The Ruined City (12 page)

Rol assisted his charge to a sitting position, back resting against the cave wall, then offered a spoonful of gruel. Onartino swallowed willingly. Another spoonful followed, and another, until about half the bowl had been consumed, at which point the boy observed, “Very good, Master Onartino, but better for you if you feed yourself. Come on, give it a try.” He held out the spoon.

Onartino’s right hand rose. His bandaged fingers closed on the handle. Slowly and uncertainly, he dipped a spoonful of gruel, raised it to his lips, and swallowed. Half the gruel went down his chin. The rest went down his throat.

“That’s it. That’s good,” Rol encouraged.

The gruel diminished steadily. Soon it was gone, and Rol reclaimed the spoon.

“Just dandy, Master Onartino. At this rate, we’ll soon have you dancing a jig. Now you just wait here while I see to that fire, and then we’ll clean you up, eh?”

“Girl. Mine.” The words were indistinct but understandable. Onartino’s eye was fixed on the exit. “Hunt.”

“What’s that?”

“Hunt.” Laboriously swinging his legs off the ledge, Onartino made as if to rise.

“Easy, now.” Rol held him down. “You just bide a bit. First, the fire. Then a cleaning. Then we’ll trot you around.”

“Girl. Mine.” Onartino struggled to rise.

“Stay
put
, now! You got to do what you’re told. Your mother the magnifica has put me in charge. It’s for your own
good. You hear?” Deeming his point made, Rol released his patient and turned away.

Onartino’s bandaged hand closed on the nearest fragment of rock. Dragging himself to his feet, he raised his arm.

Rol Prozzo spun in time to see the rock descending, but not in time to dodge it. The granite struck his skull with an audible crack, and he dropped to the ground.

For some seconds Onartino regarded the twitching figure at his feet. Presently he knelt with care and beat Rol Prozzo’s head with the rock until all twitching ceased. Rising, he made his way to the mouth of the cave, where he paused, empty gaze sweeping the landscape. His one eye found the right direction.

“Hunt,” said Onartino.

A fallen tree branch large enough to serve as a staff lay near at hand. He picked it up and turned his dragging footsteps west, toward Vitrisi.

Celisse Rione stepped up onto a tree stump, elevating herself into visibility.

“Gather ’round,” she commanded in a clear voice that carried through the camp. “I’ve news that everyone must hear. Gather ’round.”

Her voice easily penetrated the canvas walls of the big infirmary tent, to be heard by the physician, the physician’s assistant, and the few remaining patients. Jianna and Rione traded uneasy glances. Both moved to the entrance. Rione pushed the flap aside and they looked out.

A light layer of frozen moisture glazed the bare black branches. A haze of glinting frost lightened the cold-hardened mud of the campsite. A few scattered fires breathed grey smoke into the grey mists of winter. The canvas tents and shelters, once light in hue, had weathered and dirtied to a uniform dingy grey-brown. The patched and makeshift garments of the resident Ghosts had done likewise.

Color!
thought Jianna, remembering Vitrisi with its stained-glass windows, rooflights, and flying pennants, its varied gardens, its costumes and equipages, booths and stalls, and above all its neighboring sea, of a thousand moods and expressions. Did these Ghosts haunting the foggy woods remember or know what was missing?

Celisse, simply clad in her gown and cloak the color of the tree trunks, stood very straight and very still upon her makeshift platform. Her face, young and grave, seemed to transmit inner light. Her immobility, together with the implied energy of her posture, easily drew all eyes.

Watching from the shelter of the infirmary tent, Jianna found herself inexplicably cold-fingered and clench-jawed.

The silence lengthened. Celisse finally allowed her blue-grey gaze to travel. What she saw of audience size and attentiveness must have satisfied her, for she began to speak.

“Friends and patriots, I’ve received news of an outrage,” she announced, melodic tone conveying dignified sorrow. “Some of you will already have heard. To those who have not, let it be known—in the city of Vitrisi, the Taerleezi invaders have committed new atrocities exceeding all their past crimes, even those of the wars. There have been massacres upon at least two separate occasions. One occurred in the Plaza of Proclamation, where Taerleezi troops attacked unarmed Faerlonnish citizens too slow in obeying a command to disperse. At least a dozen of our countrymen were slaughtered in that place.

