DELUGE

by Lisa T. Bergren

  He’d apparently heard of that night. Known of me, of Lia, before we’d ever met. It made sense. We’d swiftly become the target of every Fiorentini, and he’d been one of them.

  “The journey seems to heal as well as…move us from one time to another.”

  Rodolfo searched my face. He took a breath, then two, then three, and turned from me, staring up in the direction of his castle, hands on his hips. From this particular location we were hidden from view. At last, he looked at us from over his shoulder, turning to face Tomb Two.

  “We must destroy it,” he said. “If word gets out, if they find the evidence here…” He gestured toward me and Lia, but spoke to Marcello and Luca. “They’ll come for them. Fiorentini and Sienese alike. They’ll no longer be the She-Wolves. They’ll be named witches, blamed for every manner of ill and turn of fortune imaginable. You know how the simple-minded talk.”

  “Nay,” Mom said. “You cannot!”

  “You cannot destroy it,” Dad added. “The site is too important.”

  “Why not?” Rodolfo asked angrily. “Your daughters have married well. Gabriella grows heavy with child. Your life is here now, is it not? What value are these old tombs in light of your family’s safety?”

  Dad opened his mouth to say something, then his lips clamped shut. He and Mom looked miserable. I could see their devotion to preserving history at war with the reality behind Greco’s words. Yet they both visibly resolved to stand against this. For two reasons: the tomb represented our own escape route should the worst happen. Not that I could ever imagine using it. And if it disappeared now, when we needed it in the twenty-first century it’d be gone. What would that to us? We had no idea.

  Rodolfo’s dark brow furrowed. I knew he was trying to figure out why they would cling to it. “’Tis due to the fact that the tomb might still be useful to you,” he said softly.

  “It saved Gabriella once, as we hope it just saved Orazio,” Marcello said. “Think, man,” he said, reaching out toward Rodolfo. “Wouldn’t you do anything to save Alessandra if you could?”

  “Even if it meant that I might lose her forever?” Rodolfo returned. “Leaving me to the stake and fires at my feet, named a sorcerer?”

  “Even then.” Marcello’s warm eyes drifted to me. “Would it not be better to know your woman lived, even if she couldn’t be with you? Either way, you lose her, but one way, you have hope.”

  Rodolfo rubbed his face and kept staring at Marcello. “Gabriella and Evangelia are safer than ever as your brides. It’s been relatively peaceful with Firenze, aside from this last attempt in Venezia. Why do I sense you fear something bigger? Some greater fear? Have there been additional threats against you and yours?”

  “Nay, nay,” Marcello said. “It is but the concern of a father-to-be, with soon not one to love and protect, but two.”

  I wondered if I was the only one who heard the bit of forced cheer in his voice, meant to cover the lie. Rodolfo seldom missed such things.

  His keen eyes moved over the rest of us. I lifted my chin and took Marcello’s arm as if warmed by his words, but it didn’t feel authentic, real. More like I was some lame actress in the high school play at home.

  “You are from the future,” Rodolfo said softly, almost reverently, his eyes widening with slow understanding. “Therefore, you know what the future holds.”

  I scowled. “We know some things, Rodolfo, but precious little. Almost seven hundred years divide your time from our own; and while my parents were Etruscan scholars, they knew only basics about this particular time period. And it is our aim to not change anything in history by what we do know. By being here we have already changed aspects of the future, and we are trying to keep from changing more. So you must not ask us. We cannot tell you of it. We have not even told our husbands. It is best for everyone if we do not.”

  A shout sounded from the woods. At a distance, but it spooked us.

  Luca looked to Marcello. “Patrol. One of ours. Let us hasten to the old hunting hut. Take this eastern path to avoid the knights of Castello Greco seeing us.”

  “We are not finished—” Rodolfo began.

  “Enough!” Marcello interrupted, agitated, then softening his tone. “We shall speak of this on another day, if we must. In the meantime, I ask that you keep it in confidence.”

