by Aidan Harte
He got to his feet, soaked and bleeding from lip and nose, his arm dead at the shoulder. ‘I can’t counter it. How did you—?’
‘Now you know: the Wind too has its secrets. I did not hold back so that you would realise how badly you need my help. The boy you supplanted had some humility. You have none, and it is a terrible weakness. Water awaits the enemy, adapts itself and eats the enemy’s strength. Wind is equally powerful, but it is a force that consumes itself. To defeat the Handmaid, you’ll need both your right and your left hand.’
‘But who would school the Handmaid in this art?’ the boy asked disingenuously. ‘Ah … your brother. He is quite the nuisance.’
‘He is an infidel! When the Sacred Fire burned away our mortality we swore never to directly interfere in mortal affairs; we would only influence.’
‘Seems to me you’ve both exceeded your brief.’
Doubt darkened Norcino’s face ‘I –I—’ he started, then, ‘I do what’s necessary. He broke the covenant first.’
‘Tell yourself whatever tale pleases you, Astrologer’ – the boy limped back to the start position – ‘but for now, show me what I need to know.’
CHAPTER 6
The evening had leached the last of the day’s warmth. The stranger loosened his purse and asked, ‘How much is that?’
Bocca was genuinely touched to hear these words. He’d prospered during Rasenna’s boom, but those days were long gone. ‘Six,’ he said, then added, ‘You can’t be a Rasenneisi.’
‘I’ve just come from Veii.’ Though the stranger’s jaw was buried in a scarf and his eyes were concealed by an overhanging hood his youth was evident – but it was not a problem: Bocca’s policy was to serve anyone who paid cash. ‘I make a point to drink in the Lion’s Fountain whenever I stop in Rasenna,’ said the stranger, before sheepishly adding, ‘Maybe I’ve had too much already, but wasn’t your establishment on the other side of the river?’
Bocca welcomed any opportunity to air his grievances, but he checked first that no condottieri were sleeping in the corners of the piazzetta. ‘We relocated after the Night of Black Towers.’
The stranger matched his confidential whisper. ‘I heard about that. Nasty business.’
‘Nasty’s not the half of it.’ Bocca poured a glass for each of them before the stranger could demure. ‘Veian, eh? We used to have all sorts in town, but that dried up and those who are still thirsty don’t pay their tabs.’
‘That’s what brings me here,’ the stranger said, ‘I’m trying to settle a debt with Polo Sorrento. The market’s been disrupted lately, but still – a man should honour his debts.’
‘I sympathise. But you might have saved yourself the journey. The farmer’s deep in hock to a Concordian thief by the name of Geta.’
‘Why doesn’t your podesta do something about it?’
‘Geta is our podesta. Officially he’s answerable to the gonfaloniere and the Signoria, but they’re either indebted or terrified of him.’
‘Terrible,’ the stranger repeated.
The brewer supped his drink. The whole truth was that he was part of that same Signoria; he’d just realised quicker than most the error they’d made backing Geta. After that night the Hawk’s Company had shown their true flag: once, they outraged only those women who prostituted themselves, but without the bandieratori towers to restrain them, even respectable women were harassed anew each day. The bandieratori – the remnant left, who now called themselves the Tartaruchi – had retaliated, but the sporadic assassinations of Signoria members and the palazzi that mysteriously burned in the night only made the situation more volatile. Revenge followed reprisal till fear kept the streets – and Bocca’s tavern – empty.
‘Bad as Geta is, his wife makes him worse. Fabbro, God rest him, spoiled her something awful.’
‘You don’t mean Bombelli’s daughter?’
‘The same. I suppose you did business with Fabbro? His sons are active in Veii, I believe?’
‘Veii, Salerno, the Sicilies – the Bombelli banco has fingers in every city south of Concord, and a few north to boot.’
‘Well, I hope they don’t expect to be welcomed back. It was Maddalena who urged Geta to persecute the families of those who’d gone underground. She’s always been a handful, but Geta encourages her; he finds it amusing to let her harangue the Signoria.’
