Fires of the Faithful

by Naomi Kritzer

  He shrugged. “Stuff that’s interesting. Stuff we didn’t already know. You know. Useful information.”

  I found a roster of soldiers’ names, with a small mark next to each. I took a close look. “I think this is a list of who Teleso thought was on his side,” I said.

  “That’s useful,” Giovanni said. “Tell us which mutineers to keep an eye on.”

  I leafed through a sheaf of folded papers tied with a blue ribbon. “Letters from his sister,” I said.

  Giovanni snorted. “Those are useless.”

  I read through one anyway and concluded he was right. I tossed the rest aside.

  “Hey,” Giovanni said. “Intelligence on the situation in Cuore. We can read these over later.”

  The next stack was supply inventories. The next pile had a diagram of the wall, and how it should look when construction was complete. Under that was a rough sketch—a curving line with seven slashes along it. One was labeled “Ravenna.” “Hey, Giovanni,” I said. “What is this?”

  He took the piece of paper and then spread it out on the desk, his interest growing rapidly. “You’ve found something,” he said. “Eliana, you have definitely found something.”

  “What?” I asked. “I don’t have that oh-so-useful university background, you know.”

  “Oh, give it up,” he said. “It’s a map. See, this is Ravenna. This is the wall, or where the wall will be when it’s all done. These other marks—they’re other camps like Ravenna. Probably also working on part of the wall.”

  “Seven camps?” I asked.

  “Six, now,” Giovanni said.

  “Do they have the same numbers of soldiers and slaves?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t say. They’re probably smaller. Up in Cuore, the reformers had only heard about Ravenna … but, well, that probably doesn’t mean much. And who knows, these might be new. I’ve been out of touch for a while.” He pushed back a lock of glossy black hair. “So what do you think?”

  “I think those are excellent targets,” I said. “I didn’t want to take the Circle on starting tomorrow—we’re still too new at this, and new in ways that playing Lupi isn’t going to solve.”

  Giovanni nodded, his eyes glinting with excitement. “We need real battles,” he said. “We can become a real army once we’ve had a chance to fight.”

  “It looks like we’ve got six chances,” I said. “More recruits, too. And even the ones who don’t join up—”

  “They can stir up trouble,” he said. “Serve as distractions. Make our enemies divide their strength.”

  Our eyes met, across the desk. Giovanni’s eyes were almost as bright as Lucia’s. “This could work,” I said.

  “This could really work,” he said.

  Our eyes held for a moment. Then he cupped the back of my neck with his hand, and drew my face toward his, pressing his lips against mine. I could feel the heat from his cheeks, and the roughness of his stubble; his hand was sweaty and damp on my neck.

  I jerked away. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  His face flared red. “Um. Nothing.”

  “Good,” I said. I felt a flush rising to my own cheeks.

  Giovanni’s wounded pride was fueling irritation, then anger. “I think I’m going to go out for a walk,” he said. “Let me know if you find anything else interesting.” He slammed the door behind him.

  I turned back to the pile of papers, trying to shrug off Giovanni. It was Midsummer’s Eve, I realized suddenly, and thought with a half-laugh that if I had slept with Giovanni, it wouldn’t count. Somehow, that didn’t make the idea any more attractive. I suddenly wondered if he was just outside in the corridor—I could imagine him out there, face flushed, heart pounding. I got up to check, ready with a wisecrack if he was out there, but the hall was empty. Disappointed, I closed the door and sat back down. As I sorted through the papers, I heard a very, very faint creak. My head snapped up and I turned to look—and saw Teleso, emerging from behind a set of cabinets. He didn’t see me right away, but started toward the desk. If he had heard our voices, then heard the door open and close twice—he’d have thought the study was empty.

  I sucked in my breath to shout for help and Teleso turned. Our eyes met; he was just as stunned to see me as I was to see him. Giovanni’s crossbow lay across the desk; I snatched it up and fired at Teleso. He howled in pain, and for an instant I thought I’d mortally wounded him, but I’d only caught him in his left thigh.

  Teleso drew his sword. “Why, Eliana,” he said. “You just don’t like any men, do you?”

