“A cup of water,” I croaked, lifting a hand to my head as another bout of dizziness passed through me.
She rose and then hesitated.
I dragged my eyes to look where she did.
Marcello had paused before me, still astride his horse, helmet off, hair blowing about in the breeze. “M’lady, are you ailing?” he asked, his brows furrowed in concern.
“Not now that I know you are victor, m’lord,” I said, so quietly that only he would hear.
But then I heard the whispering begin, the medieval version of telephone. I knew my words would be passed around the circle of spectators within moments.
Blessedly, the archery round was announced.
“Lift your handkerchief if you are in need of an escape,” Marcello said, repeating our earlier agreement, then trotted off to the end of the courtyard.
Lia was there then with my water, and I drank from the pottery goblet, glad to have something to do. I felt the heavy gaze of the crowd, assessing, wondering. Marcello had paid homage to his bride-to-be, but in the end, as victor, it was me he had gone to. I cursed my sick stomach. If only I’d kept calm, had not shifted, I might not have caught his eye.…
“Lia, fetch me a bit of bread, would you?” I whispered.
“I’ll send some back,” she whispered, looking at me meaningfully. “I’m on deck.”
I followed her glance to the ring, where ten targets were set up. When Lia rose, the crowd went berserk, cheering, beside themselves to see her in action. Lord Foraboschi rose from Romana’s side, bent, whispered something in her ear, then left her. In the gap he left, I spotted the doctor, but when I caught his eye, he moved away, as if not wishing to be seen. I frowned, puzzling over that.
Such an odd little man.
“Do you fear for your sister?” Luca said, sitting beside me. He handed me a plate of bread, cheese, and grapes. “She sent you this.”
“You are her servant now?” I asked wryly.
“In every way.” He sighed. “The lady has captured my heart. Now she’ll capture everyone else’s, and I’ll have no hope to compete for her. Here, take my hand,” he said, reaching for my right. “Mayhap it shall make her terribly jealous.”
I smiled. He was so melodramatic. And totally charming. I couldn’t believe Lia hadn’t fallen for him, too. She usually liked the guys who made her laugh.
It was just as well, I thought with a sigh. Then we’d both be torn. I watched as Marcello took his seat beside Romana again, covering her hand with his. I shoved a piece of bread into my mouth, forcing myself to chew and swallow. The medicine was probably hard on my tummy. If I had taken it in modern times, it’d probably come with the take-it-with-food warning.
The targets were set out, and when Lia reached for an arrow in the quiver on her back, the crowd again went nuts. I smiled as they drew their arrows, pulled, and let them fly at the master’s count. All struck within the first two rings of their targets, Lia’s dead center. The crowd applauded, and the archers counted out ten more paces, and again let arrows fly. All again were within the first two rings of the center.
I saw Lord Foraboschi lean over and say something to Lia. She paused, and I felt Luca’s hand tighten over mine. Then Lord Foraboschi turned and smirked in our direction. The skin beneath one eye was slightly purple where Luca had decked him.
“Luca, remain where you are,” I cautioned, holding on to him. “She’ll see this to its best conclusion.”
He said nothing, so uncharacteristic of him that I fretted over it. I hoped Lord Foraboschi wouldn’t dare to say anything more to Lia. She’d never let him win if he continued to goad her.
The archers walked ten more paces, let arrows fly, and three of them were eliminated, trudging out of the courtyard in defeat.
With seven left, pigeons were released, all painted in colors that matched the archer’s arrow tips. They had to find their targets and bring them down. Lia let one arrow fly, and it missed the bird, but she was already taking aim again and, with the second arrow, brought the creature down just before it escaped over the wall.
The crowd exploded in shouts and laughter and excitement again. Only four had managed to come this far. I wondered for a moment if the emotions of killing a bird would slow her down, but with one look at her face, I knew we were sunk. She wasn’t going to let Lord Foraboschi win.
I groaned.
“What is it?” Luca asked, leaning toward me. “She’s doing as well as we knew she would.”
“Nothing. Never mind,” I said, shaking my head. I shoved another bite of bread into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed, feeling a pang in my gut and another wave of nausea. What would happen if she was the victor? Would it make Lord Foraboschi more of a lethal threat to us? It was all so dang complicated. His relationship with the Rossis, their relationship with the Forellis…
The games master was calling out the next challenge. Men on the allures above us were carrying hay bales bound to a leather shield. They would appear in random places. The first archer to stick five of them would be declared the victor.
“No,” Luca grumbled. “Of all the thoughtless, crass decisions…”
I bit my lip. It was too much like Castello Paratore. Too much like that night. Would Lia again dissolve into tears? The others drew arrows across their bows. Two looked at Lia with concern, as if guessing at what might have given her pause. The games master shouted his count, and arrows began flying. Lord Foraboschi struck one, turned toward Lia and smirked. She tilted her chin in defiance before he turned and fired again, hitting the second. I gripped Luca’s hand, hard again.
The crowd hushed, watching the drama play out before them like a silent movie. Lia was staring after Lord Foraboschi, who was aiming at a third moving target, narrowly missing it. Then as if snapping out of her stupor, she suddenly sprang into action, on the move, drawing once, twice, thrice, hitting three targets in quick succession.
