His son reddened, and put his hand on his hilt.
Still chuckling, Piccinino turned to Onorata, “You know this is a lost opportunity. And such a waste. You’ll be crushed in this battle. I have 8,000 men from Milan. The Visconti’s finest. And our ranks are swelled by the men of the neighboring city Sansepolcro. They will be on the side of the powerful when Milan finishes the childish rivalry that Florence contends. From there, we shall march on Naples and Sicily. Then Rome will have to acknowledge the ascendancy of the kingdom of Milan, and recognize the Holy Roman Emperor, King of the Romans: Albert, crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy. Come with us and be part of this new kingdom. There is no reason for the crown to lose such warriors as yourself. You know just as well that it could have been on our side that you were brought into this war. Why sacrifice yourself for the Florentines and their Pope?”
“And what about Anghiari? Shall I abandon my post?” said Onorata.
“What of them?” Piccinino said. “What are they but pawns in this war? They are but a way station and will neither care nor perhaps even know who rules, be it King or Pope.”
“And my commanding officers? My employer, the Priore of the Republic of Florence?”
“You mean Cosimo di Medici, don’t you? There’s nothing done in Florence that doesn’t have his fingers in it. Their precious democracy holds a spider at its heart. When they once roused themselves to send him packing, he pulled his secret strings to make the merchants leave the city, one by one. So what did they do? They went crying to him and called him back to weave his webs once more. What are you doing working for these weaklings? You can come be part of the Holy Roman Empire. The glory of ancient Rome can be ours once more.”
Onorata nodded to him thoughtfully. Then she turned to the men behind her. Guilhem held his halberd at attention. The Germans loosened their blades in their sheaths, watching for a sign. Onorata gestured to Emanuele. “Come.” She waited as he moved to her side, the plain red banner at his side hanging like a dead thing in the quiet air.
“Emanuele, this is your chance. We are being asked to fight for our King and Emperor. All we need do is switch sides now and you can fulfill your dream of being the King’s condottiere. What’s your assessment of this situation?”
The red banner shook. Emanuele spoke with the hint of a quaver. “We are badly outnumbered.”
“Your student speaks the bald truth, Onorata,” interjected Piccinino.
“I concede the point. We are overpowered. We would take many of your knights before the infantry with bows and artillery reach us, but we would all die if we fight now. Proceed.”
Emanuele’s eyes widened and his grip on the flag staff tightened. “We have not yet been paid by Micheletto—”
Piccinino barked with laughter. “A telling detail,” he said. “Micheletto Attendolo is here? I’m surprised he made it from Venice before we arrived. Though that explains your presence as well.”
A sound like a waterfall in the distance arose. Onorata saw the glint of light on the tips of pole-arms, and the sea of faces beneath them like a daylight forest of shining trees.
Onorata said, “Your advantage there, Piccinino. Though, your intelligence must have told you Attendolo had been engaged.”
“And yours did not tell you where I would approach from, since this is your attempt to delay us from reaching the other side of the Tiber. Come, Onorata, choose your side now.”
“Emanuele, what do you think of this offer?”
Glancing back at Guilhem, then out at the waving staves in the distance.“Captain, I choose what you choose.”
Onorata smiled. “There is your answer, Piccinino. Emanuele’s loyalty stays with the one who led him here, and the soldiers who fought at his side. That is our only path to honor, Piccinino, though you may know it not. We do not fight for the Doges, the Priors, the Viscounts. Nor the Pope, nor the Holy Roman Emperor himself. We fight for each other, and for those we choose to ally with. Our contract is our word and our bond. We fight for them, and we may die for them. We fight for the Red Mark and for each other. Not for your King.”
Piccinno’s eyes grew darker as she spoke. He looked to his son, and gestured to his horsemen to come closer. Onorata flicked out her hand and gave a snap, and her men brought their weapons to hand. Onorata gestured Emanuele to drop behind her and, bringing her horse rearing up on his hind legs, gave a cry, “Now!”
