CHAPTER 52
Fra Norcino rolled a battered old coin from finger to finger, then held up a second to a shaft of dusty moonlight. The coins were older than Concord, minted when Etruria was called Etrusca, and bore the profile of a forgotten emperor.
‘Herod’s soldiers were not devils. They were men like you, no worse. They followed orders. Is guilt a link in the chain of command? Do the soldier’s crimes tarnish his officer? Do only officers’ sins count? Is guilt compounded?’ The theme of the oration was an old favourite: the Massacre of the Innocents. He preached with his usual intensity, although tonight nobody was listening; he was surrounded by the sleeping bodies of his closest followers.
Since Geta’s bravos and Corvis’ praetorians had joined in common cause, the fanciulli were on the defensive. No one knew what part the First Apprentice had in all this – there were rumours that he haunted Monte Nero’s summit like a grieving spirit while Corvis ran the Collegio – but no one was certain. What was certain was that the streets were unsafe, so each night the fanciulli found a new safe house to stay in. It was exhausting work, yet no one ever saw Fra Norcino sleep.
‘Certainly it was wrong to dash the little ones against the stones – but compared to the great sin the soldiers committed that day, O what a trifle. They couldn’t know, but ignorance is no excuse! God was watching, and he struck them down! Everyone! Their murdering right hands forgot their cunning, their lying tongues cleaved to the roof of their mouths.’ He stopped and looked around. Snores drifted around the low-ceiling room. ‘O faithless generation, is not one of you awake?’
Footsteps. The thud of soldiers’ hobnails. Suddenly the door burst open to admit a boy, one of his most devoted fanciulli. ‘Master,’ he hissed, ‘you must flee!’
The other sleepers didn’t stir. Norcino raised his finger to his lips and gestured the boy closer. When the boy came within reach, Norcino pulled him in and clapped a large hand around his mouth. He whispered in the boy’s ear, ‘It’s time to render onto Catiline that which is Catiline’s.’
Without much exertion he twisted the boy’s head—
Craa aa aa kkkuh.
He laid the body amongst the sleepers like a mother putting a child to sleep and placed a coin on each eye. The hobnails were thumping down the stairs now.
The Collegio’s board sat around the stone table in the otherwise empty chamber. It seemed much larger than it did during general assemblies. The speaker’s mace rested in front of the chairman’s seat, which was empty, like the First Apprentice’s throne. Like everyone else, the members of the board had heard the rumours of Norcino’s arrest.
‘Where is the First Apprentice? It’s not proper for the board to assemble without him,’ said Scaurus, the old consul who sat opposite to the chairman’s seat. Scaurus was a veteran of Forty-Seven, and an opponent of all innovation. He still bore the scars on his skin, which was now translucent, and wormed with tiny blue veins.
The other consuls paid no attention. They whispered amongst each other until the door opened and Corvis entered, followed by General Spinther and Lord Geta.
‘Consuls, please be seated,’ said Corvis. ‘Thank you for coming at such short notice. I trust you’ll understand in times as disturbed as these the proper channels were too slow – to safeguard our security it was necessary to—’
‘Necessity,’ a voice croaked. ‘The watchword of tyrants.’
‘Consul Scaurus, I must—’
‘—you must nothing!’ He stood with difficulty and said, ‘You arrest this preacher, and then peremptorily summon us, presumably to retroactively approve your actions. Where’s your respect for Guild protocol? Due process? For that matter, where is the First Apprentice? And now, the final insult, you enter this sacred arena flanked by soldiers. I remind those who remain loyal to Bernoulli’s legacy,’ he looked around the table, ‘that there is still one Apprentice, and our allegiance is to him.’
‘Scaurus, you are either joking or senile. No one could seriously suggest that the Guild still owes allegiance to that boy. He’s locked himself away in that tower while Concord burns. He’s is no fitter to wear the red than Bonnacio was. Sit down.’
‘Your hired thugs might intimidate these children, but they do not intimidate me. I stood side by side with Girolamo Bernoulli against better men than them, aye, and you.’
Corvis slammed his fist on the table. ‘I don’t need your approval, any more than the Apprentices or your beloved Saint Bernoulli needed it! I have the praetorians and that’s as good as wearing the red.’
‘You’re a fool, Corvis. By arresting Norcino you’ve exacerbated the situation. Consuls, are we really going to let this outrage continue?’
Corvis took up the mace and handed it to Leto. ‘Give Consul Scarus due process.’
Leto took it and walked around the table to Scaurus. Geta walked around the other side.
