by Aidan Harte
When she turned back, he was sitting up and staring, as if mesmerised by the statue.
‘What do you see?’ she asked gently.
Pedro looked at her doubtfully. ‘I’m hallucinating.’
‘Here’s how this works: I do the diagnosing and you get better. What do you see on the statue, Pedro?’
‘… snakes—’
‘Many?’
‘No, but it was crawling with them when I was brought in and so was your …’ He trailed off and she sat beside him, blocking his view of the statue.
‘Drink this.’
The steaming pink concoction smelled of apple and wormwood. She mumbled a sing-song prayer as he drank it. It made his eyes water but it cleared his head. He did not enquire about the aftertaste of blood that coated his tongue. She took the empty glass from him and went back to her counter. He watched her back, paying particular attention to her hair – he remembered clearly the writhing snakes, but he saw now they were just white streaks. Slowly, he looked over to the statue and breathed a sigh of relief. They were gone too.
More at ease now, he examined the chamber: a simple domed vault built from red bricks and supported by thick columns, around which wound carved snakes. The whistling wind carried the scents of fresh herbs and blooming flowers from the garden, along with the distant sound of melodic chanting.
The roof was decorated with a mosaic depicting a snake coiling around an upright rod; underneath was the motto, in Low Etruscan: Eadem Mutata Resurgo. Pedro was satisfied: his fevered mind must have seen this and dreamed the snakes into reality. He rubbed his aching neck – and felt a string; when he pulled it out from his bedshirt he found a small pouch hanging from it. He sniffed it. Lavender mingled with the smell of old cinders and ash. There was something else, something that rattled.
‘Don’t open it.’
He dropped the pouch with a guilty look and Trotula sat again beside him and started praying again, moving her callused hands over him.
‘With respect, Matron, I think I need to worry more about malaria than the Evil Eye—’
‘Is that so? Doctor Ferruccio tell me you’re quite the engineer. Some Black Handers consider engineering Concordian sorcery—’
‘Because they don’t understand it.’
‘Exactly. And what do you understand of our traditions? The Eye isn’t something cast upon us by jealous neighbours and hunchbacks, it’s something we put upon ourselves. Who is Uggeri? You’ve been cursing him all night – that’s when you’re not begging his forgiveness.’
Pedro lay back, looking sombre. ‘He’s someone I left behind. He wanted to stay, but I shouldn’t have let him.’
‘I see. How do you feel?’
‘Better, I think – unless I’m imagining that singing too?’
‘No, that’s real,’ she said with a laugh. ‘This is a school of sorts and the first thing we learn is how to sing together.’
This beautiful place was far removed from the privations of the butteri trail. He was beginning to remember a little of the journey across the Minturnae – at least the part before he’d been attacked by the leech.
‘From what I saw of your menfolk, setting bones would be more useful—’ He checked himself and apologised. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be— What I meant was, thank you for helping me.’
‘Niente. My work is simple, really. It’s about maintaining harmony and restoring it when it is absent.’ She took his hand. ‘I’ll be frank with you: this is but a lull. The worst is coming and you’ll need all your strength to fight it. If your spirit is lost in the past, you will lose. I will give you what I can to prepare you, but you must match your strength – your full strength – against it.’
He stared at her. ‘How do you know this?’
‘Do you imagine we have studied the humours for centuries and learned nothing? I am a maghe, not a tooth-puller. I treat maladies of the spirit.’ She saw he had more questions, and said firmly, ‘Close your eyes and rest while you can. You may not sleep properly for days once you leave us.’
She did not mention that she would not be sleeping either. The unguents and vapours she was preparing were not just for him. However strong, his spirit alone could not win this fight, and if he lost, she would be lost too.
CHAPTER 39
Black-topped Vesuvius was only twenty miles north of Salerno, but the prevailing winds blew its ash-clouds out to sea. The Ariminumese fleet passed through foul-smelling mists of hot steam and prayed for the evil nipple that smoked so tirelessly and continually belched glowing boulders to stay its wrath. The Moor remained sequestered in his quarters. The closer they got to Veii, the tenser Leto became. A surprise attack was out of the question – it was impossible that such a large fleet could escape attention. Ideally, the Veians would come out to meet them in force … but he knew that was unlikely.
