by Aidan Harte
“And now they are building a bridge here,”
“You’re well informed, Colonel Levi,” said the Doctor. “Why don’t you make your point?”
“What if the bridge is the first step in a permanent garrison?”
“And now you reveal the limits of your information. The temperament of Rasenna is such that it cannot be garrisoned. Concord sent a podesta to govern us once; he soon left. They’ve learned since that we don’t need a garrison or podesta to keep us obedient. Our own quarrels keep us divided.”
“Which suits you,” said Scarpelli.
“I will unite Rasenna one day, Virgin willing. Until then, half is better than none. If we took up your offer, Concord would destroy us along with you.”
“When Rasenna’s value stops being its workshops and starts being its location, neutrality may be both impossible and imprudent,” said Levi. “To go south, any army has to go through Rasenna, but why bother building a permanent bridge unless to lay permanent claim to the south?”
The Doctor shrugged hopelessly as if such things were beyond him.
Scarpelli said, “Let’s go, Levi. I told John Acuto that Rasenna was out of salt.”
Cat leaped away from Levi, agitated by the rising tension. As it ran between Scarpelli’s legs, he kicked it away, all the while holding the Doctor’s eye.
The Doctor smiled. “I’m sorry to disappoint you after you’ve come so far. Perhaps that workshop tour will make up for it.”
The boys stood in four lines, each boy paired off. At the end stood Sofia.
“Avanti!”
The swooping banners and clashing sticks were deafening rain.
“Contrario!” Sofia roared.
The same exchange repeated with roles reversed, attackers now defending in the same well-drilled rhythm. She walked between rows, adjusting students’ posture, feet, and grip, correcting flaws with quick demonstrations.
“You teach girls as well as Concordians?” With no prospect of a Contract, Scarpelli was being more blatantly rude.
“She’s the one teaching,” Levi observed.
“Must gall to sell yourself so cheap, Doctor.”
The Doctor smiled at Scarpelli. “Actually, we’re rather expensive. But what, pray tell, is the difference between us? John Acuto may not be Etrurian, but you are.”
Scarpelli reddened, and the Doctor knew he had made a hit—so, a condottiere who wanted to be a knight.
Scarpelli covered embarrassment with anger. “Yes, my loyalty’s for sale. I’m sensible, like you.”
The Doctor just smiled as he called Sofia.
“You’re being rude,” Levi whispered.
Scarpelli spit on the floor chippings. “So what? This baby tyrant isn’t buying what we’re selling.”
“Colonel! You wanted to see how tough Rasenneisi are?” Not waiting for an answer, he threw Scarpelli a combat banner. Sofia stepped forward.
Scarpelli looked at the flag contemptuously and dropped it. “In the real world, soldiers fight with steel.”
The students began to take an interest. A civilian might not know what throwing down another’s banner meant, but even Scarpelli could sense the sudden change in the air.
“Use your sword, then,” the Doctor said coldly.
“This is absurd. I won’t attack a girl with her arm in a sling!”
The Doctor stood close to Levi.
“Doctor . . .”
“Relax. I’m sure a condottiere can defend himself.”
Scarpelli put his hand on his sword but got no further. Sofia jabbed him just below the diaphragm, partially winding him. A boy laughed as Scarpelli stumbled. The condottiere blushed violently and pulled out his sword.
The Doc wanted a show. Sofia let the sword strokes pass close by her body, keeping her flag low, luring him on.
Scarpelli was red-faced and already getting tired. She glanced at the Doctor. He nodded, and her flag went up. Scarpelli stabbed desperately and struck nothing; then a pole crunched into his nose, followed by a bruising rap on his knuckles. He dropped his sword. Flag strokes above him, in front of his face—where was she?
“Boo!” Sofia whispered, and kicked his feet out from behind. Quickly propping the end of her banner on the floor, she jammed her knee into Scarpelli’s back. He struggled to stop his own weight from strangling him.
Levi’s hand went for his sword and found the Doctor’s hand resting lightly on his. “You’ll just embarrass yourself. That’s all Signorina Scaligeri is doing to your colleague.”
“Scaligeri?” said Levi. “Of the—?”
“My ward,” said the Doctor.
