“By my life,” said Pietro.
“And mine,” added Giovanni.
The others piled their hands on top, and I was last. I looked around the circle of men, brothers more than friends, handpicked by Marcello. Loyal, regardless of the cost. “To the end,” I said.
We rode hard to reach a place in which we could show ourselves and yet have half a chance of escape. At the back of the abandoned village were the remains of ancient generations, caves carved into the cliffs above. The sun was high in the sky when we paused by a well in a village and shared a loaf of bread and a bit of cheese. We drank deeply from the bucket, the water cold and sweet.
Giovanni arrived, having ridden ahead to scout the land. “About a half hour out,” he said. “They’re coming fast.”
“Rested,” Luca said casually. “We remember.”
“There are over four hundred in that first contingent, sir,” he pressed. “With the other two groups numbering over a thousand. But with fewer horses.”
“Fine odds, fine odds,” Luca said, cocking his head like this was the most perfect plan possible rather than a signature on our death warrants. “Well,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “let us draw in the four hundred, and the rest are bound to follow.”
“Done,” Lia said, standing back. She’d used a white chalky rock to finish her quick sketch on the first building they would reach.
I came around and looked at it, as did the others. I giggled. She’d depicted two wolves standing on their hind legs, one with a sword, one with a bow and arrow. Between them was a flag of Siena. “All right,” I said. “Let us take up our positions.”
“No matter what happens,” Luca said, pointing at each of us, “everyone able is on their horses, two minutes after the men arrive. We’ll be counting it out, together. One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two…At one hundred twenty, you move. Understood?” He shook his head in warning. “We ride with or without you. Make certain you are with us.”
He drew the map in the sand at our feet one more time. “Everyone understands our plan? If we get separated, your only chance is to catch up with us, ahead. We toy with them here, for a bit. Get them properly riled, and then we run our horses to the north wood. There, we shall take the Santa Fiora Road to Gaiole, then on toward Castello Forelli, keeping to the side paths and off the main road to avoid Fiorentini troops. God willing, we will get the ladies properly hidden in the woods by nightfall.”
“God willing,” I muttered.
“Truth be told,” Giovanni said, “I preferred our last battle. Better to pretend to be shot by Lady Gabriella than to be really shot at by the dogs of Firenze.”
Luca and I shared a smile with him, remembering that night we had claimed Castello Paratore. Tonight, all I hoped for was survival. For all of us.
He erased the map in the sand, and we ran for our positions, climbing a narrow path up the cliff and settling into seven separate perches. Mom, Lia, and I were together at the center, closest to the horses, ground-tied just ten yards behind us.
The enemies on horses came then, shortly after we settled in. We could see the foot soldiers not a half mile in the distance. The first group paused at Lia’s picture, gesturing toward it and looking furiously about.
“Now,” I said. Casually, slowly, we stood, the three of us, taking on the same pose as the drawing. Mom held the flag of Siena atop her staff.
As it caught the wind, the first of them saw us. They pointed, shouted, and stared, as if they were seeing things. “’Tis a decoy!” echoed up a young nobleman’s voice. “Those are not the Ladies Betarrini! They are naught but villagers, sent here to distract us.” But then Lia and two of our men fired upon them, each taking out multiple men in rapid succession.
The enemy soldiers scattered, taking cover, shouting. Those on foot, hearing their alarm, were coming at a dead run now. The sight of their mass, stirring up dust on the autumn-dried road, made my heart kick into serious gear.
“Seven down, three hundred and ninety-three to go,” Luca said.
Lia aimed, shifted, and waited, watching one man peek out, time and time again. She let her arrow fly, anticipating his next peek at us, and it pierced his eye.
“Okay, that’s just going to make ’em mad,” I said.
“Three hundred and ninety-two,” she said to Luca, tossing her braid over her shoulder and taking aim again.
“Saints in heaven,” he said to me, rolling his eyes, “how much deeper in love can I yet fall?”
I smiled. “A good bit yet, I’d wager.” I glanced at Mom. “How many seconds do we have left?”
