Thumb resting on the firing pin, she aimed, hoping for someone to come close enough to kill.
Her Spaniard twisted his metal expertly and his attacker’s sword flew into the air. A lightening palm to the attacker’s throat and the man fell choking. Then Bernardo’s left hand grabbed a stiletto, he spun, and stabbed at another’s midsection.
Fulvio kicked at the groin of an assassin who screamed as his neck was sliced in two. She’d never witnessed any such fighting and prayed never to again. Swords, elbows, kicks, and grunts. Her two heroes felled one man after another but their movements began to slow and the two now fought against five.
When her father tried to enter the fight, Fulvio and Bernardo protected him.
One man sliced horizontally, Bernardo twisted, but the edge drew blood from his waist. She couldn’t help but scream, fearing as it came out that he’d be distracted.
Another raised a weapon over his head, ready to kill the only man she’d ever cared for.
Then without any warning, her father rushed forward and fell onto his sword as he bashed the top of his head into the man about to kill Bernardo. Blood gushed everywhere.
“Oh, Papa, no.” She stood and rushed to the middle of the melee. There, she fell onto her knees. Pistol shaking in her hands, she pointed it, daring anyone to come closer.
Swords lowered and men glared, but the fighting stopped. Then the leader of the attacking merchants approached, spat upon her father, and sheathed his sword.
She quickly wiped it off. “Papa?”
Blood gurgled out of his mouth and with a final shudder, he left her. The pungent scent of urine followed and warm fluids soaked her knees.
A voice that had to be hers keened, “Nooo.”
“Best I never see you again, friend.” The leader of the intruders glared at Bernardo.
“Best you take your men and go.” Clenching his sword, her Spaniard seemed as if he might continue to fight, but Fulvio stepped between them.
With that, the murderers filed out of the courtyard, dragging bodies with them.
One with gray hair, dressed in black doublet, stopped. Sweat and drops of blood stained his white shirt. “You are a Carvajal of Soriano?”
Bernardo nodded, eyes wary, and mouth grim.
The merchant shook his head slowly and gazed down at her. “If you want to keep the peace between our villages, best you take her to Vignanello. The Earl, Pierpaolo Nardini, will want her.”
“I’m taking her home with me.” Her Spaniard’s jaw clenched and his neck pulsed.
She heaved out a sigh of relief, he would take her with him.
“Pierpaolo has no love of your family, although he hides it well. You cannot keep her.” The assassin stopped at her father’s body and made a sign of the cross. “I truly am sorry for your loss, Signorina, but it had to be done.”
She stared uncomprehending. Had to be done? This cannot be happening. Oh Papa, wake up.
Bernardo led the man out of the gate. The same gate, where moments before, her father had stood very much alive. Now his life’s fluids pooled around him, soaking the ground. If she’d only gone with him this morning, none of this would’ve taken place. His death was all her fault. Tears dripped down her cheek.
With gentle hands, Bernardo lifted her to stand, led her away from her beloved father’s body, and then kissed her forehead. “I must take you to Vignanello.”
“Please, no. I wish to stay here.” She would beg, if need be.
He tucked her chin, dark eyes creased in concern. “Gather up what is most important to you. I fear they may return to take compensation.”
Fulvio shouted from upstairs in her chambers. “It’s true. They wait close by.”
She grabbed a few dresses and put them into a sack. Almost as an afterthought, she knelt at the hearth and removed a loose brick to find her one true possession. Memories flooded and she was taken back five years ago, to the day Cardinal Nardini died and her mother abandoned her. Once the will was read, her parents argued for hours.
“I will not live in poverty.” Intricately embroidered silk skirts whooshed as her beautiful young mother paced the palace hall where they lived in Naples.
Papa’s eyes were wet and his voice cracked. “I can see to your welfare.”
“You?” Her mother’s lovely face scrunched up with scorn and Aurelia had cringed. “I’ll marry my lover and annul our marriage. You won’t object. That’s the least you can do.”
“But what of Aurelia?” Her father fell to his knees and took his wife’s hand in his.
