Mad-dog winds chased each other through the dusky streets. Lucia had retired to the chapel to meditate, she’d said. Instead she was spying on the three men though the broken stained-glass window. Giovanni was trying to fend off Fabbro’s and Pedro’s arguments; the more insistent they became, the more reluctant he got.
“I’m just not the right person.”
“You’re the only person!” Pedro insisted. He was still sore from his beating, and he wanted to press the question, but Fabbro, the more experienced salesman, knew when to give a customer time to consider.
Lucia’s vision had come suddenly and told her much—too much. But what dreams she had prayed for were dust now; only the Virgin’s will mattered. Seeing Giovanni walking toward the chapel, she returned to a serene pose of meditation: that was what History expected of her.
“—to be podesta. You must accept,” she said.
“It can’t be me.”
“It can only be you, Giovanni.”
He saw her trembling. “Why are you crying?”
“Because I have seen my death!” she said, her breath escaping in sobs. The truth was a lie; her vision was not the reason she cried—but she must now be as selfless as the Reverend Mother had been. History made no allowances for foolish girls who fell in love.
Giovanni was silent for a moment. “I thought I would die when I went into the river. Yet I didn’t. Maybe it’s the same—”
“Giovanni, listen—” Lucia took a breath and composed herself. “The Virgin’s will is manifest in us all, but in you Time’s river divides.”
“That’s what the Reverend Mother said, but what does it mean? That I have two destinies?”
“I cannot tell you in words, but I can show you.”
“Sister, stop!” Giovanni cried. “I cannot be taken into any more confidences! I am not who you think I am—I told Sofia that I came to build the bridge for Rasenna, but I built it for myself, to salve my conscience, never thinking of the bloody consequences. Sofia died for me, and now they want me as podesta. I don’t deserve this trust. Lucia, I must tell you who I am or be damned for it, if I’m not already.”
Lucia said, “The Contessa lives.”
Giovanni slowly sat down in front of her. “I wish it were possible, but I know better than anyone what Concord does to its prisoners. My name is—”
“Giovanni Bernoulli was your name. You are something else now.”
“How—? How do you know who I am?”
“One cannot understand water without faith. Now you must begin to believe. Sofia will return, and she will be changed. And when she does return, you will have to make a choice yourself, to save yourself or save her”—she held up the glass of water—“but to make that choice you have to know—”
“That you are the contents of this glass. You are trying to make sense of it,” she said. “Don’t. You are water, and unless you believe that, Rasenna is doomed. Imagine a world where you are not heir to the beast but simply the contents of the glass. Imagine.”
She released the glass, and it shattered against the stone floor. For a moment there were no other sounds but the tinkle of the glass shards coming to rest. Slowly Lucia breathed out and then said briskly, “Good.”
Giovanni said nothing, only staring at the water floating in a slowly shifting column in front of him.
“You’re here for a reason, Giovanni. The buio were pure, and we spoiled them, as we will spoil everything, given time. You’re coming to see how we are connected to them. The buio have lived with that knowledge since the beginning. It defines them. In our Salvation is theirs; in theirs, ours.”
At the door, she looked back. “Contemplate water for a while. I will keep watch for you.”
Night fell on Rasenna, but the Doctor could not sleep. A scent in the air, auguring something awful and imminent, kept him awake. He took to the roof, hoping fresh air would clear his senses, knowing it would make no difference. There would be blood tonight.
The moon’s reflection on the river quivered with the same anticipation.
Movement on the bridge caught his eye—two figures running south, chased by a bandieratoro with a Bombelli banner. The first was a boy with a head start; the second was a tall man, limping and carrying a torch.
The boy made it to the safety of Piazza Luna and disappeared into the night without a glance back at his lagging partner. The bandieratoro caught up with the limper. There was a moment’s struggle. The limper dropped his torch but knocked down the bandieratoro before hopping away. When the bandieratoro recovered, he picked up the torch and took the time to aim carefully.
The torch stuck the limper’s back squarely, and in the moments he lay prone the flames caught. He might have screamed, but the sound did not reach Tower Bardini. He crawled to the balustrade and pulled himself onto it, then lay still.
The bandieratoro approached the smoldering carcass, poked it, then turned back north. The Doctor’s gaze followed. Bombelli’s tower was obscured by smoke.
He landed by the tower’s Madonna. There was a lot of smoke, but the fire had been contained.
Fabbro was surveying the damage with his wife. He greeted him casually. “Not as quick as the old days, Doc.”
The Doctor caught his breath. “Your family?”
