The River of Time Series

by Lisa T. Bergren

  I looked back at him, as if considering his words. Then after the right amount of time, I simply said, “Agreed.”

  Now let go of me.

  Instead, he moved his hands to my neck, caressing it, but the threat was clear enough. He rubbed his thumbs, back and forth across my jugular vein. “M’lady, you do understand that if you double-cross me, I shall hunt you down and kill you. But not before you see your sister suffer in ways that you have never imagined. Evangelia is quite…untried, yes?”

  If I’d had a sword I would’ve run the man through right then. But I controlled myself. “You dare to lay a hand on her—”

  “You are hardly in the position to make threats, m’lady. Do you understand me? Are you ready to serve me as your lord?”

  I nodded, unable to speak. For a moment, I considered charging upstairs and trying Lia’s lame plan for escape by fighting our way out. Better to die fighting than to die via torture. But I knew Marcello, too. I knew I could trust him and that he would do everything in his power to get her out of this place. And we’d have a far better chance with the Forelli men beside us.

  But he was then ushering me to the door. “Thank you for your visit, m’lady. Return to me with the information I seek, or your sister will be ushered out of her quarters and into a far less appealing room, one with chains and all sorts of unsavory tools.”

  I turned toward him, but he shut the door in my face, a smile on his lips. Did he half hope I proved to be his enemy so he could take it out on Lia? I shook my head, trembling at the thought. The hulking knight led my gelding forward and watched me come near. I felt numb, lost in a stupor.

  He lifted me into the saddle, tucked my feet into the stirrups, and slapped the horse on the rump. Two more knights opened the gates before me, and I plodded out, glancing back over my shoulder to Lia’s narrow window. She was there, watching me.

  I raised my hand to wave, but then they were shutting the gates.

  Shutting me out.

  Shutting her in.

  CHAPTER 14

  The elder Lord Forelli was outrageously angry when word reached him about what had happened in Siena, that I’d been sent away because Marcello deemed me a threat to his union with Romana. He summoned me to the solarium the next day and paced back and forth, sputtering, trying to be gracious in his word choice but too angry to be very successful at it. Fortino stared at me in misery from a corner chair. I believed it was only because of him that I wasn’t immediately shown to the castle gates.

  “I have no choice, m’lady,” said the older man. “You must be on your way, as soon as possible. You cannot be here when my son returns. I’m certain you understand. There is simply too much at stake. Far too much at stake.”

  The man had no idea.

  He wanted to secure his relations with Siena.

  I wanted to save my sister.

  “I intend to be on my way as soon as possible, m’lord,” I soothed. “It is why I left Siena immediately. I have no desire to interfere with Lord Marcello’s plans nor his coming nuptials.”

  He opened his mouth to say something else, but then clamped it shut. “Forgive me, my dear.” He reached up a bent, age-spotted hand to rub his temple. “These are such trying times. Were they not, I would allow love to flourish where it may.” He cast me a sorrowful glance. “You are an uncommon woman, as brave as you are beautiful. Your courage clearly helped save Lady Rossi, and your ministrations have surely rallied Fortino. For both of those things, I shall be eternally in your debt.”

  I shared a smile with Fortino. He rose, then, looking shaky, but reveling in newfound strength. “It is little surprise you caught Marcello’s attention. You captured us all.”

  “Please,” I said, lifting a hand to stop him. “Truly, I cannot bear to speak of it any longer. All I await is word of my sister, and I shall be on my way.”

  Lord Forelli nodded, appearing more as a broken old man than lord of the castle. “I shall have our priest pray for nothing else. Now if you’ll forgive me, I must go and rest.” He reached for a servant’s arm and tottered out of the room.

  Luca peeked in. “M’lord,” he said to Fortino, “with your permission—”

  “Come, come,” Fortino said wearily, waving him in and sinking back to his chair.

  I took a seat beside him, and Luca sat across from us, arms on knees. “Was it truly awful?” Luca asked me conspiratorially.

