Tharasamund looked around. He could hear distant shouting and screams and the crackle of gunfire. That meant they were loud. And he could see columns of smoke, too. It might be an hour-or four or five-before enough troops marched in from the barracks outside town, between the built-up area and the royal palace, to restore order. Someone had screwed up royally; he'd be surprised if there wasn't a new urban prefect soon.
Not that that will be much consolation to the dead, he added to himself.
He was opening his mouth to argue again-he had to get back to regimental HQ, to report this monumental ratfuck, and get some orders-when a young woman leaned out of the half-open carriage door.
Not just any young woman. Her gown and jewels were rich in an exquisitely restrained court fashion, but that face would have stopped him cold if she were naked-especially if she were naked. His gesture turned into a sweeping bow.
Wait a minute. They said their lord, not their lady.
The girl's eyes widened at the sight ahead, and she gulped. Then she fought down nausea-he felt a rush of approval even in the press of emergency-and looked at him. There was a faint feeling like an electric-telegraph spark as their eyes met, gray gazing into blue, and then she was looking over her shoulder.
"Grandfather," she said, in pure upper-class Latin. "There's been a disaster here."
"There's been an attack on Imperial troops here," Tharasamund said firmly, pitching his voice to carry into the interior of the vehicle. "I must insist, my lord-"
It seemed to be a day for shocks. The man who leaned out in turn, bracing himself with a grimace, certainly looked like a grandfather. Possibly God's grandfather, from the wrinkles; he'd never seen anyone older and still alive. The pouched eyes behind the lenses and big beak nose were disconcertingly shrewd. It was a face Tharasamund had seen before, when his unit was on court duty; anyone who saw magazines and engravings and photographs would have recognized it as well, these past two generations and more.
Martinus of Padua. Quaestor to three Emperors of the West; king-maker, sorcerer or saint, devil or angel-some pagans thought him a god-and next to Urias II, the most powerful man in the world. Possibly more powerful. Emperors came and went, but the man from Padua had been making things happen since Tharasamund's grandfather was a stripling riding to his first war, when the Greeks invaded Italy in Thiudahad's day.
Tharasamund saluted and made a deep bow. "My apologies, my lord. I am at your disposal." He managed a smile, a gentleman's refusal to be disconcerted by events. "And at yours, my lady."
"Jorith Hermansdaughter, noble Captain," she said, a little faintly but with courtly politeness. A princess, then, and the old man's granddaughter.
This definitely took precedence over his own troubles…
Ouch, Padway thought, pushing his glasses back up his nose and giving thanks, for once, for the increasing short-sightedness of old age. He'd seen worse, but not very often.
"Captain, pleased to see you," he said. "What happened here?"
"My lord," the young man said crisply. He looked suitably heroic in a battered way, but it was a pleasure to hear the firm intelligence in his voice. "A detachment of my company was ordered by General Winnithar of the Capital City garrison command to suppress rioters in aid to the civil power. We were doing so when a bomb thrower dropped a grenade into the ammunition limber. I suspect the man was a foreign agent-the whole thing was too smooth for accident."
As he spoke, another explosion echoed over the city. Padway nodded, looking like an ancient and highly intelligent owl.
"Doubtless you're right, Captain. Do you think the Equinoctal Way will be clear?"
Tharasamund made a visible effort. "It's as good a chance as any, my lord," he said. "It's broad-rioters generally stick to the old town. And it's the best way to get to the garrison barracks quickly."
Broad and open to light, air and artillery, Padway thought-a joke about the way Napoleon III had rebuilt Paris, and part of his own thoughts over the years planning the expansion of Florence.
"Let's go that way," he said. "Hengist, head us out."
"I never wanted to have adventures," Padway grumbled. "Even when I was a young man. Certainly not now."
Jorith looked at him and gave a smile; not a very convincing one, but he acknowledged the effort.
"This is an adventure?" she said. "I've always wanted adventures-but this just feels like I was walking along the street and stepped into a sewer full of big rats."
"That's what adventures are like," Padway said, wincing slightly as the coach lurched slowly over something that went crunch under the wheel and trying not to think of what-formerly who-it was, "while you're having them. They sound much better in retrospect."
The young guardsman-Tharasamund Hrothegisson, Padway forced himself to remember-chuckled harshly.
"Oh, yes," he said, in extremely good Latin with only the faintest tinge of a Gothic accent, then added: "Your pardon, my lord."
Jorith looked at him oddly, while Padway nodded. He might not have been a fighting man himself, but he'd met a fair sample over the years, and this was one who'd seen the elephant. For a moment youth and age shared a knowledge uncommunicable to anyone unacquainted with that particular animal. Then a memory tickled at Padway's mind; he'd always had a rook's habit of stashing away bits and pieces, valuable for an archaeologist and invaluable for a politician.
"Hrothegisson… not a relation of Thiudegiskel?"
The young man stiffened. Officially, there had been an amnesty-but nobody had forgotten that Thiudegiskel son of Thiudahad had tried to get elected King of the Goths and Italians instead of Urias I, Padway's candidate; or that he'd gone over to the Byzantines during the invasion that followed and nearly wrecked the nascent Empire of the West.
"My mother was the daughter of his mother's sister," he said stiffly. "My lord."
That didn't make him an Amaling, but…
"Ancient history, young fellow. Like me," he added with a wry grin. "What are you doing, by the way?"
The young Goth had gotten up and was examining the fastenings of the rubberized-canvas hood that covered the carriage.
"I thought I'd peel this back a bit at the front, my lord-"
"You can call me boss or Quaestor or even sir, if you must," Padway said. He still wasn't entirely comfortable being my-lorded.
"— sir. I'd be of some use, if I could see out."
"Not all the way?"
"Oh, that would never do," Tharasamund said. "You're far too noticeable… sir."
Tharasamund finished looking at the fastenings, made a few economical slashes with his dagger, and peeled the soft material back from its struts, just enough to give him a good view. Warm air flowed in.
"Uh-oh," he said.
I know what uh-oh means, Padway thought. It means the perfume's in the soup… or the shit's hit the fan.
"Give me a hand," he snapped.
Something in his voice made the two youngsters obey without argument. Grumbling at his own stiffness and with a hand under each arm, he knelt up on the front seat and looked past the driver and guard.
"Uh-oh," he said.
"It's in the soup, right enough, excellent boss," Tharasamund said.
One advantage of Florence's hilly build and grid-network streets was that you could see a long way from a slight rise. The view ahead showed more fires, more wreckage… and a very large, very loud mob about half a mile away, milling and shouting and throwing things. Beyond that was a double line of horsemen, fifty or sixty strong. As they watched, there was a bright flash of metal, as the troopers all clapped hand to hilt and drew their spathae in a single coordinated movement to the word of command. A deep shout followed, and the horses began to move forward, faster and faster…