Spira Mirabilis (39 page)

‘Sicily’s far from here.’

‘They are beset by a slave rebellion; if we assist them in suppressing it, they promise their neutrality.’

‘What a surprise. If Syracuse desires Concord’s friendship, they must not haggle. The price is the same for everyone: tribute.’

‘They’re a proud people.’

‘Etruria is full of proud people. Send him away,’ said Leto impatiently, wondering why Scaevola was stalling. ‘Come, man: the matter at hand. I’ve blockaded Veii’s harbour, but from what I saw, the situation is unchanged.’

Before Scaevola could make any excuses, Geta interjected, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Your boys have retreated a few miles and lost several hundred to disease – and a good few hundred to the butteri.’

‘
Butteri
? North of the Albula? Is this true?’

‘They’ve harried us like the very devil,’ Scaevola said lamely. ‘They come whooping out of the fog with their damned bolos – well, If you’d seen them …’

‘Am I hearing this right?’ Leto asked. ‘The Grand Legion is too frightened of a herd of buffalo-wranglers to take the offensive? And you’ve been doing – what, precisely? Nothing?’

‘Fools rush in,’ said Scaevola solemnly.

‘I’ll consult an almanac if I’m ever short of idiotic proverbs. Right now I’ll trouble you for an explanation. We saw off scores of barbarians in Gaul and the Reichlands – so why can’t we do the same here?’

‘The Rasenneisi engineers have augmented the butteri’s weaponry.’

‘How exactly?’

When Scaevola began once again searching through his memoranda for the answer, Geta snorted with impatience. ‘It would be quicker to show you,’ he said.

*

It was galling to have to admit Geta might be right, but the siege was indeed in jeopardy. The men were bedraggled and the standards were soiled and sagging. At least the horses were still alive, though none could be described as fat. Soon the contato would be completely exhausted, and it didn’t require an Alexander to realise that once the army began to eat itself, the campaign was over.

Like most of the denizens of the Black Hand, the butteri had little affection for Veii – they fought now only because they knew they would be next. Once Veii was in Concordian hands the south would be open to the ravages of Spinther’s war-machine, and lacking the north’s greater wealth, technology and population, they would be able to resist for only so long.

The distinction between condottieri, butteri and bandits was hazy, like everything else in this land of warped air and soaking valleys, But whatever you called them, the butteri, guerrillas by long habit and preference, were skilful and they knew their chief advantage was the ability to choose the time and place for battle. They struck hard, like a flash-flood, burning food-wagons, disabling engines and stealing horses before sinking back into the
mist. They seldom stopped to kill – they knew camp-fever would attend to that.

The midnight raids were making the soldiers jumpy and irritable, and Scaevola was getting increasingly frustrated. There were those in the camp who argued for breaking off the siege and dealing quickly with the butteri – and these mutterers were not just the usual hotheads. But that was just what the butteri wanted, Scaevola knew; to send the men off chasing after an enemy who melted away like water would be the worst thing they could do. No, whatever the difficulties, they would proceed methodically: first they would take Veii, then they would deal with Salerno.

‘There, General,’ said Geta.

The colossal ramp had been constructed close to what remained of a copse of poplars. It had a vast, gentle gradient, up which siege-engines could be rolled. Unfortunately, the engines which should right now be smashing down Veii’s walls stood decapitated, lined up in a row at the bottom of the palisade, the row of wooden stakes charred to a point, their legs overgrown with long grass.

Geta waved expansively and explained, ‘They were no sooner assembled than those bastards came through and made mayhem with their bolos—’

Leto had seen these weapons in Gaul: there were a variety of different styles but a bolo was basically two balls attached to either end of a piece of chain.

‘They’re loaded with powder and rigged to blow up when the balls strike each other,’ Geta pointed out. ‘They may be small, but they’re extremely effective. We just don’t know what to do.’

‘That’s obvious: make more towers.’

‘Which they’ll just destroy,’ Geta said. ‘Haven’t you been listening?’

‘It’s time
you
listened,’ Leto said. He was calmer now. ‘The new
siege-towers will draw them in, as will the skeleton guard we place on the ground. Put a quarter of your men flat in the tall grass amongst the towers. The rest will wait out of sight in those trees yonder and they’ll let the butteri pass – this time. They’ve come to raid, not fight, so they’ll turn tail when they realise the towers
are
defended – and that’s when the rest will charge out and block their escape.’

