I wouldn’t cry. I refused to cry.
It wasn’t the dog. It was everything.
Luca. I needed to focus on Luca.
But when I got to the courtyard, Gabi stood in my path. She was looking pale and scared, her hand against her abdomen. “Lia,” she said, her mouth a grimace, “where is everyone?”
“Here, sit down,” I said, grabbing hold of her elbow and ushering her to a stone bench. “You should not have left your bed.”
She searched me. “You are prepared for battle,” she whispered. “What is it? What has happened?”
“Gabi…Dad’s sick.” I paused a moment, letting her digest that. “And Marcello and Luca—they went to the tomb to get what Mom hopes was medicine, left by Orazio and Galileo.”
“Orazio! Galileo?” Understanding dawned. The promise they’d made to Mom…the one we’d caught wind of, but didn’t know the details about. “And now?”
“They are surrounded. I am going to aid in breaking through the line of Fiorentini who keep them from us.”
“No, Lia, you can’t.”
I rose, unwilling to spend a moment longer in argument. “Don’t you see? It’s the only way. To save our husbands. Our dad.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said, struggling to rise, her lips parting in a pained gasp.
“No. You won’t. This time it has to be me, Gabs. Alone. Go help Mom and Dad, if you’re up to it. If we don’t get back…” My voice cracked, and I hurriedly wiped away the tears. “I don’t think Dad has long.” I bent and kissed her cheek. “I love you.”
And with that, I ran to the gelding, his reins in the hands of a squire, mounted, and rode out the gates of Castello Forelli to bring back my husband, and hopefully, medicine that would save my dad.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
EVANGELIA
Captain Pezzati sent Otello, Matteo and Falito with me, along with ten other knights. With the twenty-four that had gone ahead of us, I felt reasonably confident that we could approach the line of fighting and find out what was happening.
I was wrong.
Twilight—which came and went quickly in the winter months—was upon us. Smoke still hung in the air, making it even more difficult to see. But we could all soon figure out what was going on…Marcello and Luca had run into the Grecos and some others, and together, they were surrounded. We’d passed the majority of Sienese and Fiorenti fighters to our west—hundreds of men—which were keeping Sienese reinforcements from helping our guys. And our guys were in desperate need of help.
It was up to us. And we were outnumbered two to one.
“We need to get them out of there,” I said to Otello, watching as Marcello moved woodenly, striking out and dodging swords, but plainly exhausted. Where was Luca?
“Follow me,” said the big man, the most senior knight in our patrols. He turned to the others. “We are the thirteen that are going to make a way for Lord and Captain Forelli to make their way out, understood? We shall create a funnel, and then a barrier, through which they shall escape. Follow our lead.”
He trotted forward, half hunched over. “Matteo, stay with the lady at all times. Work together with her. Falito, never leave their side. I’ll do my best to be on the other one.”
The other men agreed.
I thought we’d likely stop somewhere and find our best entry point, but either Otello had already found it, or just decided that any place was as good as another. We paused only for him to gesture toward the backs of a group of twelve Fiorentini, and Matteo and I let our arrows fly, killing four before our men were cutting down others and then holding back more that moved toward us, alerted by the new line of conflict.
Matteo and I stood back to back, our attention roving from resisting the new attacks on either side to taking down those who still were bent on killing our people within the surrounded circle. Our men attacked from two other angles of the circle as well, distracting the enemy, and now I could see why Otello had chosen this third spot. It was the thinnest. But there were still a good eight men who kept us from rescuing our own, and more on the run from either side. Still more were behind them, redoubling their efforts to kill our men, Rodolfo and Alessandra.
I dispatched arrow after arrow, most finding their marks, when I wasn’t jostled or pushed or pulled or stumbling over rocks in the swiftly falling darkness. But we were making progress.
The way opened, and our group pushed to either side, leaving a path of escape for Luca and the rest. But they were still pinned down inside. I took out or wounded three men as I ran toward him. He caught sight of me, did a double-take and faltered. Only Alessandra’s scream, and Rodolfo’s sword, kept him from being impaled by another Fiorentini.
