Irenicon (13 page)

The virgin who conceived a savior who could not even save Himself. It was truly an odd story—was it odd enough to be true?

The Doctor had not raised her with a shining example of observance—he recognized no obligations, religious or otherwise, unless they profited him—but these tales were in the air in Rasenna and in the blood.

Her reverie was broken by the sound of footsteps. “Contessa, are you here to see Isabella? She’ll be pleased.”

“No. Yes. I mean—” Sofia stood to attention. “I apologize for attacking you, Sister.”

“No harm done. To me, anyway.”

“Well, it was impolite.”

There was a strained silence until the Reverend Mother said, “Why don’t you ask what you came here to ask?”

“Will you teach me?”

“I’ll think about it. Anything else?”

The crowd was still on the bridge when Sofia returned.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” said Giovanni.

“Are you a pagan?” the nun inquired.

“I’m an engineer.”

“Then be rational! What harm can an old woman do?” she said, striding onto the bridge and pulling up her sleeves. “I only wish you’d called me earlier.” She stopped abruptly at a certain point in the middle of the bridge. “Here. Let us pray,”

The crew knelt as one.

“The river has been much offended: driven from its natural course, made party to murder, by Concordians
and
Rasenneisi. This bridge will divide the river, just as the Wave divided us. Forgive us,
Madonna
, all trespasses. The hour is late and the Lord is not refused. He cannot be diverted, though He suffers Himself to be delayed. Like a river, History pushes through all obstacles; if the Lord’s will is diverted in one age, then It will be made manifest in another. Therefore, be patient, the Kingdom is at hand. The Lion awaits its brothers. Until they come, he will not wait alone. The Virgin, who has always protected Rasenna, now protects Rasenna Bridge!”

“Amen!” the crew agreed.

The nun nodded. “Less bad. Assist me, my child.” As Sofia helped her to her feet, she whispered, “We’ll start the day after tomorrow. You must bring two things . . .”

CHAPTER 24

The wind’s howling made it impossible to hear other footsteps, and until that moment Marcus Marius Messallinus had not really missed his spectacles. Losing them was a good excuse to skip the training intended to give his military career a head start. The young Concordian saw no reason to apply himself; modern generals didn’t lead so much as point the machines in the right direction.

Gaetano would never have allowed Marcus to venture alone from Palazzo Morello, but after all, Gaetano might well be part of the plot. Marcus had learned of the conspiracy only today. In the excitement of the bridge ceremony, someone had dropped a note in his hood:

What Marcus lacked in drive, he made up for in imagination. Clearly, his counterpart in the Bardini workshop had put aside rivalry to enlist his help.

He waited in the empty piazza until bells rang out across the river. He had bright visions of himself and Valerius, friends tested by battle, returning to Concord in triumph, to be congratulated by the First Apprentice. On the twelfth chime, a figure gestured on the far side of the piazza. Yes, Valerius was shrewd! If the two heroes were seen, it would alert the plotters.

An hour later he was lost in the dark, twisting backstreets and seriously worried. A strange thought was gnawing at him ever more insistently. Perhaps this “patriot” was a Rasenneisi. It had simply never occurred to Marcus that one could be loyal to a place that spawned schismatics so prodigiously—but why not? If he had learned nothing else in his time here, it was that Rasenna and contradiction were no strangers. Was it true, though? Had some Rasenneisi murderer lured him from safety this night? Wait, was that someone up ahead, at the mouth of that alley?

“Valerius?”

He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. He’d overheard stories of the headless northsider; if one ghost had risen, might not another? How many Rasenneisi had Concord drowned all those years ago? How many yearned to share their tombs? He dropped his flag and ran.

The boy had been ensconced in Palazzo Morello for the last year, and his knowledge of the streets was poor at the best of times; in the darkness it was even worse. But if he could find his way back to Piazza Luna, he could get to Palazzo Morello and safety.

Had he seen that Madonna statue before? That mural? It was pointless; they all looked the same. In trying to retrace his steps, he’d just gotten himself even more lost. The harsh sound of cloth ripping made him jump, and he called out tentatively, “Hello?”

There was no answer—then a glint of gold, his flag, torn from its stick! By whom? By what?

It danced on the wind and then, animated surely by vengeful spirits of old Rasenna, flew toward him.

The blood pounding in his ears was louder than the screaming wind. Marcus ran around corner after corner, but every time he looked back it was closer. He turned into a narrow alley and stopped.

It was a dead end where two towers leaned into each other.

