by Aidan Harte
After reaching the Vesuvius camp, the Concordians threw down their arms in exhaustion. Geta, forgetting the men he’d abandoned behind the Silarus, fulminated through the long night at the ignominy, ‘They left us this one escape route so they could herd us like buffalo – you know this means the Moor failed.’
‘That’s not certain.’ Leto did believe the Moor had failed, but he considered Geta’s wallowing unprofessional and refused to indulge it. ‘Once we cross the Volturno, we can regroup and fight on more agreeable terms. The rivers are as much an impediment to them as us.’ He took a breath. ‘Under the circumstances, we did well to conduct an orderly retreat.’
‘Dio, I pray I never see what you’d consider a rout.’
After a night of sleepless watches, they embarked early and marched on at the same unforgiving pace. The infantry lines became stretched out, and it was the cavalry – looking to their own safety – who reached the Volturno first.
It was not to be the promised deliverance.
All that remained of the cohort the general had left to guard the three pontoons was a field of broken men and spears. Only the middle pontoon was still standing, and that, he knew, was quite intentional. If he attempted to get everyone across none of them would see the morrow; the crush would collapse the pontoon long before the butteri arrived to finish off the rest.
As he considered his options, Geta said quietly, ‘Pick someone else.’
Leto marvelled at Geta’s instincts, but he pretended to be disappointed. ‘I thought you many things, but never a coward.’
‘Does that kind of thing often work? I fight when there’s a fighting chance, otherwise I run.’
‘Horatius,’ Leto shouted, ‘how’s the leg?’
He trotted up to the general eagerly. ‘I fear my galliard days might be over, but I’ll live.’
‘I want you to lead the rearguard and protect the crossing.’
‘Yes, Sir!’ cried the young officer.
Geta wondered when Horatius would work out that he had just been handed a death sentence. He didn’t wait for Leto’s order before crossing, and a stampede of cavalry soon emulated him. The pontoon was not designed to bear such weight all at once and the rearguard would not hold out long against the Byzants and butteri. Leto’s choice was simple: stand on protocol – or follow Geta and live.
As soon as he rode onto the pontoon a hundred hands of entreaty raised up, begging for succour even as they dragged at him. It was impossible to reason with that blind hydra. He let himself be pulled down from his saddle and carried along on the pressing, pulling river of flesh, enduring the pinches and biting, stabbing with his dagger when necessary, all the while hearing the fearful creaking of the timber slowly growing louder than the screams.
When he was finally vomited out of the crush onto the muddied bank he found Geta looking down on him with a grin. ‘Orders, General?’
‘Burn it and fall back’
It was just one more sacrifice, after days of little else. The more he could leave behind to delay the enemy, the better it would be. The very worst outcome would be to let the dogs have any means of reaching them. His bedraggled men could not long hold the pass – his abandoned artillery would surely be brought up and used against them. And he was wary of the butteri taking some unknown ford in the highlands and flanking them.
When the legionaries who had safely crossed saw the pontonniers packing the foundation with powder, their despair turned to rage: they had comrades still crossing. Geta had to beat back the rioting legionaries while Leto ordered his cannoneers to fire into the bridge to stem the flood. As the survivors backed away, their frantic comrades began shouting that they were being abandoned.
A frantic few risked it, but the charges exploded with a strangely displaced bang! and the ripple threw most of them off. Those who remained began crawling forward with pathetic optimism – but all at once the pontoon collapsed, a dead thing, all rigour gone, and fell away into the cold rushing river.
By the time Leto and Geta had restored order, the battle on the other side of the Volturno was over. After Horatius fell, the abandoned Concordians threw down their swords, hoping for better treatment from their foes than from their masters.
While the rest began marching back towards the Minturnae, Leto hung back in the rearguard, looking at the host on the far bank though his spy-glass. He would not give that rabble credit for the victory; it was this cursed land that had beguiled him with its wearing rhythm of river after river after river till he had lost his wits. Surely the ultimate fault lay in a misconceived strategy: they had ventured too far, and fought the enemy in a hellish arena where his small strength was maximised and their myriad advantages completely negated. This defeat was not his fault; it was Torbidda’s.
