both upstream and downstream from the city, just beyond cannon range. That was a very efficient piece of work, considering how long he had taken to span the Po, and the forces that had crossed already had completely surrounded the city. Lisa would not escape to Siena. Nor would Toby Longdirk, although he had never intended to try.
He found Arnaud Villars making his own tour of inspection, checking on stocks of arrows and missiles and powder and shot and grappling hooks and all the other thousands of items that might be needed at dawn. Toby ordered him to get some sleep. The attack might not come for days yet.
He even ran into desiccated Alberto Calvalcante the gunner, working on a few last adjustments to some of the defenders' cannons. He, too, looked as if he had not slept in weeks.
"You were right, Sir Tobias," he growled. "They do have guns on wheels, what I said were impossible. Saw them being dragged up to San Miniato. Don't know they'll work good, of course," he added grumpily.
"I knew it ought to be possible, and I'd heard the Fiend emplaced his artillery very quickly at Trent. Did you see how they do it?"
"Lugs, messer! They cast the cannon with a lug on each side of the barrel to make a pivot."
So then the guns could be tilted to the correct elevation and wouldn't blow themselves out of the mobile cradles. Simple! "Can you melt down all our cannon and recast them by dawn?"
Calvalcante spat. "Certainly, but those lazy carpenters can't make me the carriages I'd need." The listeners laughed, which was good, and Toby — feeling like a parrot now — told him to get some sleep.
He rode off to the next tower, the next gate, the next cluster of men around a lantern or brazier, the next lying speech telling them to hold firm if they were attacked, that help would come. Dying in battle was not such a terrible death, but dying with so many lies on his conscience was going to be. Strange that there was no sign of the don anywhere! Toby had expected him to return before the siege began, but perhaps the man just wanted to die in the open. A charge of a few hundred lances against tens of thousands might appeal to him as a worthy death.
The night was breathless and steaming hot. Eventually he realized that he had worn himself out, and his poor horse, too. If he went back to the inn, could he take his own advice and enjoy a few hours' sleep? More likely he would just toss and worry, but he turned Smeòrach in that direction, or as close to it as he could, for he was in the old Roman quarter, with its grid of narrow ways. A shutter opened above him.
"Sir Tobias?" It sounded like a child, but it might be a woman.
He reined in and peered up at the window, seeing only the faintest blur of a face. "I am, but how did you know?"
"The spirit wants you. Go to the sanctuary."
Ah! He could deceive the men of a thousand lances, but never the tutelary. His crimes had caught up with him.
"I will. May it send you good rest in return for this service."
He turned Smeòrach again and nudged him into a weary trot.
PART FOUR
May
CHAPTER ONE
As he had expected, the sanctuary was busy. Even the streets outside were full of aimless people, as if Florence had been smitten with a plague of insomnia. He had dismounted and loosened the girths before one of the inevitable horse urchins appeared to hold his reins.
"Business is good tonight?" he asked.
"Sì, messer!" The lad tried to grin, and it became a yawn.
"His name is Smeòrach. He won't cause you trouble." He thought of adding, "And if I don't come back before dawn, he is yours," but of course no one would believe the boy. "He needs water."
He walked stiffly over to the door, feeling a huge load of fatigue settling on his shoulders. When the attack came, it would come from so many directions at once that he would be as bewildered as anyone. From then on there would be no central command, only terror and bloody struggle. He would have little more to do than try to die as bravely as other men. He had done everything he could do, and it would not be nearly enough.
* * *
The interior was
a vast darkness, packed with unseen humanity, many of them singing along with the choir that stood before the altar at the end of the long nave. That was where the candles burned, illuminating the altar and the incarnation on the throne — which was a small child at the moment. The heady odor of incense could not hide the reek of too many people, suffocating heat, the palpable oppression of dread. Alas, poor Florence, doomed to join the ghostly ranks of cities Nevil had razed. Weep for her!
Men did not normally visit the sanctuary wearing swords and carrying steel helmets. He began to edge his way forward, trying not to frighten people or disturb their singing. Finding he was making little progress, he stopped, and quietly said, "Help?"
