The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy)

by Aidan Harte

  ‘Ah. Rasenna can only have one princess.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Donna Bombelli, grabbing her daughter by the arm and marching her back to Palazzo Bombelli. ‘Wait till I tell your father …’

  ‘Madonna, that girl.’ Levi whistled in relief. ‘I’d rather face the remaining Concordian legions than her tongue. Did she upset you?’

  Sofia was breathing through her nose with a strange look on her face. Her normal olive skin paled and she suddenly rushed to the balustrade and retched into the river. She coughed and spat and rubbed her mouth before looking up. ‘Merda.’

  Levi patted her back. ‘Something you ate?’

  ‘Didn’t have breakfast.’

  ‘Don’t let Maddalena get to you.’

  ‘Would it be impolitic to break her nose?’

  ‘Sofia.’

  ‘I’ve just got to take it. Great.’ Sofia looked around defiantly until the curious turned back to their business. ‘I’m just not used to it, to these—’

  ‘—bitches?’ Levi offered.

  ‘They silently hated me because I was free to do things they couldn’t. Now that the Families are gone, they feel free to insult me. Come up the tower. We’ll get some breakfast.’

  She rarely called it Tower Scaligeri, though it was hers now. She still half-expected to see Doc Bardini’s watchful silhouette on the rooftop, looking over Rasenna and spinning his plans. Everything else was the same – the workshop full of fighters, boys and young men, bandieratori learning the Art Bandiera, training with sticks until they were ready for flags …

  As they climbed the hill, Levi complained in his droll way about Fabbro’s apathy. ‘He doesn’t see the urgency. I’ve never seen him move fast unless there’s some gold in it.’

  Sofia shared Levi’s anxieties, but she let him talk. She was still feeling a little queasy, but there was more: she remembered the Doc’s informal meetings, where he had corralled consensus. Growing up, she’d never questioned his reasoning – Bardini interests were Scaligeri interests, and so Rasenna’s – but now she knew better. The Signoria must speak for all Rasenna not just one tower. Finally she interrupted. ‘Say this in the Palazzo del Popolo. I’ll back you.’ But even that was too much, and she immediately regretted it. Prior agreements rendered the Signoria meaningless. It ended with two parties blocking their ears to each other’s arguments, every issue decided by who could buy the most votes. It was still the violence of the strong against the weak, only a tad more civilised than bandieratori fighting it out on the rooftops.

  When they reached the tower, Sofia popped into the workshop to check on her boys.

  ‘Porca miseria! What’s this?’ she cried when she found them trading fight stories instead of paired off in tight rows and sparring. She broke the little groups up with a clap of her hands. ‘You’d think you don’t need practise!’

  It was still marvellous to Levi. His condottieri were some of Etruria’s best-drilled soldiers and he knew the difficulties of coordinating any group of men in the twilight confusion of battle. The first time he’d first seen a troop of bandieratori was at the siege of Rasenna: a moving mass of colour, swooping in syncopated moves like a great serpent writhing on the dusty battlefield. The discipline of the individual within the chaotic mêlée had seemed nothing short of miraculous. In the year the Hawk’s Company had been stationed in Rasenna, he’d come to understand the thoroughness of bandieratori training, seeing how devoutly the basic sets were drilled, how obsessively minor infelicities were corrected, how reflexes and improvisation were honed as Sofia’s boys rose to the challenge. Doc Bardini was gone, but they had her and Uggeri to show them what was possible.

  Levi knew it had been a necessary discipline, that without Art Bandiera, Rasenna would have destroyed itself centuries ago. Rasenna’s beauty was not docile or retreating, and her emblem was no accident: these people were lions. They must scream and howl, break glass and beat drums. Since the day he had agreed to become Podesta, one question had plagued him: his job was to make war on Rasenna’s enemies and to keep the peace within her walls – but how long can there be peace between lions and hawks?

  Sofia was looking about for Tommaso Sorrento, Rosa’s brother, to tell him he’d just become an uncle.

  ‘He’s gone to the Lion’s Fountain.’

  ‘Bit early …’ Sofia wasn’t annoyed; the boy was entitled to celebrate, and he’d probably cleared it with Uggeri – but where was Uggeri?

  ‘With Tommaso,’ said one of the boys carelessly, and Sofia froze. Uggeri drinking in the middle of the day? That didn’t sound right. Then she noticed that three of the older students were gone too.

