But as relieved as I was that Marcello was free, I was worried about Fortino. The guy had barely escaped death. I couldn’t stand the idea of his life being anything less than perfect from here on out. I’d have to find out more.
We walked the wall. The castle had five segments, with a turret at each corner. She was so highly defensible that she’d never been attacked, other than the night I had persuaded Paratore to do so, therefore leaving his own castle compromised. On the far end, we paused and looked out over the rolling hills, golden and velvety with the last bit of sunset.
There, I could see fifty pitched tents, the clouds of dust rising behind troops’ horses in the light of dusk. I paused, surprised. “The Sienese?”
Marcello nodded. He was so crazy handsome, I didn’t want to look where he was pointing. Gradually, he realized I was staring at him, and he looked down into my eyes. He squeezed my hand, and my skin sparked with pleasure. “I missed you so, Gabriella,” he whispered.
“I missed you, too.”
I wished he’d kiss me again, but we were too visible here, at the center of the wall. Below us, in the bailey, or courtyard, servants milled in and out of the kitchen and stables. I stepped forward, continuing our walk, self-conscious. Of course they’d be interested. Marcello had broken his engagement to Romana…for me.
For me.
I took a deep breath. Where the heck did that leave us? I was all of seventeen. My eighteenth birthday was still six months away. Not that I was ready to get married at eighteen. Mom would totally freak if I even mentioned that I was thinking about it.
Totally. Freak.
“How long until Fortino and Romana wed?” I asked.
Marcello glanced at me and then helped me up the narrow steps around the next turret. “A fortnight.”
“Fortnight?” I asked, racking my brain, trying to remember how many days that would be.
“Fourteen days,” he said, a tiny smile on his lush lips. At least now he understood why I didn’t always get those sorts of references.
I tried to cover my hesitation. “Will that be odd for you? To see someone long promised to you marry your brother?”
Marcello shrugged and said, “I am happy for Fortino. And glad for Romana. It is actually better for her. She always wanted to be Lady Forelli, mistress of the castello.”
Yeah, there you have it. Marcello was too good, too willing to see the best in everyone. He’d obviously never dated around. How could he? In many ways, he’d been hitched when he was just a boy. It had always been Romana. And being the loyal kind of guy he was, he’d apparently never considered anyone else.
Until me. Somehow, some way, this dude was crazy into me, from the get-go. Enough that he’d opted to break his engagement to Romana, on the off chance that I might come back someday. Or maybe because he knew there was something more. It still made me almost dizzy with excitement. Is this what people were talking about when they spoke of love?
Love. I nodded, answering my own unspoken question. Being here, again with Marcello, after wondering if I could ever get back, I knew it to be true. I was in love with him. In love with a dude who, in my time, had been dead for almost seven hundred years.
He pulled me to a stop and looked out over the forest. From here, there was a peekaboo view of Castello Paratore. “How is it possible, Gabriella?” he asked. “How is it that you can travel from your time to my own?”
“I know not,” I said. “’Twill drive my mother to distraction. In our time, she’s a scientist.”
“Scientist? I do not know that word.”
“A doctor, of facts, of the way things work. A scholar. There’s always a logical reason for everything. Every mystery can be unraveled, with effort. But this one, this time portal…” I looked out over the trees melding as a mass in the growing darkness. “I don’t believe anyone can figure it out.”
He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles. Delightful shivers ran up my arm and down my back. “’Tis a miracle of God. A gateway that only He could open.”
I stared into his eyes. I felt the same. Something this good, this sweet, could only come from Someone beyond my comprehension.
“Will you stay this time, Gabriella? Stay here, with me?”
My breath caught. Really, there was no other place I wanted to be. But forever sort of promises? Whoa, that’s a biggie. Never go to college, figure out what kind of job I’d be good at? Never see my friends again or even speak to them? Never vote? Never again touch a computer, listen to a radio, watch a movie?
