Gallus Tadius regarded me, hands on his hips. "See, here's the thing, lad. If we're going to beat these pox-ridden Valpetran sons of whores, we're going to have to stand shoulder to shoulder, shield to shield. Every man knows his duty. Every man counts on the fellow beside him to know his. That's what keeps you alive on the battlefield. That's what it means to be an army. I don't know who the hell taught you, but this is war, not a gladiator's arena. You go twirling around like a high-priced whore on an acrobat's stage, you're like to get your fellows killed. Understand?"
I didn't want to, but I did.
"Yes," I grated.
"Good." He jerked his chin at the waiting conscripts. "Next!"
One by one, Gallus Tadius tested the remainder of our company. And when he had done, he arranged us into pairs according to our levels of skill and set us to sparring. He appointed Eamonn to lead our squadron.
"Teach 'em the basics, Prince Barbarus," he said. "That's all I ask. You'll drill here, every day, until you receive further orders. You've got an hour till the next batch comes. Make good use of it."
He mounted his horse and made to leave.
"My lord!" I called after him. Gallus looked over his shoulder. "It's bad luck to dishonor a wager."
He stared at me for a long moment. One corner of his mouth curved with the hint of a smile, and he shook his head. Unexpectedly,
I found myself grinning. Without a word, Gallus Tadius rode away, still shaking his head.
My sparring partner was a young man named Orfeo. He seemed familiar, with a narrow face with wide eyes that gave him a curious, bird-like look. I'd watched his bout and seen enough to guess that someone had taught him the rudiments of swordplay, but whatever he'd learned, he'd forgotten for lack of practice.
"My brother, Giancarlo," he confirmed. "He taught me some before he left."
"Left?" I asked.
He nodded. "To seek his fortune with a mercenary company."
I remembered where I'd seen him. "You were a friend of Bartolomeo's."
"Yes." Orfeo's narrow face darkened. "They cut him down like a dog in the street! I hope they do invade," he said savagely. "I mean to get revenge for him." He paused. "Can you teach me to fight like you do?"
I explored the tender knot rising on my left cheekbone. "Not likely."
We spent the hour sparring. It was difficult. Ti-Philippe had taught me to fight in the conventional manner with sword and shield, but I'd spent so many long hours training with Joscelin. Out of practice though I was, the body remembers. And too, I was fighting without a shield. I tried to keep to a straightforward approach, but without intending it, I'd find my feet moving in familiar patterns, circles within circles, marking and blocking the quadrants with my blade. And Orfeo tried to emulate me, spinning awkwardly, leaving himself horribly open. He had a round buckler, but only a leather jerkin like mine, and I was fearful of injuring him by accident.
Eamonn took his charge seriously. After demonstrating the proper usage of our weapons, he strolled around, watching us all, offering corrections and advice. After a few passes, he returned with a second buckler, having come to some arrangement with one of the other conscripts.
"Here." He handed it to me, his face serious. "Gallus Tadius is right, Imri. At least in this matter."
I shoved my left arm through the arm strap and flexed my hand around the smooth grip. "I know, I know." I tested the shield's heft. It felt cumbersome, but I supposed I'd get used to it. "You're good at this."
Eamonn grinned. "I am, aren't I?"
For the remainder of the time, Orfeo and I hacked and battered at one another. I felt awkward and unbalanced, which made us a better match. By the time the next batch of conscripts arrived, my left arm felt like a lead weight, and I was glad to stop.
So began the new pattern of our days in Lucca.
It was a miserable time. I hated a great deal of it. I hated the broken nights of riding patrol and the broken days of drilling. I hated the buckler, and being constrained to a style that made no use of my hard-won skills. Everything I'd been taught was to preserve my life. Everything Gallus Tadius taught us emphasized the need to stand together, to defend one's brother in arms. As much as I understood it—and I did, even Joscelin would be the first to admit that Cassiline Brothers aren't trained to the battlefield—I still chafed at it.
Gallus did honor his wager, though.
