Hello, readers! If you’re new to The Stelnove Saga, be sure to visit the series landing page here, including the “orientation” (author’s note) page.
Your lecturer also appreciates donations for her coffee supply.
Today’s subject: Clemenza Giudice attempts a philosophical debate around the ideas that led to the fall of society.
The1 clock beside Clemenza’s bed chimed a minute after the bells of the Great Clock. She would have to wind it again. Aether was helpful in making clocks more accurate, but hadn’t perfected their timekeeping.
She rolled out of bed. Her little bronze owl automa sat lifeless beside the clock. It had been a long time since she’d used the clockwork mechanism to exchange messages with anyone. Not that it wasn’t efficient, using aether’s natural link among all living things to track the receiver. She scowled at the owl’s impassive face and turned the device away from her.
Clemenza’s current room was the tenth place she’d lived since moving to the city six years ago. It was dark and small, with a single grimy window looking out on the narrow street below and a pitched roof with one particularly precarious-looking beam. At least Agatha, who owned the bakery, was willing to let her stay in the attic for cheap, breakfast included, if Clemenza helped her clean on the weekends.
She dressed herself in a plain green wool gamurra over her camicia. The fitted bodice had a lace-up front and square style particular to Edenico, and the skirts were full and pleated. The gown ruined by the drunk nobleman yesterday was still soaking in a bin of water. Her mantello had already been cleaned, and she’d left the nobleman’s mantello in a heap in the corner. She braided her wavy black hair.2 In the end, she took the nobleman’s mantello and decided to wear it, though it swallowed her.
Finally, she gave a little kick under the bed to ensure her chest was still there, filled with the small, meager belongings from her life with her family. Then she unbolted the door, heading down the creaky stairs to the bakery. Outside, the streets were busy with workers off for an early day, women running errands with thick wicker baskets slung over their arms, and black-robed Accademia students hurrying to do research. The students were thick, a murder of crows beating their black wings around her, squawking about who knew what. Selvascura was far from a boring city, Clemenza granted that at least.
The Accademia of Selvascura loomed on her left, a grand, castle-like structure, marble pillars holding aloft upper balconies and arches. Unlike other institutions of higher education, it didn’t have a specific program that granted students diplomas. It was a center of independent research, though there were many lecturers involved who held seminars. Most considered it the best institution on the peninsula, and many people forwent formal university to study here instead.
Today, according to a sign posted outside and a line of people heading to the annex building, there was a public lecture. These were frequent, though Clemenza had never attended one. She was about to pass by, but the title caught her attention: “Materialist Ontology and the Constellation by Dottore Filippo Costantini”.
She bit her lip and checked the watch hanging from a chain around her neck.3 She had nearly an hour before she had to be at the clock shop. The options were to get there absurdly early and probably run into Benigna, or hear a few words of this lecture. Both would make her angry, but anger was her energy source these days.
The lecture had already begun when she slipped inside and snuck a seat on one of the benches at the back. The seats were tiered like an amphitheater, leading down to a small podium where a wiry lecturer with curly hair was talking loudly to be heard over the shuffle of people.
“To the northern countries, our peninsula has long been thought to follow ideals. Nothing concrete, nothing with historical basis.” Costantini gripped the sides of the podium and looked around at the crowd. “How do we know the Stelnove exist? The stories we have of their ‘appearances’ over the centuries to individuals are few and unverifiable.”
There were a few nods in the crowd, but Clemenza’s mouth became a line. This was an old argument questioning the Stelnove—the spiritual beings who’d supposedly established the Values—long before Ludovico Guerra came on the scene, yet it was just one of the reasons he had been able to so quickly influence the peninsula. As Costantini listed some “so-called sightings”, Clemenza watched quills fly to parchment, the students building their arsenal against any who might claim the nine spiritual beings were real.
Clemenza remembered learning about them. She remembered her mother, pointing to lines in a book, figures on a tapestry, all detailing the day nine hundred, ninety years ago when the Stelnove had chosen families to be representatives of each Value in the Constellation. Wisdom, justice, charity, and so forth—three families per Value. Clemenza’s family had been chosen by the Stelnove Guerriera, warrior of faith, and so they were warriors and protectors of the entire Constellation.
