The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy) (63 page)

‘You’re right,’ Uggeri said, ‘whatever’s necessary now, we can’t hesitate. But let’s make sure we blow up more than a bridge.’

Just before dawn the baptistery bell rang out over the river. The clock tower delicately chimed its answer. Where the river ended and land begun was lost in the mist that had invaded Piazza Luna. Only the red banner of the Palazzo del Popolo interrupted the pervasive whiteness. Two grey guards stood at the entrance of the fortezza.

‘What’s that?’

‘Tranquillo
, kid,’ said the older, a veteran. ‘I don’t see anything.’

‘There, look!’

Sure enough, a figure was crossing from the mouth of the bridge, tottering first left and then right, as if drunk.

‘Probably got up enough courage to give us a right old talking-to.’

‘This ought to be good.’ They waited, chuckling together in anticipation. The night-watch was dull, and one of its few diversions was slapping drunks sober. The drunk was closer now, and he suddenly straightened up and produced a flag-stick that had been concealed in the silhouette of his body. The banner unfurled and they had time only to register that it was black before he came running towards them. They fumbled for their weapons, but the gap closed too soon.

The condottiere on the last watch of the night stretched himself and yawned, still groggy from last night’s drinking. Every night since the raid had been a celebration. He slid open the spy hole. ‘Mornin’ lads—’

He slammed it shut and leaned against the door as he rebolted it, breathing fast, trying to master his panic. He rang
the bell hanging beside the door. Condottieri were used to quick mobilisation, but the first to answer the call to arms was Geta. Others soon appeared, tucking their nightshirts into their trousers.

‘Mount up!’ Geta shouted, pushing the guard aside and unbolting the door. The sun was coming up, but he did not need it to see the Palazzo del Popolo across the piazza. Flames licked out of its windows and the clock tower glowed from the spiralling inferno within. Geta walked forwards a few steps, then spun around. The nightwatchmen still stood either side of the door. ‘Why are you two just standing—?’ he began, but stopped abruptly as he saw they wept blood. Then he noticed that their bodies dangled an inch above the ground, from ropes tied to the cressets above the door.

Geta dashed back inside, found his charger and mounted up. ‘
Avanti!
’ he cried as he led a dozen men through the gate into the piazza. They rode three abreast, and the clatter of hoofs on cobblestones echoed over the roar of the fire. Up ahead, a black figure holding a bottle stuffed with a burning rag backed away from the palazzo. In a fluid practised motion, Geta released his reins, slowed his horse with his legs, reached for his arquebus and whipped out the weapon. He took aim, snapped the flint and fired. The figure in the distance spun where he stood, but did not fall; instead, he ran limping for the bridge, and when he reached the lions, threw down his bottle. It exploded, leaving a rather feeble line of fire at the bridge entrance.

The recoil had knocked Geta out of the saddle, but he sat up laughing. ‘There – clipped the bastard!’ he shouted. ‘On, lads! Ride him down!’ Other riders leapt over Geta, swords drawn, prey in sight and the scent of blood in their nostrils. Their trained destriers effortlessly leapt the fire and thundered onto the bridge.

As Geta remounted, he glanced at what remained of the
Palazzo del Popolo. The clock tower struck its final hour, then tumbled with a great groan of cracking metal and the muffled dusty pops of bricks exploding from the heat and pressure. Geta considered himself something of an expert when it came to arson; he realised that it needed more than a few oil bottles to set that blaze. This had taken time. He thought of the night-watch’s eyes so carefully removed and without thought, slowed his horse to a standstill. A second wave of cavalry rode by, hastening to the bridge, and Geta looked at the other side of the bridge. The fleeing figure was escaping into Piazza Stella, his limp miraculously cured.

‘Get off the bridge!’ Geta roared. ‘It’s a trap!’

Some already halfway across heard the warning and turned around, and Geta realised his mistake. ‘No!’ he screamed, ‘keep going!’

They turned again in confusion, more running into them even as others turned back, causing total mayhem.

Cursing all fools, Geta pulled his horse about and jammed his spurs in its haunches mercilessly—

First there was a patterning drumroll, barely perceptible, except for the soles of the feet, the fingertips.

Pah-Pah-Pah-Pah-Pah-Pah

Then came a world-rolling pounding, like a wave breaking overhead.

OOOoooommmmm

The bridge suddenly turned black, its graceful arch silhouetted by the synchronised explosions around the supporting pillars, glowing yellow as the flames licked greedily around it. Bits of horse and men and lumps that could have been either slowly floated upwards before raining down in sizzling blobs that congealed in greasy pools on the river surface. White glowing stones that had been balustrades, pillars and archways hurtled up into the sky and tumbled beside the stars.

