I fell silent for a moment, then turned to Lucia. “What is he doing?”
“Training them to fight with a sword,” she said.
“Where are they going to get real swords?” I asked. Lucia shrugged. “Giovanni! Why are you training them on swords?”
“What business is it of yours?” he said, but Michel, grateful for any distraction, had dropped his guard and was waiting with interest for the answer. “What other weapon would I train them on? Crossbow?”
“You were a university student, weren’t you?” I said to Giovanni. Dueling was something of a gentleman’s art; conservatory students were warned about this in passing during the lectures on courtly etiquette. Young men from that class were tutored in fencing from an early age; even the physician at the conservatory had a sword, though he seldom carried it.
I stepped onto the training ground. Michel was about the same age as my eldest brother Agrippo had been when I left home. Agrippo was the brother who brawled over the girl and wound up with the cracked head. At least, he was the first of my brothers to brawl over a girl and wind up with a cracked head. I gave Michel a tentative smile and he smiled warmly back.
“Give me your ‘sword’ a moment, Giovanni,” I said.
“Get out of here!” he said. “What right do you have, coming in here like—”
I held out my hand stubbornly. He reversed his grip to pass me the “hilt” with a sullen glare. “Thank you,” I said. “Now Michel. You’re holding a stick. Let’s see if you know how to use it.” I slapped the “blade” into my opposite palm and swung the staff at Michel.
Giula and Bella and the other girls at the conservatory could probably not have done this, especially after five years of sheltered conservatory life. But I had grown up with seven brothers, and Donato had taught me to fight.
Michel grabbed his stick like a stick and deflected my swing effortlessly; his grin grew wider. “You swing a staff like a girl.”
“In your dreams, big brother,” I said, returning the grin. I hooked his staff with mine and nearly jerked it out of his hand. He swung the stick to knock my wind out but I dodged aside.
“Lovely,” Giovanni said. “But the soldiers he’ll be fighting won’t be swinging sticks.”
“Fine, then,” I said, and handed the “sword” back to Giovanni, hilt first. “Michel, show Giovanni how you’d deal with a sword.”
Michel was still grinning; he dodged Giovanni’s first two thrusts, then hooked the sword and sent it flying. He swung the staff again, to clip Giovanni across the head. I had a feeling that Michel had put up with quite a few smacks on the head from Giovanni’s sword. Giovanni stumbled back a step and then snapped, “Hold.” He turned around to glare at Michel and the other six boys. “Out,” he ordered, and they left gladly, still grinning. He turned on me.
“I’ll thank you,” he said icily, “to stay out of the way during training exercises.”
“What are you trying to do?” I demanded. “They aren’t university students. They aren’t gentlemen. You’re trying to teach them to fight, aren’t you? Don’t you want them to win?”
“I suppose you think I should be teaching them to swing plows and pitchforks,” Giovanni said. “I’m teaching them to fight with real weapons.”
“A real weapon,” I said, “is the one you know how to use.” I turned to Lucia. “Let’s go, Lucia,” I said. “I think I’ve seen plenty.” Besides, I’d had the last word, and I wasn’t sure I could come up with another retort.
“Don’t come back here!” Giovanni shouted as we left. “Don’t you dare come back here!”
“You’re right,” Lucia said, once we were out of earshot. “Why make them learn to fight with swords when they already know how to use another weapon?”
“Lucia,” I said. “Is Giovanni planning to train six boys at a time until the whole camp knows how to fight? We’ll be dead of old age before he’s half done.”
Lucia sighed. “Beneto and Jesca don’t have much faith in the arms training—that’s why they put Giovanni in charge of it. Our real strength is our sheer numbers. There are thousands of refugees here, and only 122 soldiers. If we decided to walk out tomorrow, they’d run out of crossbow bolts before they could kill all of us.”
“So why don’t we? I suppose they could kill a fair number of us.”
“Yes. And so many people have lost hope … Beneto thinks that our best chance is to wait until people are really angry, then try to direct their anger. We could tear the crossbows from the soldiers’ hands and use them against them, and only a handful of Ravenessi would die. We just have to get people angry enough.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, Lucia.”
