I thought I saw a flash of a smile. “I believe you.”
I’d pleaded a headache, needing time and space to sort out my thoughts, but even spending all day in my room had left me with nothing more than a real one. Headaches were no fun in modern times, but at least at home, I could pop a couple of Advil and feel loads better. People in these times relied on herbs and tonics. I wondered what they were treating poor, sickly Fortino with. Did they believe that leeches were a viable treatment in this era? I shivered at the thought. Best not to really get sick here, now. I tried to think back; Mom had been studying natural remedies the last few years, interested to know how the Etruscans might’ve once healed their own. She’d subjected me and Lia to long lectures on the subject, as well as a few tries at field medicine. But I didn’t remember anything in regard to headaches.
I moved over to the basin of water and splashed my face, again and again, then dried it off with the rough cloth. I picked up a wide-toothed comb—carved out of what looked like ivory—and shivered at the thought of some walrus somewhere giving up his life for the tusk it came from. I ran its short spokes through the tangles of my hair anyway, then retied it with the leather band Marcello had given me, wound it into a crude knot, then pinned it with one pin. I felt it, testing it to see if it might stay for half a minute. Then, blowing my cheeks out, I decided it was good enough. It was soon dark. No one was out at this hour, most having retired after supper. That appeared to be the castle’s routine: to bed with the sun, and up with it too.
It was crazy. Who back home would ever willingly adopt that schedule?
Sunset was well past us, judging from the bit of sky I could see in my window. I edged open my door and peeked down the hallway, half expecting Marcello to have posted a sentry at my door, given my behavior the night before. But no one was there. Only the flickering, dancing torchlight moved.
I edged out the door and closed it softly behind me. I’d heard others moving in and out of rooms down this hall, but not in the last day or so. Was I alone now? I moved down the corridor on tiptoes, past the door that led to the courtyard, to one of the turrets that climbed up to the allure, the wall walk at the top. Cautiously, I eased open the wooden door, pleased to see that it was not locked.
The stairs, carved out of the stone tower, circled upward on the edge, like the coil of a DNA double helix I’d seen in my biology textbook. I placed a foot on the bottom step and stared upward, wishing I could see better in the deep shadows. Would they take issue with my being up there again? Surely, Marcello had warned them all by now to watch out for his mad houseguest, willing to scale the castle walls to escape.
What did it matter? I moved upward, gaining confidence as I did so, barely hesitating at the top. I ducked and pushed through a short door suitable for a hobbit and emerged atop the allure of the castle.
Nobody was in front of me, the guard having turned the corner, so I took a deep breath, appreciating the cool of the evening breeze on my hot face. Oh, Toscana, I thought, closing my eyes and breathing in the familiar scents of spicy sage and sweet forest loam and warm, dusty oak. How can you smell so right, so much like home, and yet be so wrong?
I blinked my eyes open, fearful that I might have company, but still found myself alone. Where were the guards? Simply in different areas of the castle? I strode forward, able to fully appreciate the view from here for the first time. I was at level with most of the forest canopy, able to see for miles, to the parapets of the Paratore castle, flying her crimson flag, and beyond her, the hills that I knew led to Siena. Might Lia have traveled through time and gone there, looking for me?
I thought of our favorite spot in the city—the fountain in the central plaza, Il Campo—and wondered if she might have managed to make it there. It would have been a logical meeting place. Every time we visited a new town, ever since we were kids, Mom and Dad had drilled it into us: If you’re lost, find a policeman and tell him you’re to meet your family at the fountain. In Rome, it had been the Trevi, in Siena, the Fonte Gaia, and so on.
