“Run, Gabi!” Lia shouted, turning to shoot to her left, then swinging to the right.
I ran toward her like a high school quarterback spotting the end zone, praying Mercede and Celso were right behind me. Desi and Grasso scurried along beside us, growling.
“Gabi!” Lia said, looking left.
She took down one knight, the force of her arrow spinning him away from me, but wasn’t fast enough to catch the second. He barreled into me, tackling me to the ground. I heard Fortino cry and felt his grip break at my neck. I immediately turned to crawl toward him. He was on his back, eyes wide, the wind plainly knocked from his little chest.
Celso blocked a blow that would have killed me for certain, and then Dad was there, scooping Fortino up in his arms, offering me a hand. “C’mon, babe. Time to go.”
I took it, and he yanked me up and through the tunnel doorway. It slammed shut. I blinked, taking stock while looking about in my shell-shocked fog, the dogs circling around my legs. Fortino, in Mom’s arms. Dad. Lia. Mercede. Countless wounded, each with a sword in their hands or near them. “Celso,” I mumbled. “Celso!”
I turned toward the door, but Captain Pezzati blocked me. He shook his head as the second door was shut and locked. “He shall see to his duty,” he said grimly.
He’d chosen to stay outside. To defend the door as long as he could. To defend us and give us a few more precious minutes.
I wept, gasping for breath. So many men–brothers, really—now dead or dying. My eyes swept across the wounded and ten weary but hale knights. Fifteen more were maidservants, stableboys and squires.
“Come, m’lady,” Captain Pezzati said, gripping my arm again. “We must get you to that inner chamber.”
“Nay,” I said, shaking my head. “We shall not leave you or them.”
“Should this last segment of the castle be breached, we shall fight to the last, even the wounded among us,” Captain Pezzati said. “You may trust us.”
“I do trust you,” I said. “Every one of you. And you may trust us. We shall not abandon you.”
Captain Pezzati’s face reddened with frustration. He turned his grip on my arm, and I knew he was preparing to drag me to the tunnel, if need be. “Our duty is to Lord Forelli, and his priority was your safety, and your family’s.”
I wrenched my arm away. Strength rose within me as passion and understanding and life flowed through veins that had seemed long empty. “You are our family,” I said, looking at each of them. “You are our brothers. Our sisters.”
I looked to Mom and Dad and Lia, then. Making sure I wasn’t alone in this. Each of them nodded an assent. Only little Fortino and Chiara made me pause. But this was right. Good. I was as sure of my course as Tomas and Adela had been when they left us. I can do no other.
“Close and bolt the second siege doors,” I said, looking to the far end of the tunnel. “We shall remain with you until this is done.”
The men looked bleak. Several women were crying.
“What does it matter?” Giacinta said, her daughter, Isabella, in her arms. “They shall kill us whether or not you are here. Why not take shelter? Save yourselves! Take the children with you!”
The girl clung to her mother’s waist, weeping.
“Nay. We shall not leave you,” I ground out. “Together, we shall fight. Marcello and his men must be on their way to us by now. They must. We will simply hold out long enough for them to come to our aid. And we shall do that together.”
We heard the muffled crack of a door—the outer one?—and all looked to the secondary door. I’d never been more glad for reinforcements than I was in that moment. And yet I was aware of Celso and others who had not made it inside with us. Would any of them survive? I had to fight the urge to fling open the doors and charge out to lend my sword to the cause again—only Captain Pezzati’s firm commands stopped me. He reoriented the Betarrini-Forellis to the very center of the room, with the wounded on either side of us, and able warriors on each end.
He set up Lia and Matteo behind four crates, giving them a barrier on either side, and the ability to shoot in both directions. But I knew the swordsmen at the front would largely keep them from doing any good until we were desperate indeed. The two set to work, gathering arrows into neat pyramid stacks that would allow them to reach and draw without pause.
I settled Mercede in the very center, holding Fortino. Isabella and Chiara were on either side of them, sandwiched by Mom and Dad. Then I reached down, kissed Fortino’s forehead and caressed his cheek. “Try and sleep, little man,” I whispered.
