The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy) (43 page)

‘I’d like to be that way,’ Sofia said.

‘Hush, girl,’ said Ezra, making horns against ill-luck. ‘That’s wishing for death.’

The sails barked and rippled complaint and jealously held on to the last of the day’s wind. Sofia looked up at the bloated silhouette of the sail and saw there a portent of how she would be in a few weeks. By then she
must
have found safety. She was cold, and tired of running.

Ezra noticed her yawn and sang to the waves, ‘The day ends and even the sea’s paths darken. Time to sleep.’

Khoril had donated a small sternward cabin to Sofia. As she let her cot’s gentle rocking lower her into sleep, she looked though the portside hatch at the coast. Fog clung to it like snow. To assuage Pedro’s doubts, she had manipulated water – but doing so meant exposing herself to the Darkness. Now, even as the distance between her and Etruria increased, she could
feel
the hunger at the heart of Concord. The beast grew strong; it would consume Rasenna, Ariminum, Veii, Salerno and finally all Etruria. Giovanni had saved Rasenna from the Wave, though the price was annihilation. If her fate was to die for her child, she swore she would not be found wanting.

Hours later, when she woke from her usual dream of the abandoned city that must not be looked upon, she left her cabin
and found Ezra leaning on the stern rail contemplating the stars that were fading before the dawn. The splashing waves disintegrated into foam.

‘What’s it like, Ezra? The Holy Land? I’ve never seen a desert.’

‘You’re looking at one now, child. Don’t you know what makes a desert?’

‘Sand?’

‘Emptiness. There’s none greater than the sea. In all deserts the wind is master, holding life and death. See, it moulds the waves as it moulds the dunes. That is why one who travels deserts must know the winds, learn their names so that he can negotiate with them.’

‘Haggle with the wind?’ Sofia said wryly.

‘Certainly. Sailors harness the wind with sails just as your engineers funnel water with weirs.’

‘It’s your slave then.’

‘It could drown us in a second! There is a great difference between using the flow and forcing it. One must never force Nature.’

Sofia looked down at the receding water. She felt its strength taut like the muscles of a bandieratoro and shivered. ‘You’ve heard of Girolamo Bernoulli?’

‘I live on a boat, not under a rock. Who hasn’t heard of the Stupor Mundi?’

‘He was my grandfather’s enemy. He forced water to do awful things. He tortured it into a deadly Wave; he raised a great tower in Concord with it.’

‘I heard that tower was burned,’ Ezra said, looking at her keenly. When Sofia said nothing he said, ‘He will not forgive that.’

‘I’m safe from him at least,’ Sofia said with a smile. ‘He’s dead some twenty years.’

Ezra kept looking at her. He began to say something, then stopped. He turned around and swore.

Three silhouettes in the early dawn.

A moment later, a voice from the rigging above announced that the ships were Ariminumese.

Captain Khoril came to the stern to see for himself. ‘Damn. Damn. Damn.’

Levi joined them. ‘We’ve a good lead,’ he said optimistically.

Neither Ezra nor Khoril looked away from their pursuers. Their heads shook simultaneously. ‘That big bastard in the middle is the
San Barabaso
, the Moor’s flagship. It has one more deck than us. He’ll give chase until our rowers are completely exhausted, then the other two will board us. Listen! The drums are changing. If only we’d had a few more hours’ lead …
damn
.’

‘What about making a break for the Thessalonian Hand – that’s Oltremarine territory. We could get lost in the islands—’

‘Too far, too little time. I’m sorry, Levi. We’re well hooked.’

In a quarter of an hour, the
San Barabaso
was within hailing distance. At the helm, Leto Spinther stood quietly beside the Moor as he hollered, ‘Captain of the
Tancred
, prepare to be boarded.’

‘The hell I will, you black devil!’ Khoril returned. ‘I don’t care what title they’ve given you, you’re still a pirate by my reckoning. Board this ship in open waters and Oltremare will consider it a hostile act. You authorised to start a war?’

Large swells buckled the waters that divided the two galleys. The two other Ariminumese ships were still some distance away.

When the Moor didn’t answer immediately, Leto grabbed his arm. ‘Do it! I’ll back you.’

The Moor pulled his arm free and gave the Concordian a gentle shove. Leto hadn’t got his sea legs and stumbled. ‘General Spinther, I let you aboard at the Procurator’s insistence, but if you issue another order on my ship you’ll spend the return voyage in the brig. I’m well aware it would suit Concord to see Ariminum at war with Oltremare, but I answer to the Doge.’
He turned back to the
Tancred
and cupped his hands. ‘Captain Khoril! I give you a minute to turn about. If you do not allow me to
escort
you back to Ariminum I cannot answer for your safety.’

Leto watched the Moor turn a small egg-timer. A minute passed with no answer. The Moor’s face was blank as a death-mask until the last sand grain dropped. Then his features twisted into those of a gleeful demon. He ordered his marines to prepare for a hostile boarding.

Then with a muttered oath, he said, ‘Wait – listen!’

A small bell rang humbly across the waves, and the
Tancred
slowly turned about.

‘Stand down, lads,’ the Moor called, then, with a tight smile, ‘another triumph for diplomacy. Piracy’s so much easier with the force of the State behind one’s sails.’

Leto could feel the Moor’s disappointment that the
Tancred
had not elected to fight. His experience with Geta had taught him about gamblers. ‘Something amiss?’ he asked innocently.

‘I thought Khoril had salt,’ the Moor remarked bitterly, and gave orders for the other two vessels to fall behind the
Tancred
, ‘—in case he finds some.’