The elderly man in front of him turned around. "Is it not about time you asked our help?" He was stooped and toothless and ragged; he did not smell very pleasant, but the air around him had taken on a pearly shimmer.
"I have been busy, Holiness."
"We are well aware of what you have been doing. Come with us."
When the incarnation led him, the crowd parted unasked, people moving out of the way without realizing that they were doing so. They first went forward, toward the altar, and then over to one side. Above them the great dome soared unseen. Toby's guide halted at an insignificant door near the north entrance.
"Go up, Tobias, all the way to the top. We shall meet you again there."
He bowed, but the old man was already just an old man again, looking around in surprise. Toby began to climb the stairs.
* * *
It was a long climb for a man in full battle gear, and the night was sweltering. He was puffing hard when he emerged on the gallery around the lantern at the top of the great dome, fifty spans above the ground. Another incarnation was waiting there for him, an elderly woman. In the darkness, she was an indistinct, humped little shape.
The view was awe-inspiring. He could overlook everything — the dark and silent streets far below, the blank no-man's-land beyond the walls, and the whole valley of the Arno, which twinkled with myriad campfires as if half the stars of heaven had fallen. The cooks were already preparing breakfast so the troops could fight on full stomachs. Probably the guns would be ready by dawn to begin the brutal business of battering down the walls. It was surprising that the Fiend's demons had not begun their attack already.
He had never failed to take a city that defied him, nor had he ever shown mercy to the inhabitants.
"What are your plans, Captain-General?" asked the tutelary. "The damage so far has been serious but not unendurable. Tell me of the Allied forces that will arrive to lift the siege."
"Allies?" Toby laughed bitterly. "Milan's army is guarding Milan, Rome's guards Rome, Venice's Venice. They would not listen. They would not cooperate. Nevil will pluck them one by one. We are but the first."
"So this failure is as serious as it looks?"
Did the spirit expect him to deny the obvious?
"I see no hope at all. The fault is mine, and I accept the blame." He would not plead for mercy when he did not deserve it. He would not even beg for a quick death, for that would be too great a favor when everyone knew how the Fiend would treat the citizens after he took the city. Whatever form of execution the Florentines might decree for Toby Longdirk would be infinitely more merciful than anything the Fiend would do to him if he caught him. "I shall be surprised if the city lasts beyond sunset, Holiness."
The eastern sky was perceptibly lighter than the rest. Traitors were traditionally executed at dawn, but if the failed captain-general was to be subjected to some pretense of a trial, he would apparently live through this dawn and die another day. He wished the tutelary would just throw him in a cell and let him sleep, although that might mean he would fall into the Fiend's hands. It would be better to die on the battlements. Meanwhile, the responsibility was still his, so he ought to be down there on the walls, inspecting the sentries, guarding against one of Nevil's sneak dawn attacks like the Bloody Sunrise that had destroyed Nuremberg.
The incarnation had fallen silent, staring out motionless at the night as if the tutelary had gone away on other business and forgotten to summon the woman back to inhabit her own body. Toby paced restlessly off along the gallery, half-wishing the darkness would fade so he could see the enemy's deployments; wishing much more that it would never lift, that this one night would go on for ever and ever, preserving fair Florence in a bubble of time, a butterfly in amber eternally safe from the forces now poised to destroy her.
When he returned to his starting point, the woman had disappeared. The tutelary had made no farewells, pronounced no sentence, granted no forgiveness. He still did not know why it had summoned him to this aerie in the middle of the night, and he could not guess what he was supposed to do next — report to a dungeon in the palace of justice, or go off and lead the defense of the city through an endless day of fire and blood? The one option closed to him was sleep.
Puzzled and irritated, he walked around again. The eight ribs of the octagonal dome and the eight corners of the lantern joined across the gallery in stone arches. He counted them as he walked and at eight concluded he was now alone. There was no one else there — no one human, for a blur of white in the darkness and a breeze in his hair became an owl settling on his shoulder. Startled, he jumped. Then he reached up to stroke a finger over her downy breast. She made her odd little purring noise.
