Chapter Two
Gianno looked at himself in the mirror, a luxury in the small attic he was staying in, and imperceptibly adjusted his red jacket to the right, not so much because there was something wrong with it, but just because he needed to pretend that there was anything more to do before he left this wretched place forever. His eyes were pulled towards the stairs of their own accord, those creaky stairs that he had descended down far too many times already. He forced his eyes back toward the mirror, checking himself for the thousandth time to see if he there was the slightest stray string out of place. But his face was well-shaven like a civilized member of the new society's ought to have been, his skin was olive like most Mediterranean's, his black hair tied back in a ponytail as was the current fashion, and if he was anxious about anything it was the feeling that his chin wasn't strong enough, and his eyes held hints of green, something that wasn't supposed to matter but might lead a bigoted captain to assume he had Nordic blood and was thus a spy.
Well, if there is a Nordic or two in the family tree so what? I am no spy; I am as loyal as any other man on the street.
Gianno stuck his chest out at the hypothetical insult, he had fought other boys on the street who sought to be witty about his green eyes and come out the victor in at least every other scrap. He would not let any irrational man get in the way of his destiny. And to make sure of it he would show that he was not just adequately ready but
born ready for the Sky Navy.
He looked down at his uniform and felt some pride. Despite dwelling in this dusty attic, he had made sure it was as pristine as when the recruiter had given it to him. If anything, he had improved it, the blue fabric was clean, and the brass buttons glinted in the dim light coming through the shuttered window. He resisted the urge to brush the red pants with his hands, they were already likely dirtier than the pants would be. He looked down at the high leather boots, was satisfied with the appearance, and reached over to grab his folded white gloves from his dresser, one of his few luxuries, and tuck them in his pocket before putting his simple tricorn hat atop his head. Those tasks done; he took a deep breath and headed towards the stairs.
He descended into the bakery with a knot in his stomach, his old master could still try to stop him from leaving, he had made no illusion as to how he felt about Gianno joining the Sky Navy instead of taking up the mantel of Quiberon Street's most average baker. But as he looked around the bakery, the air hazy with flour dust, he smelt evidence of rich bread being baked and saw the dark brown rolls displayed at the front of the shop for customers, but he didn't see Luciano's scowling face.
Gianno hesitated. He had no great love of Luciano, but he felt it would be dishonorable to leave the old man without thanks. He had not been a cruel master while Gianno had been his apprentice, Gianno just couldn't stand the thought of spending his life as a baker. Even if everyone kept telling him he had a talent for it.
As he hesitated, he gave Luciano time to emerge from the oven room into the storefront with a tray of hot rolls. Luciano scowled, not at Gianno himself but at his uniform. The man's antiquated grey mustache, his rough ponytail, his gnarled hands which had been burnt on ovens so much over the years that he could no longer feel it, his barrel chest and stomach, and his two broken front teeth all let off an air of annoyance.
"Are you really so eager to throw your life away my apprentice?" He said, his voice managing to be just as gruff as his appearance.
Gianno nodded at his former master, "I do not believe I am throwing it away citizen Luciano." Gianno said with some defiance, the word citizen was left hanging to show that he was truly beyond his apprenticeship now, him and Gianno were both equal citizens of the republic.
Luciano scowled deeper, "you think I am ignorant don't you boy? That I know nothing of the world because I was born and grew up before the revolution? Ha!" Luciano lifted his left hand and waved his missing pinky and index finger at Gianno, "I fought at the Battle of Camprai boy! I saw my comrades lie bleeding in the dirt so we could defeat King Marasoloni! Nothing is worth dying for my boy! Nothing!"
Gianno held his temper at the old man, he still respected him even if he thought he was hearing cowardly speech that bordered on counterrevolutionary. "I disagree citizen Luciano, our cause is worth fighting for."
"Will you think that when a screaming Nordic knight hacks your comrade's arms off? Or when a wiccan skewers you with arrows and feeds your guts to their red swan? Or what about when you're just cold and down sick with scurvy in the barbarous north?"
Gianno shook his head, "even then it is worth it to bring freedom to the whole of Europa."
Luciano shook his head. "Then be off with you. But don't ever think that old Luciano didn't try to warn you against this bullheaded foolishness."