The stranger raised the glass, but did not drink.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Bocca, and started back when the stranger let it drop to the ground. ‘You’ll pay for the g—’
Half a dozen figures dropped from the sky and he sat back down slowly. ‘What is this? I’m just an innocent tavern keeper—’
‘No one’s innocent in Rasenna.’ Pedro pulled back his hood. ‘We want a name. Which family’s going to be hit tonight? Take another drink if it helps jog your memory.’
‘But how would I know? I’m just a —’
‘You’re just a dead man if you don’t talk. You’re Master of the Vintners’ Guild and one of the Signoria that elected Geta, and that alone is treason as far as the rest are concerned.’
Bocca reached for the bottle. ‘The Strozzi.’
‘And they say good service is a thing of the past. I’m going to be a regular from now on. All you have to do is keep your ears open.’
‘I won’t be party to murder.’
The flagmen, silent till now, began laughing.
‘A bit late to acquire scruples, Bocca,’ said Pedro, gesturing to the shadows. ‘You condemned every one of these men when you permitted their towers to burn. The real Signoria has condemned you. This is your only chance to earn a reprieve. Why don’t you think of it as paying off your tab?’
*
If Rasenna was a city half-dead, then the northside was where the bodies were buried. It was a graveyard of tall black tombstones where black webs of burnt wool drifted like wraiths. After the destruction of Giovanni’s bridge, the only way across the Irenicon was the Midnight Road. Since it led directly to Tartarus, only the well-armed, the brave or the foolhardy used it. On the Night of Black Towers the bandieratori and their partisans had retreated to the borough of the Guilds of Fire, before vanishing entirely.
But this rigor mortis was only superficial. In the sottosuolo, the vast maze-like necropolis underneath Tartarus, the turbulent heart of Rasenna beat yet.
Uggeri Galati and the rest of the soldiers were waiting impatiently when Pedro returned from the Lion’s Fountain.
‘You get a name?’
‘Strozzi. Just get them out of their tower – don’t start anything.’
‘I don’t tell you how to do your job, Vanzetti. Flags up, bandieratori.’
*
Pedro peered into the waters that flowed around the rock he was standing on. Down at these lowest depths of the sottosuolo there were few places to stand with any degree of safety: a false step would carry him swiftly away. The glow-globes made little impression on the darkness or on the cold, that adamantine kind that permeates places that have never been kissed by the sun.
He crouched and took a sample.
Since going underground, the Irenicon was off-limits. Uggeri said they had more pressing worries than water levels, but Pedro didn’t like feeling blind. Testing the Irenicon’s levels was more besides a way to monitor Concord’s activities; it was a ritual. So he’d began monitoring the subterranean river that snaked through the depths of the sottosuolo untouched by the troubles of the sun-drowned world.
‘So, what did you make of Veii, Pedro?’
Isabella, the little Reverend Mother, often accompanied him on his descents. She said she liked to pray beside the river. He didn’t believe it was just that, but he appreciated the company. She sat now on the rocky riverbank, looking down at him.
‘Well-positioned, and eminently defensible if the duke takes my advice. It’s a place we could make a stand.’
‘You tell that to Uggeri?’
‘I tried to – he said he’d done enoug
h retreating already, all the while giving me that stare. You know the one.’
‘He’s not really angry at you,’ she said softly. In their cramped confines it was impossible to avoid conflict, or intimacy. ‘The Contessa left him in charge of Tower Scaligeri. He blames himself.’
Pedro turned around. ‘And I don’t?’ His irritation turned to alarm when she stood suddenly, an awed look on her face. ‘What is it?’
He turned and saw it too: a buio was ‘walking’ along the river’s surface. It disappeared into a ravine, then fell apart and reassembled as it went over a string of rapids. They watched silently until it disappeared.
‘What do you think it was?’
‘A scout,’ she said with certainty, and sure enough, the river’s surface was soon full of buio, a great herd swaying as it passed by, the figures sometimes merging with each other, sometimes pulling away, but always going forward.
