Spira Mirabilis

by Aidan Harte

  Sofia, on board the Solomon, was looking back at the wall of ships just waiting. Yes, it was ominous. She was almost relieved to see the wall slowly beginning to turn. The most southerly ship travelled a wide arc while the ship nearest to the coast merely turned about forty degrees. It looked like a great door shutting behind them, an image compounded as the fifteen galleys from Taranto arrived to complete the encirclement.

  Khoril could not bury his misgivings. He hovered near the tiller. Their pursuers’ pace had not increased; it was just a slowly tightening noose. ‘What’s he waiting for?’ he grumbled.

  ‘They don’t think we have the salt,’ the tillerman said. ‘Well, he’s in for a—’

  ‘Full stop!’ Khoril shouted.

  *

  The Tancred’s oars lifted – the action was simultaneously replicated by the thirty ships behind it – and the Moor grinned. He could just imagine Khoril’s crestfallen face.

  Beyond the strait, beyond Scylla’s rocky teeth and swirling Charybdis, fifteen ships were waiting, five of them copper-plated lanterns armed with the heaviest of Concordian guns.

  CHAPTER 49

  Salerno is one hundred and fifty miles south of Veii as the crow flies – but in Etruria, the eel was a more reliable pacemaker. The route was complicated by endless lakes and circuitous rivers which were especially high at this time of year, and the Min-turnae Marsh was treacherous at all times, so they had to go some distance east to where the Albula narrowed. The pontonniers assembling the bridges were constantly harassed by a small band of butteri – but such a host could only be delayed, not defeated.

  Leto sent hundreds of skirmishers across in small rafts to protect the bridge, and supported them with a flock of annunciators. Stocks were perilously low but Leto was in no mood for half-measures. Soon enough the Grand Legion was assembled on the far side, complete with the carroccio displaying their banners.

  They had to cross the Allia before the day ended. Frustrated at their pace, retarded by wagons in need of repair, Leto declared that all unnecessary baggage was to be burnt, and to show a good example to his men, he set fire to his own books. But few were inspired, and the order had to be carried out forcibly. The men grumbled as they watched all their Veian loot go up in smoke. The next day’s march brought no rivers worth recording, but no reprieve either: the land got progressively more wet, and the men more despondent.

  Exhausted and hungry, they stopped early and while the surveyors marked out the camp, Leto made a short address. ‘I daresay this is familiar to a few of you. For the rest of you, the name of this place is Tagliacozzo. Three years ago, John Acuto fought and lost here. Three years ago, your countrymen smashed an army of the south. We can do it again.’

  The men listened patiently, desperate for encouragement, but who could be impressed by a field? A skin of bright yellow lichen and dark green covered the ruined engines, softening their edges so they resembled disembodied limbs, as though titans did battle here. Weeds grew thickly through collapsed earthworks. The trenches had turned into connected canals of stagnant water, hazed over with the last of the year’s mosquitoes – the hardy zanzara, big as wrens, that delighted to feast on the eyeballs of buffalo or, even more succulent, those of their shepherds. As for the thousands who had died here, they had left no mark. More impressive were the ash-blue mountains to the east: massive, impassive and changeless. In this land, time alone was victorious. The officers were glum for other reasons: they knew their general proposed to take the highlands route to the south. The Great Pebble, as it was called, had three summits: Big Horn, Middle Horn and Small Horn, which together resembled the profile of a sleeping giant.

  ‘Look around and be assured,’ Leto shouted, ‘that whatever force we come up against shall meet with the same fate. We shall finish the work begun in Forty-Seven – and be assured that the eyes of the noble dead are upon you today. Those cowards who were routed that day, they too have their jealous eyes upon you. So cry out, and let these hidden watchers, from the mountains to the marshes, know that we are here to stay!’

  Malapert Omodeo’s nephew Horatius erupted in loud hurrahs, but he was alone; they rest received the speech with a perfunctory cheer that quickly vanished into the darkness of the evening. The feeling that retreat was no longer an option was too strong – and the reference to ‘hidden watchers’ had confirmed all their paranoid suspicions.

  Aware that his oration had failed, Leto peevishly dismissed the assembly.