His pessimistic expectations were confirmed when they approached the Albulian Estuary and the Veians promptly returned to their moorings and declined to meet them. A cursory look was enough to see the siege had made little progress – he had been right to bring the fleet round to break the stalemate. Torbidda must see that – he must.
The Moor at last appeared on deck. He looked grizzled and shaken, but he immediately banished Leto’s doubts by neatly blockading the estuary.
Satisfied that all was in hand, Leto took a small barque and sailed north to coordinate the final push with his officers. Volsinii, the town he’d chosen for his base, was a sombre, religious place, home in the main to fishermen and salt-harvesters. He barely recognised the town when he landed – or rather, he recognised it all too well. It had turned into any garrison town, with every soldier drunk and every woman turned whore – and everyone getting what they could while they could.
He was deeply annoyed to hear singing when he approached the command tent, and even more annoyed that no one challenged him. He would have words with Scaevola about this laxity.
‘Gangway!’ cried a familiar voice, and the tent flap was ripped open. Before he could jump aside, his boots were covered in warm vomit.
‘Well met, General!’ Geta wiped the slobber from his mouth. ‘You discover me, as usual, at a disadvantage. Someday, I will surprise you.’
Leto, disgusted, brushed past him and entered the tent. The circle of officers sitting around the desk hastily removed the wine glasses staining the map before them, staggered to their feet and saluted.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Leto frostily, handing his gloves to a drunken squire. He caught Scaevola’s eye and was not surprised that he was the only officer sober. The quartermaster, immune to Geta’s charms, wore a told-you-so smirk. He was looking forward to watching his beloved general rain down dishonourable discharges and demotions. The last thing he expected to hear was: ‘Scaevola, report.’
The quartermaster searched amidst his documents while the other officers looked down in embarrassment. ‘Let’s see – well, we were making good progress on the earthen ramp, but then, shortly after you left for Concord, a plague broke out in the north.’
‘I already know about that.’
‘Oh, you do?’ said Geta as he re-entered the tent.
‘And though its virulence appears to have limited its spread,’ Scaevola continued, ‘it has disturbed our supply chain.’
‘You’ll be delighted to know Rasenna survived it,’ Geta remarked sarcastically.
‘While remedying those issues,’ Scaevola went on, ‘the locals have been most accommodating – some of them rather too accommodating. There’s been outbreak of Roland’s Horn. I’ve sent for medical supplies from Concord, but they are delayed.’
‘On the sunny side of the ledger,’ Geta interrupted, ‘I’m here, and I’ve brought my Hawks along.’
‘A pack of drunks led by a whoremaster. Our enemies must be quaking,’ said Leto. ‘Go on, Scaevola.’
‘Lord Geta’s reinforcements, welcome though they are, have added to the strain on supplies, so I’ve been organising foraging parties,’ Scaevola added ha
stily. ‘What else? An emissary from Syracuse has arrived.’
‘Sicily’s far from here.’
‘They are beset by a slave rebellion; if we assist them in suppressing it, they promise their neutrality.’
‘What a surprise. If Syracuse desires Concord’s friendship, they must not haggle. The price is the same for everyone: tribute.’
‘They’re a proud people.’
‘Etruria is full of proud people. Send him away,’ said Leto impatiently, wondering why Scaevola was stalling. ‘Come, man: the matter at hand. I’ve blockaded Veii’s harbour, but from what I saw, the situation is unchanged.’
Before Scaevola could make any excuses, Geta interjected, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Your boys have retreated a few miles and lost several hundred to disease – and a good few hundred to the butteri.’
‘Butteri? North of the Albula? Is this true?’
