CHAPTER 36

For good or ill, the week promised to be eventful. Tomorrow there would be celebrations as the bridge opened. The day after, the Concordians would interrupt their march south to collect Rasenna’s tribute. On the third day, Sofia would turn seventeen, come into her inheritance, and marry to share that inheritance with a new husband.

Many pitied the Contessa, but few doubted the union was necessary to prevent war in the imminently-to-be-united town. For Sofia, it was simply a sentence of death and a uniquely cruel sentence, for not only could she see the scaffold being assembled from the tower, she must participate in its assembly.

Fabbro’s wife, the imposing Donna Bombelli, led the invasion of Tower Bardini. Her army of giggling matrons, who’d come to prepare Sofia’s bridal clothes and trousseau, repeatedly said the dress, one of her late mother’s, hardly worn, became her splendidly. The overdress was of deep burgundy velvet and sewn with pearls and lavish gold trimmings; the underslip was a bright poppy-red, the same color as the impractically long sleeves dangling almost to the ground that obliged her to clasp her hands as though praying.

The high waist, just below her bosom, accentuated the womanly shape she had made such efforts to conceal in recent years, as did the neckline, cut low and wide, the type of coy bait an ordinary girl would display for a husband. Sofia wore her Herod’s Sword to distract from the expanse of skin. The high collar, which accentuated the gracious tower of her neck, was set with jewels. She would get used to the discomfort, the matrons insisted, as they washed and powdered every inch of her exposed skin till she resembled a porcelain Madonna: Our Lady of Dynastic Marriage.

Her hair—they’d insisted she let it grow for the last month—was pulled tight to flaunt her unlined brow and then wrapped laboriously in a crépine that would keep its shape “no matter how vigorously you dance!”

She endured the tittering matrons’ innuendos with growing impatience. She was, of course, forbidden a glimpse of the other dress. Her wedding gown promised to be an even more elaborate prison. Her new, coddled life was a reduction in every sense. She had misunderstood the terms of the Contract: she was merely Rasenna’s proxy: the town itself was being married.

Her mood was foul when Donna Bombelli finally let her see herself in the long mirror. “Aren’t you pretty, amore?”

She couldn’t speak. The woman staring back was noble and beautiful and strong, the ideal Contessa she had carried in her heart as a motherless girl. It was immaterial how—or if—Giovanni remembered her after this, but somehow it blunted her grief to think this was how he would see her last.

The opening fell on the Feast of the Assumption, so it was only correct that Our Lady of Rasenna, garlanded in roses, was the first to cross. The Sisterhood, much reduced, like every Rasenneisi institution, carried the old statue from the Baptistery and chanted the Virgin’s Hymn, followed by excited northsiders pressing around to pin notes on the Madonna, who was bearing the hopes of every Rasenneisi that day.

She saw him in the throng of southsiders crammed into Piazza Luna waiting for the procession. There was no point weeping or fighting, so she blushed and played the docile Madonna they’d made her. To be Contessa was to be first, first to suffer; you carry the town, it carries you. When a sacrifice is needed, you are the well-fed lamb ready for the occasion. Your life is not your own.

When the hymn ended, the Reverend Mother untied the flags and cried, “In the name of the Virgin, I declare Rasenna Bridge open!”

The crowd cheered as the procession took on a carnival pace, pouring into the piazza.

Giovanni was caught in the crush as the Madonna approached. After fighting his way out, he found himself next to—

“Sofia?”

Now he saw her as Rasenneisi had always seen her: a Scaligeri, something more than a person.

“You look like a Contessa,” he said, smiling calmly, though he wanted to grab her and steal her away. “Shouldn’t you be with the Doctor?”

“Probably, but I’m still your bodyguard, remember?” Her smile didn’t reach her glistening eyes.

“I know why you’re doing this,” he whispered. “You don’t—”

“But I do! And who knows, some good may come of it.”

There was nothing he could do. He pointed at the Madonna. “What did you wish for?”

“Don’t heathens know how wishes work? That’s between us girls.” She joked to distract him from the truth that all this joy came at the price of hers.

The procession slowed in front of the Palazzo della Signoria, and as Quintus Morello called for attention, she had to admit he wore the full regalia of gonfaloniere with patrician dignity. Beside Quintus stood the Doctor, and between them was a small chest filled with dull silver coins.

