We sat for a while in silence, both of us staring at the smudged up symbols on the floor, the gravedirt and the chalk, and then she walked me to the door.
“He say anything else, Arthur?” Mrs. Simons asked me on the stoop, looking more than tired, more than upset…she looked scared. “Anything else at all?”
*
“Usher Fellig,” the Baron had said after giving me the Society sorcerer rundown. “You did good by me, my bitch, and so that’s one of the two you owe paid in full.”
“Well, y’know—”
“The second I shall collect upon forthwith,” said Saturday, and he must’ve seen something on my face because his eyes narrowed and his lip curled. “What could possibly be bothering you, Mr. Fellig? Is it perhaps the shift in tone I have adopted, now that I am in a calmer place and have need of maximum clarity?”
“Well, I—”
“Perhaps it confounds you that I no longer speak like some gin-headed nigger looking to roll your white ass?”
“Hey, now, Saturday,” I said, done with his malarkey. “I never said such a thing in my life—I don’t give a fig if you talk pretty or not, say your bit and amscray.”
“Alright, then,” said Saturday, and all that confidence I’d had a second before went poof, gone. “Untie me from this chair so that I can finish what I started. This whole mess confirms the utility of having an open stall where Claire is concerned, as you both took your sweet, pardon me, fucking time in conjuring me down to assist.”
“Not a chance,” I said.
“Her or the girl,” said the Baron, and he made her smile so wide I worried Mrs. Simons’ cheeks would split. “Your choice, Usher motherfucking Fellig, but I will have a mare prepared for my convenience. If you do not give me Claire now I shall claim Kameela at a later date, and on that you have my word. I must add that if you insist upon inconveniencing me by way of postponing my establishment of a permanent mount upon this world, I shall, in addition to claiming the daughter instead of the mother, most assuredly fuck you up six ways from Saturday. If you catch my drift.”
“Drift is right,” I said, but my mouth was all clammy and my stomach was right back to where it started. “Six ways from Saturday, real funny. Go on and drift then.”
“Not so long ago my mambos and hougans would weep for the honor of bearing my saddle,” said Saturday, a whiff of melancholy to his voice. “My own children turn their backs upon me, no longer trusting, no longer—”
“Jeez Louise,” I said. “Who wouldn’t trust a nice guy like you?”
“Usher mother—”
“Mrs. Claire Simons!” I shouted in his face. “Mrs. Cla—”
“Don’t you—”
“—ire Simons! Mrs. Claire—”
“Get you fuckers! All of you!”
“Simons!” I finished, and she was back, panting in the ropes. I sat and stared and wondered if he was really gone…and what I’d tell her if he was.
*
“No, Claire,” I told her on the stoop. “He didn’t say nothing else. You go on and get a good night’s sleep.”
“You too, Arthur,” she said as she closed the door. “You too.”
Fat chance. Sitting in my car, I was shaking so bad I dropped my keys, and picking them up I heard footsteps outside my door. For a second I had this panic that it was Detective Harris, that the Society sorcerer had sicced him on me and I was about to roll downtown…or maybe he’d just bump me right there, I’d gets some bullets and he’d get a medal…but no, those were heels clicking on Lenox, and my guts got even worse than if it had been Harris with the pie wagon. I told myself I hadn’t had no choice, that Saturday hadn’t left me a lot of options, but I still got kind of choked up.
“Hey Weegee-man,” Kameela said as I cracked the door to let her holler at me. Her breath could’ve peeled paint.
“Hey,” I said, trying not to imagine her face twisted up with a cigar jammed between her teeth, those hazel eyes hidden behind tinted glasses…I didn’t do too good a job of it. “What’s the rumpus?”
“Ask you the same,” she said. “The stuff you and her get up to…”
“Hey now, hey, jeez,” I said, happy to be plain old embarrassed for a second.
“She’s gonna start letting me in on it. No more of this cold-reading hocus pocus bullshit,” Kameela said with a drunken grin. “Get into the family business for serious.”