‘They’ve harried us like the very devil,’ Scaevola said lamely. ‘They come whooping out of the fog with their damned bolos – well, If you’d seen them …’
‘Am I hearing this right?’ Leto asked. ‘The Grand Legion is too frightened of a herd of buffalo-wranglers to take the offensive? And you’ve been doing – what, precisely? Nothing?’
‘Fools rush in,’ said Scaevola solemnly.
‘I’ll consult an almanac if I’m ever short of idiotic proverbs. Right now I’ll trouble you for an explanation. We saw off scores of barbarians in Gaul and the Reichlands – so why can’t we do the same here?’
‘The Rasenneisi engineers have augmented the butteri’s weaponry.’
‘How exactly?’
When Scaevola began once again searching through his memoranda for the answer, Geta snorted with impatience. ‘It would be quicker to show you,’ he said.
*
It was galling to have to admit Geta might be right, but the siege was indeed in jeopardy. The men were bedraggled and the standards were soiled and sagging. At least the horses were still alive, though none could be described as fat. Soon the contato would be completely exhausted, and it didn’t require an Alexander to realise that once the army began to eat itself, the campaign was over.
Like most of the denizens of the Black Hand, the butteri had little affection for Veii – they fought now only because they knew they would be next. Once Veii was in Concordian hands the south would be open to the ravages of Spinther’s war-machine, and lacking the north’s greater wealth, technology and population, they would be able to resist for only so long.
The distinction between condottieri, butteri and bandits was hazy, like everything else in this land of warped air and soaking valleys, But whatever you called them, the butteri, guerrillas by long habit and preference, were skilful and they knew their chief advantage was the ability to choose the time and place for battle. They struck hard, like a flash-flood, burning food-wagons, disabling engines and stealing horses before sinking back into the mist. They seldom stopped to kill – they knew camp-fever would attend to that.
The midnight raids were making the soldiers jumpy and irritable, and Scaevola was getting increasingly frustrated. There were those in the camp who argued for breaking off the siege and dealing quickly with the butteri – and these mutterers were not just the usual hotheads. But that was just what the butteri wanted, Scaevola knew; to send the men off chasing after an enemy who melted away like water would be the worst thing they could do. No, whatever the difficulties, they would proceed methodically: first they would take Veii, then they would deal with Salerno.
‘There, General,’ said Geta.
The colossal ramp had been constructed close to what remained of a copse of poplars. It had a vast, gentle gradient, up which siege-engines could be rolled. Unfortunately, the engines which should right now be smashing down Veii’s walls stood decapitated, lined up in a row at the bottom of the palisade, the row of wooden stakes charred to a point, their legs overgrown with long grass.
Geta waved expansively and explained, ‘They were no sooner assembled than those bastards came through and made mayhem with their bolos—’
Leto had seen these weapons in Gaul: there were a variety of different styles but a bolo was basically two balls attached to either end of a piece of chain.
‘They’re loaded with powder and rigged to blow up when the balls strike each other,’ Geta pointed out. ‘They may be small, but they’re extremely effective. We just don’t know what to do.’
‘That’s obvious: make more towers.’
‘Which they’ll just destroy,’ Geta said. ‘Haven’t you been listening?’
‘It’s time you listened,’ Leto said. He was calmer now. ‘The new siege-towers will draw them in, as will the skeleton guard we place on the ground. Put a quarter of your men flat in the tall grass amongst the towers. The rest will wait out of sight in those trees yonder and they’ll let the butteri pass – this time. They’ve come to raid, not fight, so they’ll turn tail when they realise the towers are defended – and that’s when the rest will charge out and block their escape.’
Geta played with the ring on his chain for a bit, then said, ‘They’ll fight like devils.’
‘That’s the point. They’ll fight where and when we choose. We can stand to lose men. They can’t.’
‘Funny that it’s my men, specifically, we can stand to lose.’
‘Not like you to get sentimental, Geta. These condottieri expect to be paid, don’t they? I assume you’re deep in arrears?’ When Geta didn’t argue, he continued, ‘So better to cull their numbers in an excellent cause before they become nothing more than extra mouths to feed.’