‘Looks like a pilgrimage.’
‘Or a migration,’ he suggested. ‘Perhaps the Irenicon is returning to normal.’
‘All rivers have buio, whether you can see them or not. Without buio, a river is dead.’
‘Salvatore Bombelli said the First Apprentice is rebuilding the Molè. You think that’s what’s driving them out? Nothing’s shown up in the samples so far.’
She looked at him sternly. ‘You don’t imagine your tools are more sensitive than the buio?’ She was about to say more, but suddenly stopped; one of the buio was standing apart from the herd, looking at them.
Pedro swallowed. ‘Is that—?’
‘Go to him.’
Debris from fallen rocks formed stepping stones and he leaped from one to the other till he was facing the buio. The rest of the herd continued to pour by, indifferent.
Pedro heard his voice trembling as he asked, ‘Giovanni?’
The voice that answered was not one but many, and he did not hear it; it blossomed in his mind like an inspiration. ‘I bring news of great joy: this day a king is born.’
*
On the climb up they were silent, both thinking that whatever Sofia now faced, she was facing alone. The Tartaruchi at least had each other, for emotional and physical support, heart and head. That alone made the hub – the large domed chamber from where all the tunnels seemed to originate – habitable, though the air was moist with a slow-dripping rot that infused everything: the broth they ate, the clothes they wore, the torn flag that hung over them.
This was not the banner that Rasenna had united behind for the last three years but the Scaligeri black and gold. It was scorched by fire and stained by blood, but the Golden Lion was tainted with something altogether worse: failure. The newly united town had been tested and found wanting, and now the survivors fell back on old verities. Every remnant soldier had a new map of the city to learn, for there was streetside, there was topside and now there was downside – the map of downside kept changing because every new exit brought new risk.
The sottosuolo stretched under the Irenicon, giving them access to the south – although it had been too dangerous at first; it was easy to get trapped in big open spaces like Piazza Luna, and many southern families were collaborating – it was traditional to side with those from the same side of the Irenicon, and that hadn’t changed much. Having flags fighting with Geta was intended to make his rule look less alien, and make the Tartaruchi’s resistance against Concord’s agent look less like patriotic insurgence and more like civil war. But Rasenna’s oldest towers had deep basements with escape tunnels, some connecting with their neighbours, and breaking into this ancient network had expanded the Tartaruchi’s reach, giving them the ability to appear in any quarter of the city at any time.
These collaborators, the traitor towers, were the Tartaruchi’s first target, but tonight’s mission was not one of revenge but rescue: the Strozzi family had been proscribed not for any crime, but simply because they were rich.
‘Uggeri’s not back?’
‘Not yet, Reverend Mother,’ said Sister Carmella coldly. ‘We ought to be out there with him.’ The Sisterhood visited the sottosuolo often; they were cooks and nurses as well as company for tired and dirty tunnellers.
‘Uggeri doesn’t want you,’ said Pedro. After the Night of Black Towers, the baptistery and its orphanage – by mutual consent of the warring parties – had been left untouched: better to keep the nuns ostensibly neutral and in reserve, in case things got really bad. On that much at least, Pedro and Uggeri agreed.
‘Oh, doesn’t he? Where is he, then?’
‘I’m here.’ Uggeri and his bandieratori looked as bedraggled as the family they shepherded into the cavern.
‘You’re wounded,’ said Carmella, leaping up.
‘It’s nothing. See to Alfredo’s leg. They got him good.’
‘Where are the others?’ said Pedro. Two dozen men had left; barely a score had returned.
‘Where do you think?’ Uggeri growled.
Uggeri always placed himself on the dangerous edge of every mission so he was fighting for his life night after night, as if daring Death to do his worst. More often than not, it was Sister Carmella who bandaged his wounds and listened to his complaints about Pedro’s timidity. She had grown up in the tower next to Hog Galati’s rundown pile, and as Hog habitually left his family hungry while he lost at cards, Carmella had often been sent across to offer a meal to his two boys. Hog and his eldest son had died in the uprising, leaving Uggeri an orphan – that was another thing they had in common.