She pulled out of his grasp. Then her mother’s harsh words and hard tone had broken Aurelia’s young heart, “Well, I certainly cannot take her.”
“But if you annul our marriage, you declare her outcast. She cannot marry. You have doomed her future.”
“And if I don’t, she won’t eat. Which do you prefer, Giuseppe?”
After that, Aurelia’s memories all blurred together. With no dowry, her engagement to a prominent Orsini was broken off. All of her belongings were sold and her mother left court without even saying goodbye. Papa, a broken man, was her only friend.
“Aurelia?” Bernardo’s concerned voice brought her back to the present.
She pulled the parchment out from its hiding place and replaced the brick. It was supposed to be her dowry. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she brushed them away with the back of her hand. Papa was gone forever. Weeping wouldn’t bring him back.
Taking her elbow, her Spaniard led her out into the courtyard where Fulvio already stood waiting, reins in hand. Her father’s body lay over their donkey, hands tied to feet under the beast.
She gave Fulvio a hug, “Thank you.”
“He died for you. A brave man.” Bernardo lifted her onto his black charger.
“No. A very, very stupid man.” She stared down. “How could someone argue Aquinas and Plato so well, and yet forget the simplest of instructions?”
Fulvio shook his head with pity and she allowed herself just one moment of despair. Unwed, yet desired by Borgia and her only male protector, a relative she’d never met.
Bernardo mounted behind her and hugged her back to him. “I vow, fair angel, I’ll see to it that you’re well cared for.”
The portcullis lifted and she ducked under for probably the last time. Both she and her home now belonged to Pierpaolo. She shuddered. According to her father, her uncle was a man with shifty eyes and a fierce temper.
Chapter 4
Hundreds of bright yellow roses wilted upon the high stone walls surrounding Pierpaolo Nardini’s courtyard. Marble goddesses attended in silent watchfulness as Aurelia slipped off one leather shoe. She straddled the fountain’s ledge and overheated toes cooled in the refreshing water. Unable to resist, she bared her other foot, lifted her skirts, and waded. This was the warmest October she could remember.
Even in her new silk shift, open sleeves, and low bodice, she’d almost passed out during her father’s never-ending funeral. The fumes of incense hadn’t helped one bit. Did God really wish for all His supplicants to wheeze and cough while deep in prayer?
She turned, thinking to have a heated discussion on the subject with her father, then sadness washed over her. He was no more. That part of her life was gone forever. It hardly seemed possible.
With a splash of water on her face, she wondered, and not for the first time, if she’d landed in Dante’s fifth circle of hell. But what did it matter. Apparently, even in the afterlife, one was forced to move forward. She grabbed a persimmon from a low hanging branch. Like everything else, it had no taste. She sighed deeply and swallowed. Whether in hell or just hell on earth, some strength was needed to endure what was about to come.
After the chanting in the church had come to a resounding final tone, Bernardo had bowed stiffly and said goodbye. She’d wanted to hug him tightly and remind him of his vow to keep her safe. Instead, under the observant gaze of the whole village, she’d kept her eyes to the floor. It was bad enough she
’d rode into the village upon his horse. Any other signs of affection would label her wanton.
And Pierpaolo? He’d not been at all happy to see her. At first, he’d refused to believe she was his brother’s offspring. But could she truly blame him? By all accounts she’d drowned in the Tiber last summer. If not for an old woman who’d remembered her as a child, and Bernardo’s threatening presence, he might’ve cast her out.
Any moment now, he’d enter his courtyard and demand she meet the man he’d already decided she’d wed. A deep sigh escaped from within her breast. She’d met the old healer long ago. But perhaps, like her father, Signore Battista would allow her to aide him as he administered to the sick. She tried to focus on that one bright thought.
Looking at her reflection in the pool of water, she pinched her pale cheeks and used the persimmon juice to moisten her lips. Best to make a good impression on the old goat.
But it wasn’t his voice that echoed in the main hall, rather that of the Bishop of Vignanello and Pierpaolo. She’d already decided that she could abide neither one separately and together they were a burden beyond compare. Grabbing her shoes, she padded up the back stairs to the balcony overlooking the garden and lay flat. Perhaps it was a sin to spy, but how else could she find out what they planned?