“Ninety-four, ninety-three,” she muttered, staring down at the men, now scattering, trying to make their way toward our cliff. Others were taking off on their horses, coming up and around either side, as we assumed they would.
“A bit faster than we anticipated,” I said to Luca, motioning to the horsemen with my chin.
“Yes. But it will still take them four more minutes to get up here,” he replied.
“Giving us a two-and-a-half-minute lead, eh? Generous.”
“You, m’lady, directed my plan. I believe the word was bait.”
I lifted a rock, aimed, and threw it at a man a hundred yards beneath me. It missed him when he dodged away at the last second, eyes wide with surprise. Then I threw a second at another, with similar results. “A bear can smell bait from a mile away. He does not need have it in his teeth.”
“Down, Gabi!” Mom said.
I ducked just as the first arrows came sailing toward us.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Lia muttered in English, rising again and shooting in one fluid motion. She took out an archer on horseback, and he fell from his saddle. Our horses stirred behind us, agitated by the sounds of those below them.
The other archers shot five more men, and I winged a guy with a rock before Mom got to the end of her countdown. We could see the cloud of the riders to our east. The western side was rockier, and therefore there was no telltale cloud in that direction, but I assumed they were coming too.
“Time to go,” I muttered, running toward my horse.
We were mounted and ready to go when Giovanni topped the cliff, limping, an arrow in his leg. He waved at us, scowling. “Off with you!” he cried.
“Go on,” Pietro said to Luca. “I’ll fetch him.”
“Nay,” Luca growled. “You’re with us. We need you. He’s a good man, a fine knight. He’ll catch up.”
“Let me go to him, Luca,” I said, eyeing Giovanni’s painful lope toward his horse.
“You shall not. We stick to our plan.” Luca whipped my horse’s flank and then Lia’s, too, sending us lurching ahead. “Go! Go!”
We tore off across the plain, meeting the road and turning north, the dim line of the woods a haze in the far distance. I fretted about Giovanni. With his previous shoulder injury and now an arrow in his leg, he would find it as hard to ride as I was finding it now, as my thigh tired. But if anyone had remained with Giovanni, he would likely die as well.
May it be fast and merciful, I prayed. Fast and merciful for any of us who die this day.
But as I rode, I didn’t have death in mind. Not today, anyway. No, I wanted life. Marcello. Love. Help us, God. Help us…
CHAPTER 32
We looked like a small tribe of Indians chased by the entire U.S. Cavalry. And Giovanni was falling behind, nearly in reach of the enemy’s archer’s arrows. “C’mon,” I muttered, looking forward again, conscious that at this speed, I had to steer my horse or we might go tumbling on the rocky road.
We were forced to slow just short of the woods, to pick our way down a twenty-foot bank and across a massive floodplain, now dry. It was unnerving, hearing those who chased us draw nearer, but we took comfort in the fact that the same landscape would slow their pursuit.
“Make haste!” Luca cried to me, Mom, and the two men who rode behind us as our rear flank. Lia was beside him.
Mom and I reached the far bank, and our horses chu
rned upward. We dared to pause and glance back. There, across the dry riverbed, was Giovanni, barely slowing his horse.
The look on Luca’s face made him appear as if he’d been kicked in the gut. We all felt it. Giovanni would be captured or killed within minutes.
“May I give him half a chance, Luca?” Lia asked. “Only a minute’s lead…He’ll die here, in this riverbed, without aid.”
“I’ll stay and assist,” Valente said.
“Let’s be about it,” Luca said, his mouth thinning into a grim line.
She handed her reins to him, slid off her horse, and stood between the men.
Luca looked to the other men. “Go, as fast as you can. We shall meet at the village. If Evangelia and I are not there two minutes after you arrive, carry on. Do you understand me?”
“We shall not leave you and Lia behind,” I said. “If we are to stand and fight, we shall stand together.”