Even now, Clemenza’s hand moved to her pocket where she felt the engraved figure on her medal. Despite the lack of scientific evidence for their existence, the Stelnove were the only origin story the nobles had; they were the code of the Constellation that society lived by, that people believed in and worked to uphold. The Speranza Peninsula’s flourishing system of government and nobility had sustained society. This was the only “proof” they’d needed.
Until recently.
Costantini raised his voice over the growing murmurs in the room. “The Stelnove didn’t give their chosen families anything to demonstrate their authority. No special control over aether, nothing particular to mark them. Just a responsibility to hold up a system no one has examined.”
Clemenza wanted to shout that it wasn’t true, and point to all the historical councils4 that had revisited and refined the system over the centuries. Not to mention the system the nobles had made to check themselves, to temporarily dispossess families that failed in their Value. That was the responsibility of the Costanza and Contemplazione families.
“Now, a popular argument used comes from signs5.” He paused here, his eyes skimming the room. “It has long been said that the Values, when best modeled, act as signs pointing to the existence of the Stelnove, these perfect beings, and more broadly, a unity under the system. When working with the Constellation, we are working as one.
“We also know, however, that the Values can’t ever be perfectly modeled by humans. This has never been up for debate, not in any literature I have come across within the last century or before. Rettore Guerra has argued that if the Values cannot be perfectly modeled, how can we say with sufficient accuracy that they reflect anything beyond us in the Empyrean? His premise, as we know, began specifically with the Fede, Speranza, and Carità lines being invalid because their Values were too insubstantial in practice and pure in theory for anyone to embody. Or, in the case of Carità, charity, too corrupt in intention.”
Silence. The others were rapt with attention. This was, in fact, a reversal of the famous Doratism6 heresy from around four hundred years ago that posited that the only “pure”—and therefore valid—lines were Fede, Speranza, and Carità.
Clemenza raised her hand, unsure if this was proper etiquette but unable to stop herself.
Costantini seemed pleased and gestured to her to speak.
“I don’t think anyone has ever argued that we can know with utter certainty the existence of the Stelnove.” Clemenza’s voice shook, and she paused to collect herself. “We…we postulate that there must be an origin for an objective system of values. The practical effects of the Constellation, when demonstrated by our nobility, point to a more perfect, transcendent version that we are cooperating with.”
The lecturer’s face lit up, as if he’d been expecting this. “And how can we, with any reason, make such a comparison between the earthly and the Empyrean?”
“We rely on the data given to us by the Constellation—”
“Data that Fede, Speranza, and Carità long ago failed to give.”
“And Guerriera?” Clemenza paused, and when Costantini failed to respond, she gave a little smile. “Oh, right. Guerriera wasn’t dispossessed due to a convoluted philosophical argument, but rather due to power-hungry tyranny.”
Some people near her began whispering, a few throwing her dirty looks. That was probably an incredibly stupid and dangerous thing to say in this place of all places, but Clemenza was burning and shaking with anger.
Costantini, for his part, didn’t react other than lifting an eyebrow. He ignored the remark, responding instead to her previous one. “Your claim about data seems to utilize Guerra’s empiricism, which I thought you dissenters were against?”
“On the contrary, I am a proponent of the old causal argument, which does not reject empirical knowledge, but rather believes it’s silly to stop at sense experience. Two plus two equals four; four does not simply spring into being of its own accord. We cannot rely on our own personal experiences alone, otherwise there is nothing objective that follows, but rather mere subjective morality—which is not morality at all.”7
“However,” Costantini said with an exaggerated patience, “as previously stated, it runs into absurdity to attempt to make a causal link between the earthly and the Empyrean.”
Clemenza was fed up and had run out of arguments. “But they are linked!” She got to her feet now. “And if you’re denying the existence of the Stelnove, you’re denying the existence of the entire Constellation. They are one and the same, plain and simple.”
