Spira Mirabilis (33 page)

‘That’s hardly cause for concern,’ the Moor said fondly. ‘Those girls know their business.’

*

By the time the secretary managed to convince the Moor that
this really was something they needed to see, the burning ward reflected in the lagoon like a rising sun. The bridges leading from it were dangerously thronged, for the crowds were
desperate
– not to escape the inferno, but to tell the world about the wonderful music. Happy pushing contests developed, and one bear-keeper spun like a dervish between the couples until he tumbled into the water. He was still dancing as he sank. His bear roared plaintively and wandered loose through the canal banks, dragging his chain and clawing with increasing irritation at the citizens who wanted to dance with him.

‘Saints protect us!’ the Moor exclaimed. The mariner’s horror of plague was deep-seated.

One of the bridges suddenly collapsed, and while the Moor stared, his secretary suddenly suggested, ‘We could destroy them all, Admiral – create a firebreak—’

‘No, it’s too late for quarantine.’ The newly arrived ensign’s face was blackened with soot, making him look like some ill-judged parody of his master.

‘You’re sure?’ said Leto.

‘Can’t you hear?’ he said with irritation. The din of disordered chiming was growing as ward by ward, the precise language of Ariminum’s bells was being rendered into babble.

‘We must do
something
,’ the secretary insisted.

‘My dear fellow,’ the Moor said, ‘do what you like – but first go and lower the harbour chain.’

‘And then?’

‘Follow me. Or stay and perish. As you like. I’m going for my ship.’

*

Foreigners of a romantic bent might have expected the arsenalotti to perish in the hallowed dockyards their forefathers had toiled in, but they had the same idea as their admiral. More than any, they knew there could be only one outcome when the
inferno met that great store of tar, pitch and dry wood. They fled via rooftops and unknown alleys to the harbour and hoisted themselves along the ratlines to the nearest ships.

The admiral leaned over the stern of the
San Barabaso
as it bullied its way through the crowded water. Approximately half the ships had cast off – the navy in good order; the merchant barges chaotically. Those ships that had delayed were already overrun by the dancers.

The Moor looked on the city he had so briefly ruled with melancholy, mixed – he had to admit – with relief. He could track the infection’s rapid progress by the spreading blooms of fire. The looms of the Silk Quarter added more fuel.

When Leto joined him at the rail, the Moor said, ‘By the way, this sickness – it came from Concord?’

The general had been brooding on that very subject. ‘Yes …’

The Moor unsheathed his great curved sword calmly. ‘Too bad.’

Leto eyed him coldly for a moment before turning back to the flames. ‘You were never stupid, Azizi, so you must be still drunk. Why would we burn a city that had so much to offer us?’

Convinced by that simple reasoning, the Moor returned his sword. ‘This is the second time I have been dethroned. Evidently it is not God’s will that I be a king.’

Leto agreed, and was about to say more when a cry came from the rigging: ‘
Man overboard!
’

The Moor looked over the bulwark. A red-faced man was paddling towards them, ecstatically panting. The Moor took hold of a long rigging-hook and let the wooden end drop onto the swimmer’s head. He sank silently, leaving a dark stain on the water. ‘Not one of ours,’ he explained.

‘No, but that is,’ said Leto.

‘Admiral, the
Affondatore
,’ a ship’s boy cried, ‘she’s – she’s
coming
for us!’

One of the lantern ships had turned and was bearing down on them. After the Moor had ordered evasive manoeuvres, he looked about for Leto and found him standing at the newly-installed siphon with a look of glee that would have been normal on the face of any other boy. Suddenly a great stream of green-bordered fire shot forth and brushed over the galleon with a touch soft as a swaying reed. Wherever it touched was washed with white dancing flames. Momentum kept the
Affondatore
going forward, and as it narrowly missed them they could see the crew, burned to skeletons, still dancing, even as their skin melted.

The Moor pulled a boy from the rigging. ‘Signal the merchant frigates: they can follow me, or I’ll assume they’re infected and give them like treatment. What is that marvellous fire, Spinther? It’s like the blazing sword that chased our unworthy ancestors from Eden.’