  She looked at Levi and swore, ‘Madonna!’ She grabbed a flag from the rack and raced for the door. ‘Levi, I can’t wait for you!’

  ‘Don’t! Go!’

  CHAPTER 23

  An hour past midday, when cats yawn and even lizards find shade. Red-slate-capped towers burn like lynch-mob torches. Men creep home like ghouls, keeping to the dark side of the alleys. For an hour the city is dead, streetside and topside.

  The noonday sun reigned in perfect silence everywhere but the Lion’s Fountain. There the hours passed unnoticed. The tavern had grown with its clientele, expanding into something more than an unsanitary hole in the wall. Bocca, the proprietor, was a beer-bellied red-nosed cur, known to everyone as the brewer. He was founder and self-elected prior of the Vintners’ Guild, which had recently become important enough to merit (or wealthy enough to buy) a seat in the Palazzo del Popolo. Some things hadn’t changed; the wine was still wretched and nights in the cramped piazzetta still ended with the customary brawls, only now the fights were not between Rasenneisi but bandieratori and condottieri. The debris of last night’s revels – unconscious bodies, broken stools, shattered glass – hadn’t yet been cleared when the next wave came for their morning glass: sweet wine for bandieratori, beer and spirits for the foreigners.

  Piers Becket had a rusty Anglish look and brute manners to match. He was young and strong and had boyish blue eyes, and he would have cut an impressive figure were it not for the helmet he always wore to cover the patch where his straw-like red hair was thinning. The condottiere was popular with the old inner circle who had set out with John Acuto from the Northern Isles. Like them he was a sailor – or pirate; the distinction was academic – as well as a soldier; military men in Europa, Frankish and Anglish alike, were necessarily both. Tired of starving on small fish, Becket had joined one of the passing condottieri bands that were gravitating towards Etruria and its bull-market of warring states and there he jumped ship again, this time to join the celebrated Hawk’s Company.

  ‘I never regretted that decision until now,’ he said. ‘If I’d wanted to die of boredom in a town garrison I’d have stayed at home.’

  ‘How did we go so wrong?’ a fellow drinker burbled.

  The question was rhetorical, but Becket had the answer: ‘Levi. We should have collected our gold and moved on the moment we destroyed the Twelfth. Waiting here, doing nothing, we’re not only passing up the cream of the year’s Contracts, we’re giving Concord time to regroup.’

  ‘Concord’s done,’ said a bandieratoro sitting at the next table, ‘and, as I recall, the Twelfth were destroying you until we showed up.’

  ‘Your flags were a nice distraction, boy, I’ll give them that,’ Becket said genially. ‘All that noise and colour – why, it was like carnival! But don’t take credit for our victory. That was a battle, not a street fight.’

  The Rasenneisi table scoffed, but it was uneasy laughter. The absence of a common enemy, and of any objective other than defence, sat uneasily with both groups, who had nothing to occupy their time now but sterile arguments over precedence.

  ‘Congratulations, then,’ said a different Rasenneisi voice.

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said Becket looking around. He leapt to his feet, hand on his sword. ‘What do you want?’

  Uggeri didn’t frequent the Lion’s Fountain, or a
ny other tavern, but more than one condottiere had learned not to cross this born fighter. He coolly indicated the bandieratoro beside him.

  ‘Your new brother-in-law, Tommaso Sorrento, wants to congratulate you.’ The boy was slightly older, but unlike Uggeri, he was quivering with fury, skin pale, lips tight as the grip on his flag.

  ‘What’s this about?’ Becket said indignantly, his blue eyes darting around the piazzetta to confirm the proportion of condottieri to bandieratori was in his favour.

  It wasn’t hard to follow Becket’s calculations. Uggeri thumped his stick smartly on the cobblestones. ‘Keep swords and flags out of this. It’s very simple: Rosa Sorrento is waiting. Do the right thing. Give your son a name.’

  ‘Get lost before I spank you with the flat of my sword. I came here to drink, not listen to baseless accusations from impertinent boys.’

  ‘If you’re worried about money, Tower Sorrento’s doing well.’

