Immortal (37 page)

“It’s natural that Volterrans want the money for Volterra,” I commented.

“That’s what we’re counting on. They’ll revolt, and I’ll march immediately on them to quell the rebellion,” said Federigo blithely. He came from an illustrious family of soldiers, all of them leaders of great mercenary armies of condottieri, and he made his fortune from conflict. “The effect of victory is enhanced by its swiftness, and my army is ready to move!”

“Wait, you mean the Volterrans haven’t revolted yet?” I asked, astonished.

“They will,” Lorenzo said. He and Federigo exchanged a pregnant glance. “They’re notoriously turbulent. They’ve been looking for an excuse to assert their independence. They think I’m too young to act decisively, that I’ll placate them because I’m weak.”

“In the Signoria, I’ll suggest that a show of force is unnecessary and provocative,” Soderini said, nodding. “I’ll recommend conciliatory measures; I’ll remind the Signoria of the ancient proverb, ‘Better a lean peace than a fat victory.’ It’ll emphasize Lorenzo’s boldness. His resolution and foresight will be publicly demonstrated.”

“The Volterrans will serve as a fine example of what happens when my authority is countermanded,” Lorenzo said with satisfaction. “They’ll be a lesson for all the towns under the sway of the Florentine republic. I won’t have Florence losing territories that my nonno worked so hard to annex! I’ll prove myself worthy of his legacy by strengthening the Florentine borders! Moreover, Sixtus will see that I don’t falter, that I’m willing and able to raise an army to defend my interests. It’ll send him a message, as well.”

“You’re sending troops against a town that hasn’t rebelled yet, hoping it does so you can crush it? Will you even wait for the revolt? How many civilian Volterrans will die to prove your point?” I asked angrily.

“As few as necessary.” Lorenzo shrugged.

“But some will, and they will be women and children!” I snapped.

“Sacrifices to the general good.” He waved. “You’ll ride with Federigo, Bastardo.”

“I don’t fight innocent people,” I growled. “I’ve seen too many innocents die. No good comes of it! It creates hate, and hate makes more destruction! Lives are ruined! Generations carry the blight!”

“I could ruin your life with documents in my possession!” Lorenzo barked. I gave him a stony look and he softened. “I’m not asking you to fight, Luca mio. I want you to do what you do so well: take the pulse of the people, keep your ear to the street. Tell me what’s going on. You’re my eyes and ears in Volterra. Are they getting the lesson? I’ll pull back as soon as they submit. You can help minimize casualties.”

I could hear the sound of a battle rumbling on the horizon, but it wasn’t Lorenzo’s lesson to his territories. It was the old antagonism between the good God and the evil God. There was no evading it; there never was. I could only commit myself to the side of kindness, as best I knew it. If I obeyed Lorenzo, there was a chance I could save lives and help the Volterrans. “You’ll listen if I get word to you that conflict is unnecessary?” I asked, uneasy.

“I always listen to you, Luca. I trust you,” Lorenzo promised. “You get the word to me, and my army moves out! The fighting’s over!”

“I myself won’t fight the Volterrans,” I said. “As long as you understand that.”

“Of course not, Luca, you’re there to observe and to moderate,” Lorenzo said. “I don’t want innocent people hurt, you know that.”

IT WAS A JUNE MORNING
ruffled through with a clean sea breeze, and the hills around us undulated green and gold with olive groves, cypress valleys, and vineyards. But the wild Volterran landscape wasn’t entirely domesticated. It had raw vistas of stark, forbidding ravines, clay-walled chasms, high cliffs, dark woodlands, and a long view down to the Tyrrhenian Sea. The profile of the city was visible on the highest sandstone hill, at the junction of the Bra and Cecina rivers. Gray stone walls hundreds or even thousands of years old snaked around the town, which was situated southwest of Florence. I rode Ginori at the front of Federigo’s army, but off to the side of the main phalanx of troops, at a distance to shield me from their filth and clamor.