Geta played with the ring on his chain for a bit, then said, ‘They’ll fight like devils.’

‘That’s the point. They’ll fight where and when we choose. We can stand to lose men. They can’t.’

‘Funny that it’s my men, specifically, we can stand to lose.’

‘Not like you to get sentimental, Geta. These condottieri expect to be paid, don’t they? I assume you’re deep in arrears?’ When Geta didn’t argue, he continued, ‘So better to cull their numbers in an excellent cause before they become nothing more than extra mouths to feed.’

‘I won’t weep for them, but if I didn’t know better, I’d suspect I’m being punished.’

‘It’s war. All are punished.’

‘General Spinther,’ said Scaevola, ‘it’s an excellent plan, but Geta’s men are what’s left of John Acuto’s army.’

‘So?’

‘At Tagliacozzo they fought
with
the Salernitans – will they fight their former allies?’

Geta and Leto simultaneously erupted in laughter. ‘God bless your innocence, Scaevola,’ Geta hooted. ‘I could set them on
each other
if I had the gold.’

The Peoples of the Black Hand: A Bestiary

As one crosses the River Albula, the impression of travelling into the antediluvian past is inescapable.
⁶
The stretch of contato between Veii and Salerno is a gauntlet of swamps, the slit wrist from which Etruria’s eternally-flowing blood bubbles over into a quagmire which has swallowed a hundred armies. This natural barrier as much as native bravery accounts for Salerno’s lack of defensive structures.

The Salernitans are a queer hybrid of philosophers and outlaws,
⁷
famous for three things: their rectitude and their poverty and their longevity. This nation of amateurs is truly Etruria’s anomaly. Consider their perversity: they have the sea like the Ariminumese, but they have never subjugated it; they have courage equal to the Rasenneisi, but they have never made an art of war, and they study nature as we Concordians do, but they have never sought to exploit it.

Some ignorant Northerners attributed their poverty to the fact that they have no king, assuming that a kingless state must be a wretched anarchy. In fact, the opposite is true: above all, Salernitans revere the law. We Northerners consider it a matter of commonsense to change our laws according to the mutable conditions of life; to the Salernitans, such inconstancy is anathema. Their law is harsh, but they accommodate themselves to it because they believe that nothing noble comes without sacrifice.

While the counter-attack got under way, Leto had the command tent moved closer to Veii, a signal that he meant to suffer with the ordinary soldier while the siege lasted. Scaevola was in the middle of reporting that everything had gone as planned when a commotion arose. A masterless horse had arrived in the camp. The mare was lathered in sweat and blood and one of her front legs was entangled in frayed wire and a set of bolo balls. Arête was notorious; he would submit to be ridden by none but Geta and was a tyrant to other horses, nipping their flanks and necks and harrying them like a monstrous gadfly. Civilians were singled out for the worst treatment, grooms in particular, and he was ever threatening to snap off the fingers of the unwary.

The ranks parted before the fearsome creature and Scaevola moved in front of Leto, saying, ‘Stand back, General. Someone fetch a groom—’

‘No, let him come. Where’s Geta?’

Arête stamped his hooves on the ground in front of Leto and knelt.

The quartermaster ignored the question. ‘They suffered heavy losses before we forced a retreat—’

‘Damn it, where’s Geta?’

‘We don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘The fool gave chase in a fit of enthusiasm.’

*

Butteri war bands were transient things, hastily assembled, quickly disbanded. They never loitered in numbers too long after
raids, especially unsuccessful ones. One by one they mounted up and bid ornate farewells to the old man.

‘
Auguri
back at you. Go on then,’ Ferruccio said, calmly knotting two ends of a rope. ‘I’ll take care of this one.’

Geta was on his knees in the cold mud under a desolate old tree with a flaking black bark. The five condottieri who had been captured with him had already been beheaded and the crows were busy feasting on their eyeballs. One singularly well-fed bird – surely their chief? – was not partaking of the tawdry gluttony. It was obviously content to wait, and sat on a branch watching Geta with an intensity he did not appreciate. He had a small blade concealed in his glove and was working on the ropes binding his hands even as he tried to distract his captor. ‘Can’t you just use a sword, old man, and kill me like a soldier?’

‘You Northerners. Always in a rush.’

‘Suit yourself. My people will be along any minute.’

‘You’re overestimating your popularity, Lord Geta. Yes, I know who you are. The Bombelli brothers were quite explicit that you deserve a traitor’s death, should I be lucky enough to find you.’