As Leto portioned out the blame, he watched with growing curiosity as a gun crew wheeled a pair of queer-looking mortars to the edge of the bank under the direction of a young man wearing a sleeveless leather jacket. When the fellow removed the long hood wrapped around his face Leto recognised the young engineer who had accompanied the Rasenneisi delegation in Ariminum. The engineer knelt between the cannons and fitted a peculiar device to them, then spent a while getting each operator to minutely adjust their angles.
Despite the disastrous day, Leto was amused to see such amateurism. Such puny cannon could not do much damage, and they were aimed too low, besides. They fired simultaneously, and Leto laughed at the tiny report, and laughed harder when he saw a disc come from the mouth of each mortar at too low a trajectory to even clear the river; the idiot had badly underestimated the range.
Leto stopped laughing.
Now he could see each disc was spinning as it skipped over the water, and trailed a thin wire that traced its flight arc and held its shape. Each brief landing emitted an exquisitely harmonious sequence of notes, accompanied by a cracking, splintering sound. At every point the disc touched the river, the water swiftly turned pale as the ice columns formed to support the frozen wire. One, two, three, four … the discs skipped on, the arc of each bounce slightly shorter, slightly lower than the last – but the final one landed both discs on the far bank.
Leto, more than anyone else watching, recognised this for the prodigy it was – and nearly as miraculous was its significance: the problem that had defeated Concord’s First Apprentice – and him – had been solved by some rustic mechanic.
‘We are lost,’ the general remarked to no one in particular. ‘Lost entirely.’
CHAPTER 62
The Masons knew not the Tower’s purpose, only that King Nimrod paid gold. And when Nimrod heard them bark and hiss and gibber and comport themselves as Beasts, he took it as a sign that he was close; for his Tower was a dagger aimed at the Almighty; and the injuries it did to God would be visited on Men also. He sent more Masons to the cloud-wreathed summit, urging them to toil faster. Likewise were they afflicted: their right hands forgot their cunning; their tongues cleaved to the roof of their mouths. Too late did they realise the Tower was an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.
Nimrod 15:2
The windowless carriage was little better than a cage, but nothing of import escaped the prisoner. Though he had wealth enough to bribe his captors to free him, he paid instead for gossip – Guido Bombelli had made his fortune by knowing things, and by quickly deducing the implications. So when he heard that the Grand Legion was retreating following the Battle of the Volturno, he realised not only what was obvious – that he’d picked the wrong side – but also that by the time he arrived in Concord he would be worse than an embarrassment.
His second deduction was not altogether correct.
*
The Etruscan cloacae under the city of Concord still functioned, but it was not uncommon for the sewers to overrun and flood the lowest quarters of the Depths. This year’s aqua alto had risen to an unprecedented level, causing whole boroughs to empty. The refugees fled to more elevated neighbourhoods, which did not make them welcome. Tensions rose alongside
the water.
Few but lunatics and animals connected the flood to the erection of the Sangrail, which was now complete, with a cold-gleaming spine and a great needle that pointed skywards like a threat. For the fanciulli, the needle was the realisation of a promise. For their parents, who had grown up with the Molè’s domes eclipsing the sun, it was a restoration. And when the days became darker and small children grew weak and the weak fell ill, that was attributed to the exceptionally harsh winter. Summer’s enchantment would surely put things to rights.
The Collegio were waiting to hear the news from the front – always a more pressing matter than the Small People’s comfort – when a panicked orderly burst in to say that a crowd was gathering outside. From the balcony of the Collegio, Malapert Omodeo and Numitor Fuscus stood side by side, their differences momentarily forgotten, looking on with disbelief as the piazza filled with fanciulli. Torbidda stood at the podium below and while the praetorians formed a wall in front of the crowd, their prefect led a prisoner with a sack over his head to the podium.
