The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy) (14 page)

Torbidda felt his stomach sink as a surge from below pushed the capsule skywards.

‘Hell on the stomach, isn’t it?’

The circle of consuls dwindled as the floor rushed away below their feet. ‘It’s marvellous,’ he managed.

Pulcher’s lip curled. ‘I hope you’re not
another
devotee of Saint Bernoulli. Reverence is proper in a Cadet, but you’ve made it now; it’s time to put away childish things. We’re not supposed to say old Bernoulli died a madman, yet it’s true. Even a mind that has reached the greatest heights can fall to the worst depths – and Bonnacio’s on the same path, if you ask me.’ When Torbidda made no reply, Pulcher cleared his throat. ‘What was the
honourable
consul whispering to you? Oh, you don’t have to tell me – but watch out, though. Corvis will make a protégé of you if you’re not careful. Since Argenti’s death he’s been all deferential, but take my word, he’s no friend of ours. His great aim is to make Apprenticeship purely ceremonial. Your star’s rising, Torbidda. Stick with me and it need never fall.’

So it begins
, Torbidda thought wearily.
First Corvis, now Pulcher
. There was no graduation from the competition. The politicking never ended; only the faces changed:
as below, so above
.

The coffin carried them up into the grasp of the first dome, which was decorated with a more conventional depiction of the Last Judgement. They passed through the mural and emerged into the second dome, and Torbidda realised with dismay that it wasn’t slowing. He had yearned to explore the
treasures of the great library, but he did not have long to take it in – though its disarray surprised him – before they left it behind too.

‘When we get up there, wait for me to introduce you. Like I said, he’s a stickler.’

‘I’ve heard he spends every night guarding the lantern. What’s he looking for?’

‘Madonna knows. The Curia thought the world was the universe’s foundation stone, and when they looked heavenwards they were comforted by a divine melody that only existed in their imagination. I think Bonnacio still strives to hear it.’

‘If you’re trying to set me against him, forget it.’

‘Madonna! Who said anything about that?’ Pulcher pointed his great nose at Torbidda. ‘You intrigue me a little. What are you anyway, Empiricist or Naturalist?’

‘Neither. The party system is a corruption of what Bernoulli wanted.’

‘Which was what? Universal love?’

‘Just the opposite: every man at every other’s throat, all alliances temporary.’

Pulcher laughed dryly. ‘Oh, you’ll go far.’

The mistral ceaselessly threw fugitive scraps of alpine snow at the First Apprentice. His red robes tumbled about him like a fire too weak to consume itself. The melancholy wind soiled the pristine marble of New City with the dust of the Wastes that fell on the wise and foolish together and maddened both. So long as the wind kept the night sky free of clouds, Bonnacio did not begrudge its blowing. The stars were a book, and he was eager to reach the dénouement. Could He be out there somewhere, born already? No, surely not; the stars would have warned him.

They had whispered to Bonnacio long before he became a Cadet:
Climb higher, we have something wonderful to tell
. So he
climbed. And when he finally reached the summit of that mountain of bodies, he realised that the stars didn’t whisper: they roared! The Dark Ones who sheltered in the light of a billion turbulent Hells looked upon this chaste blue jewel of water and air as a traitor. Its fidelity to the Old One was contemptible to them. There must be no exemptions from Time’s torment. The world must take its place in the universal fire. Bonnacio watched giant Orion stalk stealthily across the horizon. The three kings of the hunter’s belt were weak sparks, trembling like a candle harassed by the wind. Some greater mistral assailed the stars and kept their fire from consuming the world altogether. Its source was Him, the Old One.

Bonnacio had seen enough. He retreated below, nimbly navigating the precarious shifting clockwork that served for a staircase from lantern to engine room. The great pendulum and its swooping revolutions circulated the hot, stagnant air. He approached the slate reverently and studied his old calculations, then, with a hiss of disdain, impatiently rubbed them away with his sleeve and began to make new notations, seeking to compare the numbers he saw in the stars with a number he had in his mind. The song was weak yet, but he still perceived its warning.