  Lady’s tits, Lady’s tits, I thought, and threw down the crossbow, pulling my knife from the sheath hidden in my boot. “Not if you and Giovanni are a representative sample,” I said. This was going to be a very uneven fight, I thought, and a short one. Teleso was a soldier, trained for years in swordplay, and I stood here waving a knife, after a couple of lessons from Giovanni, that master of swordsmanship and tutelage. “Help!” I shouted. “Michel! Tomas!” I’d settle for Giovanni, but I’d be damned if I was going to shout for him.

  Teleso lunged toward me, and I threw my chair into his path. He stumbled and I realized I’d injured his leg fairly badly with that crossbow bolt. Giovanni would probably know exactly how to use that to his advantage. Attack from the left side, I supposed, but I wasn’t really sure that was how it worked. Teleso circled the room warily. I mirrored him, trying to look convincingly dangerous. As Teleso passed with his back to the study door, I looked straight past his shoulder and slapped a smile of relief onto my face. “Michel! Thank the Lady!” I exclaimed.

  Teleso whirled to look, and I threw the knife at him. It embedded itself nicely in his right shoulder blade and he screeched again. Unfortunately, he still wasn’t dead, and I no longer had the knife. I grabbed the fireplace poker as Teleso wrenched his other arm around to pull out the knife, and hurled that at him as well.

  “Bitch,” he shouted, and dodged aside. It missed his head, but bounced off his arm. He wasn’t dead, but he was holding the sword with his left hand now, and limping badly. His clothes, previously unsullied, were turning red with his blood.

  “Help!” I shouted again. Where the hell was everybody?

  “Enough with this,” Teleso said. Clenching his teeth, he lunged toward me again. I threw another chair in his path, but he saw it coming this time, and vaulted over it, throwing me against the wall and pinning me there with his sword’s blade. He smiled at me as I felt the blood drain from my face.

  Talk fast, I thought. “You know, you’re really not a very good judge of people, Teleso,” I said.

  “Why do you say that?” Teleso asked.

  “Giovanni and I found that list of soldiers—who you thought were on your side.” Teleso was silent, the sword still at my throat. I closed my eyes for one heartbeat, then opened them again and looked him straight in the eye. “Assuming we interpreted your list correctly, you thought Niccolo was yours. You know how you sent him to burn the grain? He jumped, Teleso—he betrayed you.”

  Teleso went rigid with shock, and I threw myself to the side. The sword grazed my throat, stinging. I shoved a chair between us, then ran behind the desk. I thought I remembered a weapon here earlier, and sure enough, stacked in Giovanni’s “useful” pile was an ornate dagger that had probably come out of Teleso’s desk. I grabbed it up, armed again.

  “Not Niccolo,” Teleso said. “He wouldn’t betray me. He was the only one on my side!” His sword half sagged, he was still so stunned, and I grabbed up the poker in my left hand and advanced on him.

  “Niccolo betrayed you,” I said. “And Giula was working for me. Day after tomorrow, she was going to poison your wine. Unfortunately, you moved before our plans were fully in place. But that’s all right—we beat you anyway.”

  Teleso threw himself at me; I slammed the sword aside with the poker, almost knocking it out of his hand. “I’ll see you dead,” he shouted.

  “Keep dreaming, bastardo,” I said. His sword was coming back up
, and I decided to try for one more lie. “You know, it’s too bad you want me dead now,” I said. “If it weren’t for your garlic breath, I’d have found you very attractive.”

  Teleso blanched, his sword sagging completely in total stunned shock. I lunged toward him, slamming my knife into his gut like the soldiers had stabbed Mario. He screamed in agony and fell to the floor, his sword slipping out of his hand. I kicked it out of his reach. Blood was pouring from the wound, drenching the rug, my hands, my tunic. The room smelled of blood and bowels, and I backed up, gagging.

  The room was silent for a moment, except for Teleso’s gasping sobs.

  “You had me beaten because I wouldn’t sleep with you!” I shouted. “You turned my friend against me! You ran a slave-labor camp while mouthing loyalty to the Lady!” I bent to pick up his sword. His eyes were closed. “But you know, Niccolo didn’t betray you. Giula wasn’t working for me. I never found you attractive, and you never had garlic breath. I hated you for what you were.”

