CHAPTER 24

The wind’s howling made it impossible to hear other footsteps, and until that moment Marcus Marius Messallinus had not really missed his spectacles. Losing them was a good excuse to skip the training intended to give his military career a head start. The young Concordian saw no reason to apply himself; modern generals didn’t lead so much as point the machines in the right direction.

Gaetano would never have allowed Marcus to venture alone from Palazzo Morello, but after all, Gaetano might well be part of the plot. Marcus had learned of the conspiracy only today. In the excitement of the bridge ceremony, someone had dropped a note in his hood:

What Marcus lacked in drive, he made up for in imagination. Clearly, his counterpart in the Bardini workshop had put aside rivalry to enlist his help.

He waited in the empty piazza until bells rang out across the river. He had bright visions of himself and Valerius, friends tested by battle, returning to Concord in triumph, to be congratulated by the First Apprentice. On the twelfth chime, a figure gestured on the far side of the piazza. Yes, Valerius was shrewd! If the two heroes were seen, it would alert the plotters.

An hour later he was lost in the dark, twisting backstreets and seriously worried. A strange thought was gnawing at him ever more insistently. Perhaps this “patriot” was a Rasenneisi. It had simply never occurred to Marcus that one could be loyal to a place that spawned schismatics so prodigiously—but why not? If he had learned nothing else in his time here, it was that Rasenna and contradiction were no strangers. Was it true, though? Had some Rasenneisi murderer lured him from safety this night? Wait, was that someone up ahead, at the mouth of that alley?

“Valerius?”

He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. He’d overheard stories of the headless northsider; if one ghost had risen, might not another? How many Rasenneisi had Concord drowned all those years ago? How many yearned to share their tombs? He dropped his flag and ran.

The boy had been ensconced in Palazzo Morello for the last year, and his knowledge of the streets was poor at the best of times; in the darkness it was even worse. But if he could find his way back to Piazza Luna, he could get to Palazzo Morello and safety.

Had he seen that Madonna statue before? That mural? It was pointless; they all looked the same. In trying to retrace his steps, he’d just gotten himself even more lost. The harsh sound of cloth ripping made him jump, and he called out tentatively, “Hello?”

There was no answer—then a glint of gold, his flag, torn from its stick! By whom? By what?

It danced on the wind and then, animated surely by vengeful spirits of old Rasenna, flew toward him.

The blood pounding in his ears was louder than the screaming wind. Marcus ran around corner after corner, but every time he looked back it was closer. He turned into a narrow alley and stopped.

It was a dead end where two towers leaned into each other.

“Oh, Madonna, help me!” he cried. He turned and—

Nothing. It was gone.

After a moment, he stuck his head out of the alley. That Madonna, painted like a doll; he recognized it! This must be Via Purgatorio, east of Piazza Luna.

In his haste, he stumbled and cracked his head on stone. He pulled himself up in a daze and saw it—

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Gold covered him, trapped him, struggle as he might. The weight on his chest was holding him down, hands on his neck were strangling him—he couldn’t escape, couldn’t breathe—

The fabric invaded his mouth, a thousand raging corpses teaching him how they had drowned . . .

As breakfast was served in the lonely luxury of Palazzo Morello, Gaetano’s men were searching every tower south of the river. He just prayed Marcus hadn’t been dumb enough to cross the bridge. Bardini would eat him alive.

“Oh, he’ll turn up, Gaetano!” His father had been unbearably garrulous since the engineer’s behavior on the bridge. The Doctor’s Concordian had turned out to be insufficiently loyal to Concord; what a great joke.

“Don’t you realize what could happen if—?”

“Oh Gaetano, tranquillo. The boy’s just hiding in a tower. Have a drink. Your brother’s never understood politics, has he?”

Valentino smiled.

Quintus kept going, “Either our water is potent enough to breed faction in an engineer’s heart or the fellow was eccentric to begin with.”

“Perhaps that’s why they gave him this job,” Valentino suggested, amused at his father’s heroic self-deception. The old fool had made a policy of popular gestures, but his patriotism was a pose made safe by the Doctor’s pragmatic balancing act. They’d performed this ritualistic dance so long that Quintus had forgotten he was being led.

A bandieratoro entered and whispered something to Gaetano.

Valentino noticed his sudden loss of color. “What is it?”

Gaetano looked at him suspiciously. “They found Marcus’s body by the Lion, under a golden banner.”

Quintus Morello spit out his drink. “Our flag!”

He followed Gaetano out in a stupor, leaving Valentino alone with his thoughts and the dozing Donna Morello.

The only thing that upset the dance was disagreement about who should lead. The bridge would change everything, and his father was too frightened to acknowledge that Morello power had waned. Gaetano suspected it; the Doctor knew it. Valentino had another ambition entirely: to see the dancers destroy each other and let the world burn afterward. They had sent him to the Beast. All were guilty; all must be punished.

With threat of murder abroad, Valerius was safely under guard in Tower Bardini when the emergency Signoria meeting began.

The gonfaloniere was haranguing the Doctor. “You all know—the assassin knows—that Concord will hold the Contract holder as responsible as the assassin. But this assassin has miscalculated: this crime endangers every tower in Rasenna!”

Gaetano and Sofia sat next to the respective heads of their families, a silent signal of violent expectations.

The Doctor, grieving for Guercho Vaccarelli at last, took the mace. “Why would I provoke Concord?” he asked. “How could I possibly imagine they would smite my enemy and leave my tower standing? War will not make such nice distinctions: if no one is guilty, all are guilty. If war comes, all suffer. Call me a scoundrel, a murderer, but please, not a fool. Why would I suddenly change my policy, which has ever been one of conciliation and realism?”

“Because we are winning!” Quintus spit.

“Order!” said the notary.

“The murder of Marcus Marius Messallinus can, more plausibly, be blamed on a reckless unknown provocateur.”

No one doubted who the Doctor suspected: Valentino sat at Quintus’s other side, nursing his stump like a peevish baby.

When the notary’s gavel failed to curb the din, the Doctor knelt and pounded the mace on the ground. “If you cannot be civil, be rational,” he said. “Gonfaloniere, I fear war more than hot words. I swear by Herod’s Sword, my hand is not in this. When General Luparelli comes to collect tribute, there will be repercussions, yes, but we will bear them together. For my part, the truce stands. No raids, no retaliation.”

Sofia stared disbelievingly at the Doctor as he returned the mace. The Morello murdered their own student and he begged for peace? Shameful.

In the strained silence Gaetano whispered to his father.

Valentino surprised everyone by leaping up. “Are you such fools to be twice deceived?” he cried. “He seeks to escort us to the scaffold! You’re a marked man, Bardini!”

At that, every flag went up. Sofia’s planted bandieratori surrounded the Doctor as Gaetano’s men poured into the Speakers’ circle.

Sofia stood between them, her flag lowered. “Stand down. I am your Contessa.”

Gaetano lowered his flag slightly.

“Not yet, girl!” Quintus shouted. “You don’t have a voice in this Chamber until then, and you can’t shield a murderer. When you rule, you’ll rule at Concord’s pleasure, as I do.”

“You heard my guardian. Bardini aren’t behind this. Look to your own house. And see you keep the truce.”

The Doctor looked on proudly as Sofia turned her back the Morello. “Let’s go,” she said.

They waded out of the palazzo with gold flags shadowing them as far the Lion and crossed the scaffolding to the northside in single file. Anticipating this outcome, the Doctor had the entire borgata waiting for their arrival.

Sofia stared back at Gaetano, separated by the river and a bridge that despite everything remained no-man’s-land yet.