Lia and I loved the Fonte Gaia above all others. It had nothing on the Trevi for sure. That one was grandiose, overwhelming. But the Fonte Gaia of Siena, a simple rectangle, ornately carved of marble, did not demand undue attention. It allowed the public square itself to sing, like a box seat in the best part of a stadium. Siena’s piazza was one of the best in all of Italia—a grand shell, with nine rays in the brick cobblestones that represented “the Nine,” the name for the dudes that ran Siena—and all the little towns that reported to her. Grand palazzos lined the plaza’s rim, forming a kind of castle wall, and on the bottom edge, the public building and her pristine tower, the campanile, rose like a flag of declaration.
I was glad that Castello Forelli stood for the Sienese. It seemed wrong, vaguely menacing, that Castello Paratore stood so close to her, no more than a couple miles to the north.
My hair was pulling loose from its lone pin, a heavy coil falling to either side of my face. I touched it and could feel the leather band giving way. Looking right and then left and seeing no one, I untied the string and let my hair fall around my shoulders. I leaned forward, elbows on the wall, massaging my scalp, trying to ease away the tension there. Again, I picked up the scents of oak and sage, but now I could smell ripening grain. It was no wonder that Fortino, Marcello’s older brother, suffered so from “lung ailments,” as Cook called them—the air was thick with life here. Why had I never noticed it in my own time?
After a moment, I sensed I wasn’t alone. I slowly opened my eyes and saw Marcello, five feet away from me, hands on the castle wall, staring outward as I was. I straightened and touched my hair.
“Nay, do not,” he said kindly, lifting a hand in my direction. “It suits you,” he said, studying me with those warm, penetrating eyes. “Your hair about your shoulders. Is that how you wear it in Normandy?”
“If it is not in a braid,” I said. “Or pulled back.”
“Ahh.” He looked at me from the corners of his eyes until I felt the heat of a flush climb my neck and jaw.
I hurriedly looked back to the forest, hoping he couldn’t see my blush in the waning light. What was it about him that made me feel more…awake, somehow? Alive? I’d never felt anything like it.
“M-m’lord,” I said, deciding to focus on the practical rather than some mad, romantic fantasy. “I wondered if I might borrow a horse tomorrow, er, on the morrow, and visit Siena.”
“Siena?” asked a feminine voice.
I turned, knowing who was behind me already. Lady Rossi paraded down the allure, one of her ladies-in-waiting following behind.
“Goodness, Lady Betarrini, your hair does battle any semblance of rule, does it not?” she asked with a giggle. “Of course, this summer wind does nothing to aid any of us,” she added.
That’s right, I thought. Soften that dig. Neither of us missed it, did we?
“I, too, am eager to be off for Siena.” Lady Rossi sniffed. She glanced up at Marcello, searching his face for some reaction, but he merely nodded, almost imperceptibly. “It’s been weeks since I’ve been home, and I simply must get back to see to the details of our wedding ceremony.”
I smiled, wanting to appear conciliatory, hoping to set her at ease a little so maybe she’d stop constantly trying to provoke me. Life was tough enough without any unnecessary enemies. “I can only imagine,” I said. “How much longer until your nuptials?”
“The fifteenth of September. Generations of my family have married on that day, and all have been blessed by good fortune and many children.”
“Sounds like the right day, for certain,” I said.
“Why are you eager to get to Siena?” Marcello said, eyeing me suspiciously.
“I wonder if perhaps my mother and sister might be there. It is the next, closest city.…”
“I will send a messenger on the morrow, Lady Betarri
ni,” Marcello said. “There is no need for you to further endanger yourself.”
“Marcello,” Lady Rossi said, setting a small, delicate hand on his forearm, “you know the pull of family ties for a woman. You must allow Lady Betarrini her search. What if she misses her reunion by a day or two? That would be tragic.”
Tragic in that I wouldn’t be out of your way for good. Whatever. Don’t worry. I’ll be gone before you know it.
“Unfortunately,” Marcello said, “word reached me this evening that there are renegade armies all about us. Mercenaries. Until the Nine vote next week on whether or not to open their banks again to Firenze, I’m afraid we are in a state of unrest. I cannot allow anyone to leave.”
