A Brightness Long Ago, page 14
There was a silence. I felt the breeze.
“I do not,” said Teobaldo Monticola di Remigio, “feel insulted.”
The woman, whose name I would learn was Ginevra della Valle, and who would not long after be the subject of one of the most celebrated portraits of our time, laughed aloud in the morning light, exposing the long throat the artist would clearly love.
I let myself look at her only briefly. It was Monticola who mattered here. He was gazing at me thoughtfully. He said, “Collucio, dismount, the horse is his. Keep your saddle.”
I said, “I have no desire to deprive your company of a war horse, my lord. I wanted only to pass by in peace.”
“I understand, but a wager was made.” He was still looking thoughtful.
He was also correct. There would be shame for his company now, and for him, if a debt was not paid.
I said, “I am happy to accept a fair payment, leave your captain his mount.”
He glanced at Collucio, who had not, in fact, dismounted. The man looked stunned. That didn’t distress me.
Monticola said, “He will not have money enough here to pay you the value of a good horse. I do. I will advance it for him. He will keep his horse and repay me when we are home. It is agreed.” He looked at another rider back by the second wagon. “Take forty serales from the strongbox for this man.”
Forty? I suddenly had a great deal of money.
Monticola smiled at me. “Where did you learn to ride like that?”
No reason not to tell. “I was fortunate enough to attend the school in Avegna for many years. Riding is a part of what they teach, and it was my passion.”
“You went to Guarino’s school?”
“Yes, lord.”
“Why was it fortune?”
“I have no lineage, my lord. My father is a tradesman in Seressa.”
“I see. He must know men who matter, then.”
“Yes, lord. To my great good fortune. As I said.”
He still looked reflective. Perhaps amused again, as well.
“Where are you riding?”
“To Bischio, my lord.”
“To watch the race?”
“Yes, lord. Then home to Seressa.”
“To do what? In Seressa.”
“I have the intention of becoming a bookseller,” I said.
I heard laughter. Not from him. Nor the woman, either. It crossed my mind, after, that she probably guessed, or even knew before he did, what was coming.
“An honourable trade, for a certain sort of man,” he said.
The soldiers grew quiet.
“I do not believe you are such a man. Not yet. I have,” Teobaldo Monticola said, causing my life to change, “a proposition for you.”
Which is how, though it was only formally to be for the duration of the ride to Bischio and the time we stayed there, I became a part of the company of Remigio and its lord.
An encounter on a springtime road. The random spinning of fortune’s wheel. It can sway us, change us, shape or end our days.
* * *
• • •
HE KEPT ME by him the rest of the way west. I was aware I was being evaluated, though by what measure I didn’t know. Monticola was not what I had been led, by rumour and tale, to believe he would be. He still made me anxious. There was an undernote of violence, the possibility of it, even if he laughed easily. He rode better than I did, better than any of us, in fact.
His second-in-command was a man from Ferrieres named Gaetan. He was small, lean, bald-headed, smooth-shaven. He never smiled, never looked angry. He made me uneasy too. Men who reveal nothing can do that.
But later on that first day I was the one who sorted out the problem of a cleric in the middle of the road. Not Gaetan, not Collucio, not Monticola himself. It was, of course, because I was the only man in that company who was not in the habit of killing people who challenged or offended them. There was a real possibility that, had I not spoken, the cleric would have died. Fortune’s wheel.
Then, some days after, at a place where a wide road from the north met the east-west road we were on, to go forward as one to Bischio, we encountered Piero Sardi of Firenta’s second son, overdressed in gold and silver, riding in extravagant display, a hundred men escorting him, all richly garbed. He had trumpeters and a drummer, half a dozen carriages, and the finest horse I had ever seen in my life, being led, not ridden.
And someone else, as well.
* * *
The general agreement in Firenta was that Antenami Sardi was not the swiftest member of the powerful banking family ruling the city in all but name, but that he was an amusing man. Everyone used that word. They didn’t use it about his father, or his brother Versano.
He had been given careful instructions by those two as to the wealth and power he was to project in Bischio—which Firenta intended to besiege and conquer the following year.
It was time, his father had decided. The cities were too near to each other, and though Bischio was smaller it was irritatingly arrogant, claiming taxation revenue from towns in between. Money mattered to the Sardis; they had started as bankers, and they still were. Firenta’s growing strength—and pride—required submission, especially now that, splendidly, they were no longer in conflict with the High Patriarch.
The High Patriarch was one of them.
It had cost a staggering amount of money. Antenami knew that. He didn’t know exactly how much; he hadn’t asked, they probably wouldn’t have told him. But his cousin Scarsone had been elevated to the highest holy office in the world. It was remarkable. He wondered if Scarsone was still a lively companion. They’d had good evenings together.
And now the Sardis were to begin recouping the cost of placing Scarsone in Rhodias, Antenami did see that. They would start by gaining control of Bischio, one way or another, and claiming the taxes of its surrounding towns and cities. It made sense.
His brother and father tended to. Antenami knew that his father, Piero, was brilliant with money, and that his brother was shrewd and cold. He himself was (generally) content to be well liked and rich. It made for a pleasant life.