‘I don’t suppose you’d consider a bribe?’

‘Don’t suppose I would.’ Ferruccio threw the rope over the branch and dropped the noose around Geta’s head just as a horn followed by a volley of gunshot announced the arrival of Leto’s rescue party.

‘Hark!’ exclaimed Geta, ‘looks like you have a choice, Doctor. You can stay to see the job done, or you can save your life.’

Ferruccio lassoed the other end of the rope round a handy stump. ‘Another overestimation. It don’t take that long for a man to strangle.’ So saying, he hauled on the rope and Geta was yanked unceremoniously into the air and immediately began to choke. Musketballs sank into the wet mud beside Ferruccio as he coolly looped the slack around the stump, all the while keeping the rope taut.

As Ferruccio rode off, the Concordians arrived. Geta finally got his hands free and dropped his knife in his rush to release the pressure.

Leto studied Geta hanging there, desperately holding on to the noose around his neck and wildly kicking his legs. ‘See where your recklessness led you.’

Geta wheezed painfully, ‘Cut me down –
acck
– then lecture me, if you would.’

Leto dismissed his guard and then drew his sword. ‘Back in Rasenna, you claimed you knew my father.’

‘Yes!’

He cut him down. ‘Tell me about him.’

Geta lay on his side panting for a minute, then he pulled himself up and rubbed the ripped skin on his neck. ‘Your plan worked a treat, by the way. We gave chase, but the bastards had their retreat lined with bolos and tripwire. I had managed to cut Arête free before they came—’

‘Geta …’ Leto still held his sword ready. ‘If you are lying, you’re going back up.’

‘My first posting was on the Francia Major frontier. You weren’t born then and he wasn’t a general. We weren’t friends – he never drank, never gambled – but he taught me what it is to be a soldier.’

‘I thought you studied in Rasenna.’

‘I only learned to fight there.’

‘I’m surprised you know the distinction. He was like me, then?’

‘No, he wasn’t moderate in all things. In battle he threw himself into the fray – and men loved him for it. I asked him once if he was ever afraid. He asked if I was afraid when I gambled, and then he told me that was how it was for him when the drums pounded, when our banners unfurled from the carroccio, when the Franks sounded their great horns. I’ll never forget it. He said, “I set myself on fire, but my enemies burn”.’ Geta smiled at the memory.

‘Times have changed,’ Leto said, ‘and, if you recall, my father didn’t die on the battlefield. His fellow officers – nobles like you – assassinated him.’

‘I’d received my first command by then. In the East. I grieved when I heard the news.’

‘You’d have been in that circle had you been there …’

No point to deny the obvious. ‘They wanted him to declare against Filippo Argenti and march on Concord and when he refused to take part, they had no choice but to kill him – he was too close to the Engineers.’ He looked up with sudden inspiration. ‘That’s why you became one, isn’t it?’ He slapped his thigh and laughed. ‘You learned the wrong lesson, son—’

Leto held his sword under Geta’s chin; blood started to trickle over the razor-sharp edge. ‘Never call me that again.’

‘All right, all right. Don’t be touchy. So, what now?’

‘Now we’ll see how good Veii’s defences are.’

‘Worried?’

‘No. Good or bad, it’s irrelevant. I just need their attention to be elsewhere when the Moor attacks.’

*

The Veian captains saw them coming and formed a defensive line across the harbour mouth. The line was impressive, but the variety of craft – from bulky cargo ships to puny fishing vessels, from three-tiered galleys to ungainly catamarans – meant the tactic was doomed. Few of the ships were properly armed – small, antiquated table-cannon with fixed bearing and unimpressive range made up the greater part of the naval artillery – but worse than that, the gun crews were undrilled and undermanned, more used to whipping slaves than fighting free men.

The Ariminumese captains saw the uneven lines and heard the amateur rhythm of their bombard and their high spirits rose higher. At the Moor’s signal, the Golden Fleet broke into two columns, presenting the smallest possible target, and sailed along
the north and south sides of the harbour – which gave the stationary Veians in the centre nothing to shoot at. They were lame dogs, and the Ariminumese the wolves bearing down on them. The
Bellicose
, the galley the Moor had placed at the forefront of the south column, was aptly named. As her drums urged the rowers on to attack-speed, she sprang forward with bow chasers locked upon the Veian galley ahead.