The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy) (33 page)

There were muffled sounds overhead: the footsteps stopped, words were exchanged; they heard a curse, glasses broken and crunched underfoot, a struggle – and then finally, a stampede of footsteps down the corridor to the stairs: drums rolling them into war.

Geta smashed a dozen bottles on the bottom steps. His fellow gamblers assembled behind him. The drunks had found a sudden dignity, while the sober were shaking and discovering their hitherto unknown devotion to the Madonna, just as Madame Filangeiri had. Geta pushed the most useless to either side of the door and handed them cleavers. ‘Wait till the first ones pass, then start hacking. Don’t be particular: this won’t be fencing, it’ll be butchery.’

He handed round a bottle of claret and made a speech that despite its brevity covered essentials: ‘Stop praying and pissing yourselves. We came to gamble, didn’t we? I’ve faced the hordes of Byzant and lived and by God, I’m not about to run from a rabble of ten-years-olds! Ready? Here they come. If you want to live, get chopping!’

The broken glass incapacitated the bare-foot mob’s front line, but those behind pushed forward without sympathy and the first bodies provided a damp carpet for the rest as they rushed at Geta and his crew of butchers.

No one counted the dead. Fra Norcino was not interested in reassembling the parts; he waded into the still-warm ashes of the Dolore Ostello and made relics instead. After such a reverse a more prudent – or more cynical – leader would have leavened his preaching with caution, been more vague in his condemnations, less precise in his threats – but Fra Norcino was not a cautious man. ‘O Children, the Virgin said unto Herod, What you have done to the least of these, so God shall do unto thee. She was the agent of God’s wrath. Will you be that sword?’

‘Yes! Yes!’ cried the crowds as they fought over burnt hands and charred feet.

‘Pity not your brothers and sisters; envy them. They are not fallen; they are risen! By their fiery deaths these martyrs have escaped hell. Consider their reward: consider the fire awaiting their murderers: the nobles and the engineers, the perverted and the blasphemous, idolaters of mammon, idolaters of reason. O Children—’

Geta’s once-soiled reputation shone anew after the Battle of the Brothel. Disaffected nobles flocked to his banner, though he knew these soft hands would make worthless soldiers. Decommissioned officers in the capital were rare – the legions were hard-pressed on the frontier – so instead he trawled the Depths for veterans: scarred old soldiers with elaborate beards that looked buffoonish to modern taste; gnarled elders who nursed their amputations and bottles and muttered endlessly of betrayal, of
backstabbers
. Cast aside after years of service, not good enough even to die for their country? They spat their grievances at Geta as if he were responsible, and he nodded and bought another round. Like Fra Norcino, he made promises: medals and women and revenge, and instead of derision in the eyes of the city, fear! It was enough to make even impotent old men stand tall.

The streets no longer welcomed the bare-footed fanciulli. Rocks were no match for quick blades in the night. Different doors were knocked upon now, and those who answered surrendered not their vanities for inspection, but their children. Those recognised as Norcino’s followers were led away into the night. The morning found boys hanging from bridges, girls floating in canals.

From his perch in the New City, Consul Corvis watched the bloody progress of Geta’s bravos through the Depths. He watched the bonfires relit by Fra Norcino’s ragged followers and he realised that in this war of all against all, the initiative had passed from the Collegio. If they were to survive, he must make peace with old rivals.

The Gospel According to
St Barabbas

Levi was one of the few condottieri who hadn’t pawned his horse, and now his grey destrier set the pace for the stocky maremmano mounts Sofia and Pedro rode. Although not fast, they were dependable beasts. Rasenneisi weren’t natural horsemen, but Sofia had been taught to ride in John Acuto’s camp and Pedro was a fast learner.

They rode east, clinging to the Irenicon’s banks as long as possible. The further away from Rasenna they got, the more the Irenicon behaved like an ordinary river. It inclined downhill and north while their path was up into the Apennines. Thanks to his years as a soldier, scout and spy for John Acuto, Levi knew the quickest route through the so-called Alp of the Moon. Their small party could take narrow paths and passes that would have been precarious for an army carrying baggage. Even so, it was cumbersome going. The Arimunese side was steepest and they had to dismount and pull the horses along.

The Alp of the Moon, Etruria’s rooftop, marked the boundary of the Rasenneisi contato. On the far side lay the great flatness of the Marches of Arimunum. The air was thin and the north wind tireless, and when Levi stopped to get his bearings, the horses huddled together for warmth. The peaks of Monte dei Frati and Monte Maggiore loomed over them like horns. They were the source of the grey-blue Ariminus and the Albula River, which thundered south carrying tons of sediment yellow as amber into the great estuary which ancient Veii overlooked.

Levi decided they would follow the Ariminus, and ford it on the other side when its torrent was spent.

