HISTORICAL NOTES
While I love the research process and seek to honor the facts in my fiction, medieval historians tend to occasionally disagree on the “facts,” forcing authors using their materials to make their best guess as to who might be correct. Add in the fact that there are few resources related to pre-Renaissance, medieval Italian history (translated in English), and I was forced to speculate now and again. Some facts are borrowed from known English history, which is better documented (and more easily read/absorbed by this English speaker). All that said, I did my best to bring you a novel that you could trust as being true to the times and yet not get in the way of the story.
In regard to the Etruscans, my description of the tombs is a fictional combination of a number of different sites and configurations found throughout Italy. Although the artifacts and frescoes inside “my” tombs are like those that archaeologists have excavated—with the exception of the two handprints—no known tumuli like I’ve described have been found in this portion of Tuscany.
Sidesaddles have been documented in artwork from Grecian and Celtic times but didn’t really become popular until Anne of Bohemia (1366–1394) made them her preferred mode of transportation. Later, Catherine de’ Medici had her own version, and it developed from there. I added in my own version of the sidesaddle to this series because I couldn’t quite imagine the female nobility of Toscana riding astride in their long skirts and thought it fair to utilize such conjecture.
Siena and Florence battled each other for hundreds of years. Lords had their own hilltop castles, the remains of which you can see throughout Tuscany, and were therefore always seeking to extend—or forced to protect—their borders. Politically religious divisions (Guelph and Ghibelline) did not help assuage the upheaval, which did not cease until 1555, when Florence succeeded in conquering Siena once and for all. But my specific battles, of course, are a work of fiction, as are my characters.
I make no claim to be a “historian,” but I love history, and my research often gives me new plot turns or aspects of life that enhance my story. What follows is a bibliography—a list of the resources I found most helpful in researching this series and attempting to get my facts right. If you’re interested in the medieval era, you might check some of them out. (Frances and Joseph Gies are particularly readable/accessible.) If you actually go that far, be sure to email me through the River of Time series Facebook page—I’ll give you a virtual pat on the back, and we can discuss things like trenchers and wiping your face with the tablecloth after dinner.
Lisa T. Bergren
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. Illustrations by Sandro Botticelli. Translated by Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
Feo, Giovanni. The Hilltop Towns of the Fiora Valley. Pitigliano, Grosseto: Editrice Laurum, 2005.
Gies, Joseph and Frances. Daily Life in Medieval Times. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1990.
———. Women in the Middle Ages. New York: Harper Perennial, 1978.
Hyde, J. K. Society and Politics in Medieval Italy. London: Macmillan Press, 1973.
Kleinhenz, Christopher, ed. Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Martinelli, Maurizio and Giulio Paolucci. Guide to the Places of the Etruscans. Edited by Claudio Strinati. Florence, Italy: SCALA Group, S.p.A., 2007.
Norris, Herbert. Medieval Costume and Fashion. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1998.
Pellegrini, Enrico. The Etruscans of Pitigliano. Translated by Patrizia Vittimberga. Pitigliano, Grosseto: Editrice Laurum, 2005.
Strehlow, Dr. Wighard and Dr. Gottfried Hertzka. Hildegard of Bingen’s Medicine. Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Company, 1987.
There is always one unexpected moment in
life when a door opens to let the future in.
—Graham Greene
Dear Reader,
Few of us have a real handle on the medieval time period and Italy’s history. So here are a few reminders before you dive back into Gabi and Lia’s story.…
In this era, Italy was volatile and divided into lots of city-states. The Vatican had been moved to Avignon, France, because the pope(s) felt safer there. The Vatican would stay away from Rome for almost seventy years total.
City-states were sometimes called communes, or republics, and were run by semidemocratic bodies or groups of elected leaders. In Siena, this group was the Council of Nine. Florence, or Firenze, had two councils with more than five hundred men; I’ve chosen to represent them with the fictional grandi, based on a smaller group that actually served as city advisors to the Fiorentini (people of Florence).
Other territories were ruled by rich lords with hilltop fortresses or castles—but most had to be in league with others (or had powerful connections) if they hoped to hold their territory for any length of time. Many hired mercenaries or knights to help them fight off anyone attempting to take what was theirs.
Florence and Siena, like all of the big city-states, alternated between peace and a struggle for power and territory. In the thirteenth century, the terms Guelph and Ghibelline came into use as people fought either for the emperor’s imperialistic goals (Ghibelline) or to follow the pope’s leadership (Guelph). For the purposes of this fourteenth-century series, Florence/Firenze is referred to as “Guelph” and Siena as “Ghibelline,” which is a simplistic generalization of their loyalties. But trust me, if we went deeper, I’d really risk losing you.
I see the backdrop of politics and history as seasoning to the fictional stew; the heart of the meal is the story itself. My hope is that this recap helps you stay with that!
