“The Lupi and the Emperor stand together,” I said. “Everyone in the Empire knows the truth about magefire, and now we have a way to defend ourselves against it. How long do you think they'll stand against us?”
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, as soon as they hear that we're recruiting musicians, I imagine that they'll send some guardsmen to escort anyone they find here to comfortable new quarters in Cuore. If you bring our heads in a sack to offer them, they may trust you enough to allow you the liberty of the city.”
“So we have the Lupi to thank for being in this position,” Biagio said. “Is that correct?”
“I'd say that you have the Circle and the Fedeli to thank, actually. It was the Circle who destroyed much of Verdia; it was the Fedeli who spilled Bella's blood in the conservatory's courtyard.”
Biagio lowered his eyes, and I saw that his hand shook as he lifted his cup of tea. I leaned forward and lowered my voice.
“I believe that we will win this war—the Lupi and the Emperor together. It's possible that I'm wrong about this, though; I can't say I know what the spring will bring. The one thing that is certain is that if you stand with us, you stand against the Fedeli. Since you can't know for certain which is the preferable side to be on, you might as well stand against the people who cut Bella's throat.”
Dean Biagio looked up at me, and I saw a glimmer I couldn't identify in his eye. “Thank you,” he said. “If you and your companion will step outside for a few moments, Domenico and I would like to discuss this in private.”
Nolasco, the trumpet teacher, had waited outside the Dean's study; he escorted us to a small sitting room a short distance down the corridor. I wondered if he had listened in on the conversation; he had been Bella's teacher, after all, and I rather thought that he would not be a friend of the Fedeli. His face was rigid, though, and I wasn't sure. I also caught another glimpse of Flavia, loitering outside the Dean's study. This time, she met my eyes, and I saw her face light up with recognition just as Nolasco ushered us into the sitting room and closed the door.
“Do you think the Dean's going to let us recruit?” Giovanni asked as soon as we were alone.
“Yes,” I said. “But he may do it by allowing me some time ‘alone’ to ‘visit’ my old friends. I'll take whatever he offers, frankly. I just hope he hurries.”
We didn't have to wait long. Dean Biagio swung open the door a few minutes later. “We are the Emperor's loyal subjects,” he said, inclining his head. “In what way can we best serve him?”
“Assemble the students and staff,” I said. “I'd like to speak to everyone at once.”
∗ ∗ ∗
The chapel bell tolled, summoning students and teachers to an unscheduled service. The chapel was perhaps not the best location to recruit people to rebel against the Lady, but it was designed to accommodate all the students and teachers at once. As I faced my strangest audience yet, the girl students were on my right, the boys on my left; the teachers lined the walls and sat in the back. I scanned the aisle seats for Celia, but she must not have arrived soon enough to grab one of the “good spots.” The students were breathless and bewildered; some of the younger students looked as if they'd been crying.
“Don't be afraid,” I said. “I am not your enemy.” Great, I thought as soon as the words were out of my mouth. That would sure have made me feel better, back when I was a student. “I am Generale Eliana of the Lupi, servant of Emperor Travan, but many of you probably remember me as simply Eliana, violin student, and friend of Bella.”
I could hear someone's breath catch at the sound of Bella's name. I looked around the room. “Yes, you remember Bella, don't you? Probably better than you remember me. I heard once that she was one of the brightest students the conservatory had ever seen. On festival days when we played games to test our memory for obscure tunes and bits of musical lore, Bella would win every game until Nolasco made her sit down to give others a chance. She was kind, daring, fiercely loyal to her friends and what she believed to be the truth. And the Fedeli murdered her—cut her throat before our eyes, and forced us to continue dancing while she choked to death on her own blood.”
In the front row, there was a girl I didn't know—she looked maybe a year or two younger than me, but old enough to have been in the courtyard that night. She had wrapped her arms around herself as I spoke and was trying to hold back her tears.