  “About as we suspected,” I said.

  Luca and I’d clued in Fortino as to what had transpired in Siena, and of Paratore’s plans. Luca had told me that Marcello’s brother was once one of the most brilliant strategists in Toscana, before he took ill years before. We needed his expertise. And it was his place, as eldest of the Forelli sons.

  “Father’s anger and fear are dissipating a bit,” Fortino said. “He believes that you intend to leave, Gabriella. But he’ll be beside himself if Marcello returns and you are still here.” He looked at me with regret.

  Luca nodded, considering his words. “Marcello will be five miles out, on the morrow. That was our agreement.”

  “And Gabriella can go to Lord Paratore on the morrow with her final plan.”

  “What plan?” I said, hating the squeak in my voice. “We still don’t have an entry point to suggest to Lord Paratore, right?”

  They shook their heads. Fortino rose on trembling legs and went to the fireplace, stirring the cold ashes and then dividing them into mounds. Luca cast me a wise eye and waited—Marcello’s brother was thinking it through.

  “Lord Paratore knows you are adept with a sword,” Fortino said, looking at me from the corner of his eye. “He knows you are daring. What if you go to him and tell him the truth—that you see no weakness whatsoever in the castle. But his threats are understandably making you fear for your sister’s life. Propose that you take out the two front gate guards yourself. Plunge a sword into one, toss a dagger across at the other. Swing down and open the gate before any others can reach you.”

  I opened my eyes wide. “Swing down. Just like that?”

  He looked embarrassed to have assumed so much. “Luca said that you slid down a rope one night—”

  I held up my hand. “That’s quite a plan. But I am not prepared to kill Forelli men to save my sister’s life.”

  “We feign your attack, their death,” Luca said with a shrug, picking up on where Fortino was going. “In the dim, flickering torchlight, it will be easy enough.”

  I leaned back, considering it. “Dare he believe it would be that simple?”

  He thought it through too. “Cosmo Paratore has never had a spy on the inside of Castello Forelli before. Not since his father’s time has there been such unrest between us. It was he who seized that hill and redrew the property boundary. He is power hungry, willing to do whatever he can to secure his place in Florentine society. If Castello Forelli is breached from the front gates, so much the better. That sort of thing lives long in tales around the table. He’ll glory in the plan, and never suspect that reinforcements might be nearby.”

  “And those inside the castle? They could withstand such an attack? Resist them until our reinforcements arrived?”

  “Yes. We’d have them divide into the various corridors. Barricade the doors. Paratore’s men would have to divide as well.”

  That put me on edge. What would happen if they broke through one of those barricades?

  Fortino saw my trepidation and touched my hand comfortingly. “We can build additional barricades that will surprise them, inside the first, further slowing them down.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, Fortino. It is such a grave risk. If anyone was to perish.…”

  “M’lady, we’ve lost many men in the last three years. Lord Paratore and Marcello have been saved, neither side ready to bring down the wrath of the city the opposite repre
sents. But people continually die around them. If this could be decided, now, if we could capture Castello Paratore and claim it for Siena, it is as Marcello hoped. We become more formidable still. It is a wise risk to take, given the increased hostilities between our cities. And freeing your sister becomes an added benefit.”

  “And I am always amenable to rescuing damsels in distress, especially if it means they will be forever grateful to me,” Luca said.

  I smiled at his bravado. “So, when they attack, would a portion of our soldiers go directly to Castello Paratore? Before Lord Paratore could return from here?”

  He knew what I was asking. I didn’t want any chance that Paratore could fall back and get to Lia before us.

  “Mark my words. If Lord Paratore dares to attack Castello Forelli, you will find him nowhere but at the front of his men, charging through those gates.”

  I swallowed hard, imagining the men in crimson coming in on horseback. Open battle within the courtyard. It was hard to fathom.

