The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy)

by Aidan Harte

  Leto checked to see that Varro was busy. He advised Agrippina as he had once advised Torbidda: ‘For starters, distance yourself from him.’ He looked at the selector. For most Cadets, Guild politics was wasted mental effort, but those in line for Apprenticeship had to take an interest in the murky topic. The summit of any hierarchy attracts awe and envy in equal measure from those below and here was no different: first-years studied second-years; second-years studied third-years, and all studied the Candidates. Even though the Candidates were the best, the majority would rise no further – only the death of one of the three Apprentices would create an opening. As consolation, every Candidate became a member of the Collegio dei Consoli; they were all eligible for election to its governing board. Relations between the Collegio and the Apprentices were fractious, with envy on one side, contempt on the other.

  Leto told them both that the Collegio’s advisory role had expanded under Filippo Argenti. ‘His appointment as First Apprentice is telling of the Collegio’s growing influence. Argenti’s generation of engineers is the first trained in the Guild Halls out of the Curia’s shadow. He’s got no reverence for the myths of Forty-Seven. The Girolamo Bernoulli he knew was an old man past his prime who was reverting to mediaeval thinking.’

  ‘The dogs on the street know that,’ Agrippina said. ‘How does he stand with the army?’

  ‘Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?’ Leto was less neutral when it came to the army, his criticism less guarded. ‘In comparison to Bernoulli’s lightning campaigns, Argenti’s wars are pedestrian. He inherited the best army Etruria has ever seen – and how does he use it? The legions are scattered in a great continental-wide pushing match, with Concordian machine grinding on barbarian brawn. The tribes make obeisance, then as soon as the pressure lifts, rebel again. It makes us look weak.’

  ‘He can’t break the deadlock?’ asked Torbidda.

  ‘He can’t concentrate on it. The repeated need for expensive rearguard actions in Etruria drains all momentum from the Europan campaign. This feckless policy more than anything else is behind the wistful revival of Naturalism led by the Second Apprentice.’

  ‘Does Argenti see Bonnacio as a threat?’ Agrippina asked.

  Bonnacio’s an apolitical dreamer, content to haunt the Molè’s domes, tend the lantern flame and watch the stars while Argenti and his clique direct policy. He’s probably more concerned about Pulcher.’

  ‘I heard the Third Apprentice said Argenti was no fitter to wear black than he is to wear the red.’

  ‘That remark was widely disseminated – younger sons don’t enjoy seeing their elders fritter away their fortune. By leaning so heavily on the Collegio – Consul Corvis and that lot – Argenti’s making the red pale. If Argenti’s watching anyone, it should be Pulcher.’

  The first-year whose turn it was to read valiantly struggled to make himself heard until he finally gave up. Leto’s prediction had been borne out sooner than expected: Filippo Argenti was dead and the Candidates’ table was empty. Both sides of the refectory were alive with gossip about how Pulcher had actually done the deed. Leto, of course, was intimate with the various versions, but Torbidda wasn’t interested in gossip. ‘That’s that,’ he said glumly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Think about it!’ he snapped. ‘Argenti was getting on, but Bonnacio is in his early twenties, Pulcher’s still a teenager and the next Third Apprentice will be a third-year. That means we’ll never—’

  ‘—wear the red?’ Leto finished and laughed. ‘Madonna, I never thought I had a chance. Did you?’

  Torbidda was looking balefully at the high table where the Candidates usually sat.

  Leto followed his glance, ‘Well, it’s not all bad. Agrippina’s got as good a chance as any Candidate. We could have friends in high places next year.’

  CHAPTER 10

  On the Origins of Concordian Gothic

  To avoid taxing the gentle Reader’s patience, the Author will follow convention in referring to Concord’s cathedral as St Eco’s1 until 1347, and thereafter as the Molè Bernoulliana. Whatever name the cathedral goes by, its foundations are inseparable from the Re-Formation’s.

  Some ambitious young historians have argued that we will not find those foundations in Concord, nor even Etruria; they tell us we must venture to that water-scarred land of dark savage forests: Europa. We are accustomed to thinking of the Re-Formation as uniquely Concordian, but they suggest that many of the larger Europan cities also had the necessary conditions at the turn of the century.