The explosives had been tightly packed at either end of the bridge and now the arch appeared to expand for a moment, even as its components came apart, before losing cohesion, sending great boulders crashing into the piazzas on either side, smashing cobblestones into pebbles. There was a rapid
pat pat pat
as the three lions that had survived the Wave and years under the Irenicon vanished and the stones, all that was left of the huge beasts, rained down into the river with serpentine hisses, their individual splashes lost in the majestically billowing steam clouds.

Then …
it was gone
.

Rasenna was bisected once more. The last few years were exposed as an impossible, aberrant dream, now dissipating just like the ringing echo of the explosion, fading away and leaving the roar of the Irenicon unchallenged. The few disorientated riders who made it across to Piazza Stella were felled by arrows and rocks and banners, then finished off by a giant death-dealing figure with hammers in place of hands.

Geta had been thrown off his horse again, this time by the explosion. He landed badly and was knocked unconscious, but he was lucky: he was far enough away to avoid the heaviest of the falling debris.

When he awoke, he was covered in grey dust that streaked black where the water streamed from his eyes. He limped back, but headed not to the fortezza but to the adjoining stable. The doors swung open. He stepped inside and found all the cells were open and empty, as was the trapdoor to the cellar, where the Hawk’s Company’s powder reserves had been stored.

Those condottieri who saw Geta emerge couldn’t understand why he looked so merry. How could he explain to men to whom war was only a profession? This was why he’d come back to Rasenna. Mayhem was home here.

‘Torbidda?’ The Drawing Hall’s door was ajar and though Leto walked in feeling like an interloper, he found himself remembering many happy hours spent in that room. He stopped in front of the warped mirror to examine his uniform, and to compare his current self with the boy he’d been. The comparison was not pleasant. Through old, experienced eyes he saw the endless deceit that marked his still youthful boy’s face like acid-etched metal. How did Torbidda
live
with it?

Outside, a cloud moved away from the sun and a sudden shaft of light struck the desk behind him. He saw the reflection of the drawing first, and he turned and approached it with a feeling of transgression, the sense of spying some forbidden thing. The scale was impossible, insane, and mildly nauseating, though it was just a drawing. All about the desk were crumpled pieces of paper, all scarred with the same dense scribbling, rows of digits overlapping each other, sometimes scratched out, with lines drawn between the rows at various angles. Scattered about the floor were old Ebionite and Etruscan texts, with passages underlined, and etchings of Solomon’s Temple and the Molè had been torn apart and taped together in mad combinations that were almost unbearable to look at.

Fra Norcino watched through the bars with a patronising smile as the coffin descended and slowed. His cell was near the bottom of the pit now. ‘Seems I shall meet the Master before you. What shall I tell him?’

‘Tell him I’ve achieved everything he did – I control Concord. Rasenna and Ariminum are broken. Tell him my cathedral will be as beautiful as his Molè was terrible. Tell him the Handmaid’s child will soon be brought to me.’

‘And you have not the wit to make use of its blood. Shall I tell him that you’re still afraid?’

‘I am master here!’ Torbidda shouted.

‘You can’t even master yourself. I can smell your fear, even here where the air is saturated with the stuff. You’re still a little boy, weeping for his mother. If you weren’t, you’d confront him.’

‘Confront
him?
’

‘Come, we both know why you keep returning. It’s not to keep me company. You want his wit as much as he wants your flesh.
Why not fight for it?
Your will against his. If you were truly a wolf, you’d fight.’

Torbidda said nothing and Norcino showed his black teeth as he laughed. ‘Fearful child, take off that red. You won it on false pretences. You’re no Apprentice. You will always be afraid until you confront him … Agrippina would not have hesitated.’

‘She should have won,’ Torbidda said, watching himself backing into the pod. ‘What if I’m not strong enough? What if I
am
just a lamb?’

‘Courage, lad. I know a king when I see one.’

When the door hissed closed and there was no one to hear, Torbidda whispered, ‘
Madonna
preserve me. I’m afraid.’

As the pod started to descend and the blue light danced between the grinding torque of the rows, Norcino started cackling. ‘Alas for thee, child, blind men make poor guides.’

A storm cloud churned around the summit of Mont Nero, and purple lightning stabbed the summit, again and again. Those watching from the streets and canals of New City swore next morning that they saw the Molè’s ghost appear every time the
lightning struck. Finally, one swollen sea-blue bolt exploded in the air at a point where once Argenti had looked at the stars and wept, where once the lantern’s flame had been lit to call back a boy running for his life. The writhing electric charge dropped, straight as water falling, and impaled itself on the upraised sword of the angel, the only part of the Molè still standing.