Nardini, clothed in billowing pink sleeves, floral doublet, and a pair of ridiculous red pantaloons, turned to the holy man, “I tell you, she must have it on her person or hidden it well. Perhaps someone stole it? I’ve searched the house personally, and found nothing.”
The portly bishop’s round face, dripped with sweat. He tucked his flowing black robes under his large behind and sat on the fountain’s ledge. “Wouldn’t something that important be stored in the Vatican?”
“No. Giuseppe trusted no one.” Her uncle paced, scratching at his short, dark beard.
She inched toward the balcony’s edge, head lifted, and heart racing so as to hear better.
“Say again how this beautiful woman is related to you?” The bishop eyed her uncle like a cat, eyes wary.
“My niece. Imagine my surprise when Carvajal’s eldest son brought her here. I was told she drowned in the Tiber late last summer.”
The bishop mumbled something she couldn’t catch. He leaned over the water, soaked his silk hat, and wiped it across his baby face.
Then he put the limp material back onto his bald head. “So, you want her gone?”
“Of course I want her gone! I can’t take risks. What if the Nardini land in Naples is truly hers as Giuseppe claimed? Her dowry. What if she has proof?” Pierpaolo’s face reddened.
“Calm yourself. It’s too hot. As her legal guardian, whatever she owns becomes yours.”
“I cannot take any chances. I’ve heard of cases where women inherited their family’s fortunes.” Pierpaolo glanced about, and seeing no one, continued at a lower volume. “You’ll have the town gather sometime in the next week in the piazza. There, you’ll read the pope’s last decree on witchcraft. I’ll have my servants start some rumors.”
Aurelia stuffed a fist into her mouth and bit down. Mio Dio.
The priest shook his fat head, chin flesh wagging atop the neck of his expensive priestly robes. “But the villagers—”
Her uncle paced, stopped directly under where she hid and said, “A beautiful blond with ivory skin amid a town of plain folk? She is the devil’s temptation personified.”
“I could put her into a local convent.” The fat bishop eased up from the fountain, his large body requiring both palms on the ledge in order to move.
Pierpaolo loomed above him with hands flaying in the air. “Absolutely not. How will that fix my problem? Then the abbess will lay claim to my inheritance.”
“I could take her as mistress. Give you the land. Treat her well. That buxom body should not go to waste.” A lecherous grin spread across his round face.
Her uncle shook his head, “No, she must die.”
Aurelia’s stomach turned and she shivered despite the heat. She wasn’t going to be married off to the old healer after all. They were going to see to it she was tortured, then burnt alive, perhaps even worse.
Picking up her skirts, she ran from the balcony’s edge, and feigned to be slumbering on a bench. When they neared, she dulled her face and said, “Excuse me uncle. I must’ve fallen asleep.” She rolled off and curtsied low.
Her uncle tilted his head, not at all convinced. “Of course, my dear. This must all be a shock to you.”
The bishop nodded and his fat neck wobbled as he tsk-tsked.
After a moment, they both wandered off into the great hall, speaking again of her death, but in less obvious terms.
Chapter 5
Atop the volcano city of Soriano, the castle towered above the many stone buildings with orange roofs. Colorful banners lay flat and motionless against the tufa parapets. Above that, a cloudless blue sky promised another beautiful day.
Bernardo Carvajal sighed and paced. The pope’s new fountain sat dry and lifeless in the center of the piazza at the foot of the city.
In the center of the marble wonder, a stone madonna reminded Bernardo of Aurelia. But then again, as of late, everything reminded him of her.
Fulvio, having just arrived from under the great portcullis in the south, dismounted, and studied the whole affair. “You finally got guildsmen from Rome to connect the damn thing?”
Bernardo pointed to the workers in a hole in the ground. “They too are a gift from Pope Innocent. He apparently has a fondness for Soriano.”
“And prefers the Holy Mother of God to deliver his water?” Fulvio dismounted and snickered.
