Irenicon (30 page)

CHAPTER 59

“Important order,” Pedro explained, shutting the door in Giovanni’s face.

Later, as Giovanni drafted the response to Concord with Fabbro, he mentioned the incident, only to learn there was no new order.

He returned in the evening to Tower Vanzetti to investigate—but Pedro wasn’t home. He went down to the studiola, a bad feeling in his gut.

“What the hell?”

It was still bright enough to see the bridge from the window. Giovanni watched as Pedro handed Doctor Bardini a bundle. The Doctor put the banners on his shoulder and marched into the piazza.

Obviously he had changed his mind about that show of force: he was carrying a Bardini banner south. If Giovanni had seen it, other towers had seen it too. Southsiders might be dispirited and
leaderless, but they wouldn’t surrender without a fight. He reached the piazza too late. The Doctor had entered the dragon’s cave.

A bonfire burned in the center of what had once been the workshop. Its flames reflected in the warped mirror, throwing up strange shadows in the charred ruins. In the dancing light, the boys surrounding the Doctor looked as large as men and more dangerous. They carried Galati’s blue banner, but that wasn’t the real change. There was a difference between a pack of bandieratori and a borgata. A borgata needed someone to obey.

Uggeri sat on a pile of rubble that had once been a staircase; now it was a throne. When he spoke, the others listened. “You think your bandieratori hiding in the shadows have us surrounded?
They’re
surrounded, by Rasenna.”

“I came alone.”

“So that’s what this is.” Uggeri leaped down. “It won’t do you any good. When you kill me, someone takes my place. That’s how Rasenna works, old man.”

The Doctor looked back to the doorway. The leaders of other southside borgati were blocking the way should either think to flee. They’d come to see which dog would win the fight.

The Doctor thrust his banner into the bonfire. He let the cloth catch and then held it up and let them see it burn. “How Rasenna works is what I came to talk about.” He threw the charred stick into the fire. “I’m at your mercy.”

There was a long silence in which they studied each other. “So talk,” the boy said.

Uggeri’s soldiers looked to him. The fire popped and cracked, goading them to act.

“Hear that,
bambini
? Concord’s coming. Kill me tonight, we’re all dead tomorrow. Concord won’t need to knock down our walls and towers—they’ll fall on their own.”

As the Doctor spoke, he looked around the hostile faces of Uggeri’s army. It was early evening, and dark clouds enshrouded a pale distant sun. The wind stirred up the bonfire and the Doctor’s voice with it.

“I wish I could blame Concord for it, but I remember life before the Wave—faction had already slithered into paradise, though it was under Count Scaligeri’s boot. If that’s the type of unity we want, we can have it. You only have to follow one tower’s banner.”

“Yours, Bardini?” Uggeri sneered.

“I don’t deserve loyalty: the Families that replaced the Scaligeri set the serpent loose. I take no pride that my flag’s still flying. I know my methods. I made a weak man my enemy to make my tower strong, and Morello used me. Well, look at our reward.” He gestured to the blackened stones. “Our separate towers don’t protect us, they enfeeble us. Where there was a river between us we bridged it, and as a result we have grown in wealth and unity, choking the serpent till it’s almost dead. We must go further. We must make bridges between our
towers
—make
them
one. Whether you hear or not,
bambini
, Concord is coming. We die tomorrow unless we cast out the serpent today. Our new Signoria needs an army, not more borgati. United, Rasenna may survive, but that means you, not the merchants or engineers, must exile the real enemy: faction!”

He untied the bundle, and a dozen new flags fell to the ground. He took one and untied it. As it fell open, a wind caught it. It was blood-red, with a Lion’s silhouette embroidered in gold.

“Here is a banner belonging to no tower. It belongs to Rasenna. If I carry it and my enemy carries it, we are enemies no longer. We are brothers!” He picked up another. “Who will take it up?” he roared. “Who dares?”

His voice echoed in the palazzo and throughout the piazza outside. Southsiders nervously eyed one another, unsure how to take this challenge. The boy threw his banner on the fire, took a new banner from the Doctor, and unfurled it. They stood watching each other.

“You better be real, old man,” Uggeri said.

After a minute’s doubtful silence, others came forward and added their flags to the flames. The sparks flew up, and the glow could be seen from every tower of Rasenna.