"I thank you for all the years you kept me under your roof citizen Luciano." Gianno added as he turned towards the door.
Luciano turned his back on him, "you know boy, you remind me of another young man I once knew."
Gianno stopped, curious, "who's that?"
Luciano turned around briefly, "my son."
Gianno had never heard Luciano mention anything about family and raised a brow, his curiosity piqued, "where is your son? I don't remember you ever mentioning him."
"He joined the Sky Navy, and he died over Blandensburg."
Gianno looked for a reply and found none, he was never good at comforting people even if he felt the desire to say something sympathetic to Luciano now. "I'm sorry," he managed to squeeze out.
Luciano grunted and turned back into the kitchen, "no, I am. I'm sorry I couldn't convince you not to do something so foolish."
Gianno walked out the door as Luciano disappeared, he tried to shake off the doubt as he walked onto the streets of the city of Rem. He squinted in that sudden burst of sunlight after spending the morning in the gloomy, dusty bakery, but his eyes adjusted quickly. The cobblestone streets had been cleaned the night before, but the road was quickly filling up with carts pulled by horses, donkeys, and oxen who took their leave to relieve themselves wherever they happened to be standing, meaning the street would be well and truly filthy by noon. Gianno's nose wrinkled slightly at the smell as they turned to walk down the road. His eyes glanced about the tall and narrow buildings with their white brick walls and red tile roofs to check for street toughs lingering in shadows and chambermaids leaning out of windows to dump their chamber pots out of habit, despite the return of sewers to the city after the revolution.
The buildings on his street were mostly stores on the ground floor with the families dwelling in them living in. He saw their owners opening up with the first light: brewers, weavers, coopers, tinsmiths, potters, carpenters, clock workers, wheelwrights, and others. The street emptied out into one of the rationally planned wider roads of Rem, here sidewalks lined the road, a recent innovation which Gianno appreciated as carts, carriages, bicycles, and pedal-carts sped down the street much too fast. Gianno then heard a loud ticking clockwork noise approaching him from behind and was soon passed by a simple black carriage that had no team of horses pulling it.
Aside from the ticking gears there was little sound coming from the carriage at all. It simply sped along under its own power. But as Gianno saw it move forward at a steady clip, he looked at the brass tubes emptying underneath it and heard the slight whistles the machine was letting out as it huffed along. Gianno smiled at this, he had always had a passion for machines, a passion he hadn't been able to fulfill in the bakery, the automatons were the miracle of the revolution. Now that he was in the Sky Navy, he would be surrounded by them.
The thought put a pep in his step, and he started walking at a faster pace, almost jogging, down the road in enthusiasm. He reached the corner of the street and passed a store harking trade good from the Occident and entered the plaza. The circular plaza was surrounded by yet more storefronts, but now they were no longer simple coopers and candlestick makers but pushers of more expensive goods. Clockwork contrivances, mechanic shops for machines, alchemists. They stood alongside importers of exotic products from Cathay, Cipango, the East Indies, Tartary, Indica, and Prester John's Land, and other locales people mostly knew about through sailor's tall tales. Standing at the center of the square was the three-meters high iron statue of Rem's legendary founder; Remus, his left hand on the back of his adopted she-wolf mother and his right hand holding up the head of his brother Romulus.
Gianno walked past the statue and briefly tapped it three times with the knuckles of his left hand, Reman superstition said that this would bring him good luck. He knew that as a proper new man he shouldn't pay such superstition any mind without solid evidence, but it did make him feel better. The statue of Remus is something permanent in the city, it had even survived the revolution when every other statue of a king in the city had been toppled and smashed. Remus was a king, but he was also a founder, a self-made man, the kind of meritorious person the revolution wanted more of.
Gianno moved past, and narrowly avoided being struck by a messenger boy speeding along much too fast on his bike. He grumbled in annoyance but kept walking towards his destination stoically. He avoided being distracted by the strangely alluring smells coming from the nearby spice importer even as they made his mouth water. He danced around the fat merchants dressed in their simple button-up shirts and breeches and yelling while they haggled over goods, the laborers carrying loads, the beggars, and the suspicious looking fellows who he took for pickpockets.