  This is not the place to dissect that argument;2 while it may be true that every city important enough to have a cathedral3 had a similarly unstable dynamic of tight-knit engineering firms working for unimaginative clerics, only Concord had Girolamo Bernoulli.

  CHAPTER 11

  The winds were brutal and the steps tall. Slime riverlets streaked them treacherous. It was a strain to breathe. This was higher than he had ever been on Monte Nero, even higher than the Drawing Hall roof, which caught the white sunlight below him – yet still the summit was an impossible distance. The sky was cold and empty and scarred by a web of crisscrossed wire that intersected at the Selectors’ Tower as though tethering it to the isolated rocky peak. Torbidda knew the reason he’d been summoned. He’d broken the rules. He’d been discovered. Expulsion would surely follow.

  The summit was even clearer in the office, but Torbidda tried to ignore it and listen to Flaccus. For want of anything else to focus on, he stared at the egg-shaped device on the desk and heard words spilling from his mouth: ‘Grand Selector, I made a mistake, but you can just—’

  ‘You’re being moved up a year,’ Flaccus interrupted, then added angrily, ‘Don’t look at me, it’s not my idea. That’s not all.’ He held up the ribbon as if it were a loathsome yellow worm. ‘Our new First Apprentice, in his wisdom, found your design, speculative and impractical as it was, remarkable – so remarkable that as of now’ – he flung the ribbon at Torbidda – ‘you’re a Candidate.’

  ‘But – but I’m not ready.’

  ‘I told him that. I told him that you should be punished for breaking the rules, too. He disagreed – he thinks you’re gifted.’ Flaccus picked up the egg and regarded it philosophically. ‘I think he’s mistaken. The only other Cadet to be made Candidate this young was Bernoulli’s grandson, and that was a disaster …’

  On he went, but Torbidda had stopped listening. He was thinking about the little yellow ribbon that meant he and Agrippina were competitors now.

  ‘… course, Varro put in a word for you, and that carries a lot of weight with the First Apprentice, starry-eyed mystic that he is. If you ask me, that’s why he nominated you. Naturalists know their own.’

  Flaccus waited for him to deny the charge or confirm it, and Torbidda realised with surprise that the Flaccus was as uncertain as the most guileless inductee. As above, so below. ‘Grand Selector, I do want to be an Apprentice someday, but—’

  ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself. Being a Candidate doesn’t mean you’ll ever make Apprentice.’

  ‘I mean, there are more worthy Candidates.’

  ‘Certainly: Cadet Seventy-Nine, for example.’ Flaccus laughed. That was Agrippina’s number. ‘Just do as you’re told. They can make you a Candidate, but they can’t make you what you’re not.’

  Torbidda descended from the Selectors’ Tower feeling less apprehensive than he expected. He was committed now, and he must accept the price commitment demanded. The only alternative was to pursue advancement in the legions, where it would not always be Concordians under his knife. But inevitably the day would come when he’d be up against Leto. Competition was universal, unavoidable. And merely thinking of retreat – that was impossible. The summit was calling. He must answer.

  He took a bowl from the stack, handed it over and watched it being filled with morbid fascination. He had become used to the colourless gruel, but he had never learned to like it.

  A sudden push knocked him
into the stack. The bowls tumbled and smashed.

  ‘Agrippina—’ he began.

  ‘Keep away from me, you sneaky little bastard!’

  The lectern reader paused. Torbidda felt every eye on him, just like the first days again, and he turned to stare them down. By the time he looked back, she was gone. He sat alone thinking of the fight ahead of him, playing out scenarios.

  ‘So it’s true.’ It was Leto, looking at the ribbon on Torbidda’s arm. ‘Can I sit?’

  ‘You don’t need to ask. Agrippina—’

  ‘I know. Be glad she didn’t kill you.’

  ‘Where is she, Leto?’