Bringing the horse had been his own idea. If he’d told his father and brother what he intended to do with it, his plan would likely have been forestalled, he’d decided. They were like that with his plans, so he didn’t tell them.
Antenami Sardi had no thought of challenging his brother in succeeding their father (both of them terrified him), but he did believe he was entitled to small pleasures, and entering his new, magnificent stallion in Bischio’s famous race—to show the world how glorious the horse was (and he was!)—seemed a splendid thing to do.
Wasn’t the trip about display and assertion? He’d say that, after, to his father, or perhaps write it in a letter, which might be easier, and safer, in case Piero disagreed, which he tended to do, in Antenami’s experience of life and his family.
Riding south on a spring day, pleased with the world and his place within it (under Jad, and by the god’s grace, of course), he saw a man riding back from one of the scouting tasks their mercenary captain had required along the way. The rider was coming quickly. Antenami became aware of a possible unpleasantness.
It seemed unfair to him, wrong somehow, that unpleasantness kept intruding upon the world, even on a bright day in springtime.
They were, he learned (the report was made to their mercenary, but protocol was observed and it was done in Antenami’s presence), approaching a junction at the same time as a party from the east.
Normally, this would not be cause for consternation. More than a hundred people from Firenta accompanying the son of Piero Sardi, banners flying to make this clear . . . no one in Batiara, with the exception of the High Patriarch, would expect to not give way, especially around here.
There were, he heard, fifty riders or so in the other party. Not inconsequential, then, and they appeared to be mostly soldiers. Antenami’s company was primarily his friends, sons of other merchant families, with their own retainers. They did have twenty mercenaries. His father had insisted, though Antenami, to be honest, hadn’t wanted them, because he was also afraid of the mercenaries’ leader.
It was explained to him, by that leader, that the present difficulty arose because the other party was from Remigio.
That did bring clarity. Even Antenami understood that it might not go entirely smoothly if they met Teobaldo Monticola at a joining of roads. And he certainly could not give way to a smaller party from a lesser city, on lands Firenta claimed. The loss of prestige would be enormous. He could imagine what his father would say, picture the icy contempt on his brother’s face.
In short, an unpleasantness was indeed at hand. He hated that.
“We can go faster!” he suggested.
This, it was explained, would be undignified in itself, a possible source of amusement, even derision, since people would come to know of it.
One of the problems with being powerful, Antenami Sardi had often thought, was that you were always being watched, judged, commented upon.
“Well, we can’t fight them just to be first on the road!” he said, forcefully.
“No, of course not,” said his commander. “It is a difficulty.”
Antenami Sardi found the whole thing silly. He didn’t say that (of course). What he said was, “I believe I am in need of refreshment, and I would enjoy a visit with the women. Why don’t we call a halt? This is a pleasant place. We will eat. Perhaps we will hunt.” He enjoyed hunting.
His commander looked at the scout. They both looked at Antenami.
“That,” said Folco d’Acorsi, who had been hired by Firenta this spring, for his usual very large sum, “is a genuinely good idea!”
Antenami smiled happily. He liked being pleased, but he also liked pleasing people. He liked having good ideas. He said, “You will join me back at the wagons? The women keep talking about you, hoping you’ll visit.”
Folco smiled back. “That is gracious of them, and of you, my lord.” (The Sardis were not lords, and his father was careful to ensure no one called them that—in Firenta. Out here, it seemed an acceptable, small enough thing.)
“Then come,” he said.
Folco d’Acorsi shook his head. “Perhaps later? I believe someone should ride forward. I will enjoy greeting the lord of Remigio, and it is, perhaps, the . . . proper thing to do?”
Proper thing to do was a phrase that carried, in Antenami’s experience, a message. People were always telling him what the proper things were.
He managed a shrug. “Probably right. I’ll come forward with you, then.”
“We’ll stop our party here, as you so wisely suggest, and carry on, just a few of us, to express our pleasure,” said d’Acorsi, “at this unexpected encounter.”
His voice was not entirely aligned with pleasure, Antenami thought.
He did think he knew why. Acorsi and Remigio, the two great mercenaries. Their history. It was hardly a secret. Hadn’t one of their early encounters happened around here, years ago? A few days east? One of his friends would know, if he remembered to ask. It occurred to Antenami that there might be a story to share over wine later about this meeting at a crossroads.
On impulse he dismounted and had his man change his saddle. He rode Fillaro to the merging of roads. He wouldn’t be the one to ride him in the race, of course, but it was good for a stallion to be under saddle, and good for his own pride and pleasure to have people see his wonderful horse.
* * *
• • •
“I WILL VERY happily buy your horse,” said Teobaldo Monticola di Remigio. “At any price you wish to name. He is magnificent, Signore Sardi.”
He did not say my lord. Propriety dictated that Antenami call him that, as lord of Remigio.