But then, living here, with him, would sort of be like entering the most romantic movie possible and never leaving, right?
“It is much to consider, Marcello,” I said. His face fell a fraction, and I rushed on, “It is not you I doubt. It’s my life…My own time has much to offer. It is so vastly different…As strongly as I feel for you, it is not a decision that can be made lightly. Do you understand?”
“I do,” he said carefully. But I could tell I’d hurt his feelings. He dropped my hand and put both his hands on the wall, leaning over it, looking out. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “But what I feel…Am I alone in believing that we are in love?”
I touched his shoulder, not caring that we were the evening’s entertainment for the people below. “Marcello.”
He straightened and faced me, the muscles in his jaw clenching. But as I stared into his eyes, he began to smile, reading my answer in my expression. “Would I have returned if I did not feel for you what you feel for me?” I asked. I felt shy, suddenly. Afraid to use the L word.
“And what is it you feel for me, Gabriella?” he asked, tucking that constantly escaping strand of hair behind my ear. “I’ve been waiting months to hear it.”
There was no getting around it. I was as sunk as he was. Buried. Delightfully, deliciously captured. “Love,” I said, staring into his eyes, feeling every letter of the L word, owning it. And feeling that somehow, some way, this thing had to work.
Because it was too right to be wrong.
Wasn’t it?
CHAPTER 4
Castello Forelli was slammed with people. Judging by the packed house in the Great Hall that first night, and because they put the three of us in one room, I realized Castello Forelli had become The Place to Be. There were constant bigwigs visiting, including five of the Nine and their peeps—I swear, you’d think they were like reality TV stars or something—and I soon figured out that Marcello and Fortino were the leaders of this entire front in the ongoing battle between Firenze and Siena.
When we walked toward the Great Hall on our second morning, intending to nab some breakfast—which was usually a sad, pasty kind of oatmeal or dry, day-old bread—we found the courtyard alive with activity. Marcello heaved a wooden case up to Luca, in the back of a wagon, who turned and placed it on top of several others. As much as I liked seeing Marcello slightly sweaty, with his shirt sleeves rolled up and collar untied and open, I frowned at what clearly looked like a group of men preparing to head out.
I swallowed the indignant Where’re you goin’? that I wanted to let out and instead pretended to be the lady I was supposed to be. “Good morning, m’lord,” I said to Marcello, stopping beside him.
He grinned and wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve. “M’ladies,” he said, dragging his eyes from me to my mother and sister and back again.
“You prepare to depart?” I asked carefully.
“The autumn harvest is upon us,” he said, “and yet many farmers are off serving Siena and Castello Forelli, guarding our borders or languishing in Firenze’s prisons, unable to bring their crops in. Some shall never return, buried in shallow graves. Their women and children struggle, trying to bring in the harvest on their own. My men and I shall not stand idly by.” His eyes moved to the dignitaries of Siena, who walked in groups around the
courtyard, watching the knights as if they’d gone crazy.
I smiled. Man, I was wild for this guy. Aiming to go out and help women and children in need. Could he get any hotter? “We shall accompany you,” I said.
“Yes, please,” Lia said. She was already as sick of the castle as I was.
But Marcello was shaking his head. “Nay. ’Tis safest for you here, inside the gates.”
“We shall work beside you and your men,” I returned. “There are more than a hundred of you assembling.” I leaned closer. “How could we be any safer? And I assume we won’t be far from the castle’s reach.”
“Please, sir,” Mom chimed in. “I myself am anxious for a ride out into your pretty countryside. You’ll find both I and my daughters are able workers, ready to set our hands to any task you give us.”
Marcello leaned back and looked at all three of us, then let out a long sigh. “I assume that if I decline your request, you shall continue to pester me?”
“Most likely,” I said with a nod.
“Very well.” He shook his head and rubbed his neck. “You’ll want to change into suitable clothing. It will aid us in disguising your identity, in some measure.” He cocked a brow. “’Tis dirty work ahead of us.”