Fabbro looked skeptical at the Doctor’s concern, but Donna Bombelli said quickly, “All safe. Thank you, Doctor.”
“Morello,” he grunted.
“After Vanzetti’s was hit, I figured we’d be next. We were ready.”
“You could have sent for me.”
“I have flags of my own now,” Fabbro said proudly.
One of his older sons, Salvatore, came back; the Doctor recognized the bandieratoro from the bridge.
“Got one, Pop,” he said.
The Doctor looked around. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Small People standing up for themselves? Get used to it.”
“If Morello wanted to burn you out, he would have. He has plenty of experience, believe me. He knows you’ve hired flags too. He knew you’d expect this after he trashed Vanzetti’s.”
Fabbro was worried now. “You think it’s a warning?”
The Doctor shook his head. “Vanzetti’s was the warning. This is a distraction.”
“From what?”
But the Doctor was already scrambling up the walls. Realizing the answer, Fabbro glanced up at the icon and prayed that the Doc would be as quick as in the old days, for Giovanni’s sake.
The wind was dying down, and a faint rose blush on the clouds heralded approaching dawn. Lucia walked out into the garden, clasping her hands tightly to prevent them from shaking.
“Madonna,” she prayed, “give me grace. I would have made an obedient handmaid. I do not question Your will, I simply ask that You give us both the strength to bear what we must bear.” She entered the Baptistery and blessed herself in the font. The water was ice-cold, but her hand no longer trembled. Grace.
“There is no need to hide,” she said quietly. “I know you are here.”
From the shadows the Morello bandieratori emerged. In the half-light, their flags were glistening sheets of burning gold.
“The door was open, so we took the liberty,” said Gaetano. “Stand aside and you can go free.”
“I am free. Here is where I am meant to be. So come take him, if you can.”
Giovanni awoke gasping for air, with a memory that didn’t make sense. He remembered the Wave that struck Rasenna. It was a dream where past and present merged, for he was on the new bridge, not in the old town center, as the earth trembled and a shadow fell over Rasenna. The glass was broken. The water was spilled on the ground: obviously, making it float had been part of the dream.
Dawn was breaking as he stepped into the garden. He stopped to look at the sun and stretched and yawned. Strange, he thought; the pigeons were usually so noisy in the mornings. He entered the Baptistery.
There was blood everywhere. Broken bodies were strewn around the floor, heads smashed open, torsos impaled on flagpoles, and legs sticking out of the baptismal font.
“Lucia!” He pulled her broken body out of the water.
“If it’s any consolation,” Gaetano slurred through a swollen lip, “she sold her life dearly. You really have something that turns girls’ heads.”
He pushed Giovanni over and knelt on top of him, pinning his arms and holding a knife in front of his face.
“I’ll tell you what else you’re good at: failing. You could have saved my brother in Concord, but you didn’t. You could have saved Sofia, but you didn’t. And you could have saved that novice if you’d stayed dead, but you didn’t. So let’s try it again, one last time. Where should I start, Captain? Your ears? I’m short one, see? Your hand, for my brother? Your neck, for my father? Or perhaps that Concordian nose, for sticking it where it’s not wanted. Will they still adore youUH!”
A smear of black and white. A foot smashed into Gaetano’s jaw. The knife went spinning.
Gaetano shambled after Isabella, but the young novice avoided him easily. “Come here, amore mio,” he said drunkenly. “Look how I baptized your friend—you can be reborn too.”
Giovanni grabbed his leg and shouted, “Run!”
Gaetano kicked Giovanni’s hand away and stomped on his chest, then turned just as Isabella ran at him; she skidded between his legs, then spun on the ground, giving a sharp kick to the back of the knee. As he fell, he lunged and grabbed the hem of her habit.
“Little pest! You should have died with your misbegotten family,” said Gaetano, pulling her toward him.
“You too, Tano.” The Doctor held a knife to his throat and with a steady pressure brought him to his feet. Isabella pulled her habit free and stood behind Giovanni.
“Shall I do him right now, Podesta? He’s earned it.”
Giovanni looked down at Isabella. She shook her head gravely. “Thou shall not kill.”
“Doctor,” he said, “take him to the bridge.”
The crowd, summoned by the chiming bells, formed a circle and pushed the prisoner into the center of the bridge. Death hung in the air, as eager to fall as a sharpened ax.
“Hang him, Podesta!”
The violence of Rasenna was palpable, as material as the towers and the river, and Giovanni felt as powerless to stop it as he would be to stop a second Wave. The beginning and end of Rasenna’s law was the right to revenge, yet somehow a little girl had found the strength to push back at it. And somehow Lucia had seen her death coming and gone to meet it unafraid. To be podesta he would have to find that same strength . . .
