Okay, now that I have introduced the Count, here is the first major cut from an earlier draft of this book.
In the original Prologue, we didn’t follow Ciolo, but Ponzino de Ponzoni (his real name!), the leader of the Paduan attackers. Later this switched to Vinciguerra, Count of San Bonifacio – the villain of the piece (ironically his name means "In War I Win"). Later still, I introduced Ciolo and had him inadvertantly eavesdropping on the Count’s conversation with the Podesta. There’s a lot of good information here about the Guelf/Ghibbeline strife. But all of that ending up muddying the waters, removing the urgency from what really matters at the top of the story – the attempted murder of an infant.
This scene is from a middle draft, and preceeds all the action in the novel (by about five minutes, but still…). We begin with the Count watching the Paduan knights depart the city. You may note a repetition of certain phrases here and there, echoes of Chapter Two. Cut and Paste is a dangerous tool. Also, please keep in mind that this was all cut before my editors ever saw it, and thus any claim to bad writing rests solely with me.
* * * *
Padua, 16 September, 1314
“Fire them up.”
A patter of running feet, the order repeated. Through dusk’s fading light signal torches blazed to echo the changing sky. The ramparts were transformed to a dancing line of flames shining down on the ancient walls. A moment later those selfsame walls were shaking with thunderous hoofbeats. Knights and mounted soldiers spurred over the Ponte Molino, across the Bacchiglione river. The leaders followed the curving road west over a second bridge past the churches of San Giacomo and San Leonardo, then wheeled north.
High above the horses, the walls, and the line of torches, a lone evening star winked down the history of the days ahead. A strange code, light against darkness, God’s own plan manifest – to those who could decipher it.
Count Vinciguerra of San Bonifacio had no key to understanding the stars, nor did he care. The wealthy exile stood on the tower above the Ponte Molino, head raised, and though his eyes unconsciously fixed on the single star his thoughts were of mortal affairs – the disposition of men, the supply lines, the weather. Another hot day, even this late in the year. The Count mopped his forehead in disgust. Even if secrecy had not been vital to their enterprise, he was glad of the night march. He was a large man and embarrassed at how freely he sweat.
As he shifted to replace his handkerchief, the finish of the polished helmet under his arm caused the rays of the setting sun to play on his face. Eyes dazzled, the Count blinked, frowning as he did so – a comical sight, his visage not being built for it. Round and cheerful, this face belonged to a merry friar or a troubadour with a fondness for German beer. The naked head seemed sorely out of place atop the body of a warrior.
Yet warrior he was. Beneath the strips of metal that protected his arms, years of slinging a sword had made his muscles thick and corded. The hands inside the gauntlets were callused from fire and leather, and the stout legs were well used to the combined weight of plate and chain armor. Years ago a sword stroke had broken his leg and it had mended crooked, leaving him listing to the right. In the saddle, though, he was as capable as a twenty-year old, which was all that mattered. Across his ample chest he wore his petta, the breastplate with his family crest lightly etched in acid. The crest of a noble line, now nearly extinct.
“Well, we’re off.” Standing beside the Count was Ponzino de’ Ponzoni, the Podestà of Padua, unfortunate victim of alliteration and a poor man’s general. He had wasted the summer campaigning months, insisting upon avoiding confrontation, concentrating instead on razing the enemy’s lands. Against a different foe it might have worked, but Ponzoni hadn’t comprehended the vast resources at his opponant’s fingertips. In the last four years the enemy had taken prime land to the north, south, and west. All that remained was the east. And Padua was the key to the east.
Not that the fate of Padua conerned the Count of San Bonifacio. Vinciguerra couldn’t have cared less about Paduans or their thrice-damned patavinitas. He was a foreigner, a guest, an advisor, an observer. Unwelcome, but necessary.
“My lord Podestà?” Waiting a few paces behind them, Ponzoni’s page sounded excited.
The Podestà did not immediately follow. He took a moment to gaze upwards at the same evening star the Count had turned away from.
Voice wry, the Count said, “They hold our future, you think?”
The other man nodded soberly. “Victory. Defeat. Glory. Ruin. Fame Eternal. Insignificance. All these lie in our stars.”
Fool, thought Vinciguerra. A man makes his own fate. He wasn’t entirely convinced that this forty year-old intellectual from Cremona could pull off this coup. It was one reason he planned to be close at hand through the night ahead.
Aloud he said only, “It’s a good plan.”
“What do you think of our numbers?”
Damn his eyes, thought Vinciguerra sourly. Haven’t I bolstered him enough? “Thank God for the Venetians, is what I say.” A full quarter of the troops had been supplied by Venice, which had a more than passing interest in the outcome of this war.
Ponzino clapped the Count on the shoulder. “Cheer up, my friend! By tomorrow, I’ll be free to send soldiers to retake your castle!”
Incompetant dolt, was the Count’s savagely repressed answer. Instead he said, “In due time. Let’s be sure he’s well and truly crushed.”
Vaguely aware of the Count’s disdain, Ponzino turned away to address his page. “Is my horse ready?”
“Yes, lord.”
“Then let us descend.” The page led the way to the steps along the inner wall. When the Count did not follow, Ponzoni said, “Are you coming?”
“I’ll be along.” Vinciguerra had no use for speeches, and he smelled one coming. Had this been his army, he would have been out there, riding with the vanguard. Generals lead from the front, not the rear.