“Many of Rasenna, and I am one,” Quintus started, “predicted this bridge would bring only discord, but I look around today and see before me no northsiders, no southsiders, but Rasenneisi all. Today I see citizens in congress, friends united, families made whole: a town ready to know itself once more! Concord’s army will pass through and have this tribute tomorrow only because Rasenna is united today. Tomorrow we may disagree, but we feud no longer; that is yesterday. Today I extend another bridge, the hand of friendship, to my friend Doctor Bardini.”

They shook hands and then together dropped a final soldi into the tribute chest to the sound of applause and cheers.

Once the Madonna was installed in the loggia, the carnival proper began. Rasenneisi mingled: cousins who had never before met embraced; bandieratori who’d only interacted in street battles bought drinks and toasted each other’s health. Thanks to the bridge, foreigners were not the rarity they had been; there were even novelty acts, juggling and tumbling to triple-time galliards to entertain the boisterous throng.

Sofia pushed into the crowd surrounding the puppet show, and when the engineer was accosted by crew members offering congratulations, she kept a tight grip on his hand; they would not be separated today.

“Congratulations, Captain,” said the Doctor over the hoots and laughter.

Sofia stiffened, but she did not release Giovanni’s hand. The tension between her and the Doctor, renewed since the Reverend Mother’s allegation, was more fraught for being unexplained. Sofia told herself the old woman was nothing but a lying troublemaker, but her accusation remained horribly plausible, and it was hard to meet the Doctor’s eye with the burning memory of Isabella’s family tower as a great chimney. Was he truly capable of such deeds?

Giovanni examined the miniature stage before them. “What is this?”

“Don’t you have the Marionette Theater in Concord?” Sofia shouted in his ear. “Poor thing! They take a story everybody knows, from history. This is, let me see—”

Draped in a shabby gown, a bulky puppet bounded on stage, precariously balanced on the edge of a narrow bridge and cried, “None shall pass!” to the mass of soldiers on the other side.

“Horatius on the bridge?” Giovanni ventured. “In our version, he betrayed Rome to the Etruscans.”

“Ours too—but in these shows the roles are played by locals.”

“Ah, I see,” said Giovanni, “and Horatius is—the Doctor?”

On the other side of the audience, Sofia noticed Quintus Morello and his sons. They’d chosen a spot where they could keep an eye on the show and the Doctor.

Much to the crowd’s amusement, the “Etruscans” wore Concordian uniforms. A tall, slender one pranced up to Horatius and cried,

The ambassador puppet did a double take as he noticed his stump. “Aahhh!”

Horatius waved his black banner bombastically.

Horatius caught the oversized soldi and stood aside as the ambassador and troops hopped across the bridge.

Sofia watched the Doctor smile and raise a glass to Quintus. “Most generous, Gonfaloniere!” he shouted over the hoots.

The children in the crowd laughed, all but one; Sofia’s former sparring partner was holding a little girl’s hand. Isabella had grown as pale as Lucia during her stay in the convent, and she had lost her freckles. Sofia wasn’t surprised at Lucia’s stony demeanor—the novice never smiled—but it was odd behavior for a little girl. She followed Isabella’s gaze to the Morello; Valentino was laughing, delighted with his caricature.

The Doctor leaned over to Sofia. “Why have you stopped going to the Baptistery?”

“You’ve been spying on me?”

“The information came unsolicited. Don’t trust that woman.”

“I don’t. Answer my question. Who told you?”

He pretended to watch the show.

“Valerius,” she said.

He laughed loudly, then whispered, “He’s taken an interest in Bardini fortunes. You seem to have lost yours. I’m not angry. After tonight, it won’t matter anyway.”

Horatius laughed villainously:

The ambassador threw an oversized treasure chest.

Horatius wailed as the bridge began to collapse.

Horatius sank under a wave of coins, and the ambassador addressed the audience with mock solemnity.

The curtain dropped with a cymbal crash. The Doctor and the gonfaloniere applauded with the crowd, toasting each other. He suddenly turned to Sofia and embraced her.

“Sofia, obey me—this once,” he whispered urgently. “Slip away quietly, get to the tower. It’s not safe out tonight.”