In the circumstances, he was uncertain what his brother would have done. (He usually tried to make these decisions based on that.) Folco, their hired mercenary, was also a lord, his family ruling for three generations now in Acorsi. The Sardis were only rich bankers, not lords—but they controlled a city many times the size and wealth of either of theirs. It could make for complexity, these rituals of protocol.
But the truth was, these two men, however famed and fierce, did whatever they did at the sufferance of greater powers, and Firenta was one of those now. Firenta, Macera, Seressa, the Holy Jaddite Emperor in the northeast beyond the mountains, the High Patriarch in Rhodias (always).
The great mercenaries earned money with their armies to sustain power in their small cities. They might be lords in name but Antenami’s brother called them lordlings. He had always been swift with mockery.
Antenami decided to avoid the issue, often the best thing with a dilemma, he’d found.
He spoke politely, without salutation. “Isn’t he beautiful? But no, this isn’t a war horse, and I enjoy him far too much. My thanks, however.”
“No thanks needed. It is a pleasure to look upon him.” Monticola was a big, remarkably handsome man. Antenami, who considered himself good-looking as well, was an appreciator of beauty: horses, women, men, art, a tavern song . . .
Of the two celebrated commanders with him now, Monticola was far more impressive to look at. On the other hand, it was Folco d’Acorsi, ugly as he was, that his father kept hiring for Firenta, and trusting with their campaigns.
Folco it was who had taken Barignan for them three years ago, though that wasn’t an entirely happy recollection. As Antenami recalled it (his memory wasn’t reliable), that city, wealthy from alabaster mines, had refused tribute one year, and claimed independence. They had then held out behind walls, forcing a siege, and the soldiers besieging had become ill in summer heat, many dying, so that in the end Folco d’Acorsi had apparently felt he had no choice but to allow them two days’ freedom to pillage inside when the walls were finally breached by artillery.
War was never going to be pretty. A reason Antenami had never joined a campaign. He remembered his brother riding to Barignan in haste afterwards, and offering a considerable sum to placate the city, since they did intend to govern it and hatred was not useful. It must have been a bad sort of sacking.
He didn’t know what a good sack would look like, mind you. Folco had been summoned back to explain. He had evidently done so adequately; he was still their commander. He was here. Another powerful symbol for Bischio to see. They’d know the story of Barignan, of course. Everyone did.
D’Acorsi was staring now at Teobaldo Monticola. It was not a genial look. Monticola appeared to be ignoring him, still gazing at Fillaro. And who could fault him for that?
There was much more tension than Antenami liked, however. He tried to break it. He said, stating what would surely be obvious, “I can’t sell him, in any event. I’m bringing him to Bischio to run him in their race.”
The silence that followed was . . . unexpected. The sight of Monticola suppressing laughter was more so. Antenami looked at his own commander. Folco, he saw, was biting his lip.
Monticola finally addressed the other mercenary. “Jad and all the Blessed Victims, d’Acorsi! You are guiding him there to do this? He thinks he is going to race his horse in Bischio?”
Folco said, tersely, “This is the first I have heard of it.”
Well, really, Antenami thought, he didn’t need to tell hired soldiers all his devisings, did he?
“I won’t ride him myself, of course,” he said. “Not proper at all. I’ve brought a rider.”
“Have you?” said Teobaldo Monticola. He still seemed close to laughter. A slow dawning came upon Antenami Sardi that—again—he might have missed something others knew about.
He could have told his brother about this plan, he supposed.
He looked again at Folco d’Acorsi. Who drew a breath, managed a smile in his ruined face, then began to talk.
And so it was explained to Antenami, quite kindly on the whole, that the race in Bischio was unlike other races. That the horses were deliberately selected by city officials to not be exceptional. They were to be roughly equal in stamina and speed. The riders were picked by a drawing from a large group of candidates, randomly assigned to run on behalf of one of the ten districts of the city competing in a given year, and then—another drawing—paired with a horse.
You couldn’t, in short, just bring a magnificent horse to race in Bischio.
It was, Antenami Sardi of Firenta thought, the strangest excuse for a horse race he’d ever heard of in all his life.
He said as much. He laughed, which appeared to free both of the mercenaries to also laugh. He was not, after all, unaccustomed to discovering that he’d misunderstood something. No great harm done. It was possible that he should have learned more about the race before impulsively making his plan, yes. There was that. There was often that.
He shrugged it off. He was good at doing so. You could be far too concerned about dignity, in his own view. It could get in the way of enjoying life. That was his brother’s biggest problem, Antenami had always thought. And these two men? What was the point of living in such a way that your deepest desire appeared to be to carve someone else open and leave him bleeding to death on a road in the sun? He’d say that to his friends, later, or to one of the women he’d brought south with him. What was the point of such a life? he’d ask.
A shame, though, about the race. He had a thought. He’d ride Fillaro himself when they reached Bischio! Right through the city gates, a symbol (his father loved symbols) of Sardi wealth, and Firenta’s power coming their way.
He could do that. Then enjoy their peculiar race.
CHAPTER VI
In the way of such things, the spring race around the city square of Bischio, especially given its eccentric rules, was subject to corruption and bribery—in all the obvious ways and a number of less-evident ones.