‘Children,’ the First Apprentice solemnly began, his voice ringing out over the crowd, ‘we have made ourselves perfect by stripping away our fetters – the chains of Curia, of Guild, of false religion and false reason. We have rejected them all, that we might carry a greater burden, one which purifies our souls even as it annihilates our weak flesh. Our freedom is terrifying to our enemies. Some of you will have heard that our Crusaders have suffered a terrible reverse, and it is true. More: an ungodly coalition of southern apostates and foreign infidels now marches on Concord. They send their agents ahead to work mischief within our walls. They are too subtle to poison our wells and aqueducts. Instead they have sent to confuse us a false prophet of false profit.’
Torbidda ripped off the prisoner’s hood and quickly stood back. The crowd pelted Guido Bombelli with stones and pieces of glass. They didn’t know who he was, only that he was an enemy.
‘The boy’s insane,’ said Fuscus.
‘No,’ Omodeo said bitterly. ‘He knows exactly what he’s doing.’
Torbidda smiled up at them before turning back to the crowd. ‘These are godly stones – but hold back a moment.’ He leaped in front of the prisoner and the rain of missiles instantly ceased. ‘Innocents that you are, you recognise the devil. Innocence is the only true armour against evil; wisdom has its use, but it has many chinks. O Children, it pains me to tell you, but some of your wise men have been tempted by this prophet’s wicked doctrines.’
A wail of terror and revulsion and rage spread over the piazza. Now the consuls were pelted, though they were out of range. The hail battered the massive green banner that hung beneath the balcony.
‘And what is the blasphemous doctrine that misled those philosophers? I must not tell you, lest you too are misled.’
‘Tell us!’ they cried, squeezing their stones so hard their fists bled.
‘I must not. You are mere children – you are not strong enough.’
‘We are strong!’
‘Are you not afraid?’
‘We fear nothing!’ they cried, brandishing their bloody fists as proof.
‘Children, I believe you. This devil tempted the consuls with the pestiferous worm of usury. He told them he would teach them that unholy art – unnatural as sodomy – which would make fertile unions where nature has decreed there can be no issue.
‘Ah – I see you do not believe me. O simple children, you know not the wiles of calculating men: you say coins are barren, so how could coins beget coins? Or Time beget Time? But I have seen it myself, even in the Collegio – yes, even there.
‘They have made my temple into a gambling house. This consul has sixty silver pieces and so he rents out thirty pieces to a consul in need, for a small fee. What has changed hands here if not Time? If it is not given to any but God to know the Time, how much worse to sell it? Will Our Father allow it? Will He sit idle while vice flourishes?’
‘No!’
‘What was the Serpent’s reward for seducing Eve with unfit knowledge?’
‘Death!’
‘It was Ariminum that schooled Etruria’s merchants in the degenerate art of lending with interest and now that city of pimps is one with Tyre and Sodom. But their wicked doctrine escaped the fire that purified them. Our enemy, this League of Sin, is sustained by usury – and here is a high priest of that dark art: Guido Bombelli.’
The piazza became a sustained roar, a trembling of hands outstretched to strangle and rip and rend.
‘You are zealous – we cannot suffer a false prophet to live, that is sure. What to do with the Collegio is the harder question.’
The crowd didn’t find it complicated: ‘Death!’
‘Peace, Children. The Lord respects the righteous, but the merciful He loves. The consuls have been led astray. Before they ruin themselves with too much cleverness, we must lead them back to rectitude. How shall we instruct them? Shall we burn the sinner?’
Once more a thousand hands reached for Guido Bombelli, an inchoate screaming leviathan bellow that echoed into the Depths.
Torbidda looked around slowly. ‘I hear you. You are wiser together than any single judge. The sentence is most just: schismatics should be themselves parted.’
He nodded to the praetorians who lifted the prisoner high up and cast him far into the sea of hands.
Everyone got a share.
CHAPTER 63
Death marked, winter owned; they belonged to those shrill sisters. The carts wheeled over bodies frozen in the mud and the legionaries, recognising beneath their boots the faces of old comrades left behind, mourned afresh. The League might have turned the retreat into a rout by pursuing them; instead, for the most part, it let them flee unmolested. Some called it charity, but General Spinther knew better. Once the marsh had them, the screws would tighten.
