The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy)

by Aidan Harte

  Donna Bombelli held Rosa’s hand and wiped her brow. She herself was heavy with child; in just two months she would be in the same position herself. Rosa’s cheeks ballooned like a pipe player’s, but at last the baby’s head breached. Sofia quickly cleared the mucus from its mouth and nose, then ran a finger behind the baby’s neck to check the cord hadn’t wound around it.

  ‘Now,’ Donna Bombelli whispered, ‘one last time, amore.’

  Sofia yelled, ‘Push!’ and Rosa’s face went the hysterical red of bellow-blown embers. After a long pause she grunted loudly with release and the rest came out easily enough. The midwives exchanged a quick look of relief and Sofia deftly turned the baby upside down and slapped its back.

  ‘Mmnwaaaaaaahh!’

  The newborn’s first cry filled the room and echoed at every level of Sofia’s being. She had heard this sound, vital like nothing else, many times this spring, and every time it shocked her. She cradled the baby, wiping its face again to study its colour and breathing. It was a raw but healthy pink, and its little ribcage swelled with surprising power. When she laid a hand on its chest the baby grabbed her finger. ‘Strong grip, Rosa!’

  ‘And a boy,’ said Donna Bombelli. ‘His father will be proud.’

  The girl’s tired, ecstatic smile wilted and she rolled her head into the pillow to muffle her sobs. Sofia handed the child to Donna Bombelli. ‘Give him to her when she stops crying.’

  A waft of fresh air and light entered the room as Sofia opened the door and let herself out.

  On the other side of the stairway, Polo Sorrento was sitting in the open window, looking down at the traders on the Irenicon bridge. Polo had once been an unsuccessful wool merchant, but he was known now as the farmer despite his soft hands. After the Castellans’ towers were torched, he’d bought the vacant land cheap and leased it to the smallholders whose produce filled the bridge market every morning.

  Tower Sorrento was just one of the pale new towers lately sprung up in Rasenna. South of the Irenicon they clustered around Tower Vanzetti; on the north side they surrounded Tower Bombelli. Thanks to Rasenna’s new breed of engineers, they stood upright in a way that made the old-timers shake their heads – the old towers defied everything, including gravity, and a distinctive curve or tilt used to be prized by owners. The new towers were stouter, too, more akin to palazzi. Height regulations had been relaxed, and those who could not afford to start afresh built superfluous storeys until Rasenna’s skyline was almost as crowded as the narrow streets below.

  Polo turned languidly to face Sofia. ‘Contessa.’

  ‘It’s just Signorina Scaligeri now, you know that.’

  He nodded without interest and said flatly, ‘Is it done?’

  ‘Done? We weren’t cooking goulash, Signore. You have a strong, healthy grandson!’

  Polo shook his head at such childish naïveté. ‘How could I have a grandson? My daughter’s unmarried.’

  Sofia acted as if she hadn’t heard. ‘Rosa was good in there. The boy’s got a real bandieratori grip. Congratulations.’

  ‘For what, raising a whore?’

  Inside, the baby’s scream was a determined bawl of life; outside, there was another small shake of the head. ‘No, I have no grandson. Instead, I have a problem – or rather, the city does, until the orphanage is built for this deluge of bastards. I shall place it on the steps of the Palazzo del Popolo. Perhaps some nameless childless family will take it home before it starves, perhaps not. They can throw it in the Irenicon for all I care.’

  Sofia grabbed his collar and as he flinched away from her bloody hands she said fiercely, ‘Dog! Your daughter gives you a strong boy and all you think of is your name? I remember when the Sorrentos were the Morellos’ crawling manservants.’

  ‘And I remember when you were still Contessa. You don’t command here any more.’

  Sofia slapped him, and Polo flinched so violently that his head struck the wall. Her knuckles slammed into his nose and he sank onto the windowledge, groaning. He wiped his nose, his blood now mingled with his daughter’s.

  Still holding his collar Sofia tipped him until he was leaning precariously out of the window. She ignored his screams and shouted into the wind, ‘I’m still part of the Signoria, so jumped-up dogs like you still have to listen to me.’ She pointed to the dust rising from the construction site beyond the river. ‘The orphanage will be ready soon enough. You’re right: we must do something about all the new bastards. But why stop there? We ought to consider the old ones.’