  Rodolfo hesitated, then nodded once, clearly unhappy that he could not press us further. Ferret out the piece he sensed we kept back…our knowledge of the plague.

  But we were all already turning from him, going to our horses. Luca’s suggestion of the old hunting hut was a good one. It was small and in poor repair, but it had a fireplace and a mostly-intact roof. We could get warm, at least, as we waited for some hours to pass before we returned home.

  Rodolfo followed us down the hill and stood there, arms folded, looking up at me. His expression confirming this wasn’t over.

  Marcello edged his horse between me and Rodolfo, basically severing his stare. “Brother,” he said. “Do I have your word? You shall keep silent on this?”

  “For a time,” Rodolfo said, “brother. But we shall speak of it again in confidence.”

  Marcello sighed and looked to the gray skies. “Why must you always need to know every single nuance of a matter, Rodolfo?”

  “Because it has kept me alive to date,” he said. “And now I, too, have a woman I am responsible to protect. And if this knowledge you keep will aid me in that matter, then I shall insist upon knowing it.”

  “Until later,” Marcello said, clearly irritated by his press.

  “Until later, then. Go with God.”

  “And you,” Marcello snapped, wheeling his gelding about and leading us into the trees.

  I could feel Rodolfo’s eyes on me as I urged my mare forward, too.

  But I didn’t dare return his gaze.

  PART II

  HORIZONS

  Winter 1345 - Spring 1346

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  EVANGELIA

  It said something of the trust and regard the people of Castello Forelli granted us when they did not ask more than once where we had left the Betarrini brothers. Luca passed it off as a matter of security, keeping their whereabouts a secret, and this made sense to most of them. I knew Captain Pezzati was still frustrated to not be in on it—and irritated that we’d taken the risk to set off without guards—but within a few days, all was back to normal.

  Days passed into weeks.

  Weeks evolved into months.

  Marcello arranged for a letter to arrive, written in a foreign hand with a wax seal none of us recognized, and Gabi and I read it aloud to Mom and Dad within earshot of Giacinta and Cook, the two greatest gossip-sharers in the castle. We were confident that all would soon know that Orazio had made a full recovery and that he and his brother had made their way to Pisa to set sail to Normandy.

  “That is the best possible word to receive,” I sighed, imagining what it would be to know that the boys were truly home and well. It made me think of what Luca and Marcello went through, sending us off, not knowing if we even lived through it.

  Married life was so fun, my heart so settled, that my memories of why I’d ever put it off seemed to fade in my mind. Luca was attentive and tender, and only teased me about how I made our quarters far too womanly for his taste.

  “Only because you now live within these walls,” he said, kissing me last night, “can a man tolerate it.”

  I’d replaced a few threadbare window tapestries—with what were once family heralds, I guessed—with newer, thicker, longer ones imported from Holland. They depicted romantic scenes from aristocratic country life, and I marveled at what they’d been able to accomplish in thread and design, as well as how much warmer our rooms were now. But from the way my husband carried on, you would’ve thought I’d painted the room pink. They’d cost a great deal, but Gabi and I still had gold of our own, and I hadn’t even asked him before purchasing them from a merchant in Siena. Now, I knew, I’d have to get him to
agree on such things if I wanted to avoid his endless teasing.

  My monthly Friend came and went as the months went by, and I decided that Mom’s advice on natural birth control were working, given the few nights Luca and I were simply content to snuggle.

  Snow fell periodically, but it never lasted long in Toscana. Still, the days were short, the fires heavily banked to warm the rooms, and peace continued to reign between the Sienese and Firenze. We considered it a miracle, of sorts, and we settled into daily routines. Marcello and Luca often had to spend time in Siena, with Marcello being one of the Nine and all…he was working really hard to get a few key things in order before he resigned from his post. Mom and Dad often went with them, still working on supplying the castle for what the men had come to call “any siege,” as they watched barrel upon barrel stack up in the warehouse, wondering at the folly of it after a while. I heard them talk. They understood provisions. Thought it wise. But none of them had seen provisions for years of war, which we essentially were preparing for. They obviously thought it a waste, overkill.

