Spira Mirabilis

by Aidan Harte

  ‘—cause a Wave.’

  ‘I assumed that the First Apprentice was building another Molè because he meant to send another Wave, but it’s worse than that – much worse. The subterranean river gives a purer sample than the Irenicon. It seems the aether level has been static for at least a thousand years.’

  ‘Since Mary’s son died.’

  ‘I can only speak to what I’ve measured,’ Pedro said doggedly. ‘Up till now, the aether’s been low – that’s not bad in itself; it should rise and fall. There are waves throughout all nature – our breath, the tides, solar cycles, and so with aether. When levels are high, there’s harmony. When they are low, there’s not. But we’ve been living through a lull that’s gone on centuries too long. The question left is this: what’s the source of the aether, and what’s the source of obstruction?’

  ‘It’s not God, if that’s what you’re afraid to ask. It’s us. What Bernoulli called aether is the medium God speaks through. We generate it when the Handmaid’s son inspires us.’

  Pedro was wary of such talk. ‘All I know is such prolonged stasis is unnatural. I’m afraid that the Wave has been flat for so long that we’ve reached a critical point where it can’t restart. I think that’s what the First Apprentice wants. Whatever he’s building doesn’t just extract the aether. It destroys it. That’s what my readings seem to show anyway.’

  ‘It can’t be allowed,’ Isabella said gravely.

  ‘What can we do? We can barely keep alive.’

  ‘We ourselves? Nothing. Only Sofia can win this war. All we can do is help her.’

  *

  The atmosphere in the hub was more tense than usual; the leaders of the Tartaruchi all knew what Pedro was going to say. Their numbers had dwindled significantly: besides Geta’s toll, infections and flux had carried off many more.

  But only Uggeri objected. ‘The Contessa left us one charge: to protect Rasenna.’

  ‘If Sofia were here, she’d see the same thing the rest of us do,’ Pedro insisted. ‘Rasenna is lost. There’s no shame in a strategic retreat. We’ll return—’

  ‘The motto of all exiles.’

  ‘Uggeri, the Signoria is controlled by a Concordian. Our towers are fallen. Giovanni’s bridge is gone. The only flags flying above our heads are the Hawk’s Company’s and Concord’s. If Rasenna exists anywhere, it’s down here. The next city Concord needs to conquer is Veii – that’s the front where what remains of the Southern League should be.’

  ‘The League,’ Uggeri sneered. ‘If you’d made them understand in Ariminum, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

  ‘We all wish things had turned out differently,’ Isabella said softly.

  ‘I’m staying.’

  ‘Idiota!’ Pedro’s anger surprised everybody. ‘You want to get yourself killed, don’t you? You think it’ll prove something to Maddalena.’

  ‘You give me too much credit. I’m not that complicated, Vanzetti. I just want to strangle that whore.’

  ‘Then you’re the one betraying Sofia and I’m not going to waste my breath arguing. Anyone else?’

  The hulking figure at the back of the cavern stood up. He had to crouch as he lumbered to Uggeri’s side. Pedro knew Jacques was certain in his choice. ‘I guess we all know where we’re supposed to be.’

  The meeting broke up as everyone else went to make preparations for the move. Despite Pedro’s brave face, most assumed they would never return.

  *

  When Maddalena stepped into the banquet hall, the feast was prepared and there at the top of the table sat—

  She almost screamed, but she managed to hold off and quickly recovered her composure.

  ‘Pedro! It’s customary to wait for the head of household,’ she said sliding into a chair next to him. ‘If we don’t practise manners in the breach, what’s the use? Never mind. Here you are, in my house. You were always so good at prediction – tell me, what would happen if I dropped this glass?’

  ‘Servants and guards would come running and we would not get to talk. I came because of the love our fathers bore each other. Fabbro and I didn’t always agree, but I never doubted his patriotism. I know he never guessed what Geta was till it was too late. Neither, I believe, did you. You were like my sister once and it hurts to see you degraded.’