  “Which isn’t to say that your sister will not be heavily guarded,” Fortino cautioned. “He knows she is significant, a powerful pawn in this game. His only hold on you.”

  I stared at him. “But we can get to her?”

  “M’lady,” Luca said, “all manner of unexpected things transpire during battle. I can promise that I will do everything in my power to get to her, to free her.” He shrugged his shoulders. “That is all I can promise.”

  I sighed and looked around the courtyard. “Begin your preparations. Make it appear as something else. You’re certain Marcello shall return on the morrow?”

  “He promised. Even Lady Rossi couldn’t force him to stay in Siena.”

  I shook my head. Lord Forelli would have a heart attack, seeing me in the same room with his younger son.

  “You shall go to Lord Paratore tonight,” Luca said.

  “And how do I manage that?”

  “Over the wall,” Luca said, waggling his eyebrows. “You’ll bribe a couple of guards. They’ll turn a blind eye, even as they lower you down in a basket. When you return, they’ll raise you back up, making it appear as nothing more than a clandestine exit and entry by a woman with a secret to keep. It will help in convincing Lord Paratore that you can manage the guards, the night of the attack. Tell him you’re using a good measure of your feminine charms. He’s a leech at heart.”

  I sighed. The plan just kept getting better and better.

  “We’ve come this far,” Luca said, cocking his head. “Do you have it in you to see it through?”

  I nodded, pretending to be a hundred times more courageous than I felt.

  But that was the thing about courage. Sometimes you had to fake it to feel it.

  That night, I did as Fortino and Luca had instructed. They’d spoken to the guards, and all was in place. All I had to do was climb the turret stairs and they would have me over the edge in minutes. Under my skirts, I pulled on my skinny jeans. Somehow, having pants on made me feel extra protected, prepared. It seemed silly, even to me, but at that point, I was grasping at anything I had.

  I was about to invite the enemy into what had become my home.

  And I had to go and tell the enemy all about it. Lie with everything in me. Academy Award kind of performance. Make him believe it. If he doubted me at all, we would lose on every front. At Castello Forelli. At Castello Paratore. Lose, lose, lose, I chanted, running down the path.

  There was no horse in the whole basket plan. Which was just as well. It was easier to steal away from Castello Forelli and toward the Paratores without being on top of a mount. But that still meant I had to jog two miles in those cursed slippers again. I wished I could have pulled on tennis shoes as well as jeans, but somewhere along the way my sneakers had been stolen or misplaced.

  I looked about, trying to make out Luca’s shape in the shadows of the forest. He had promised to be out here, waiting on me, following me across every acre and back again, even if I didn’t see him. It was vital he was not seen with me. That the Paratore crew all thought I was alone. But it comforted me to think that he shadowed me, watched over me. It allowed me to ignore every spooky sound I heard in the forest, only chalking it up to Luca, on guard duty.

  Just put one foot in front of the other, I told myself, pressing on, picking my way across the creek in bare feet, donning the cursed slippers again on the other side. I hurried now, thinking of Lia, awaiting me. A half hour later I reached the road that led to Castello Paratore. My heart beat in double time, and not just because of the jog on over there.

  I reached the gates, and the guards lifted torches high, then tossed one down at my feet in order to see me better. I scattered backward, aghast that they risked setting me on fire in order to catch a better glimpse, but I maintained my stance, looking up. A man slid open a tiny view window. “Open the gates, quickly,” I hissed, looking back and forth, as if I was afraid I’d be seen.

  The guard shut the window and the gates creaked open, only wide enough to allow me passage in. They closed quickly behind me, and I tried to get a grip. Wordlessly, I submitted to a search for weapons, but this time, I had come unarmed. There was no reason to endure more groping than was necessary—although they did puzzle over my jeans.

  “It’s the Norman way,” I said. To which they furrowed their brows and shrugged.

  I was then ushered inside the living quarters, through torch-lit halls to the grand salon where I’d first met with Lord Paratore. I steeled myself for the moment when I’d see him again.