PART III:

ADVENT

CHAPTER 60

Every venture has its own risk. Betrayal attends love, death attends war, ruin attends commerce, but the penalty for avoiding risk is always the same: nothing happens. For Rasenna’s merchants that had been the worst penalty: years of self-imposed stagnation.

Now they were bold, and boldness made them rich.

Rasenna’s new affluence showed in a wealth of different ways, from elaborate weather vanes on her tower tops to expensive clothes on her citizens below. Color used to be reserved for essentials such as banners, but now black, gray, and tan retreated before vivid yellow, brilliant scarlet, lush Cambria green.

Both rivers seemed to flow faster—who could deny that the steady pulse of people to market was a river too—and as wealth breathed in new life, it brought new people; there was novelty everywhere. Strangers stopped to marvel at the engines used to construct the riverside towers or the mills and, passing through
the new walls, admired the engineering skill their design revealed: octagonal—eminently defensible—towers projecting from each corner; the slope, to turn aside the impact of bombardments. If the stranger understood such things, he saw the builders’ chief concern was imminent siege, but he could not pause for long, as others pushed behind him, eager to see the miracle of Etruria. After all, it was not aesthetics that drew the pilgrims but commerce.

Stepping onto the bridge, our stranger might rub one of the Lions’ paws and pray for good bargains that day. Although one of the northside plinths remained empty, the other three Lions, intact and virile, were now back in their traditional perches—dragging the remaining two sentinels from the riverbed had been the first task for Rasenna’s growing Engineers’ Guild and its visionary podesta.

The bridge lured them all with the clamor of wares advertised and sold. Bombelli’s currency-changing stall was set up beside the broken balustrade—just as one Lion was left broken in memory of the Wave, so the gap remained as tribute to the fallen of the uprising. The clinking of coins was a constant heady accompaniment to the din of bargaining. Thieves attracted by the sound of easy money soon learned that the risk of working the markets far outweighed the putative rewards. And just as Rasenna changed, so the bridge changed daily, with different stalls selling different goods, each taking its turn.

Bandieratori no longer loitered at street corners; like everyone else they had business to attend to. While some were on duty, patrolling walls, manning towers, and policing the markets, the rest were drilled in new tactics and weapons.

“Salute
,
”
Pedro said without looking up from his work. “Sorry about the dust.” It was late, and Giovanni had sent the other apprentices home. They were young and enthusiastic, but they’d been going without sleep to get Rasenna’s defenses ready, and he needed alert minds.

“What’s that you’re working on, Pedro?”

“Just a distraction. The Doc gave me the parts, asked me if I could put them back together.”

“It’s the annunciator I gave—” Giovanni was quiet for a moment, then said, “He still thinks she’s coming back.” Without its cover, the angel looked undressed, its gown’s elaborate whalebone showing. “You’ve changed it?”

“Not really; the old design’s sound but for a few redundancies.” Pedro held up a discarded part. “These gears were sparking off each other.”

Giovanni held it up appraisingly. “Lighter, easier to reproduce.”

Pedro was embarrassed. “Too bad we need weapons, not toys. I just needed a break.”

They’d both been coordinating other work with defensive engineering—Giovanni rehearsed battle plans with the Doctor while Pedro kept busy overseeing workshops across town.

“You think we’ve got a chance?” It wasn’t a question Pedro would have asked around the others. Giovanni understood by now that he’d taken on much more than authority when he had become Rasenna’s podesta.

“Last time Concord didn’t have to beat us; they just had to show up.”

“We’re still one town against an Empire.”

“That’s the thinking that let Concord build that Empire. True, we’re only a town, but we won’t have to defeat an Empire.”

Pedro gave a careless Rasenneisi shrug. “Oh, just a legion. No problem, then.”

Giovanni smiled. “If we can bloody their nose, every town in Etruria under the Concordian boot will join us. And that’s a fight we have a chance of winning. Our mistake was trying to overpower them. Rasenna’s got the greatest fighters in Etruria, but against disciplined troops holding a line—well, you saw what the Twelfth did. Our particular skills, we need to get close, and to get close, we need to change the rules. Look here—”

There were four powder piles on his desk: “Charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur.” He carefully held up the forth saucer. “Together,
it’s called serpentine. Bernoulli found the recipe in an Ebionite alchemical text.”