  ‘This,’ she looked about theatrically, ‘is hardly squalor. Uggeri sent you to plead his case, I suppose?’

  ‘No. He sees only one resolution to this. I came at the behest of your brothers.’ This was a lie, but one he could justify if it led to reconciliation.

  ‘They’re alive, then? I wrote to each of them, offering the freedom of Rasenna, and heard nothing—’

  ‘Salvatore recognises the Tartaruchi as Rasenna’s legitimate authority and will not treat with Geta – or you, so long as you’re attached to him. They know you’re in his power.’

  ‘I’m the one being manipulated? Ha! My brothers have made you a pawn. They expected to wander Europa profiteering, building private fortunes in places where commercial acumen consists of bartering chickens for sheep, and then return to divide the Bombelli estate and leave me a puny dowry. How tragic that things did not work out as they hoped. Tell me, Pedro, you who are so logical, why I should let myself be beggared? Because of the accident of my sex?’

  ‘They merely seek to revenge your father, to rescue you from his murderer—’

  ‘Uggeri murdered my father,’ she hissed.

  ‘Uggeri is hot-headed, but he would never—’

  ‘You’d be more convincing if his bandieratori weren’t proving such efficient assassins. The Signori hardly dares meet for fear of their knives. I can’t say I liked Polo Sorrento much, but he didn’t deserve to be thrown from his tower.‘

  ‘He was a collaborator.’

  ‘As am I apparently.’ She drummed her sharp fingers lightly upon her round stomach. ‘So I must expect the same fate. Is that why you came? Where’s your knife concealed?’

  ‘I’ve come to give you an out. We’re abandoning Rasenna. I’m asking you to come south with us and—’

  CHRRrasssshh!

  The shattering glass stopped him short.

  Maddalena pulled back her chair and stood. ‘Run – and if you escape, give my brothers my love. Tell them I’ll burn what’s left of Rasenna before I let them take it.’

  *

  Isabella found Carmella sitting in the baptistery chapel sewing a torn flag. A gentle rain pattered on the stained-glass window, melting the colours into each other.

  Carmella looked up. ‘So, finally decided our fate, have you?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve decided. Uggeri’s staying. You’ll go south with Pedro.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Duty calls me elsewhere. I need someone strong to look after the orphans and the other sisters – that’s you, Sister.’

  Carmella threw down the flag. ‘Find another slave. I won’t serve.’

  ‘You made a vow to obey, and I am head of this order—’

  ‘This order’s home is here. We’re not mendicants. If you want to run, fine, you can run. But you leave behind the Sisterhood.’

  After Carmella’s pretty little speech, Isabella looked around to see no one was at the door, then said quietly, ‘When you entered this order, you offered up your virginity to the Madonna.’

  The novice blushed. ‘Don’t try to besmirch my honour because you’re abandoning yours. Your predecessors never ran from danger.’

  ‘It’s hopeless.’

  ‘This is home!’

  ‘I mean your scheme is hopeless. Uggeri’s heart belongs to another—’

  ‘You little bitch!’

  Hissing like a feral cat, Carmella threw herself at Isabella, whose arms remained hanging by her sides as her body weaved out of the shredding path of Carmella’s claws until she retreated out into the garden and danced in a circle around the little orange trees. Enraged, Carmella followed her blindly. Isabella crouched, bracing her legs for the right moment, letting her get
close. Carmella made a wild swipe, tipping too far to sustain balance – it was a fault she had never been able to correct – and Isabella sprang over an orange tree and landed behind her. A simple jab to the back of the legs brought Carmella to her knees. Isabella pushed her face into the cold mud and kept her there until she feared the girl might suffocate.

  Carmella picked herself up, panting. Her face was black but for her teeth and staring eyes. ‘Uggeri just works for the Contessa. That’s all there is too it.’

  ‘Oh, you blind fool! I don’t mean Sofia. Uggeri loves Maddalena – he always has! Why else would a soldier choose to stay in such a hopeless situation? There’s no reason, as you well know. It’s the same reason you wish to stay.’