Luca shook his head. “We do not intend to stand anywhere. Remember? This is all about keeping them,” he said, motioning over his shoulder, “from reaching Marcello and our men.”
“Go, Gabi,” Lia muttered, taking aim across the riverbed at the opposite bank. Our enemies would be there at any moment, and Giovanni was only a third of the way across. “We will be right behind you.”
I looked at Mom as the three men assigned to our care turned back, waiting on us.
The first men of Firenze arrived on the far side, a cacophony as men screamed to hold, pause, halt. Several horses tumbled down the bank, rolling. I shuddered as the sound of bones cracking echoed across the riverbed.
Lia and Valente shot their first arrows.
“Go!” Luca demanded.
With one last glance at Lia, Mom nodded, and we surged into motion, pounding down the narrow road that led us into the shade of the woods. There were brief spots of sunlight when we charged beneath giant oaks that had already lost their leaves. Then sudden dark when the trees again closed in above us, making it hard to see, with our eyes constantly adjusting.
So I wasn’t really surprised when Mom’s horse stumbled in a mud hole and went down, throwing her. She flew through the air and into the woods. We all pulled up, circling around. “Mom!” I cried. “Mom!”
She lurched to her feet, brushing the leaves off her arms. “I’m all right,” she said, “just a little shaken.”
My relief crashed against my horror at the sight of her mare’s broken leg. “No,” I moaned. It was impossible. A horse with two riders would never be able to outrun those who pursued us.
Pietro was off his gelding in a moment. “M’lady, take mine,” he said.
“Nay,” she said, shaking her head.
But he took her waist in his hands and roughly tossed her up into the saddle, then strode over to her horse to grab her staff. He trotted over to her and handed it up. “Be off with you. All of you. I shall hide here and slow them down as much as I can. And those who will be coming after Sir Luca and Lady Evangelia as well.”
“Pietro, I—” I whispered.
“To the end, m’lady,” he said with a nod. His eyes did not break from mine. “See that you get to it, that you save Marcello and Fortino, as well as yourselves, and I shall consider my life well spent.”
Inside, my heart again screamed at me to stay, to fight with him, but my mind understood that it would do no one any good if we all died here. And unless we escaped, we would all die this day. I looked at the other two men and Mom, then back to Pietro. “I shall remember you forever.”
He smiled and covered his heart. “To be remembered forever by one of the Ladies Betarrini is an honor I shall cherish with my dying breath.”
I turned from him then, before I changed my mind again. Our two escorts, Alonzo and Santino, churned down the road ahead of us, cutting the path. We hunched over, urging our horses faster. In half a mile the woods became more spread out, oaks among grassy hills. Down below us, through the meandering valley cut by hill after hill, was the tiny village of Chianciani, where we’d meet up with Luca and Lia.
Where are they? I thought. With the delay after Mom’s fall, I half-expected them to be directly behind us. I again dared to peer under my arm as I rode hard, never breaking pace.
My heartbeat picked up when I saw the other riders, first with joy, thinking it was Lia, Luca, and the other men. But it sank when I figured out that there were too many and spotted the crest of Firenze on the leader’s breastplate. I looked under my other arm and did a quick count.
Eight, and rapidly gaining on us. They’d sent their fastest riders ahead to hunt us down. “Riders behind us!” I shouted. One by one, the men and my mother glanced back. We urged our horses faster, but they were tiring, having already given us everything they had. I dared to again look at the men behind us, now dividing, intending to flank us, only a hundred paces away.
Where were Luca and Lia? Were they dead? Or had these riders come around from another road? If something had happened to Lia, there was no sense in pressing on. Even if I made it to the tombs, there would be no escape for me or Mom without Lia’s hand on that print too.
I looked back. Seventy-five paces. “Press on!” I called.
Ahead of us, Alonzo and Santino shared a look and then divided, easing their pace enough to let us fall to the inside, protecting the side of us that would be exposed first to those who pursued us. But the road was too narrow for us to ride four abreast. I looked at Mom. “I’ll meet you at the village! Up ahead, at the bottom of the valley!”