He walked over to Scarpelli. “See? It’s easy to disarm the weak. For years, Concord has kept our leash loose, and we have been sensible. But struggle”—Sofia jerked the pole—“and we die! Get it?”
Scarpelli gargled affirmatively. The Doctor nodded, and Sofia released him. The condottiere rolled on the floor, gasping, and the circle broke up.
The Doctor turned to Levi. “Should I swap a leash for a noose?”
“I apologize for my colleague’s poor manners,” Levi said, slipping into dialect, “but John Acuto’s war on Concord is real. By Herod’s Sword, I swear. Acuto’s son died in the belly of the Beast.”
“Should I risk my town for that? You seem less of a fool than your friend. You think your Company can win a pitched battle against a Concordian legion? Believe me, you can’t. I trained Concord’s generals.”
Like Scarpelli, Levi had known this mission was a long shot. Now he wondered if the forthcoming campaign was too. “Thank you for your hospitality, Doctor. You’ve made your position clear. I understand you cannot risk Contessa Scaligeri’s inheritance.”
“This isn’t Rasenna’s war.”
“It isn’t the Hawk’s Company’s war either. It’s Etruria’s. For everyone’s sake, Concord has to be stopped.”
The Doctor extended a hand. “They’ve already won.”
CHAPTER 10
The condottieri left without delay. The Hawk’s Company mustered shortly in the south, and John Acuto had to know which towns had rallied, which had not.
As they left, Guercho Vaccarelli arrived in answer to the Doctor’s summons. He wheezed and creaked as he walked, reminding Sofia of the ravaged towers by the river. The old man’s eyes were weak; his young daughter, Isabella, a pretty girl with cheeks spattered with freckles, usually accompanied him, but today he leaned on someone else.
“Signorina Scaligeri, you look like your mother more every day!” The inlaid disks in Bombelli’s sleeves jingled musically as he kissed her hand. Torn clothes were common in Rasenna, but the slits in Fabbro’s fur-lined jerkin were high fashion, not accident, designed to display the expensive silk chemise underneath. When visiting old friends such as Vettori, Fabbro dressed down. When visiting the Doctor, he dressed up.
“Thanks,” Sofia said flatly. “Look, come back tomorrow. The Doc’s preparing for the meeting.”
“That’s why I came! Doctor!”
The Doctor eyed Fabbro coolly, nodded briefly, then turned to embrace the old man. “Signore Vaccarelli, how is your Family?”
After exchanging pleasantries, he blandly regarded his uninvited guest. “Bombelli. What do you want?”
“To help, Doctor. Let me accompany you to the Signoria.”
“Certainly—come along. We’re about to set out.”
“I mean sit with you, Doctor.”
“Sofia, show Signore Vaccarelli around the workshop,” the Doctor said, putting his arm around the merchant. Then, “Fabbro, haven’t we discussed this before? What could be so urgent that you must tell the Signoria?”
“Business.”
“Your business is none of their business,” he said with a kindly smile. “Nobody stops you from making money.”
“I have employees in all the towers you watch over, but”—for a moment he hesitated—“that’s only half the town! It’s like trying to eat with one hand tied behind my back. There’s money across the rive
r too.”
The Doctor took his arm away and started rubbing his chin. “Ah,” he said. “Fabbro, I respect you. You look after your tower and do well—”
“I can do better with a whole town, working with Vettori Vanzetti again—”
“Vanzetti doesn’t have weavers anymore.”
“He could get them.”
“How would they cross the river? What with the buio and the raiding?” The Doctor waved his hands in the air to convey the immensity of the complications he foresaw.
“I can solve problems like that—and the more I make, the more you can tax me!” Fabbro had rehearsed this conversation, considering every objection.
“Only the Signoria has the authority to tax. You make donations to my workshop.”
“Yes. Donations. Fine.”
“And what if Morello is jealous?”
“I’ll give him one,” Fabbro said impatiently.
“Problematic,” the Doctor said.
But Fabbro was too excited to stop. “We can find a way around, surely.”
“If this is all you have to say, then let me speak to the Signoria on your behalf.”
“I can speak for myself.”