—LTB
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
AfterWords
A CHAT WITH LISA BERGREN
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
HISTORICAL AND FACTUAL NOTES
Facebook Fan Site
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1
Mom freaked out when she saw us, of course.
I couldn’t blame her, with Lia in her medieval gown. And me looking like I’d been mauled by a bear. Especially when two meaty guards were hauling us into Dr. Manero’s tent. “It’s all right, Mom,” I said, hands out, as she rushed toward us. Her face was white.
“Lasciateli,” she shouted in irritation—let them go—brushing the guards’ hands off our arms, staring at the blood on me. “Girls, what in the—”
“She’s all right, Mom,” Lia began. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“It’s okay,” I said, pushing her hands away as she touched my underdress—a gown made hundreds of years before—and tried to figure out what kind of wound had made me look like I’d been doused in ketchup. “I’m fine, Mom. Really.”
But her fingers remained on the raw weave of the silk fabric. Her beautiful blue eyes widened, then her narrow br
ows lowered as she rubbed it between thumb and forefinger and bent to study the weave. She turned and touched Lia’s gown. “Where did you get these clothes?”
“Mom,” I whispered, “can we talk about it alone?” Manero—Dr. Manero, my parents’ long-time adversary, a bigwig with the Societa Archeologico dell’ Italia—was staring at us with a smug look on his face, as if he had us all exactly where he wanted us.
“They were found in Tomb Two, Dr. Betarrini,” he said, crossing his arms. I pictured him stuffing a cigar into his mouth, leaning back in a chair, and putting his feet up on the desk, hands behind his head. “You know what giving unauthorized persons access can do to one’s site approvals.”
Mom frowned now and shook her head a little. “Impossible. They’d never…” Her words faded as she saw the sheepish looks in our eyes. “No. Girls, tell me you weren’t inside. No. Why?”
“Mom, we need to talk to you alone,” I said again.
She stared at me, eye to eye—we’re exactly the same height—and then at Lia, and finally at Manero. “Ci serve un’ attimo.” We need a minute.
“What’s to say? Yes, your papers are in order, but you clearly need my help here to secure the site. If your own daughters feel free to run roughshod over—”
“We were not ‘running roughshod’ over the site,” I bit back at him. “We were just peeking in.”
He raised one dark brow. “Climbing inside hardly constitutes peeking.”
Mom looked at us in horror.
“We need a minute, Mom,” I said for the third time. “We can explain.”
She was getting that There’s-No-Explanation-for-Trespassing kind of wild fury look in her eyes. The sort that usually left her sputtering before she found her steam and really let us have it.
Lia saw it too. “Mom,” she said, “can we go outside?”
“No need,” Manero said, chin in the air. “I shall leave you three to discuss your business. I’ll return in fifteen minutes to discuss our business.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I muttered. He paused but did not turn, then left the tent.
Mom crossed her arms and took a seat on a folding stool. “Start talking.”
Lia and I shared a look. My head and heart were swirling. It was better that Lia told her. I sat down on a stool by the desk, face in my hands, looking at my mother and sister but thinking how lucky I was to be alive, and of Marcello Forelli, the most amazing man on the planet—of all time even. The guy I’d left in the past.
I’m not talking about breaking up yesterday. I’m talking about the past-past—as in the 1300s past. Lia was telling Mom about it, whispering as fast and as clearly as she could…how we’d put our hands on the prints in the Etruscan tomb—prints that seemed to be our own, they matched so closely—and how it had taken us back in time, to medieval Italy.
Mom’s eyes got bigger and bigger, her expression telling us that she thought we’d gone crazy. “Did you hit your head?” she asked, reaching for Lia’s blond hair, scanning her scalp for blood.
“No, Mom,” Lia said, lurching away in irritation. “Listen to me. I know it sounds crazy, but you have to believe us! Look at my gown. At Gabi’s!” Scientific fact, that’s what she was bringing it around to. That was something Mom could get her head around.
I turned to Manero’s computer, staring at the clock and the date, trying to get my head around the facts too. About a half hour had gone by since we’d first put our hands on the prints. We were probably only gone about twenty to twenty-five minutes. But we’d experienced about twenty days in ancient Tuscany.
My heart skipped a beat. I was no math genius, but if my calculations were right, our ten minutes here meant we’d already been gone from Marcello’s time for ten days. Ten days. No wonder I was in agony. I missed him like I was experiencing ten days of pain in ten minutes. I’d left a piece of myself back with him. It was physical, leaving me all empty and achy inside.
I logged on to Manero’s laptop and typed “Siena history” into Google’s search window.
“Gabi—” Mom began, brows lowered.