“M’lord, I am neither a member of this household nor bound to your care,” I said carefully, pulling my shoulders back and lifting my head. “I am most grateful for your aid, but I remain free to choose when and where I go.”
His mouth dropped open a bit, and then he clamped it shut. “Be that as it may,” he said, waving a dismissive hand through the air, “you are an unaccompanied female, and it is my duty to look after you.”
I couldn’t help but smile. What a wacky thing this chivalry deal was.… There would be no arguing with him. I could see it in his face. I’d seen it in person, last night. Best just to disappear when I decided the time was right. This time without my shadows.
My eagerness to leave seemed to soften Lady Rossi a bit. She studied me a moment and then said, “Won’t you come and join us, Lady Betarrini, for the evening reading?”
Evening reading? Maybe this place didn’t roll up with the daylight as I thought. But listening to medieval poetry or whatever they read wasn’t my idea of kickin’ back and relaxing. “I thank you for your kind invitation, m’lady, but I am still attempting to dislodge this headache. Mayhap I could join you at the next?”
“As you wish,” she said coolly, turning and then pausing at the turret doorway. “Will you be so kind as to accompany me, m’lord?” she said to Marcello.
He pulled his warm, brown eyes from me and turned to follow her. Mollified, she disappeared, her lady-in-waiting behind her, but Marcello hovered in the doorway. “There are no coils of rope hidden among your skirts this night,” he said lowly.
I let a smile spread across my face and gave a little shake of my head. “Not this night.”
“I have your word? You shall not step outside the castle?”
A guard came around the tower then. Caught, obviously delinquent in his duties, he mumbled a “m’lord” at Marcello with a tucked head and hurried past me. Where’d he been? Sneaking a snack out of the kitchen or something?
“This is not a night to be lackadaisical in our duties,” Marcello called after him. But his eyes remained on me, waiting.
Man, he was stubborn. “Not before sunup,” I said.
With that, he turned and followed his bride-to-be.
CHAPTER 8
I awakened, not to the sound of a rooster, but to men preparing for battle. Horses whinnying, leather creaking, metal clanking together.
I threw back my covers and bent to retrieve my overdress laying across the bottom of my bed. I wanted to curse the buttons and loops, but then she was there, my miraculous maid Giacinta, who seemed to sense when I was rising. Perhaps she was pacing the hall, eager for me to get up, so we could get to the courtyard and see what the fuss was all about.
“G’day, m’lady,” she said, edging around me and rapidly tending to my buttons.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, and she combed my hair. “Let’s see if we might have the best of this hair today, shall we?” she muttered.
I smiled. Good luck with that.
She braided it for a few rows, then wrapped it in a coil. She shoved eight pins into the knot, scraping my scalp, but I resisted complaint. The faster she was done with it, the faster we could be outside. “What’s happening?” I asked. “Who is preparing to ride?”
“Our knights. For once it’s not the Paratores, but some other band of ne’er-do-wells. They took a small manor under the protection of the Forellis, not far from here.”
I frowned. That didn’t sound good. Who were these guys, some sort of gang, making the most of this latest Florentine-Sienese conflict? I sighed and blew out my cheeks. No matter the era, there were always guys ready to swoop in and take advantage of a situation.…
“There you are,” she said, finishing with the hair net around my massive bun, and stepping away.
“Thank you,” I said. “It feels much more secure today.”
She bobbed a curtsy, and I moved past her and down the corridor with her right on my heels. “Giacinta,” I said, speaking to her over my shoulder, “tell me about the Forellis’ ongoing battle with the Paratores. Is it really their loyalties to Siena and Firenze that keep them in conflict?”
“Ach, it’s gone on for years,” she said, slightly out of breath. “And sure, the Forellis’ loyalty to Siena and the Paratores’ loyalty to Firenze keeps a constant tension between us. But there is a tract of land that has been forever in dispute. More than twenty men have died in trying to capture it. One week it is in the Paratores’ hands, the next, the Forellis’. This week it is ours. The Paratores are set on reclaiming it, of course. Lady Forelli—God rest her soul—begged Lord Forelli to give it to them. She was done with the death, the heartache. But you know men and their infernal pride. Both houses claim ownership. Neither house can bear to let it go.”