  The guys hated to leave us, but now that Gabs was getting closer to having her baby, there was no way to take the day-long trek on horseback. While I would’ve liked to go to the city to be with my husband some, or shop with Mom and Dad, I volunteered to stay with her so Gabi wouldn’t be alone. It made Gabs crazy, and she would pace the perimeter of the yard, or up atop the wall on warmer days, truly like a She-Wolf in a pen.

  “Pregnancy, they call it,” she groused to me that morning. “It’s more like prison.”

  I laughed and sympathized with her, but I relished the relief of responsibility. I helped Cook bake bread a couple mornings a week, but mostly I was free to sketch and paint in our new solarium, which I planned to do today. It wasn’t long before Gabi arrived, wringing her hands over her basketball-of-a-stomach.

  “Let’s go see Alessandra,” she said, moving over to the thick, milky glass discs from Venezia—a gift from the doge—that now made up most of the windows of Mom’s solarium. “It’s been so long since we’ve had the chance to be just us girls. I want to take her that new book of poetry. She’ll love it.”

  I frowned. “Castello Greco is only a couple miles. But it’s still a couple miles. Sure you’re up for that?”

  She rubbed her belly. “We can take it slow.”

  “Are you sure, Gabs? What about…Rodolfo?” We’d done pretty well avoiding any opportunity for further discussion with the man since that day at the tombs. We’d seen the Grecos almost weekly, but it had always been in the company of many others. Alessandra seemed blissfully unaware we were at all at odds with her husband.

  “He’s in Siena with the guys. I overheard one of the knights say he’d seen him there. And I’m going to go crazy if I don’t get out of here,” she said, eyes wide.

  “I dunno, Gabs,” I sighed, weighing her need with my responsibility as standin guardian. “The last thing we need is for you to fall off a horse, a month before your baby is due.”

  “Maybe I should fall off on purpose,” she said, misery etching her tone. “Get this baby moving. How can I get any bigger? My boobs are busting out of my dress and this belly…” She groaned, even as she continued to stroke it. “I’ll never be the same!”

  “Probably not,” I said with a grin, rising to take her hands. “But you really have never been prettier, Gabi. All rosy cheeked and cute curves. And the way the guys fall all over themselves to try and take care of you…It’s true what they say. Everyone loves a pregnant woman.”

  “Humph,” she said, still stroking her belly. Her skirt’s gathers seemed to emphasize the roundness. “Cute curves. That’s a polite way of saying fat.”

  “You’re not fat! You have that baby in five weeks and you’ll be back to normal a few weeks after that. And less grumpy.”

  She let out a long breath. “You know what would make me less grumpy? A walk. To Castello Greco. C’mon, Lia,” she said, her whole face settling in for some serious begging. “Let’s go see Ali. She’s gotta be bored, too. She wanted you to give her some archery lessons. Or we can play tric-trac if it’s too cold to be outside. Or strip poker. I don’t care! Just something to get me out of this funk.”

  I laughed. “All right, all right. Settle down. But let’s take bags with a change of clothes. That way, if you’re too tired to make the walk home, we can stay there overnight.”

  Her face lit up with victory and she clasped her hands together before pulling me to her to kiss both cheeks. “You’re the best sister ever.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, already feeling a measure of foreboding that I’d just given in to something I shouldn’t have.

  We set off an hour later, with twelve men as our guards—Captain Pezzati wouldn’t accept any other option. I guessed I was as excited as Gabi for an outing and a chance to talk—really talk—with Alessandra. I knew it’d been tough for her adapting to life as a Sienese, shirking her Fiorentini roots. But she’d seemed to do a bang-up job of it. And she clearly loved her husband. Just the thought of them, and the small, secretive looks they shared, made me smile. Both had been in serious need of love. And they’d found it.