He finally managed to exit the plaza down a narrower side-street lined with cafes and eateries that were filled with university students who, in Gianno's opinion, spent far too much time talking about ideas and far too little time committing action. But then again, he suspected that most of them really just enjoyed suspiciously fancy clothes and trying to come off as charismatic to those on leave from the women's universities.
He shook his head and continued his march onto another wider street and finally saw it. Across the street lay a red brick wall about four meters in height, at its top lay rows of steel blades and shorter iron rods that had silk strands tied between them. The wall surrounding the Sky Navy port, the wall separating Gianno from his destiny.
He looked up and saw the distant floating forms of sky ships, and the swift, darting forms of ornithopters that were moving too quickly for him to get a good look. He turned his gaze away, he knew he could get lost in thought staring at them, analyzing their details down to the last cog and board. He needed to get inside, then he wouldn't be staring at the ships, he would be sailing on them.
He hurried across the cobblestone street and practically leapt for joy onto the sidewalk in front of the wall as he hurried along it to reach the gate. He started off moving in a brisk walk, moved into a jog, and soon was running down the straight sidewalk until he approached a corner and was forced to come to a screeching halt as he nearly ran chest-first into the bayonets of a unit of marching guards.
"What's a matter with you boy!?" The captain, a man a few years his senior whose face was cratered with pockmarks, cried. "You nearly got impaled on my men's blades!" The captain then noticed Gianno's uniform and looked him up and down, looking for any marks of rank, medals, or adornment and finding none. "New bird, eh? Hey guys looks like we got a new bird!"
The older recruits chuckled at Gianno; their blue uniforms were hardly different from his except for the three brown stripes sewn into their jackets above their heart.
Naval Infantry, Gianno thought with some anxiety.
Everyone says they're crude bullies, I hope they don't try to rob me and beat me up for a lark.
Gianno tried to look unafraid, but not challenging. He kept his head up and looked the leader in the eyes and simply said, "we all have to start as new birds at one point."
The captain, Gianno could tell he was a captain from the rooster feather in his tricorn hat, chuckled. "Don't piss your pants new bird."
Gianno flushed,
is my fear that obvious? He scolded himself internally.
The captain motioned with his head at his men. "We don't rob every new bird who catches our eye, we'd never complete our rounds if we did!" His men chuckled and he smiled before continuing, "now get to your orientation before you get in trouble."
Gianno nodded and walked around the unit and proceeded his quest somewhat chastened.
I can't show fear in front of those men, not when I am going to face Nordic knights and their slave soldiers!
He shook his head in embarrassment before noticing he was about to walk past the gate to the sky port. He turned on his heels to face the four guards, who didn't seem particularly alert, standing to either side of the closed cast-iron grid gate with their muskets on their shoulders or left leaning on the wall.
Slovenly they are, Gianno thought with mild annoyance as he approached them. "Morning fellow citizens, sailor Gianno Bianchi reporting for service." Gianno snapped into a crisp rendition of the republican salute; his right fist held next to his temple.
"You…have you ah, papers citizen Gianno? Yes?" The first guard, a tall and wide bruiser with a scar across his nose, said in thickly accented Reman.
Occitanian, Gianno thought when he heard the man's dialect. He reached into his pocket and held out his papers. The guard grimaced at them and motioned the other fellow, a taller and even stockier man who had tattoos around his neck showing crude mermaids, sharks, and anchors, suggesting he was a former member of the Sea Navy. The other man, apparently literate too, waved at the men behind him and one pulled a lever by the gate which lifted with the sound of a coiled spring being let lose.
Gianno nodded thanks at them and walked past the gate with nervous anticipation. He felt all his digits and limbs tingling with tension, his stomach felt heavy, his head so full of rapid thoughts that he couldn't pick a single thing to worry about on its own. He looked out over the yard and shuddered.
I'm here, I'm really here. He held back the tears of joy which were trying their best to burst from his eyes and finally allowed himself to drink in the sights before. The men assembled in a great square in the dusty yard and the plain, white-washed brick-and-tile barracks were of little interest to him. His eyes were drawn to the machines.
