Spira Mirabilis (15 page)

‘We have to let go of Rasenna if we want to save it.’

Jacques took a step towards Uggeri, but Pedro held up a hand to stop him. ‘Do you recall what Doc said when he gave you that banner?’

‘He said we stand together or fall together.’ Uggeri stared at the mirror fragments, breathing hard. ‘Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.’

‘Then grow up. Geta made the legions camp outside expressly to avoid an incident.’

‘Exactly why we should do something to embarrass him.’

‘In this case, he’s right. The legionaries would be delighted to settle the score. They’d leave this side of town worse than the north.’

‘We can hide.’

‘Yes – while they massacre our mothers and grandmothers and brothers and sisters.’

Uggeri turned back to the window.

‘Are you coming?’

‘No. I want to know what it’s like to let an army march over you.’

Pedro was about to ask Jacques the same question, but he had already turned his back. It was plain the Hammer belonged to Uggeri now.

*

The Grand Legion entered Rasenna cheering, but the acclamation soon faded away. The charred and broken northside towers made the legionaries brood on old sins – and each of them had many. When they crossed the swaying pontoon, they found the south side of Rasenna less desolate but no more welcoming. They knew they were trampling a fresh grave, and so they ignored the rictus grins of the pale patricians and hastened to escape the empty piazza.

Geta escorted Leto to the south gate. Before he left, Geta begged for a few battalions from him. ‘Flushing out the Tartaruchi – stupid name! – will cost lives,’ he explained.

‘Doubtless it will,’ Leto said with equanimity. ‘Why should they be my legionaries’ lives? You have mercenaries at your disposal.’ The Hawk’s Company, what was left of it, might be led by a Concordian, but Leto for one had not forgotten Tagliacozzo; even though Concordian arms had triumphed over John Acuto’s coalition that day, it had been a close-run thing. ‘Those dogs sold their lives a hundred times over. It’s about time someone took them up on it.’

It was too early for snow. The pale flakes carried on the chill wind at their backs were ash. Though Leto rode in the middle of the vanguard, the horses in front of him had already turned the path into mud, and the black mire reflected the column of smoke that was all that remained of the nameless town behind them.

The Grand Legion was an iron river of well-drilled men and broken beasts. Taming truly wild things, Leto reflected, was well-nigh impossible; no matter how servile they might act, their hearts remained defiant. Once, Concord could approach any town and be sure of allies inside; sure that ambition was a stronger instinct than patriotism; sure that if the headman did not open the gates, the next man would; sure that there was no treachery to which a man would not stoop if he could call himself king or dux or doge or gonfaloniere …

Then one slip undid years of patient work: Rasenna showed that resistance
was
possible, and even though it was now once more degraded, the memory of the City of Towers’ defiance endured. Even the weakest towns now believed they could preserve their independence if only they could muster a convincing defence. Leto had left a string of hamlets broken and burning as a forthright answer to this misapprehension. It had been necessary. Each day the green leaves faded a little more; each day the cold wind crept south faster than they could. Like Rasenna, Veii was a frontier, and it had to be taken if the advance were to continue. If it did not quickly surrender, he must break off the campaign till spring, and Torbidda would never countenance such a delay.

The road to Veii was in ill repair and interrupted by brooks, streams, and finally rivers. To maintain their pace, Leto ordered the big wagons carrying the large cannon and material for siege-engines left behind; they could be sent for a week later, perhaps two. It was a gamble – the sort that came naturally to Geta, the sort at which Leto’s cautious sensibility rebelled – but he recognised the necessity. His scouts reported that Veii was making preparations – if they got there before that work was sufficiently advanced, it was unlikely that the Duke of Veii would risk a trial of arms. Leto took consolation in the fact that the Veians had always previously chosen discretion over valour: Duke Grimani had stood apart from John Acuto’s coalition, though the field of Tagliacozzo bordered his dominions.