“But will they listen? You know I don’t look down on new men, but Quintus Morello, some of the older Families, they see the money you make and—”
“Does my money smell? Does it hurt people? What’s so noble about fighting all the time?”
“Nothing, but it makes us dangerous folk to cross.”
Fabbro saw finally the line he had crossed. His hands dropped impotently, and his chin sank toward his chest. “I understand. My money’s good. My name is the problem.”
“No, no!” The Doctor grabbed the man’s arms, embraced and kissed him. “The point is you have me! I will be your champion.”
As Fabbro left, he saw the Doctor return to Guercho Vaccarelli with a warm smile. The deference was especially galling because he knew Vaccarelli was broke. He himself had given the old man loans he would never see paid back. But that didn’t matter, because Vaccarelli was noble. It didn’t matter how rich you became if you were unlucky enough to be born one of the Small People. At times like this, Fabbro understood why his old friend Vettori had given up a long time ago. Doc Bardini was not the one pushing against the current.
CHAPTER 11
An hour later the Doctor led his allies south. An uneasy peace held among the heads of the northside towers, but these old fighters all recognized Bardini authority. Young Valerius insisted on coming along—the truce observed while the Signoria sat was a great chance to see Rasenna’s other half. The Concordian had recovered from yesterday enough to begin bragging of the adventure, much to Sofia’s annoyance. It was downhill all the way, but Signore Vaccarelli set the group’s pace, so it was late afternoon by the time they reached the river and found Giovanni’s rope bridge in place.
“Where is he?” said Valerius, impatient to see his newly arrived countryman.
Sofia shot him a disdainful look, wondering the same thing. She saw him then—on the other bank, talking with the southside boy—and at almost the same moment, Giovanni waved. He bounded onto the bridge (it was just three taut ropes, one to walk across, the others for balance) and made his way across.
When he came within earshot, Sofia called, “You said you’d be waiting.”
“Sorry. Pedro kept me,” he said, leaping down.
“Pedro? You made a new friend.”
Hearing the playfulness in her voice, Valerius frowned, regarding Giovanni with hostility and a sense of familiarity that was odd because Concordian nobles and engineers rarely mixed.
“He had many questions,” said Giovanni.
“He’s not the only one. Captain, my guardian.”
Giovanni bowed. “Pleased to meet you, Doctor Bardini. General Luparelli sends his regards.”
“Ah! Nice to be remembered by an old student. This is the general’s son, Valerius.”
“Did Father have any word for me?”
Giovanni began awkwardly, “I’m afraid he didn’t mention—”
“No matter,” Valerius said blithely. “This bridge doesn’t look much, Captain. How do we know we won’t end sleeping with the buio?”
“It’s temporary but sound. Care to try it?”
The Doctor climbed up without hesitation and shouted to the others, “What are you waiting for?”
The northsiders had assurance of safe passage, but nothing could make them feel safe south of the Irenicon. When they reached land, flags went up and they traversed the empty expanse of Piazza Luna like explorers in a hostile land where every looming tower held enemies, not countrymen.
Only the Doctor was unperturbed, walking as if he had merely chosen an unusual route for his evening passeggiata. Adopting the role of host, he led Giovanni toward an antique templelike palazzo sitting precariously on the piazza’s crumbling edge. The building he grandly described as the Rasenneisi Senate was supported laboriously by an uneven row of stone pillars of pale green, like sodden old bread sticks.
The Palazzo della Signoria’s remoteness from the center of old Rasenna showed how little the Scaligeri had paid attention to the collective voice of other towers; it was also the reason it had survived the Wave—survived, though not escaped: to reach the Speakers’ Chamber, the men had to wade through a braccia of stagnant water. The mildew encasing the outer hall’s pillars like tired ivy and the way the pillars were doubled in the inky cold water made normally unimaginative men see the Speakers’ Chamber as an ancient, mottled crypt within a winter forest, a crypt wherein the quick petitioned the unheeding dead. Sitting in their sodden shoes, they yearned to adjourn even before they had begun, and now meetings were called only in crisis, so loathed was the Chamber.
Giovanni glanced at the old Rasenneisi crest on the door as they entered. Gold leaf was peeling from the crudely carved Lion, and the red was barely visible. He felt ashamed that his country left vanquished enemies alive only from the neck up, with enough blood to generate income but not a drop more.