Ships lay moored to their posts, ropes and anchors connecting them to the Earth and the deeply rooted wooden poles. Their bright silken balloons in red, yellow, blue, and white covered with spider webs of cords holding them to the ship and obscuring the emblazoned designs of birds, clouds, cannon, butterflies, wasps, and dragonflies sewn into their surfaces. Below the balloons the decks of the ships themselves were rather like those of a sea ship, albeit a narrow one with the deck guns that would have normally poked out at the enemy being ballistae, not cannons, although the great mechanical crossbows looked as menacing as any cannon. The sides of the flanks were the part that stood out the most to Gianno, there masts shot out laterally instead of vertically, with their sails furled at the moment while the ships were at rest. He broadened his view to the ships as a whole, he counted eighteen of them in the port and they ranged in size from the mighty flagship the 300-meter long
Pinta Marina, to the smaller frigates and clippers. All were sleek and narrow, larger on a sky ship generally meant longer and taller, not wider.
He was awestruck by the scene, he had only ever seen a sky ship up-close once before, when he was fourteen and had managed to squeeze to the front of the crowd greeting the great exploratory vessel, the
Reason, back home after it had sailed fully around the world. It had been the only survivor of a flotilla of four, its fellows destroyed by storm, by beasts, and by hostile natives. Seeing that beaten vessel and its grizzled crew arriving in Rem, landing at the civilian port at the outskirts of the city, the dust of its landing battering his face, the snippets of sailor's tails, it had all made him fall in love with all things air.
Now he held down the desire to cry tears of joy that was swelling within his chest, he was a reasonable new man of the revolution. He had to control his emotions and let his reason rule him, not let himself be carried away on the whims of passion like some Nordic knight. He continued walking towards the assembled men.
"Are you men the new recruits?" He asked the first person he approached, a younger lad with a thick unibrow who couldn't have been more than fifth teen and was standing around with a listless expression, as if dazed.
The teen looked at him with puzzlement, "recruits? You're one of the volunteers then?"
Gianno nodded, "does that mean you aren't?"
"Hah! I'm here because I need coin. I assume you're really one of the dandies who thinks that joining the sky navy will be dashing and pull in the girls?" The teen smiled, revealing several jagged, broken teeth.
Street tough, Gianno thought. Of course, everyone knew that those types were common in all the armed forces of the Mediterranean Union, and all armies for that matter.
If I want to get along in the sky navy I need to learn to get along with all kinds. Still, he felt offended at being called a dandy, and he needed to show he could stand up for himself or his fellow sailors would eat him alive.
"I joined the sky navy because I'm a patriot." Gianno said flatly as he stiffened his back, trying to avoid coming off as critical or servile to keep from seeming either arrogant or weak.
"Ah, so you're a little strait-laced dirty shirt." The younger boy took off his hat and bowed, "goodness me fellow citizen I hope you won't find my revolutionary zeal lacking!" The boy's voice dripped with irony.
"I have no quarrel with you." Gianno said, while watching to see if the street tough would try and throw a punch.
"I should hope not!" The boy said leaping out of his bowing stance, "I wouldn't want you to write a letter to the Administrator telling him I've been a bad citizen! He might leave charcoal in my stocking at winter festival time!"
"Oh, leave the poor strait-lace alone Jean!" A taller boy with a face scared by acne and a wispy mustache said as he walked over. He put his hands on Jean's shoulders and looked at Gianno with a smile, "forgive our resident jester here, he has no sense of when to stop throwing jibes. It's why he's missing so many teeth. My name's Hector by the way, yours?"
Gianno knew that his face was giving away his swelling feelings of anger and embarrassment, but he tried to brush it off, "Gianno," Gianno replied, "and no harm was done," he said with a wave. "I wasn't raised in a Nordic monastery; I can take a good jibing."
"Is that why you looked like you were on the verge of combustion?" Jean added spontaneously.
"Careful Jean he's got a good deal of height on you, and I won't pull your ass out of the fire this time." The taller boy said with a slight smile.
Gianno felt his ears burn hot, "I don't believe in needless violence."
"Where's the fun in that?" Jean asked sullenly, looking rather disappointed as he crossed his arms.
"SILENCE!" A scream proclaimed to the milling men.