  ‘Look, Rosa’s a friendly girl – if she said I showed her favour, then I can assure you I wasn’t the first. I’m a condottiere. I already have a worn-out saddle. Tommaso here will have to find another rube to marry his slut of a sister.’ He gestured wide. ‘Try any of these gentlemen. Their claim’s at least as good as mine.’

  The condottiere’s speech had started with catcalls and hooting. It ended in a long silence. Uggeri alone did not look surprised. He stood to one side and gently led Tommaso forward, like a set-dancer swapping position. At Uggeri’s touch, Tommaso jerked to life and threw himself roaring at Becket, who, despite Uggeri’s advice, was unsheathing his sword even as he fell back in his chair. When he landed, his sword came free, but he had lost his grip. He reached for it, but Tommaso’s stick came down hard on his hand with a sound like thickly piled stones crunching. Becket screamed, but Tommaso was on him, using his legs to hold down Becket’s arms as he punched his face repeatedly.

  Uggeri stood guard in case any condottiere attempted to aid their colleague. One of the three Becket was drinking with made a half-hearted lunge, but a swift parietal-tap dropped him. The other two leaped back, fumbling for their blades, as Uggeri vaulted over the table. He landed with a flourish, using his flag both to conceal his body and confuse their sense of space. Other condottieri tables were getting to their feet; he had to be quick. His foot sank into the first’s stomach, doubling him over into the end of a waiting flag. The stick rebounded and Uggeri turned it, catching the base against the second’s chin just as he was about to swing his sword.

  Three down. Uggeri had always been dangerous, but under Sofia’s tutelage he’d become lethal. He glared at the other tables of condottieri. Those already standing exchanged glances and sat down to their drinks; clearly this was a family matter. For a minute there was no other sound in the piazzetta than the sweet, shrill cries of swallows and the wet, heavy rhythm of Tommaso beating Becket’s face to pulp.

  ‘Uggeri! Tommaso!’ Sofia shouted from a rooftop overlooking the piazzetta. ‘Flags down.’ Uggeri swore under his breath and watched his teacher nimbly drop from construction hand-holds and windowsills to the ground. As she landed, Levi appeared from a northern alleyway, out of breath.

  Uggeri blocked Levi’s way.

  ‘Stand aside,’ Levi said.

  ‘Your man took advantage of a Rasenneisi woman. This is justice.’

  ‘Justice is what your Podesta says it is. Stand aside!’

  Uggeri’s flag went up, but Levi had been around Sofia too long to try a sword against a bandieratoro, or let him get any distance. He pushed the arm holding the stick aside and punched Uggeri hard in the face. The other condottieri had taken courage on seeing their leader arrive and now they grabbed Uggeri’s arms as he stumbled back and pinned him to a table.

  ‘Tommaso, basta!’ Sofia said. The bandieratoro looked up at her, his eyes dull, his face speckled with Becket’s blood, and drew back his fist again. Sofia kicked his exposed ribs and he fell off. She took a mug from a table and knocked back its contents as she walked to the fountain. She filled it with water, turned and poured it on Becket’s head. Enough blood washed off to reveal the landscape of swollen, broken skin.

  She walked over to where the condottieri held Uggeri. ‘Let him go.’

  They looked to Levi, who nodded.

  Uggeri pulled his arms free and faced Sofia.

  ‘When are you going to get smart?’ she hissed, ‘You’re not just embarrassing yourself, you’re embarrassing Tower Scaligeri – Doc’s tower!’

  He was shorter than her, but he raised his chin defiantly. Sofia slapped him with an open palm. It was more noisy than painful, but there was enough boy in Uggeri yet to be shamed by the public admonition. With a glance at Levi, she grabbed Uggeri and led him away.

  As Levi took Tommaso Sorrento by the arm, he realised the boy was numbed by what he’d done. He followed Sofia, pausing only to tell his men, ‘Wait for me back at the fortezza. Dio Impestato! You’ve better things to do in the middle of the day than drink!’ But he knew that wasn’t true. Just as he knew that an army without a war will soon invent one.

  CHAPTER 24

  ‘Sure you won’t take some wine? A little glass?’

  Donna Soderini was younger than Donna Bombelli, but she didn’t look it. She dressed with the traditional simplicity of a carder’s wife, and had the usual pinched, hungry look. She had been a dyer before she married, and the alum and salt steam had wrought the usual damage on her lungs. She spoke in a breathless whisper. ‘All I ask is that you convince your husband.’

