CHAPTER 11
The winds were brutal and the steps tall. Slime riverlets streaked them treacherous. It was a strain to breathe. This was higher than he had ever been on Monte Nero, even higher than the Drawing Hall roof, which caught the white sunlight below him – yet still the summit was an impossible distance. The sky was cold and empty and scarred by a web of crisscrossed wire that intersected at the Selectors’ Tower as though tethering it to the isolated rocky peak. Torbidda knew the reason he’d been summoned. He’d broken the rules. He’d been discovered. Expulsion would surely follow.
The summit was even clearer in the office, but Torbidda tried to ignore it and listen to Flaccus. For want of anything else to focus on, he stared at the egg-shaped device on the desk and heard words spilling from his mouth: ‘Grand Selector, I made a mistake, but you can just—’
‘You’re being moved up a year,’ Flaccus interrupted, then added angrily, ‘Don’t look at me, it’s not my idea. That’s not all.’ He held up the ribbon as if it were a loathsome yellow worm. ‘Our new First Apprentice, in his wisdom, found your design, speculative and impractical as it was, remarkable – so remarkable that as of now’ – he flung the ribbon at Torbidda – ‘you’re a Candidate.’
‘But – but I’m not ready.’
‘I told him that. I told him that you should be punished for breaking the rules, too. He disagreed – he thinks you’re gifted.’ Flaccus picked up the egg and regarded it philosophically. ‘I think he’s mistaken. The only other Cadet to be made Candidate this young was Bernoulli’s grandson, and that was a disaster …’
On he went, but Torbidda had stopped listening. He was thinking about the little yellow ribbon that meant he and Agrippina were competitors now.
‘… course, Varro put in a word for you, and that carries a lot of weight with the First Apprentice, starry-eyed mystic that he is. If you ask me, that’s why he nominated you. Naturalists know their own.’
Flaccus waited for him to deny the charge or confirm it, and Torbidda realised with surprise that the Flaccus was as uncertain as the most guileless inductee. As above, so below. ‘Grand Selector, I do want to be an Apprentice someday, but—’
‘Don’t get ahead of yourself. Being a Candidate doesn’t mean you’ll ever make Apprentice.’
‘I mean, there are more worthy Candidates.’
‘Certainly: Cadet Seventy-Nine, for example.’ Flaccus laughed. That was Agrippina’s number. ‘Just do as you’re told. They can make you a Candidate, but they can’t make you what you’re not.’
Torbidda descended from the Selectors’ Tower feeling less apprehensive than he expected. He was committed now, and he must accept the price commitment demanded. The only alternative was to pursue advancement in the legions, where it would not always be Concordians under his knife. But inevitably the day would come when he’d be up against Leto. Competition was universal, unavoidable. And merely thinking of retreat – that was impossible. The summit was calling. He must answer.
He took a bowl from the stack, handed it over and watched it being filled with morbid fascination. He had become used to the colourless gruel, but he had never learned to like it.
A sudden push knocked him into the stack. The bowls tumbled and smashed.
‘Agrippina—’ he began.
‘Keep away from me, you sneaky little bastard!’
The lectern reader paused. Torbidda felt every eye on him, just like the first days again, and he turned to stare them down. By the time he looked back, she was gone. He sat alone thinking of the fight ahead of him, playing out scenarios.
‘So it’s true.’ It was Leto, looking at the ribbon on Torbidda’s arm. ‘Can I sit?’
‘You don’t need to ask. Agrippina—’
‘I know. Be glad she didn’t kill you.’
‘Where is she, Leto?’
‘She doesn’t want to see you again.’
‘Where?’
‘I should have guessed,’ Torbidda said when Leto finally led him to the Drawing Hall. He followed him up the ivy frame and out of the window. Agrippina was sitting there beside the spire, hugging her legs. She’d been crying. Her back was to the Molè and she was looking out into the Wastes as if waiting for a rider to come to her rescue.
‘What do you want?’
‘Give him a chance to explain,’ Leto said. ‘Agrippina, I didn’t ask for this.’
‘Do you think I’m a child? You submitted your design.’
‘I’m an engineer. I thought I had the better answer.’
‘You’re just a disinterested natural philosopher, is that it?’
‘So I’m ambitious! I want to be Apprentice one day, yes, of course I do – but Third when you’re Second, Second when you’re First. I don’t want to compete with you. I won’t.’
She started to reply, then turned back to the Wastes. Torbidda turned to see what she was looking at. He saw only clouds of loose dust burling over the barren soil. When she spoke again all anger was gone. ‘I wanted to be the first female Apprentice. I thought – it’s stupid – I wanted to prove to my father I was worth a damn.’
Torbidda realised she was looking beyond the barrenness to a faraway farmstead that probably didn’t exist any more.
After a moment, Leto said, ‘Didn’t he sell you?’
Agrippina laughed, and she wiped her face. ‘I wanted to prove it to myself, then.’
‘You will,’ said Torbidda. ‘Listen, even if I could, I wouldn’t take the Apprenticeship from you. I’m young enough to wait. The other Apprentices don’t have to die of natural causes. We’ll train together, so no other Candidate has a chance against you.’
‘What about me?’ said Leto with mock outrage. ‘When you’re Third and she’s Second, where will I be?’
‘In Europa, winning Triumphs.’
‘Getting scalped by some gruesome Frank, you mean. If one of you does make it, I expect a soft posting: some backwater where nothing happens any more, like Rasenna.’ He did a Flaccus-like growl: ‘Cadets, are we clear?’
Torbidda and Agrippina saluted. ‘Yes, Sir!’
Below them sunlight made New City shine like polished ivory. It even penetrated the smoke plumes drifting lazily from the gloom of Old Town. While the Molè’s shadow fell on the far side of Concord, a child could believe that Fortune dealt fair.