I found out that night, when Eamonn and I returned from patrol. Despite the lateness of the hour, the Lady Beatrice met us in the atrium. It gave me a start, reminding me of her daughter. Her dark red hair was loose around her shoulders, her round, pleasant face alight with gladness as she hushed us.
"He's sleeping!" she whispered.
Eamonn glanced at me. "I'll be damned."
I liked to think it helped, at least a little. When I saw him next, Gallus Tadius wore Lucius' face a little easier. It didn't last, though. He was up day and night; tracking the progress of Valpetra's labor, tracking the progress of the Red Scourge, tracking the progress of the masons' efforts to shore up the wall. He rode through the city, scouring every inch for defensible positions and vantage points.
He spent long hours conferring with priests.
Since he didn't seem overly concerned with the Tadeii villa, which wasn't situated in a strategic location, I kept my promise to Claudia Fulvia and concerned myself. With Lady Beatrice's blessing, I confronted Publius Tadius.
I came straight from the training-field and strode into his study uninvited. He had issued a standing order to be left undisturbed, but his wife countermanded it. I found him seated by a window, immersed in reading, for all the world as though Lucca weren't under siege. He looked up when I entered, his gaze vacant. Yes?
I stood in front of him, dripping on his carpet. It was raining. The long dry spell had broken with a vengeance, and it had been a miserable day of drilling. We were staging mock skirmishes now, squadron against squadron, and I'd spent the better part of two hours ankle-deep in cold mire, locking shields, thrusting and grunting.
"My lord," I said. "Do you know who I am?"
His expression changed slowly, a measure of clarity surfacing. It was cold and disapproving. He marked his place in his book and set it down. "If you're speaking of your relationship with my son, I don't particularly care to hear it."
"Your son." My hair was dripping into my eyes. I swiped it out of the way with one vambraced forearm. "My lord, your son is a good man, and I pray to Blessed Elua you have a chance to learn that one day."
His mouth pursed. "You have no right to pass judgment on me."
I gazed at him, through the bitterness and disappointment and self-righteousness, and beheld the shadows on his soul. Fear and longing and deep-seated self-loathing. "You were afraid of him, weren't you? Your grandfather?"
He looked away. "Please leave."
"My lord." I opened my arms. "I fear, too. But I'm here and I'm fighting for Lucca at the behest of your wraith-ridden son and your mad, dead, awful genius of a grandfather. And if a prince of Terre d'Ange can do this much for a foreign city, surely the grandson of Gallus Tadius can bestir himself in the defense of his own household."
Publius' jaw trembled. "You don't understand."
"Yes," I said. "I do. You've not gone mad, my lord, you've only taken refuge there. It's time to return. Lucca needs you. Your family needs you."
He looked at me, his glance flinching away, then steeled himself. "What must I do?"
I led him through the villa, explaining about the dam and the prospect of flooding, and how the city wall might be breached. I showed him what we'd done to shift foodstuffs and certain delicate valuables to the upper story.
"You think it will happen?" he asked.
"I think it might," I said. "And my lord, if it does, I won't be here to protect the villa from looting. I won't be here to defend the Lady Beatrice's honor. I'll be in the streets, fighting. You've got to help."
"I can do that." His eyes were clear and young, younger than they'd been. "Yes."
I smiled. "Good."
As it transpired, he had a certain knack for it. In the days that followed, the upper level of the Tadeii villa was transformed into a bastion. Stairways would be sealed, doors barred and blockaded. A hail of arrows and scalding water would rain down from the balconies. If Lucca held, the villa would hold.
At least for a time.
Everywhere across the city, others were doing the same thing. For a trade city, there was precious little trade afoot. No one could enter or leave, and Gallus Tadius had put a halt to trade among those merchants who were trapped here. I had to own, he was even handed in his approach. All goods that were confiscated were shared alike. Anyone caught hoarding was put to death. It only happened twice. Both times, the offenders were strung up on a gallows in the central square.
It was an effective deterrent.
"Hear me!" Gallus roared, riding back and forth before the second swaying corpse. He pointed his finger at the gathered crowd. "Lucca stands. And while it stands, no one, not the least among us, man, woman, or child, will starve while there is a handful of grain to share." He gave his death's-head grin. "And share you will, on pain of death."