“Hey, you know, maybe it ain’t such a good—” I started but she yawned in my face and rubbed her eyes like some kid busting up her folks’ rummy night, and walked away before I even finished.
“Night, Weegee-man. You have a good one, now.”
Like I said, fat chance. I watched her fumble with the lock and disappear into the house, no backwards glance…I was glad, I didn’t deserve one. Turning the jalopy back to the Lower East Side, I thought it all over…it was the kind of night that belonged in the funny books, and I ain’t buying no funny books, even if they are two for a damn nickel…but who am I kidding? I good as got myself a subscription.
The King’s Condottiere
Emily Care Boss
Guttering torches sent shadows of the dead chasing over the battlefield. Onorata Rodiana pushed her dark hair out of her eyes. She bent over the images on the courtyard wall, her paint brush flickering in the fire light. Sketches stretched across the plaster. In miniature a gilded horseman spilled off his mount, his spear tearing a hole in another man’s stomach. One shadow lingered where others ran. She looked toward its source. “Well, if you’re going to watch, you should at least do something helpful. Come here and hold the paint for me would you?”
A tall man with a sword at his side moved away from the gate. She recognized the bleak smile of Micheletto Attendolo, his hand feeling along the scar below his eye. He took the narrow wooden tray and watched as she dipped the fine hairs of the brush into a pool of vermillion.
“Is this the battle of Brescia?” He walked along the line of the wall where reds and golds faded to black, smudged lines of faces and hands.
“It is.” Onorata gave him a neutral look. “I feel like there is something not quite right, yet. What do you think?”
“The action is dramatic, the details of the keep excellent, but…” Micheletto trailed off.
A mischievous gleam appeared in her eyes. “Yes, what’s wrong here?”
“Wasn’t it a siege?”
“Not according to his Grace. Or rather, not as he would have it remembered. The slow starving of a few thousand men and women is not romantic enough for his liking, so instead we get what we have here: a battle of twenty thousand and the Lord personally skewering Niccolò Piccinino.”
Micheletto stared at her, mystified, “Piccinino, dead?”
“That’s my favorite part. Some poetic license to go with the hubris.”
“Well, then you’ll thank me for taking you away from this. I’ve a commission for you and your men. Sforza is calling for reinforcements for his defense of Anghiari, and I’d like you to join me. He’s marching from Florence now. My men and I leave tomorrow, and we’d have you follow as soon as possible. We need all we can muster. What’s your price?”
She took the paints and moved back to the fresco, completing the running leg of a stallion.“500.”
Micheletto asked warily, “Ducats or Florins?”
“Florins, of course.”
“500 Florins!?” He swore. “That’s twice what I’m paying the others.”
She turned to look at him across the battlefield. “You’ll get twice the sweat and the blood from mine.”
Footsteps echoed, and a young servant ran toward them. Light from the lantern he held revealed his panicked eyes. Storming behind him came the Doge of Venice, Francesco Foscari. In the darkness, light glinted from the labyrinth of gold thread winding across his deep red, velvet mantle. His eyes narrowed with anger as he saw Onorata.
“Rodiana! Why isn’t this done?”
Rising from her deep curtsey Onorata addressed the
Doge.
“Your Grace, I am working night and day to complete your masterpiece. It is my only wish.”
His frown deepened. He walked towards her. “Your contract stipulates that it will be completed by the day my daughter is married. That is one month from now, yet here I see blank spaces, colorless lines.” A great emerald glittered on the accusing finger he thrust toward her work. “You’re violating your terms!”
Clenching her skirts with paint-stained hands, Onorata said, “I cannot do in six months what was supposed to take a year! My Lord, you must argue with Fate, that brought your beloved daughter’s husband back from the wars so soon. Or his passionate heart, which can’t wait until the date originally named.”
“My Lord!” Micheletto knelt as he addressed Foscari.
Turning toward him, the Doge said, “Rise, address me.”
“Your ally the Duke of Florence has begged that Venice come to the aid of the Italian League. The city of Anghiari, three days ride to the south, is threatened by your enemy, the Duke of Milan. We need Rodiana and her men to defend the town.”