  I wasn’t sure if he heard me, but his face was in agony. Raising the sword, I brought it down as hard as I could. I didn’t fully sever his head, but his breathing stopped and his face went slack. I half expected to throw up, as Lucia had, but I was so relieved to have survived the fight that I couldn’t even smell the blood. “I am a wolf,” I said aloud, trying to catch my breath.

  The door opened and Giovanni stared in. “Lady’s tits!” he shouted, and ran into the room. My hands were slick with blood, and the sword slipped out of my grasp and clanged to the floor. Giovanni grabbed my shoulders, looking me up and down. “Is any of this blood yours?”

  “No,” I said. The gush of Teleso’s blood had been warm, but the blood was starting to cool, to solidify. I was suddenly overwhelmed with the disgusting feeling of it on me. “I need to go wash my hands.”

  “Did you kill him?” Giovanni asked. “By yourself?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “See?” Giovanni said. “Those knife lessons did come in handy. Come on. I’ll find Lucia and we can get you cleaned up.”

  “Teleso came out to look for something,” I said. “Something in the desk—and he was listening, so he must have assumed that we hadn’t already found it.”

  Giovanni’s eyes lit up. “I’ll find it,” he said. “I’ll take the desk apart if I have to.”

  When I came back to the study, damp but clean, Giovanni held out a small box. “There was a hidden compartment in the back of the top drawer. This was inside.”

  I sat down by the desk and opened the box. Inside was a single lock of black hair.

  “His daughter’s,” Giovanni said. “I’d heard a rumor that he once had a wife, but I hadn’t quite believed it.”

  I touched the soft curl gently. “What are we going to do with this?” I asked.

  Giovanni shrugged. “Up to you.”

  “What was done with Teleso’s body?” I asked.

  “It was taken outside. Someone will toss it in with the rest of the bodies in the grave in the morning.”

  Teleso’s body lay just outside the keep, with a few others who had died from their wounds tonight. The person who had carried out the body had set it down carefully, aligning the head with the rest of him. His body had stiffened, and I shuddered at the touch of his cold flesh, but this wouldn’t take long. I tucked the box with its lock of hair into Teleso’s torn shirt, beside his heart. Even Teleso deserved that much.

  • • •

  In the gray dawn, I stood by the ashes of the bonfire that had been kindled with the chairs from Teleso’s dining room. My hungover army was assembled before me, Teleso’s body wrapped in a shroud behind me.

  “You have a choice now,” I said. “We know of villages that are not in the wasteland but were destroyed by the Circle. Those who don’t want to fight—especially the children and the elderly—can resettle those villages. The land is good; the spring crops were planted and may even be growing. Hopefully, the rest of us will be making enough trouble soon to keep the Circle busy and well away from you.” I paused and looked at the faces of the people in my army. They looked back—sleepy in some cases, breathless in others. When my eyes met Michel’s, he saluted me, and I found myself smiling.

  “For the rest of us,” I said, “yesterday is only the beginning of the fight. There are six more camps like Ravenna, with thousands more people like us, enslaved and starved and brutalized by the Circle. Six more camps.” I started to pace, energized by the anticipation of the crowd. No one looked sleepy anymore. “We’re going to march in like the tide—no one will stop us. We’re going to sweep in like fire—nothing will be left in our path. We’re going to run in like wolves—we hunt in a pack. We are going to free every one of our people, and give them a chance to join us. And then we will sweep into Cuore itself and burn the Circle with God’s fire—the fire of justice, and freedom, and righteous anger.” The crowd shifted and I knew they were coming. I had my army. “Are you with me?” I demanded.

  “Yes!” The force of the cry nearly knocked me down.

  “Are you with me?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then gather up what you need and meet me on the north hill in two hours. We march at midday.”

  Giovanni waited for me at the door to the keep. “Good speech. No one is going to go to Doratura.”

  “None of the children will march with the army,” I said. “I won’t allow it.”

  “Wise policy,” he said. “There weren’t any other papers of interest. I burned what was left.”

  “Good.”