“We couldn't allow ourselves to cry that night,” I said. “We couldn't allow ourselves to be angry, because we feared the Fedeli so much, and because we believed that they were an undefeatable, all-powerful enemy. But they're not. The Emperor has turned his back on them and joined the Lupi in the wasteland. We have joined forces against the Circle and the Fedeli, and we have a way to win, even against magefire. But we need your help.”
I licked my lips and looked cautiously toward the teachers at the back of the room. Nolasco, Bella's old teacher, stared at the floor, his face hidden. Domenico's eyes were on me, his face solemn and half shadowed.
“You've all played Old Way music—songs from the Redentori rituals. After leaving the conservatory, I learned that there were dances that went with the songs. And when I faced mages from the Circle in Montefalco, I discovered that those songs have power.” I raised my voice. “By the power of God, and the power of the music, I saw magefire extinguished like a candle plunged into cold water. Without magefire, the Circle is powerless. Without the Circle, the Fedeli are powerless. If you join with me, we can restore the Emperor to true power. If you join with me, we will see that the Fedeli never murder another Bella.”
“And if we don't?” someone called.
“I leave this afternoon,” I said. “And I want only willing volunteers. If you choose to stay, though, you should probably realize that word is getting out that the Lupi are recruiting musicians. The Circle and Fedeli don't yet know why, but they will act quickly to round up musicians from the conservatories. Your prison, should they find you here, will be a reasonably comfortable one, but you will be their prisoners, nonetheless.”
The girl in the front row was openly sobbing now, and other students had gone very pale. The fear in the room was palpable as they realized that the one choice that most of them probably wanted to make—stay here, and let the world do what it will—was not an option. I leaned forward and spoke gently. “If you do not want to join me, but you do not wish to be a prisoner, you can also simply leave and return to your home. Very soon, the Circle will be far too busy to seek out and round up every minstrel and former conservatory student in Verdia, no matter how much they'd like to.” I raised my voice again. “But I hope that you will choose to join us. On one side, the Circle and Fedeli stand against Verdia—for it was the Circle's magery that drained the lands and caused the famine. On the other side, the Lupi and Emperor stand together. Join us, and serve the Emperor. Join us, and find out how it feels to really play the music you've always played in secret.”
I straightened up. “We leave in two hours. If you wish to join us, meet us at the front gate with your instruments.” I gestured to Giovanni, and he followed me out of the hall.
“How many do you think will come?” Giovanni asked.
I sighed. “I don't honestly know,” I said. “It's funny, because I was pretty good at predicting how many of the prisoners at the camps we liberated would join the Lupi, but here I have no idea. I like to think that if I were still a student, I'd be off packing my bag right now, but I don't know that I would.”
“You would,” Giovanni said.
I sent Giovanni to the kitchen to negotiate for food— we'd need to feed our volunteers on the trip through the wasteland and back to the Lupi camp. Then I went to the north practice hall, where I used to meet with Mira, Bella, Giula, Flavia, and Celia to play the Old Way music. It was even colder and draftier than I remembered. In the slivers of daylight that came in through the cracks in the walls, I studied the one fresco that still remained. I had always thought it was Gaiu
s with the Lady's Gift: it showed a frightened man clasping a tiny gleam of light to his breast. Looking at it now, I realized that it had probably been left intact because others assumed the same thing, but it wasn't Gaius. Aral Chedvah, I realized. The Archangel Gabriele, thief of God's holy Light. “Gabriele stole a fragment of God's holy Light,” I remember Lucia saying, “and placed it in the womb of a pure young woman. And so she conceived a child, a son, and she named him Gèsu.”
This was a church, I realized. A Redentore church. I had never even seen Mass celebrated indoors, except for the secret Redentori in Cuore. It was hard to believe that Redentori once had actual churches, and I felt the need to do something to acknowledge that I was on holy ground. I crossed myself, finally, and whispered a prayer in the Old Tongue. I wondered if Mira had known, if that was the real reason she'd liked coming here.
“Eliana?”
The whisper came from the doorway. I turned: Flavia. She came inside hesitantly, as if she didn't really know how to treat me, this strange firebrand who claimed to be her friend. I realized that I didn't really know what to do, either—would Flavia even want me to hug her? I had been gone a long time … I hadn't even said a proper good-bye when I left that day, nearly choking on my grief and anger.