As they came to the Chamber door, the Doctor whispered, “Captain, know that people will say things in here intending the opposite. If you need help—and I think you will—come see me. I’m a good friend.”
Giovanni had sensed tension talking to the boy and the Contessa. Like this rotting palazzo, Rasenna was on a precipice, and contrary to the Apprentices’ recommendation, he believed he must maintain independence if he was to accomplish his mission. He said nothing but pulled his sleeve from the Doctor’s grasp.
Amused, the Doctor let him go ahead. “Keep an eye on the wolf cub,” he whispered to Sofia.
She took Valerius’s arm. “Come along, principino. The town fathers tend to express themselves undiplomatically.”
Valerius laughed. “About Concord? Now I really want in.”
To the left of the Chamber door were three high steps leading to a small landing where a bust of Sofia’s grandfather stood sentry. Above Count Scaligeri’s sage portrait hung a swarm of family crests, a checkered field of faded green, scarlet, and yellow overrun by creatures fantastic as griffins, mundane as swine. They belonged to Rasenna’s Families, those whose rarefied blood entitled them to sit in the Signoria and made them eligible to be elected gonfaloniere. This niche had become a shabby shrine to old Rasenna, a reminder of how many once-great towers had fallen. Sofia led Valerius there, just far enough from the Speakers’ Chamber to prevent eavesdropping.
She was surprised, pleasantly, to find Gaetano Morello waiting there too. She guessed the stout, happy pale-haired boy with him was the Morello’s Contract this year; just like her, Gaetano had been relegated to baby-sitting. She marched over with a lopsided grin, twirling her flag around her arm.
“Well, well.”
Gaetano smiled. “Contessa.”
“If it isn’t the terror of Rasenna.”
“Don’t start.”
“So what’s the next stage of the Morello master plan, Tano? Overthrow t
he Apprentices?”
“All right, get it out of your system. How come you haven’t been making a nuisance of yourself lately?”
Sofia leaned against the wall. “The usual. Doc’s got me on the leash.”
“We should trade places. I think I got demoted to foot soldier this morning.”
Sofia laughed. “Your brother returned in one piece?”
“Not quite,” said Gaetano, glancing at his student. The boy was placidly cleaning a set of glass-ringed disks. “Never mind that. Allow me to—”
The boy perched the glasses on his nose and interrupted, “Contessa! The renown of your noble name precedes you, but of your beauty I heard not a whisper! Count Marcus Marius Messallinus, at your service.”
Sofia smiled at the round little boy bursting with old-fashioned chivalry. “Pleasure. Don’t listen to a word Tano tells you. The Morello fight like girls.”
The notary’s ink-stained spidery fingers drifted over the leather cover of the Rasenneisi Signoria’s Book of Minutiae and Procedure. Like him it was a yellowing relic, and he loved it. He opened it with the light touch of devotion. So long had it been since the last session that a dust cloud escaped. He inhaled with relish and let the rest settle on him as he looked around the Speakers’ Chamber.
On his right, the heads of southern Families encircled this year’s gonfaloniere, speaking in whispers. The notary wondered if Quintus Morello appreciated the irony of being gonfaloniere of a town that no longer possessed a banner. Doubtful, he decided, and, sighing more profoundly, he turned to his left, where Bardini’s unruly and noisy allies lounged. A reluctant parliamentarian, the Doctor sat toward the back and spoke only when called upon, and even then under protest.
The notary’s family members were not artisans or fighters: they were literate. That skill was little valued today, but there had been a golden age when Rasenna’s swift heralds had daily ridden forth carrying Count Scaligeri’s words—strong words elegantly inscribed—to all Etruria. Then his family members had carried their humpbacks as proudly as other families carried banners. That age was gone.
The Doctor was early. Today was certainly unusual. The assembly watched as he led the Concordian engineer to the center. While the seated areas were covered, the Speakers’ circle was open to the elements, the shattered dome creating an accidental but perfect spotlight for orators. The notary was disappointed at the hush caused by the foreigner’s arrival. He particularly enjoyed banging his gavel.