Lucia knew his name and still said he must be podesta. The Reverend Mother must have known his name too. Did they really see his crimes, or were they obscured by his grandfather’s shadow?
Leaving his place by the Doctor’s side, Mule went to the balustrade and turned over the burned corpse. He pushed Secondo’s body into the river, spitting a hopeless curse along with his verdict—“Traitor!”—then turned back, both eyes red now and streaming tears.
And Giovanni knew the moment he heard the lonely splash why it had to end.
“Rasenneisi,” he shouted, “if I be your podesta, will you accept my judgment?”
“Yes!” they roared.
“This man came to assassinate me. He killed my friend. Shall we hang him?”
The mob howled for blood, louder than before.
“And what if, tomorrow, this man comes for me?” Giovanni pointed at the Doctor. “Do I hang him too?”
His finger moved to Fabbro. “Or this man? Or you, Pedro? Or you? As long as Rasenneisi follow separate banners, any of you may one day be strong enough to be the law. If the Contessa was here, things would be simpler.”
“She will return,” said the Doctor.
“Perhaps, but to what? If we don’t change this, she’ll have nothing to return to. As long as Rasenneisi follow separate banners, strength is the only law that matters, and I cannot be your podesta. Twenty years ago a Concordian army occupied Rasenna after the Wave struck. They pillaged nothing but the Scaligeri banner and by that one act made a strong town weak by setting it against itself. But by Rasenneisi law, because they were strong, they were right to do it. So hang Morello—but not because he’s a schismatic; hang him because he’s in our power and we are strong. Why deliberate? This is Rasenna. We need no other reason.”
He grabbed Gaetano and pushed him toward the gap.
“Who will give me rope? I cannot be your podesta, so let me be your hangman!”
The crowd was silent. The Doctor cleared his throat. “What would you have us do?”
“Throw down your banners! Throw down your banners or give me rope!”
The sun was up now, and the wide river beneath was as beautiful as gold. It felt as if they were awakening, all together, from a long, fevered sleep. The Doctor dropped his flag. After a moment, Fabbro dropped his. His sons and men followed. Woolsmen dropped their Guild colors.
Giovanni removed Gaetano’s gag.
“Lord Morello, will you throw down your banner?”
Gaetano ignored him and unsteadily walked over to the Doctor. Glaring at his enemy, he spit on the Bardini flag. Fabbro quickly put a restraining hand on the Doctor.
“I’ll be hanged first,” Gaetano said, “and the last true Rasenneisi will curse you all for traitors with his dying breath. Traitors and fools. Why are you listening to this Concordian’s lies? He tricked you before, remember? He said you were building a bridge. It was a scaffold for your paesani!”
“So be it,” said Giovanni. “My first act as podesta is to banish you for life.”
“You don’t have that authority. I exile myself.”
When Gaetano was returned his banner, he defiantly proclaimed, “One day soon this flag will return, and with it the honor today lost.”
The crowd watched the Morello heir ride from Rasenna with the awe reserved for miracles, then turned to Giovanni with the same expression.
“My second act as podesta is to propose this: we have expelled faction from within, and we will do so in the future. Any man who usurps the Signoria will be banished. From without, the threat comes from Concord. We lost our last battle. To be ready for the one to come, we need warriors, an army of northsiders and southsiders, and weapons and walls, and wealth to pay for them. Doctor Bardini, will you train our army?”
“I will, Podesta.”
“War’s a creature that eats from both ends, and a growing prosperity affords greater protection than any wall. With better machines and faster ships we can compete with cities like Ariminum and, in time, Concord. Signore Bombelli, will you counsel us?”
“I will, Podesta.”
“Neither walls nor wealth will stop Concord’s engineers. Nothing can cancel that power but the same power. I therefore propose that Rasenna form an Engineers’ Guild of its own.”
A sudden disquiet went through the crowd. The wrinkled brows of older citizens were troubled with a dark memory.
Giovanni paused for protest that never came.
“Hear hear,” said the Doctor a little too loudly.
“Signore Vanzetti, will you help me form it?”
“I will, Podesta,” Pedro said quietly.
And they were a mob no longer but citizens, united by hope and a question.
Fabbro voiced it: “Can we win?”
“United, we can do anything.”
“Then,” said Fabbro, with a wink to the Doctor, “who shall divide us?”
He led the cheer. “Forza Rasenna!”