“Oh,
Madonna
, help me!” he cried. He turned and—

Nothing. It was gone.

After a moment, he stuck his head out of the alley. That Madonna, painted like a doll; he recognized it! This must be Via Purgatorio, east of Piazza Luna.

In his haste, he stumbled and cracked his head on stone. He pulled himself up in a daze and saw it—

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Gold covered him, trapped him, struggle as he might. The weight on his chest was holding him down, hands on his neck were strangling him—he couldn’t escape, couldn’t breathe—

The fabric invaded his mouth, a thousand raging corpses teaching him how they had drowned . . .

As breakfast was served in the lonely luxury of Palazzo Morello, Gaetano’s men were searching every tower south of the river. He just prayed Marcus hadn’t been dumb enough to cross the bridge. Bardini would eat him alive.

“Oh, he’ll turn up, Gaetano!” His father had been unbearably garrulous since the engineer’s behavior on the bridge. The Doctor’s Concordian had turned out to be insufficiently loyal to Concord; what a great joke.

“Don’t you realize what could happen if—?”

“Oh Gaetano,
tranquillo
. The boy’s just hiding in a tower. Have a drink. Your brother’s never understood politics, has he?”

Valentino smiled.

Quintus kept going, “Either our water is potent enough to breed faction in an engineer’s heart or the fellow was eccentric to begin with.”

“Perhaps that’s why they gave him this job,” Valentino suggested, amused at his father’s heroic self-deception. The old fool had made a policy of popular gestures, but his patriotism was a pose made safe by the Doctor’s pragmatic balancing act. They’d performed this ritualistic dance so long that Quintus had forgotten he was being led.

A bandieratoro entered and whispered something to Gaetano.

Valentino noticed his sudden loss of color. “What is it?”

Gaetano looked at him suspiciously. “They found Marcus’s body by the Lion, under a golden banner.”

Quintus Morello spit out his drink. “Our flag!”

He followed Gaetano out in a stupor, leaving Valentino alone with his thoughts and the dozing Donna Morello.

The only thing that upset the dance was disagreement about who should lead. The bridge would change everything, and his father was too frightened to acknowledge that Morello power had waned. Gaetano suspected it; the Doctor knew it. Valentino had another ambition entirely: to see the dancers destroy each other and let the world burn afterward. They had sent him to the Beast. All were guilty; all must be punished.

With threat of murder abroad, Valerius was safely under guard in Tower Bardini when the emergency Signoria meeting began.

The gonfaloniere was haranguing the Doctor. “You all know—the
assassin
knows—that Concord will hold the Contract holder as responsible as the assassin. But this assassin has miscalculated: this crime endangers
every
tower in Rasenna!”

Gaetano and Sofia sat next to the respective heads of their families, a silent signal of violent expectations.

The Doctor, grieving for Guercho Vaccarelli at last, took the mace. “Why would
I
provoke Concord?” he asked. “How could I possibly imagine they would smite my enemy and leave my tower standing? War will not make such nice distinctions: if no one is guilty, all are guilty. If war comes, all suffer. Call me a scoundrel, a murderer, but please, not a fool. Why would I suddenly change my policy, which has ever been one of conciliation and realism?”

“Because we are winning!” Quintus spit.

“Order!” said the notary.

“The murder of Marcus Marius Messallinus can, more plausibly, be blamed on a reckless unknown provocateur.”

No one doubted who the Doctor suspected: Valentino sat at Quintus’s other side, nursing his stump like a peevish baby.

When the notary’s gavel failed to curb the din, the Doctor knelt and pounded the mace on the ground. “If you cannot be civil, be rational,” he said. “Gonfaloniere, I fear war more than hot words. I swear by Herod’s Sword, my hand is not in this. When General Luparelli comes to collect tribute, there will be repercussions, yes, but we will bear them together. For my part, the truce stands. No raids, no retaliation.”

Sofia stared disbelievingly at the Doctor as he returned the mace. The Morello murdered their own student and he begged for peace?
Shameful.

In the strained silence Gaetano whispered to his father.

Valentino surprised everyone by leaping up. “Are you such fools to be twice deceived?” he cried. “He seeks to escort us to the scaffold! You’re a marked man, Bardini!”

At that, every flag went up. Sofia’s planted bandieratori surrounded the Doctor as Gaetano’s men poured into the Speakers’ circle.

Sofia stood between them, her flag lowered. “Stand down. I am your Contessa.”

Gaetano lowered his flag slightly.