We arrived in the courtyard just as the men had mounted up. Marcello was leaning down, accepting a flower from Lady Rossi, then he straightened to bark orders at his men as she backed away. The horses, excited by the scent of battle on the wind, circled endlessly, fighting their masters. Marcello wheeled his gelding around and caught my eye, held it for a moment as if silently asking, You’ll stay here, right?
I gave him the barest of nods. The last thing he needed right now was to be worrying over me.
Marcello returned his attention to the men. He raised his arm, fist closed, and the men came into formation. Two by two, all eighteen of them galloped out the gates, and I felt the ground beneath my feet rumble.
Two guards closed the mammoth doors, sliding a massive metal beam across to lock it. Above them, two other guards had their backs to us, obviously watching as the men disappeared down the road. Were they sorry they had been left behind? Or secretly relieved?
I turned and hurried back to my wing’s corridor and the tower stairs that led to the allure. I wanted to be up top, watching the men go, all fired up on testosterone. Wasn’t this what boys in my own time longed to do? Go off to protect the land, the women, stand up for right? I wanted to see real men in action. It…stirred me.
So I rushed up the stairs and came through the little door, and practically ran into a guard—one I hadn’t seen before—who headed in the opposite direction. My presence obviously shocked him; he took a half step back and stared at me with wide eyes. “M’lady, this is no place for a woman!”
“B-but,” I stammered, hating my sudden high-schoolish response, but unable to stop it. “I was here last night!”
“The day has brought us different circumstances,” he said, rising to his full height, nose to nose with me. “You must get back to the safety of the keep, where no archer might maim one of our birds.”
He wasn’t going to back down. So I turned and walked away, wondering if I should be offended by the whole “bird” reference, and then shrugged it off as a fourteenth-century version of “chick.” I glanced back, considering an attempt at sneaking past the other guard, but he was staring right at me, arms crossed in front of him, and he shook his head as if reading my mind.
“All right, all right,” I muttered, ducking back through the short turret door. And swept down the stairs, wondering what the day might hold for me. Without a search for L
ia in Siena, without a chance to stare out across the forest, what? Hang out with the dreaded Lady Rossi?
Not if I could help it.
I reached the bottom of the stairs, glanced down to where my bedroom door was, and quickly decided I couldn’t spend another day cooped up in there. I walked in the opposite direction, deciding to explore a little, get an understanding of what was where around the castle. I tentatively knocked on a few doors, but it was as I suspected. This wing of the castle was empty save for me. “What?” I muttered. “Do I have the plague or something?”
I was actually glad for the privacy. The last thing I needed was Lady Rossi hanging out with me, jumping on the bed like we were going to have a sleepover or something, asking me what I thought of her boyfriend. No, that wouldn’t be good. When I reached the turret, I came into the courtyard, entered the next door, and continued on down the next segment of the corridor. The castle was laid out like a pentagon, with a tall, crenellated tower at each corner. Each corridor had a fortified door. Luca had informed me it was for defensibility. One wing might fall to attackers, but chances were, the castle’s defenders could hold them off somewhere. I ran my hand across the pockmarked limestone bricks, wondering how long ago the castello had been built. It was no wonder she was important to Siena; she was like a tight little ship on the far edge of the sea.
What had left her dismantled, totally leveled, by the time Lia and I explored her ruins? And when? Other medieval buildings survived. What had happened here?
I moved into the next segment and immediately saw and heard more action. Here, maids were at work, and I could see massive trunks and many dresses across the two large beds in the first, big room, with tapestries on the wall and a small fire crackling in a corner hearth. It was nothing like my own austere room, suitable for a nun.
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