Spira Mirabilis (48 page)

‘Let’s drink,’ said Geta, ‘to revenge.’

‘To justice,’ Leto corrected.

‘Long as I get to settle the score,’ said Sergio, ‘I don’t give a cuss what it’s called.
Salute!
’

The three men drained their glasses, and Geta and Sergio threw them over their shoulders. Much to their amusement, Leto keeled over, coughing and spluttering.

‘He don’t talk like a calf but he sure drinks like one,’ Sergio observed.

*

Maddalena cast off her clothes onto the cold stone. Despite the night’s chill, she smiled rapturously and repeated, ‘Sisters!’

Carmella lit a circle of candles around the font and in front of the pedestal of the Madonna of Rasenna. Without turning, she
began, ‘Madonna, I present a poor candidate in a state of darkness.’ She waited till Maddalena had stood up next to her, then took her hand. ‘The first rule is obedience.’

Maddalena didn’t even flinch when Carmella took the Herod’s Sword from around her neck and pricked her small finger. She placed the bloodied icon around Maddalena’s neck, then stepped up to the font. Looking into its dark water, she whispered, ‘Come into the light, Sister.’

‘Sisters,’ Maddalena echoed softly as she approached the font.

Carmella took her hand and squeezed out a red drop. ‘Let your blood be mingled with those innocents.’

‘Sisters!’ she wept as Carmella slowly pushed her head into the water.

‘Become innocent once more.’

Carmella numbly repeated the questions she had once herself been asked: ‘Do you solemnly swear to obey the Madonna, without secret evasion of mind; binding yourself under no less a penalty than that of having your body severed in twain, your bowels taken thence, burned to ashes, and the ashes thereof scattered to the four winds …’

As the seconds passed, the trail of bubbles coming steadily to the water’s surface slowed. Carmella tightened her grip on the back of Maddalena’s neck. It would be
so
easy …

‘—of so vile and perjured a wretch as you should be, should you ever violate this solemn obligation?’

She yanked her up and Maddalena spluttered and gasped for air and sobbed, ‘I swear! I swear!
I swear!
’

While Maddalena spun rapturously around the moonlit garden, Carmella kneeled before the Madonna of Rasenna and gave thanks herself. She had held her enemy’s life in her hands and spared her. If
that
wasn’t Grace, Grace was a myth.

The Peoples of the Black Hand: A Bestiary

A Salernitan’s first decade is considered spring; it is spent in training body and mind. When he attains manhood he is ‘exiled’ from the city, to spend his summer and autumn years in the contato as a buttero. The butteri herd water buffalo over the river-scarred Campania plains and learn to accommodate themselves to the rigours of the Minturnae marshes or perish. Though the life is hard, the butteri learn to treat nature gently. They hate only the flies that plague their flocks in summer; their buffalo do not know the yoke. When two-score years have passed, the buttero’s banishment is lifted, for he is deemed to have attained wisdom. He returns to the city, less vigorous but wiser, to live out the winter of his life training the next generation. These elders are called Doctors.

In the last century, Salerno’s Doctors began to explore Natural philosophy just as their Concordian contemporaries were doing. Though hypothetical questions are ordinarily worthless
¹²
the conscientious scholar inevitably asks why it is that Concord dominates Etruria, not Salerno? Many explanations have been proposed
¹³
but the reason Salerno did not conquer the South as
Concord conquered the North is simple. The Black Hand has suffered under a succession of yokes; having shirked them off themselves, they do not seek to subdue others. No doubt this is very worthy, but it is also a failure of ambition that has left Salerno no part in Etruria’s glorious future.

The Concordians were a river of green and black banners winding their way along the narrow
tratturi
. Attacks occurred, but Sergio’s juggling managed to keep the engine-carriage safe. Leto was not pleased that the old paths Sergio chose often meant dividing the legion into smaller cohorts, but he could not complain, for they were finally making progress.

