by Aidan Harte
Leto noted the broken seal. ‘You’ve learned the game quickly.’
Marsuppini bowed at the compliment. ‘That’s the only way this unforgiving sport can be played. Godspeed you home, General. From what I gather, Concord needs a strong hand now more than ever.’
As the Veians rode away, Geta sidled up to the nonplussed boy. ‘Let me guess: we’re not invited to supper?’
By way of answer, Leto silently handed him the second scroll.
‘This is co-signed by—’
‘Keep reading,’ Leto said.
Geta wondered what prodigy could bring Omodeo and Numitor together. When he finished he knew the answer, and could hardly credit it. Neither, he saw, could Leto.
‘The Bombelli are the keystone of the League. After all we’ve suffered, I can’t understand why Torbidda would be so rash. Whenever he made a sacrifice, there was always a good reason.’
‘I despair of you, Spinther. I doubt he’s thinking further than tomorrow. The boy knows he has a mad dog on the leash with the fanciulli; he’s sacrificing us to save himself and the capital.’
‘But it won’t even do that.’
‘In my experience, the deepest thinkers make the worst blunders,’ Geta said with an odd satisfaction. ‘They’re so fond of complications that finally they deceive themselves. The unlettered at least know when they are lying. Very well. We’ll make our stand at Rasenna and I shall see my dear wife again. I’ll wager she looks elegant in mourning clothes.’
*
The League moved up the west coast and the Byzantines the east like two parallel rivers. To avoid overburdening the exhausted land, each army kept itself supplied by sea. Khoril’s wounded fleet was fit for little else, but the boundlessness of Byzant’s power was becoming increasingly apparent to the Etrurians. The Adriatic was carpeted with dromons, more each day. The Byzantines had old trade contacts in towns like Pescara and Ancona and Jorge was made welcome by a people still delighted at shaking off the Ariminumese yoke.
As Sofia rode with the butteri, she noticed the rhythm that followed them: the whoop of the bolas, the patter of the hooves in the day and the crackle of campfires and the husky breath of the buffalo at night. Like the Ebionites, they loved poetry, favouring ballads and laments which they rendered so sweetly that the prosaic lyrics were transfigured.
She noticed too how comfortable Pedro was amongst them. He had been quieter than usual since the battle, and she knew well the warring states of mind he was likely feeling.
‘I was scared, elated – I don’t know what,’ he confessed. ‘The remarkable thing is that I fought at all.’
‘It’s not that remarkable – Vettori Vanzetti had plenty of salt, and the Doc always said no one fights like a man with something to lose or something to prove.’
‘I am the latter, I fear. The City of Towers lost its towers on my watch.’
‘You cannot carry that burden: we all lost Rasenna.’
They were both silent, thinking of the things lost in the fire: Isabella and Uggeri, casualties of the war, no less than her father, Doc Bardini, John Acuto, Arik ben Uriah, Jabari, Bakhbukh or—
‘Doctor Ferruccio would have liked your savage, Contessa. The butteri have really taken to him.’
‘They have that.’ It gladdened her to see them showing No Man how to ride and throw the bolas. The boy proved to be skilful at whatever he tried, and hardy enough to keep pace with them. The humidity that so bothered the Stranieri – as the Byzants and Sicarii were being collectively called – did not fatigue him. He became adept at hunting the wild long-eared Minturnae hare, which the butteri considered a great delicacy. The Sybarites had naïvely believed that only the Madonna could restore them to past glory; No Man was only the first of his people to realise that all that was holding them back was themselves. Rejoining the life of the Black Hand was the first step to the restoration.
As the Sirocco’s forces drew further north, strains between the Byzantines and the League began to manifest. Costanzo spoke for many when he said, ‘I don’t want to clear the way for one set of weeds by burning another.’
Fulk was riding alongside, sniffling with a cold. He reminded Costanzo that Jorge had agreed to join them only reluctantly.
‘Aye – because he thought Concord stronger than it has proved. Once a man takes a bite out of an apple, he usually finishes it. We’ve let his troops rove over Etruria. What if he does not leave?’