“I'm so glad you came to see me,” I started to say, but Flavia was speaking at the same time. “—glad you came back,” she said, and then laughed awkwardly. “Sorry,” she said. “Finish what you were saying.”
“I just said that I was glad you came to see me,” I said. “On my way here, I was picturing myself talking to you and Celia alone, not making a speech to the whole school.”
“It was a good speech,” Flavia said.
“I've had a lot of practice giving speeches,” I said, and then immediately felt like I'd said the wrong thing.
Flavia turned a little red and said, “Yeah, we've heard rumors. Songs.”
“They're probably all lies.”
“Except for the parts about you giving speeches.”
“Right,” I said. I sounded like a pompous priest; I wished we could just start this whole conversation over. “Those might be true.”
“Eliana.” Another voice from the door. I turned to see Celia coming in at a full run; she threw herself into my arms with a shriek of delight. “You came back! You hadn't forgotten about us. You came back to ask us to join you!” She clasped my arms in her hands. “You can't even imagine how many times Flavia and I have wished we went with you when you left, like Giula did. We'd have left a hundred times if we'd thought we'd have done you the slightest bit of good— and if we'd known where to find you.”
Celia let go of me, and I took the opportunity to give Flavia a tight hug. “Is that true, or is Celia making it all up to make me feel good?” I asked.
“It's worse than you think,” Flavia said. “She wrote a song about you.”
“Oh, horrors,” I said. “At least Lia started out with the story straight when she wrote her songs.”
“This one's about your early life,” Flavia said.
“It's actually more about Bella,” Celia said. “Of course no one sings it publicly, but I think everyone knows it.” She bit her lip. “No one was talking about Bella—or Mira—or you and Giula. It was as if none of you had existed. It made me angry to think that people were forgetting already.”
“You've changed,” I said.
“Maybe you just didn't know me very well before,” Celia said, and tossed her curls. “Anyway, I'm coming with you, of course.”
“And so am I,” Flavia said.
“And so are we,” a voice said from the doorway. It was Domenico; Nolasco was a pace behind him. “I should have looked for you here first; I remember this was where you had your secret ensemble.” Domenico looked around. “I can't imagine why you met here. It's freezing.” He clasped my hand briefly. “And so the student becomes the teacher. I am yours to command, Generale.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. “I will try to be worthy of your loyalty.”
“I think my students will choose to come as well,” Nolasco said. “All of them. It is their decision, of course, but—” his eyes glinted with a hard light. “We have not forgotten Bella.”
Over a hundred students and teachers waited by the gate to the school when Giovanni and I were ready to leave, their instruments slung over their shoulders. I was stunned by the size of the crowd, and I realized that the trip back to the wasteland was going to take a lot longer than I'd expected. To my surprise, Giovanni seemed to have obtained enough food to feed everyone for the trip. He must have had more faith in my rhetoric than I had.
Domenico and Nolasco were coming with us; Dean Biagio was not. Nearly everyone I'd known personally was coming, but also many strangers—the percussion teacher, the flute teacher, a number of boy students. I thought about giving them another speech to inspire them for the walk, but something inside me was saying, hurry, hurry, hurry. So I discarded the speech and instead said, “I'm so glad to see all of you. Grab some of the food and let's get moving.”
Giovanni had loaded my horse and his with food and supplies bought from the conservatory's kitchens, along with the pack horse, but they couldn't carry all of it; the musicians had to help, and I heard a great deal of grumbling as people shouldered sacks of food along with their instruments. Giovanni led all three horses, to free me up to wander among our new recruits and encourage any who seemed to need encouragement.
An hour after we set out, I sought out Celia, and discovered that she'd attached herself to Giovanni. “Are you Generale Giovanni?” she was asking. I fell in step a few paces behind them to listen.
“Yes,” Giovanni said.
“I'm so excited to finally meet you! I've heard so much about you!” Celia tossed her curls, and set her hand tentatively on Giovanni's arm.