He blinked laden eyelids, as if fighting the urge already—he only needed my permission. He seemed to have forgotten the tension in the air, the rhythmic pounding that now sounded on the outer door, the gasps and quiet sobs of frightened women. I prayed he would close his little eyes and sleep through the worst of what was to come. That he wouldn’t see any more bloodshed this night, that he would awaken to me and his papa holding him close. I prayed we would all live to see that happen.
The door cracked and groaned and gave way. The sounds of our victorious enemies drew closer, just one fortified door between us now. It took maybe twenty seconds for us to hear the Italian version of heave-ho beginning, and the rhythmic battering ram was now before us, visibly setting the heavy timbers to trembling with each blow.
But they held. God bless them, for minute after minute, they held.
It was the massive hinges that eventually gave way.
And all at once, the door crashed down between us.
Our enemies charged with a terrible yell.
Matteo and Lia each let an arrow fly and then another, over our kneeling knights.
Our enemies came, but given the confines of the tunnel, could only move in three at a time. According to Captain Pezzati’s plan, our forward knights blocked and struck, then dodged when they wearied, allowing three others to take their place. In this manner, seven or eight of the Fiorentini were killed, creating a sort of human barrier.
But we were soon down to ten men.
The fight went on and on, the sick knights on the attack truly seeming like zombies to me. There was a desperation in their eyes, a final mission that led them to expend the last of their energy on this terrible battle. And the sickly sweet stink of rotting flesh—that unique odor that I knew I’d forever tie to the Black Plague—filled the tunnel.
“So much for quarantine,” I muttered to Mom, as she moved into position beside me. She had her battle staff ready. Dad remained beside Fortino and Chiara, their last hope at protection. Both crouched behind him, rocks in their small hands. Deliver us, Lord. Save us. Please.
Two of the wounded knights who had been carried in to the tunnel managed to get to their feet, their swords plainly heavy in their weary hands. But they stood on either side, our last semblance of protection. Any able-bodied maidservant, footman or squire already stood in front of them.
“Come back here, behind us,” I said to them all. There was no way I’d stand behind them and see them cut down. Not when I was still able. “Protect Fortino. He is the future of Castello Forelli.” He is our future.
They all shuffled behind the boxes, behind Lia and Matteo, and we moved out in front of the boxes in their place. I could see that two more of our wounded had died in the last hour, their faces now a waxen, stiff mask. Four of our knights at the front had fallen, leaving six.
“Kneel, Gabi,” Lia said. Matteo told Mom to do the same thing. Captain Pezzati took a knee. Now that there were fewer knights at the front, it just might be possible…
Captain Pezzati shouted, “Une, due, tre, Quattro, cinco, se!” On the count of six, Matteo and Lia let their arrows fly, trusting the knights at the front had heard their captain over the grunts and groans and curses and wails in the fray. At the last possible moment, they ducked, and the arrows pierced their adversaries. Those knights backing them up leaped over them to attack the Fiorentini. Again, on the count of six, two more arrows took down two more of our enemies. And in t
his fashion, we seemed to hold the line for several precious more minutes.
It didn’t take long for the Fiorentini to see what was happening and duck on the sixth count, but there were so many behind them that the arrows inevitably found a mark. And those strikes became a good distraction of their own, forcing men to shift and carry their comrades away, or climb over their dead bodies, yet another barrier.
Otello and Lutterius were two of the three knights we had left at the front. As if sensing that they neared the end of our defense, the Fiorentini surged, sacrificing those at the front by pressing inward, burying our knights and dead with their own as they trampled forward.
We hadn’t seen it coming, this mad scrambling rush over both dead and living.
Chaos ensued in the flickering torch light and deep shadow. Action became like a slow-motion sequence in my mind. Arrows flying by our heads. Swords coming so close to my neck and arm that thin lines of blood followed them, like a pencil’s trace on parchment. I waded forward, well aware that my parents and sister were beside and behind me. That my son was behind me, and I had chosen to remain here, rather than hide away.