“Beneto’s convinced we could make it work. But we’d need an incident, first.”
“What about the massacres Rafi referred to? Those must have involved ‘incidents.’ ”
“Yes. And yet here we are. Beneto thinks that next time, he can make it work.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m angry already. I bet other people here are, too. If he organized people—trained them properly—”
“So tell Beneto. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”
As the sun neared the horizon, Lucia and I got into the line for dinner. As we waited, I heard a voice rasp behind me. “Signora,” the voice said, and I felt someone tugging at my sleeve. “Signora!”
I turned and sucked in my breath. It was the madman from the road. “Welcome, signora,” he said, gravely.
Lucia turned. “Amedeo,” she greeted him. “Is this the one you spoke of?”
The madman looked offended. “Have there been any other musicians who’ve arrived this month?”
“No—”
“Then she’s her. Don’t be ridiculous.” He turned to me. “The tune of the piece is not going quite as you expected, is it?” I tried to stare him down, but he refused to look away, grinning at me broadly. “Don’t worry. We know what we’re doing.”
“Piss off,” I said, shakily.
He laughed. “Welcome, signora. Enjoy your stay in Cuore.” He wandered off down the line of people, weaving and stumbling like a drunk.
“So,” Lucia said. “That’s Amedeo.”
“I’ve met him before,” I said.
“He gets around. Like Rafi said, the Light is too bright … he’s cracked.”
“I don’t like him.”
“Well, he’s a nuisance,” she said. “It’s even worse that some of what he says is inspired. You actually have to pay attention to his ravings. And fret about them.”
The line inched up. We had barely moved, although more people had joined the line behind us. “What did he mean, ‘enjoy your stay in Cuore’?”
Lucia shrugged. “Who knows? He might have meant that you’re going to go to Cuore sometime. Or maybe he meant that in some sense, this is Cuore. Or maybe he was just raving.” She shook her head. “You never know with Amedeo.”
“Lucia. Eliana.” We turned; this time it was Beneto and Jesca who’d come up behind us. “How did today go?” Beneto asked Lucia.
“Well, I think,” Lucia said.
Beneto took Lucia aside to confer with her in a low voice, and Jesca gave me a conspiratorial smile. “I heard about your confrontation with Giovanni.” Jesca squeezed my shoulder. “Good for you.”
“So what do you think?” I asked. “About training peasants in the weapons of the gentry?”
Jesca shook her head. “It doesn’t matter all that much. Our strength is in our numbers, if we could only …” She shrugged. Her voice was crisp and chill, like a bell through evening mist. “Sooner or later, Teleso will make a mistake. When people are angry enough, they won’t need weapons. They’ll fight the soldiers with their bare hands, grab the crossbows away, and tear the keep to the ground. It will happen.”
I shivered.
Beneto was done with his conference with Lucia, and Beneto and Jesca moved off down the line. They spoke briefly with almost everyone, squeezing peoples’ h
ands or shoulders, offering commiseration and comfort. They reminded me of the priest and priestess back at the conservatory.
We took our gruel back to Rafi’s tent. Giovanni was there. I hadn’t seen him join the food line, but he’d gotten his gruel somewhere and beaten us back to the tent. He moved over to make room for us, but it was clear he wasn’t happy about it.
“So,” Rafi said. “Did you have a nice day?” He sounded just like my mother, and I started laughing, then crying, and Giovanni stared at me like I had gone completely mad.
The next morning, Beneto took me aside after breakfast. “I heard what happened at the training ground yesterday.”
“Uh-huh?” I said.
“I’d appreciate it if, in the future, you left Giovanni to his own devices there. That’s his territory.”
I felt my face grow hot. “Jesca said—”
“Jesca is my lieutenant. I am the Generale here.”
“Ah,” I said, and looked down.
“Think of it this way,” Beneto said placatingly. “If you were conducting a musical ensemble, and Giovanni came up and started complaining about the way you were going about it, how would you feel?”
