Spira Mirabilis

by Aidan Harte

  ‘Thank you, no.’

  ‘Then what’s bothering you? You’ve a face like a slapped arse.’

  He stamped his foot. ‘The deck is obscenely level.’

  ‘So I can shoot straight.’

  ‘Exactly. You’re using my flagship as a platform. It’s like using a sceptre to swat a fly.’

  ‘If you lack the stomach for this—’

  The Moor leaned on the railings and watched fires bloom in the distant city. ‘I was born at the foot of the Atlas Mountains where the lions roam. From the first I have known the breadth and cruelty of the world, but this ignoble business of calculating arcs and slight adjustments—’ He paused and sighed again. ‘Without the element of chance, war is so … grey.’

  Leto laughed. ‘You’re a romantic.’

  The Moor made another impatient round, then tried another tack. ‘Your wheedling fool of a quartermaster advises that loading the hold with so much powder is unsafe.’

  ‘Since when are you worried about regulations? Besides, you’ve seen the range of the Veian cannons. There’s no danger.’ Leto covered his ears as the mortar fired again and emerged from a cloud of yellow smoke, coughing. ‘Ah, that wonderful smell!’ he said. ‘It reminds me of my Guild Hall days. That’s where I learned that Labor Vincit Omnia. Nothing in the world is so strong that it can withstand consistently applied pressure.’

  ‘I thought you just butchered corpses in that place.’

  ‘We dissected earthly bodies as practise. Dissecting the perfect shapes that cannot exist in our sub-lunar world takes great skill – take, for example, the cone. To understand how cannon-shot falls, one must slice it into its constituents – the ellipse, the parabola, and so on. It was Apollonius of—’

  The Moor’s monstrous yawn interrupted his discourse. ‘Very fascinating, General, but I can resist my hammock’s siren song no longer. Wake me if anyone needs to be dispatched at closer quarters.’

  *

  Though the future hammered on Veii’s walls, older rhythms played on inside. The town elders, representing the voices of the Small People, stood silently behind Duke Grimani as always as he opened ceremonies with a prayer to Saint Eligius. The rain of explosive shells made both horses and citizens skittish, and the duke had his personal guard block the exit to the horseshoe piazza to ensure everyone stayed. The Palio di Veii was symbolic of Grimani rule: whatever happened, it must be run.

  The happy tolling from the bell tower sounded like a grim jest amid the bombardment, but the horses had been trained all year for those notes and they broke into a gallop before their jockeys could apply the whip. Immediately two horses collided on the slippery cobbles, and took down two more with them. One jockey shot from his saddle and flew an impressive distance before landing face-down with a sickening crunch. The soldiers moved in to dispatch the fallen: men and beasts lay tangled like the aftermath of a battle of centaurs. The corpses were dragged off together, a droll spectacle that ignited the crowd’s laughter. They forgot their hunger, the danger, how much they hated the duke, and cheered as passionately as any other year.

  Again the thunder passed by, a lunatic rainbow of green and yellow and chequered purples and gold bands and horses gnashing at each other’s necks, removing great chunks of flesh, and the jockeys using their whips on each other, then this one leans over to cut the girth and that one’s falling onto the cobbles and bones are splintering and now the two front-runners are in scarlet and midnight-blue, surging forward, and scarlet takes the turn badly and stumbles and rolls and crashes into the crowd, who are crawling over each other, trying to escape the carnage, and a cart of roast chestnuts spills out onto the cobbles and brings down the next rider and midnight-blue has a clear run now and Grimani’s mouth is foaming as he screams, ‘Avanti—!’

  As one, the tightly packed contestants leap their fallen rivals in an infernal steeplechase, and they take the last lap and thirty-something hooves strike the stone and somewhere a snare drum misses the beat and there’s a mosquito whine – can you hear it? Only the young do at first, and then it’s a whistle everyone can hear but no one can place, and then it’s a scream that comes from everywhere.

  The shell lands in the centre of the pack, sending stone and metal and legs and arms and tack and teeth shooting up into the air and the rainbow is unwoven into a single colour and the colour is red and it spatters the crowd and the few, those ones who have not been deafened, hear Duke Grimani cheering midnight-blue across the finish line.