The general was so intent on moving his pawns over the maps that he could not see what Geta saw very plainly: every day they were regressing. The south was more than another country; it was another age. The green of the Concordian banners was a cold teal, but the green of the Minturnae was the remorseless colour of moss burying a grave. Nature grew strange and engorged down here. The men’s chief terror was the
grosso
, a massive leech that left limbs withered to dry bone. It could not be burned off and the only treatment – digging it out, together with the surrounding flesh – was usually fatal to the patient. Every mile they waded deeper into this primitive land they backslid further into that long night when Man did not hold the whip and when the darkness belonged to the wild things …

The horsemen of the south rode out to harass, delay and complicate the Concordians’ progress. The butteri were less an army than a collection of autonomous bands who kept their raiding parties small by necessity and preference. They were capable of hitting hard and swift, and then vanishing into the marshlands where none but the foolhardy could – or would – follow. They rode to battle well warmed by their moonshine grappa while the
Concordians slurped down slimy grass soup and weevilly oat-cakes.

Hungry and maddened by an enemy that did not fight fair, according to their rules, the legionaries developed a particular loathing for Spinther’s pontonniers, who needed all available wood for trestles, beams and planks. They had declared camp fires a luxury that all must forgo and immediately confiscated the rare tree the butteri had left standing and the few logs the legionaries managed to drag intact from burning cabins.

They didn’t try hard to hide their glee when the butteri methodically targeted each battalion’s pontonniers, leaving the rest alone – only later did they realise that without pontonniers, the legion was like a great Man o’ War without oars: it was moribund and vulnerable.

Sergio called the marsh
Campania Felix
as a grim joke. One liquid continuity, moisture permeated every inch: it swam in front of their eyes as they slouched through frozen bindweed and brackish puddles. The foul-smelling quagmire clung to their boots until the leather was sodden, then lapped at their exposed feet till they too reeked of decay. At night, they pulled off their soaking clothes and burned off and ate the silver worms that have been feeding on them all day. Any man venturing forth in the darkness to defecate took his life in his hands; all too often he failed to return.

With every mile, memories of Concord’s dread walls, pristine aqueducts and night-defying globes became more threadbare; and the feeling deepened that this chaos was the natural state of things and that fighting it was as great a folly as trying to fight a river – and when their hardy chauvinism reminded them that they
had
mastered the rivers once, a louder whisper insisted that Bernoulli was long-dead.

*

Palisades, embankments, sharpened poles and a full watch kept
throughout the night: the camp was as thorough as any Geta had seen on the Europa front. He sat outside the shelter of its wooden walls, whittling a piece of wood and staring up at the mountain as though daring the tormentors who’d made their march so hellish to come and attack him and be done with all subterfuge.

Sergio called the highland
Ursonia
, the Kingdom of Bears, but if so it was a kingdom contested by wolves and foxes and wild cats and boars, and their wars were overshadowed by the quarrels of eagles and peregrines against the sparrows and pipits. Their shrieks and barks and grunts and howls filled the darkness between vespers and matins. And amidst this incessant bestial chorus was an interloper: the owl-whoop of bolos, somewhere not too distant, and answered by another set, some miles away.

He was listening so keenly that he jumped when someone nearby whispered his name. He saw who it was, sheathed his sword and continued whittling. ‘Isn’t it past your bedtime, Spinther?’

The slot shut and the gate was hauled open. ‘The Night Watch told me you were keeping solitary vigil.’

‘So you came to keep me company? Shall we tell each other stories? No? I must say I don’t know how you can sleep so easily, Spinther, with all our forces packed together like buffalo. We’ve surrendered the initiative.’

‘Every day we’re pushing forward.’

‘But into what? Every day we lose more men, we have less dry food and less clean water, and all the while we’re dragging those useless baubles along. A sword’s dead weight when there’s no one to use it on.’

‘Only children and fools live for the moment. The engines may be heavy but I promise you won’t think them useless when we reach Salerno. If we’re suffering, they’re suffering too.’

‘
They
’ve been raised here!
They
call this hell home.’

Leto had heard enough. ‘For God’s sake, don’t let me hear you talking like this to the other officers.’

‘Hush!’ Geta hissed.

‘What is it?’ he whispered. ‘Is someone out there?’ He hated to admit it but the swordsman’s instincts were keen.

‘
Listen
.’

Leto could hear only the usual barbarous wail. ‘What?’

‘They’re sending messages to each other, you complacent ass. They’re using bolos the way the Rasenneisi use flags, the way we use annunciators.’