‘Don’t act like a hero, Uggeri,’ said Isabella. ‘You went looking for a fight and because of that, four men are dead.’
‘He’s bleeding and you’re blaming him?’ said Carmella incredulously. ‘At least he’s doing something besides praying.’
‘Stay out of this, Carmella,’ said Uggeri, staring hard at Isabella. ‘Listen here, little Sister, we’ve all been waiting for months for a miracle from Maestro Vanzetti, but he’s been too busy visiting cities he obviously deems better bets. Until he comes up with something we have to fight, and that means flags will tear.’
‘I’m not going to take responsibility if you can’t control yourself,’ shouted Pedro.
By the time the shouting died down, Carmella had stormed off and the three Strozzi children were crying. Uggeri was unapologetic, but Carmella soon regretted her angry words and came back to apologise to Isabella. She couldn’t find her anywhere.
*
Geta burst into the chamber. ‘Amore?’
The room was empty and he was more than a little drunk. ‘Ah, you want me to look for you?’ He left the two glasses and bottle on the table and looked behind the door, then into a wardrobe, then behind the dressing screen. Then he sat down. He could see several other possibilities, but his enthusiasm for the game was gone.
He poured himself some wine and announced, ‘I surrender.’
He raised the glass to his lips then slowly – slowly – placed it back down and repeated, ‘I said I surrender.’ The cold edge of the blade touched his skin, soft as a breeze. ‘Maddalena warned me to expect a social call at some point. Sister Isabella, isn’t it? No need to ask how you got in; I’ve heard what a preternaturally wonderful water-stylist you are. The Apprentices call it an art, but I call it unfair. I can’t abide unfairness. That’s why I made certain we’d be on a fair footing when we met. Despite appearances, I have a knife to your neck too. He’s a loyal fellow, is Sempronio – not too bright, but good with a blade – and his sole duty is to burn the orphanage should I get what’s coming to me.’
The hand that held the knife trembled.
‘If you’re quick you might save one or two – are you prepared to sacrifice the rest? It’s a nasty way to die, is fire. Maddalena told me how you lost your family.’ Geta felt the knife removed. ‘I was so very sorry to hear it.’
Isabella whispered, ‘I didn’t “lose” them. They were assassinated.’
‘Dead’s dead. By the time I finish my drink. I hope sincerely – not for my sak
e, you understand, but for those little dears – to find myself alone. I trust you understand me?’
There was no answer. Geta swallowed the wine in one gulp then turned, pulling his sword free. The window was empty, but for a flag flapping above it. ‘Yes, I think you do.’
The door opened suddenly and Geta swung round, his sword knocking the glass he’d just emptied onto the floor.
‘I heard voices,’ said Maddalena. She entered and carefully circled the broken glass.
Geta sheathed his sword and sat back down. He reached for the second glass and filled it. ‘Don’t worry, amore. There’re no whores hiding under my bed. I had a visitor, but she was a little too young, even for me.’
‘I told you she’d come.’
‘And I told her I had an arsonist on call – the dear child actually believed me. You certainly know the weaknesses of your paesani.’
‘And my podesta’s.’ She kissed his neck and slid her hand down his shirt to tangle her fingers in his chest hair.
Geta returned her caresses, and his hand slid from her waist to her belly – and there stopped. ‘Ah,’ he said, removing his hand. Though their wedding had been only only a few months ago, Maddalena’s bump had grown large. He drained his glass. ‘Forgive me, amore, but you know I can’t see you in this condition.’
Maddalena stood up and said indignantly, ‘You’re drinking to much.’
He poured another. ‘Helps me sleep. Hard to rest easy wondering who might pop through that window next.’
‘You’re scared of Uggeri?’
She was aiming to wound, so he answered with an equanimity that he knew would annoy her. ‘On the contrary. That contest I would welcome – it’ll settle things once and for all. When I win, we can finally rule in peace – if it pleases the First Apprentice, that is.’