“Appalling as that was, far worse followed. Mere hours later, the Taerleezi soldiers entered the neighborhood of Rookery Grove, whose male residents were rounded up and driven out into the street, where they were slaughtered like cattle. Thereafter the corpses were mutilated—the heads cut off, mounted on poles, and left on display at the edge of the Plaza of Proclamation.”

Celisse paused, allowing her listeners a moment to visualize the scene. A collective mutter of indignant revulsion suggested that the account was new to most of the audience.

It was entirely new to Jianna. Turning to Rione, she whispered, “Can this be true? Or is she making it up?”

“She certainly believes it to be true. My sister never lies,” he returned in an equally low tone. “And she may well be right.”

When the response subsided, Celisse continued, “Friends, we’ve suffered the tyranny of the Taerleezi beasts for decades. But in all my days, I’ve never heard of a crime blacker than this one. Is there anyone here who knows of anything worse?” She paused briefly, inviting reply, of which there was none. “I
thought not. Listen to me. There comes a time at last when no being worthy of the name ‘human’ will accept further abuse. There comes a moment when self-respect, decency, and honor demand satisfaction. For Faerlonne and all of her children, that moment has arrived. If we love our country—if we love ourselves, and our sons and daughters—if we wish to continue regarding ourselves as a people of worth and value—then we must act. Otherwise, let us resign ourselves to the final destruction of Faerlonne. Let us bid our country farewell.

“I myself prefer to act,” Celisse declared simply. “And I trust there are many among you who share my desire. What then can we do to avenge our murdered countrymen and our violated nation? How shall we strike fear into the hearts of the Taerleezis? I know one sure means of achieving this aim. I’ve proposed it in the past and been overruled—I now propose it again, and this time I’ll not be denied. We must reveal Taerleezi vulnerability by striking at their highest and greatest. I speak of the Governor Anzi Uffrigo. He is a tyrant, a murderer, and an enemy of our country. We will now put an end to his career. The Taerleezis will quake, and all of Faerlonne will rejoice. Friends, are we agreed?”

Once again she paused for an answer. Her forceful but calm utterance, her composure and self-possession, were more compelling than any display of passion. Her aspect was confident. Clearly she expected enthusiastic assent to her proposal.

The response was less than she might have desired. An uneasy stirring animated the cluster of listeners. Leaden silence continued for some moments, until some young Ghost raised his voice in succinct objection.

“Reprisals.”

“Perhaps. What of it? Are the deeds of Faerlonnish freedom fighters to be limited by fear?”

“How about by good sense?” another voice from the group spoke up. “Eh, girl?”

Jianna could not see the speaker from her present vantage
point, but recognized the unhurried tones of Poli Orso. The flush that darkened Celisse Rione’s pale face was visible even at a distance.

“It is more than good sense—it is a vital necessity—to teach the tyrants that their worst offenses carry consequences. So great an outrage as the Rookery Grove massacre can’t pass unpunished, else worse will follow. They must learn once and for all that Faerlonnishmen are not sheep for the butchering.”

“They’ll learn it, and the sooner the better,” Orso countered. “But killing off the Viper be’nt the way to teach. Do this, and we’ll leave the Taers no choice but to hit back hard, for the sake of pride. And for that, there’ll be massacres that’ll make Rookery Grove look like a tavern brawl. Will we do ourselves any great good with that? So we’ll strike for our dead right enough, but we’ll choose another target. That Taer tax collector sitting on his moneybags over at Worm Ridge—there’s a good prize. All that silver he’s squeezed over the last season might find its way back into Faerlonnish hands. The Taers would feel the loss right enough, and our own folk stand to profit.”

The faces in the group about him brightened.