‘You’re giving them too much—’ Leto’s condescending smile vanished as he heard a rider approaching. ‘Who goes there?’

‘Me,’ drawled a familiar voice.

‘I didn’t give you permission to leave camp,’ Leto snapped, fear turning swiftly to irritation.

‘Don’t recall asking,’ said Sergio, leaping down from his horse. Another person was slung over the saddle.

‘Where were you?’ Geta asked.

‘Hunting. I didn’t catch nothing ’cept this fellow.’ He pulled him roughly to the ground roughly. ‘Whoever he is, he ain’t no
cavalcante
. He managed to drown his horse and was fixing to drown himself when I happened along. All the griping and hollering he was doing, I figured he must be one of yours.’

Leto walked over to the prisoner. ‘He’s not.’

‘That so? Well, have him all the same. I’m plumb tired of him. Hoy! Open the gate there!’

Geta saluted Sergio as he went into the camp and was looking after him when Leto asked, ‘You know who this is, Geta?’

‘Should I?’

‘I should say so. It’s another of your brothers-in-law. It has been too long, Signor Bombelli.’

‘That it has, General. Would that it was under other circumstances.’ After shaking Leto’s hand, Guido looked Geta over coldly.
‘So, you are the one who made a wife of Maddalena? A bad investment, Signore. She is quite mad.’

Before Geta could respond, Leto said, ‘Apologies are in order for Salvatore: had we broken though earlier, I could have saved him. Out of sheer pique, the Veians executed him before they capitulated.’

Geta, watching, saw that Guido knew the story was a lie and, more importantly, did not care.

‘I’m sure you did everything practicable,’ Guido said amicably. ‘What’s done is done. You know our network can be useful to you. The League is a going concern as long as the free cities think it has a hope. Cut off its silver and you cut its hamstrings.’

‘Can you do that?’

‘My other brothers are scattered across Europa. I am the senior Bombelli now in the Etrurian market. They must trust my judgement.’

‘And Costanzo? Does he trust your judgement?’

He pursed his lips. ‘My little brother cannot see that continuing resistance is throwing good money after bad. Passion is an excellent quality in a poet, but a banker must see things objectively. The League fought the best fight they could, hurt you by delaying your march, but at last you are here. Reality is not subject to argument. Two is greater than one. You are the greater force. You must win out.’

‘And so you are here,’ said Leto, considering.

‘It goes without saying – but I’ll say it anyway – that I will look favourably on whoever represents my offer to the First Apprentice in a fair light.’

‘What do you think, Geta?’

‘I think he mistakes us for one of his couriers. Give the word and I’ll put up a scaffold so the bears can watch him dangle and tell the butteri about it. That’ll concentrate minds in Salerno wonderfully.’

Leto had already considered that, but Omodeo had said weeks ago that the Concordian treasury was perilously low. It must now be empty. To be forced to retreat when they were so close to victory, and by insolvency of all things? That would be ignominious indeed. Guido Bombelli represented salvation. Leto doubted that Guido’s brothers would fall in line as easily as he intimated, but his defection would set the Bombelli firm at war with itself.

Leto’s long silence unnerved Guido. ‘I implore you, General Spinther, don’t listen to this animal.’

‘
Tranquillo
, Signor. No need to beg – not while we need each other anyway.’

*

Next day, Leto sent to Concord an optimistic report of progress, and along with it, Guido Bombelli: a prize to keep Torbidda happy, and hopefully a spur to send more annunciators.

That morning, Sergio as usual outlined separate routes for men and machines. Leto took the infantry by a lowland route and left Geta the thankless task of leading the engine-train. Geta declared that if he saw another leech that day he would defect and Sergio grudgingly admitted they
could
avoid some wetlands if they took a tapering path that circumnavigated a stretch of coastal cliff – but he could not advise such a precarious route.

‘We’ll risk it,’ said Geta.

Spinther’s precious carriage was an inconspicuous unit in the vanguard. Geta would have very much enjoyed pushing it off the side, but he could not think of a way to make it look like a plausible accident – and anyway, there was no time. The narrow path hugged an undulating cliff and required careful negotiation. They were to rendezvous with the main army during the next day and the thought of spending more than one night on this desolate and vulnerable spot held little appeal.