A sick feeling filled my stomach as I struck one man after another, wounding and killing, wounding and killing, wounding and killing.
Had I been wrong? Had I made a terrible mistake?
Should we have hidden away in the tunnel rather than die here this day?
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
EVANGELIA
I could see Gabi slowing, her movements becoming laden with weariness, her reactions perilously slow, even as I could feel the rising tension among the maidservants and footmen and squires behind me. The Fiorentini would cut them down with a few deft blows. It was a farce, putting swords in their hands. I simply could not let them get any closer.
My desperation led me to take more dangerous shots, over the shoulders of my sister and the two remaining knights—Lutterius and Otello. Anticipating their moves, the sweep of their strikes, and following it with deadly accuracy with my arrows. Never had I felt more in tune with my bow. The thrum of the string, the growing numbness in my fingers as I drew and drew and drew again…it was like I was a machine, my mind a computer, narrowing in on a target, firing. It helped that the target was essentially a wall. Basically any arrow I fired was likely to strike someone, somewhere. And so far I’d avoided my own.
But my attention was on Gabi. Time and again I saved her from a certain death blow. I desperately wanted to call to her to fall back, to come back to us, but I couldn’t take the second’s time to pause—I knew it was far more effective to continue as I was, trying to take down her next adversary.
Otello was struck across the leg and Gabi turned to him, distracted.
“No,” I whispered, shooting another arrow. I reached for my next, but the stack was gone. I glanced down, and Chiara handed me one. “Another,” I grunted to her, turning and aiming.
But I froze as my sister was stabbed in the belly with a dagger. Her head flew back, her mouth gaped open. Her attacker sneered and leaned in to her.
“Nay!” I screamed, letting my arrow fly, piercing her attacker through his neck. Otello limped to them and, with a cry, peeled them apart, going down between them. Mom grabbed hold of Gabi’s armpits and dragged her backward, Lutterius desperately trying to defend them.
“Loro vengono,” I grunted to those behind me, weeping as I continued to fire. Here they come. When they were too close, Matteo and I took up swords and leaped over the boxes to join Gabi, sinking against the side wall, gasping, Mom and Lutterius, still on their feet.
I ducked to miss the strike of the first knight upon me, a skinny man about my dad’s age. As I rose again, I glimpsed Chiara and Isabella’s round eyes, peering over the edge of the crate in terror. I glimpsed little Fortino, witnessing the worst night of his short life. And I thought about the child in my womb, and how much I wanted to meet him or her. How precious a child was. How precious my child was.
“You shall not…” I began to bark out in gasps as I went on the offensive, “take us…today!” I repeated it, over and over, striking down one knight and then another and then another. “You shall not…take us…today!”
But even my last reserved surge of energy was short-lived. Battle was out-and-out exhausting, and we’d been at it for most of a day. I could feel the Fiorentini beginning to press forward again, my short gains lost in moments. And gradually, dimly, I began to accept that we might die here this day. At least we’re together, I thought, distantly, like I was thinking of another family entirely. We arrived together, it’s fitting we would die together.
Only the thought of Luca and Marcello, of leaving them as widowers, kept me from dropping my sword and giving up. Again and again, I forced myself to parry a strike. To duck. To twist. To lean back. To drive my sword forward. I was only adequate with the sword. But wherever Barbato had dredged up these men—they were worse. And so even in my exhaustion, I held my ground.
The pink light of dawn began to cast the men before us in deep shadow, making them faceless. I struck one down, and then another, and blinked, wondering if I was seeing things. Wondered if I’d been wounded and was dying. Because behind those that still attacked us, it seemed like there were fewer to back them up. More light streaming in, across the heaps and piles of dead and wounded that now filled the tunnel waist-high.
I continued to respond in automatic fashion. Lifting my heavy sword with trembling arms. Bearing the brunt force of a strike that sent a chattering wave through my arms, shoulders and back. Shifting to attack again.