  *

  If the site of the battle was disappointing, the town itself was worse. Tagliacozzo possessed one shabby piazza, and it was burning. The scorched circle had but one shack left standing – and that would not last long if someone did not put out the fire.

  ‘Bastards,’ Horatius exclaimed indignantly. ‘They mean to deny us bread and dry beds.’

  Geta said, ‘We must become accustomed to these warm welcomes. Is everything burned?’ He was here for supplies. Since leaving Veii, General Spinther had taken a petty satisfaction in assigning him menial tasks.

  ‘Everything worth a soldi. We managed to pull this rogue out of the church cellar before it collapsed.’ Horatius pointed to a scruffy prisoner whose hands were still bound and whose boots were still smouldering. His long moustache was a little singed too – as were the bushy eyebrows. ‘The other prisoners were—’

  ‘—cooked,’ the man drawled.

  ‘Well, that can’t be helped. Now, my dear fellow,’ Geta said solicitously, ‘I assume by your delightfully rustic costume that you’re not from these parts.’

  ‘Ain’t you the smart one.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have any information that might save your life?’

  The buttero’s coal-black eyes glowered under his brows. ‘I know a thing or two about a thing or two.’

  ‘An educated buttero. This is a surprise. For example?’

  He nodded at the shack that was beginning to smoulder. ‘That there’s a tavern.’

  Geta smacked the nearest officer’s helmet off and cried, ‘Look lively, man!’

  After the fire had been subdued and a firebreak made, the soldiers went in to sample the wares. Geta insisted the prisoner join them. He expected the fellow would try to cut some sort of a deal, but Sergio – that was apparently his name – was interested only in cards.

  Geta was intrigued, and after an hour’s play, enquired, ‘Don’t you want to know our plans?’

  Sergio sucked at his moustache. ‘Figure you’ll play that three you’ve been nursing.’

  ‘I mean the Grand Legion’s – there’s plenty would pay plenty to know them.’

  ‘Never saw much point in thinking on tomorrow till I wake up in it.’

  ‘We’re going south.’

  ‘Hell, I knowed that. How you fixing to go?’

  ‘The highlands,’ said Geta.

  The buttero supped his grappa. ‘Bona fortuna.’

  ‘You don’t think that wise?’

  ‘Look at me. I lost my hat, my bolos and my buffalo and my boots got holes in them.’

  ‘Salute,’ said Geta. ‘To misfortune. What’s your point?’

  ‘Point is, I ain’t no authority on what’s wise and what ain’t. But since yer asking, that’s got to be the most fool transumanza I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘I assume that’s some delightfully obscure Black Hand custom,’ said Geta, growing vexed. ‘What does it involve, sleeping with your sister’s sheep?’

  ‘Come fall, we bring our herds on down from the hills so they have a chance of surviving. Spring comes, we take ’em back up. You aim to cross the land, but you’re going about it ass-backwards. I wouldn’t lead men, any amount, let alone that horde you got, up yonder mountain. Them highlanders ain’t got no buffalo, no grass, no grappa. All they got is the Big Pebble.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The thing a man holds, that thing he prizes – if you go aloft, you better be in the Madonna’s good graces, because you will not be welcomed.’

  ‘We didn’
t come to make friends.’

  ‘Huh, I knowed that too. What I’m telling you if you got ears is you’ll suffer snowfalls and landslides. You’ll go to sleep cold and when you wake up, your engines’ll be gone or busted and your beasts’ll get their necks cut or legs broked up. That’s if you wake and your head ain’t cracked by an unlucky midnight rockfall. There’ll be lots of them. See, it ain’t just Highlanders that don’t take to strangers. The mountain ain’t fond of them neither.’

  ‘You mean to scare us,’ said Geta with a smile. ‘No Southerner loves Northerners.’

  ‘Well, you’re not wrong: I got no affection to spare you. It’s a quirk of ours, I suppose, that we don’t like being invaded, and I suppose I wouldn’t warn you if I expected you to believe me. Your boys pulled me out of the fire and I’m returning the favour is all. You want to jump back in, that’s your business. If you do, take a few jugs of grappa and concerto. Cold nights up there. I’ll see you when you get back, and if I don’t, I’ll guess you’re dead. Salute.’