Fulk turned to Sofia. In Ebionite, he said, ‘Your country is a little damper than Oltremare, but truly, nesi’im are the same everywhere.’
‘Identical, and I weary of it,’ she said, before answering Costanzo, ‘Let’s take it one war at a time.’
CHAPTER 64
A thousand empty stomachs lumbering through a sodden desert. It was the Grand Legion’s passage months ago that had denuded the contato – though they had not wreaked the damage through greed or sadism; it was simply a function of moving such numbers across the land. This fact did not console them now that they had to retrace their steps.
In the absence of better nourishment, they subsisted on desperation. Concordians had long mocked their enemies’ atavistic suspicion of technology but the League’s ‘wonder bridge’ was like a judgement in their hunger-crazed minds. Every man knew it would be death to fall behind, so they trekked exhaustedly on through the bad lands of Gubbio, where the carrion and wolves were equally fat, to the Rasenneisi contato, which was littered with the skeletal remains of the dancers for whom the music had finally ceased.
The Rasenneisi did not cheer the Concordians; neither did they resist. Many said a restoration of order was welcome, whatever flag it came under. Bocca the brewer had not excelled at keeping the peace. The persecution of collaborators he had permitted was initially popular, but rapidly became an excuse for opportunistic score-settling between rival families. Once they lost any reputation for impartiality, the Signoria lost all authority and Bocca could do nothing but watch as Rasenna descended into factionalism worse than the worst of the old days.
Geta was looking forward to playing the magnanimous lord welcoming his harassed countrymen to the warmth of his hearth, but all such illusions were quickly dispelled: General Spinther took over the Gonfaloniere’s Palazzo and left him to bunk with the infantry in the Fortezza del Falco.
*
Carmella did not like to admit it but the Baptismal Font had become something awful for her. The scenes on its base – of murder and mourning – were an accusation. Yet she kept picking the scab – the water drew her to it. Sometimes she fancied she heard voices – Uggeri’s, Isabella’s – and she strained to hear what they were saying for hours.
She was startled by the booming knock at the baptistery door and she ran to pull it open. When she saw who it was, she pushed it closed.
The toe of Geta’s boot prevented her. ‘I’m her husband, Sister. She’ll want to see me.’
‘So sure? They spat at her in the piazza because of you. She’s lucky it went no further.’
‘Now you’re being silly. No one’s going to hang the sister of the Bombelli Brothers.’ He put his full weight behind the door and pushed, crying, ‘Amore! I’m home!’
Carmella followed him out into the garden as he called Maddalena’s name again. ‘Where is she, Sister? I’m asking nicely.’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Carmella was not a practised liar.
‘Thank you, Sister,’ Geta said, striding in the direction she’d glanced. ‘Amore?’
The door of the little chapel was open and Geta stopped abruptly. There inside sat his wife, staring with a manic intensity at a single glass of water on a little table in front of her. That was bad enough, but it was her unkempt appearance that told him something was seriously wrong. She’d never been full-figured but she had always dressed well. The woman before him was a skeleton lost in the folds of her coarse habit. Her hair was growing back in sporadic clumps that made her resemble some emaciated Frankish Amazon. ‘Maddalena. It’s me. Didn’t you hear m
e calling?’
Like a sleepwalker, she turned towards him. ‘I thought I imagined it.’ She spoke slowly, as though drunk. ‘Kneel beside me, amore. We’ll confess together.’
Geta grabbed Carmella’s arm roughly. ‘What have you done to my wife?‘
She pulled her arm away. ‘I gave her something to live for.’
‘You made her a bloody nun! Dio, she even talks like one—’
‘You can’t imagine what a relief it is – I don’t know why I avoided it so long. It wasn’t Uggeri’s fault – he was just God’s arm. I hadn’t confessed what we did and so my baby had to die, you see, because I hadn’t paid my debt and the interest was growing. It’s like Papa used to say: that’s where you make your percentage. Now I confess every day so it doesn’t get a chance to build up. I tell the Madonna all the bad things I think and do and no one else needs to die. Come, tell her what we did to Papa. That’s a good one. She’ll like that.’