From the ditches by the side of the river, six archers stepped out of hiding, firing as they went. Piccinino’s men scattered. One horse fell screaming, crushing its rider beneath it. Piccinino and his son flattened to their mounts’ necks as the flight of arrows flew by, then unsheathed their weapons and charged forward. Onorata’s men quickly turned their horses and raced back to hold the bridge. Bernard and Onorata stood their ground and met the leaders of the enemy. Piccinino warily circled round Bernhard who, with his great sword with both hands, nudged his horse in counter-circles with his knees, tracking the small man. Onorata clashed swords with Francisco. Grasping the blade of her sword for extra leverage, she pushed past his sword to hold the blade to his throat.
Guilhem dismounted and sent his horse over the bridge. He attacked Piccinino’s knights from the ground, pulling soldiers from their mounts. His halberd clanged on their helms and breastplates. He swung and ducked beneath their comrades’ swords. Beside him the two Germans fought with pike and sword, spilling horsemen where they could and rounding off against those rising from the ground.
Swept apart from Francisco by the chaos of riders and men afoot, Onorata bellowed: “Kill the men, spare the horses!” Her arm raised above her head, her sword a leading edge of death, she charged a knight fighting Emanuele. She saw the banner fall from his hand. As she killed the mercenary, she saw the tallest of the three new Swiss go down. The man at his side picked up his halberd and straddled his body. Emanuele toppled from his horse. He clutched a bright line of red on his arm. Onorata dropped from her horse to defend him, giving him time to tend his wound.
“I’m sorry you lost your chance to fight for the King.”
“He lost his chance in the mountains. It’s you and the men I fight for, not Pope or King.”
“Now you’re talking like a true condottiere.” Onorata parried a blow from horseback and shifted away from Emanuele. She saw him grab a fallen halberd and put his back to the edge of the bridge before he was lost from her view once more. The infantry were now reaching them. She swung, blocked and yanked a man off his horse, slaying him as he fell. The blood on her sword was redder than it could ever be in a painting.
She heard another sound. The sudden fervor of the man she fought with told her what it was. She saw the red trefoil of Florence and the golden lion of Venice. Sforza and Micheletto had come in time.
The bridge was taken and retaken by each side many times. Onorata’s troops joined Micheletto Attendolo’s mounted knights, pushing through to the other side only to be repulsed by the waiting ranks of infantry there. Archers and arms wrought havoc, though their aid was cut short once the armies mixed to fight hand to hand. The turning point came late in the day. Piccinino seized an opening and sent his riders across the bridge in a tight wedge, followed by infantry running en masse. The wearied troops on the other side haltingly resisted. Sforza, instead of rallying the men, led them backward, slowly giving Piccinino ground.
As the troops fell back Bernard and Guilhem rounded up the Red Mark. They looked to Onorata to see if they should join the retreat. She nodded, but signaled them to follow her and circle around to the north edge of the line. There she could see Cardinal Trevisan’s troops readying themselves. When the cry rang out for the charge, red banners snapped in the wind beside papal keys, hurtling toward the vulnerable juncture of the bridge on the Anghiari side of the river.
*
Emanuele came to with a jolt. His head was pounding. Aches spread through him everywhere, and a searing pain lanced through his side. His moan brought someone to his side, and hands helped h
im bring a water skin to his parched lips. Too lost in the pain to care who helped him, he croaked, “Was the battle lost?” but nearly slipped into unconsciousness before he heard the answer.
“No, young pup. We were victorious.” He startled at the sound of Onorata’s voice, and tried to sit up. She went on, “Though we nearly lost you. You’re lucky Joseph pulled you into a ditch by the river so you wouldn’t get trampled. Rest or his work is wasted.”
Pain shook Emanuele again, and the smells of burning flesh and blood came to his nose from the battlefield. “I owe him my life now, as well as my friendship. How did the others fare? I saw Brandt go down.”
“Georges and Yves are mourning him today.”
“But we won the day?”