Men shouted. Women shrieked. But I knew Lia heard nothing, acting as she had at the castle that fateful night—on instinct. Lord Foraboschi frowned and held a hand out to her, as if complaining about her method, but Lia took her fourth and fifth targets down before he had a chance to bring his hand back to his own bow.
Children ran out and surrounded her, arms up, dancing. The crowd followed, lifting her to their shoulders. Luca laughed and rose, clapping.
When she was turned toward me, her concentrated expression disappeared and an apologetic look replaced it, as if to say, Sorry! Couldn’t help it!
I sighed and smiled.
After all, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
CHAPTER 26
The games went on for another couple of hours, but Evangelia’s clear and dramatic victory was really the Big Deal. As things wrapped up with a pretty speech from Fortino, again honoring me and my sister, I tried to beg off, eager to return to my room to try and sleep. Perhaps with sleep this gut ache will go away.…
But the people wouldn’t hear of it. I was carried on my lounge into the Great Hall and deposited in the center of the dais. A goblet of wine was thrust into my hand, and a plate of grapes set beside me. Evangelia hovered nearby but was constantly drawn into conversations and introductions. Romana, to her credit, ventured near and gave me a pretty curtsy.
“No doubt you would’ve given the swordsmen an apt challenger, just as your sister has done, were you not ailing.”
I dismissed her praise. “Evangelia has always been a far better archer than I have ever been at swordplay.” I gestured down at my side. “Witness the results of my last challenge.”
The doctor was there then, with us. “How is your pain, m’lady?” He bent and took my wrist in his small hand, feeling for my pulse.
“The medicine seems to be keeping the pain at bay,” I said. I noticed then, the beginning tinge of its return. I gest
ured for him to lean closer. “It is my belly, Doctor. I think the medicine is upsetting my stomach.”
He frowned and rose, sniffing as if perturbed by my second-guessing. “Impossible. I’ve never had a patient who had such a reaction. Have you been eating?”
“Some.”
“Clearly, not enough. Do you have pain now?”
“Just a bit,” I said, trying to process his reaction. Why was he so defensive? Because I was younger? A woman? Questioning him?
“Take another dose now,” he said, handing me the clay flask. “Another at bedtime, and so on.” He reached into his bag and pulled out the small packet of powder he’d sprinkled on my wound earlier. “Tonight, before bed, have your sister administer some of this, and sleep with it open, to the air.”
I nodded, puzzled. It sounded as if he was leaving. Had he not intended to remain nearby? Promised to be available?
“I must be off. I’m to visit another family not far from here, by nightfall.” He gave me a stern look. “You will take your medications as instructed?”
“Yes, Doctor,” I said. A part of me was glad. He was weird. He made me nervous. I could take my medicine, with or without him there.
He waited, and I realized he wanted to see me take my next dose in front of him. Obediently, I took a swig, making it look like a bigger mouthful than it was.
Satisfied, he nodded once and moved out through the crowd. By the door, I saw him stop to speak with Lord Foraboschi, receive something and pocket it, then exit through the tall doors. Had it been the Rossis’ pull, their demand that set him on to a new patient, leaving me behind?
I shoved the idea out of my mind and lifted my gaze to the room.
My attention was drawn by a woman in a fine tapestry gown, her hair in an elaborate headdress, as she stopped in the center of the room. The crowd took their seats, and wine was passed around. The woman folded her hands, held them slightly away from her body, and began to sing without accompaniment, perfectly on pitch.
Her words were in Latin, but her voice and expression could be understood in any language. She sang of love, loss, victory. She captured the attention of everyone in the room. When her last note rose and rose and rose, a shiver ran down my neck. If only I could sing like that…
I wished I could turn and see Marcello, see how this singer affected him, but I could not. Marcello, Fortino, and most of the others were behind me, at the table with the Rossis and the other nobles. To turn and catch his eye then would’ve been seen by all.
And I was with Lia now. We had to be off, gone from here. Every hour we tarried only brought more angst.
I shifted, glad the small dose of medicine was dulling my pain, but again feeling a rolling wave of nausea come over me. My stomach twisted in a cramp, and I gasped, bringing my hand to my belly. Luckily, everyone at that moment was rising and cheering the singer, unaware of me for but a few seconds. I pulled my legs around and off the lounge, looking madly for Lia. I had to escape the hall—get to my room.
I bent over at the next pang that pulled my stomach in a knot. My heart was racing, faster and harder than I’d ever felt before. My lips parted. Had I not been robbed of breath, I might’ve screamed.
Cook was beside me in seconds, as was Lia. “M’lady?”
“I am ill,” I ground out. “More than just my wound. I must return to my quarters—”
Another pang of pain strangled me.
“M’lady,” Marcello said lowly, on my other side.
I looked up at him, desperate, frightened.
“She is ill,” Cook said. “We must return her to her quarters.”
“On her lounge,” he said, waving several servants forward.
“Nay, now,” I said, trying to come to my feet again. I was so afraid I was about to vomit, right there, in front of everyone. But then another stomach pain came, rolling through me, making me shudder.