“You shall find we do not fear dirt, m’lord,” Mom said with a sly smile. She’d always been the first one into a dig site and usually left covered in dust from the roots of her hair to the tops of her dingy brown socks at day’s end.
And so began our daily journey to the fields and vineyards to help out, before returning, exhausted, to Castello Forelli. We met wives of prisoners and widows of soldiers slain in the battle against Firenze. We struggled alongside them to bring in the wheat on narrow farms carved among the hills or the bounty of grapes that clung to vines.
Marcello tolerated us accompanying them, but only because of the soldiers who worked alongside us, and only with ten times the scouts on duty that I knew he’d usually post. We worked hard, but the afternoons felt long and leisurely as we learned to cut wheat from their shocks with large, fearsome scythes and bind them into sheaves. I figured that even if I were with Marcello in the middle of the desert, I’d feel like it was a resort. I was feeling that kind of Serious Happy.
Today they’d brought us to a vineyard. We were cutting grapes from their thick, winding vines and placing them on flat carts.
Mom had elected to stay back at the castle, busy hand-copying a botanical volume in Fortino’s library, recognizing that it contained many references to specimens long lost to the modern world. She was like a kid with a jar full of coins in a candy store, delirious with the options of study before her. It was a little irritating, really. I had finally felt like I was connecting with her in some way, and bam, there she was again, on to something else. I sighed. It was all right; I was more into the guy beside me, even if he was laughing at my meager contribution of grapes to the wheelbarrow.
Luca stood up, hands on hips, and looked at the flat wagon between Lia and me. He cocked one brow and nodded over at us. “While these two would be the prettiest peasant girls within miles, they’d make poor wives for a hopeful vintner. Look at that,” he said, gesturing toward our wagon, mocking us. “It’s downright pitiful.”
“Hey,” Lia said, pretending to be outraged. “Just because we did not grow up cutting grapes doesn’t mean we cannot keep up with the best of them.” She waved toward the guys’ wagon. “Certainly, you have a pile there. But look at them,” she said. She walked over to it and picked up a bunch. “These are terribly small and some are not yet ripe. You are fast, but alas, you are not careful,” she said to Luca.
She was gorgeous in the warm afternoon light. Her blond hair was coming out from its knot, curling in soft tendrils around her neck. I looked to Luca as he tossed back his head and laughed with delight, gesturing toward her as he met Marcello’s eye. “I must confess, I do enjoy these Norman girls.”
It had become their secret word for us. Norman. Our cover story—that we were from Normandy. But he meant it as “these girls from that other time.” He looked back to Lia and considered her while wiping sweat from his lip with the back of his hand. “Let us agree upon a little wager,” he said. “We will race to the end of this row. But Signora Giannini shall decide who has the better bounty upon their wagon.”
Lia considered him. “And the winner receives…”
“A rest,” he said, folding his arms in front of him, jutting his chin out. “Underneath that fat oak on the hill, upon a blanket. The losers shall serve the victors by pouring wine and cutting slices of cheese and bread for them. Better yet, the losers shall feed the winners.”
Marcello smiled and looked over Luca’s shoulder at Lia, then at me, a similar taunt in his eyes.
Oh, it’s on, I thought. I grinned at Lia. We’d spent the morning getting the hang of using the knife, the feel of cutting through the stiff vine, the rhythm of tossing the bunches upon the wagon. The guys had no idea what was ahead of them. Our dad had passed on his competitive spirit. He’d beaten us at cards and Scrabble and swordplay and with bow and arrow until we could beat him, fair and square. No wimpy Betarrini girls, he’d always said, not a one. That’s what I loved first about your mom. Her strength. Her savvy. Her smarts. Her spirit. I want daughters just like her.
So I was thinking about that as Marcello casually counted down and began cutting and tossing as if he had all the time in the world. We’d always tried to be like Mom. Strong, smart, and spirited. And as much as she was a little distant, always in her own little mental world, Lia and I both wanted to be like her.
