“We’re back to the start if we pay.”
“And if we refuse, it’s war. We knew it was coming, but we’re not ready. In a few months, maybe, but now? Whether we consent or refuse, we doom ourselves.”
Couched in congratulations for Rasenna’s growing wealth, the letter was the clearest threat yet.
“There’s another option,” said Giovanni.
“What?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“You want me in on a Signoria meeting? Bad idea, Podesta. Sends the wrong signal to southsiders.”
“The right signal. If towns can change, people can.”
The new Palazzo della Signoria echoed with lively discussion. The notary, straining to keep up, wondered if perhaps the old days were better before deciding no, nothing could be better than having a say in what one wrote.
Conjuring up visions of burning towers and empty purses, Fabbro advocated paying the larger tribute, and Pedro agreed that there was no other option.
“What’s the alternative, Podesta?” asked Fabbro impatiently.
“Dally.”
Fabbro was nonplussed, but the Doctor laughed.
Giovanni explained, “Paying without procrastinating would draw Concord’s attention. We allay suspicion by doing exactly what they expect of paupers. We write as groveling a letter as we can compose, quibbling with the amount, asking for another extension, begging to pay in installments. They will reply sternly. We will equivocate. They will insist. We will plead, and then—”
“They will demand another ambassador to send back mutilated!” said Fabbro.
“Only if we send one, and we will not. We will say we have to elect a new ambassador.”
“But what does it give us?” said Pedro.
“Time!” the Doctor answered, clapping his hands together, “After Tagliacozzo, Concord has turned from Etruria to Europa. When someone forgets to watch their back, that’s an opportunity.”
Giovanni held up the letter. “This isn’t a tax; it’s a declaration of war. A war we cannot avoid, only delay. To pay would be to drop our shield even as the blow falls. We must use the money and time we have left wisely. The stronger our walls, the sounder our defenses, the fitter our bandieratori, the better our chances when Concord realizes we mean to defy them. Before the giant moves, we must grow large enough to defend ourselves.”
“Or,” the Doctor remarked, “make friends with other giants.”
Afterward, Giovanni walked the Doctor to the bridge. “It isn’t the stuff of Homer.”
The Doctor shrugged. “Whatever works, that’s the best strategy. If you can’t be Achilles, be Odysseus.” He caught the direction of Giovanni’s wary glance. “You didn’t expect everyone to behave just because some shopkeepers agree they like money, did you?”
Since Gaetano’s banishment, the burned-out shell of Palazzo Morello was like a slumbering monster in their middle. Around the dragon’s cave, groups of boys loitered. Instead of Morello gold, there were a dozen different banners: a dog pack that only watched, but that was enough; people coming and going from the bridge felt their hungry stares.
“That’s cynical, Doctor. I thought that after we exiled Morello—”
“I’m telling how I saw it a year ago.”
“How can they still stand apart? Even if we delay, Concord will be at the gate before the year is out.”
“Children don’t think about tomorrow.”
“Can’t you reason with them?”
The Doctor laughed. “The only thing a pack understands is strength. It’s not just this side of the river; every day, a different bandieratoro whispers in my ear about what an opportunity this is.”
“What do you tell them?”
“I tell them to shut up, and I keep Bardini banners north.”
A boy pushed his way through the group in the doorway. The Doctor recognized Uggeri and noticed that even the older boys showed deference. Calmly, Uggeri watched them walk by.
“Isn’t that Hog Galati’s son?”
“He’s the last of Morello’s crew of killers,” the Doctor said. “Got some salt too.”
Uggeri spit and turned his back on the Doctor to enter the ruined Palazzo. Most of the other boys followed.
“A Rasenneisi needs something to love so he can fight for it,” the Doctor said. “They don’t remember the Wave. They hate each other more than Concord.”
A balmy evening swaggered on, and the bridge stalls closed up as merchants went to waste money in Rasenna’s hostels, taverns, houses of gambling and other activities.
“Unity can’t wait until Concord’s at the wall. By then—”
“Like I said, children don’t think about tomorrow. The Bardini banner can’t unite them either. Now that Morello’s gone, hating me is the only thing southsiders have in common.”
“So what do we do? Exile the ringleaders? That boy—”
“Stick a crow’s head on a stick?” The Doctor laughed. “A show of force would unify them, but against us. The Scaligeri flag was the last thing that unified all Rasenna. For a long time that was the only choice—to be slave or master. They don’t have a leader anymore, but it’s only a matter of time before one of them raises colors. Still, we’ll figure out something. Coming up?”
