The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy) (60 page)

Uggeri looked at him silently.

‘Damn it! Say something! I know you did for Jacques’ apprentice, but surely it wasn’t you who killed Fabbro? At least tell me that.’

Uggeri stood slowly. ‘Leave it at that, Vanzetti, if you want to get to the bottom of this tower using your legs.’

As Pedro hurried back to Tartarus he saw that there was no looting in the old Bardini territories, and that the Sisters had kept the peace around the baptistery and orphanage.

Sister Carmella was helping the novices hold their nerve. Isabella had a pale, unearthly look.

Pedro noticed the purple bruise on her arm. ‘Who gave you that?’

‘A sinner. Listen to me, Pedro, even if civil war doesn’t break out today, it will soon.’

‘Maybe. Wherever Sofia is can’t be this bad.’

‘I pray you’re right. However this madness ends, the Concordians will shortly arrive at the gate in greater numbers than before, and they will find Rasenneisi at each other’s throats.’

‘Maybe I can—?’

‘No, you need to stop thinking like an engineer and start thinking like a fugitive.’ She looked around to her flock. ‘We all do.’

Piers Becket did not smile. Glee would have been inappropriate in front of the Gonfaloniere’s mourning daughter. ‘You’re
Podesta
, Lord Geta. You must restore order.’

The Concordian held Maddalena in his arms as she wept. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of being a fool, Becket? If we venture
south, Uggeri will take it as a challenge and riot will turn to war.’

‘Is last thing we need with legions on march,’ said Yuri. The giant was subdued after Fabbro’s death, but he was impressed that Geta was keeping a level head.

‘I don’t know what we
can
do,’ said Geta, ‘but we can’t sit here and let the mayhem spread across the river.’

‘We go talk,’ said Yuri. He held out his hand to Geta. ‘I stand with you.’

‘Sure,
talk
,’ Becket scoffed, ‘Ask them if they’ll put Bombelli’s gold back. I’m sure they’ll oblige.’

Yuri picked up Becket and flattened him against the wall, a giant forearm across his chest. ‘You so hungry for blood, I give you taste.’

‘Yuri, put him down,’ Geta said, strapping on his belt. ‘He’s just frightened – we all are. Becket, get the company ready to come north in strength. Madonna willing, it won’t be necessary, but who knows what control that boy has over the situation?’ He kissed Maddalena. ‘If I don’t come back, leave Rasenna – go south. Salerno’s strong. It’ll probably be the last to fall.’

‘You’ll come back,’ she said. She shot a warning look at Yuri. ‘Make sure.’

Yuri saluted. ‘Yes, Signorina!’

The unlikely pair mounted up and rode out of the fortezza’s gate together. Instead of swords, each carried the red banner of Rasenna. They rode slowly onto the bridge and stopped halfway across. The bandieratori of the northern towers were assembled in Piazza Stella, each company separate from the next. The heads of the bandieratori towers stepped out and Uggeri, acting head of the guild, led them onto the bridge, flags up. Yuri dismounted and Geta followed suit. Towers either side of the river watched the bandieratori approach and come to a
halt in front of the condottieri.

Uggeri glanced at Yuri with silent reproach, then barked at Geta, ‘Who gave
you
the right to carry that banner?’

‘The Gonfaloniere of Rasenna, when he made me Podesta.’

‘Bombelli’s dead,’ said Uggeri.

‘Wash your hands afterwards?’

Uggeri’s flag spun; the tip hovered an inch from Geta’s chin. The Concordian didn’t budge. ‘If I came to fight, you’d know all about it by now.’

‘
Tranquillo
.’ Yuri slowly pushed Uggeri’s flag away. ‘Whoever’s responsible, Bombelli is dead, but law is not. Uggeri, what’s happening –
this!
– is wrong. I know you know. Sofia, she would not allowed it.’

‘And you know she wouldn’t have allowed this thief into Rasenna, not in a million years.’

Geta glared at the boy. ‘I don’t need to steal anything.’

‘Is done!’ Yuri roared. ‘Sofia put trust in
you
– in your sense. Levi did same to me. Geta was elected Podesta fair and also square.’

‘How could that Signoria do anything fair? He stole that too.’

Geta said through gritted teeth, ‘What are you, boy? Reformer or revolutionary? You don’t change people’s minds by assassination.’

‘You dirty—’ Uggeri stopped, remembering what Pedro had said. Sofia wouldn’t have put her pride above Rasenna’s security. ‘Look: if I get my people indoors, we’re not going back to the old Signoria. The Signoria has to be like the red banner, for
all
Rasenneisi.’

‘I’ll keep my men north,’ said Geta.

Yuri smiled. ‘Good then. Let’s get everyone tucked up in beds, and tomorrow—’

‘Tomorrow you had better have some ideas on how to give
the Small People what they want, or I’ll lead the bandieratori across the Irenicon and take it. I’ve seen the condottieri fight on a battlefield, but the street’s
our
natural terrain.’