  ‘She doesn’t want to see you again.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I should have guessed,’ Torbidda said when Leto finally led him to the Drawing Hall. He followed him up the ivy frame and out of the window. Agrippina was sitting there beside the spire, hugging her legs. She’d been crying. Her back was to the Molè and she was looking out into the Wastes as if waiting for a rider to come to her rescue.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Give him a chance to explain,’ Leto said. ‘Agrippina, I didn’t ask for this.’

  ‘Do you think I’m a child? You submitted your design.’

  ‘I’m an engineer. I thought I had the better answer.’

  ‘You’re just a disinterested natural philosopher, is that it?’

  ‘So I’m ambitious! I want to be Apprentice one day, yes, of course I do – but Third when you’re Second, Second when you’re First. I don’t want to compete with you. I won’t.’

  She started to reply, then turned back to the Wastes. Torbidda turned to see what she was looking at. He saw only clouds of loose dust burling over the barren soil. When she spoke again all anger was gone. ‘I wanted to be the first female Apprentice. I thought – it’s stupid – I wanted to prove to my father I was worth a damn.’

  Torbidda realised she was looking beyond the barrenness to a faraway farmstead that probably didn’t exist any more.

  After a moment, Leto said, ‘Didn’t he sell you?’

  Agrippina laughed, and she wiped her face. ‘I wanted to prove it to myself, then.’

  ‘You will,’ said Torbidda. ‘Listen, even if I could, I wouldn’t take the Apprenticeship from you. I’m young enough to wait. The other Apprentices don’t have to die of natural causes. We’ll train together, so no other Candidate has a chance against you.’

  ‘What about me?’ said Leto with mock outrage. ‘When you’re Third and she’s Second, where will I be?’

  ‘In Europa, winning Triumphs.’

  ‘Getting scalped by some gruesome Frank, you mean. If one of you does make it, I expect a soft posting: some backwater where nothing happens any more, like Rasenna.’ He did a Flaccus-like growl: ‘Cadets, are we clear?’

  Torbidda and Agrippina saluted. ‘Yes, Sir!’

  Below them sunlight made New City shine like polished ivory. It even penetrated the smoke plumes drifting lazily from the gloom of Old Town. While the Molè’s shadow fell on the far side of Concord, a child could believe that Fortune dealt fair.

  CHAPTER 12

  Flaccus marched proudly along the top of the aqueduct, one of the many that fed the canals. The day was windy and getting dark, but hardly enough to merit the flickering torch he carried. The twelve children followed the Grand Selector like a trail of mourners, their robes and yellow ribbons fluttering. The aqueduct was the oldest structure above ground in Concord – only the sewers rivalled its antiquity – but Torbidda knew enough about Etruscan architecture to trust its stability.

  He had less faith in his new classmates. He felt conspicuously vulnerable beside the third-years, a songbird in an eagle’s eyrie. A competitive tension had already settled over the small group, but for him they reserved special hostility. They had put in their time, won their position by merit; he heard them arguing about what species of cheat he was, whether it was patronage or skulduggery that had enabled him to join their table.

  Only Agrippina spoke directly to him. ‘You don’t like heights?’

  ‘Heights I don’t mind. It’s the water. It doesn’t care for me.’

  Agrippina took this as a joke. ‘I’m the same with dogs, got bit once. You fell in?’

  ‘Not technically. My mother, before she had me, she got … sick.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Her mind was ill. She claimed that a pseudonaiad visited her to warn her that the child she carried was “dry”. The best thing, it advised, was to kill herself. She jumped into the canal. They pulled her out half-drowned and raving. I protected her from my father, and when I was older from herself, but no matter what I did she said I was an abomination. She got rid of me as soon as she could.’

  Flaccus had stopped by a set of narrow steps that wound around one of the aqueduct’s massive supporting pillars. ‘If you’re quite finished, Sixty?’ He looked around the class and brandished his torch in an apelike manner. ‘Fire is a club. Water is a scalpel. Engineers can increase that power by funnelling it into narrow canals, by letting it fall from heights. Our task is to harness that pressure by older means. Some of you are too sceptical, some insufficiently so. Water Style is about force, precision and – yes, belief. As we descend we will probe the very edges of Natural Philosophy. Keep your wits about you.’