  She tilted him still further until he could see the Sorrento family banner dangling from the tower’s top storey, moving lazily in the breeze. Sofia felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around to see Donna Bombelli’s alarmed face.

  She winked and turned back. ‘Well, Farmer?’ she said gruffly. ‘May I congratulate you on your grandson?’

  ‘Yes!’ His voice weak against the wind. ‘Yes! Thank you!’

  Sofia pulled him up and out of the window embrasure. He attempted to stand, but lost his footing and tumbled down a few steps until he managed to stop himself. Sofia watched as he pulled himself to his feet and rearranged himself. He fixed her with a vindictive stare. ‘Very well, Contessa: I’ll give the whore and it a roof and bread, but don’t ask for love.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Sofia said. ‘I don’t believe in miracles any more.’

  CHAPTER 22

  Levi tipped his hat courteously to the newly married couple standing in the doorway of the church. Popular piety still ascribed the defeat of Concord’s siege-engines to the Madonna; the Santa Maria della Vittoria’s roofless state didn’t reflect any decline in gratitude – it was just one of the buildings begun but never finished in the last two years as an excess of ambition and enthusiasm outstripped the available manpower and money. The usual bloody routine of raid, burnout, grief and vengeance was a song grown old in Rasenna; these days fresh foundations and the dust of construction were everywhere.

  Levi crossed Piazza Stella quickly, eager to leave behind his inconclusive meeting with the Gonfaloniere. Newly rich northsiders, tired of being shown up by the neighbours, had cleared a grand semi-circular space on their side of the Irenicon a year ago. Forty years ago, Count Scaligeri designed the original Grand Piazza in a day: he drew a circle on a map one morning and the towers within that circle were knocked by evening. Such autocratic town planning was, alas, impossible in newly democratic Rasenna. So many families refused to move their towers that the new piazza assumed a jagged star shape, rather than the pleasing half-moon intended.

  Fabbro’s evasions frustrated Levi, though he was used to them by now. He’d seen similar sophistry in the Palazzo del Popolo. Rasenna had slipped off its Concordian shackles by a series of lucky accidents, and the magnates foolishly believed that their new-found wealth could keep them off. Condottieri traditionally preyed upon such delusions, but the Hawk’s Company had linked its fortune with Rasenna, and if it perished, they perished.

  As he walked between the plinths at the mouth of the bridge, Levi glanced at the empty one. Soon there would be a full guard of lions. That was another change; Rasenneisi had grown used to these small revolutions since the Twelfth Legion’s destruction. After that prodigious feat, nothing could surprise them. Levi looked at the crowds crammed between the stalls; each month the bridge grew ever-narrower as the market grew busier. Even though he’d failed to bring the leaders of the southern cities together, their merchants were in a frenzy of communication, and Rasenna’s smart new bridge was the hub. Since it had leapt the Irenicon, the divisions that mattered were between the major Guilds, and their quarrels of precedence were thrashed out in the Palazzo del Popolo and solved the civilised way, by the other river flowing through Rasenna: money. The division between these privileged few and those whose trades were deemed ‘unskilled’ remained unbridged, a gulf wider than the Irenicon.

  Levi froze as he felt an arm slide under his; he grabbed it while his other hand went instinctively to his purse. />
  ‘You must think I’m terrible,’ said Maddalena with a smile. Her cheeks were flushed; she must have run to catch up.

  ‘I know you’re terrible.’ He released her wrist, but did not pull his arm free.

  She laughed. ‘Just because I won’t let you browbeat poor Papa.’

  ‘“Papa” is far from poor, and he can stand up for himself – to everyone but you.’

  ‘That’s true,’ she said, unsheathing her weapon of choice. ‘With me on your side’ – she smacked her fan on Levi’s chest for emphasis – ‘you could get your way all the time. You could even be elected gonfaloniere.’ She paused by a fruit stall and picked up a yellow-green apple. She held it out to him. ‘Isn’t that what you want?’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be delicious, when it’s ripe.’

  ‘You find the goods wanting before you’ve tried them?’ She began fanning herself. ‘The sample’s free, you know.’ Maddalena was confident that the stall owner would not object – after all, her father supplied credit to every entrepreneur in town.