  The guards brought me into the room, then slowly closed the doors behind me. I stared at the figure by the fireplace, frowning. He didn’t look quite right. But it was dark in the room. Only three candles in the massive space.

  And then he turned. Lord Vannucci. He gave me his thin-lipped smile and turned to eye Lord Paratore, in the far corner, gazing out the window. My head whipped to face the other man. With both in the room, that whole fight-or-flight thing kicked into high gear. And I had a serious impulse to fly.

  “Lord Vannucci,” I managed. “I am glad you made a safe return.”

  “And I am glad to see you. Although a bit surprised.” He came over to me and circled me. “I thought it was understood that I would come to you at Castello Forelli. Imagine my surprise in finding you had already been here.”

  “I could not wait,” I said, shaking my head, “knowing Evangelia was so close. I had to see her, talk to Lord Paratore myself. And I’ve made progress,” I said eagerly, cursing myself for sounding more like a guilty schoolgirl, eager to make things right, than a trustworthy confidant.

  “I’m interested to hear of it,” he said, pausing before me, taking my hand in his and covering it with the other. “You have a plan?”

  “I believe so.”

  Lord Paratore moved to speak with the guards outside, and then quietly shut the door again. He went to a small table and poured me a glass of wine. I accepted it, cursing my trembling hand.

  My heart was pounding like crazy. Get it together, Gabi. Academy Award, Academy Award…

  “Please, sit. Tell us what you’ve discovered.” Paratore sat across from me. Lord Vannucci sat nearby, staring hard at me. Why? To see if I’d crack?

  Quickly, I began to spit out the plan, lamenting the impenetrable nature of the castle and the audacious attack that would be required to take her.

  “I’ve been inside Castello Forelli,” Lord Vannucci said, leaning toward me. “What is to keep the people from merely barricading themselves in the corridors?”

  “Castello Forelli has not sustained a breach in her gates or walls in decades,” I agreed. “The people sleep with the doors closed, but they are unlocked. I’ve seen servants enter every corridor, late at night, and early in the morning. And I assume that even you, Lord Paratore, would not attack them during the light of day.”

>   He nodded at me, as if I’d just tossed him a serious compliment.

  I smiled at him as if I wasn’t thinking jerk in silent reply.

  He looked to Lord Vannucci, and they consulted, turning their backs to me so I couldn’t hear as they considered my plan.

  A quiet knock sounded at the door. Lord Paratore rose and went to open it, swinging both sides wide.

  “Lia,” I breathed. She was a vision, dressed in the palest blue silk, as if she were a princess at a ball.

  “Forgive me,” Lord Paratore said, touching Lia’s bare shoulder lightly, “but I find this necessary to make clear my position to you both.”

  I frowned. What was he talking about?

  Lord Vannucci put a hand on my lower back and propelled me over to the others. At first, I went along willingly, but then I saw Paratore wrap his meaty hand around the back of Lia’s neck. My sister blanched.

  Vannucci’s hand moved to my forearm and gripped it tightly. They dragged us into the hall and to the end, then down a narrow, stone staircase.

  “M’lord, what are you doing?” Lia asked, voice quavering.

  “Ensuring that our plan goes as your sister has laid it out.”

  No. No, no, no!

  “Fear not,” Lord Vannucci said to Lia, but his eyes were on me. “I’m certain this will be soon over. In a day, perhaps two at the most.”

  Dread surged through me. Lord Paratore reached for a torch and went first, pulling Lia behind him. We descended more stairs, curving down into the depths below the castle. It was immediately twenty degrees colder, and I shivered, wanting to rub the chill from my bare arms.

  “Ahh, here we are,” he said proudly, as if he were about to show us his most glorious quarters. He went about the room and lit the other three torches, placing his own on the fourth wall. “It gets so dark down here without a little torchlight. Those shall last a good four or five hours,” he said.