The Lord whirled around to face Onorata, startling the Page. “You cannot take a commission for battle while working for me. Send your second, Bernardi. That trumped up merchant di Medici won’t know the difference and it’s no matter to me if Bernardi dies. But if you die in the battle who will finish this fresco?”
Onorata said, “My Lord, your care for my well-being is touching.”
“Don’t try to humor me, Rodiana.” Stepping away from the painting, Foscari straightened his gloves and gestured his servant on ahead of him. “Leave and you’ll never get your 100 Florins. You’ll stay here and finish this fresco if I have to chain you to the wall.” He took their leave and accepted their obeisances, following the bobbing light into the night.
Onorata turned cold eyes to Micheletto. “Bernhard is expendable, is he? His offer, can you add that to my price?”
Shaking his head in disbelief, he traced the path a sword had narrowly taken past his eyes long ago.
“That’s my only hope of taking you with us, isn’t it?” She nodded.
“I can, but it means your men take the place of others we would have hired.”
“So they will.” Onorata said.
“What of the Doge’s anger?” Micheletto asked.
“I’ve had a price on my head before and lived to tell the tale.” She curtsied to the disappearing light. “My Lord, I take my leave.”
*
The sharp clang of the bells of San Marco rang out over the Piazza of Venice, crossroads of Europe and Asia. Heavy-laden boats crowded the canals, life’s blood to merchants and lords fattened by trade. Waving away flies, Rodiana picked her way past a trader offloading wolf pelts and honey. She strode across the square, heading toward the pillars of the saints. Beneath the pillar of St Mark, a dozen men circled around a large ashy-blonde giant of a man. Sitting on a stool behind a small folding table, the tall warrior switched from German to broken Italian to address four men standing before him.
As she approached, Onorata sized up the bearing of the four. Three wore clothes worn from travel and carried the telltale, short-bladed baselard of Swiss fighting men. The fourth was a younger man with a heavily embroidered cape. He wore a sword that showed far more use than his fine clothes. As she approached, the richly dressed one threw up his hands and walked away.
Behind the table, a slight, rangy fellow carrying a baselard pointed her out to the German. The other men in the circle greeted her, straightening up as they saw her. All except one, a man in a dark blue doublet and brimmed hat in the French style, wearing the sash of an arquebus gunner. She arched an eyebrow at him; he nodded reluctantly to her.
The tall German deferentially offered her his seat, bowed and asked her in German about her health and state of affairs since last they spoke. She answered in Italian, “There’s no time for that, Bernhard, tell me news of the men you’ve found.” She scanned the book, reading the printed names of those who had signed on. Most had a large ‘X’ beside the name.
The blonde man answered in heavily accented Italian, “Then Micheletto gave you enough to hire on new blood?”
She smiled, self-satisfied. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. What prospects?”
“Aside from the rabble who think owning a sword and riding a mule makes you a knight? I found five. These three Swiss: Yves, Brandt and Georges.” They bowed as he introduced them. “Good men, though none to match our Guilhem.” The rangy man beside him smiled. “But they’ll do. Also a couple of Germans I hired on earlier. And there was one young noble brat I turned away.” He made a chuff of dismissal.
“Noble? Not that fine fellow who stalked off just before I arrived here?”
“Yes, he was persistent. Took a devil of a time getting rid of him. He wanted to talk to ‘my captain’.”
“So, you told him to talk to me?”
“Trust me, he’s not worth the time.” He dropped back into German. “He’s as green as a shoot and thinks he’s somebody. I don’t want to pay him, just to have to cut the purse off his dead body to send back to his grief-stricken, high-blooded Mother.”
Shifting to German, she said. “Bernhard, you have gone soft. Where did he go? I want to meet this young pup.”
“I’m sure that gnat will be back. Perhaps you can convince him that he should go back to making money from trading furs to Bishops, and leave the real fighting to his betters.”
As Bernard spoke, the young man returned, and addressed Rodiana “Excuse me, do you know who this barbarian’s senior officer is? I can barely understand him through all his grunting.”
