Free Irenicon by Aidan Harte Page B

remembered the day she had blundered into a crow’s nest on the eaves of Tower Ferruccio. When the outraged mother crow attacked, she lost her footing and began sliding down the tiles—she still woke sometimes from nightmares in which she kept sliding—but Gaetano had caught her, and she had kissed him and slapped him and then run home in a cloud of giddy laughter. Everything was easier back then.
    The Chamber door burst open suddenly, and the engineer stepped into the water. He was wiping his brow dazedly, then blushed when he saw them looking at him. He nodded stiffly before wading out to the piazza.
    Sofia caught Gaetano’s skeptical look. “Really. He’s all right.”
    A tinkle of smashed glass brought their attention immediately back to the Concordians.
    “Damn it, Valerius! What did you do?”
    “Are you all right, Marcus?” said Gaetano.
    “I won’t be able to see now!” Marcus cried.
    “You little stronzo !” said Gaetano, grabbing Valerius and slamming him against the wall. Several crests fell and smashed.
    “Get your hands off me!” screamed Valerius.
    “Hands off, Tano!” The end of Sofia’s flag stick lightly touched Gaetano’s temple.
    “All right, all right—” He let go and backed away, dragging Marcus with him.
    “I can’t see!”
    “I’ll make sure he’s punished,” she said.
    “Do that.”
    Valerius laughed. “ Idiota! She can’t punish me!”
    Sofia stuck Valerius in the stomach. He doubled over and gasped, “Why did you do that?” He sounded genuinely shocked.
    She held her stick under his chin. “Say it again. I dare you.”
    Gaetano pulled her away. “Sofia, he’s right. Anything done to him, Rasenna gets back tenfold. Let’s just keep them separate.”
    Sofia had to leave or she’d do something she’d regret. Outside, amid the slender-columned loggia adjoining the palazzo, she found the engineer glumly regarding the river.
    “What’s the matter with you?” Then she saw: someone had cut the rope bridge. While he had been speaking inside about reconciliation, somebody had been sabotaging it before it had even begun.
    The applause ended the moment the engineer left the room. Quintus Morello crossed the floor, snatched the estimates from the notary, and crumpled them into a ball. “Let’s hope the buio take him for a tour of old Rasenna.”
    Cheers and laughter erupted from the southern benches, while across the floor the Doctor leaned forward and whispered to Guercho Vaccarelli.
    The old man took the mace and fixed his one functioning eye on Quintus. “Levity?” he spit. “At this hour, Gonfaloniere? If our extension was refused, and we gather it was . . .” He spoke in whistling gasps, and when breath was exhausted he left sentences suspended in midair while his dusty lungs recovered a second wind.
    “We have not come to that point on the agenda,” the notary interrupted, glancing at the ambassador. Valentino sat quietly beside his father, his slender frame still draped in his cloak, his face as blank as the empty sky above the old man.
    Guercho Vaccarelli caught his breath and continued. “If there is no extension, I say, then Rasenna faces greater demands than ever: tribute for last year and the year to come! This is no time for levity or partisanship, not in this house, not on the streets.”
    A southerner jeered. “You liked it when you were winning!”
    The old man ignored the interruption and raised a shaking finger of admonition. “Concord will pay for the bridge. It brings employment and commerce to profit our merchants and to we who tax them. It is a means to pay our debt. Who knows another? Before displaying your considerable patriotism, my Lords, consider one more point.”
    “Hurry up!” Boos erupted from the southside, and the notary hammered his gavel, shouting for order.
    “Defaulting has strained relations with the Empire. What if we add defiance to our sins? You are all tower owners. When a tenant defaults, you throw him out. But