The dream of Crusade was first dreamed in Etruria, so the tragedy that follows might best be described as a family history. Like winter before the monstrous vitality of spring, the Etruscans retreated before the Ebionites. Maritime trade entirely collapsed. The Middle Sea became a Radinate lake for a millennium and the imperial pillars
¹⁹
tumbled into a vacuum that created new wars and new rivals. The first city-state to throw off this doddering parent was Ariminum.
²⁰
The Etrurian
²¹
peoples who had retreated from the coast to the more defensible vantages of northern heartland, the hills and mountains took longer to rise
.

There followed the Age of the Castellan, when every lord was fundamentally a
land
lord. These mounted thieves preyed upon the isolated
towns and sought, with onerous tolls and outright robbery, to inhibit trade – an inherently unchivalrous activity. But slowly and irrefutably the market developed until the towns became cities strong enough to overthrow these parasites. With the aid of a more welcome breed of parasite – bankers – Etrurian mercantilism expanded until the Middle Sea again beckoned, a siren call, a call to arms. In one of history’s more ironic reversals, the old Radinate, now a fractured realm, faced an invasion from a West that was unified, vigorous and murderous
.

The
Tancred
’s return voyage to Ariminum was uneventful. Back in the harbour, Captain Khoril took his time tying up and gathered a crowd by hollering over the rails about ‘diplomatic repercussions’. When the Moor ordered him to lower his gangplank, he protested, ‘Board my ship without permission and you violate Oltremarine sovereignty.’

‘I’m admiral of this harbour. If I have grounds to believe you’re carrying goods on which duty has not been paid, by maritime law I have not only the right to board you, but the right to repossess any contraband I find and impose a commensurate fine.’

‘Once a pirate, always a pirate,’ Khoril muttered.

‘Just drop it, will you? We both know what we are.’

When the gangway was lowered, General Spinther was waiting to board.

‘What’s that Concordian doing here?’ Khoril said. ‘Having trouble remembering who you work for, Azizi? Suppose it must be hard to keep track.’

The Moor’s patience was at an end. ‘I might add, Captain, that if I find evidence of contagion aboard I have a right, nay – a
duty
, to burn your ship to ashes. Speaking of which, you look a pale, even for a white man. Running a temperature?’

Still grumbling, Khoril made way for the Moor’s men. They searched for an hour until Leto finally announced, ‘She’s not here!’

As he fulminated and threatened, the Moor bowed to his counterpart. ‘Nicely done, Captain.’

Slow smoke columns rose from the Old Town like great seaweeds as Fra Norcino’s children ran riot in an orgy of puritanical destruction. Their tantrum would continue until their master was returned. Bare feet crept up the old, unguarded stairways and small hands hurled stones that shattered the blue orbs, letting the lithium Jinni escape and darkness rush in. The fanciulli stalked for the first time through the streets of New City, knocking on shuttered windows, whooping with glee at the wonderful sound of shattered glass. They never tired of it. The praetorians and Geta’s bravos beat them back down the stairways, but with each passing day the pressure grew.

But that was not the worst. Since General Spinther had left Concord, not a day went by without the murder of a consul, sometimes several. More terrifying to the thinning ranks of the Collegio than these violent deaths was the implication: the consuls were all former Candidates; each one should have been proficient enough a fighter to survive a fanciulli mob. The organised assassins picking off consuls in backstreets, in brothels and in their beds were obviously a more sophisticated threat than barefoot children.

And Consul Corvis was able to do nothing to stop it.

He called himself ‘Barabbas’ because he was one of Fra Norcino’s first followers, though he was a little too old now to run with the pack. Since the preacher’s arrest he had become a vagrant. His stubbled face was covered in scars and scabs. He fought and spat at the guards as they pulled him along, but when they released him outside one of the cells, his expression of fury changed to trembling reverence.

He leapt forward, grabbing the bars. ‘Master! You’re alive!’

The guards – there were three of them and a boy – tried to pull the vagrant away, but he struggled violently, throwing his body into spasms until they threw him down and kicked him
senseless. When his fingers finally came free, the guards did not drag him away, but instead opened the door to Norcino’s cell.

Norcino smiled and called to the occupant of the cell next to his, ‘Wake up, my king – they’ve come for us!’

Torbidda opened his eyes and yawned. ‘Cadet Fifty-Eight? You took your sweet time.’

‘You’re welcome, Cadet Sixty. We need to move quickly,’ Leto said as he knelt to unlock the preacher’s manacles.

Norcino’s breath was hot and foul as he whispered in Leto’s ear, ‘These soldiers, boy, you trust them?’

‘Of course. They are praetorians,’ Leto said confidently, omitting to say he had bribed them generously. ‘Now, I need you two to swap clothes.’

The vagrant, though subdued from his beating, had breathlessly followed the exchange. He began stripping with enthusiasm. ‘Anything for the master!’

Norcino pulled off the rags that clung to his emaciated frame and paused to kiss the naked vagrant. ‘Barabbas, you shall be rewarded, if you never deny me.’

‘I could never!’

While the swap was effected, Leto unlocked Torbidda’s chains. Rubbing his wrists, Torbidda nodded acknowledgment to Castrucco – the praetorian prefect was proud to be included in the deception – then turned to Leto. ‘What about the Scaligeri girl?’

‘On the way to Oltremare I’m afraid.’

‘Damn it, Leto—!’

‘Tranquillo
, we’ll catch her.’