  It made me think of Luca, long for him…If there was one thing medieval Italy seemed destined to do, it was help people in the ways of love. As we picked our way down the road, pausing periodically when Gabi had Braxton-Hicks contractions strong enough to steal her breath, I contemplated that thought. Even the knights who protected us on the road—six ahead and six behind—seemed to either have a love interest in the villages about or maids in the castle. Castello Forelli would’ve made a crazy-great setting for a series like Downton Abbey, I thought. We were all so intimately wrapped up in one another’s lives…

  “You know what I love best about being here?” I asked Gabi, as she blew out a long breath and rubbed the bulk of her belly.

  “A certain knight?” she asked, raising a brow.

  I glanced past her to the two closest knights within view, waiting on us, while giving us a measure of privacy by staying a bit away. “Well him, yes. But it’s being together as a family. Living life together, you know? Not just Mom and Dad, you and Marcello, me and Luca. But all of us. The knights,” I said, waving forward, “the maids,” I said, waving backward. “The stewards, the squires, everyone. It’s like living with a great, big family.”

  We returned to our easy pace along the path, among tall oaks that had long since shed the leaves that crunched beneath our slippers, and a few evergreens.

  “Back home, we didn’t even know our neighbors. I mean, beyond names.”

  Gabi nodded. “I think it’s how we were meant to live,” she said. “In community. Taking care of one another. Sharing. Loving. Celebrating and grieving together. I think it’s part of what drew me here, and convinced me to stay.”

  “Me, too.”

  We walked for a time in silence. “It’s good here, Gabi. I’m glad we came.”

  “I’m so glad,” she said, tossing me a smile over her shoulder.

  We picked our way across the dry riverbed, and I thought that soon after the baby came—which seemed to be our every measure of time of late—water would flow again, filling its banks. I liked when it was full, and I determined that Luca and I would take to river excursions for our picnics, when weather cooperated. There was something about moving water that soothed and restored me. And I wanted to fill my sketchbook with lively images of it.

  I even liked the process of watching it ebb and dry up, I decided, as we left the stony bed behind us, climbing up the path toward the tombs. It was another part of life I liked here, the way we measured the passage of months by the weather—and not just a superficial understanding of the weekly forecast, but a deep-set, primal knowledge of the cycle of seasons that fed the earth, which fed the fields, which led to food on our tables. That was something that most kids back at Boulder High would never really get. Not really. Even with all their eco-focus. Most had parents bringing home six-figure salaries,
and the closest they got to their food source was Whole Foods. It was a start on what was unfolding in me, this tie to the earth, but it was only a start.

  Gabi paused at the meadow with the tombs and cast a questioning glance back my way as if to say—Want to stop?—but I shook my head. The last time, watching Orazio and Galileo disappear…even the thought of it made my stomach vaguely queasy. Because now the thought of me and Gabi putting our hands on the prints…leaving Luca! It made me want to kneel down and weep. Please, Lord, I prayed. Make a way. Keep us from ever ever ever having to leave. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear it…

  Gabi glanced back at me. “Lia?”

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. “I’m okay. It’s just….passing the tomb. Thinking of leaving again…”

  She turned to me and took me in her arms, which was a bit odd of late, with a basketball between us. “I know,” she said simply. And I knew she did. More than that, for the first time, I fully understood what it had taken for her to leave the second time. The first, she thought she might be in love with Marcello. The second, she knew. She knew. And still, she’d found it within herself to go. To go with me to try and get Dad. Because we couldn’t do anything else.

  Because we couldn’t do anything else.

  I guessed that was a key. And I silently marked it in my head and heart as a hallmark for future tough decisions.

  We journeyed on, up and over the hill, with periodic stops and patient waiting by the knights, on our behalf. I knew they were probably half-bored out of their minds, but also probably half-delirious with the opportunity for a real task. Marcello and Luca and Captain Pezzati kept them busy with daily training. But most of their days were filled with normal castle life, no battles on the horizon…it was dull for a knight. And there was a tension there that I thought might grow increasingly challenging as this peace continued.