Geta was about to retort, but Yuri pulled him back. ‘Let us gets through one night in peace. Tomorrow we talk with flags down and cooler heads.’

Rasenna lay in exhausted silence that night. The natural reaction to the riot would have been brutal reprisal, but instead, there was a plea for peace, and the mob assented, storing their loot in safe nooks before going back to their towers. It was always surprising how quickly crowded piazzi could empty. Uggeri studied those Rasenneisi left on the streets. The bonds uniting bandieratori were frayed; spurning the Signoria would mean returning to the old way, tower against tower. He was a simple fighter, but he knew his heart’s dark byways as well as he knew Rasenna’s alleyways and rooftops. There was a throbbing within him that
wanted
that, that yearned to test itself in the bloody mayhem Sofia and the Doc had grown up in. And since Maddalena chose Geta it had grown so much stronger.

The virile roll and snap of tower banners as the swallows returned home for the evening was the only sound competing with the roar of the Irenicon. Uggeri listened to the night, thinking how
easy
it would be to give in, easy as making a fist. The moon hid behind dark clouds and a light mist wreathed the balustrades of the bridge so that the river’s roar was without origin. Uggeri unclenched his fist and rubbed his eyes. Sofia and the Doc had risen above that base temptation. He could do no less.

Across the river, Geta and Becket were waiting by the fortezza’s entrance. Yuri trotted across the piazza, returning from a patrol of the southside streets.

Geta walked to him and patted his horse’s flank. ‘Well?’

‘All quiet. Northside too, by the looks. Let’s hope it keeps.’

‘Let’s hope,’ said Geta. He unhooked the girth of the saddle, put one hand under Yuri’s boot and with the other shoved. The loose saddle slid sideways to the ground, carrying Yuri’s massive bulk with it. His head struck the cobblestones with an audible
crack!

Becket rushed forward, drawing his sword, and thrust it at the fallen giant. Yuri grabbed the blade in his fist and held it there as he got to his feet. His other hand shot forward and tightened round Becket’s neck. The smaller man punched pointlessly and Yuri squeezed tighter – then released him as a bloody rapier-point poked cleanly through his chest. The giant dropped wordlessly to his knees. Geta pulled his head back and cut left to right, working deep, like a butcher. The hapless Becket was doused by the spurting arterial spray.

‘Madonna wept. All that juice.’ Geta shook his head. ‘Drag this
deficiente
inside and get them ready. Five minutes.’ He glanced at the sky. The moon was still demurely shrouded, and from a window above, Maddalena was watching. ‘
Amore!
Did you see—?’

‘I miss nothing,’ she said, and shot him with an imaginary crossbow. Geta mimed pulling the quarrel from his chest. ‘I know it,’ he said, returning fire with blown kisses.

They wore long black cloaks and spread out in prearranged formation after they crossed the bridge. The southside bandieratori had been given the choice to join the condottieri; to the south’s eternal shame, only a few chose death. The traitors were charged with creating a topside perimeter around the bandieratori towers. Geta had fuel catchments – dry straw, wool, oil and black powder – already prepared and stashed northside and now his condottieri used the venerable
cap-a-pie
technique:
as the tower base was set burning, brands were simultaneously thrown through upper windows and onto the rooftops.

The preponderance of black cloaks climbed the ‘healthy hills’. Geta expected most resistance in the old Bardini highlands, and Workshop Scaligeri was besieged as it burned. The students who rolled out, coughing and gasping for breath, were quickly dispatched, regardless of age. Bandieratori skill meant nothing in the inferno within: the flames consumed flags and flesh indiscriminately.

Uggeri and the fastest of his old decina escaped by the adjoining corridor to Tower Scaligeri before it collapsed. The lower storeys were already burning, so they climbed, blinded and choked by smoke, knowing every misstep would be fatal. The survivors burst out onto the rooftop, gasping for air. Tower Scaligeri was the highest vantage point in Rasenna. Uggeri batted out the flames licking at the edge of his flag and looked around at Geta’s revenge.

The burning towers overpowered the night. Across the river, the few towers that had refused to collaborate had already collapsed into smouldering heaps. Here on the northside, the air was thick with whirling ash. Bandieratori leapt hopelessly from towers, or were thrown, or fell to their deaths. There were few options besides burning; but Uggeri’s men did not panic. They looked to their capo to decide their fate.

‘Tartarus,’ Uggeri said simply. ‘Get to Tartarus. Pedro’ll know what to do.’

The nearest tower to Tower Scaligeri was Tower Cammertoni. Its roof was thronged with waiting condottieri.

‘Get ready, men,’ Becket shouted as he saw the bandieratori preparing to jump.

‘Go together,’ Uggeri ordered, ‘and some will break through.’ Not waiting for objections, he jumped, and whether it was loyalty or desperation, all followed. Uggeri landed fighting, his
flagstick immediately pushing the nearest swordsman into others behind. Uggeri saw one of his decina land straight onto a waiting sword; the bandieratoro fell over the side, but he dragged his murderer with him. As the rest landed, Becket’s men fell back.