  The twelve followed Flaccus down the steps. Torbidda was last, trailing slowly, looking at the intersecting net of aqueducts.

  ‘What is it?’ Agrippina said.

  ‘All that water. Why did Concord never became a sea power?’

  ‘Is it all that surprising? To Bernoulli, water was something to be controlled. To sail is to put oneself in the sea’s hands. Besides a fleet’s not much use without a harbour.’

  ‘We’ve turned rivers on our enemies. Why not send one to join the sea? We’re slaves to geography until we do.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to remedy that when I wear yellow. Let’s get through today before conquering the world, shall we?’

  They raced each other until they caught up with the rest. Halfway down, the stairs stopped winding around the pillar and plunged into it through an arch. The steep descent continued within and the darkness became so total that Flaccus’ torch became the single point of light. They emerged into a chamber somewhere far below the pillar’s base and continued through several more until they came to one much larger.

  ‘Welcome to History’s graveyard,’ said Flaccus.

  ‘He’s enjoying this a bit too much,’ Agrippina whispered to Torbidda.

  As Flaccus lit the cressets they saw it was a deep, high-ceilinged place, too damp to be dusty. Tall pillars divided the space and between them stood spectral totems, statues shrouded in pale, half-rotted sheets.

  Flaccus stopped at one and waited for the class to assemble around him. ‘This was one of the Guild’s first factories, long before Forty-Seven, back when Natural Philosophers were the Curia’s loyal servants, when Concord’s finest minds were enslaved by idiots. There is no better place to learn humility.’ And saying that, he pulled away the sheet.

  The statue depicted Saint Barabbas, identifiable by his conventional symbol of a dagger half-concealed in his cloak. ‘These statues were meant to “decorate” the Molè, like lice infesting some noble beast’s skin. Those who carved them gladly tumbled them during the Re-Formation – heady times. This cemetery of saints are the ones who got away.’

  Flaccus breathed out and suddenly struck the sculpture’s torso with a flat palm. The impact echoed around the vaulted roof and when it dissipated, there was a growing sound of fracture. The sculpture cracked into thirds and the head, torso and fist-gripping-dagger smashed as they hit the floor separately.

  ‘A rock’s destiny is the same as ours: to be dust. I merely helped it achieve that potential.’

  The impression the demonstration had made on the Candidates swiftly dispelled; the Grand Selector was too obviously pleased with himself.

  ‘How?’ said Agrippina.<
br />
  ‘It’s hard to explain.’ He pursed his lips. ‘See, Time has a direction: after night comes morning. The Etruscans, clever buggers they were, created a martial art that harnessed that flow. It’s what made them so strong.’

  ‘Yet their empire fell,’ said Torbidda, looking at the broken statue.

  There was a flicker of displeasure before Flaccus composed himself and returned to his Sage-like pose. ‘Well, night follows morning, doesn’t it? When the darkness fell, the Curia managed to hold onto a mangled version of Water Style, but it was as degraded as their Hebrew. Eventually it too was forgotten. Then, from the ashes, two powers rose up. Our war with the Rasenneisi ebbed and flowed for a generation, until he was born.’

  ‘Bernoulli,’ said one of the Candidates reverently.

  Agrippina rolled her eyes.

  ‘Bernoulli,’ repeated Flaccus in a stage-whisper. ‘He rescued Concord from darkness and Water Style from the mystics.’

  ‘How?’ Agrippina asked again.

  Flaccus cleared his throat. ‘By returning to first principles, I suppose. He interrogated the element itself until it confessed its secrets.’

  Torbidda looked around uneasily, but none of them had been in Varro’s class the day of the incident. Flaccus led them deeper into the chamber and stopped in a space surrounded by five water-worn columns. In the centre was a puddle fed by a steady barrage of drips from the ceiling and leaks pouring down the columns. He turned before their footsteps had finished echoing.

  ‘Anyone know where we are now?’

  Torbidda said, ‘Under the main canal?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Flaccus said, again slightly annoyed. ‘You can’t hear it, but it’s there, like a great wind.’ He pointed to the roof. ‘When you’ve learned more you’ll feel it in your bones. Now, do as I do. Do not disturb the water.’