  “Noon,” he said, and shook his head. “We’ll be out of here in midafternoon, at the earliest. Tomorrow would have been a bit more practical. Are the horses and wagons ready?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Giovanni shook his head in studied disbelief. “Meaning that you haven’t actually sent anyone to take care of it? What the hell kind of Generale are you, anyway?”

  “The one who’s in charge here,” I said.

  Giovanni sighed. “You need to learn how to delegate,” he said. “It’s the only way you’re going to be able to make this work. Generali don’t do everything themselves; even Beneto had a second.”

  “Are you asking for the position?”

  “Are you kidding? You should be my second.” He paused for a moment. “Also, you need to learn to ride a horse.”

  “Why?”

  “Because generali do not walk to battles. Besides, when you’re on a horse, it’s easy to get people’s attention. You’re up high where they can see you.”

  “And shoot at me,” I said.

  “Well, that’s why you also need a bodyguard, on another horse.”

  “That would not be you,” I said.

  “No, of course not. I don’t want to take a crossbow bolt for you. I’ll teach Michel to ride as well.”

  “Great,” I muttered.

  “The knife-fighting came in handy, didn’t it? Trust me on this.” He was enjoying himself, I could tell; he was going to enjoy the riding lessons even more.

  Still, on Giovanni’s suggestion, I divided up my red-sashed soldiers into smaller companies, then put someone I knew and trusted in charge of each group. I could demote my officers later if they caused too much trouble. I sent the obvious children off to the village. My army was a strange mix—two dozen of the mutineer soldiers mixed in with the Ravenessi. I hoped not too many of those were spies.

  As I was checking over the soldiers, I found myself face-to-face with Arianna. She met my eyes challengingly, daring me to send her off to Doratura with the children.

  “Do you really want to be here?” I asked.

  She lifted her chin. “I won’t let you leave me behind. If you don’t let me join you, I’ll follow you. If you tie me up, I’ll—”

  I touched her shoulder. “Fine,” I said. “You’ve convinced me.” She’d found a red sash somewhere. Looking at it for a moment, I realized it was a strip torn from the skirt of that red velvet dress.

&nb
sp; Arianna noticed my look and smiled cautiously. “Giula wasn’t wearing it at the time,” she said. She carried Mario’s knife at her side.

  “Well.” I looked around the army. There were hundreds of people, spreading out across the ruins of the camp, and the plains around me. “Let’s go hunting.”

  To Ed Burke, with love and gratitude

  for all your support.

  Acknowledgments

  First I’d like to thank my editor, Anne Groell, my agent, James Frenkel, and his assistant, Tracy Berg, for their help, support, and enthusiasm.

  I’d like to thank the members of the Wyrdsmiths, past and present, for critique, encouragement, and friendship: Bill Henry, Doug Hulick, Ralph A. N. Krantz, Harry LeBlanc, Kate Leith, Kelly McCullough, Lyda Morehouse, and Rosalind Nelson. Very special thanks to Lyda, who, when I told her that I wanted to write a novel but was afraid that I’d write myself into a corner, simply said, “You won’t.” Two days later, I started writing Fires of the Faithful.

  Quite a few people answered questions, helped me with research, or let me borrow ideas. Thanks to all of them, but special thanks to Michelle Herder, for historical information; Curtis Mitchell, for letting me borrow some ideas on marriage customs; Geriann Brower for Italian language consultation; and Sharon Albert and Louis Newman for Aramaic language consultation. Of course, any linguistic mistakes or historical anachronisms should be blamed on me, and not my consultants.

  Thank you to all of my beta readers, who read and commented on earlier versions of this book: Ed Burke, Jason Goodman, Rick Gore, Michelle Herder, Jennifer Horn, Curtis Mitchell, Rudy Moore, Rebecca Murray, and John Savage.

  My most heartfelt thanks go to several people. To my parents, Bert and Amy Kritzer, who encouraged my writing and creativity, and my love of reading, pretty much from birth onward; my sister, Abi, and brother, Nate, for being my very first fans; and my wonderful husband, Ed Burke, who has an unerring sense for when I need to be nagged, when I need to be reassured, and when I need two pints of premium ice cream.