Even though an elongated line was vulnerable to attack, it proved impossible to keep the men tighter together. The whip’s snap no longer made the legionaries flinch, but if they did not cross the Albula soon they would perish to a man. Leto, anxious to get on, rode to the rearguard to investigate the delay and discovered Geta patiently whipping a pair of horses bound to a mud-mired wagon.
He left off his toil to salute. ‘Hail Imperator!’
‘There’s only wounded in this wagon,’ Leto observed.
‘So?’
‘We don’t haul machinery when it’s broken. These horses are useful, but soldiers unable to march are no longer soldiers. Our engines may yet save us; misplaced charity will condemn us all.’
Geta lowered his voice. ‘We can’t just abandon them.’
‘Since when are you so tender-hearted?’
‘Call it self-preservation. The men are on the point of mutiny as it is – they simply won’t countenance more abandonment.’
‘You’ll be surprised how soon their tears will dry. It’s hard, but we are on a hard road. Get it done.’
Sure enough, the marsh was an ordeal that made their first crossing seem easy. Leto soon realised that the meticulous destruction of the pontoons behind them was a waste of time: with the Bouncing Bridge and their knowledge of the marshes, the butteri advance riders could easily flank them. The devils did not use this greater mobility to launch substantial attacks, but preferred rather an exhausting schedule of skirmishes – ceaselessly pestering them like a swarm of zanzara. The daily mounting anxiety was worse than trenchfoot, worse than fever, worse than the cold. They trekked across the field of Tagliacozzo and did not pause for libations. The Albula, when they came to it at last, was partially frozen, but the pontonniers judged the ice too weak to bear so many. They lacked material to make a pontoon, but managed a raft, large enough to ferry whole battalions. It was tied off at either end and hauling it through the broken ice was slow work.
The butteri finally swooped in after the main corps had passed over. Leto did not hesitate to cut the rope and the unlucky battalion halfway across could only curse him as they were released to
the mercy of the river. The despairing hundreds who remained tried to cross the half-frozen river, with ghastly results.
The Concordians had their fill of horror. They turned their backs and hastened away from the unlucky site, only to be intercepted by a small party of horsemen. Leto recognised the slain she-wolf adorning their yellow banners, but the man at the head of the Veian embassy he barely recognised at all. Power gnaws some men like consumption; others it emboldens like mother’s love; Marsuppini was one of the happy few. For his part, he smiled fondly to see Leto Spinther as bedraggled as his army.
‘You come alone, I see,’ said Leto, offering his hand. When Marsuppini did not kiss it, he said, ‘Your fellow patricians are well I hope.’
‘Alas, there was a constitutional crisis and they quite lost their heads.’ He handed Leto a scroll. ‘Fresh from Concord. The First Apprentice orders us, his vassels, and you, his general, not to surrender an inch beyond the Albula. Thus far and no further, he says.’
‘And is this your idea of a martial array?’
‘This is merely a courtesy. I must look to Veii’s interests, not Concord’s. Our walls are restored and manned by a strong militia. I’ve come to warn you to pass by. I will not make you welcome.’
‘I won’t waste my time reminding you of your oath of fealty. I’ll remind you instead that we broke our way into Veii once—’
‘The point is,’ Marsuppini cut him off, ‘can you do it again with the League at your heels? I think not.’
‘A point you may have neglected in your calculations: how do you think Costanzo Bombelli will look upon the man who gave his brother to us?’
‘I doubt I’ll have much luck getting any loans from him, but perhaps that’s a blessing in disguise. My predecessor bequeathed Veii enough debts to service as it is. Costanzo’s a man of the world. He’ll understand that I was constrained by circumstances. Denying succour to you – Salvatore’s actual murderers – will repair some of the damage. Besides, there are other sources of credit in Etruria – Malapert Omodeo for one. Speaking of which—’ Marsuppini produced another scroll. ‘The same herald who delivered the First Apprentice’s diktat brought this private communication for your eyes only.’