“Not yet, girl!” Quintus shouted. “You don’t have a voice in this Chamber until then, and you can’t shield a murderer. When you rule, you’ll rule at Concord’s pleasure, as I do.”

“You heard my guardian. Bardini aren’t behind this. Look to your own house. And see you keep the truce.”

The Doctor looked on proudly as Sofia turned her back the Morello. “Let’s go,” she said.

They waded out of the palazzo with gold flags shadowing them as far the Lion and crossed the scaffolding to the northside in single
file. Anticipating this outcome, the Doctor had the entire borgata waiting for their arrival.

Sofia stared back at Gaetano, separated by the river and a bridge that despite everything remained no-man’s-land yet.

CHAPTER 25

Night fell impartially on both sides of the Irenicon, a crushing black weight bringing fear and darkness but no respite. Rasenneisi woke gasping like drowning men, their chests too narrow for hearts beating too fast. The claustrophobic air between the banks, between towers, was pregnant with violence to come. From river windows hidden watchers spied for interlopers who never came.

It was dark yet when Sofia went down to the pantry to steal a glass. She crept from Tower Bardini into seldom-used back alleys, taking a winding route. Just before sunrise she entered the Baptistery.

The pigeons’ murmuring dispelled tensions lingering from yesterday. As before the Reverend Mother waited in the enclosed garden, but this time she was not alone. The nun took the glass, examined it solemnly, then handed it to the novice. “Put it in the chapel, Lucia.”

Sofia gave her a cursory look. Just as it was a bandieratoro’s business to know every tower on his side of the Irenicon, it was the Contessa’s to know all the families who inhabited them. This girl with an uncharitable jaw was a stranger to her, obviously then a southsider—presumably another orphan taken in by the Sisters. She was pale, skinny, breakable, like most.

“Now let’s see if you brought the second thing I asked: an open mind. First, your stance. Make it stable.”

“Like this?”

The nun palm tapped her chest, and Sofia found herself on her back looking up at clouds.

“You could have just said no.”

“Ah, but would you have listened? I know you better than you think, child.”

Sofia adjusted her stance.

“Did you come with the Doctor’s permission this time?”

“The Contessa,” Sofia said frostily, “does not require permission.”

“I see. Where does he think you are?”

“Guarding the bridge,” Sofia said grudgingly. “The engineer knows where to find me.” She didn’t like discussing Bardini business in front of the southside girl. She changed the subject. “What about Isabella? Has she told you who burned her tower?”

“If you didn’t recognize the raider, you can be sure she didn’t. Besides, we don’t remind her of that night. I’m surprised you don’t ask if she is better.”

After a moment, Sofia muttered, “Well, is she?”

“Lucia looks after the other girls.”

The novice had just returned and, after throwing Sofia a quick dart of disdain, said shortly, “She’s sleeping,” and continued her exercise with imperious serenity. Sofia wasn’t surprised by her impression that the novice despised her. The girl was a southsider. Reason enough. She looked her over again and recognized a common Rasenneisi deformity: the girl had suffered and responded by growing sharp. The severe line of the novice’s mouth and the narrow focus of her eyes marred her austere beauty.

“Isabella couldn’t sleep at all at first,” the nun said. “All she talked about was revenge.”

Sofia smiled. “She’s a Rasenneisi.”

“I told you, Sister,” Lucia interrupted, “she’s just a thug.”

“Hey, I’m right here,” Sofia said indignantly. “If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.”

“Lucia, that’s enough. Contessa, a man who managed to be both philosopher and saint said a city is people connected by love of something—that can be God, or money, or any other thing. If Rasenna is united only by the capacity to hate, the same thing that keeps it apart, then your inheritance is doomed.”

“That’s nice, Sister,” Sofia said, scowling at Lucia, “but this thug came to learn Water Style, not listen to fairy tales.”

“Bah!” The Reverend Mother slapped her shoulders. “Back straight!”

She adjusted her stance again. “So Isabella can sleep now?”

“Yes. I calmed her down with another fairy tale—how Water Style came to be. Do you want to hear it?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Ignorant girl. Imitate my movements as closely as you can.”

The nun fell languidly into a succession of elegant stances, which Lucia copied with such grace that Sofia was embarrassed. The movement was so subtle that she couldn’t tell where one position stopped and the next started.

Stopping occasionally to correct Sofia’s grosser infelicities, the nun began her tale.