  The blind fury left Carmella’s face, but the hate remained. ‘What does a little girl know about love?’

  Isabella saw she was not to be dissuaded. ‘We each have our role to play. Perhaps yours is here. Uggeri’s like you, Carmella: he’s his own worst enemy. Don’t let him destroy himself.’

  *

  ‘All right, everyone ready? Final check.’

  The tunnel went deep under the Irenicon; it would come up far south of the city walls. Pedro went round to shake hands with those that were staying. There were many more than he would have liked.

  He stopped in front of Uggeri and Jacques. ‘Most likely we won’t ever see each other again. If we’re successful at Veii, we’ll take back the captured territory. I don’t know what our chances are, but I do know it won’t be done quickly. Help us. The longer you stay alive and make their lives hell, the better.’

  ‘Good to feel needed,’ said Uggeri dryly. ‘We’ll try our damnedest, and if we can’t, we’ll take as many as we can with us to hell.’ They embraced awkwardly. ‘Tell Sofia—’

  ‘I know. I will. Keep your flag up.’

  As they set off, Pedro saw that Rosa Sorrento was shepherding the orphans; that Isabella and Carmella were both standing to one side.

  ‘Madonna! You too?’

  ‘No, just Carmella. I’m leaving, but I’m not going with you.’

  It took Pedro a moment to understand her meaning. He was furious. ‘That’s a fool’s errand! You’ll be killed before you reach the Wastes. Even if you get into Concord, what can you do?’

  ‘The prime mover in all this is—’

  ‘Isabella! You can’t defeat a First Apprentice!’

  ‘Sofia did. If any Etrurian can stop him, it’s me. I owe it to Sofia, and to all the Reverend Mothers before me to try.’

  ‘We don’t even know if Sofia’s still alive!’

  ‘The buio told you she was and I believe it and so do you, if only you’d bring yourself to admit it.’

  ‘So you’ll sacrifice yourself to buy time, is that the idea? Sofia wouldn’t hear of it. We need you. The road south won’t be friendly territory – plenty of towns between here and Veii will be eager to curry favour with Concord.’

  ‘You have the bandieratori. I’m sorry, Pedro. I must try.’

  CHAPTER 22

  While he was waiting in his tent for the dispatch, Leto spent a frustrating morning working on Torbidda’s Bouncing Bridge idea from their Guild Hall days. After his first few attempts he’d begun to suspect the solution would always be beyond him, but still he persisted, until he’d convinced himself it really was impossible. He put it to one side with an oath and brooded. He had been liverish all day. He was annoyed by the dull mosquitoes he must continually swat and because he knew they were nothing to the swarms his troops must soon face. The Albula had too many tributaries to count. Around Veii, the land began to get marshy.

  Seeking to avoid those unhealthy conditions, he had made Volsinii his base. It was further north than he would have preferred, but the choice was popular with the officers: the coastal air was salubrious, the fish delicious, the women cheap. Above all, for the first time since leaving Concord, they felt wanted. For years Volsinii had paid Veii tribute with salt and slaves. Now the city fathers had not merely surrendered to the Concordians; they had welcomed them, offering shelter, scouts and soldiers.

  But while helpful neighbours were all very well, he knew it would take considerably more to overcome Veii’s formidable defences.

  The officers dreaded bringing the general dispatches from Veii. The news was always bad. Scaevola drew the short straw – he always did.

  ‘I promised Torbidda a swift result, Scaevola, yet here we are, fretting over supplies – as though we were the ones under siege.’

  There was no need to search for the reason; it was obvious. A city not encircled is not truly besieged. Though his legion had stopped supplies reaching the city from the north, the blockade was ineffective so long as Veii’s harbour remained open. The Veian Navy might be antique, but it controlled the Albulian Estuary very effectively. Captured deserters had confirmed that Rasenna engineers had schooled the Veians in tactics to frustrate the Concordian diggers – but that too had been pretty obvious.