“How do you—?” Pedro began, then asked, “What does it do?”

“Give me that gear you took out of the angel.”

He watched as Giovanni crouched and poured a small pile with a trail to it.

“Stand back and cover your ears.”

Giovanni struck the gear. There was a sudden hiss as the trail lit up, then, as it reached the pile, there was a loud
Pop!
that sent a cloud of dirty yellow smoke spiraling into the air.

Pedro laughed when Giovanni looked up coughing, his face blackened.

“It’s used for propulsion in cannons and such.”

“Pity we can’t lob a cauldron of it at them. That would even the odds quickly.”

Giovanni shook his head. “Thank the Virgin it’s too unstable for that. Our new walls can withstand arquebuses and cannonballs but not direct explosions. Any large amount is liable to explode prematurely, killing the wrong person.”

“Then what’s it good for?”

“Changing the rules. Concord will try to make our walls our prison—they’ll want to starve us, bomb us, and burn us, then roll up their siege towers and spit out an invasion. With serpentine, we can decapitate their towers when they approach. They’ll have to approach on foot, between rows of burning toppling stacks.”

“We need to cast cannons then?”

“Small ones, with tempered iron. I already have smiths working on prototypes.”

Pedro tried to conceal his misgivings on finding the engineer so adept at the art of war. “This isn’t just for Rasenna, is it?”

Giovanni wasn’t listening. He rubbed tired eyes, feeling the chemical sting. “When I came here, I’d lost faith in myself; she believed in me.”

Pedro saw his discomfort and changed the subject. “What do you suppose Bernoulli was looking for in alchemists’ recipe books?”

“I don’t have to guess,” Giovanni said, suddenly angry. “Power. In whatever form he could harness it. That’s all he was ever looking for and—” He stopped himself, then went on more calmly, “In any case, it gives Concord’s legions tactical advantage in battle, just as hydroengineering gives them strategic advantage. The Ebionites didn’t know how to use it safely.”

“They kept blowing themselves up?”

“It’s prone to accidental combustion when dusty. Bernoulli found a solution: just add water. It makes a better weapon, too. The flame spreads evenly before exploding. You can change the ratio depending on whether you want noise, light, or power. I haven’t perfected the mixture, but I’ll make sure it’s loud and smoky. Legions are used to winning, so anything we can do to puncture their complacency is to our advantage.”

Pedro looked serious. “We can’t win a war by avoiding battle. Sooner or later, we’ll have to make contact.”

“Superior discipline beat us, not technology. Up until now, our bandieratori have been expending too much energy on noise and color. The Doctor is training them to coordinate like a Concordian phalanx.”

Pedro interrupted abruptly, “Can you increase the speed serpentine burns?”

“Yes, but increased pressure explodes cannon.”

“We need many small explosions, not one big one.”

“Then we’d have to get close, give up the advantage of our walls. We can’t plant them like caltrops either. It’s impossible to keep the fuse and powder dry.”

“I know how we can get close
and
keep our distance.”

Giovanni smiled. “Tell me more, Maestro.”

CHAPTER 61

As the Doctor studied the letter, Giovanni told him Pedro’s scheme in broad strokes.

He chuckled. “Won’t even the odds, but it’ll give them a scare. I hope the legion they send
is
the Twelfth. Luparino never did have much salt.”

The letter that had brought Giovanni to the Tower Bardini that evening was the latest of the exchange that had been carried out over the summer. In contrast to previous missives, its language was polite, almost timid.

Giovanni was optimistic. “Perhaps we’ll have more time than expected before they grasp our intentions.”

The Doctor rolled up the letter and handed it back. “Podesta, I’ve got a nose for this type of thing. They
know
. We’d better be ready, stocked up and locked up, within a month.”

Giovanni descended the northern slope less complacently than he’d climbed it. Concord was coming. He had overlooked some crucial factor. The place where he had first met Sofia was now a building site, transubstantiated into valuable real estate by other currents. The bridge was deserted. He stopped by a Lion, looking down at the water, thinking of the old saw about rivers always changing. Perhaps men seemed equally inconsistent to buio.

“Giovanni!”