When there were but six before us—was it a mirage?—Mom reached out and gripped my wrist as I again brought my sword down upon the next man. Her voice came to me as if through water, and I looked to her, confused, dazed.
Then back to the man before me.
His face came into focus and again, I blinked heavily.
It was Luca.
“Evangelia,” he said, easing the sword from my hand and tossing it aside. “It is all right. You have done well.”
I looked dumbly from Luca, to Marcello—just catching sight of Gabriella and running toward her—and the other Forelli knights. Out in the courtyard, I could see more Sienese knights.
In the center of them was Rodolfo Greco.
“Papa!” Chiara shrieked, running past me and out to Rodolfo. I stared as she dodged the wounded and hopped over dead men, struck by the horrific sight. No child should have to endure such trauma as she had…Was this what our child would have to become accustomed to?
Marcello reached Gabi and gathered her up and into his arms. Mom followed them out of the tunnel.
I could hear women crying behind me, sobbing, saying relieved prayers of thanks. Laughing, in that almost-hysterical way of women.
“Lia, can you hear me?” Luca asked, his hands covering my shoulders. His voice sounded far away, and I stared at him, wondering if I was really wounded, dying, and this was all some sort of vision.
“Luca?” I needed to hear his voice. Needed him to convince me he was well.
“I’m here, love.” His face and tunic were splattered with blood, as I assumed mine were. He had fought so hard to get to us.
“I am so fiercely proud of you, Evangelia Forelli. So proud of you.” He pulled me close, and I breathed him in, sweaty and soiled and all. My husband, here. Holding me. Me holding him.
We had fought so hard to survive.
And now, at last, it was over.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
GABRIELLA
I awakened from the middle of one of my old nightmares…the one in which I was pierced by an arrow and my sister stitched me up and I was disintegrating, from the inside out…
But this time, it was Mom doing the stitching.
I bit down on the piece of wood and wailed. She’d used some sort of herbal anesthetic, but it wasn’t morphine by any measure. Better than when Lia did it…but I began to wonder if it had been better to have more pain and pass out than to st
ay partially conscious for this…
“Hold her, Ben,” Mom said, when I tried to thrash loose. I wanted her to stop, stop what she was doing. But Dad wasn’t the only one holding me down. Marcello held my other arm and someone was across my legs.
“Hang in there, kiddo,” Mom said, eying me briefly as she worked. “I’m almost done.” Her fingers looked like they were in red gloves, so covered in blood were they.
The wound was low and to the right. What damage had it done? How deep was it? I tried to gather the strength to ask, but all I could do was bite down harder on the wood as Mom moved. I looked to Marcello and for the first time, realized I was in our room, the fresco of stars above me. “For-Fortino?” I grunted, thinking for a moment beyond my own pain, but the name was intelligible around the wood in my mouth.
“Our son is well,” Marcello said, giving me a grateful smile. “Rest, beloved. We shall tell you more…”
But I was already fading. The room becoming black, my view of the stars narrowing and narrowing until I succumbed to blessed unconsciousness.
***
EVANGELIA
“It’s good she wore that leather armor plate,” Mom said, as she stitched up the last of Gabi’s wound. I sat up, off her legs, now that she was unconscious and slack.
Mom leaned back and wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. Her face was covered with a linen kerchief, as were ours. “I think the dagger went straight in and when her attacker tried to lift up on it, the armor plate kept it from moving far.”
I’d seen the wound. It was a few inches wide and according to Mom, deep.
“Her intestines?” Dad whispered.
Mom blinked at him, her forehead wrinkling in concern. “I just couldn’t see well enough, or get in far enough. There was too much blood.” Her blue eyes shifted to Marcello. “We can only hope that it missed anything vital. We’ll know in a few days.”
Cuts to intestines were most certainly lethal. We’d seen more than a few men die horrible deaths when intestines were free to leak into the abdominal cavity. The wounded slowly sickened and died. But based on where it was, so low and so centered, I was more worried he’d pierced her uterus. Would she be sad if Fortino was the only child she ever had?
DELUGE Page 32