There was no word from Terre d'Ange, no word from Tiberium, no word from the Unseen Guild. On occasion, I caught sight of Canis when our squadrons passed. We began training with thrusting spears. Once, we skirmished together, although he was some distance down the opposing line from me. I could barely see him for the rain. He seemed to acquit himself well. Afterward, I saw a couple of his fellows slap his back in approval. A few of ours complained that the deaf-mute had a heavy hand. And then Gallus Tadius changed our orders, and we began training in the city streets, each squadron assigned a specific section.
It kept raining.
The water in the moat kept falling.
I went to see Helena Correggio.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
I was received graciously in the Correggio household.
Gaetano was elsewhere when I called upon the palazzo, but Helena's mother, Dacia, greeted me with a deep curtsy. "Your highness," she said. "We owe you thanks beyond words."
She was a tall, elegant woman with kind eyes, and I liked her immediately. Indeed, whatever madness had befallen Lucca, the women bore it with infinitely more grace than the men. Then again, their dead had not been tyrants and mercenary soldiers.
After brushing off my polite demurral, she escorted me into a salon and went to summon her daughter. A servant arrived with a carafe of watered wine and a plate of dates; the height of hospitality during the siege. I ate a date and sipped sparingly at the wine, mindful that it was a portion of someone's daily ration. More days than not, I felt hollow with hunger.
Within a few moments, Helena arrived.
It surprised me, knowing what I did of Caerdicci culture, that we were allowed to meet unchaperoned. And then I remembered that Helena was a married woman, and no longer a maiden. Whatever virtue the Caerdicci place in virginity, hers was no longer at issue.
It was awkward at first. Although we shared a common bond, we were strangers to one another. We spoke of desultory matters; the siege and its effects, mostly. It was Helena who cut through the awkwardness and went straight to the heart of things.
"Will you tell me your story?" she asked. "The true story?"
I hesitated. "My lady, why do you want to know?"
Her hands were clasped hard, fingers working unconsciously. "I know the tale my nursemaid told me; the tale of the Bella Donna and her missing child. My father told me that it wasn't true, that it was only women's foolish superstition making something false out of politics and intrigue. It's not, though, is it? Not only that. I want to know the true story."
"I don't speak lightly of it," I said.
She knotted her fingers. "I don't ask lightly."
And so I told her.
At another time, in another place, I might not have done it. I cannot say. She seemed so young to bear the burden of my dark tale, with her shining, baby-fine hair and her clear blue eyes. But she bore her own burden of betrayal and lost innocence behind those eyes, and once I began to speak, the words kept coming. I told her of being raised in the Sanctuary of Elua where my mother had hidden me from the world, all unwitting of my own parentage. I told her of my own abduction by slave-traders, of being sold to the merchant Fadil Chouma. Of travelling to Menekhet, where Chouma sold me to the ka-Magus, the Drujani bone-priest.
Daršanga.
I told her only that it was a foul place with a mad ruler who did terrible things. It was enough. I told her that some died and others lived and all of us kept despair at bay one minute, one hour, one day at a time. And I told her how Phèdre came into the midst of it, bearing an impossible gift of hope. How Phèdre and Joscelin rescued us, and the zenana rose up and overthrew the garrison. How I had learned who I was.
Helena listened to it all without comment, drinking in my words as the parched earth drinks in water. When I had finished, we sat for a moment in silence together.
"So it is true," she murmured at length. "In a way. True and not „ true.
"Most stories are, my lady," I said.
A quick smile flickered over her face, so fleeting it was barely there. "I prayed to her," she said. "When Lucius told me he wouldn't marry me, that he was going away to Tiberium instead. I snuck out beneath a new moon. I went to the crossroad before our home, where we make offerings to the lar compitale, and I buried three blue beads beneath a cobblestone like my nurse told me." She drew up her knees, hugging them. "I prayed to the Bella Donna to find a way to save me from Domenico Martelli da Valpetra and let Bartolomeo and me be together."