"Chabi! I'm glad you're back. I was afraid the Fiend's archers would get you." The Fiend's demons would be a greater threat. They must be all around the city now, like his army, and they would know she was more than merely owl.
A faint golden glow in the nearest arch heralded the return of the incarnation, apparently following him around the lantern. Why would a tutelary play childish tricks? "We hope you recognize the honor she pays you," said the tuneless voice. "For a shaman's familiar to befriend anyone else is close to a miracle."
"As long as she doesn't sick up a dead mouse in my ear, I don't mind her."
"Have you made progress, Holiness?" asked Sorghaghtani's voice from his other side. Where had she come from? She did not seem winded as if she had climbed all those interminable stairs. He was glad she was safe, too. Safe for the moment, at least. She was even smaller than the woman.
"None," the tutelary answered. "He has forgotten."
"Forgotten what?" Toby snapped. What were these two plotting? Shaman and tutelary? What an unholy combination! Or a too-holy combination. He had never considered this pair as likely partners, and the idea disturbed him.
"If you remembered you would not need to ask, Tobias. Why did the Fiend come to Florence? Why did he not start with Milan or Venice?"
"Isn't that obvious? Because of Blanche. Having the suzerain here must have tempted him, Nevil's wife and daughter even more so, but I suspect he could have ignored them if they had kept their heads down. Even when they were paraded around in public and Lisa was hailed as a queen, he might not have done very much. But when Blanche had the audacity to marry her daughter to the suzerain and name England as her dowry… even a demon can only stand so much."
CHAPTER TWO
It was almost dawn. Horizon showed all around the world, the stars were folding their tents, birds flitted over the rooftops of Florence, and roosters screeched in the yards far below him. Chabi sat contentedly on his left shoulder. He could see the incarnation clearly now — wrinkles and wisps of white hair dangling from under her headcloth, the back humped by a lifetime of toil. On his other side cryptic little Sorghaghtani sat cross-legged on the platform, all muffled in draperies, beads, and tufts of herbs. The camps of the foe were too far off for him to discern, but the bugles must be sounding there.
"What is to be done?" Sorghaghtani demanded angrily. "Can we not help him break the binding?"
"We must try," the tutelary answered. "For him to fail at the last minute would be tragedy for all Italy. But the dangers are extreme."
"Is he not a strong man, able to withstand what must break most others?"
"Will you two stop that!" Toby roared, glaring from one to the other. "If you are going to put me to death, Holiness, then go ahead and do it. Otherwise, throw me in a cell where I can get some sleep. Or, best of all, let me go down there and die beside the men who trusted me, the men I have betrayed. But stop discussing me as if I'm a colicky horse!"
They ignored him.
"Great Spirit, will you not explain his error to him?"
"He cannot believe us, and there is no time. The forces are poised, and the word must be given before the sun rises. Sorghaghtani, daughter, bid Chabi take him to the spirit world and show him the truth."
The little shaman uttered a cry as shrill as a bat's. "Nay, Holiness, do you know what you ask? Is he not untrained? What has he done that you would destroy him so horribly?"
"Tobias, if you could save the city by laying down your life, what would be your choice?"
His knuckles were white on the railing. "Do you have to ask?"
"You have to answer."
"Take my life, then. Will it be quick?"
"No, and it may be a shameful death, but we have no more time. Send him, Sorghaghtani, send him."
The shaman's fingers awoke a gentle rumble from the drum on her lap.
"No!" Toby protested. "The hob! Do not rouse the hob!"
"It is time to rouse the hob," said the tutelary.
The beat became a muffled thunder, and then a roar of blood in his ears. A weight of worlds crushed him down. He folded to his knees and bowed even smaller, feeling as if he were shrinking under a merciless load — tiny and smaller still, no larger than Chabi. He spread his arms, for he could move nothing else, and his arms raised him. He soared, and Chabi went with him, together borne on the imperative of the drumming. The dome rocked and spun and vanished away in the wind. Like an autumn leaf he rode the tempest, spinning through shapes and shades of madness, lights, and colors no mortal eye could see. Chabi was with him.