Armies are loud, dirty, uncouth beasts. Even at the distance at which I rode, I couldn’t escape the cacophony: horse hooves striking the ground and men’s feet stamping, armor clanking and shields creaking and the ends of pikes dragging sibilantly in the dirt, the heavy large wheels of Federigo’s massive iron cannons thumping along the ground, supply carts rattling in the rear, and drumming and trumpeting from musicians practicing during the march. Over it all was the babble of voices, shouting, laughing, singing, as if death, destruction, and dismemberment were something to celebrate. The air was thick with stirred-up dust. It was also rank with the smells of sweaty bodies and with the foul scents of human and animal urine, excrement, and sputum that any army on the march produced. Behind the ranks of soldiers were the auxiliary personnel necessary to any moving army: priests, physichi and barber-surgeons, blacksmiths, farriers, armorers, leather-workers to maintain saddles, grooms for the horses, and so forth. At least there were no women trailing Federigo’s army. As a serious professional condottiere captain, he eschewed the usual practice of bringing along a contingent of prostitutes for the soldiers. I was looking again at the high green mountain on which Volterra perched, when Federigo trotted over from the main corps to ride beside me.

“It’s beautiful,” he called.

“And very well defended,” I observed. “It’s only approachable from one side, near the church of San Alessandro. The other sides are heavily fortified. What’s your strategy?”

“We’re going to ride right up the accessible side and ask them nicely to open the gates,” he said, smiling with the good half of his mouth.

“You’ll say ‘pretty please’?” I responded, with some skepticism.

“That would be a nice touch, don’t you think?”

“And just like that, they open the gates for you?”

“Surely I make a good argument for it.” He winked at me with his one good eye, which seemed an act of courage, considering that he was a one-eyed man sitting astride a monstrous beast of a gray stallion that was trotting along at a good pace. But then, no one could accuse Federigo Montrefelto, Duke of Urbino, of cowardice.

I turned in my saddle to look at the ten thousand footmen and the two thousand cavalry troops. “You make twelve thousand good arguments,” I said.

“Nope. I make one thousand good arguments,” he said. “But we’ll pause first. I want Mass said for the troops. It’s good to focus the soldiers’ minds on our Lord. In case we have to fight.” He kicked his horse and steered back toward his army.

“Why one thousand?” I called.

“That’s the number of condottieri the Volterrans have hired to defend themselves!” he called, before galloping back to disappear into the rank and file of his soldiers.

EXACTLY AS FEDERIGO HAD PREDICTED,
the Volterrans opened the gates to him. He assembled his vast, expert army in front of the approachable side. The usual taunts and insults were flung back and forth over the Volterran walls. Then Federigo sent in a messenger to invite the Volterran leaders to talk. I wasn’t at the conference, but I heard later that Federigo pointed out to the Volterrans that their condottieri were overawed by his army, and that they were likely to turn on the Volterrans and do violence to them. Mercenary soldiers other than his own were not to be trusted, they were little more than organized bands of brigands, out for profit, apt to change sides to protect their own hides. He must have been compelling, because the Volterran leaders scampered back into the city and opened the gates without firing a single arrow or drawing a single blade. And that was when death struck that town. It was completely undeserved and even more vicious because of the Volterrans’ capitulation.

I rode into the city alongside the middle body of troops, and I was unprepared for the devastation before my eyes. It shocked me to my core. Red, orange, and blue flames leapt out of homes and shops. The hilly, uneven streets were littered with ransacked belongings: hacked-up furniture, shards of dishes, torn clothes, casks of wine and jars of olive oil toppled over and draining onto the stone. Animals had been loosed and horses, pigs, sheep, goats, cows, and chickens wandered through the streets, crying out. Condottieri from both the Volterran and the Florentine armies ran amok, breaking down doors, stabbing unarmed men, chasing women, carrying valuables out of buildings. Soldiers surged through the streets of the town, using pikes and swords to shatter windows from the outside, or heaving furniture out from the inside. They howled like animals over the hissing of fire and the moans of women and the shrieks of the elderly and the high-pitched, terrified screaming of children. I saw three condottieri chase a young girl down an alley and I leapt off Ginori to pursue them. The alley ended in a twisted maze of smaller alleys, and I saw one of the condottieri drop back and grab a cowering woman by the hair, so I grabbed my sword and plunged it through the back of his neck. He went down without a sound and the woman grabbed my knees and babbled. “Hide!” I told her, which was all I could do for her, and then I turned to find the girl. I had to protect her.