I looked up. Beneto was searching my face with his eyes. He really wanted to convince me that he was right, which was strange to me; if he was “Generale,” why did he care what I thought? “Beneto,” I said, “there are many different ways to conduct an orchestra. However, any conductor who started off by making the brass players take up violin would be replaced. By his superiors.”
“Ah,” Beneto said, and now he flushed. “Well, you know, this military training—”
“Is just to keep Giovanni busy,” I finished. “Irrelevant in the larger scheme because once people get angry enough, they’ll break out by sheer force of numbers. Doesn’t it seem to you that more of us will survive this breakout if we’ve learned a bit about fighting together first?” Beneto wasn’t listening—I could tell—and I grabbed his arm. “Everyone comes to the conservatory knowing how to play an instrument. And most of the men here—and quite a few of the women—know how to fight, even if it’s just brawling or fending off wolves with a bow. But just as conservatory students must learn how to play in an ensemble, the people here need to learn to fight as an army. Isn’t that what you want?”
Beneto extracted himself from my grip gently, the smile never leaving his face. “I’ll think about it,” he said. “For now, leave Giovanni alone. That’s an order.”
My jaw dropped as he walked away, and I ducked back into Rafi’s tent. Giovanni was long gone, but Lucia sat drinking some of Rafi’s “tea.”
“I never signed on to your movement,” I said. “Why does Beneto think I take orders from him?”
Rafi glanced at Lucia. “Told you,” he said to her. He turned back to me. “Right then. I’ll tell you to stay out of Giovanni’s way when he’s training. You’ll do it because you sleep in my tent, and I want some peace under my roof, even if it’s a cloth one.” He gave me a menacing glare, but I could see the glint of amusement in his eyes.
“Yes, signore,” I said.
“You see?” He was speaking to Lucia again.
“Don’t tell me,” Lucia said. “I was on your side all along.”
I looked at Lucia. “Lucia, he—”
“We heard,” Lucia said. “Tent walls are thin. And you may be right, but give it some time. Beneto is a reasonable man, but you’ve only just joined us. Give it some time.”
Lucia took me for a walk later along the hillside around the entire camp. “This is as far as we can go,” she said. “Any farther, and they’d have to shoot us.” She indicated the soldiers who patrolled the edge of the hill.
“Do you know any of the soldiers?” I asked.
“Many of them. By name and reputation, at least. I can’t say I’ve ever exchanged many words with Niccolo.” Her lips tightened. “And I try to keep out of Teleso’s way.”
“Niccolo.” The name rang a bell. “I think I saw him. He was serving food, and caught a boy trying to steal the ration chits. The other soldier wanted to let him go, but—”
“Niccolo turned him in. I know. He’d have volunteered to flog the boy himself, if he’d been on duty then. Charming man, Niccolo.”
“Not all the soldiers are like that.”
“No.” She waved as we passed one soldier along the hill. He glanced around to see if anyone was watching and then trotted down the slope to greet us. “Most of them come from Verdia, just like the rest of the people here. They joined the army for the duration of the war, and most of them feel that they’ve been double-crossed … being sent down here instead of getting their bonus and being released from their oath to the Emperor. Nobody wants to be here. Even Niccolo.”
“Hey,” the soldier said, joining us. “You’ve settled in fast.” I realized it was the soldier who’d brought me here—what was his name?
“Mario,” I said. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Did you find your family?” he asked me.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.” He looked genuinely bereaved. There was an awkward pause.
“I heard you playing your violin for the Ravenessi the other afternoon,” Mario said. “I was wondering, could you come play in the barracks some evening? I can’t promise everyone would stay awake for you, but I would.”
“I’d be honored to play for you,” I said.
“Good. Tomorrow night? After sunset?”
I nodded. “Tomorrow night would be fine.”
“I’ll meet you in the piazza. You’ll need an escort to get into the barracks.”