Leto had more to worry about besides the shortening days. Ordinarily, a campaigning general could rely on the unsleeping intelligences of the three Apprentices attending to the flow of men and equipment and foreseeing the many sundry complications that inevitably plagued marching men. That as much as their remarkable war-engines was why Concordian armies most often won. But Torbidda’s attentions were divided between building this damn tower and recapturing Rasenna’s elusive Contessa Scaligeri – neither of which Leto deemed as pressing – which left his man Scaevola to worry about details Concordian quartermasters had never before had to concern themselves with.

A horn blew somewhere ahead and Leto rode to the front of the vanguard to see a Veian herald. When Leto saw the man was bearing the peacock flag of the Grimani Family rather than the wolf of Veii, his mood brightened. He had forgotten what an advantage it was to have such craven foes.

*

The salt plains of Volsinii were hardly scenic, but the small coastal town was within Veii’s sphere of influence and the perfect place for Duke Grimani to discreetly meet the Concordian general.
The duke believed in diversification: there was no doubt Maestro Vanzetti’s improvements made it possible for Veii to withstand a long siege – but surely it would be better if they could avoid that trial altogether? He hoped to sound out General Spinther’s intentions, perhaps even make a deal. But just in case Spinther was planning to take a shortcut, he brought a large bodyguard and four elders to demonstrate the eternal loyalty of Veii’s population to the Family Grimani.

Leto brought only Quartermaster Scaevola and a centurion. Now that the Duke beheld his adversary face to face, he realised any theatrics were unnecessary; he was a little annoyed that he had chosen such a remote venue. Etruria was quailing before a mere boy – still, at least he had an audience to appreciate the spell he was about to weave upon the inexperienced youth.

‘General Spinther,’ he began, ‘I am so glad to finally meet you, so I can ask in person the question that has been tormenting me: What lies have our mutual enemies told you that would prompt Concord to march against Veii, a city that has always been a friend?’

‘Veii took part in the summit at Ariminum,’ Leto pointed out. ‘That’s hardly an act of friendship.’

‘Hardly an act of war either. It’s true that I was foolish enough to send my son to the summit – but only to urge the other powers to be patient. And for my peacemaking, he was assassinated by parties unknown. The Ariminumese insist it was an accident, but that’s—’

‘—not what we are here to discuss.’

The duke was taken aback. ‘Now listen, son, that’s a poor attitude to begin a negotiation—’

‘We’re not negotiating,’ Leto said. ‘You know you cannot stand against us.’

‘I know nothing of the sort. Indeed, I seem to recall Rasenna sent your legions packing not too long ago.’

Leto sighed. Explaining what an outlier was wouldn’t help. In his previous dealings with barbarians, Leto had noticed that brute logic made brutes intransigent. ‘That city is now fallen,’ he said. ‘The First Apprentice aspires to a
Renovatio Imperii
from which all Etruria would profit. Concord’s demands are reasonable: the right to tax fish and salt, the right to collect tolls and customs, the right to appoint certain officials to oversee—’

‘Yes, yes, the same Regalian Rights that every vaunting would-be conqueror from the north has ever demanded.’ The duke felt wrong-footed: he’d come expecting a generous bribe in exchange for neutrality and safe passage through his lands, but instead this pup was expecting him to lick his feet in front of his countrymen. ‘Sophistry will not avail you, boy. I patronise enough court-philosophers to know one can disguise anything as Reason.’

‘Then it is not Reason,’ said Leto with cold fury. ‘What if our ancestors had been this obstinate? Had they not banded together in federation, every Etruscan city would have fallen one by one to the ravenous Romans. We must follow their examples and see beyond our petty differences. I offer more than an olive branch: I offer membership of the greatest league since the Etruscan Empire. The First Apprentice has begun to rebuild the Molè. He wishes it to be a monument for
all
Etrurians, a symbol of the titanic works we can achieve when we forget ourselves and think and act as a corporate body.’

‘A gilded chain is still a chain.’

Leto realised that Reason was wasted on this one. ‘Have you ever studied a peacock closely, Grimani? Its feet are mired in caked shit that mocks the display in which it prides.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘That the worst fools are those who think themselves wise. You are right about one thing at least: words are the wrong tools to convince the likes of you.’

The duke signalled to his bodyguard that the meeting was over. ‘You’ll find us ready, Spinther.’