“Not tonight. Work. Golden dreams, Doctor.”
Giovanni had opened his floor in Tower Vanzetti to Rasenna’s young engineers. They called it the studiola, and even this late he knew they would be working. Delaying Concord was only logical if every hour was used to prepare for the inevitable confrontation.
Doctor Bardini climbed the steps, brooding on the violence promised in Uggeri’s stare, not afraid but unsettled by the boy’s resemblance to the young man he himself had been.
The Doctor hadn’t dreamed in years, but that night he was immersed in a twenty-year-old memory:
In Tower Scaligeri, a serious young man takes dictation. Count Scaligeri stands by a long narrow window watching the black and gold banner blowing in the wind. The Count’s study is on the tower’s top floor, so the winds are always fierce. It has been especially gusty that day, which makes it all the more disconcerting when the flag abruptly goes limp.
The boy’s penmanship is good, but the word he is writing, Concord, comes out illegible. The table, the tower, Rasenna itself is shaking. The ink and water swirling in the jar beside him begins to separate, small drops rising to the surface and floating in space.
“My Lord, look at the water!”
“So they have done it, Madonna help us.”
The boy looks up and sees the Count leaning out of the window to tear down the banner.
“Bardini, the hour has come. Where is my son?”
“With my sister, in my father’s workshop.”
“Something is coming,” the Count says, “and I must wait for it. Take my banner, protect my son—whatever happens, the Scaligeri must survive.”
“I should stay with you!” the boy says stubbornly.
The Count slaps him. The boy is speechless: he has never seen his master angry.
“Never start a fight you cannot win.” The Count touches his cheek. “If you learn nothing else from me, learn that. Obey me one last time. Get to high ground. Do not look back.”
The boy takes the banner and goes to the door. He looks back one last time. The Count sits at the desk to complete the letter. Only the ink remains in the jar beside him; the water floats in the air. Frozen rain.
He looks up suddenly and roars, “Fly!”
Down and down and down the steps the boy runs. He passes noblemen and women panicking in the piazza. He passes the Lions, silently roaring defiance at the spreading darkness, up the north steps to the old town and the “healthy” hills, to Tower Bardini. He does not look back. The thunder grows louder until the shadow covers everything and the rumble drowns out the screaming. Morning birds fall silent. Night falls on Rasenna.
The air in the Doctor’s chamber was stifling, reeking of guilt and disappointment. Why did his youth come back to him now? After Count Scaligeri, he’d never sought another leader. And what had he achieved? Nothing. He’d failed to keep any promise he’d ever made—his career, a record of things lost: banners, battles, and a daughter in all but name. And now, after all this time, he’d put his trust in another leader—what chance that he’d chosen wisely this time? What chance he’d picked a fight he could win?
He slowly lay back down on his sweat-damp mattress and cursed himself—sleeping without a banner to hand was apprentice stuff. As his hand silently searched the floor beside his bed, he spoke to the darkness:
“What are you waiting for, an invitation?”
The boy stepped into a shaft of moonlight. His skin was ghostly blue, the knife he held a purer white. It burned with the same intensity as his eyes.
“Not surprised, old man?”
“It’s what I would do.”
The Doctor waited, but the boy just held his knife ready.
“Uggeri, isn’t it? Why did you really come?”
“You’re fake, aren’t you?”
He sighed in the darkness. “Not anymore.”
“You used the Contessa. Now you’re using the engineer. This fake Signoria thinks it’s in charge, but you’re whispering in the ears that matter, aren’t you?”
“You won’t believe me, but no.” Even as his hand touched his banner, he kept talking. “I wouldn’t if I was in your position, but then, in your position, I’d be dead by now!”
He rolled out of the bed. Uggeri threw the dagger, but it struck his banner. He kicked the bed, slamming it into Uggeri’s shins. The Doctor pried the blade out of his stick and advanced. Uggeri watched calmly as the Doctor aimed. The knife landed in the floor beside him.
“Take it and go.”
“What’s the matter?” Uggeri said casually. “No wind in your flag?”
“I said get the hell out.”
The boy left through the window he’d entered. The Doctor watched the shadow scramble over the rooftops, knowing what would come next as well as he knew himself. Uggeri would raise his flag. He couldn’t let that happen. He’d failed Count Scaligeri; if blood needed spilling to keep his promise to Giovanni, well then, blood would spill.