Belatedly, I threw a glance at Lucia, worried that I’d just made a mistake, but she didn’t seem concerned. There was a threatening shout, and Mario jumped. “I need to get back to patrolling,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow night!”
We continued around Ravenna. I had seen Ravenna from the hillside before, but it had been quiet and almost calm in the twilight. In the bright light of midday, Ravenna crawled with activity like an anthill, even though few of the people could have had anywhere to go. The tents were a garish assortment of ragtag colors, muted by the accumulated dust; few of them were more than shoulder height at their tallest point. The keep stuck out jarringly, like a giant boulder in a burned-over prairie.
“In a way,” Lucia said, “the soldiers are prisoners here as much as we are, even if they’re fed better.” She gazed at the keep. “Except for Teleso. He has friends in Cuore; he could go home if he liked, but he’s happy to play Emperor here in his own little capital.” She pushed her hair back behind one ear. “The Fedeli don’t come here because they fear what it means when they can’t use the Lady’s Gift; the Circle doesn’t come here because they fear their own powerlessness. And the rest of the world is happy enough to forget about us, which is just fine with Teleso.”
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Even if the Fedeli in Varena are after you, you must have other options. Is it because of Beneto and Jesca and their reform movement?”
Lucia shrugged. “Not really. Maybe a bit. I’m here because I think that God wants me to be here.”
“How did you get in trouble with the Fedeli?”
“Can’t you guess?” She grinned. “That’s not fair. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you sometime, I promise, but it’s a long story and right now I want to finish our walk. Are you really going to go play for the soldiers tomorrow night?”
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”
Lucia shook her head. “I try to steer clear of Teleso, and that’s not always easy in the barracks or the keep. But you should be fine with Mario looking after you. He’s a nice boy.”
As we were finishing our circle, Michel—the young man that Giovanni had been trying to train on sword—trotted up. “Eliana,” he said.
“Michel,” Lucia said. “You’re supposed to be in training.”
Michel shrugged and gave me a broad grin. “Yeah,” he said. “Might as well go rabbit hunting
in the Ravenna piazza, for all the good it’ll do me.” He hooked his thumbs on his belt, an extremely worn brown sash. “I like being told I can fight the way I’m used to. I wasn’t so bad at it, back before.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You were probably a brigand that preyed on travelers to Pluma, weren’t you?” I glared at him mildly and he gave me a grin back. “Where are you from?”
“Merela.” My expression must have been blank, because Michel shrugged. “It was a pretty small village.”
“Michel,” I said. “The key isn’t just learning to fight, it’s learning to fight together. Like the army already knows how to do.”
“Can you teach us that?” he asked.
“I’m a musician. You need somebody who knows fighting to teach you that.”
“You seemed to know something about fighting yesterday.”
“I know something about sticks,” I said. “And unlike certain people, I’m not completely devoid of common sense. But fighting like an army—” I spread my hands wide. “I might be able to teach you to play like an orchestra.”
Michel laughed. He had a nice laugh. “I’d still take you as an arms master over Giovanni.”
“Give me a couple of weeks,” I said, and he grinned again and hiked off back down the slope.
Later that afternoon, Lucia started teaching me her Old Way songs, beginning with a prayer for rain. It had a strong beat, like all the Old Way music I’d heard, and shifted between a sweet and a sad sound.
“Maybe I shouldn’t play this one,” I said. “I sure don’t want rain right now.” Ravenna in the rain would turn from a bowl of dust and ashes to a sodden mud-laden heap. I didn’t even want to think about what winter must have been like here.
“Don’t worry about it,” Lucia said. “God knows we have to practice sometimes.”
I played the piece through, and Lucia showed me the dance steps, though she didn’t try to make me learn them. “You said you learned songs and some prayers at the conservatory,” she said. “Did you ever participate in a true ritual?”
I laid my violin aside gently. “No,” I said. “But my roommate, Mira, formed a group to play the songs together. One time another friend of mine, Bella, got word that her sister had died, and we played the funeral music. Bella went on to become Redentore. The Fedeli killed her.”
Fires of the Faithful Page 19