I killed a man who was then, in turn, about to kill Rodolfo, and wounded another moving to grab Alessandra. Matteo, at my side, shot an archer out of a tree. “Well done,” I muttered, having wondered where the arrows were coming from.
“Fine work yourself, m’lady,” he said with a grin.
Two men came at us, screaming with a guttural cry, swords raised. We didn’t have time to get arrows off, but Otello and Falito were there. “Down,” Otello grunted, and together Matteo and I ducked, letting the knights jump across our backs to meet those who attacked.
I felt an arm go around my neck and I was dragged back, Matteo advancing immediately, an arrow drawn tight across his bow. I drew my dagger and then wrenched my head to the right, giving Matteo his target, and heard the disgusting sound of an arrow entering my attacker’s eye socket. I rammed my dagger into his belly, below his breastplate, even as I turned. I could feel the warmth of his blood on my neck and swallowed the vomit that rose in my throat.
“Are you all right, m’lady?” Matteo asked, taking my arm as I gasped for breath.
“Yes, thank you, friend.”
But he was already turning halfway, firing an arrow. Then another. I swallowed hard, forced myself to draw an arrow, and then was tackled by a large man.
“Lia!” I heard Luca call, but it was from far-off. I gasped for air, thought briefly about the baby. The man had knocked the wind out of me. He rose, and I tried to roll, aware that I had to keep moving—even if I couldn’t breathe—that he was raising his sword, bringing it around to cut off my head.
But I was only as far as my hands and knees when Rodolfo was there, blocking the blow, then pushing him back, with a series of parries and strikes and punches and shoves.
Luca reached me, then, helping me to my feet before turning to fight another Fiorentini, this one plainly sick with the plague. “What in the saints’ name are you doing here?” he grunted over his shoulder.
Wearily, I drew an arrow and shot his assailant from the side. “Saving you, again, it appears,” I said with a small grin.
He laughed under his breath and shook his head, half in fury, I knew, half in total dismay.
“Forellis, now!” bellowed Otello, and I turned to see the opening was holding and for the moment, we had room to run. Rodolfo picked up an ailing, older man in his arms, Alessandra at his side. Otello turned to pull Baldarino’s arm across his shoulders. The knight was bloody from head to toe, but alive. Marcello was ten paces off, near the edge of the woods, fighting a large knight.
“Did you get it?” I asked Luca, now working with me, Matteo and Falito in taking down any Fiorentini that drew near, even as we worked our way toward the exit point.
“We have it,” he grunted. “Down.”
I crouched without question and felt the cold whoosh of metal near the back of my neck—setting every hair on end—and then heard the clang of sword against sword. I was rolling, rising, aware that my kerchief had fallen, when I felt a hand on my braid. The man pulled, and I was on my feet, wondering for a moment if he had pulled most of it out.
He wrenched me around to face him. He was huge. Twice my width and six inches taller. His mouth, filled with decaying teeth, opened in a wide grin of victory. I expected him to pull me back into a strangle hold, was preparing for
it, but instead he shoved me with such strength that I lost my footing and yet covered a good twelve feet of ground. Two other Fiorentini grabbed my arms and rushed me toward the woods.
“Nay!” Marcello said, running to intercept them. “Release her!” he yelled, striking at the one on my left, forcing him to fight. An arrow came through the back of the neck of the one on my right, its bloody head sticking out as the man choked, dropping my arm. I turned to look over my shoulder. Matteo, God bless him.
Instinctively, I ducked and turned, spotting one after another Fiorentini advancing.
“I know it’s been enjoyable,” Luca said, grabbing my arm, “but I believe it’s time to leave this relaxing little picnic spot.” We ran down the jagged corridor, past some men who were wounded but holding the line for us. Matteo and I kept firing arrows all the way, easing some of the pressure, but I was thankful for Otello’s plan. Without it, we’d have simply become mired in the same tar pit as the others.
We were almost out, Rodolfo twenty paces in the lead, when another group of Fiorentini managed to get around the Sienese and attacked on horseback, down the hill.