  ‘I win! I win! I win!’

  *

  A horn blew and the gates of Veii creaked open. The town elders wandered out, stunned as newborns. They wore hair shirts and had daubed their foreheads with mud. Signor Marsuppini, the eldest of the four, was the only one with hair, though it was white as cotton. He was a crook-backed old goat with a prominent Adam’s apple. Amongst subordinates, he had a bullish manner. Now he held up a severed head and cried in a voice that could be heard over the roar of the Albula, ‘On his head our sins.’

  After some confusion, a centurion rode up to accept the delegation’s surrender. The burghers were dissatisfied; they could not act the penitent long. ‘We have exposed our broken bodies to your darts, humbled ourselves, painted our heads with filth and removed that of the devil who led us to this pass.’ Marsuppini threw the head of Duke Grimani at the soldier’s feet. ‘And by this token, we’ve earned the right to speak to General Spinther.’ Some bunting still lined the horseshoe piazza, but the course had been washed and tidied, leaving the fragmented cobblestones around the crater the only evidence of the recent disaster. Leto’s guards were made to wait outside while he was ushered inside Castello Grimani. The hall that had been the ducal court was a windowless chamber deep within. It was lit by stout candles and lined with tall niches decorated with frowning jowled busts of the Family Grimani. Every generation was represented, but for the last scion of that illustrious line; his head now graced a spike on the city gates.

  At the top of a small set of steps sat the burghers in four high chairs. The hair shirts had been replaced with sumptuous gowns. At the bottom of the steps was a long table. At one end of it sat a notary, his paper and quills at the ready. In the centre was a wine decanter and five glasses. The single stool provided for Leto was a pointed insult, but he sat without fuss.

  ‘I’m here to accept your surrender,’ he said. ‘I could remonstrate at how long it was coming, but that would be ungracious. Instead, Signori, I salute your valour and congratulate you on your wisdom. If you had not capitulated—’

  The burghers became suddenly agitated. ‘We have agreed to treat, but we do not capitulate,’ said Marsuppini pedantically. ‘If those terms do not satisfy, let the siege continue.’

  Leto sighed. Burghers were all alike: small, pretentious men who believe their small dominion to be the world entire.

  ‘A treaty may suffice if it provides the assurances my master needs. I’m sure you’d be willing to let your people starve a few more weeks, but if I have to break my way in, there will be no mercy.’

  Marsuppini glanced wryly at the others as though Leto had said something gauche. but when he turned back, he was not smiling. ‘Our walls have withstood your missiles. You think words will scare us? We Veians stand aloof from the follies of Etruria, but that doesn’t mean we are uninformed. You dare not tarry for winter will soon be upon you.’

  ‘It is already too late to continue south. One way or another, we will be boarding amongst you for the season. You should be worried about finding good terms on which we can co-habit.’

  ‘We’ve demonstrated our good faith: the birds are feeding on his eyes. What do you bring to the table, boy?’

  Leto smiled reflexively at the epitaph. He had heard it often from his adversaries and had never understood exactly why they regarded it as an insult. It crossed his mind that the birds would enjoy a few more heads— But no. A rash soldier like Geta might choose that course, but he was a Spinther; to resort to violence before exploring altern
atives was seldom necessary and always vulgar.

  He took the decanter, filled and distributed the glasses like a squire. ‘I must tell you, Signori, I have seen many civic palazzi, but Castello Grimani is the most splendid by far. I understand,’ he continued, ‘that Veii was once a republic?’

  The gesture disarmed the others, but Marsuppini remained suspicious. ‘She still is. The Signoria constitutionally appointed each Grimani as dictator.’

  ‘Indeed? Then let the next Signoria assemble here, in surroundings that reflect its dignity.’

  The suggestion pleased the burghers enormously, who were more used to being imperiously summoned to the castello or threatened with a stay in its notorious ‘basement’. To be the ones summoning and threatening would be marvellous. They exchanged quick grins before resuming their stony demeanours.

  ‘You presume to give us what we already have,’ said Marsuppini, but his manner was noticeably more civil.