“Profit. Money. Prudence.” Celisse’s brows lifted. “Always Poli Orso thinks of such things. His care and extreme … caution are well meant, but they come at the cost of justice. We are Faerlonnish, all of us. Haven’t we courage? Haven’t we pride? Haven’t we the strength and will to defend our nation?”

“More than one way of doing that. Doesn’t do Faerlonne much service if we all throw ourselves off a cliff,” Orso observed.

“We shall do Faerlonne the greatest service.” Celisse’s assurance did not waver. “And we won’t stop to count the cost. We’ll do this because we love our country and our compatriots more than we love ourselves. The true hearts among us will do what must be done.” She let her eyes travel in search of kindred spirits. “Who’s with me? Who’s for Vitrisi, and action? Speak up now.”

Silence followed, broken only by the nervous clearing of assorted throats. Celisse’s demanding gaze swept the fidgety audience and fastened on a likely face.

“Trox Venezzu.” She singled him out ruthlessly. “I take you for a lad of spirit. Have you the stomach for a dangerous mission?”

Following a protracted pause, Trox replied with audible discomfort, “I’d say the whole thing should be thought through, first.”

“For how long, Trox Venezzu? Until the Taers have killed off half our people, and enslaved the other half? Would that allow enough time for thought? Or would you rather wait longer, perhaps until the world has forgotten that the island of Faerlonne was ever anything more than a third-rate province of Taerleez?”

No reply was forthcoming, and she selected a new victim.

“Illi Dunnzo. You’ve some red blood in your veins, I think. Are you for Vitrisi, and action?”

There was no answer. A moment later a scarlet-faced boy emerged from the group and made for the shelter of the woods.

“Zees Quiorno, then. Do you love your country, Zees? Are you a man? Will you come to Vitrisi?”

“Maybe. I’ll let you know. Right now, I got work.” Zees Quiorno departed abruptly.

“Benna Ciosso? You’re a woman with the heart of a tiger. Shall we show these boys what courage is? Are you for it?”

“That I am not,” returned the tiger in question. “This is dangerous foolery. Celisse, you fizzle like wet powder. Be good to yourself and the rest of us, and give it up.”

“I thought more of you, Benna Ciosso. I thought better of all of you.” Celisse’s contemptuous regard chilled each of her listeners in turn. The slow gaze traveled from face to face, and then ranged farther, to the infirmary tent, where her brother and his assistant stood in the open entry.

For a moment the icy eyes bored into her own with an expression of such unequivocal animosity that Jianna resisted the impulse to step back into the shadows. Compressing her lips, she stared back. Eventually Celisse’s eyes moved on, returning to objects of more immediate and intense displeasure.

“You are afraid for your own little lives. You are filled with such fear that it blots out all else. You are cowards, useless and unworthy.” Celisse’s voice and face remained calm and immeasurably cold. “I have lived among you for years, and that’s what I think of you now. Is there anyone among you with spirit or heart to prove me wrong? If so, let him or her seek me out. If not, I’ve no use for any of you.”

Head high, she stepped off her stump and marched away. Her listeners dispersed in muttering twos and threes.

“She’s going to sulk in her tent?” Jianna inquired.

“Not the most sympathetic description,” Falaste Rione returned.

“Well, you’re right about that. I know you don’t want to hear me speak ill of your sister, but she has some dangerous ideas. Happily, the Ghosts know better than to follow her. Think that solid snub she just received will teach her a lesson?”

“Perhaps.” He smiled, but the vertical crease between his brows remained.

“You don’t sound optimistic.”

“Once she’s made up her mind, Celisse isn’t easily turned from her purpose.”

“I know. Will of iron, and all that. Selfless dedication, intense patriotism, heart of fire … Immense self-importance, intolerance, utter humorlessness—oh, stop looking at me like that. All right, I’m sorry, I know, she’s your sister. I can’t help it. I’ve tried to like her, but she doesn’t make it easy.”

“I know that. But her intentions are of the best and highest.”

“So are yours, but you aren’t so
oppressive
about it. Sometimes
I wonder how you and Celisse can look so much alike, and share so much, yet be so different.”