“Get behind me, Evangelia,” Luca grunted, lifting his sword.
I did as he asked, feeling the ground tremble as the Fiorentini came down toward us, like shadowy soldiers from hell, their faces indescript in the darkness.
Rodolfo had set down the old man belatedly. He was just lifting his sword when a man rammed him off his feet as he galloped past, striking his shoulder with a spiked metal ball on a chain, then coming straight toward us. In quick succession I saw Greco fall, the rider perilously close, then felt Luca whirl and strike above me as I ducked.
The man cried out, his leg gashed to the bone. His horse pulled up and turned in a circle when he felt the release of his rider’s leg. He turned and glared at me, at Luca’s back, and then pressed in to come at us again.
Alessandra was screaming, but I pushed thoughts of her away, made myself breathe and draw an arrow and take aim rather than cry out to Luca, who was still concentrating on another group of knights, coming at us, down the hill.
I shot him when he was just fifteen feet away, so close that the horse brushed past me, turning me, until I was again facing the monstrous knight who had grabbed me before. Two other Fiorentini rode between us, but he remained focused on me, striding forward, as if there was no one else in the woods.
“Luca,” I whispered.
“Hold, Lia,” he grunted, pushing me a little to the left, unknowingly toward the knight, as another rider rode past us on the right, slashing with his blade.
“Luca…” I said. The big knight now ran headlong toward us, too close for me to shoot. “Luca!”
My husband turned just in time to push me out of harm’s way, kneel with the shaft of his sword against his thigh and impale the knight on the end of his sword, just before his own sword pierced Luca’s breastplate. Luca let out a cry to match our attacker’s and the two rolled, over and over, until they came to rest, Luca atop him, his sword half buried in the Fiorentini’s chest.
I let out a mirthless laugh of wonder at my husband’s skill, at the miracle that he hadn’t been harmed too, when I saw his face. He was looking in horror, past me.
Belatedly, I turned. Marcello was running toward Rodolfo, who was surrounded by three knights, trying desperately to defend Alessandra and the old man, while clearly wounded. One knight grabbed hold of Alessandra and dragged her backward, and when Rodolfo’s attention turned toward her, another stabbed him in the lower back.
“Nay!” I screamed, taking aim with my arrow and managing to fell the third man. Marcello attacked the second, who had stabbed Rodolfo, even as his friend fell to his knees.
I turned my attention to Alessandra, fighting her captor as he tried to drag her off, away from the Sienese who now closed in to free us. But I was out of arrows.
Stealthily, I ran toward them, grabbing hold of another dagger. Four Sienese knights trailed the duo, keeping Alessandra’s captor’s attention. And in the same way that the Fiorentini’s companion stabbed Rodolfo, I took down the man who held Alessandra.
He gasped, arched his back, and crumpled, Alessandra limping away from him. I left the knights to see to his end or his capture, going to Alessandra and giving her a brief hug before turning back toward Rodolfo. We moved toward him, together, with trepidation. More Sienese were between us and the Fiorentini now. We were reasonably safe. We were. But not Rodolfo.
I could see he was bleeding out, even in the feeble light. Alessandra went to one side, and I to the other, each taking a hand. The pointed steel ball had hit above his clavicle and nicked an artery. I was surprised he had been able to keep his feet as long as he had. And the wound at his back…gently, I turned him partway over to see and then looked with sorrow at his wife. I shook my head. I was sure he’d been stabbed in the kidney. Not even Mom could save a man with a wound like that.
Rodolfo lifted Alessandra’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “I have loved you, Alessandra. Do not forget that. Thank you…thank you for loving me.”
She wept, curling her head in toward his good shoulder. “Do not leave me, Rodolfo. Do not leave us. Chiara…and the baby…”
The baby? She was pregnant? I cried too. Chiara. Alessandra…what would they do without him? I could feel Luca and Marcello near, heard them panting for breath, spitting out blood and dirt, but my eyes stayed on Rodolfo.