He pointed at her. “Precisely. Thank you for leading me straight to the point of this lecture: there is no use in continuing with any of the remaining old nobility. As we saw with the war against Serpana and the following decades of plague and famine, the Constellation has failed us.”8
Approving claps from the others cut in.
“Yes, it worked well for centuries, but we cannot deny the blatant failures of our nobility in recent decades.” Costantini stepped away from the podium now and began pacing. “How did the war against Serpana start? The corruption of the former capitano del popolo of Acheron, making illegal deals he couldn’t follow through with. And how did the nobles rebuild the city-states after the war? By working harder to cover up their own mistakes, making themselves look good, rather than negotiate deals with the other northern countries to get food on tables and monetary support for families who lost loved ones. By letting plague run rampant through our cities while they hid in their country ville.”
The cheers were louder now. Clemenza realized she was still standing, and sank, numb, back down to her seat. This was everything Rettore Guerra claimed, everything he had argued to justify the nobility’s removal.
The war against Serpana had been almost forty years ago, but had left the entire Speranza Peninsula quaking after three hundred years of peace and prosperity.9 When Ludovico entered the Accademia a few years after the end of the war, he claimed the Stelnove didn’t care, the Constellation had failed them, and here was war and plague to prove it. So what reason did people have to believe in such abstract nonsense as charity, faith, and hope? People clung to that to put their belief in something.
Then they needed to do something, so twenty years ago they burned the palazzi and stripped the titles of the nobility associated with those Values, those Stelnove. The fact Ludovico had added the Guerriera families, including Clemenza’s, in his list of nobility to be done away with spoke to how thorough he’d been: he’d even considered uprisings and revolts.
And now this lecturer was claiming the rest of the Values, the rest of the nobility, needed to go too.
Clemenza wanted to stand again, wanted to shout that it wasn’t as if society had improved since the Raids—quite the opposite. That the Fede, Speranza, and Carità families’ institutions—the schools, hospitals, orphanages, and safe houses—had been forced to close or downsize to pay for the mercenaries in the Raids. That the remaining noble families had all but forsaken their Values and backed Guerra only to keep their own power. That now, because of Guerra, not even the Costanza or Contemplazione families kept the other nobles in check, and any one of them could slip into greed, pride, and cruelty, and the rest of society would follow. Was there even much of a Constellation left to take down?
Ultimately, power was something one would fight harder for. Common charity, not as much.
But Clemenza couldn’t say any of this, because the public lecture had turned more into a political rally, with people cheering and shouting support at what Costantini was saying. Unable to breathe, buried under the weight of her emotions, Clemenza got up and stumbled out the door. She broke into a run and didn’t stop until the Accademia was out of sight.
Maybe it was for the best she had been dispossessed. Despite her attempted defense, she wasn’t even sure she believed the words she’d said.
She couldn’t be a defender of a faith she didn’t have.10
Clemenza pushed the lecture out of her head as she stalked into the clock shop. She beelined for the basement, where the stores of aether used for clockwork were kept. The earthy walls smelled musty and damp, but cool, dark places were the best for preserving liquid aether. Only specific people Gaspare stationed outside the barred entry could access it.
Alvaro chuckled when he saw her. The muscular man looked more dangerous than he actually was. He wore a simple dirty camicia and trousers, speaking to the fact he didn’t go out in public much. Clemenza was fairly sure Gaspare had found him on the street many years ago.
“Where’d you find that?” he said, referring to the mantello she wore. “Beat up a nobleman for it?”11
“Close enough,” Clemenza muttered. She crossed her arms. “I need two vials.”
“Two?” He raised a brow.
Adding two vials was above general regulations and considered excessive, even dangerous.
“A special commission,” she said. The horizontal table clock for the noblewoman. She was paying a hefty sum for it, and Clemenza wanted the aether component to work.
Alvaro gave her one final look but didn’t say anything else as he unbarred the door and opened it. Clemenza got a peek inside at the shelves filled with hundreds and hundreds of vials. The lecture at the Accademia came back to her. If the meaning and purpose of the whole system of Values could be modified, then of course aether could.