  Veii was a city of small hills atop one large hill. Any army attacking it must go uphill – except now, before they even reached that first hill, they would have to cross a new river that had been created by diverting a tributary of the Albula. Veian archers complicated any attempt to ford the new moat. The archers’ attentions were divided by having the pontonniers working under makeshift shelters, and at three locations, and on the fifth day, one team had made it across. A robust charge might have ended it there and then, but the Veians sent only a battalion of slaves to meet the Concordian Stormguard. The slaves fought fiercely, but were overcome when the second pontoon was completed.

  Even with the third pontoon in place, securing the captured bank was a bloody task, and one that presented new difficulties when done: the steep hill facing them was interrupted by several plateaus. The first was defended by a rather uneven wall of boulders. The Concordian centurions, unimpressed, decided without consulting the general that it could be taken with sheer numbers, and raising a terrible cry of ‘Bernoulli!’, they charged.

  The boulders the Veians crouched behind were settled so that a mere nudge would start them rolling. They shattered the Concordians’ line and rolled down to the base camp, where they wrecked men and machines indiscriminately. The push was abandoned entirely when one capricious boulder smashed the central pontoon and sent a battalion of reinforcements to their deaths. Hours later, another attempt was made, and it failed in like manner. The captured bank became the new front: a sea of mud precariously vulnerable to being entirely overrun.

  That night brought fresh terrors. Instead of boulders, wheels of fiery death – great barbed metal wheels stuffed with burning straw – burst into the Concordian lines in successive waves, supplemented by raining oil-pots, that not only kept the fires burning, but successfully banished sleep. The Concordians prayed for morning, and when it came they discovered what horrors the darkness had concealed: men burnt alive in their tents or drowned in the muddy banks, and the stagnant moat laden with the bodies of those soldiers who’d sought refuge from the fire in its water. It would have been much simpler if Leto could commit all his men – but diversionary sallies against the main legion camp on the other side of the moat made that impossible. They were sporadic and half-hearted, but effective in their aim: to prevent him from concentrating his forces.

  The start of every siege was a moment of immense importance. If the city folk could be terrified sufficiently by the initial assault they would often capitulate without further resistance. That had failed here; now it would be entirely a question of stamina.

  ‘Investments are deceptive affairs, Scaevola. For all the variety of the Veians’ defences and our machines, only one weapon counts: hunger. A limited blockade only creates privations for the Small People; we cannot win until famine gnaws higher. It’s galling to be stalemated by an enemy one does not respect, but failing tactics must be abandoned.’

  ‘Quite right, General.’ Scaevola waited breathlessly to hear the inspired plan his hero had devised to br
eak the impasse.

  ‘Saddle my horse.’

  *

  Leto would have preferred to travel alone, but knowing what a prize he’d make, he took a dozen men – eleven swords, one gunner – enough to scare off opportunistic bandits, not enough to slow progress.

  It was late when they arrived in Rasenna; with some fresh horses, food and rest, they could reach Concord before the end of the following day. His men were stationed with the Hawk’s Company and he was escorted to the gonfaloniere’s residence. Geta had made his court in one of Piazza Luna’s larger palazzi after the mansion’s previous owner had been charged – on somewhat doubtful evidence – with collaborating with the Tartaruchi.

  Leto found little to admire in the decorations of the banqueting hall except for an oversized chessboard which must have been carved during one of Etruria’s fleeting enthusiasms for the Crusade. The white pieces were Lazar knights of ivory, bravely facing the scimitars and turbans of the swarthy Radinate horde, fashioned in this case from black horn.

  The nightly bacchanal was under way and a few cowed patricians sat between their drunken gonfaloniere and his glum wife.

  ‘General Spinther, I declare! Seems like only yesterday that I waved you off, yet here you are again! Did you return my tear-stained handkerchief? Join us, join us. You must be quite worn out by army rations and rough living. How goes the war?’