She pushed him away. “Doc, you promised! What have you done?”

The Doctor’s eyes glazed over as he transformed into a smiling reveler. “Speak up! I can’t hear you.”

“What’s wrong?” said Giovanni.

“Nothing, nothing,” she said quickly, backing off and forcing a smile.

This was serious; normally, the Doctor wouldn’t say anything until afterward. If the target was Giovanni, she was there to protect him.

The evening drew on, and music took over. A drummer beat out the proud, strutting rhythms of old Rasenna, and the puppeteer revealed another talent when he took up the accordion. He started with a joke song about an old womanizer cuckolded by his pious wife.

When the laughter finished, the Doctor tapped his goblet for silence. “Friends, join me in a toast to the Morello and our continuing partnership in government.”

The crowd cheered and cried, “Salute!”

“To healthy profit margins,” Fabbro said to Vettori, winking.

“Eh, look who it is.”

Vettori turned to see Hog Galati, nervously sweating and looking awkward in the middle of smiling faces. When Vettori extended a friendly hand, he took it quickly, obviously relieved.

“Signore Vanzetti, I—Well, I just wanted to congratulate you on this day. Oh, this is my youngest son, Uggeri.”

The boy wore an ugly cambellotto tilted low on his head so that his eyes were hidden. When he removed it, Fabbro could see he had father’s black curls but little else: he had dark, cold eyes that looked straight ahead.

Vettori shook hands. “And what will you be when you grow up? A mason, like your father?”

Hog blushed. “A bandieratoro like his older brother, I fear.”

“Well, don’t force them to be something you want them to be. You know, I always thought that Pedro would—”

“Nobody forces me,” Uggeri interrupted bluntly. “I want to be a bandieratoro.”

“All right, son, all right,” said Vettori quickly, disturbed by the boy’s intensity. He was close to Pedro’s age, but he had the composure of someone older. The tension of the moment diffused in the sudden hush as Gaetano Morello climbed the stage and called for attention.

“Signorina Scaligeri, would you sing for us? We must live together now.”

Sofia gave Gaetano a look he couldn’t decipher. “So we must,” she said, then turned to the musicians. “You know ‘The River’s Song’? Just follow my voice.”

It was the only song the Doctor had ever taught her, an old lament built around an eccentric conceit: the words were the Wave’s thoughts as it raced toward Rasenna, cursing Man for making it party to its wars.

As the Contessa sang, each man retreated into his secret thoughts: dreams that comforted, memories that taunted. Giovanni’s eyes too were downcast; Rasenneisi melodies were shrill and strange to him, but he felt the song was sung for him alone.

“I’d like to say your bride to be only has eyes for you, but—”

Gaetano shoved Valentino away. The song ended with an instrumental crescendo; when Gaetano looked back, Sofia was walking toward him. As the music peaked, she touched his cheek.

“Sofia, I need to warn you—” He leaned forward and whispered, “You should get to your tower—”

Sofia put her finger on his lips. “Shhhh.”

The crowd looked on pruriently as her hand touched Gaetano’s chest, the other moving to the back of his neck. His eyes widened as her fingers reached the scar, but she reached his knife before him.

“Doctor!” Quintus protested.

“It was you, Tano. You butchered the Vaccarelli, didn’t you?”

“Sofia, stop!” the Doctor said.

A line of blood appeared where she pressed the knife to Gaetano’s throat.

“Do it, then. You know what happens next,” he said coolly.

Giovanni touched her shoulder. “Don’t.”

She spit on the ground and then dropped the knife; Gaetano glared at the engineer.

“You did this!”

“Blame yourself, Gaetano!” Sofia hissed.

He knocked Giovanni to the ground.

Sofia put her hand on her dagger. “Back up!”

People were unsure whether to watch the drama unfold or run. With effort, Giovanni sat up. “Sofia, don’t let this happen.”

Bandieratori of every color looked on, waiting for the order. She helped Giovanni up, then turned to the gonfaloniere and the Doctor. “If either of you hurts another Rasenneisi family when I’m Contessa, I’ll cut you out like cancer!”

When she pushed her way through the crowd, Quintus remarked, “So that’s my new daughter-in-law.”

Relieved to see her going toward the bridge, the Doctor slapped his back with nonchalance. “Lovers’ quarrels defy logic, Gonfaloniere.”