“Yes. Cardinal Trevisan’s troops came down like the hammer of God on the Milanese and cut a full third of the force off from the other part across the river. After that, Piccinino’s force broke and we gave chase. We have most of them now, imprisoned at the base of the city wall.”
“What’s to be done with them?”
“Sforza and Trevisan were all for killing them. But their men will have none of it. They’re to be released once they’ve been disarmed and made to swear not to re-join Piccinino.”
Emanuele shook a triumphant fist, then winced. “Piccinino was wrong then. Milan’s plans are foiled.”
Onorata nodded. “Though if you spoke to him today, I’m sure his offer would still stand.” A sound of footsteps came near. Emanuele saw Joseph, walking towards them followed by Bernhard and Guilhem whose arm was in a sling. Emanuele shook his head. “Would the king mourn with Yves and Georges?”
“Emanuele!” As the others warmly greeted him, she said, “The great forget the common soldiers who die for their glory. It’s up to us to remember our own.”
Dead Leather Office
Greg Stolze
It was full on dark by the time I pulled in at Stacy’s. I was just checking the address when a light flared on the stoop.
It wasn’t a big tall apartment building in a downtown area, more like one of those small square ones with six apartments on two floors and everyone has their own outside. Like a motel, not a high rise.
That spark wasn’t just someone stepping out for a smoke, either. It was a thin woman lighting a candle, which she held under her chin to put the spookiest possible shadows on her face.
“Cold woman,” she called to me, as I got out of the car. “Your coming was foreseen.”
“How about that,” I said. “Call me Anne instead of ‘cold woman’ if you don’t mind.”
“Your name is of little concern to me.”
I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t really help it, I had been on the road all day and kind of had to pee, and here this gal’s going for her daytime Emmy. I had to mess with her. It was like a moral imperative.
“Who sent you, the ouija or the cards? I’m guessing cards because you didn’t call me by name, but the precision timing points the other way and, honestly? Most of the time I can’t tell you jokers apart.”
Her nostrils flared at that one. “Your blindness is as profound as your stupidity,” she said, taking two steps down to get right in my face. I blew out her candle and then she popped me one in the throat.
I didn’t have the first clue it was coming. She just opened her hand like she was sticking it in a baseball mitt and whipped it in. Hit me on the breastbone, slid right up into my neck. I was gagging and coughing, stumbling back down the steps and I noticed the big rings on her knuckles when the door behind her opened and Stacy rolled out.
Stacy is a big woman, arms like hams. Her right hand popped down on the skinny bag’s head like Scottie Pippen palming a basketball, and then those banana-thick fingers really dug in, gripping the hair right next to the scalp. I didn’t see what she did with the left. I’d guess a kidney punch, because the candle-gal arched her back and whinnied like a horse.
Stacy marched her down to the sidewalk and pushed the oracle’s hips up against the car. “Not on the caddy!” I rasped, which is probably what stopped Stacy from slamming the bitch face first onto the hood. Instead she chucked her to the side, none too gentle, like those luggage guys at the airport.
“Didn’ see that comin’, didja?” Stacy cried.
“You made a bad mistake…” the woman snarled, on all fours, right before I scooped up the candle and threw it at her. It went end over end but missed. I made her jump anyway.
“Git!” Stacy said, and she scrambled off.
*
Twenty minutes later I was soothing my throat with some decaf tea while Stacy made up a sofa bed. “Gosh Anne, I’m real sorry about that,” she said. “Riff raff. You sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah,” I croaked. “It’s just like a bad cold.”
“Here’s some towels and such you can use,” she said. “Bathroom’s first on the left, you sure you aren’t hungry or anything?”
“Ate on the road.”
“Want a beer or something?”
“Tomorrow,” I said, and something made my look at her Sideways.
Lots of people can see the future and the past. Okay, not lots, and most have to use a crutch like the cards. Most have to sign up with the higher or lower forces to get the sight, too. Looking Sideways is related, but not the same. It’s all about the big What If.