Behind him the pod slowed and opened with a hiss. Torbidda attempted to step out, but Pulcher restrained him.

From the darkness, Torbidda heard a grating unmusical voice: ‘Who is this stranger?’

Pulcher rolled his eyes, but answered with formality, ‘No stranger. Your master is my master.’

‘Then come forth, Brother.’

Pulcher turned to Torbidda and hissed, ‘Stay here till I call you,’ before exiting the pod. Torbidda watched him walk towards the great air-slicing pendulum that bisected the long, narrow chamber. Its passage was the rasping breath of a slumbering dragon. A waft of warm, oily air poured over him.

‘I hear whispers, First Apprentice,’ Pulcher said. ‘Corvis is turning the Collegio dei Consoli against us.’

Bonnacio didn’t look around. ‘Our enemies are outside Concord.’

This dismissal annoyed Pulcher, who was standing now between two massive tables, one covered with maps of Etruria and Europa, the other with nautical charts of the Tyrrhenian Sea. He picked up one of variously coloured markers and threw it down, scattering a collection that represented an army. ‘Etruria is a land of small cities run by small men. Concord is more than that now: we are an empire. Europa’s waiting for a race that knows how to exploit it. Every year we have gone further, gained more land, more rivers, more coal, more iron.’

‘Every year but this one. General Luparelli’s bogged down.’

‘Luparelli’s too dull to make use of a legion like the Ninth. New leadership would shake things up. The son of the ill-fated Manius Spinther, he’s only a second-year, but I’ve heard good things.’

‘As it happens, I do have another job in mind for Luparelli, but I shouldn’t wonder that the Candidate for Third Apprentice – it’s his suggestion, I presume – wants to promote young Spinther. They’re dear friends.’

‘… ah.’

‘Yes, “Ah”. Young men must learn patience. If one is hasty, it is easy to overlook the salient details. My predecessor’s fixation on Europa gave the states that once composed the Southern League a reprieve. It would take just one city to raise its flag and we’d be facing a two-front war.’

‘What city?’ Pulcher said mockingly. ‘If you studied politics as deeply as you study the firmament you’d know that the only Etrurian city with a semblance of stable government is Ariminum, and we can buy them off easily enough.’

‘Fortune’s wheel turns fast. John Acuto is assembling an alliance.’

‘He won’t get far with those squabbling fools,’ Pulcher said wearily.

‘Perhaps, but I’m sending the Twelfth Legion on a progress as a precaution. Luparelli may be a blundering fool but the work I have in mind does not require an Alexander. We shall wipe out the last of the condottieri companies, then harry the South and break down the walls of her cities, bring them as low as Rasenna or Gubbio.’

‘There’s more to this strategy, isn’t there?’ said Pulcher, walking away and approaching the slate. An undulating curve rose and fell between a forest of equations.

‘You’re a decent mathematician, Pulcher. Follow the steps. We’re here’ – he pointed – ‘and descending now faster than ever. The Wave is about to trough. Everything will change in a moment and if we’re unready, all this, all Bernoulli’s preparation, will be for naught.’

‘Why don’t you just cut up a lamb and be done with it? This isn’t philosophy, it’s augury.’

Bonnacio looked critically at the slate. ‘Argenti doubted me too. He thought the hollow trappings of power were real. I let him die under your knife for that reason. He would have held back from the sacrifice we must make. Don’t forget that the height we have attained only gives us further to fall. All that bears us up is a wind that is about to change. We are but vessels.’

‘Better king for a moment than slave for a lifetime, eh?’ Pulcher said without conviction, then, ‘Speaking of vessels – First Apprentice, may I present a poor Candidate in a state of darkness?’

‘Let the Brother be brought into the Light.’

‘Come forth, Candidate,’ said Pulcher portentously as he walked back towards the pod. Torbidda stepped out and reeled
as the floor pitched, but he managed to keep his footing. As they intersected, Pulcher grabbed him and hissed, ‘Didn’t think to mention that Spinther’s an old chum?’

‘He has the requisite skills.’