  *

  Geta returned to camp next morning, drunk again. Leto was poring over maps surrounded by officers in the command tent, still angry at the men’s stubborn refusal to be moved by his address.

  ‘We don’t all have your Guild Hall grooming,’ Geta protested. ‘But you must really disdain our intelligence – we can hardly forget the legion that won here was the same legion that was destroyed in Rasenna.’

  ‘You find this funny. Can’t you even act like you care?’

  Geta uncorked his wineskin. ‘Do you care for dog-fighting, Spinther? It’s wonderful sport. The best dog I ever saw – it was in Ariminum, I think – he’d lost an eye, had his paw gnawed off, ribs broke and still he kept coming. Madonna, that dog was game! I swore I’d buy him if he won.’

  Leto continued to study his map. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He practically beheaded the other mutt before they dragged him off. I won a packet.’

  ‘Was he expensive?’

  Geta chuckled. ‘Lord, I didn’t buy him! He’d ruined himself in the process. They threw him in the lagoon that very night. My point, dear Spinther, is that these Southerners are like that: no matter how severely we beat them, they’ll keep coming.’

  ‘Keep your penny philosophising to yourself,’ Leto snapped. ‘And for Reason’s sake, keep your drinking to respectable hours.’

  ‘Why stop here if not to pour libations to the glorious dead?’

  ‘We’ve stopped because something’s off and you’d have realised that if you weren’t half-drunk all day. The butteri are proud people and the Allia River has always been a frontier against invaders. I expected more resistance – but there’s been nothing. Now here we are, camped without a fight at Tagliacozzo. They’re letting us get deep.’

  ‘You give those cowards too much credit.’

  ‘They want us to proceed confidently and leave our flanks exposed. Here’s us,’ said Leto, tapping the map, ‘between Pescara and Caieta.’

  ‘If we stop to subdue every hovel, we’ll never get to Salerno.’

  ‘Unless we proceed methodically, we’ll end up surrounded.’

  ‘You take counsel from your fears.’

  Feeling the officers’ eyes on him, Leto spoke loudly and slowly. ‘Patience, Lord Geta. When we get to Salerno, you’ll have ample opportunity to charge about waving your sword like the ridiculous anachronism you are.’

  Unabashed, Geta insisted, ‘We should press on.’

  Leto hammered a fist on the table. ‘This is not a joint command! You are my subordinate and your mercenaries’ lives are mine to spend. Take them west to Caieta. Secure it. I’ll investigate Pescara. We rendezvous back here at noon on Giovedi, and only then will we proceed south. Dismissed.’

  *

  As Geta rode for Caieta, his anger at Spinther’s imperiousness faded in the face of his anticipation of the fun of falling on the fishing town unawares. His indignation returned when dense obelisks of smoke segmenting the sky told him that someone already had the same idea. Caieta was ablaze and most of the berths in the small harbour were empty – the fishermen had either fled south with their boats or sunk them at their moorings. There was no one to kill or rape, nothing to eat or loot.

  Pointless.

  *

  Back in Tagliacozzo, Leto admitted he had fared little better in Pescara.

  ‘Burnt to the ground too?’ said Geta.

  ‘No, but it was similarly denuded. The town fathers were obviously terrified of the butteri. From what I could understand of their barbarous dialect, they claim not to support either side in the war.’

  ‘How nice of them.’

  ‘I politely informed them that neutrality was not an option. The translators had trouble conveying this point, so I had their families brought out.’

  Geta chuckled. ‘And what was lost in translation was suddenly found?’

  ‘After the town fathers had made their proper obeisance, I set out for our rendezvous – but I’d only gone a few miles when I glanced behind and saw Pescara burning. There was nothing to do but ride on. I wonder was it self-sacrifice, or punishment by the butteri?’

  ‘At least we don’t have to wonder about their loyalty. What a bloody waste of time.’

  ‘For the last time, it is simple prudence to protect our flanks,’ Leto insisted. ‘Moving an army is no different from building a bridge: if you calculate stress and load conservatively and use good materials, success is assured.’

  ‘You’ve spent too much time in Scaevola’s company,’ Geta grumbled. ‘Our lives are in Fortune’s hands. The prudent do not win her favour.’