A barrel-chested, pot-bellied captain walked across the courtyard, his hands were folded behind his back, from where he was standing Gianno could tell that one was brass with gears at the joints of his fingers. The captain's face was in a deep scowl, his chin covered in unfashionable raspy white hairs, his ponytail loose with many long white hairs straying from it, his oversized tricorn hat with its great bronze captain medallion and plume of peacock feathers was cockeyed. The rest of his uniform was little better, frumpy, wrinkled, and dirty with the mauvine purple of his captain's jacket faded, the medals unpolished, the gold braid on his epaulets was frayed, his crimson pants were smudged with dirt and had been patched.
"You bunch are the worst round of recruits I've ever seen! By all four parts of the Quadrilogy, you make me sick! I am tempted to go back to my quarters and put my pistol in my mouth and get it over with rather than wait for you yahoos to get me killed!" The captain wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve, "but by the Dove, I swore an oath. I can't get off that easily! I must take up my burden, as all citizens must, and beat you rats into something vaguely resembling sailors!" He sighed, "I suppose we should start with seeing what little you street savages know. Who here can tell me the four basic principles of automatons?"
Silence reigned. Gianno itched to answer, but he cast his eyes at Jean and wondered if he might stoke resentment from his crewmates if he showed his knowledge.
"You boy!" The captain yelled, pointing at Gianno and getting close enough to him that Gianno could smell the garlic on his breath, "you look like you have a lot on your mind! I'm sure it's the answer to the question! Or were you just imagining naked wenches?"
Gianno felt his face growing hot with embarrassment and stuttered out an answer, "I know the answer citizen captain!"
"You do! Well, there's a surprise! Let's hear it then!" The captain smiled in the most uninviting fashion Gianno had ever seen.
Gianno decided that offending the captain was a worse bet than offending his crewmate, "Citizen Captain the four principles of automatons are conservation of energy-"
"Explain!" The captain barked.
Gianno was taken aback but pressed on, "automatons need a source of energy inputs to do work Citizen Captain."
"Where does this energy come from?" The captain drilled.
"From the artificial digestive systems invented by the Great Philosopher himself, Citizen Captain. They break down organic matter into mechanical energy using an alchemical recreation of animal digestive systems."
The captain nodded, "Fair enough explanation, and what is the second principle?"
"The principle of vitality Citizen Captain. That as well as energy the automatons need a breath of life, vital force, in order to act and take orders." Gianno kept his eyes on the captain, but he felt a knot growing in his gut as he suspected that his future crewmates were growing weary of him for looking like a suck-up and an educated dandy.
"Where does the vital force come from?" The captain asked, this time with genuine curiosity.
"From the extraction of faunos vital force from animals by alchemists Citizen Captain." Gianno said while swallowing down a sense of dread. He felt like the eyes of his comrades were boring into him, he was always leery of speaking in front of groups of people.
"And what is the third principle?" The captain asked with a raised brow of inquiry, the anger now gone from his voice.
"The principle of plausibility of movement, Citizen Captain. The automatons need to be able to move their limbs in a mechanically sensible fashion with gears, pulleys, and cogs. They are not animated statues like golems."
The captain nodded, "you have satisfied me sailor citizen…" the captain waved his hand as if beckoning Gianno to give his name.
"Gianno Citizen Captain." He said, still keeping his eyes on the captain even as he was tempted to look over his crewmates to see which of them was planning on putting a knife in his back.
The captain nodded and turned to another recruit, a tall, pointy-chinned, strong-looking young man with light brown hair who appeared as if he had come from a better off family judging by his height and build, "you boy, what is the fourth principle?"
The lad stayed ramrod straight and looked the captain in the eye rather than past him as Gianno had, "the fourth principle is the principle of learning Citizen Captain. Automatons are created with the instincts of the beasts from which their vital force was extracted, but not the memories. They need to be trained to obey orders from men or they will be like feral dogs."
The captain let out a satisfied grunt, "good enough. Well, you boys may not be as ignorant as hogs, but you look soft as butter. So too toughen you up, you're going to do four hours of rope climbing."
A wave of discontent wafted over the assembled recruits, but most knew not to audibly sigh, they had picked up that this captain was not to be trifled with. Gianno himself turned around and followed the others to the great web of training netting held between two upright poles without passion. He knew that this was a part of ship life, and if anything was more important on sky ships where a fall could mean certain death instead of the possibility of being fished out of the ocean.
He was ready, he would do anything for his destiny.
…