“It would seem so.” Bernardo smiled. “It’s good to have you back, my friend.”
Sudden gurgling under their feet moved to the top of the statue’s head and water spurted out, splashing down into the circular pool. Workers and townspeople all cheered.
Bernardo’s face and arms moistened from the deliciously cool mist.
Sweaty and dusty from the road, Fulvio handed off his reins and strode under the cascading water. Laughing, he caressed the statue’s breasts. “She is bellisimo.”
“That’s supposed to be the Virgin Mary. Mio Dio. Do you want to go to hell, you heathen?” Pulling him out by the arm, Bernardo apologized to the dour faced ancients, dressed in black and crossing themselves.
A smirk covered his friend’s wet face and he slicked back his dark hair. “She’s more real than the fair Aurelia you pine over day after day. Why in God’s name don’t you go and see how she fares? If you don’t, I will.”
“The Earl of Vignanello was quite adamant. He wanted her to adjust to her new surroundings and her impending marriage. He said it was quite evident that she was smitten and would need time to forget me.”
Fulvio stared with eyes wide, then guffawed. “She? Taken with you? I would say ’twas the other way around. You’ve done nothing but mope since meeting her. First, it was, Fulvio, come find her with me. Then, Fulvio, come ride in front of her estates. And finally, come draw your sword and save her with me. And now? Just quiet brooding. I preferred the former more than this latter state. You truly have become morose.”
He was correct. But how to forget the long blond hair, perfect skin, and the palest of eyes that haunted him? Today was to be her wedding day. His stomach rolled. He’d heard rumor her intended was an old healer. That he wanted her more as an assistant and was too old for his cock to rise. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t try.
God’s Blood. There was nothing he could do. Why did he torment himself so?
He threw a small purse at the workers who’d put aside their tools to jump in the water. They shouted their thanks and splashed.
Children, too young to be clothed, ran across the hot bricks and joined the melee. Adults brought buckets and gathered the water flowing off from the open palms of the Blessed Virgin. Some splashed pails over their heads.
He ducked his head under the flowing water with a grin, then bid them all
a good day. Much refreshed, he headed up the steep path between the stone buildings. Fulvio followed, his horse’s hooves clopping on the paving stones. On either side of the narrow road, merchants poked their heads out and greeted them.
At the bakery halfway up the hill, Fulvio ducked in. When he stepped out, he had a sweet bread in his hand and spoke with his mouth full, “Mephmw.”
“Have mercy on me and swallow.” Bernardo punched his arm.
His friend handed him a raisin and nut bread. “You’ve finished the fountain. The castle walls are fortified and the gates have new iron. Do you suppose Borgia will now allow you to keep your handsome head upon your shoulders?”
“I hope so.” He took a bite and remembered the last time he’d faced the man, lying about Aurelia’s death. “You don’t suppose Nardini will tell him that she still lives?”
“How would I know? I’m but a mere serf.” Fulvio bowed comically.
Behind the joking, Bernardo knew there was some hurt and said quietly, “Eventually your father will come to his senses. You won’t be disinherited forever.”
He laughed and shrugged. “I’m forever in your debt. Without you, I’d be begging. Maybe a man-whore.”
Bernardo grinned, thinking his friend could probably do quite well for himself if he decided on such an undertaking. “Did you see your sister while in Rome? Is she well?”
“She’s still safely hidden away with a friend. As long as she remains so, then I’m content to stay with you, if you’ll have me.”
“Your father still has no idea you stay with me?” Bernardo hoped he’d gained no new enemies.
Fulvio shook his head no and kicked at a stone. “He’d never believe an Orsini would stoop so low as to become servant.”
“I consider you more friend and companion.”
“A penniless one.” His friend shoved him hard, and he tripped.
He pushed him back, the serious moment over. “Tell me, what did you learn in Rome?”
“That Borgia will find out the truth, sooner or later. Best you think of some story, other than like Lazarus, she came back to life.” He waited as if he thought Bernardo could create a good story out of the ether.
The Angel of Soriano: A Renaissance Romance Page 3
