The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy) (20 page)

‘Hammer! Hammer! Hammer!’ the Rasenneisi countered.

‘Come on, Yuri!’ Levi hollered, ‘I’ve a month’s pay riding on you!’

The men were eyeball to eyeball now, and both had stopped breathing. Two towers. Two mountains. Sweat streamed into Jacques’ eyes, and he blinked to clear them. His arms weren’t defined like Yuri’s; they were pillars of knotted muscle and flesh with the mindless endurance of iron. A grin began to form on Yuri’s face when, suddenly, a gasp escaped him and he shifted in his seat. His forearm and bottom lip quaked in tandem. He strained. His arm began to retrace its journey, steadily, inexorably, over the halfway point, then downwards.

‘Ham – mer! Ham – mer! Ham – mer!’

Jacques’ forge-scorched face was tranquil. The chant grew louder, more insistent, as the crowd watched Yuri’s steadily descending arm, as inevitable as a falling tower. His face rippled with agony. ‘Aaahieeeeeee!’

Slam!

His fist hit the table and a great cheer went up. Amongst the crowd that rushed to congratulate the winner was Fabbro. ‘Well done, Jacques! Been meaning to call in for weeks. How goes it?’

Ignoring the dozens of hands slapping his great back, the blacksmith finished his beer in one long drink, wiped his mouth, and said calmly, ‘Well. Come tomorrow.’

Fabbro offered to buy him another, but Jacques refused. Fabbro was still wondering why later that evening as his godson excitedly related his adventures in the tunnels.

‘—then Levi lowered me into the pit—’

‘You ought to be more careful, Pedro,’ said Maddalena. Tower Bombelli and Tower Vanzetti had always been close, and Maddalena still took a big-sisterly attitude to Pedro. She couldn’t dominate her real brothers; they were much older. ‘Let Levi take the risks. That’s what Papa pays him for.’

Levi raised his drink sarcastically. ‘Too kind, Signorina.’

‘Well, what could you see?’ Fabbro asked.

‘Not much, though I inserted glow-globes at regular intervals. I passed several caverns hollowed out of the tufa, some clearly the work of erosion but others, roughly square in shape, well, they looked manmade.’

‘How old?’ Fabbro asked.

‘Etruscan if I had to guess – but that’s still not the strangest thing. We didn’t have enough rope to go all the way down, so I dropped my last globe. It fell, there was a splash, and then it vanished. A river, Fabbro! There’s a second river, flowing
beneath
Rasenna. All this time!’

‘How fascinating,’ Maddalena interrupted. ‘Pedro, I know that southsiders do things differently, but can’t you wait till tomorrow to discuss sanitation?’

The way Pedro reddened reminded Fabbro that Rasenna’s Chief Engineer was still a boy. It was easy to forget. Though adolescence lingered on his face, there was hardness too. Life had tested Pedro early.

‘Hush, Maddalena,’ Fabbro scolded. ‘Since when are you so prudish? The
cloaca
is an endeavour every bit as noble as Giovanni’s bridge, and just as necessary.’

Giovanni was still alive when Rasenna’s boom had began, and he had warned the Signoria it could be make or break for them. Concord had experienced a similar expansion in the last two decades, and if her antique sewer system, the old Etruscan
cloaca maxima
, had not been still functional, disease would have destroyed the city. The siege of Rasenna had proved doubly serendipitous in this case, for the Concordians’ discarded diggers made extensive rapid digging possible.

Few in the Signoria saw the urgency and clamoured instead for more public buildings, wasteful vanity projects, needless improvements. Pedro was continually frustrated by losing his newly trained engineers to lucrative private commissions. Their short-sightedness amazed him. Since Giovanni’s death, Rasenna’s growth-rate had quadrupled: nine months after each new influx – the Hawk’s Company, the labourers drawn by work – a wave of babies followed. Children, like men, produce mountains of dung and torrents of piss. The Irenicon could take only so much before it became a festering source of disease.

‘Well, let’s all turn troglodyte, then!’ Maddalena snapped and turned to pester Levi.

After the Gonfaloniere had escorted his daughter home, the traditional grumbling began. Where once the Small People had
complained about the Families’ exploitation, now they complained about those who sat in the Palazzo del Popolo and kept them out. It was curious: the wider the enfranchisement, the more emboldened the Signoria was to gather taxes. More curious still, the Small People, those without votes, did not complain about the Signoria’s greed but that they could not feed at the trough.

Levi and Sofia did not partake in the griping. They drank and listened to Yuri’s gruff voice beating an Etrurian dirge into some Slavic shape in which he found a pleasing melody. He was in fine spirits despite his defeat.

‘A night in the stables will do Uggeri good,’ Levi said.

Sofia was still irked by Fabbro’s high-handedness, and naturally defensive of her men. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that boy but the want of a war.’

‘You look ready to do battle yourself,’ Levi remarked.

Sofia threw him a streak of silver, which he tried to catch but missed. The coin floated to the bottom of his tankard. When he saw it was Ariminumese, Levi sighed.

‘I got that on the bridge today. We’re trading with those dogs!’

Levi knew what was coming. ‘We’re going to need them.’

