Tino stared at him, too terrified to speak.
Ten feet away, a French soldier swung his sword and a Sicilian fell to the stones, blood gushing from his arm. A woman screamed. A Sicilian lunged at the man, arm out holding a dagger. The Frenchman fell and Giuliano dived forward to take his sword, then whirled around and snatched the child’s arm.
“Come!” Giuliano shouted, dragging him along. He wanted to find Giuseppe and Maria and the other children, but he could not afford to let go of this one.
All around the square and in the streets leading off it men were fighting, and some women, seeming just as good with the knives. The French were badly outnumbered, and already there were men on the ground, some struggling to rise, others lying still. Generations of oppression and abuse, of poverty, fear, and humiliation, were finding a passion of vengeance at last, and the savagery was unstoppable.
They kept to shadows and narrow ways. It was a risk, in case they should find the way blocked, but the fighting in the square was worse. A few yards to the left, they could hear the shouts of “Death to the French!” and the call on the men of Palermo to unite and take back their freedom and their dignity at last.
Giuliano started to run as fast as he could with the boy. After covering the complete length of the alley, they burst into the quiet courtyard of a Dominican convent. The scene that met their eyes was hideous. A dozen Sicilians held ten friars at knifepoint.
“Say ‘ciceri,’” one of the Sicilians ordered. It was the test of nationality. No Frenchman could pronounce the word.
The first friar obeyed and was let go, staggering, tripping over his torn habit, almost numb with fear.
The second was given the same order.
He stumbled and failed.
There was a cry of “French!” and Giuliano grasped Tino and swung him around just as the Sicilians slit the friar’s throat and he fell forward, gushing blood.
Tino howled in fear. Giuliano picked him up and slung him over his shoulder, then barged back out the way he had come. He stood in the alley trying to draw the air into his lungs, still clinging to the boy’s small body.
He had wanted the Sicilians to rebel, to cast off the yoke of oppression, but he had never imagined this terrible violence. Had Giuliano known the hatred was so close to the surface, would he still have tried to waken it?
Yes. He would, because the only alternative was worse-endless subjection until the life and the heart were crushed out of them. The same slow death awaited Byzantium.
He carried Tino the rest of the way. Men crazed with sudden power, gore-stained scarlet, saw the child and let him pass, and Giuliano was ashamed of his own safety for that reason. But he did not stop, even when he heard men pleading for their lives, women screaming, fighting. He felt Tino’s fingers gripping him, and he kept moving.
When at last he reached Giuseppe and Maria’s house, Giuliano was exhausted and shivering. Fear that they would not be there turned his stomach to water.
He was still yards from it when the door opened and Maria came out. She saw him and choked back a cry as he put Tino in her arms.
Giuseppe was in the doorway, tears running down his cheeks, the candlelight yellow behind him, a knife in his hand, preparing to defend his remaining children if Giuliano had been an enemy. His face split in a smile and he ran forward, dropping the knife and clasping Giuliano so tightly that he all but cracked his ribs.
Maria urged them inside, and obediently they followed her. Giuseppe barred the door after them.
“Go back to Gianni,” Giuseppe said to Maria. As she left, he looked at Giuliano. “He’s hurt,” he said simply. “She can’t leave him.” The explanation was unnecessary, but Giuseppe could not take his eyes from Tino for more than a few moments, and he kept touching the boy’s head, as if to assure himself that he was real and alive.
A little after first light, one of the other fishermen came, a man called Angelo. The children were asleep, and Maria was upstairs with them.
“We’re going to meet in the town center,” Angelo said gravely to Giuliano and Giuseppe. His face was burned and there was a cut on his brow, blood congealed, and his left arm was in a makeshift sling. He was filthy and he moved stiffly, as if his limbs hurt. “We must decide what to do now. There are hundreds dead, maybe thousands. The corpses of people block the alleys, and the stones are red with blood.”
“There’ll be war,” Giuliano warned.
Angelo nodded. “We must prepare for it. They have called for men from every district and trade so we can choose someone to represent us and ask the pope to recognize us as a commune, and ask for his protection.”
“From Charles of Anjou?” Giuliano said incredulously. “What the hell do you think the pope is going to do? He’s French, for God’s sake!”
“He’s Christian,” Giuseppe replied. “He can give us his protection.”
“Are you waiting on that?” Giuliano was appalled.
Giuseppe gave him a bleak smile, a flash of the old humor in his eyes.
Angelo nodded. “Runners have already gone out to all the towns and villages, closest ones first, to tell them what has happened and to call on them to rise up with us. The whole island will turn against the Angevins. We are going to march on Vicari and give them all the choice of leaving with safe conduct to sail back to Provence.”
“Or what?” Giuseppe asked.
“Or death,” Angelo replied.
“I imagine they will choose Provence,” Giuliano said dryly.
“And you, my friend…” Giuseppe turned to Giuliano, his face puckered with anxiety, his eyes gentle. “What do you choose? These were Frenchmen tonight, but by next week, or next month, they may be Venetians. The fleet lies at Messina. You are not Sicilian. This is not your quarrel. Any hospitality we gave you you have more than repaid. Go now, before you act against your own people.”
Still exhausted, aching, his clothes sticking to him with other men’s blood, Giuliano realized how alone he was. “I don’t have people of my own,” he said slowly. “I have friends, I have debts, and people I love. That isn’t the same thing.”
“I don’t know what debts you have,” Giuseppe answered. “None to me. But you are my friend, which is why I give you leave to go, if honor pulls you. I am going to Corleone with Angelo to tell them to rise also, and then after that on to other towns, and if I survive it, to Messina.”
“To the fleet?”
“Yes. Maria and the children will be safe here now. Angelo and his family will protect them.”
“Then I’m coming with you.” Already in his mind he knew what he was going to do. It surprised him. He barely had time to be afraid or realize the enormity of it, but now that it came to the moment, there was no choice after all.
Giuseppe grinned and held out his hand. Giuliano clasped it.