“Long ago, before Christ was born and died, Rasenna and Concord were the twin capitals of Etrusca, allies in a war against the growing power of Rome. Rasenna’s bandieratori kept the legions back for years, but finally the Romans reached the city walls. It was only a matter of time before the siege overwhelmed Rasenna, and her sister, Concord, would be next.

“In Concord one morning, a young maid was sitting by the river where her beloved, a knight of Rasenna, had said good-bye to her.
She prayed that he would be returned to her before night fell that day. God heard her prayer.

“The next morning found the young maid once more by the river, now washing the blood from her beloved’s body with her tears. The maid fell to her knees in the water and entreated God for help, promising both cities’ eternal obedience in return. It was not God who heard her despairing prayer this time but the river. But we rarely recognize our prayers when they are answered. A faceless angel rose from the water, and she attacked it but could not land a blow. Its movements were as quick and powerful as a waterfall in spring.”

“Angel? Sounds like a buio,” Sofia said.

“Before the Wave, water did not seek to drown men any more than fire seeks to burn.”

“If you say so.”

“The maid knew she was defeated. She begged the angel to teach her or kill her. And the angel said—”

“This is so stupid. Buio can’t speak.”

“The angel said it could not teach her to fight, for it did not know how. Instead, it taught her what men call prophecy, which is really understanding Time’s flow, and when the angel left her, the maid realized she could fight like Water. As the Etruscan Empire spread, the knowledge spread too and bound its cities closer. The legions were turned back, and after Rome was burned, there was peace in Etrusca.”

“Nice story,” said Sofia. “I see how it put Isabella to sleep. But seriously, Concord and Rasenna as allies? A bit far-fetched.”

“Nothing is parted that was not once whole.”

“Then Concordians know Water Style?”

“For a time it flourished, but after the Empire fell, it declined in both cities. It is a difficult art; one can have a school of
Art Banderia
, but Water Style cannot be codified any more than a river can stop flowing. Rasenna put its faith in the
Art Banderia
, Concord in Natural Philosophy. Rasenna, led by your family, was dominant for many years and then—”

“And then Bernoulli came,” said Sofia, “and we lost.”

“But perhaps
Concord
did not win. When you are as old as I am, you begin to see Time repeating itself.”

“That’s called senility, Sister.”

“Ignorant girl. Move this way . . .”

Rasenna woke that morning with the feeling it had been spared some awful punishment. Perched on the pier where Sofia usually sat, Giovanni watched the men coming to work giving the Lion an affectionate pat as they passed.

He had a good feeling for the day, which sure enough passed fluidly. His crew had acquired that rare economy of movement and speech he’d seen in the workshops.

Giovanni stopped Pedro as he ran by. “Good catch with the wood. We’d have lost days if that batch had been used.”

Pedro stammered thanks and changed the subject. “Something odd, Captain. I don’t know if it means anything. Yesterevening I set the eggs recharging, but this morning they were flat.”

“Someone turned them on in the night?”

“Seems unlikely, doesn’t it? How many Rasenneisi know how to work them?”

Giovanni furrowed his brow and ran his fingers through his hair, messing it further. “Maybe we should post better security. Who knows how long the truce will hold?”

“Fabbro said he’d look after it.”

“Good, thank you.” He smiled, thinking how Pedro’s competence was growing daily and how appalled the Apprentices would be at the thought of a Rasenneisi engineer.

Concord now seemed strange to him. He remembered the lofty bridges and aqueducts, the broad empty streets, the Academy, and, overshadowing and mocking all other human endeavors, the Molè. Details of the dark white city were clear, but like stained-glass facets that somehow never coalesced into a full memory.

Was it another Engineers’ Guild mind trick? They took your name and replaced it with number and rank. They took your family
and replaced it with—what? The Guild itself. Comforting as it would be, it would be another sin to pretend his past wasn’t his.

Fabbro disturbed Giovanni’s meditation with a hearty clap on the back. “You were right, boss! They don’t love each other, but we won’t have to split the crew up. Typical Rasenneisi, though; they need an enemy, so now they’re grumbling about the Signoria.”

“They have a right.”

“Oh,
Madonna
, not so loud, Captain! You sound like Vettori! Ask me what’s the secret of long life.”

“Signore Bombelli, pray tell, what is the secret—?”

“Be apolitical,” Fabbro said, tapping his nose, “like condottiere.”

“I’m a Concordian engineer, remember? We do the impossible and never think of the consequences. By the way, you’re here at odd hours, aren’t you?”

“Well, not really. I—”

“Have you seen anything out of the ordinary?”