‘… It sounds great fun,’ said Geta in a strangled voice. ‘Truly it does.’ He backed away from the door with a terrified rictus grin. ‘I do however have some pressing Signoria business to attend to first. Tell you what – you start without me and I’ll be along shortly with my list of misdeeds.’ He backed up a few more steps, then turned and ran.
*
Alone in the dining room of the Gonfaloniere’s residence, Leto stared at the exquisitely carved chessboard. As usual, he reset the pieces to an interesting midgame, this one from a match he had played in the autumn of Sixty-Eight against Torbidda. Torbidda’s preference was to play black. To begin with, he feigned indifference, but this apathy was a ruse. He studiously avoided exchanges until a hideously complex mid-game had developed, at which point, with the multifarious combinations and possibilities stacked large, he would shift in his seat and become engaged.
Leto interrogated the silent pieces, searching for some explanation for Torbidda’s actions.
With a hopeless sigh, he played out the game as it had transpired four years ago. Torbidda’s audacious queen sacrifice. Check. Leto takes queen. Torbidda’s rook smashes down to his second rank. Check. Leto takes rook. And now the unseen knight protecting that humble pawn rears up like Nemesis. Check. Leto must retreat and see the pawn reborn into something new and deadly.
Mate.
He felt the surprise of it afresh and wistfully smiled. Geta, for all this pride and recklessness, was correct: one could not be an Engineer and a soldier. Only confusion arose from lukewarm commitment. In memory of his father, he had devoted himself to Apollo – but blood, like water, finds its natural level. It had brought him back here to the altar of Mars.
*
Bocca looked sullenly at the only customer in the piazzetta. ‘If you still think you can have credit, you’re sadly mistaken.’
‘Bocca, after all I did for you—’
‘I should pour you arsenic.’
‘Oh, come on. I’ve had a simply awful day. My wife’s gone mad, and everyone thinks it’s fine to make horns at me in the streets. Me! Their rightfully elected gonfaloniere! I must kill someone or have a drink. What’s it going to be?’
‘I’m not scared of you any more either. If you want a drink, I want silver.’
Geta took his hat off and put his hand through his hair. ‘My horse. I’ll give you my horse.’
Bocca knew Arête’s temper, but if he could not sell him, he could always make mince of the brute. ‘Go on then.’ He took down a bottle. ‘So, reckon you’ll be staying?’
‘All depends on the little general. I’ve never known his arrogance to falter but if I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s having a crisis of confidence.’
‘I heard you got your arses handed to you at Salerno.’
‘It’s not that. The Volturno was a blow, but after the initial shock, Spinther convinced himself that was just a setback. What’s made him despondent was a letter from Concord.’
‘Ah,’ said Bocca. ‘The lad’s homesick.’
‘No, idiota. Spinther’s always revered the First Apprentice – but his faith’s been shaken. It transpires his hero has taken to senselessly murdering valuable prisoners-of-war.’
‘What’s he fixing to do?’
‘That, Bocca, is the question. Put it this way – I won’t be turning my back on him any time soon.’
An hour later, Geta was delivering an impromptu diatribe against Rasenna. ‘You wretches haven’t thought how bereft you’d be if you defeated us,’ he shouted defiantly. ‘Without hatred of Concord to hold you together, what would you have? Who will you blame when you inherit Etruria in all its absurdity?’
Bocca, who knew better than to interrupt an angry drunk, looked past him – and dropped the glass he was polishing. ‘General Spinther!’
Geta’s reaction was similar. He took a deep breath and was suddenly sober, before turning around. ‘Care for a drink, Spinther? My credit’s excellent here. Can’t say the same for the wine, haw haw.’
‘I’m buying,’ said Leto, and signalled for a bottle.
Geta pretended not to notice the guards he’d brought along. ‘Well, whatever else I achieved on this campaign, I taught you to drink. What’s the occasion? Let me guess, you’re giving me a citation for bravery—’
‘I wanted you to hear it from me. We’re leaving.’
