Fires of the Faithful (25 page)

“Yes, signore,” I said.

“You see?” He was speaking to Lucia again.

“Don’t tell me,” Lucia said. “I was on your side all along.”

I looked at Lucia. “Lucia, he—”

“We heard,” Lucia said. “Tent walls are thin. And you may be right, but give it some time. Beneto is a reasonable man, but you’ve only just joined us. Give it some time.”

Lucia took me for a walk later along the hillside around the entire camp. “This is as far as we can go,” she said. “Any farther, and they’d have to shoot us.” She indicated the soldiers who patrolled the edge of the hill.

“Do you know any of the soldiers?” I asked.

“Many of them. By name and reputation, at least. I can’t say I’ve ever exchanged many words with Niccolo.” Her lips tightened. “And I try to keep out of Teleso’s way.”

“Niccolo.” The name rang a bell. “I think I saw him. He was serving food, and caught a boy trying to steal the ration chits. The other soldier wanted to let him go, but—”

“Niccolo turned him in. I know. He’d have volunteered to flog the boy himself, if he’d been on duty then. Charming man, Niccolo.”

“Not all the soldiers are like that.”

“No.” She waved as we passed one soldier along the hill. He glanced around to see if anyone was watching and then trotted down the slope to greet us. “Most of them come from Verdia, just like the rest of the people here. They joined the army for the duration of the war, and most of them feel that they’ve been double-crossed … being sent down here instead of getting their bonus and being released from their oath to the Emperor.
Nobody
wants to be here. Even Niccolo.”

“Hey,” the soldier said, joining us. “You’ve settled in fast.” I realized it was the soldier who’d brought me here—what was his name?

“Mario,” I said. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Did you find your family?” he asked me.

“No.”

“I’m sorry.” He looked genuinely bereaved. There was an awkward pause.

“I heard you playing your violin for the Ravenessi the other afternoon,” Mario said. “I was wondering, could you come play in the barracks some evening? I can’t promise everyone would stay awake for you, but I would.”

“I’d be honored to play for you,” I said.

“Good. Tomorrow night? After sunset?”

I nodded. “Tomorrow night would be fine.”

“I’ll meet you in the piazza. You’ll need an escort to get into the barracks.”

Belatedly, I threw a glance at Lucia, worried that I’d just made a mistake, but she didn’t seem concerned. There was a threatening shout, and Mario jumped. “I need to get back to patrolling,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow night!”

We continued around Ravenna. I had seen Ravenna from the hillside before, but it had been quiet and almost calm in the twilight. In the bright light of midday, Ravenna crawled with activity like an anthill, even though few of the people could have had anywhere to go. The tents were a garish assortment of ragtag colors, muted by the accumulated dust; few of them were more than shoulder height at their tallest point. The keep stuck out jarringly, like a giant boulder in a burned-over prairie.

“In a way,” Lucia said, “the soldiers are prisoners here as much as we are, even if they’re fed better.” She gazed at the keep. “Except for Teleso. He has friends in Cuore; he could go home if he liked, but he’s happy to play Emperor here in his own little capital.” She pushed her hair back behind one ear. “The Fedeli don’t come here because they fear what it means when they can’t use the Lady’s Gift; the Circle doesn’t come here because they fear their own
powerlessness. And the rest of the world is happy enough to forget about us, which is just fine with Teleso.”

“Why are
you
here?” I asked. “Even if the Fedeli in Varena are after you, you must have other options. Is it because of Beneto and Jesca and their reform movement?”

Lucia shrugged. “Not really. Maybe a bit. I’m here because I think that God wants me to be here.”

“How did you get in trouble with the Fedeli?”

“Can’t you guess?” She grinned. “That’s not fair. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you sometime, I promise, but it’s a long story and right now I want to finish our walk. Are you really going to go play for the soldiers tomorrow night?”

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

Lucia shook her head. “I try to steer clear of Teleso, and that’s not always easy in the barracks or the keep. But you should be fine with Mario looking after you. He’s a nice boy.”

As we were finishing our circle, Michel—the young man that Giovanni had been trying to train on sword—trotted up. “Eliana,” he said.