“What business do you have with his captain?”
He glanced at her dusty hose and doublet, then shook his gloved hand at her dismissively. “It’s surely none of your business, but I’m told that the Red Mark are the bloodiest, most vicious, and daring of all the condottieri. I’ve come to learn from them. Someday I will be a condottiere, and lead my own troop to glory for Venice, and perhaps even our Emperor and King!”
Guilhem said, “You do realize who the King is, don’t you? Albert, King and soon to be Holy Roman Emperor of the Germans. Don’t be so quick to insult one of your beloved Emperor’s countrymen.”
“That’s just a title,” the young man snapped.
“We don’t serve the King or the Emperor. We serve the royal hand who pays our bills,” Onorata said. “Today it is the Duke of Florence, tomorrow it may be the Duke of Milan. We fight our best. We live, we die. But we are our own masters. Free to choose whom we fight under and what we fight for. The King does not know our names.”
The young man turned to her. “The important thing is that we know his! We can regain the glory of ancient Rome if we are united again under our King and Emperor.”
Onorata leaned forward and said, “Do you know who is the duly appointed servant and regent of these lands by dear King Albert? The Duke of Milan!”
“If you want to serve the King so much, switch sides,” Bernhard said. “I’m sure he would want a prize stripling like you.” The tallest Swiss patted the noble on the head. Several of the men laughed.
“I don’t care if you don’t believe me, I will become a force to be reckoned with. I could fight any of you!” the young man yelled.
Onorata frowned at Bernhard, and motioned her men to stop laughing. She stood up and walked up to him.
“What is your name?”
“Emanuele di Francesca Moresini.” He gave a short, elegant bow.
“Fight me, my young friend.”
“You? But you’re the smallest of the lot. Let me fight him.” He pointed to Bernhard who pretended to cower in fear. This started the men laughing again.
Emanuele turned pink in the face. He turned his wrath on Onorata.“You’re as thin and as frail as a woman!” With dawning comprehension he looked at her again. “What are you doing dressed as a man?”
He raised his hand to slap her. She easily caught his
hand, and he found a half a dozen blades pointed at him.
“Appearances can be deceiving. You asked before who this barbarian reports to? He reports to me. Draw your sword or move along and go seek glory for your King elsewhere. If you can get a touch on me, then you get a chance in battle. You will join us at Anghiari.”
He nodded quickly as the blades were sheathed. “A touch? Not to best you?”
Bernhard said, “Believe me, if you get a touch on her, you’re doing well.”
Rolling up her sleeves, Onorata took Guilhem’s halberd. Emanuele pulled his sword from its sheath. His gloved hand gripped tighter as he stepped into the ring of onlookers. He took a moment to untie the strings of his cape and hand it off. The French gunner stepped forward to take it. Making a brief prayer, and holding the hilt like a cross to his forehead, Emanuele bowed to Onorata.
Facing him from across the circle, Onorata bowed in return. With a sprightly movement, she twirled the halberd above her head, and hailed the Red Mark. Her company erupted into the repeated cry, “Fight hard, live free!” The new recruits joined in the chant. Startled, Emanuele first extended his sword defensively, then an incredulous smile stole over his face as he took in the joy of the men around him.
As the cheers still sounded, Onorata let fall the halberd, and arched the axe blade in semi-circular flourishes past Emanuele’s head. He hurriedly jumped back, only regaining his footwork in the midst of her attack. Coming to the edge of the crowd, Emanuele began circling. He ducked to avoid a blow to the face by the halberd’s sharp spike. Continuing his circle, he maneuvered her into a pair of maroon-clad Germans who’d been calling out epithets. Emanuele took advantage of this moment of distraction and pressed forward, reaching into her guard. Onorata swiftly swung the tail of her pole back around, blocking Emanuele’s blow.
“Bravissimo! Use your enemies against one another, on the field and in court.” Onorata forced him back with successive sweeps to his feet and head. “Match your actions—to your strengths and their—weaknesses.”
The New Hero Volume 2 Page 5