‘They
sold
John Acuto. They
stood by
as Concord attacked us. What’s the point of keeping your company in beer if we—’

‘I hate Ariminum as much as you, but do you really want to start a second war when we still have the Concordians to worry about? This town’s not big enough to—’

‘We’re a city now, Podesta,’ Pedro interrupted. He sat down beside them, pleasantly tipsy.

Sofia relaxed and eyed Levi humorously. Pedro didn’t drink often, but when he did he talked like his father. ‘What’s the difference?’

‘In a town you know your murderer’s name.’

‘When did you get so cynical?’ Levi asked.

‘When the Palazzo della Signoria was renamed the Palazzo del Popolo,’ said Pedro without hesitation. ‘A sop to the Small People.’

‘The Families used to ignore them,’ Sofia said. ‘Surely that was worse?’

‘Was it? Farmers think of spring lambs often, but their thoughts are not kind. They change the name and hope the Small People are too stupid to notice that a body that can’t agree on
anything
agrees that every new tax proposed is vital. And if one’s repealed, they execute a flanking move and tax the food we eat and wine we drink. The Morello used only to break our legs. At least they left our hearts intact.’

‘Listen to the communard,’ Sofia laughed.

Levi finished his drink and said, ‘Long live whoever wins.’

Isabella woke before the other girls. Her chamber faced east, and the rising sun lifted her gently from sleep. She preferred it so: the night she had woken suddenly to fire was still a scorching memory. While Rasenna slept for a few more hours, she performed her exercises with the gravity of someone far older than thirteen. The fire had taken much, but it gave Isabella the strength to hold the convent together after the Reverend Mother and Sister Lucia were slain; her duty, as theirs had been, was to serve Time, and to divert those who would divert it.

Sofia had become her teacher of Water Style. She took Isabella to the bridge to observe the Irenicon, telling her there was a still-greater river all around, carrying them all into the next hour, the next year and finally, into infinity, and that if she became
aware
of it, she could use it. Like Sofia, Isabella had been raised in a bandieratori tower, so the physical part came easy. Self-control took longer; she only attained it by burying certain memories.

When she felt ready she went to the chapel carrying a jug of water and a glass. She sat at the low table looking up at the depiction of the Virgin and made the Sign of the Sword. She filled the glass with a trembling hand. The water fluttered in the multi-coloured light of the recently repaired stained-glass window.

Sofia had warned Isabella that evasion would allow her to progress only so far. The way to get beyond memories, however painful, was to dive
into
them fearlessly. They were waiting: the fear that she would burn with her brothers, her mother and father, and shame that her first thought was saving herself. It took many attempts to pass through the firestorm under the cool surface, but now it was less painful than slowly drifting a finger over a flame.

Below the fire, the water grew precariously cold and viscous, and the pain changed pitch. The deeper she swam, the deeper it cut, until fingers and toes, hands and feet, arms and legs were numb. She had to push on and ignore the ice stabbing her heart until at last she broke though. In the dark infinity below the fire and ice waited the greatest horror: the Darkness. She knew instinctively she must defeat it now, or perish. Its limbs were writhing maggot heads, their touch was intimate, cold and insatiable. Its sustenance was inexhaustible: the hate of the world, the infinity of fear that even the weakest heart contains. Its tight grip pulled her in as she struggled.

Alone, Isabella would certainly have perished, but Sofia had dredged her up and ordered gruffly: ‘Practise.’ That was Sofia’s way. She was a fighter, and so fought to the point of exhaustion. That came quickly, against Sofia; the Reverend Mother’s speed was nothing compared to what Sofia had achieved. Before she landed, Sofia was waiting; before she kicked, Sofia had sidestepped and countered, not just one step ahead but many. Isabella dimly understood from her glimpse of the Darkness the great cost Sofia had paid for that speed, and worked harder.

Day by day she was getting stronger.

Then, a year to the day after the siege, Sofia abandoned her. Was it part of her training? Perhaps this next step must be taken alone, like birth or death – but no, that wasn’t it. When Isabella caught Sofia’s eye on the bridge, she would turn away. When
Isabella visited Tower Scaligeri, Sofia made excuses – she was busy in the workshop, in the Signoria, assisting the midwife.
Something
had changed; something Sofia had not expected. She needed help that Isabella was incapable of providing.

Isabella felt the warmth light on her skin and looked up at the window. ‘Madonna,’ she whispered, ‘you suffered and were not afraid. Give me courage.’

She closed her eyes. Alone or not, she must overcome the Darkness: for Rasenna’s sake, and Sofia’s.

The Gospel According to
St Barabbas

‘Bombelli, you scoundrel! Catch!’

Fabbro deftly caught the purse. ‘Well?’ the street seller said.

‘I’m hungover!’ Fabbro protested.

‘Don’t give me that. No amount of drink can make Fabbro Bombelli miscount.’

He bounced it in his hands. ‘Thirty-two?’

‘Bravo! You’ve still got it.’

Fabbro grinned proudly and threw back the purse. ‘Years over a scale, my friend.’

‘So, where’ve you been?’

‘Book keeping keeps me locked away. Speaking of which, I should get back …’

They chatted for a while before Fabbro left, greeting other merchants as he went. The market never failed to lift a black mood; he missed its gladiatorial badinage. By the time he reached Piazza Stella he was jolly again. He stopped beside the third lion and looked up at the empty plinth. Instead of heading back to his palazzo, he abruptly turned right and walked along the Irenicon’s northern bank.