  ‘Nothing’s free, amore; you learn that when you’re older. Be content. You’ll get a fine trousseau when you marry.’

  ‘My husband will, and meanwhile my brothers will inherit the lion’s share of the Bombelli fortunes.’

  ‘Fabbro’s still breathing, you know.’

  ‘And someday he’ll stop. Oh, don’t look so shocked, Levi! I can’t stand you thinking ill of me.’

  ‘I don’t. I pity you. If you’d had the luck to be born a man, your father would have given you everything. With a mind like yours, you’d have been magnificent. Instead, you waste your talent on silly dalliances.’

  ‘Bad luck indeed, to fall for the only chaste condottieri in Etruria. The rest of your company have been at it like cottontails since they arrived. Weren’t you ever that carefree?’

  ‘Once,’ he admitted, ‘when I didn’t understand the responsibility John Acuto carried. Rasenna’s in danger and we can’t afford to play games.’

  ‘Tell that to your warren.’

  Levi pulled his arm free, but he couldn’t deny the charge. He had only to look at the swollen figures of every second Rasenneisi girl. They’d been locked away in their towers during the long years of hate and now they longed for love. Naturally enough his men were happy to scratch their voluptuous itches – but carousing with the townsmen’s daughters was making his soldiers hated, and Levi could almost hear old John Acuto growling, ‘That’s why God invented whores.’ The old bull would have forbidden any such congress on practical grounds – the price for enjoying respectable women was always too steep. But Levi was no Acuto – who was he to tell men to behave like saints, in Rasenna of all places?

  Smiling again, Maddalena said, ‘With a good man at my side things would be different. We could rule together.’

  When Levi said nothing, Maddalena leaned close to whisper, ‘Perhaps if I were a year or two older, like the Contessa, you’d be willing to sample the goods?’

  Levi snapped her fan away and cast it into the river. ‘Hound me all you like, but don’t insult my friends.’

  ‘Friend.’ She laughed. ‘Is that what they’re calling it these days?’

  Responding to Maddalena’s innuendos only encouraged her, so Levi apologised for his temper instead.

  ‘No harm done,’ she said stopping at a jewellery stall, drawing her fingers sensuously along a row of ivory fans. ‘I won’t tell Papa if you buy me a new one.’

  ‘What a scare you gave the farmer. He thought you were going to drop him!’

  ‘I ought to have. Cold-hearted stronzo.’

  Sofia and Donna Bombelli were walking to the bridge from Tower Sorrento. Piazza Luna no longer looked like an accidental creation; with the new bridge and the rebuilding of the Signoria’s meeting hall, the piazza had unexpectedly attained civic dignity, though increasingly new towers were encroaching on its half-moon shape. Rasenna was remaking itself. In every ward, the presiding Guild advertised their respectability and wealth by clearing space for an oversized piazza and decorating it with vulgar fountains and statues.

  Only the thoroughfare to the southern gate was kept wide and unimpeded. A steady flow of well-packed carts took Rasenneisi linens and wool south and brought back the Oltremarine spices that Rasenneisi had developed such a taste for of late. Goods from Europa couldn’t come via Concordian lands, so the Irenicon was choked with broad-beamed barques waiting to dock. Their clinker-built hulls, bulging with the heavy materials Rasenneisi engineers needed, sat low in the water.

  ‘The farmer’s no monster, he’s just cheap – who will marry Rosa now? He’s got two mouths to feed that will never bring his tower anything but shame.’

  ‘Shame! As if the Sorrentos are unique. We’ve been busy every day this month, and Melissa Tesoro and Lucrezia Abbrescia will pop any day now. There are a hundred girls in Rasenna praying for blood at the end of the month.’

  Donna Bombelli was surprised at Sofia’s vehemence. ‘I’m just glad I have your help. I’m too old and Rasenna’s too big to have just one midwife.’

  ‘I’m trying to fill Doc’s shoes best I can.’

  ‘Well, thank Madonna this one went smoothly.’