“Michel,” Lucia said. “You’re supposed to be in training.”

Michel shrugged and gave me a broad grin. “Yeah,” he said. “Might as well go rabbit hunting in the Ravenna piazza, for all the good it’ll do me.” He hooked his thumbs on his belt, an extremely worn brown sash. “I like being told I can fight the way I’m used to. I wasn’t so bad at it, back before.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You were probably a brigand that preyed on travelers to Pluma, weren’t you?” I glared at him mildly and he gave me a grin back. “Where are you from?”

“Merela.” My expression must have been blank, because Michel shrugged. “It was a pretty small village.”

“Michel,” I said. “The key isn’t just learning to fight, it’s learning to fight
together
. Like the army already knows how to do.”

“Can you teach us that?” he asked.

“I’m a musician. You need somebody who knows
fighting
to teach you that.”

“You seemed to know something about fighting yesterday.”

“I know something about
sticks
,” I said. “And unlike certain people, I’m not completely devoid of common sense. But fighting like an army—” I spread my hands wide. “I might be able to teach you to play like an orchestra.”

Michel laughed. He had a nice laugh. “I’d still take you as an arms master over Giovanni.”

“Give me a couple of weeks,” I said, and he grinned again and hiked off back down the slope.

Later that afternoon, Lucia started teaching me her Old Way songs, beginning with a prayer for rain. It had a strong beat, like all the Old Way music I’d heard, and shifted between a sweet and a sad sound.

“Maybe I shouldn’t play this one,” I said. “I sure don’t want rain right now.” Ravenna in the rain would turn from a bowl of dust and ashes to a sodden mud-laden heap. I didn’t even want to think about what winter must have been like here.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lucia said. “God knows we have to practice sometimes.”

I played the piece through, and Lucia showed me the dance steps, though she didn’t try to make me learn them. “You said you learned songs and some prayers at the conservatory,” she said. “Did you ever participate in a true ritual?”

I laid my violin aside gently. “No,” I said. “But my roommate, Mira, formed a group to play the songs together.
One time another friend of mine, Bella, got word that her sister had died, and we played the funeral music. Bella went on to become Redentore. The Fedeli killed her.”

I’d expected more questions about Bella, but instead Lucia asked, “Who was Mira?”

I pulled away, startled. “Why do you want to know?”

Lucia looked at me steadily. “Something in your face when you mentioned her name.”

I shrugged and lowered my eyes. “My roommate. I told you.”

“All right, then.”

I wanted to change the subject. “How did Beneto and Jesca end up here? Did someone up in Cuore not like them?”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Everyone likes Beneto and Jesca. For them, it was a choice between being third or fourth somewhere more comfortable, or being leaders here. They’re idealistic. They thought they could make a difference.”

“Do they still?”

“I think they do, yes.”

I hugged my knees and rested my chin on my arms. “What do you mean by being third or fourth somewhere else? Like Giovanni is here?”

“More or less. There are cells, you see. Each place. Each cell has a leader, and that leader has a second, and there might be a third, and fourth, and so on. Here it stops with Giovanni. They have a general, Beneto; his second-in-command, Jesca; and their lieutenant, Giovanni.”

“What about you and Rafi?” I asked.

“You can’t command among the reformers unless you were a student at the university. Rafi was a farmer, and I was never a student. I’m in the right class, so if I made a
fuss, they’d probably make me a fourth, under Giovanni. But I’m not that desperate to be an official leader.”

“Why would you need to go to the university for
this
?” I was astonished.

“It was university scholars who realized the connection between magery and the famine. When the Circle tried to stifle that knowledge, it was students who started the reform movement.” She glanced at me. “It’s much more complex than I’ve made it sound.” She sketched in the dust. “There are twenty different ‘armies’ that basically consist of a bunch of officers and whomever they can round up and convince to follow them. They all report to a centralized committee. Beneto and Jesca aren’t supposed to do anything other than recruit unless they get orders, or at least permission, from the high committee.”

“Lady’s tits,” I said. “They’ve organized the movement like the messenger service.”

