Fires of the Faithful (35 page)

“As long as when we’re done,
he’s
dead and
I’m
not, I really don’t care,” I said.

Giovanni’s eyes narrowed as he stared at me. “Well, you’re a peasant,” he said. “I suppose it isn’t really fair to expect you to understand a gentleman’s code of honor.”

“And after all, you’re a gentleman,” I said. “I suppose it isn’t really fair to expect you to understand a commoner’s desire for survival.”

Giovanni stood up. “Let’s keep working.” He picked up the wooden knives and handed me one. “I think it’s time to try some attacks.” He set down his own knife. “We’ll
assume that you’re starting the fight, and I’m unarmed. Attack me.” He put his hands on his hips and smiled at me.

Shrugging, I walked up and raised the knife. Giovanni caught my hand neatly and gave it a jerk to send me flying forward, off balance. A kick sent the knife spinning into the corner. “Grab it. Keep going,” he urged.

My back was too raw to roll, so I stalked to the corner and picked the knife back up. “Maybe you should teach me
those
moves,” I said.

He shrugged. “Later. Attack me again.”

I ran at him, impatient now. “Are you going to show me the right way to do this,” I demanded when he disarmed me again, “or are you going to keep me running around uselessly all day?”

“First you complain when I have you do exercises,” Giovanni said, “and now you’re complaining because I’ve got you holding a knife and
you
don’t know what to do with it.” He arched an eyebrow snidely. “Make up your mind. What do you want?”

I stepped close to Giovanni so that he had to look up to meet my eyes. “Teach me how to break the hold the assassins put me in. Teach me how to hurt somebody if I have to. I want you to show me what I need to know to
survive
, Giovanni.”

He stepped back and set his knife down, looking thoughtful. “Show me what they did.”

“They grabbed me,” I said. “Here.” I set down my knife and moved behind him. “One of them pinned my arms, and put his hand over my mouth.” I started to cover Giovanni’s mouth with my hand, then pulled my hand away. “I bit him. The other one had a knife to my throat,
here
.” I picked up the knife again and showed him. “When they were going to kill me, they pulled it back, like this, to stab.”

“Huh,” Giovanni said. “Rico must not know much about knife fighting; he should’ve just cut your throat. I mean—not that I wish he had. But—uh. I’ll show you how to get out of the hold.”

Giovanni led me through a series of moves designed to break most common holds. I felt more in my element now; this was like what my brother Donato had taught me when I was a child. “Keep going,” Giovanni urged me as I broke free. “Pretend I attacked you. What are you going to do now?”

I kicked out, hooking Giovanni’s ankle with my foot and jerking it out from under him. He squawked in surprise and fell in a heap; I jumped on top of him, one knee in his stomach, hand raised. “Never mind!” Giovanni yelped. “Let me up.”

I climbed off Giovanni and he got up, brushing himself off. “I guess you know how to fight without a knife,” he said. “Hold out your hand.” I held out my hand as if I were going to clasp Giovanni’s. He put the knife in my hand, point down, blade out. I closed my hand around the knife, tentatively raising the knife to stab. “Wrong,” Giovanni said, and turned my fist so that the knife pointed out away from my body. “The easiest way to do some damage in a knife-fight is to hold the knife like this. Don’t stab. Just punch, then drag the blade.” He took his own knife and demonstrated a slashing sideways blow. “You probably won’t kill anybody this way, but it shows you’re serious, and dangerous. Anyone expecting easy prey will probably run.”

“ ‘Probably’?”

He shook his head. “I’ll teach you more tomorrow.”

•  •  •

It was late spring, and the days were getting longer. The soldiers began refusing to keep their laborers out from dawn till dusk, since that meant working from dawn to dusk themselves. In the low-slanting daylight, the Ravenessi had found a new diversion: a game called
Lupi
, wolves. Even the people who weren’t playing it watched, cheering and placing bets on their favorite players.

My back was healing, but I wasn’t up for playing Lupi yet, so I spent most of my time talking to people, learning names and faces and home villages and family connections. Michel had taken to his new job of “bodyguard” with great enthusiasm, following me everywhere. When I turned and glared at him, he would at least fall back a pace or two.