‘I won’t weep for them, but if I didn’t know better, I’d suspect I’m being punished.’
‘It’s war. All are punished.’
‘General Spinther,’ said Scaevola, ‘it’s an excellent plan, but Geta’s men are what’s left of John Acuto’s army.’
‘So?’
‘At Tagliacozzo they fought with the Salernitans – will they fight their former allies?’
Geta and Leto simultaneously erupted in laughter. ‘God bless your innocence, Scaevola,’ Geta hooted. ‘I could set them on each other if I had the gold.’
CHAPTER 40
The Peoples of the Black Hand: A Bestiary
As one crosses the River Albula, the impression of travelling into the antediluvian past is inescapable.6 The stretch of contato between Veii and Salerno is a gauntlet of swamps, the slit wrist from which Etruria’s eternally-flowing blood bubbles over into a quagmire which has swallowed a hundred armies. This natural barrier as much as native bravery accounts for Salerno’s lack of defensive structures.
The Salernitans are a queer hybrid of philosophers and outlaws,7 famous for three things: their rectitude and their poverty and their longevity. This nation of amateurs is truly Etruria’s anomaly. Consider their perversity: they have the sea like the Ariminumese, but they have never subjugated it; they have courage equal to the Rasenneisi, but they have never made an art of war, and they study nature as we Concordians do, but they have never sought to exploit it.
Some ignorant Northerners attributed their poverty to the fact that they have no king, assuming that a kingless state must be a wretched anarchy. In fact, the opposite is true: above all, Salernitans revere the law. We Northerners consider it a matter of commonsense to change our laws according to the mutable conditions of life; to the Salernitans, such inconstancy is anathema. Their law is harsh, but they accommodate themselves to it because they believe that nothing noble comes without sacrifice.
CHAPTER 41
While the counter-attack got under way, Leto had the command tent moved closer to Veii, a signal that he meant to suffer with the ordinary soldier while the siege lasted. Scaevola was in the middle of reporting that everything had gone as planned when a commotion arose. A masterless horse had arrived in the camp. The mare was lathered in sweat and blood and one of her front legs was entangled in frayed wire and a set of bolo balls. Arête was notorious; he wo
uld submit to be ridden by none but Geta and was a tyrant to other horses, nipping their flanks and necks and harrying them like a monstrous gadfly. Civilians were singled out for the worst treatment, grooms in particular, and he was ever threatening to snap off the fingers of the unwary.
The ranks parted before the fearsome creature and Scaevola moved in front of Leto, saying, ‘Stand back, General. Someone fetch a groom—’
‘No, let him come. Where’s Geta?’
Arête stamped his hooves on the ground in front of Leto and knelt.
The quartermaster ignored the question. ‘They suffered heavy losses before we forced a retreat—’
‘Damn it, where’s Geta?’
‘We don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘The fool gave chase in a fit of enthusiasm.’
*
Butteri war bands were transient things, hastily assembled, quickly disbanded. They never loitered in numbers too long after raids, especially unsuccessful ones. One by one they mounted up and bid ornate farewells to the old man.
‘Auguri back at you. Go on then,’ Ferruccio said, calmly knotting two ends of a rope. ‘I’ll take care of this one.’
Geta was on his knees in the cold mud under a desolate old tree with a flaking black bark. The five condottieri who had been captured with him had already been beheaded and the crows were busy feasting on their eyeballs. One singularly well-fed bird – surely their chief? – was not partaking of the tawdry gluttony. It was obviously content to wait, and sat on a branch watching Geta with an intensity he did not appreciate. He had a small blade concealed in his glove and was working on the ropes binding his hands even as he tried to distract his captor. ‘Can’t you just use a sword, old man, and kill me like a soldier?’
‘You Northerners. Always in a rush.’
‘Suit yourself. My people will be along any minute.’
‘You’re overestimating your popularity, Lord Geta. Yes, I know who you are. The Bombelli brothers were quite explicit that you deserve a traitor’s death, should I be lucky enough to find you.’