“No, no—actually, maybe. Yes, now that you mention it, Captain, I was working late with my sons last night down on the embankment—”

“Yes?”

“—and someone crossed over from the south. I shouted ‘Stop,’ but they didn’t.”

“That’s it?”

“Like I said, it was dark.”

Giovanni was as puzzled by Fabbro’s evasiveness as by his story, but he let it be. He had trouble enough without looking for more.

Sofia splashed her face in the font before going back into the garden. Bandieratori had to be in excellent condition, yet the morning’s lesson had exercised muscles she didn’t even know about.

Unimpressed, the Reverend Mother criticized her many bad habits—and even worse,
too much style
! “When you do something, do it,” she told Sofia. “Why think? Only necessary is necessary.”

Now she waited for Sofia in the small chapel that adjoined the garden, almost hidden behind the row of lush orange trees. Inside,
the chapel had bare walls, a wooden floor, and no furniture other than a low table with a terra-cotta jug and the glass Sofia had brought. In spite of its homely austerity, it was a welcoming place. A large stained-glass window on the wall facing Sofia bathed everything in a warm yellow light. It had colder colors too, emeralds and cerulean blues, but they changed moment to moment.

The Reverend Mother sat below it, in front of the table. When Sofia settled herself in cross-legged imitation and looked into the light, she immediately felt her tiredness lift. Some artful craftsman of old Rasenna had fancifully depicted the Virgin as a well-to-do Etrurian housewife whose embroidery had been interrupted by a most unexpected visitor.

Our Lady of Obedient Domesticity bowed in submission to God’s will. Flowers shot up wherever the angel trod—must be a nuisance, Sofia imagined. The angel had an androgynous sort of beauty, a youthful but wise face, and a slight smile played on his lips. Perhaps he’d forgotten the pain his gift would bring, or perhaps he smiled in spite of the knowledge, knowing the gift’s worth was greater.

“Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” Every Etrurian child knew the humble words with which the Virgin had accepted her role as God bearer. Sofia smiled to think that once she had believed it too. Now that she knew the world, it strained credulity: Who would willingly accept such pain? Perhaps that was why the angel smiled—the housewife had no idea what she was buying into.

After clearing her throat, the nun took a set of beads from her sleeve.

Sofia groaned. “
Madonna!
We’re not praying now, are we?”

“No, I just like to keep my hands busy.” She poured water to the top of the glass. “Oh! I don’t know about you, but all that exercise gives me quite a thirst!” She drank the water down without taking a breath, her gullet bobbing mechanically.

Sofia watched in silent horror, swearing to herself she’d never get
that
old.

The nun slammed the empty glass down, wiped her mouth, and poured another. “Yaaaahh! Didn’t realize I was so parched!” And again she drank it in one go.

When she carelessly emptied the rest of the jug into the glass, Sofia blurted, “What about me?”

“Oh, did you want a drink?” The nun held out the glass and smiled.

You sadistic old cow,
thought Sofia as she reached for it.

The nun placed the glass on the table. “You, ungracious child, do not have to pray. Instead, perform this simple task while
I
pray: contemplate the water. When I finish praying, you may drink.”

“Contemplate. The. Water.”

“Yes.”

Sofia strove to mask her irritation better and thanked the Virgin that no one except one very old, very mad nun could see her now.

The old woman looked asleep, but the click of her busy bead-counting fingers and the low, constant drone of her prayer resounded eerily in the small room. It was neither speech nor song; the humming had something of that tone she had spoken to the Little Frog ghost with.

Sofia took a deep breath. No point arguing with an
ubazze
; that would be crazy in itself. But when she tried to concentrate on the water, it wasn’t easy. Water, she saw for the first time, was always moving. There were little pieces of matter whirling around the world within; Sofia saw beads of moisture as the glass perspired, felt it drying on her own body, saw it on the old lady’s upper lip, drops of sweat creeping though the small forest of hairs. The morning’s exercise had brought new clarity as well as aching muscles.

The colored light poured through the window, through the Virgin, and into the water and shattered into stars swimming on the table, on the walls, and on her. The particles in the colors and in the water were all moved by the same unheard, unfelt wind.

The water the nun had spilled gradually seeped to the edge of the table and held in precarious tension over the precipice. Sofia watched breathlessly as a single drop began to creep down the side
of the glass. The light shook with terror; the world trembled as it reached the bottom, racing toward the end and crashing; the puddle broke its bonds, and the Wave came.