He hadn’t left his concerns back in Rasenna. ‘Can Uggeri keep the bandieratori out of trouble?’ he asked.

‘Making trouble’s what good bandieratori do,’ Sofia said. ‘The better question is, can Yuri keep the condottieri out of their way? Who knows? We just have to trust them.’

Levi didn’t like to be so pessimistic, but the hostility they’d faced in the Palazzo del Popolo was still preying on his mind. ‘Bombelli told me you were the one who suggested the people’s Signoria, Pedro. You still believe in it?’

‘It was my father’s idea; I just repeated it. “Vox Populi, Vox Dei.” He believed that, but God help us if it’s true.’

‘I’ve been around, kid. Rasenna’s Signoria isn’t perfect, but every other state that’s thrown off its Families has replaced them with tyrants. The Signoria makes mistakes, but so does everyone – even engineers.’

‘The difference is that engineers have ways to spot errors and correct them. In the Signoria it’s the loudest voices that get heard, and it’s always the rich who speak loudest. That’s fine in peacetime, but we’re going to war soon, whether Bombelli can bear the thought or not.’

‘What’s the alternative?’ Sofia said. ‘The Families again?’

‘We’ve already tried that experiment.’

Levi’s eyes narrowed. ‘Perhaps a government of philosophers?’

Pedro shook his head. ‘Giovanni told me how that ended in Concord. If engineers took over Rasenna we’d run it well for a while, but eventually we’d begin enriching ourselves at the common expense. Power accumulates like water forms in pools. Give me a practical problem and I can solve it, but there’s no solution to that.’

‘So you’re not going to participate any more?’

‘The only thing I’m sure of is that one less voice can only be a good thing.’

‘Your father trusted Bombelli,’ Sofia said.

‘So did I, once, but he’s changed. Fabbro the merchant had to get along with everyone. Fabbro the gonfaloniere is different.’

‘So you’ll hide in your tunnels as the towers fall above you,’ said Levi. ‘You know where that ends; there are plenty without your scruples seeking power for its own sake. You think your father would be happy with you letting them take it?’

Pedro stopped and looked around. ‘Are dreamers ever happy? Besides, you’re being dramatic. Things haven’t got that bad.’

The Signoria’s compromises faded with every mile they put between them and Rasenna, leaving space for other concerns. Levi had worn out his saddle travelling the South, trying to put together a coalition of Concord’s enemies, but now that was actually a prospect, he was concerned that it was the
right
coalition. ‘Be on guard,’ he warned them both. ‘Whatever else they are, the Ariminumese are not honest brokers.’

‘Surely the fact they called a summit means they’re desperate as us,’ Pedro pointed out. ‘It means they will be numbered amongst Concord’s enemies, but they do it anyway. I mourn for John Acuto, as every Rasenneisi does, but continual suspicion is an indulgence, Levi. You’ve said yourself that a necessary precondition for Concord’s defeat is a strong league, and a necessary precondition for that league is trust.’

Levi considered the logic of this for a while. ‘They’ll try to dominate it,’ he said at last.

‘Let them.’ Sofia looked at him. ‘Someone must lead and the Ariminumese won’t submit to Rasenneisi – I dislike it as much as you, Levi, but what’s the alternative? We need the league more than any other. To go south in strength, Concord must go through us: that’s a fact. With a league at our back, Concord will have to think twice.’

‘You’ve changed your tune,’ Levi said mildly.

‘I’d trust the devil himself if he’d help us defeat Concord.’

‘If I thought defeating Concord was Ariminum’s sole aim I wouldn’t care who held the baton. I’m just afraid they’ve come round to the idea for reasons that have nothing to do with Etruria.’

‘You mean they want help recapturing the Dalmatian colonies?’ Pedro suggested. ‘So that’s why you invited the Oltremarines.’

‘Whether Queen Catrina will come or not is another question. She’s not exactly on good terms with the Doge,’ Levi pointed out. ‘But we do need a counterweight.’

The talk fell away as they rode on, until at last they saw yellowed smoke bleeding over a hill. Beyond the rise, an avalanche of cloud tumbled over a still further peak, rendering hazy the sharp line of the mountain’s silhouette, like an ink-loaded brush drawn over damp paper. Levi moved to the front, but all three were on their guard and wary.

It wasn’t long before they came upon the burning mound, where two masked labourers were hacking and coughing as they fed black lumps to the flames. Except for a tall, skeletal tree bent under the weight of a senate of crows the hill was bare of life. The black-eyed birds and labourers paused to watch them as they rode by.

Sofia covered her mouth. ‘Smells like death.’

‘The sheep must have the murrain,’ said Pedro. ‘The farmers have been complaining about it at the markets.’