As the dust of the duke’s horses engulfed them, Leto said to the man standing behind him, ‘What do you think, Scaevola?’

‘He must think he has a chance.’

Leto suppressed a smile. ‘Has Rasenna discouraged even you?’

‘Perish the thought, General. It’s only that our engines will be delayed.’

A quartermaster should be cautious, but Scaevola was cursed with such ill luck that risk-avoidance had become his religion. His first error was to be born minor nobility, his family lands far from the capital, where the Concordian contato met the coast. His parents were too reactionary to let an obviously intelligent child train as an engineer, and too poor to send him to a Rasenneisi bandieratori studio, and as a result he entered the army with no advantages – a handicap which spurred him to hard work.

His appearance was no help: his great flapping ears were the most insistent crimson, and his large nose lumpen, and while a smile might have made these features endearing, his cracked lips were perpetually frowning over his sums. This unhappy combination might have attracted the mockery of the young engineers who surrounded Leto, but in truth, Scaevola’s foolish appearance had been Fortune’s one favour: no one had ever taken him seriously enough to want him assassinated. Over a long career of dogged service he had earned steady promotions, but in such crawling increments that no one ever really noticed, until, to the wonder of all, he had attained a rank of which any man could be proud – though how galling to be grey-haired amongst boys and adolescents. He was condescended to by the engineers, distrusted by the nobles and flat-out despised by the foot soldiers, who would have preferred daily scourging to the tyranny of his fastidious parsimony.

Many officers had used Scaevola to aid their own rise within the ranks, but the first man to truly
see
his qualities was Leto. The First Apprentice’s last friend had become suspicious of Wunder-kinder – he knew better than anyone the ruin left in the wake of their wild leaps and intricate schemes. Away from Concord, things were simpler. There was no art to War. It was butchery, pure and simple. Brilliant stratagems rarely won the day; most of the time it was simply a matter of grit, drudge and application, of showing up on the right day, of making sure the horses were shod, that the men were fed and marching in the right direction.

Attention to such routine matters was Scaevola’s gift. The other reason Leto trusted him was that he was universally reviled – the stiletto of an ambitious subordinate was ever an occupational hazard for a Concordian general, but if Leto were ever assassinated, the quartermaster would lose everything: his rank, his fortune and probably his life.

Scaevola did not see it in these stark terms. He had always won promotion by default, but being shown actual favour had changed his life. His fellow officers, perhaps a little jealous, might mock his hound-like fidelity, but he loved his general as a freed bondsman loved his liberator.

‘If they use that time to shore up their walls, gather provisions, well …’ He looked at his master with concern. ‘General, you know I do not voice doubts idly. My loyalty obliges me to attend to the facts, however unpleasant, however bothersome. Veii’s natural defences are such that even an incompetent resistance would delay us. What if Grimani does all he’s threatened?’

His hero didn’t disappoint. ‘Then we’ll make him pay for it.’

*

The night after the Grand Legion passed through Rasenna, the pontoon was cut from its moorings. No one attempted any replacement, so the only way north was once again via the Midnight Road.

Geta’s soldiers crossed in force. Their mission was to move the orphans south, ‘for their protection’, and they came armed with kindling and oil. They found the baptistery empty.

No announcement was made but all knew that the war had entered a new, more brutal phase.

Geta entered the bedchamber where Maddalena was confined with the morning sickness that had long outstayed its welcome. ‘How are you feeling,
amore
?’

‘Duped,’ she said grumpily. ‘I thought it was called morning sickness because it didn’t last beyond noon.’ She had chased away her servants hours ago and was surprised to find herself genuinely happy to see him. ‘Good day at work, Husband?’

‘You don’t want to know,’ said Geta, uncorking a bottle and pouring two glasses.

‘Actually, knowing whether victory is imminent or if my tower is about to collapse is of immense concern to me,’ Maddalena said snippily. ‘Whatever goes on in the world outside our bedchamber, we promised never to lie to each other.’

‘I said that?’ He raised his eyebrows as she glowered at him, then gave in.‘Well, I’m not hiding anything,
amore
, I promise you that. It’s just that my mother taught me to be silent when there’s nothing to boast of. We discovered three new holes today.’