‘What an imagination you have. It’s just a blend of resin, quicklime, saltpetre and
naphtha
, a wicked oil that seeps from the ground where the Ebionite tribes roam. Torbidda discovered the recipe in the Molè’s archive before it burned.’

*

The Moor gave his ensign command of the other first-class lantern, the
San Eco
. Together with the
San Barabaso
, they glided into the Adriatic, trailed by a patchwork fleet.

‘
Addio
, my City of Bridges,’ he sighed.

‘When you’re done with romantic gestures, find out how many ships and men we have.’

‘I won’t kill you, Spinther,’ said the Moor through his teeth, ‘but don’t expect me to follow orders.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘You don’t think this’ – he nodded to the fast-dwindling flaming harbour – ‘changes our relationship rather? To attain the use of
my
fleet, the Apprentice offered me the corna. But look:
the whore of the Adriatic is burnt to the waterline, may she rest in peace. How will you motivate me now?’

‘Unless you plan to found another city on the waves,’ Leto answered sharply, ‘you need a place to dock.’

‘What’s wrong with Akka?’

‘I should have thought that was obvious. Queen Catrina doesn’t trust you. You’ve more reason to fear her than me.
I
can always use a man like you, but if you return to Akka and give her what’s left of Ariminum’s fleet, you’ll find yourself strung up from the
Tancred’s
yardarm. It’ll be a popular gesture, I’d guess.’

‘Sailors are a jealous breed,’ the Moor agreed ruefully. ‘So Akka’s out.’

‘When we go, we’ll go to burn it. But first, set sail to Veii.’

‘I thought your First Apprentice considered finding the Contessa a matter of urgency?’

‘So he does, but – well—’ Leto gestured to the burning city. The ash whispered down between the giddy sparks rising from the ruins. ‘As you say, this changes things.’

‘I see the sense in that,’ the Moor said. ‘Will your First Apprentice?’

‘One doesn’t get to wear the red by being stupid. He trusts my judgement.’ Leto spoke with such confidence that he almost believed it was true.

Geta leaned over the wall and whistled. ‘How long’s she been standing there?’

‘All day – maybe longer.’ The sentry was an old condottiere, bored with his station but unfit for anything better. ‘She was there when the sun came up. Didn’t think much of it at first – you often get mendicants passing by, on their way to Jerusalem or what have you – only that she’s been there so long … I didn’t recognise her as the little Reverend Mother what baptised my little lad not a year ago, not at first. Soon as did, though, I thought, “Better get the boss”. Look at her feet! She’s not
right
, is she?’

‘No, she’s not,’ said Geta, and then, more to himself than his companion, ‘What does she want?’

The sentry tried for the obvious. ‘Us to open the gate?’

‘
Cretino!
The Tartaruchi have tunnels under the Irenicon. You don’t think they might have ways under the walls? If she wanted to get in, she’d already be in.’

‘Reckon I could plug her easy from here,’ the eager-to-please sentry volunteered. He loaded a quarrel into his crossbow. ‘I practise on the cottontails – not much else to do all day, an’ I hates to be idle— Hey!’ He glowered at Geta, who had snatched it from him. The quarrel sent up a puff of dust not a braccia from Isabella’s raw, bleeding feet, but she didn’t appear to notice.

‘
Oooh
. Very close,’ the sentry said. ‘But if you don’t mind me saying, you wanna aim high – an’ try breathing out when you fire.’

‘My good fellow, shut your mouth and open the gate.’

*

When the portcullis was halfway up, Geta ducked under and walked towards Isabella with his usual assertive step. As he got closer, close enough to hear her panting like a tired hound, his hand strayed towards his sword. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again, Reverend Mother,’ he said jovially. ‘I heard a worrying rumour that you had gone to visit the First Apprentice.’

His tongue went dry. Isabella looked like a corpse, one that had pulled itself from the pyre half-done. Her skin was a patchwork: where it wasn’t horribly sunburnt, it was deathly pale. She swayed towards him and back, like a pendulum both drawn and repelled by Rasenna, the spot upon which her ruined feet bounced wet with blood and pus. Her right hand clawed the air while the other hung awkwardly, her fingernails shreds sticking out of swollen black digits. Her lips had all but vanished, and a quivering black tongue poked lewdly between the sharp bits of teeth remaining.