Lucia grinned. “In theory, anyway. In practice … well, like everyone else, the reformer leaders don’t like to come down here, and there’s no real good way to get messages back and forth. Sometimes Beneto sends Giovanni to sneak out and go to Pluma to send a message, but that’s risky and Giovanni’s not willing to do it that often. So in practice Beneto is pretty much on his own.”

I shook my head. “How many of these other armies have any actual followers?”

“Maybe a few.”

“And somehow, they’re going to overthrow the Circle?”

“That’s the idea,” Lucia said.

I stared at her for a long moment. “Giovanni’s not the only one of you who’s crazy. What do you think of all this?”

“I believe that God wants us to win, so we will.” She met my eyes and smiled slowly, and once again her eyes sparkled with light from within. “Somehow.”

Lucia and I lined up early for dinner; once we were done, I picked up my violin and went to the keep to meet Mario. The piazza was almost deserted. “We’re all still eating dinner,” Mario said as I walked up. “I’ve arranged some for you, too. Come on.”

The army barracks was a long narrow building next to Teleso’s keep. Inside, it was spare and crowded, just one long room lined with bunk beds. A narrow table ran the length of the room, and the soldiers sat on the benches, finishing their dinners. The room was brightly lit with torches, and noisy with conversation. Mario made one of the soldiers scoot down the bench, clearing a spot for me on the end, and set down a bowl of soup and a slice of bread, the first bread I’d had since leaving the conservatory. “You can eat before you play for us.”

The soup smelled delicious, of meat and carrots and onions. I downed it in minutes, mopping up the last of the broth with the bread, and was left feeling vaguely guilty for not trying to find a way to take some home to Rafi and Lucia. “Done?” Mario asked. “Do you want any more?”

“I’m full,” I said. I was.

“Right, then,” he said, and stood up. “May I present,” he said, making a grand gesture, “Signora Eliana, Premier Concert Violinist of Ravenna.” Most of the soldiers applauded; some of the men sitting at the table moved over to their bunks and got comfortable to listen, pulling off their boots and flopping down. I spotted Niccolo on a bunk in the far corner; he watched me through half-lidded eyes.

I pulled one of the unoccupied benches over to the end of the room and hopped up on it, so that everyone would
be able to see me. I started off with one of the folk songs I’d learned with Mira. Everyone recognized it, and joined in on the chorus. “Any requests?” I asked when I was done. Someone shouted out another folk tune, and I started off on that.

I played for hours, with Mario filling a glass of wine for me when I got thirsty. “Lights out is at midnight,” he said finally. “We should call it a night.”

“You’ll come play for us again, won’t you?” one of the younger soldiers asked.

“Yes,” I said, returning his smile. “The food’s better here.” I stepped down off the bench and started to pack up my violin.

“Wait,” Mario said. “Aren’t you going to pass your hat?” I looked at him blankly. “They didn’t teach you that at the conservatory? I suppose they expected you to join an ensemble. When you entertain, you should pass your hat. Here, I’ll lend you mine.” He handed me his helmet, then pounded on the table to get the attention of the audience. “This is Eliana’s hat,” he announced, “and she’s
passing
it.” He took it back, fished something out of his pocket to drop in, and passed it along. When it had made the rounds, he deposited the contents into a cloth sack and handed it to me, reclaiming his helmet. “Let me know the next time you want to come play,” he said as he escorted me out. “We’ll be waiting.”

I was fairly certain I knew the way back to Rafi’s tent, but all the same, I was relieved to see Lucia waiting for me in the piazza. “They passed a hat,” I said, holding up the sack.

“Let’s see,” she said. In the slight moonlight, I poked through. Several dozen ration chits. “Why do soldiers have ration chits?” I asked.

Lucia shrugged. “Ration chits here are as good as
money,” she said. “People steal them, trade them, forge them … the soldiers are issued a few to use as bribes and rewards, when necessary. But, you know, there’s a black market. How do you think we got the wine for Mass?”

Two loaves of bread. A sachet of tea. A flask of wine.

I felt rich. “Let’s go home,” I said. “I want to show Rafi.”

Rafi met us at the entrance of the tent, in tears. “Thank God you weren’t here,” he said. “They’ve arrested Beneto and Jesca.”