‘Oh. I see.’
Geta’s muted response was not what Leto had expected, and he went on as if he’d been challenged, ‘It’s senseless taking positions that can’t be defended. The Byzants have retaken Ariminum, what’s left of it. With them coming from the east and the League coming from the south, Rasenna’s too exposed.’
Geta’s leg began nervously tapping under the table. He drank the glass in one mouthful. ‘Where then, Montaperti?’ he said, naming the field where disagreements between north and south were traditionally settled.
‘One for the road?’ said Leto. He poured without waiting for Geta’s answer. ‘As I said, it’s futile to hold indefensible positions. Fight at Montaperti and what’s the outcome? If we lose, Concord’s lost. If we win, that lunatic’s rule will continue to its inevitable end. The only way Concord survives is if I make peace.’
Geta stilled his tapping leg with his hand and discreetly unsheathed his boot dagger. He cleared his throat. ‘Overthrow the Apprentice by all means, Spinther. Take the Red, or any colour that takes your fancy, and I’ll carry your banner. But this duel’s too far gone for to end with an exchange of handshakes and hostages.’
Without responding, Leto filled his own glass. He finished by tapping the rim with the decanter. ‘The war’s unwinnable.’
‘You don’t know that.’ Geta began arguing that a change in fortune was imminent.
Leto let him ramble, amused by his volte-face, before interrupting, ‘Let’s be candid, Geta. You care about preserving your neck, not Concord. You know that any peace negotiation must include the Rasenneisi, and that any settlement that the Rasenneisi negotiate will require you to be hanged.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Bocca mumbled behind his counter.
Geta picked up his glass again and laughed.
‘What’s so amusing?’
‘I thought I’d taught you well over the course of this campaign. I clearly failed – if this is your idea of springing a trap!’ He flung the wine at Leto and the empty glass at a praetorian. He plunged his dagger into the other one and bolted from the piazzetta into the night.
The guards gave pursuit, but Geta knew every bolthole the Tartaruchi had ever used. As he crawled on his belly through the damps of the sottosuolo he considered his abruptly reduced options. Leto was serious about taking over, so he must therefore cleave to the First Apprentice – but that malignant imp would hang him just for spite if he returned to Concord bearing only bad news.
CHAPTER 65
Lucius Priscus, fifth king of Etrusca, made a pilgrimage to Cumae, to ask the three wise women how he might expand his League into an Empire. The sisters duly consulted the Disciplina Etrusca
, and revealed Etrusca’s future to the king – its glorious rise, and its inevitable fall, naming the very hour of nemesis centuries hence. The appalled king pledged to renounce ambition if only the doom could be revoked. But it was not in the sisters’ gift to divert Fortune’s river. They could only foretell its course. ‘Then ye art doomed also,’ said he. One only, the youngest, escaped the king’s wrath, by finding refuge in the Kingdom of Sybaris.
The Etruscan Annals
The unburied dancers should have confirmed Pedro’s warning, but it was only when she saw what was left of Rasenna that Sofia realised there was to be no homecoming. Home was gone, lost somewhere in the years gone by, and what was left was as pointless as a eunuch.
‘I don’t suppose Akka will be the same when I return to it,’ said Fulk.
Sofia wiped away her tears and turned to him. ‘You’ve kept your promise, every promise. You need not go further.’
At last he said, ‘Whatever comes, Akka stands with the League. I must see this Crusade through to the end.’
While they gazed upon that towerless skyline, Levi, Pedro and Costanzo watched the chariot approaching from the east.
Anticipating that Rasenna would be strongly defended, both armies had converged in the field where John Acuto had met his end. Costanzo’s paranoid intimations about the Byzantines had not abated, so Sofia decided to simply ask Jorge his intentions. She’d begun to have misgivings of her own. All she had to rely upon was Fulk’s estimation of the prince’s quality.
Jorge was straightforward. ‘We’re not fighting for land,’ he said, ‘we’re fighting for water.’
Costanzo was quick to comprehend. ‘The Adriatic.’