Ponzoni vanished below the wall and the Count yawned, cursing himself but incapable of stifling it. He wasn’t as young as he used to be and he hadn’t slept in two days – too much to prepare. Gazing out at the encroaching night wasn’t helping matters, so he dropped his eyes to the knights flowing out below him. He spied the crimson plumed helms of the della Torri, a minor house from Milan, famous for its warlike bishop. The less distinguished knights would be lodged at the back. The horse soldiers were almost past, then. The foot would follow, while the supplies were taken through the Ponte dei Tadi along the southwest wall. Logistically, Ponzino should have sent the foot out the gates first, but no noble would allow the rabble to take the vanguard. The laws of war often had less to do with good sense than politics and manners. Vinciguerra was as aware of this as Ponzino, yet knew what he would have done had this army belonged to him.
For a time he watched outward from the high walls, his eyes on the tail end of the riders. It was a sight he relished. And with these numbers – yes, they should so it. Even with a fool in command, they should do it. Provided luck was with them. He might sneer at augers and soothsayers, but it was a poor soldier who did not believe in luck.
Below and behind him, he heard Ponzino pipe up to address the gathered citizenry and nobility for his first speech of the night. His noble audience, chosen by the council of city elders, were to ride with the Podestà and confer on the plans for the assault. They were also there to second guess their foreign commander. The city would never invest full authority in one man, no matter how trustworthy. Indeed, that was the ultimate point. This evening’s undertaking was to ensure that no one man would – could – rule the Lombard League.
Of course, murmured a voice deep within the Count, if it’s the right man… But there was time enough for that.
Ponzino’s oration began: “Friends! Noble citizens of the Commune of Padua! Tonight we reclaim what rightfully belongs to us! For over a hundred years, the city of Vicenza has been within the Paduan sphere of influence. But four years ago a handful of Imperial puppets handed the stewardship over to –”
Mind wandering, the Count let the words fall over him, the retelling of history so well known it was taken for granted – emperors and popes, fighting wars over who held what legal right. The noble Guelphs, supporters of the pope; the wretched Ghibbilines, tools of the empire. The name of Padua seemed to creep into the tale more than by rights it should. No doubt the speech would invoke patavinitas, the Paduan honor that seemed to rule every waking moment in this benighted city. The fact that he had been forced to live here for so long only made such pride stick in his craw.
But overweening pride was the style of the day. In that respect their enemy – the Pup, as the Count liked to call him – was the worst offender of all. Mythic title indeed. If Vinciguerra owned little use for astrology, he had even less for prophecy. He felt it in his bones – there was no Greyhound.
From somewhere in the night a child laughed, cutting through Ponzoni’s oration. It was a sound full of delight. Why, then, did it send a shiver down the Count’s spine?
The Podestà gave his final cry: “Muson, Mons, Athes, Mare Certos Dant Michi Fines!” This was the ancient Latin phrase that literally defined Padua – The Musone River, Mountains, the Adige, the Sea Give Me Definite Boundaries. The assembled citizens cheered back, lifting their firebrands high into the air.
The shift of light made the Count turn. Eyes passing over the mob, he saw a woman all in white who seemed to float in the air. In fact, she was standing on a darkened balcony. Dressed for mourning, her white clothes seemed to glow, and Vinciguerra was surprised to see the sheen of refined silk. The failure of the last Crusade had closed the Silk Road, making the material quite expensive. Yet this gown was newly made for a new loss.
The Count tried to make out the woman’s face, but it was held low, sheltered from the light. The woman’s shape was lost in the folds of the garment, but Vinciguerra could see that she held a bundle in her arms. Poor lass – no doubt she’s mourning the child’s father.
He heard the laugh again, and this time knew its origin. It seemed that the babe delighted in the running horses, normally a sound to frighten the tamest of children. But the joy in the infant’s squeal was quite inhuman, as if hearing the thundering call to war he was answering mirthfully. The Count, who had longed his whole life to hear a child of his own laugh that way, shivered again.
The torches lowered, and mother and child disappeared into darkness.
Sixty-three years of age, a man tried in bloody war and bloodier politics, Vinciguerra di San Bonifacio was not a man to quail in the face of any threat. Yet he was suddenly eager to be away from this place.
Shaking off premonition, he descended using the crafty gait he’d devised over the years to cover his limp. Once below the line of turrets, he snatched a torch off a wall bracket and walked to his horse. His path took him by the wall to the house, and his eyes fell upon the door’s engraved device. It was a common symbol of commerce, the staff called the virga, that the Greeks called the caduceus – twin snakes embraced at the top of a cross, their bodies entwined all the way to the tail. The sign of the Messenger of the Gods.
For a man who disbelieved in the power of fate and the stars, he bitterly resented the small voice in his head asking, What message does he bring?
A man lingered outside the house. He looked fit, and with a grateful lurch back to the practical the Count’s mind immediately posed the question, Why isn’t he marching? Swift on the heels of that question, a second. Is he a spy?
The fellow glanced up at the Count and waved. “Best of luck, my lord!” he cried, and limped heavily on down the street. Vinciguerra’s eyes remained narrowed in suspicion, but the fellow didn’t go far, just joined a knot of cheering citizens. The Count eyed him a long moment more. But even if he was a spy, there was nothing to be done now.
The army’s nominal leaders were leaving. With a shake of his head as if to fend off a gnat, the Count quickly mounted and followed the Podestà’s entourage out into the night. Within minutes he had banished all thought of Mercury’s message. Instead, he focused all his energy on bringing down the Greyhound once and for all.
* * * *
The man the Count spied is, of course, Ciolo, though back in those days he didn’t have a name. From this point we switch to Ciolo breaking into the house to murder little Cesco, only to be killed himself by a protective mother.