A week or two later, I was talking with an old woman who had lined up for morning gruel when I saw a familiar face out of the corner of my eye. I whirled—I had seen familiar faces several times, but they had always belonged to strangers, rather than my mother or Donato or whomever I thought it was at first glance. This wasn’t a family member—but it wasn’t a stranger, either. She didn’t see me; she was staring off into space, looking hungry and lost. “Giula?”

She looked up. “Eliana!” Her face lit up, and she left her place in line to run over and give me a hug. I winced as her arms rubbed against my back. “Love of the Lady, it’s been how long?”

I calculated. “Six weeks.”

Giula shook her head. “It seems so much longer.”

I nodded. It seemed like months since I had seen Giula. “How long have you been in Ravenna?”

“Just a day. My mother and father are here, too, and some of my brothers and sisters. I’m
so
glad to find you here.”

I followed Giula back to the line where her family still waited, Michel trailing me. “This is Eliana, one of my friends from the conservatory,” Giula said. Her father took my hand gravely and bowed. Her mother was a sweet-faced woman with a wary, helpless smile. “These are my parents, Lina and Elmo.” I smiled in greeting. “Are your parents here?” Giula asked.

I lowered my eyes. “They’re dead. My family—they’re all dead.”

“Oh!” Giula covered her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked—”

“How were you to know?” It had been long enough, now, that I could say it without choking back tears. “Once you’ve gotten some food, I’ll introduce you to some of my friends here.”

Giula glanced past my shoulder. “Who’s he? Is he your sweetheart?”

I followed her glance to Michel. “Oh—no. Michel is my bodyguard.”

Giula’s eyes went wide. “Your
what
?”

“It’s a long story,” I said.

Giula’s family was much too large to add to Rafi’s tent, but they had some blankets and canvas of their own and Michel and I helped them set up a tent on the perimeter near where Rafi lived. “Magery doesn’t work here,” I said. “Not even witchlight.” Not entirely true, but if Giovanni couldn’t get a witchlight, I was confident Giula wouldn’t be able to.

“Really?” Lina asked, astonished. “Did you hear that, Elmo? Want me to show you how to use a flint?” She smiled, oddly pleased. I remembered that Giula had told me that her mother couldn’t use magery.

“I’ll just have you light the fire for us,” Elmo said, putting one arm around her shoulders in a hug. Watching
them, I felt the tears I hadn’t shed earlier rising in my throat, and blinked them away.

“Eliana,” Giula said. “What happened to your family?”

“The Circle burned my village,” I said. “Refugees trying to go north had gone there, and wouldn’t turn back.”

Giula’s eyes filled with tears. “Why do they hate us so much?”

“They’re afraid,” I said. “They don’t want all those hungry, angry people in Cuore.” Lina and Elmo were arranging their tent, so I pulled gently at Giula’s sleeve. “Let’s go,” I said. “I want to introduce you to Rafi and Lucia.”

Giula blushed shyly as I introduced her to Rafi, then looked up carefully to examine Lucia. “This is Giula,” I said. “She’s a friend of mine from the conservatory.”

Lucia scrutinized Giula. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said blandly, squeezing Giula’s arm. Next to Lucia, Giula’s dimpled prettiness seemed dull and sallow; her sweetness seemed weak. Giula could never have survived Lucia’s trip from her seminary down to Verdia, even if God had appeared to personally tell her that she should go.

Under Lucia’s stare, Giula gulped anxiously and turned back toward me. “Is Lucia a musician?” she asked, flinching a little from my own appraising look.

“No,” I said. “She’s a dancer, though, and knows a lot of Old Way music.” Lucia nodded, trying to catch Giula’s eye again. “She’s taught me some new songs.”

“Oh!” Giula said, and glanced nervously at Rafi.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “The Fedeli don’t come here.”

Giula smiled again, but didn’t look entirely convinced. I started wondering if I should have given her a few days to get her bearings before introducing her to my new friends.

Then Giovanni ducked into the tent, and Giula froze, her hand closing on my wrist. “What’s
he
doing here?” she said, shrinking back against me.

“He won’t hurt you,” I said. “Don’t worry, Giula.” The inn in Pluma where Giovanni had slapped Giula seemed like a lifetime ago, but I could understand why Giula was upset. I stroked her shoulder, trying to reassure her.

“Is
he
one of your friends?” she asked.

“No, not exactly.”

“I think I’d better go,” she whimpered and stood up. I followed her out of the tent. She walked rapidly back across Ravenna. I ran after her, squinting in the bright sunlight. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Michel, but he was keeping his distance.