Aether, the energy that flowed among all living things, made up the celestial spheres, the Empyrean, the home of the Stelnove. An energy that had always been treated with respect and used minimally to power devices. At one point, people didn’t think it should be changed from its natural gaseous form, that doing such was corrupting it. Before the Raids, Clemenza’s parents had been amongst the loudest decrying its increased use and the Accademia’s experiments.12
Those voices were quieter now.
And what would her parents think of her? She watched Alvaro select a couple vials.
“Here.” He handed Clemenza two small vials filled with rosy aether. She didn’t bother thanking him; his sour expression didn’t deserve it.
She walked back up the stairs, examining the vials in her hands. Coating the pieces of the escapement with liquid aether right before assembly would improve the accuracy of timekeeping. It would be a long time before they would need to be re-coated too.
As its base function, aether tried to perfect whatever it came into contact with. It was transcendental: an energy source said to consist of the qualities of the One, the True, and the Good. One, because it was unifying, a link between the Stelnove in the Empyrean and the humans on earth. True, because, according to the stories, it was tangible proof of the Stelnove’s gift to humanity, something objective and undeniable in the world that pointed to the Constellation. Good, because by nature of existing, providing energy, it sought to bring everything it came into contact with closer to the Empyrean and Stelnove.
Clemenza wasn’t sure she believed all that anymore.
Ever since the war, aether had become commodified, which corrupted its transcendental properties, some said. It was now used for things not good, even to Clemenza’s looser standards. Such as the blood torture the Accademia had experimented with fifteen years ago on the remaining dissenters of the Raids. Aether was injected into the bloodstream, most often resulting in death—or madness, if one was lucky. Some thought that aether was able to cause intoxication because it was tooperfect and human nature too corrupt, two things inherently incompatible. Others thought there was no spiritual reason for that at all, and the bad effects it could have were simply a result of the fact that it was part of the natural world.
Clemenza herself believed in the science of aether, not the faith of it. Or so she told herself.13
She reentered the workshop, feeling a sudden strange burst of positivity. The table clock was nearly complete. Which was good, because Gaspare wanted it finished before the mission. She deposited the mantello and the aether vials at her station.
When she saw her desk, all her thoughts ceased.
There was nothing wrong about her desk, and yet everything was wrong, like a furbizia board set up incorrectly. Parchment was unaligned, movement parts scattered, quills and charcoal toppled out of their holder, random items shifted around, even just a few spaces out of place. Everyone was quiet, and the women closest kept their heads down. Time slowed, and the buzzing from her fury yesterday filled Clemenza’s ears.
One person across the room met her gaze. Her hair was tied back in its usual braids, her dark skin illuminated by the faint morning light. A hand toyed with a gold necklace at her throat. Benigna smiled.
They stared each other down for several long moments. The air was tense. The women nearest Clemenza had stopped working, instead staring at the clock parts in their hands. Tick, tick, tick.
Clemenza’s feet jerked her forward. She was split between lunging for Benigna or rushing to her desk to fix it. The latter won. Rapid lists formed in her mind: move the quill holder more to the right, gather up the quills and charcoal—no, first place all the movements back in the basket. Set the aether down. Go through the papers and order them.…
The buzzing in her head increased, pressure building. Even with everything organized, she still checked and double-checked everything, touching the papers and miniature baskets again and again. She examined her clocks, making sure Benigna hadn’t gotten a single wheel or plate out of place. There was something missing though, a gap in the furbizia setup—
The noblewoman’s horizontal table clock she’d been working on.
Clemenza spun around. There it was, sitting on Benigna’s desk.
The fury returned—and exploded.
Rage blinding her, Clemenza was only aware of her shouted curses and the sound of toppled chairs as she lunged for Benigna’s desk. She wasn’t sure if her aim was to take back the table clock or punch Benigna. She tried to do both at the same time, which succeeded in sending both women sprawling on the floor.
“You can’t stand it, can you?” Clemenza cried. “You can’t stand to have anyone get anything if it’s not you!”