“Have you,” Giovanni said, and looked at her nervously.
“Oh yes. You're in some of the songs. Those were always my favorite ones.”
Celia was flirting with him. My jaw dropped, and then I grinned. Bizarrely, this seemed to make Giovanni nervous—more and more nervous as she persisted. Finally, when he was answering all her questions with monosyllables and grunts, she gave up and went to pester someone else. I smoothed out my face so that she wouldn't realize that I'd been eavesdropping, but I don't think she cared. She fell into step beside me and leaned close to my ear to whisper, “I had no idea that Generale Giovanni was so handsome. He isn't your … your …”
“He isn't my anything,” I said. “Well, he's my friend and my fellow generale, but that's obviously not what you're asking about.” She blushed prettily and tossed her curls. “Have at.”
“I'm sure he'd be interested in you,” she whispered.
“I'm sure he would not,” I said firmly. “And if he were, he would be in for deep disappointment and a great deal of frustration.”
That made Celia quite cheerful, and she moved off with a smile on her face.
“Thanks so much,” Giovanni said as soon as she was gone. “I really did need a cute little companion; it'll make the ballads about me so much more popular.”
“Celia's a very nice girl,” I said, jogging a few paces to walk beside Giovanni.
“If you haven't noticed, Eliana, there are plenty of very pretty, very nice young women in the Lupi right now. Yet I sleep alone every night. Did you ever stop to consider that maybe this was because I think it would be bad for morale for either of us to take a companion from among our soldiers?”
“I had always assumed it was because you were still in mourning for Jesca,” I said.
“Jesca!” Giovanni said. “Wherever did you get the idea … In Jesca's eyes, I was a boy. No, Generale, I sleep alone for many reasons, but my deep affection for Jesca's memory isn't one of them.” He shook his head. “Well, if Celia doesn't give up soon enough, I'll have her assigned somewhere far away from me. A woman can be more persistent than a wolf on a scent.”
I snorted. “And a man can't?”
“Most men will give up when they get no encouragement,” he said, and gave me an amused look through his lashes. “But lack of encouragement doesn't always deter young ladies like Celia. At any rate, she's taken herself off somewhere for now … Do you suppose we can get them to move any faster?”
“Maybe a little,” I said.
“I wish you'd taken a corps of dancers and a squad of Imperial guards when you decided to sneak off. It wouldn't have been exactly subtle, but since they mentioned they'd heard rumors that the Lupi were looking for musicians …”
“I'm worried, too. I've been pushing things as fast as I felt I could.”
“I know. That's why I wish we had soldiers to defend us.” Giovanni handed me the horses' reins. “I'm going to scout ahead.”
I nodded and took the reins without breaking stride. Giovanni pulled the hood of his cloak up and set out at a slow run, down the slope we were on and then up the next hill, and then down again, hidden from view.
Flavia sought me out a few minutes later. “You spoke a great deal about Bella,” she said. “But there's another from our quartet you never mentioned. Does it not bother you to lead a war against Mira?”
I bit my lip and looked away. I thought I could trust Flavia, but there were other people close by, and I couldn't risk Mira's treason being discovered. “Miriamne made her choice,” I said.
Flavia nodded, her face troubled. “And Giula?”
I laughed. “Now that's a tale.” I told her about our trip together as far as Pluma—then her reappearance at Ravenna, and her association with Teleso. “She ended up going to Doratura. As far as I know, she's still there.”
Flavia sighed. “I would have expected better of her.” She meant Giula, but I thought she probably expected better of Mira, too. And in the case of Mira, Flavia was right. I tasted bitterness in my mouth for a moment. Even though Mira had given me the key to the countermagery, and even though I was sure that she had cheered the news of our victory at Montefalco, part of me hated the idea of making war against her. Not because I had any hesitation about opposing the Circle, but because the idea of facing Mira across a battlefield again made my stomach churn. Shaking my head, I pushed the thought away and asked Flavia what she and Celia had been up to since I left.
Turning the Storm Page 21