Marcello frowned, bent, and swept me into his arms, careful to keep his hand from the wound at my side. Then he carried me out, the crowd dissolving into whispers behind hands. I couldn’t help it. At the next wave of pain, I cried out, wincing and shutting my eyes, hoping it would soon be over.
Luca appeared before us, holding one door, Lia the other. I knew they followed us across the courtyard.
“Where is the physician?” Marcello ground out.
“He left,” I said.
“Left? Departed?” He was incredulous.
I nodded.
His handsome face became stormy with anger. “He did not beg my leave.”
“He spoke with Lord Foraboschi. Perhaps he dismissed him. Oh!” I cried.
Marcello was practically running with me now. In short order, I was back in my quarters, in my bed. But I could not stay still. I was writhing in pain.
“It is the medicine,” I said, shaking my head, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I tried to tell the doctor it was helping the pain but making me nauseous.…”
Marcello eyed Cook, and she turned to wave a servant over. When he bent to speak with her, she whispered in his ear, and he was off.
Lia came to my side and took my hand in both of hers. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know,” I said, writhing, embarrassed, but helpless against the pain inside me.
“You have to remain still, Gabi. Your wound—”
“I know,” I said, writhing again, growing rigid, then lax. She was worried I’d rip my tender wound open. I was worried about it too.
But my bigger concern was that something much worse was transpiring inside. Infection? A reaction to the medicine?
Cook and Lia were apparently thinking the same thing. They pushed the men out the door, helped me out of my gown and into my short sleeping gown, then eased me to my side so they could look upon the scar. I glanced down, expecting the wound to be completely opened, oozing with infection. But it looked much as it had this morning, except for a tiny tear in the center, where my movements had pulled it open.
“Maybe it’s inside,” I said to Lia, then grunted through another wave of pain. They were getting stronger. “An infection. Deep down.” But the frantic pace of my heart was scaring me more now. I couldn’t get it to calm down. It was pounding so hard I thought that it might look like those old cartoons, with a heart-shaped pillar bouncing in and out of my chest.
The men burst through the door, my medicine flask in hand. Marcello’s face was white. “She’s been poisoned,” Luca said lowly to Lia.
Marcello stared at me for a long moment, and for the first time, other than when he had confessed love for me, I saw a helpless expression upon his face.
“What? Poison? What is it?” I asked.
“Arsenic. Cloaked inside something else, we think,” Marcello said. He came and knelt beside my bed, stroking my face. “I shall hunt him down, Gabriella. He shall pay for these crimes—after he tells me who paid him to do such a horrific thing.”
He was making me a deathbed promise. Giving me something to cling to as I departed.
“There—” I coughed, winced, and then forced my eyes open again. “There is no antidote?”
His eyes, so wide and brown, grew even more forlorn. He shook his head, looking down in sorrow.
I looked over my shoulder to Lia. There had to be an antidote. I’d taken it too long ago to throw it up. There had to be another option. If only we could Google it…
We had to get out of here. Back to our own time. Immediately. It was the only thing that could save me.
“Lord Marcello, I must speak to you in private,” Lia said, reading my mind.
“I am not leaving her,” he said, staring at me.
“Then have them leave,” I managed to say, my voice ragged.
He studied me, then raised his hand, clearing the room of servants. Cook was last to go, re
luctantly closing the door behind her. Luca remained. “He is as close to me as Fortino. Say what you must before us both,” Marcello said, pulling his eyes from me for but a second to look Lia in the eye.
She came around the bed and knelt beside me and Marcello. Luca hovered over his shoulder. “What I am about to tell you will be difficult to understand. We do not yet understand it ourselves.”
I cried out, wondering if this was what it felt like to have a baby. Labor pains. My insides tearing. Was I already bleeding within? And added to that, was I about to have a full-on heart attack at seventeen?
“Three weeks past we came to you, through the tomb.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Marcello said. “We remember it well.”
“Nay,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm, forcing him to look her in the eye. “We came from another time. The same place, but hundreds of years into the future. We came from that time, to you, here, through the tomb. It is some sort of portal.”
His eyes grew large and his brow furrowed as he stared at her. “You are witches?” he asked, his tone incredulous. “Practitioners of some dark magic?”
“Nay,” she said calmly. “Nothing but two girls who were transported through time—as if we walked through a doorway in error.”
He rose, looking frightened and confused. “You speak of madness.”
Luca stood beside him, arms folded, no trace of humor in his face.
Lia rose too as I cried out with another pang.
“I must get her home, Marcello. To our own time. She is dying here. You said yourself there is no antidote. But there, in the future, we have antidotes to nearly everything. If I can get her to Radda in Chianti in time…”
I winced, thinking of how far the Etruscan site was from any real sort of medical care, even in our own time. I cried out again, sounding pitiful, even to my own ears. When it was over, I gasped for breath as more tears rolled down my face.
Lia stepped forward and grabbed Marcello’s tunic with both hands. “Do you love her? Do you love her as you have professed?” she demanded, all tough, trying to snap him out of his shock.
The River of Time Series Page 29