He looked to me. “Take care of them, Evangelia.”
I nodded, tears flowing down my face. “I shall.”
He looked up to the men, behind us. “Take care of them all, brothers.”
Marcello and Luca knelt by his shoulders. Marcello gripped his hand. “As if they were our own kin,” he said. “You have my word, brother.”
“And mine,” Luca said.
Rodolfo took half a breath and then stopped, still staring at Marcello. I felt the life seep from him, the cold, still finality of death.
Alessandra wailed, and Luca forcibly lifted her up and away from her husband, a sight so terribly wrenching I thought I’d vomit. Marcello helped me to my feet, an arm around my shoulders. “We shall return for his body,” he said, his dirty face now tear-streaked. “But now we must get you to safety. There are still Fiorentini about.”
We paused by the old man. I saw, then, that it was Alessandra’s father, in the last stages of plague, gasping for breath.
“Leave him,” Marcello said, after kneeling beside him a moment.
“Nay!” Alessandra cried. “I must bring him with me! He may yet survive.”
Marcello’s brown eyes shifted from her to the old man. I felt the waves of futility and fury and mercy and sorrow wash through him. Here was a man who had disowned her, a Fiorentini, dying of the plague and yet…he sighed and turned toward two men. “Tie cloths about your faces and carry the old man to the castello.”
“Yes, m’lord,” they said.
The fight continued behind us as we trudged toward home—our horses scared off and lost to us for the time being—but it was waning. The Fiorentini had lost their most precious prey; night was closing in in earnest; and we were all battle-weary. After our own losses, I think we were all more than ready to rest behind Forelli walls.
But when we arrived at the castello, so thankful to see the row of torches illuminating the blessed, high walls of our sweet home, I saw something that made my heart freeze.
Mom and Dad—and the knights assigned to protect them—were no longer there.
CHAPTER FIFTY
GABRIELLA
Lia, Luca, and Marcello burst into our room, looking half-crazed and totally battle-worn. Their faces were red-raw from the cold, and blood and mud spattered their clothes.
“Dad!” Lia cried in relief, running to his side. Slowly, her eyes moved to Mom, lying beside him, and she turned to me, silently begging me to tell her what she plainly knew already.
Mom was sick too.
Dad reached out to touch Lia’s cheek, w
eeping, then thought better of it. “Thank God,” he whispered, closing fevered eyes. “I was so worried, Lia. So worried about you.”
I hurried over to Marcello, hugging him in relief then pulling back. “Did you get it? Was it there?”
Marcello released me, closed the door behind him, then reached under the wide armhole of his tunic and fished it out.
“Oh!” I cried in relief, staring at the wooden box. The antibiotics. Orazio and Galileo…they had done it. Saved us.
I opened it slowly, like it was a golden treasure out of an Indiana Jones movie rather than a set of ten-buck antibiotics. To me, it was priceless.
The wooden box was cheap veneer, but I thought it clever of the boys to put the syringes in it. Far less conspicuous than the white plastic First Aid box Mom had been forced to hide. And easier to burn when we were done. Inside were eighteen syringes, taped to the lids, and a note.
I read it aloud in a hushed, reverent whisper. “Forelli-Betarrini family, may this serve you in your greatest need, as you served us. Go with God, Orazio and Galileo.”
There was another note, hurriedly scrawled across the top. “Dose for six adults,” I read, “one per day; three days each.”
My stomach somersaulted. This wasn’t a miracle-medicine for eighteen, but only six. Still…it would help six. That was six more than we could save a minute ago.
I turned toward Dad.
But he was shaking his head.
“No, Gabi.”
I frowned. “What?”
“No. You’ve already broken quarantine, bringing us in here. Exposing you all, repeatedly.”
“There was no way I was leaving you out there—”
“You broke quarantine,” he said sharply. “Our…first line of defense.”
“Yeah, well, you went and got the plague of all things. Now we’re going to fix that.” I ripped off the first taped syringe and looked around for a basin of water and clean cloth. We’d need to clean his skin before inserting it…
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