  ‘She’s young. It’s only the old ones who have difficulties—’ Sofia stopped. ‘That is, there’s more of a chance of—’

  Donna Bombelli just laughed. ‘Stop back-tracking. I’ve done it enough times to know it doesn’t get easier. It wears you, sure as washing wears dye out of wool.’ She rubbed her hand fondly on the bump. ‘After this one – basta! If Fabbro gets so much as a twinkle in his eye I’m going to chase him from the bed-chamber with the broomstick.’

  The noonday chime made Donna Bombelli’s head turn, and Sofia noticed her proud smile. Her husband was determined to leave his mark with his ambitious Renovatio Urbis. The new Palazzo del Popolo might still sound strange to her, but the magnificent tower it housed was capped by a clock that counted not only the hours but the phases of the moon, the rotation of the zodiac and the seasonal ebb of the Irenicon.

  Sofia laughed. ‘I’ll let you borrow a banner from the workshop. I never imagined Fabbro such a goat. You should be happy, most men his age—’

  ‘Most men his age work for him,’ said the old matron with pride, then rolled her eyes. ‘You know how men are. The more Bombelli business expands, the more Fabbro’s—’ she giggled like a girl.

  ‘Give yourself a holiday. Hire a pretty maid to scrub the floor in front of his banco in the mornings.’

  ‘Contessa!’ said Donna Morello with mock indignation. ‘Such an imagination for such a delicate young lady. Besides, it wouldn’t work – even with his trousers round his ankles, my husband’s a businessman. Bastards are a luxury only nobles can afford. The cost-benefit ratio would make Fabbro wilt before any transaction could be effected.’

  Sofia avoided looking at the Irenicon as they reached the bridge. The wound still wept, and enough time had passed for her to realise it would never heal. At arm’s length, beyond an impassable frontier, Giovanni survived, but she could not reach him. He was in another country. When they pressed onto the bridge between the baying salesmen, the Rasenneisi made way for Sofia. The balustrade had been left unmended in tribute to the dead of the Morello revolt, until commerce trumped sentiment; when the foreign merchants complained, the Wool Guild offered to pay for a yearly mass instead, and the damage was now completely repaired. Memory was subject to conversion like every other coin.

  Donna Bombelli noticed Sofia’s downcast eyes. ‘Sleeping these days?’

  ‘I’m not dreaming about that boy, the Apprentice, any more. Sometimes I dream – it’s strange – I have my back turned to a ruined city. Don’t ask me how I know what it is, I just know. I know like I know that it’s forbidden to look at it.’

  ‘Let me guess – you look?’

  ‘And the second I do, it crumbles – the whole city, into dust.’

  ‘Wonder what that means …’

  ‘I
t means I should find a better place to drink than the Lion’s Fountain. You’ve been a rock, Donna Bombelli, but I sometimes wish the Reverend Mother was around.’

  They walked on in silence for a space.

  ‘Have you told the little Sister about it?’

  ‘Isabella has her hands full with novices and orphans. I’m not going to trouble her with my fantasies.’

  But Donna Bombelli wasn’t listening any more. ‘What is that girl up to now?’ she said with an intake of breath.

  Sofia followed her gaze to the jewellery stall. ‘Outman-oeuvring that poor condottiere, by the looks of it.’

  ‘Signorina Scaligeri. Donna Bombelli,’ said Levi with a courteous bow, ‘your daughter’s kindly permitted me to buy her a small gift.’

  Donna Bombelli eyed Maddalena knowingly. ‘I hope you haven’t been pestering the gallant gentleman. Did you thank him?’

  ‘No, Mama. Yes, Mama.’ Maddalena performed a slow curtsey to Levi. Then, with the same satirical coyness, she grimaced. ‘Mama! You stink like a whorehouse. How many times must I tell you: midwifery isn’t a fitting occupation for a magnate’s wife. We’ve a name now – let someone more suitable take over. Now that Rasenna’s got real soldiers’ – she tapped Levi’s chest affectionately – ‘the former Contessa must needs work. What say you, Signoria Scaligeri? Mama thinks you’re a natural. Now that there’s no one to raid, your workshop’s pointless. I bet you miss that daily fix of horror. So long as your hands are bloody by the end of day you’re not particular how it gets there, are you?’

  Sofia smiled. ‘No, I’m not particular. Insult me again and I’ll prove it. Your father’s this year’s Gonfaloniere, but that doesn’t make you royalty.’