“I’ll be fast, Mom. I just need to know something.” A quick stop at Wikipedia, and I knew two things: Siena would face the plague in five years. But Florence wouldn’t conquer her for another couple hundred years. Not that there weren’t serious battles before then…
To her credit, Mom seemed to be giving Lia’s story half a chance. But her eyes told me she thought it was like a fable that had to have some sort of real basis, a foundation that would make it all make sense. Like grainy Sasquatch film clips that really starred an escaped pet gorilla. Or a UFO sighting that boiled down to a NASA rocket test. She was getting all Science Maven-y on us, trying to put two and two together.
“Mom, there are two castles within two miles of this site. The one we pass every day, on our way in here, and the one over the hill, past the tombs.” I reached out and took her hands. “We’ve been in both. But they were whole—full-on homes for people. Lots of people. Lia could sketch them both for you. One was inhabited by a man who fought for Firenze; the other by a family who was loyal to Siena.”
I glanced to the tent doorway, its flap still and hanging, and rose. I lifted the edge of my gown and showed her my wound, now nothing but a white scar on my skin. “Look, Mom. Check out the length of it. How it looks old? Like I got it five years ago, right?”
She blinked rapidly, as if she was seeing things. Trying to make sense of it all.
I dropped my gown and gestured to the bloodstain, directly over my scar. “It’s bloody because I was bleeding like crazy, just a half hour ago. I got the wound in that castle,” I said, gesturing in the direction of the Paratore ruins, “when Lia and I were fighting for our lives. There’s something about the tomb, coming through time, that heals. It healed me.”
She bit her lip, still looking at the blood.
I shook my head, irritated at how long it was taking to convince her. “How else could I get that scar? Without you knowing about it?”
Her eyes met mine. “It makes no sense.”
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t. But look at the facts, Mom. Haven’t you and Dad always taught students to catalog the facts and then move to theory?” I had her there. I’d heard her say the exact same thing a hundred times.
Her eyes flitted between us and then down at her hands, back and forth, still trying to puzzle it through.
If only Dad were here…He’d always been the more impulsive of the two. He followed his heart. Mom liked to consult her brain first, and there was no way that our story was going to be figured out logically. No way. Hadn’t scientists been trying to figure out the whole time/space continuum thing for centuries?
Mom looked up at us then, unblinking. “Show me,” she said lowly. “Let’s go to the tomb now.”
“In front of Manero?” I frowned.
“No,” Lia said, shaking her head. “We just got back.”
But I was nodding. “I need to go back.”
“For what…forever?” Lia spit at me. “There’s so much we don’t know, Gabi. What if you get sick again, going back?”
“I won’t get sick again. I was healed. Time has passed, both here and there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. We ‘left’ about twenty-five minutes ago. But what’d we experience back in 1342? About twenty days, right? If we go—”
Mom held her hands up, silencing us both. “No one’s going anywhere,” she said. “I simply want you to show me exactly what happened. On site.”
“She thinks she’s in love with a dude named Marcello,” Lia said accusingly, her distrusting blue eyes on me. “She’ll do whatever she has to to get back.”
Mom looked at me. “Is that true? You think you’re in love with this Marcus person?”
“Marcello Fore
lli,” I corrected, each lilting syllable twisting my gut. “And, uh, yeah. I fell pretty hard for him.”
Mom’s eyes moved from my face to my clothes again, as if she was trying to remember that there was scientific evidence to support our story. Otherwise, she probably would have dismissed it as some wild dream…like we’d both hit our heads or something.
“That’s how she got hurt,” Lia said, pressing now, sensing she had the upper hand. “I mean, she got hurt in a battle and I had to stitch her up, but she’s in love with a guy who already has a girl. And then that chick poisoned Gabi!” She walked over to me, hands on her hips. “You really want to go back? Back to where I almost lost you?” She shook her head. “I can’t do it, Gabs. Not after Dad. I can’t deal with it. I’ll lose it, seriously lose it, if something happens to you.”
“Nothing is going to happen to anyone,” Mom said, stepping up beside us.
“Mom, just give me a chance. Let me show you the tomb. How it happened.” I eyed the computer screen. Another ten minutes. Another ten days, for Marcello, thirty now that I’d been gone. Was he giving up? Giving in to Lady Rossi and the pressure to follow through on their marriage agreement? Had he guessed that she might have been poisoning me?
Mom was still staring at me, at Lia, assessing. “Come on,” she said finally, lifting the back of the tent and bending.
She was going to sneak out. My mother never sneaked anywhere. She boldly went where she wished.
I stood up and went to her, looking back to Lia. She hesitated, frowning, and then with an exaggerated roll of her big blue eyes—so like Mom’s—followed us. We ducked under the edge and looked around. We could hear voices on the other side and up the hill by the tombs. Just as it looked like we could make a clean escape, a guy in a Societa Archeologico hat came around the corner.
The River of Time Series Page 31