“Giula—” I said.

“I understand you wanted me to meet your friends,” she said, turning back toward me. “But I really don’t understand why you have anything to do with him!”

“He’s Lucia’s cousin,” I said. “No one really likes him, Giula, honest!”

Giula shook her head. “Maybe I’ll like your friends more later,” she said, and went in to her family’s tent.

At a loss for what to say, I went back to Rafi’s tent. “Fragile flower,” Giovanni whispered as I came in, just loudly enough for me to hear.

“Giula seems nice,” Lucia said, but looked troubled.

“What?” I asked.

“She’s not one of
us
, is she?” Lucia meant that Giula was not Redentore.

“She played the music,” I said defensively. “I don’t think she’s been sealed, but it was only by chance that I was.”

“Nothing happens by chance,” Lucia said, then bit her lip. “It’s just—well, never mind. We’ll see once she’s settled in.”

I shook my head. “I guess.”

That night, listening to Lucia’s even breathing in the
darkness of Rafi’s tent, I found my thoughts drifting from Giula to Mira. If we had left the conservatory together that spring afternoon when she suggested it, we would still have found my village devastated when we arrived. We might have come to Ravenna together just as I came to Ravenna alone. What would Lucia have thought of Mira, I wondered?
She certainly wasn’t anyone’s fragile flower
. I rolled over, trying not to disturb anyone with my restlessness. It hurt too much to think about Mira.

I saw Giula only in passing the following day; she chatted with me, but made a hasty excuse to leave when Lucia joined me a moment later. Mario caught up with me that afternoon, and I agreed to meet some soldiers on the hillside to play that evening. I made one request: that at least for this first time, Mario bring soldiers like himself—men who hated what they were doing here; who knew, when they admitted it to themselves, that it was wrong.

My impromptu concerts had generally had a fairly good turnout, but that evening the Ravenessi avoided that corner of the valley, giving the gathering of soldiers a wide berth. Mario set up some torches so that the soldiers would be able to see me play, and the soldiers sat down on the hillside.

I played them some folk songs, then a solo piece I’d learned at the conservatory. “I need to rest for a minute,” I said after that. “Tell me your names, and where you’re from. I want to know who I’m playing for.”

Mario passed a lantern around the circle, so that I could see the faces. I already knew a few soldiers here—Mario and Tomas—and I did my best to remember each name and each face. Many of the soldiers were from Verdia, although most of them were from parts that were well north of the wasteland. I asked them if they were worried about their families, and they nodded. Even the messenger service
didn’t like coming down to Ravenna; letters arrived four times a year, with the grain shipments. A few other soldiers were from Marino, and the rest from the more northerly provinces, near Cuore or Varena.

“Any requests?” I asked when the conversation paused.

“Something old,” one of the soldiers said.

I nodded. I’d only practiced this one briefly, but the tune was simple and I really liked it. “The Dance That Turned the Storm,” Lucia had called it. I sang the lyrics softly as I played.
Rachamin, Arka. Rachamin, Gèsu. Rachamin, Arka
, step-turn-step.
Rachamin, Gèsu
, step-turn-step. The soldiers didn’t dance, but many closed their eyes, and I could see them whispering the words as I played.

“Lucia calls that the Dance That Turned the Storm,” I said when I had finished. I lowered my violin. It was time to start talking; this was why I’d agreed to play, after all. I walked toward the soldiers, trying to make eye contact with as many as I could.

“I know that all of you are soldiers who serve justice,” I said. “I know that each of you is a man with a conscience, and that you all have stronger, clearer souls than some of the others here. You don’t glory in violence; you don’t offer to deal pain. You are
men
. Not Maledori.” I looked slowly around the dark circle, struggling to make out faces. They were nodding; some of them looked stricken, others relieved.

“None of you chose to be here, did you? And it’s easy to start feeling alone. You’re
not
alone. I just played the Dance That Turned the Storm. If you join together, you can turn any storm that comes against you.” Everyone was nodding, now. “I want you to promise yourselves
not to be afraid
to do what’s right. You know in your heart what the right thing is. And it doesn’t matter whether you worship Gèsu or the Lady. They both say the same thing about
slavery.” I wasn’t sure what Gèsu had to say about slavery, come to think of it, but as far as I could tell, the Redentori other than Lucia didn’t know that much about what Gèsu said about anything.