She nodded, and at a group of trees ahead, she and Santino went left and I went right, Alonzo beside me.
As we curved, I saw that four men were but twenty-five paces away. Holding the reins with my left hand, glad the horse seemed to know where he was going and how urgent it was, I slipped a dagger from the back of my belt and bit down on it, tasting the metal against my tongue. The sword would be useless until I was on the ground and fighting them, which, by the looks of things, would not be long.
A man drew his sword and charged toward Alonzo as if he intended to crash his horse directly into my knight’s. When he was ten feet away, his eyes solely on Alonzo, I took the dagger from between my teeth, timed the swaying, churning motion of my horse to make sure my aim was true and then sent it flying at him.
It struck him in the throat.
His eyes widened in surprise, and he immediately dropped his reins and sat up, his hands going to the knife. The three others surged past him, looking at us with deadly intent in their eyes.
I waggled my eyebrows at Alonzo and the shy man grinned. “Thank you for that, m’lady.”
“Mayhap we can pick the others off in kind,” I said. We steered around another clump of trees and I dared to look for Mom. The men who pursued them were getting perilously close too. Santino had drawn his sword.
“Take care, m’lady,” Alonzo said. “No two shall die the same way.”
“Let us stand and fight, then,” I said. “Take them down, then go to my mother’s aid.” I looked beyond his shoulder. “Another one, coming fast.”
My knight gave me another look, considering. “We stand when we have but two left. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
He reached for a chain at the side of his saddle, slowly, staring ahead as if he didn’t know the rider was coming for him with sword drawn. I forced myself to look ahead too, not wishing to give him away. I was sure we could both hear the lathered horse nearly upon us. At the last possible moment, Alonzo turned and threw the chain. I could see, then, that it had small balls on either end, sending it like a long, twirling stick at our attacker.
The chain sank, right before it hit the knight. He grinned in victory for but half a second and lifted his sword, preparing to strike, when the chain wrapped around his horse’s leg, immediately sending both rider and horse tumbling down. The way he fell…he wasn’t going to rise.
“Two left,” I muttered. I pulled up and rounded the next tree. The men behind us looked surprised and divided, one
chasing me in a broad loop, the other after Alonzo.
I jumped to the ground and pulled my sword, rolling my neck, preparing for the blow to come. He was about my size, but with an intensity that freaked me out. His horse churned toward me, and I counted, timing his approach, getting ready to deflect his blow, wondering if I’d have time, then, to turn and at least hit his leg before he was past me.
Five, four, three, two…one. It was harder than I remembered. Deflecting a blow from above. I staggered back, wondering if I had been a fool to go to the ground. The height gave the horseman a definite advantage. But there had been no way I was going to take him on while we were both seated. It was too difficult to gauge how the horses would react. I preferred solid ground beneath my feet, even if I still felt like I was riding—kind of like getting your land legs once you were off a boat.
I left the tip of my sword in the ground, resting, while the knight slipped from his horse. He paused and removed his helmet, dropping it casually to one side as he walked steadily back toward me.
It was Captain Rossi. Romana’s cousin. I fought for breath, stunned.
“I want to see every bit of this,” he said, sneering. “I want to remember every moment of the day I killed Lady Gabriella Betarrini.”
I gathered myself, remaining still, wanting him to think I was weak, injured in some way. “You would kill a woman?”
“A woman like you,” he roared, lifting his sword in a circle and bringing it swiftly after me.
I shifted, and it swung past me, missing me by inches. If I could tire him a bit, it would help me to best him. Get ’im good and mad.
“That was a sorry effort,” I goaded. “Can you not do better than that?”
He growled, turned, and brought down the sword like a saw blade. I narrowly turned in time. But as he swung around, so did I, blocking his next blow and staring into his eyes. “’Tis not my death that you shall remember this day.”
“Nay?” He lifted his sword and met mine again and again.
“Nay. Your last thoughts shall be of your own death.” I whipped around and aimed low, for his legs.
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