  ‘Forgive my presumption. Concord allows its clients to govern themselves as they see fit.’

  A wise and prudent policy, the burghers agreed. Leto played along; for these Small People, these wretches, who had been stooped and bowed their whole lives, the smallest taste of power would prove addictive, and to keep it they would soon agree to any betrayal of their people. They fidgeted and squirmed in their seats like amateur card players who found themselves possessed of a miracle hand.

  The walls were breached.

  ‘The First Apprentice will be satisfied if Veii stands aside from this war, provides succour and supplies from time to time, and allows a small garrison be stationed within the city.’

  The bald heads drew together around Marsuppini: vulture chicks dissecting a meal. After a minute of whispering, Marsuppini popped his head up. ‘Some clarifications, General, if you please: what size garrison? To be built upon which hill? Also, “time to time” isn’t very specific; how often is that likely to be, precisely?’

  Leto excused himself briefly in order to dispatch a rider to Concord with word of Veii’s surrender. He knew he was in for a long night, but that was fine: the walls had fallen.

  CHAPTER 44

  The waves bisected the light into gleaming knives, but nothing could mitigate its merciless heat. The scuttles and hatches were open on every ship in the vain hope of catching a passing cool breeze. Tar dripped from the rigging and pitch bubbled up from the seams. The tribesmen were familiar with the sun, an old enemy, and they promptly rigged awnings over the decks and sat in the shade telling stories, sharpening their knifes, chewing khat. Only with difficulty did Khoril prevent them from lighting fires at night.

  Sofia found their listlessness strange, until Bakhbukh explained, ‘They know nothing of the sea except that it is a desert, and knowing deserts are merciless to the ignorant, they have put themselves entirely in Admiral Khoril’s hands.’

  Their notions of private property were similarly problematic; the deckhands grumbled when treasured scrimshaws and lucky dice, straw hats and sandals went missing with increasing frequency.

  ‘I’m a mariner, not a magus,’ Khoril remonstrated, ‘and I require a ship to cross the sea – so if they’d be so kind to leave the dowels in my planks—’

  Bakhbukh promised to make them behave but did nothing. The challenge of the sea affects each man differently, and he was a man adrift. Sofia had Khoril now, and Fulk, and her own restless destiny pulling her forward. He had memories of plans that had come to nothing in a land far behind and a time far gone. He had been desperate to leave the Sands, but whatever sadness he had hoped to flee had pursued him here.

  The fleet had set forth with its newly promoted admiral doggedly insisting that the whole enterprise was flawed. Once they passed Cyprus they were committed, for good or ill, and while Khoril continued to believe they were doomed, at least he ceased predicting it.

  As the tribesmen attempted to pass the hours as they would in the desert, so the Lazars attempted to replicate their Akkan life of servility and discipline. They occupied themselves with drills, loading, aiming, firing and cleaning the guns, and then again and again until every man could operate the cannon like an engineer. More usefully, at least at this point, they put their backs to the oars when the winds ebbed.

  For the tribesmen, alas, no such use could be found. ‘These fellows might be virtuoso throat-cutters, Contessa, but not one can hand, reef or steer a damn – and we’re going up against able seamen.’

  Khoril did allow that they were wonderful climbers, and as they entered cooler seas, they took to the upper rigging and hung there like bats.

  The fleet, being neither Oltremarine nor Ebionite, accepted Sofia’s suggestion and called themselves the Sirocco. It pleased them to think of themselves as incontrovertible as the wind, though – not that they would ever admit this to the Contessa – they all shared Khoril’s belief, to some degree at least, that the whole scheme was doomed.

  The Sirocco had forty ships sailing in chevron formation. Little more than half had been built for combat, and they came in a myriad of designs. The rest were converted merchant cogs. Four of the lantern ships were as grand as the Tancred, but they were instead built on the lines of Byzantine dromons, with large squared-off hulls and three rows for oarsmen. The Tancred made the point of the arrow, with the Megiddo and the Santa Terra following half a league away on either side; another half-league behind them were the Jerusalem and Ira Princeps. Within those floating walls were the transports, great broad-beamed whales carrying mostly infantry and various irregulars, besides the squires and pages of the Lazars. Whilst rigged with large sea-going sails, their navigators were careful to keep first Cyprus and Rhodes and then Crete in view as they sailed up the Middle Sea. The xebecs were interspersed between the flagships, and though they kept perfect formation with the lanterns, their captains complained of the sluggish pace.