But it was her stare that held him. Her upper and lower eyelids were both peeled back, revealing protruding, putrid-yellow orbs, her pupils shrunken to empty pinpricks.

She was just a harmless little girl foaming at the mouth
, he told himself, ignoring that other voice that was screaming
RETREAT!

‘I see Concord didn’t agree with you. Well, the big city’s not for everyone …’ He kept up his smooth stream of patter. ‘You’re home now and that’s what matters. I do hope we can put this late unpleasantness behind us because, quite frankly, I need you, Reverend Mother. My wife is about to give birth. She’s quite modern in most respects, but she is
very
conservative when it comes to religion, and she
insists
that he – I’m certain it’ll be a boy – be baptised right away.’

She was but a flag-thrust away now. His confident voice continued even as his grip on his sword-hilt tightened. The closer he came, the more agitated Isabella became, panting more rapidly
as her fingers started twitching and reaching, now for him, now for the Herod’s Sword that still hung round her neck.

She was trying to say something, he thought, but had forgotten the habit of speech, and her uncooperative mouth made weird shapes as strange noises emanated: ‘
Kuh-Kuh-Kuh—
’

Her once-lithe little body leaned towards him with a kind of yearning, yet her feet stubbornly stayed stamping the same puddles. He could see the grey-white streak of bone through the abused skin of her heels.

Her panting speeded up, ‘Kuh-kuo-kuoome-daancee. Coomen-daance! Come daance!’

Geta took a tentative step forward. He held his hands up, as though ready to lead her in a measure. ‘I’m told I do an elegant galliard, but is it decent? You’re not just a nun, after all, but our Reverend Mother—’

‘Ku-cuh-cluh-cluh-sedee-guh-ate—’

Her grasping fingers clawed at each other and she howled despairingly and lurched for him. Geta backed away, drawing his sword – but Isabella did not move towards him again and he realised she was wrestling with herself. One hand was reaching for the Herod’s Sword and she looked at him, her round yellow eyes bleeding tears.

‘What ails you, Reverend Mother?’ he asked softly.

‘Close the gate!’ Her fingers grasped the Herod’s Sword and turned the sharp end towards her throat while the other hand tried to resist it.

‘NOW!’

The first hand won the struggle and Geta, horrified, backed hurriedly away from the arterial jets as Isabella did a final pirouette and collapsed to the ground.

He turned and ran and ducked under the portcullis. ‘Do as she said,’ he shouted. ‘Close it!’

The sentry shouted down, ‘She weren’t right, was she?’

Geta stared through the grating at Isabella’s body. ‘If any more pilgrims show up coming from the north—’

‘Yes, my lord?’

‘Plug ’em.’

The Etruscan Annals

A strange armada of scarred warships, merchant barks and frigates of all stripes sailed down the Adriatic like a pilgrimage. The convoy’s need to escape had been too great to allow any taking stock before embarking, but there were several Ariminumese-owned shipyards along the coast where they might replenish. Since water was especially scarce, the Moor sated his thirst on wine. He grew contemplative watching the star that was once Ariminum shrinking in the distance and listening to the bells falling silent one by one.

He was dissatisfied with his crew – there were too many Ariminumese for his liking. They were perfectly good sailors – respectful, disciplined, well-drilled, for the most, but he
demanded more than competency of his men: he wanted
greed
. He wanted men who would die before surrendering a prize. He’d left many such men behind in the cinders of the city – he would have regretted it, but he had to admit that most of them were ruined long before Ariminum had burned. Come the hour, he could rely only on himself, and his ensign.

He looked up from his reverie and found the boy-general was in equally sombre mood. The games of chance that obsessed the Moor’s men bored him horribly, so he had made the shipwright knock up a chessboard. The sailors gave him a wide berth while he sat at it, silently staring, certain that it was some table of necromancy through which he communed with the infernal.