Quintus laughed, equally tolerant. “We’re old enough to know they rarely last.”

Halfway across the bridge, Sofia grabbed the balustrade and looked down at the water, nauseated. There was no escaping the spreading blood.

“Sofia.”

“Madonna, look at you. Tano got you a good one.” She laughed despite her tears. “Here, let me see.”

She wiped the blood from Giovanni’s face with her sleeves, then touched his nose tenderly. “It’s not broken.”

“What’s happening tonight?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not safe.”

“If the bridge brings more blood, I’ll never—Sofia, my hands are dirty already!”

She smiled sadly; he imagined he had blackened his soul by following orders, but it took far more than that. “You’re no killer,” she said, thinking of Gaetano. Killers traveled light; guilt didn’t slow them down.

“You don’t know me.”

“I know enough; you’re the first person I can drop my flag with.”

“That’s only because I can’t use one.”

“Giovanni! I want you to stay—stay forever. That’s what I wished for!”

She tore the Herod’s Sword from around her neck and pressed in it into his hands, then kissed him suddenly. “Take it. I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything,” he whispered.

“Go to Tower Vanzetti. Stay inside.”

“Are you involved?”

“Of course not! They’ll blame each other for Marcus’s murder, but General Luparelli won’t listen to conflicting versions. He needs someone to hang or he’ll raze all Rasenna.”

“What can you do?”

“Find the murderer. Now go. You promised.”

“Wait, I—”

But she was gone, swallowed by the night’s darkness.

Dancing stopped only when fog rose from the river to invade the piazza. The crowd thinned as children were sent to bed and couples stole away. Finally, only drunken old men and their maudlin songs remained.

The Doctor toasted Valentino and Quintus. “I leave the night to better and younger men,” he said, draining his glass. “It has defeated me.”

“Golden dreams,” said Quintus.

The Doctor stumbled by Giovanni on the bridge and wagged a finger. “Get to bed, Captain. Haven’t you heard? There are ghosts roaming tonight.”

It surprised Giovanni that Bardini had let himself get so drunk; perhaps the bridge had changed things.

Once over the bridge, the Doctor looked befuddled by the labyrinth of narrow, twisty streets before him and randomly tumbled into an alley.

Gaetano silently dropped from a rooftop and crouched in shadow as the Doctor staggered by. Instead of following, he waited, held his breath, and listened. He could hear only the erratic rhythm of a drunkard’s footsteps. Good. He signaled, and three bandieratori dropped down and drew in on the target. At the intersection of four alleys, the Doctor stopped to urinate.

Gaetano heard the blades drawn; did the Doctor? Unlikely; he was cheerfully singing of the cuckolding cuckold. But when Gaetano crept closer, the Doctor stumbled, pushing Gaetano into the wall, and a sharp elbow cracked his rib. Where were the others? Why didn’t they help?

“First time north, Tano?”

He tried to get up and got kicked in the jaw.

“No, I think not. You’ve visited regularly, haven’t you?”

Gaetano saw the others held at knifepoint by Bardini men.

“That reminds me; you owe one of my boys some flesh.”

As the tall bandieratoro sauntered over, the Doctor held Gaetano’s head still.

“Remember me?” Mule grabbed an ear and pulled.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

“Don’t look away,” the Doctor whispered in the bloody hole in Gaetano’s head. “This is the good part.”

The blood loss was making him groggy, but still the voice kept talking. “Your wedding’s canceled—but don’t be disappointed. The good news is I’m promoting you. By tomorrow, you’ll be the eldest Morello. Don’t thank me; just remember when you wake up who owns Rasenna, to whom you pay rent. That’s thanks enough for me.”

Standing by the resurrected statue, Quintus Morello waited for them to return, their knives wet with Bardini’s blood, the deed done. He looked up impatiently at the somber Lion. “Oh, cheer up, would you?”

Footsteps in the fog.

“Who’s that? Did you get him?”

“Got him.”

Quintus tried to hold himself up against the Lion, but for some reason his legs didn’t work. Secondo pulled the knife out, listened to the gasping for a while, then knelt down and used the gonfaloniere’s long sleeves to wipe clean the blade. “Go to sleep, old man. Dream golden dreams.”