  Geta might be infuriating, but Leto knew he was right: war was not that arid subject he had mastered in the Guild Hall; it was a savage dream, primitive as the swamps ahead of them, where inspiration and phantasms had form, where an artistic temperament like Geta’s could bring ruin or wrest victory from impossible odds while pedants like himself could only plod behind, making sure the horses were fed and the machinery kept dry. He was not a general, but a quartermaster.

  But admitting that was another matter entirely. ‘Tomorrow, we take the Big Pebble. Dress warmly.’

  CHAPTER 50

  Scaevola was enthusiastic about the Moor’s plan in part because it resembled a land battle, with static lines and neat encirclements, but mainly because he alone had command north of the strait. He took this as a mark of respect from the Moor, although in truth it was the only station where the quartermaster’s naval inexperience would not matter. His wing merely had to float there and attack whatever emerged from the strait.

  Despite a growing swell, Scaevola insisted on binding the ships together. He had employed the same tactic in Gaul once to prevent an allied tribe from retreating. An hour before dawn, he summoned his captains to the Bernoulli, the splendid lantern he commanded. They had already rehearsed several times, but once more wouldn’t hurt. Scaevola began lecturing to the increasingly surly captains at once: ‘It’s crucial that you maintain the intervals. Who’s captaining the two ships nearest the vortex?’ He consulted his list. ‘The Ariminus and the Bellicose. You two? Look, I know you’re dealing with the shifting currents but you’re both sagging to leeward.’

  The captain of the Bellicose wasn’t about to listen to an amateur. ‘Your bloody line’s too long, Concordian. Each end’s experiencing different conditions.’ The others agreed, and began to clamour about becoming entangled in the chain.

  Scaevola was unmoved. ‘I know very well why you want to be unchained, but we’re not here for prize-hunting.’

  ‘What if they break for the Sybaritic coast?’ demanded the captain of the Serenissima, at the most westerly end of the line. ‘We’ll have to pursue.’

  ‘No, our role is to keep them bottled up in the strait and we’ll only achieve that by concentrating our forces, not dispersing them. The few that do escape – if there are any – can be easily hunted down later. Until the day’s issue is settled, you will conduct yourselv
es like soldiers.’

  The meeting broke up with angry muttering, and as the morning went on, the folly of such a long line became clear even to Scaevola. The exasperated captains tried to maintain their stations by heaving to with sails so that the winds cancelled each other – but the winds of the strait were almost as contrary as its waters. Though Scaevola suspected deception at play, he dreaded being out of position when the battle began and reluctantly he ordered the line divided.

  This manoeuvre wasted another few hours, and when it was done, three untethered ships hung back between two groups of six chained. The untethered ships’ role was to lend support wherever and whenever necessary. One of these was the Bernoulli; from here Scaevola planned to control each wing like a conductor.

  ‘Ships ahead!’

  The cry from the crow’s nest of one of the advance line was audible back in the Bernoulli.

  ‘Daft bugger,’ the man at the tiller said. ‘It’s only the Fata Morgana!’

  Scaevola said nothing as he looked steadily past the bowsprit. His heart began pounding. This was no castle in the air. Between the niponti appeared the thin foresails of several ships.

  ‘I thought there’d be more,’ he said, a little disappointed.

  ‘Commander?’ said an eager ship’s boy. ‘Shall I signal the others to engage?’

  ‘For the fifth time, no! We keep our positions and let them come to us.’

  *

  The dimensions of the trap were clear before them but neither Khoril nor Sofia nor Bakhbukh despaired. Once the scout had escaped, an ambush was practically assured. They had plans of their own. Nine xebecs sped forward for the strait while the remainder turned about and rallied on the lanterns, making a crescent to face the crescent now encircling them.

  ‘They mean to push us onto the niponti,’ cried Khoril, and changed the glass in the lantern to yellow. At his signal yet more xebecs broke rank and went for the enemy in four groups of two, each pair aimed at a lantern.

  Between each of the Moor’s five lanterns sheltered ten ‘regulars’ of the Golden Fleet, and with the wind now in their favour, they came forth to meet the approaching xebecs, targeting them with cannon.