Stacy’s break was a good thirty-five years back, and it was a man. She went with one and got here. Sideways, I saw what she’d be if she’d gone the other way. Wow.
“Nothing else you need?”
“Wanna tell me why I’m here?” I said.
“If… if y’ain’t too tired.” She twisted my washcloth between those huge round hands, then spread it out and primly flattened it, knuckles dimpling. I decided not to tell her about that Sideways self with the big diamond ring, skinny neck, any laugh lines botoxed to death, or just moved down to the mouth as prissy old lady scowl-marks.
“It’s my boy John,” she said.
“Up in Chicago?” I said, wary. She shook her head.
“That’s Johnny Bees,” she said. “He’s my oldest. Jack, the young one, he lit out for California a couple years back. Looking for giants, y’know?”
I didn’t, but I let it go. “Which John is this, then?”
“Crooked John. The middle child. He’s been arrested.”
*
Long John Crawson was a story man from way back, a trucker hauling up and down I-55. When he married Stacy she was normal as dirt, which is probably why they worked out. He named his three sons after himself and stroked out in 2003.
I got on Johnny Bees’ bad side after his daddy’s funeral, which is never a good time to cross anybody. Not my finest moment or his either. I remember the hornets crawling through my hair, dozens of tiny wings scraping and fluttering at my lips as I tried to get to the water… even years later, thinking about that gives me the willies.
I got along fine with Crawson, never found out exactly what his story was but, like a lot of weird parents, he had weird kids. When Stacy needed help, she decided to look outside St. Louis, and I immediately wondered about that. But that’s not what you ask.
“What he get took for?”
“Bank robbery,” she said.
“He done time?”
She shook her head. “Jailed seven times, arraigned twice, never convicted. Those cops,” she said, mouth flattening. “They just won’t leave him alone.”
I dropped my chin and gave her a glance over the glasses. “And this is entirely the police department’s fault?”
“Oh, he looks the part,” she conceded, “but honestly.”
“Hm. So what’s my role in all this, then?”
“An innocent man’s in jail,” she said. “That ain’t right, is it?”
“Nobody’s innocent,” I said, but with a yawn instead of any particular heat.
*
“Mph! That is one fine automobile!” the man exclaimed. It was the next day and after Stacy went to work I’d g
one to visit some old haunts. I figured I’d see the bank after the lunch rush, then stop by the jail during visiting hours.
“You can touch the fender if your hands are clean,” I said. He laughed. White guy with heavy features and dirty fingernails, a flannel shirt and jeans and work boots. The day was clear, but the weather was chill and there weren’t many other people sitting out on stoops. Or, in this one’s case, sitting on the steps of a boarded-up church.
“I’m Arvil,” he said, standing and coming to my window. The Dead Leather Office was on a one-way street, so I could park with my window by the sidewalk.
Looking at it, you wouldn’t guess it’d been a church once. Even the tall, pointed ceiling, the double doors and the stone steps and arched windows just begging for stained glass… you wouldn’t think it. If someone told you it’d been a business once, or anything other than an empty husk full of rat turds and debris, you wouldn’t believe it. You’d know that buildings don’t get built abandoned, but the Dead Leather Office, formerly Stamwicke’s Fine Leather Tanning, formerly before that Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, looked like it’d been driving people away since before its foundation was dug.
“Anne,” I replied.
“Cosby said something about a ‘Cadillac Anne’ once or twice,” Arvil said, eyes lighting and narrowing.
“Where is Cosby?”
For a moment, Arvil’s grin faltered and he looked over his shoulder. “He went in,” he said, finally. “Couple years ago.”
“That’s a shame,” I said, looking at the church. I’d made sure to come in the morning when the sun was on its face. I didn’t want to park in its shadow, or even walk there. “Still, no one’s come to put it to work?”
“People’ve tried,” he said, and I didn’t need to look front or back or Sideways to figure out how well that had gone.
“Hop in,” I said.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
The New Hero Volume 2 Page 7