‘Oh, I’m sure he’s another wonder boy, but it never hurts to have a general in your pocket.’ Pulcher released him and sighed dramatically. ‘So now I have you to watch out for too?’

Torbidda said, ‘I don’t want what you want.’

‘I’ve heard this tune already; Bonnacio sings it better – he actually convinced me, too. I did all the knifework and he got the red. Let’s see what he gets out of you.’

Torbidda watched as the pod’s doors closed and it descended. Panic gathered around him, but with no retreat left, he walked reluctantly onwards, constantly adjusting his step to the tilting surface. He passed between the two massive maps, then had to dart forwards to slip past the
whoosh
of the pendulum.

The First Apprentice still stood facing the great slate board which was dense with chalk notation. The red of his robe was uncannily vivid in the gloom. It was the smouldering colour of summer dusk, fresh poppies, oxygenated blood, Agrippina’s lips.

The first thing Torbidda noticed when Bonnacio turned around was the fearsome-looking pair of compasses he was holding, and he suppressed a shudder as he remembered how Leto had dispatched the Fuscus girl.

‘Behold the man. Come closer.’

‘Yes, First Apprentice.’

Bonnacio was as pale and remote as the stars he worshipped. ‘Hold out your hand, Brother,’ he said softly, and when Torbidda submitted he said, ‘Good; the first rule is obedience.’ His expression remained wistful as he suddenly grabbed Torbidda’s wrist. Holding it tightly, he pricked Torbidda’s small finger with the compass needle. As the blood pooled around the point he asked,
‘Do you solemnly swear to obey the Master, without secret evasion of mind; binding yourself under no less a penalty than that of having your body severed in twain, your bowels taken thence, burned to ashes, and the ashes thereof scattered to the four winds of Heaven, that there might remain neither track, trace nor remembrance among man of so vile and perjured a wretch as you should be, should you ever violate this solemn obligation?’

The vice tightened as Bonnacio waited for Torbidda’s response. ‘I swear!’

At once Bonnacio released Torbidda’s hand, turned back to the board and traced a new circle with the compass. When he turned back, his manner was more businesslike. ‘You’ll spend the next month in the second dome: the library needs urgent cataloguing. Count Tremellius has several useful talents, but organisation, alas, is not amongst them.’

Torbidda responded cautiously, ‘With respect, First Apprentice, I didn’t come here to be a librarian’s assistant.’

‘You misunderstand. That’s an order. Tests and riddles, all that is done. Now you must work. As you ascended, the Second Apprentice asked you to spy on me, did he not? Promised you things? It’s all right, you don’t have to answer. I remember when I took the yellow how I yearned to wear the orange and then the red. Ambition doesn’t merely blind Man, it deafens him. It took time to realise
why
Bernoulli wanted us segregated from the rest of the Guild, why he built so high. It’s so we can hear – the stars, they speak to us. I listened until I learned what my unfortunate predecessor could never understand: the Master’s return is at hand!’

Torbidda was hot and uncomfortable under Bonnacio’s hollow gaze. He said the test was over, but that might be another, more subtle test. Bonnacio was remote, but Torbidda knew that otherworldly manner concealed a mind worldly
enough to manipulate Pulcher’s feral ambition. He attempted a more servile tack. ‘
You
are my master, First Apprentice.’

‘Child, we are but
vessels
. The vessel was once the man called Girolamo Bernoulli, and now it is his Molè. A time is coming when the Molè will be no more. It’s not accidental that you’re here and not some other Candidate; the hour calls forth the man, his steps ordained by necessity. My astronomy, Pulcher’s warcraft, your architecture: men believe they are free, but nothing’s free: everything’s written and History is a problem to be solved by exegesis. Its treasure belongs to the most penetrating reader. That’s why you must go to the library. You must
solve
the Molè.’

Torbidda was perplexed: a building wasn’t an equation. After a minute went by, the First Apprentice happened to glance around. He was obviously surprised to find Torbidda still standing there and dismissed him with a waved hand. ‘Attend to it.’