I ran down one alley, it twisted around and came to a dead end, so I turned, swearing, and sprinted down the next alley, and then the next. Finally, abutting the stone wall of some palazzo, I saw the two remaining condottieri. I was too late. One brute was hauling up his hose amidst a fit of guffaws, while the other, hose pulled down around his ankles, knelt, hairy thighs exposed, with one of the girl’s legs stretched out underneath him. He cackled and waved a bloody dagger. He was finished despoiling her. Now he was amusing himself by carving into her skin. I charged him, pivoting through my hips as I swung my sword. All the unnatural strength at my disposal surged through me, and his head was sliced from his neck with a single long fast sweep. The head went rolling into a gutter and crimson blood spurted from the headless body, which toppled over onto the girl. The other condottiere was shouting and fumbling for his weapon, and I ran my sword through him, gutting him like a fish.

I turned to the girl. She wasn’t making a sound and I feared she was dead, but when I pulled the body off her, she sat up. Her gonna was shredded, with the skirt torn off at her waist. She was covered with blood and other substances, and the condottiere had cut a deep crosslike mark into her thigh. She turned her agonized, tearstained face to me, and I could see that she was only about twelve or thirteen, in that middling age between childhood and youth, though her face already showed the breathtaking woman she would become. It was heart-shaped and delicately sculpted, with high cheekbones, large golden-flecked eyes bright with terror, and a wide pink-lipped mouth open in a silent scream. She seized the dagger from the hand of the headless soldier. I knew she meant to hurt herself. I grabbed it from her.

“Let me die,” she whimpered, and the anguish in her voice couldn’t hide its husky melody.

“No, no!” I told her. “You have to live. You will live. It seems like the end of everything, but it’s not. You’ll survive.”

“I’m not worthy of living. I’m nothing now,” she wept.

“Stop it,” I said sternly. “You’re alive, and plenty of people won’t be after today. Your town will need you. Your family will need you. You have to help them.” I looked around for the remains of her skirt, found it, and tore some long strips out of the fabric. “Your wound is deep, but not dangerously so. I’ll bind it. Watch for infection over the next few days.”

“How can there be days after today?” she cried.

“There just will be; time goes on,” I said. I looked at her carefully. “You go hide. I’ve got to see if there are other children I can help.”

“Aren’t you one of the condottieri?” she whispered. I shook my head. She said, “Other children, you’re right, they’ll need help, I’ll go with you to help them….”

“No! Hide! You can’t help anyone right now, and if you don’t hide, you’ll get hurt again. Hide in an alley or gutter, not in a building that can be torched.” I was done tearing strips of cloth and I took a deep breath and made my hands very gentle as I laid them on her leg. I closed my eyes and felt myself soften, hoping to invoke it, letting myself surrender to my pity for this child, and it started: the consolamentum, the sweet warm flow like clean water through my heart and out my arms. The girl quieted, stopped crying. When the consolamentum ended, I wrapped her leg. “This may hurt, but it’ll stop the bleeding.”

“They killed my father,” she said softly. “They were laughing. He was lying on the floor with his eyes so empty. I have no other family. There’s no one to give me a dowry, so I’ll never marry, and what man would want me now anyway? I’m damaged, soiled. I’m nothing now.”

“You can’t think that way,” I said hoarsely, tightening one of the cloth strips. I was sickened again by the cruelty with which grown men could treat a child.

“My life doesn’t mean anything, with no parents, and now like this, and it hurt so bad, what they did to me!” She scrunched her narrow shoulders together and cradled her head in her arms. She had a thick mass of soft dark hair, but as she turned her head and sunlight caught her hair, I saw that it wasn’t black at all. Her hair was a variegated chestnut color, tousled through with rich red, umber, black, and even gold strands. I’d never seen anything like it.

“Your life can mean anything you want it to,” I said fiercely. “You are not what has been done to you, you’re more than that! There’ll be work here in Volterra, rebuilding the city. Helping other children and women. Concentrate on that, on helping them. That will get you through!” She nodded, but her face was so waxy and bruised with pain that I didn’t know if she heard me. I was done wrapping the wound and I leaned back. “Hide somewhere safe—you know the good hiding places, children always do—don’t come out for any reason until you hear the condottieri marching out of Volterra!” She scrabbled up onto her hands and knees and then up onto her feet. She swayed, looked down, and covered her nudity with her hands. I stripped off my blue lucco and gave it to her, and she slipped the tunic on over her head.