  ‘About what?’ said Fabbro, coming back into the courtyard of his palazzo.

  The two women, who had been sitting at the banco, leapt up. The carder’s wife had the look of a discovered thief. ‘Gonfaloniere!’

  ‘Please, Donna Soderini – how many years have I known your husband? Call me Fabbro and tell me what problem’s so grave that you must enlist my wife’s help? I must have sinned grievously that you would set her tongue on me.’

  His attempt to put the woman at ease failed. Donna Bombelli squeezed her hand and answered for her, ‘It’s simple, amore. Tower Soderini is having difficulty making ends meet on the money you pay.’

  ‘I pay fairly,’ Fabbro exclaimed. ‘When Pedro Vanzetti sold his wool contracts to me, he made me promise I would continue paying Guild rates. I’m a fair man so I agreed. What’s your complaint?’

  The woman took a deep breath before letting the rehearsed words tumble out. ‘You pay what was fair two years ago – even if bread still cost what it used to, now there are twice as many carders and spinners.’

  ‘And four times as much work! The rain falls on everyone.’

  ‘But it’s not distributed evenly.’

  ‘That’s my fault? I give work to those who deliver orders, on time and with good quality. Donna Soderini, your husband’s a good man – a reliable man. But his operation is, frankly, old-fashioned, and other towers win contracts that he might have. There are rewards for ambition.’

  The woman’s face darkened at the implication that her husband’s problems were his own creation. ‘My husband does things the old way, to the Vanzetti standard. The new towers produce more wool, but the quality’s not there. Why should we be punished for doing good work?’

  Fabbro almost laughed. ‘You’re looking at it the wrong way!’

  Donna Bombelli looked at her husband with recrimination. ‘Fabbro, you’ve often said Rasenna’s reputation for quality is the only thing that lets us compete with Ariminum.’

  ‘It was the only thing. Now we have scale.’ Fabbro’s kindly manner was turning hostile. ‘So what do you want from me, Donna Soderini? More money? Then it comes from my pocket. I suppose that’s fairer?’

  ‘Oh, Fabbro! You know quite well there’s no comparison. You can trade in different cities according to demand. You can store merchandise until there’s a fair price. The Soderini don’t have that luxury. They have to sell their work at today’s price.’

  Fabbro was piqued at his wife’s indiscreti
on. ‘I remind you, my little winter flower, who pays for your wardrobes of elegant furs, the feasts you throw, this palazzo. Would you rather Giuseppe Soderini got it instead? I have sacrificed the crutch of my old age, sending my boys to the four corners of the map to expand the Bombelli banco and Rasenna’s fortunes. I lose shipments every month, to Tyrrhenian pirates, Anglish routiers, Frankish écorcheurs and Bavarian bandits.’

  ‘Fabbro, they’re all insured with Ariminumese brokers.’

  ‘Madonna! Is this my wife or a communard before me? If I paid your husband more, Donna Soderini, how long before other towers came knocking? A week, perhaps? A day? No, the wool Guild sets prices, and sets them fairly.’

  ‘Fair to you,’ she said bitterly. ‘If we carders had a Guild we’d set a different price.’

  Donna Bombelli turned around to stare at her friend. The silence was broken when Fabbro took a little bell and rang it.

  Donna Bombelli took a step closer to her husband and said, ‘Only the Signoria can create a Guild.’

  ‘But only Guild members sit in the Palazzo del Popolo,’ the woman protested.

  ‘The Signoria can only function if it represents those with a stake in society,’ said Fabbro paternally. ‘Come, if every crumbling tower with nothing to lose had a say, how long before Rasenna came to ruin? They’d make decisions on a whim.’

  ‘That’s what Lord Morello used to say.’

  Fabbro’s fat cheeks glowed like an anvil. ‘Things are different now! We’re not nobles trading on dead names. We’re men who prosper by wit and graft.’

  ‘—who’ve cleverly arranged it so that others cannot!’

  ‘Donna Soderini, does your husband know you’re here?’ said Donna Bombelli coldly.

  Fabbro stood and walked around his banco. ‘I thought not.’ He took the woman’s hands gently. ‘I suggest you attend to your children. If your husband wishes to, he can petition the Signoria.’

  ‘One carder’s petition will not be heard.’