He looked over to the embankment. “Pedro! You gave me a fright!”

Pedro came up. “One of the eggs malfunctioned. How was the Doc?”

“More illuminating than usual. We’ve got to step up preparations.”

“I suppose we can fix this later. There hasn’t been much buio activity.”

Halfway across the bridge, they stopped. Something was standing at the far end, waiting.

“Turn around slowly, Pedro.”

They turned to find several buio blocking the way north also. Turning again, more buio had joined the first. They began slowly advancing.

“What do we do, Giovanni?”

Jump?
No. Surviving the river again was as unlikely as lighting striking twice. Giovanni looked up at Tower Bardini, hoping to see the Doctor’s silhouette against the moon. For once he wasn’t there.

The watery columns seeped closer until they were surrounded.

Giovanni knew that judgment had finally come.

“Pedro, you’ll have to run when they attack me.”

Water must be water.

“Who said that?” Giovanni cried.

We. Our souls hear your soul.

“Who said what?” Pedro asked.

“You can’t hear them?”

“Hear what?”

Many voices spoke at once in his mind. The columns were immobile and indistinguishable. Small ripples passed over and leaped the space between them.

Something has changed
, he thought. The Reverend Mother said all water was one—if she was right, then Lucia had accidentally doomed him by having him “contemplate Water.” Now they knew he was a Bernoulli and knew too about Gubbio. Every day he paid a little more, but it didn’t matter. Some debts are too large to pay. However they knew, they’d come for revenge.

Thou shall not kill.

Giovanni looked around at the faceless pillars.

“You drown men!”

Not murder. Water must be water.

“If you didn’t come to kill me—”

You must feel Wind.

The night was still and peaceful.

“. . . no.”

“Giovanni, what are they saying?”

Forgotten much. Wind blows in wet world, not dry world.

“The river?”

We will be part of it. Stop us.

“I don’t understand!”

Water must be water. Stop us.

The buio were sinking away into puddles.

“From doing what?”

Forgotten much.

The puddles flowed over the edge.

“Answer me!” he shouted.

They were alone on the bridge, unchanged, as if the visitation had not happened.

“You didn’t hear anything, Pedro?”

“No, I saw but—what did they say?”

Giovanni looked down into the dark rushing water. What sounded like riddles was obviously much more than that.

“They kept saying ‘Thou shall not kill’ and ‘Water must be water.’”

Pedro could see the Concordian was too upset to reason. “If buio have language, perhaps they have morality of a sort.”

“You don’t consider drowning murder?” Giovanni snapped.

“I’m just trying to be logical! It’s not air that kills fish but fishermen, right? So drowning isn’t murder because it’s natural. What else?”

“They kept talking about a wind in a wet world.”

Both were silent, then, at the same moment. “A current?”

“Madonna!”
said Pedro.

“Something’s going to make them kill, and they want us to stop it,” said Giovanni. “They didn’t come for revenge. They came for help.”

Later still, Pedro was somberly studying the calculations scribbled on the studiola wall. “
Can
we stop it? I mean, power to create a forced Wave; once it’s formed, the energy has to be used. That’s Bernoulli’s Second Law, right?”

“That’s why we can’t let the Wave form. If it forms, we’re sunk—literally. The technology’s moved on since Gubbio, and there’s been time to store enough energy for a Wave five times as large.”

“That would wipe Rasenna off the map! Why not just send an army?”

“I have no idea.”

“Don’t you?” Pedro said with sudden hostility. “Why did you think the buio came to punish you?”

Giovanni shook his head blankly.

Pedro stood up. “Captain, what’s your father’s name?”

“. . . Jacopo.”

“His surname.”

“An engineer’s father is Concord,” he began in a confident voice that faded to nothing. “I knew if anyone figured it out, it would be you.”

Pedro pushed Giovanni over in his chair. “We made you podesta!”

“I told you not to!” Giovanni cried.

Pedro picked the only weapon to hand, a chisel. “My father trusted you. I should kill you.”

Giovanni stood up and faced him. “It’s your right.”

“It’s the right of
every
Rasenneisi, Concordian!”

Giovanni doubled over with the punch.

“You’re lucky that we need your native cunning.”

Giovanni saw the chisel drop and heard the door slam.