I glanced over at the guys. Luca was milking it, clowning around, eating a bitter grape from the bottom as if someone were feeding it to him. He waggled his eyebrows at Lia, as if he was visualizing her as his servant.
She laughed under her breath. Her blue eyes met mine. “Ready?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said in a low tone, not wanting to tip off the guys. “Let’s show ’em what Norman girls are made of.”
We moved quietly forward, gaining momentum. It took the guys about five minutes before they realized we were pulling ahead. They surged into motion, matching us in speed, gradually a step in front of us. But we kept our heads down, reaching for the next bunch of purple grapes, even as we set the last upon the cart. Lia stopped at one point, reached for the skin of water and casually took a drink. “Care for a sip, Gabi?” she asked, as if we were sitting by the beach and not in the heat of competition.
“That sounds divine,” I said, standing and taking a long swig.
The guys rolled their eyes and kept working, intent upon winning now. We moved back to the vines as if there was no race at all and then went to it, utterly focused, ignoring the taunting calls of the guys, hearing nothing but each other’s whispers in English. Keep it up. Come on, a bit faster. We can do this.
We were nearing the end of the row when I looked up. Marcello and Luca were just rising, tossing the last of their grapes upon their heaping cart. They were three paces ahead of us. They grasped each other’s arms in that medieval form of a handshake, or like modern-day boys giving each other a high five or a chest bump. My heart sank a little, but then I looked from their cart to ours. Despite their being ahead of us, our mound was a bit higher.
Marcello, confident in their victory, hurried over to Signora Giannini, three rows beyond us. He brought her back, and I realized, for the first time, that she couldn’t be much older than twenty-five, with a wide face and small, squinty eyes. Two little girls clung to her skirts and a boy, about seven, hovered behind her. What would it be like, to be a widow in these times? Who knew if her husband would ever return to her from Firenze. She could be alone, forever. A shiver went down my back.
What if Marcello was killed? I glanced over at him, so alive, laughing with Luca, who was thumping him on the back. But I knew he was as much a target of Firenze’
s spies as Lia and I. We had gotten into a routine, felt lulled by the peace these last couple of days. I scanned the fields and valley, seeing nothing but Forelli men, either at work or on guard. We were safe. Marcello was safe. For now.
I put the awful thought out of my mind as they came closer and the woman clapped over the literal fruits of our labor. “I can’t thank you well enough, m’lords, m’ladies. To think that you’d take time to assist me—” She brought a hand to her throat, apparently too choked up to continue.
“We shall do another row after we break to take our noon meal,” Marcello said, smiling at her kindly. “But first, Signora, I beg you to be a judge of these two pallets of grapes. Which is best? Which will fill the most jugs with your best wine?”
The woman looked from him to the wagons. She walked around each and began to pull bunches from one—because the grapes were too small or not yet ripe—and set them aside. She worked with the calm assurance of years of experience, sorting. In three minutes, she had gone through the guys’ entire pile. In a few more, she had sorted ours.
Sweetly, with hands folded, she bowed in our direction as the guys sputtered in disbelief and mock outrage.
I smiled at Marcello as Lia folded her arms and jutted out her chin, mimicking Luca’s prematurely victorious stance. “I think we shall enjoy our meal this day,” she said, “more than any other.”
Luca frowned and gestured toward Signora Giannini as if she had surely misjudged. Marcello laughed under his breath, a low, rumbly, warm sound that made me smile even more broadly. We pranced past them, heading toward the hill, anticipating a leisurely hour ahead of us. When I glanced back, Luca lifted his head, sighed in defeat, and followed behind Marcello.
We were halfway through our meal, accepting another cup of watered wine, which tasted only vaguely of fermented grapes, when Marcello and Luca leaped to their feet, sensing the approaching riders before we did. Their hands went to the hilts of the swords they wore at their sides as Lia and I rose, standing slightly behind them.
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