  Sofia overruled Khoril’s initial plan, to assign the Lazars and Ebionites to different ships (lest for want of other occupation they started recalling old feuds) but his caution proved unnecessary: there was a general goodwill amongst the fleet as constant as the wind that now carried it along. The brotherhood between the tribes was remarkable enough, but between men who had been bitter opponents for generations, it was nothing short of miraculous. Sofia remembered tense nights in the Lion’s Fountain, back when Rasenna’s bridge was being built, calmed by the arrival of Giovanni, who hadn’t even needed to speak. His mere presence vanquished rancour. And so it was with Iscanno. The men came frequently aboard the Tancred to consult with Bakhbukh and Fulk, and they invariably brought gifts of carved toys and medicines their mothers had given them before they left. Sofia, knowing they really came to see Iscanno, accepted all these gewgaws with gratitude.

  Behind the islands they were passing lay the pale coastline of northern Oltremare, to where Prince Jorge was now marching, coming home to raise an army.

  ‘Or just marching home,’ said Khoril, who, Sofia was beginnng to think, positively relished predicting the worst. ‘Once he passes the Bosporus and hears the cheering crowds in the hippodrome he’ll think better, mark my words.’

  They passed Crete, but instead of the expected escort of well-armed dromons, the only person watching their approach was a solitary fisherman in a kaika.

  ‘Your prince is as trustworthy as every other Byzantine,’ Khoril crowed, not bothering to hide his pleasure at seeing his prediction borne out.

  ‘Surely that fisherman,’ Fulk observed, ‘does not encounter invasions every day?’

  ‘I wouldn’t read too much into it,’ Khoril said. ‘I doubt he’d bat an eyelid if Neptune came up and shook his hoary locks.’

  To prove his point he leaned over and saluted the little vessel. ‘Ahoy, old fellow,’ he bellowed. ‘What news?’

  ‘Oh, nothing of consequence,’ the fisherman replied. ‘The world is changeless, the land is barren, the sea is cruel. There’s a rebellion in Sicily, but what else is new? Veii has fallen and the Concordians march on Salerno. Som
e people find these events of interest, but I’m old and I lose track of who is who. Oh, there was something else – what was it? Ah yes. Young Prince Jorge says hello. He suggests you might follow me if you want a safe harbour. Good fishing.’ And without waiting for a response, he tacked about and sailed due north.

  ‘Some escort,’ Khoril muttered in embarrassment.

  Sofia asked, ‘You’re certain about this, Fulk?’

  ‘We need the Byzants, that’s certain.’

  ‘I meant about dividing our forces.’

  Khoril snorted. ‘No loss to shift ballast. Somewhere up ahead, the Moor’s waiting for us. To reach Salerno, we have to avoid or outrun him and they’re just slowing us down.’

  The transports trailed behind the little kaika, their captains wary: Thessalonika’s Claw was every bit as treacherous as the Black Hand, and the old fisherman could set the pace. He sailed on, apparently indifferent to the host in his wake.

  ‘Good riddance, says I,’ said Khoril. ‘Flatfooted land crabs won’t be no use where we’re going.’

  CHAPTER 45

  The hall flickered rancid yellow. The fat candles were exhausted, as was the notary. His quill had three times worn down and his last bottle of ink was all but dry. Several bottles of wine had been consumed during the course of the negotiation and the town fathers had grown loquacious as they settled into their new roles. Marsuppini warned that giving power to an inexperienced Signoria would be disastrous in a town trained to obey one voice, and the notary dutifully recorded his suggestion that ‘the best interim government would be a tetrarchy, preferably composed of men experienced in the vexatious art of management.’

  Although Leto thought he could guess which three heads would shortly be joining the duke’s, he made no objection. Internal squabbles in client states were not just to be expected, but encouraged.

  The notary had just blotted his final piece of paper when the hall’s great door opened suddenly.