‘General Spinther, it comes to this?’ said Scaurus. ‘I fought along your grandfather in Forty-Seven. He’d be ashamed to see you a tool of this usurper.’
‘You don’t get it, old man,’ said Leto, lifting the mace. Geta seized the old man from behind and bent his head down to the table.
‘We’re—’ CracCK! ‘—all’ Ssspraklesumph ‘—usurpers!’
sqwelcsh
The consuls closest to Scaurus were showered in viscera. Leto held onto the mace. ‘Will that be all, Corvis?’
‘Will that be all, Consuls? No other objections? Good. We have a crowded agenda today, beginning with a Motion of No Confidence in the aforementioned Apprentice. Geta, Spinther, probably best you stay till we’re done.’
The knocking shook the door of the Selectors’ Tower and Leto walked in without waiting for an answer. A cold wind entered with him, scattering papers from Torbidda’s desk.
‘Close the door,’ said Torbidda mildly.
‘First Apprentice, I come with ill tidings.’
Torbidda did not look up from his drawing. ‘I don’t recall, Leto. Were you ever sent to Flaccus’ office? You always knew how to stay out of trouble.’
Leto continued in the same solemn tone, ‘The Guild has passed a Motion of No Confidence in your leadership.’ He opened the door again. Outside, Corvis, breathing heavily, was climbing the final steps to the tower.
‘The Collegio’s consent is not a condition of my leadership,’ Torbidda said evenly. ‘I wear the red.’
‘And you never tire of reminding us,’ Corvis wheezed. ‘We have also decided your dereliction of duty amounts to treason. General Spinther has a warrant for your arrest—’
‘Enough!’ Torbidda slammed his hands on the desk, upsetting a jar of ink. ‘This is more important than anything else in the Empire. I’ve tolerated your inveterate scheming for the sake of Guild unity, but if you think I’m going to let you take me away from my work—’
‘What makes you think I’ll give you a choice?’
‘We’re alone up here, Corvis. The stairway’s the only way up. Your pet general should have told you never to attack someone on such defensible high ground.’
‘Oh, Spinther’s been very helpful.’ Corvis grinned, and Torbidda saw the direction of his glance. He walked slowly to the window and whispered, ‘Leto, what have you done?’
Perched like carrion birds on the web of wires binding the Selectors’ Tower were dozens of hard-faced children, all armed with bows.
‘As you see, I came in strength,’ said Corvis exultantly. ‘The class of Sixty-Nine all volunteered to be part of the surprise. It’s a reunion! They say the friends you make in school are friends for life. I suppose you’re the exception that proves the rule.’
‘Torbidda, I’m sorry. I have to look out for myself,’ Leto said, then, with less repentance. ‘Frankly, in allowing things to get this far you’ve demonstrated—’
‘Don’t apologise. I understand perfectly. If you get a chance to cull the competition, you take it. So what’s to become of me? Shall I slip on the way down? A tragic accident?’
‘I wanted to have you killed on the quiet,’ said Corvis sadly, ‘but your old friend here insists on a very public trial. He believes that will set the correct tone for the new Concord: a city ruled by the Collegio, by reason, and by me!’
The dungeon below the praetorian barracks was dark, damp and chill. Norcino’s sightless eyes looked up as he heard the commotion of a new prisoner being led in. Vagrants usually escaped with a flogging and the loss of some or all of their limbs, but the praetorians stood respectfully back from the boy in red as he walked in.
Norcino sat up and crawled as far towards him as his manacles allowed. ‘My king! Is it really you, Majesty?’
‘Tranquillo, my good Fra. I haven’t come to free you. I’m in the same bind you are.’ Torbidda rattled his chains so that the blind man could hear. The guards opened the cell next to Norcino’s and Torbidda calmly walked in. He waited for the guards to leave before turning to his neighbour. ‘When I heard of this blind preacher disrupting the city I knew it was you. Who are you?’
‘Never mind that,’ Norcino hissed. ‘Do you know the Handmaid’s identity?’
‘Her name’s Scaligeri. She’s the one who burned the Molè.’
‘Then why,’ he demanded, ‘did you not complete the rite? You know what’s at stake.’
‘I know.’
‘Then what have you been waiting for?’
‘Out in the Wastes you told me I didn’t have to be a sacrificial lamb. I didn’t climb the mountain to donate my flesh to some tattered ghost. The rite’s unnecessary. I can deal with the Handmaid myself. Bernoulli had his turn to run Concord. This is mine!’
Norcino rattled his chains in mockery. ‘And a fine mess you’ve made of it!’