“That balestrino should’ve been my commission,” Benigna retorted. “I’m a better clockmaker than you.” She hefted Clemenza off her with a rough push, and Clemenza fell back against a desk, knocking the breath from her. She tore her dark hair out of her face, revealing a gaping Annamaria in front of her, frozen with wheels and fasteners in her hands.
Between her and Benigna on the floor was the table clock. Two plates had bent and broken off, the dial had cracked, a loose wheel twirled and twirled before landing with a plink.
A fist tightened in Clemenza’s chest.
With a roar she threw herself toward Benigna, but when she pulled back her arm, someone caught it from swinging forward. She tried to kick out a leg, but the person yanked her back so her boot missed Benigna’s face by a couple inches. She thrashed against her captor, but when she glimpsed Gaspare’s face, she calmed herself.
“My office. Now. Both of you.” Without waiting, he swept out of the room.
Clemenza shared a final glare with Benigna, then speed-walked behind the Clock Master. He didn’t address them nor speak again until they were closed within his office.
Gaspare steepled his fingers on the desk. “Signora Cattaneo was to receive the clock before the mission left.”
“I will stay behind and finish it because I will not go on the mission with her,” Clemenza spat.
“I have no use for this mission,” Benigna cut in. “So I will stay behind and take over the commission.”14
Gaspare held up a hand. The way he maintained calm in situations such as this was a novelty. He addressed Clemenza first. “You can only negotiate with me so much, madonna Giudice. Your earlier proposal or this: pick one.”
Clemenza drew her lips into a thin line, her temples throbbing. Gaspare turned to Benigna.
“I thought we also had a deal: your assistance on this mission in exchange for information on what happened to your family. Or are you no longer interested in revenge?”
Benigna huffed.
Clemenza glanced at her in surprise.
“How you two behave on the mission is not my concern. But so long as you work in my clock shop, you will conduct yourselves accordingly. Annamaria will take over the commission.”
Benigna shouted something in retort, but Clemenza leveled the Clock Master with a hard look.
“Fine. But my other deal is still on the table. And I’m taking an early lunch break.” She stomped out.
Benigna had been a pain since Clemenza first entered the clock shop as an apprentice and had shown great aptitude. Benigna was one of those people who always had to be on top, have whatever anyone else had.
And Clemenza had been beaten down enough. She wouldn’t take it from anyone else.
Read on to Chapter 3
This was the chapter I probably agonized the most over during revisions, due to the intense philosophical argument and worldbuilding. There were initially references to Aquinas’s Summa but I removed them to make it somewhat more original.
Clemenza’s appearance and personality partially come from the first character I created in the first novel I wrote, Chloe Karenina.
Early watches were worn on a chain around the neck; wristwatches came much later. More on wearing watches here. I also recommend Dr. Rebecca Struthers’s book, Hands of Time, for a nice history of watches.
The idea of historical councils came from actual councils held in the history of the Catholic Church used to clarify Church teaching and combat heresies.
This was very loosely inspired by my reading of Erich Przywara’s Analogia Entis.
C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man was also influential to the book as a whole, and especially this scene.
I actually had a really interesting conversation with an Atheist philosopher about an Atheistic argument for objective values. He referred me to this book, which I admittedly haven’t read, but seems interesting.
The effects of the war against Serpana on the rest of the peninsula, ultimately culminating in the Raids, came from my reflections on the effects of two World Wars on society and religious faith in the 20th century.
This is when I give my caveat and say I am not a philosopher, and nor is Clemenza. I kind of hope no real philosophers read this, or at least understand that these made up arguments come from a very infantile understanding of some basic philosophical and theological arguments. This whole scene was an exercise in my own grappling with fundamental truths and values as I struggled to reconcile my experience of the world with what my Catholic faith was teaching me.
I love the continual reappearance of Gianpaolo’s mantello. XD
Aether represents a balance and tension between the scientific and the philosophical.
She lies to herself a lot.
I wanted Clemenza and Benigna’s feud to seem ridiculous and childish because in reality I hate cattiness between female characters. It’s usually unnecessary to the plot or their development and just seems petty. So I wanted their disagreements to seem particularly over-the-top and almost satirical.