You’ve not come to know me!
More than Medallia, he corrected, for I have never been alone with her.
But long to be, I’m sure! How fickle you are, Gianni Braccalese, how inconstant! How can you love two women at once?
I don’t know, Gianni confessed, but I do. He had never thought himself to be so base as to betray one love for another, but found that he did. Was he no better than any of the other strutting bucks about town? Were all men so shallow? I do not understand it, but it’s there. Please, O Beauty, let me come to you! He willed himself to move toward her, and seemed to be beginning to do so when she snapped, Never! and whirled her veils high to hide herself as she began to recede, flying from him at an amazing rate, shrinking smaller and smaller until she was gone, leaving him alone in darkness, with his dreams empty.
Gianni waked feeling fuzzy—headed and filled with grit, as though he had drunk far too heavily the night before, when in fact he had tasted only a single glass of wine. “That’s what comes of dreaming of women you can’t have,” he growled at himself, and rose to wash and shave.
With breakfast improving his mood and his best clothes on his back, he entered the Council chamber beside his father, Gar looming behind both of them. They entered a hall filled with consternation.
“Have you heard?” A jowly burgher confronted Papa Braccalese. “Prince Raginaldi marches on the city from the north, with thousands of men!”
Both Braccaleses stared. The first thing Papa could think of to say was, “How do we know?”
“Old Libroni’s chief driver brought the word back, along with the tale of how a band of Stilettos had reived him of his whole goods train and left him for dead! Oh, he is in frightful condition—emaciated, with bruises and crusted wounds! None doubt his word.”
Papa cast a quick look of vindication at Gianni, then said, “Many thanks, old friend. Come, let’s find our seats.”
They went on into the hall, hearing voices on every side:
“Conte Vecchio marches from the west with a thousand men!”
“The Doge of Lingretti marches from the south with two thousand!”
“The Stilettos are marching three thousand strong from Tumanola!”
“The Red Company are marching with two thousand!”
“Pirates!” a messenger shrilled, running into the hall and waving a parchment. “Captain Bortaccio says he had to run from a fleet of pirates! He lost them in a low fog by sailing against the wind, but they come in a fleet of thirty!”
The clamor redoubled at this news, and the Maestro began to strike his gong again and again, crying, “Councilors! Masters! Quiet! Order! We must discuss a plan!”
“Plan?” shouted a bull-throated man in velvet. “There can be only one plan—to flee!”
“We cannot flee!” Old Carlo Grepotti was on his feet, eyes afire, trembling. “By land or by sea, they shall cut us down and take us all for slaves if we flee! We can do nothing but stay and pray!”
“We can fight!” shouted a younger merchant, and a roar of approval answered him. The Maestro pounded his gong again and again until they quieted enough for him to hear himself call out, “Sit down! Sit down, masters and signori! Are we fishmongers, to be brawling over a catch? Sit down, as befits your dignity!”
Many faces reddened, but the merchants quieted and sat down around the great table. The Maestro nodded, appeased. “Braccalese! This meeting is called at your request! Have you any news that will help us make sense of this whole hornet’s nest?”
“Not I, but my son,” Papa said. “Gianni, tell them!”
Gianni stood up—and almost sat right down again; his legs turned to jelly as he stared around him at the host of grim, challenging faces, the youngest of them twenty years older than he. But Gar muttered a reminder—“You’ve faced Stilettos”—and it did wonders for Gianni’s self-confidence. His fear didn’t vanish, but it receded a good deal.
He squared his shoulders and called out, “Masters! Again I took a goods train out, this time northward into the mountains—and again we were beset by Stilettos, and our goods train lost. My guard Gar wandered with me till some Gypsies gave us clothes, food, and a place to sleep—but when they thought we slept, the Gypsies talked among themselves. They were false Gypsies, spies”—he hoped he was right about that—“set to encourage the lords to unite to crush us merchants!”
The hall erupted into uproar again, and Gianni looked about him, leaning on the table, already feeling drained, but quite satisfied at the emotion he had brought forth. The Maestro struck the gong again and again and, when quiet had returned, fixed Gianni with a glittering eye and asked him, “Why should Gypsies care whether we live or die?”
“We couldn’t understand that, either, Maestro,” Gianni said, “until we encountered a glazier on the road, who told us of a conversation he had overheard—a conversation between Prince Raginaldi and a dour, grim merchant from very far away who could barely speak the tongue of Talipon, but who offered the prince a scandalous price for orzans.”
“Scandalous price?” Eyes glittered with avarice. “How scandalous?”
What was the cost of power for a small city, anyway? For that matter, what was such power? Gianni improvised, “Three months’ profit from ordinary trading.”
“For each jewel?”
Gianni nodded. “For each one.”
The hall erupted into pandemonium again. The Maestro rolled up his eyes and left the gong alone until the hubbub had started to die of its own, then struck the gong once and waited for silence. “Do you say these false Gypsies were agents of this foreign merchant?”
“That’s the only way it makes sense to me, Maestro,” Gianni told him. “But it’s not just one merchant, it’s a whole company—the ‘Lurgan Company,’ they call themselves.”
“A whole company? Why didn’t they come to us?” Gianni shrugged, but old Carlo Grepotti cried, “Because they knew we would beat the price even higher! These foolish lords will take whatever they’re offered!”
“Aye, and steal every gem they can find to sell!” cried another merchant, and the hubbub was off again. The Maestro aimed a blow at the gong, then thought better of it and sat back to wait. Finally his fellow merchants realized just how contemptuous his gaze was and subsided, muttering. The Maestro turned to Gianni again. “Have you any answers to these questions they raise?”
“Only guesses, Maestro,” Gianni said, “But I think I’ll let Gar tell you those. He had the idea of having us captured by the Stilettos so that we could break into Castle Raginaldi and look for more information. He should be the one to tell you what we found.”
“Break into Castle Raginaldi?” a younger merchant cried. “How did you dare?”
“More to the point, how did you get out?” another man demanded.
“All for Gar to tell—it’s really his story, and his boast.” Gianni turned to his friend. “I yield to the free lance.”
“Free no longer, but bound to serve you and all of Pirogia.” Gar rose to his full height, shoulders square, and looked somberly about the room. Any objection to his speaking died under that glare. Calmly then, and without hurry, he told them about their raid into Castle Raginaldi—and told it with all the dash and spirit of a practiced storyteller. The merchants hung riveted to his account, all eyes on his face, and the hall was silent except for his voice until he had finished with their escape from the castle. Then he paused, looked all about the room, finally turned to the Maestro, and inclined his head. “That is all we saw, Maestro, and all we heard.”