These women were left to watch hope itself wither on their vines.
Helpless to stop it.
I stilled even as my gelding carried me forward.
You are not helpless, said my father’s voice. Was it Dad’s…or God’s?
Yeah, right, Gabs. Now God’s speaking to you. Getting a little full of yourself, aren’t you?
But then it came again. Unmistakable. You are strong, Gabriella. Smart. You’ll survive this. Find your way.
It sounded like Dad, in my mind. Memory of my father’s voice comforted me. I had to go with that, that he was speaking to me, reaching out to me, even if only through my memories of what he might’ve said. For the thousandth time, I wished he were here. He’d know what to do. Because right then, I felt like just a kid, really, in shoes way too big for my feet.
Dad, it’s too much.
Not too much for one of my girls.
If only you were here—
You have what you need. Within. Draw deep, Gabriella. Search your heart. Use your mind. You’ll find it. You are not alone.
His voice faded then, and I closed my eyes, clinging to the memory, wishing I could sit down across the kitchen table from him and talk. Make him listen, really listen rather than read his latest copy of the Oxford Journal of Archaeology and nod while I went on. There was so much I wanted to ask him yet. So much I never had a chance to ask.
“What pains you so?” Lord Greco had fallen back, taking the position to my right for a moment.
I blinked rapidly and decided to use truth as my weapon. “Memory of my father. He died recently.”
Lord Greco crossed himself and stared at the road for a time before looking my way again. “It is what set your path to Italia, from Normandy? Three women, alone?”
Yeah, in some ways. I nodded once.
“I do not believe you are from Normandy.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“I heard English upon your tongue, back in the woods.”
I paused for a moment. No doubt this guy had already spoken with Lord Rossi, who suspected the same. And Lord Paratore…
Lia and Mom and I had figured out our story—should this come up again. “We spent the majority of our years in England, where we learned to speak and read. Your own Tuscan is my second language,” I said, meeting his eyes. I shrugged. “I admit, my French is not as it should be. Parlez-vous français?”
“Nay,” he said, staring at me as if he knew I wasn’t telling him the truth.
But I didn’t care. I owed him nothing.
By midafternoon, we crested a hill and could see Firenze down in the valley, but she looked nothing like what I knew. Countless towers dotted her cityscape, as they had in Siena, but there was no huge red-domed church or campanile—the bell tower. They must’ve been built later. It felt like going home and finding out your favorite rooms had been torn out.
“Here is where you shall relinquish your mount,” Lord Greco said, looking back at me.
I frowned as the knights beside me dismounted and came up on either side. One reached up and lifted me down. I looked at Lord Greco as they tied a length of rope to my bound hands and then roughly removed my boots, but he kept his back to me.
When they were done, they remounted, leaving me on the ground between them. “All is in order, m’lord,” said one knight, handing the end of the rope to him.
They intended to walk me the rest of the way into town, like an animal on a leash. The She-Wolf of Siena, captured.
Fine, I thought, defiantly staring back at him as he looked down at me, winding the end of the rope around his forearm.
“Get on with it!” I snapped.
“As you wish, m’lady,” he said, turning at once. The rope was shorter than I realized and I lurched forward, crying out, my side feeling like it had been ripped open. The knights beside me laughed, but Lord Greco did not. He didn’t turn either. Why? Did he feel guilty? Like the jerk he was for treating me this way? You should, I thought venomously. I hope you and your men die in the battle. Every last one of you.
I shivered. I’d never wished anyone dead in my whole life. Well, other than Lord Paratore…
Mom wouldn’t like my hatred. She’d always taught us to love everyone, that war was misery and never resolved anything for long. That humankind’s greatest hope was peace. But she hadn’t experienced stuff like what was coming down now, here. I winced as I stepped on a sharp rock, then another, but bit my lip to keep from calling out. I kept my eyes on the road in front of me, picking my way forward while keeping some slack in the rope. I did pretty well for the first mile. But around the second I tripped and fell. Lord Greco allowed me to drag for ten feet before he wearily pulled up and let me regain my feet.
I swallowed hard. Now the tops of my feet were cut up, bleeding. I wanted to yell at him, scream, cry, but instead I put my shoulders back and waited for him to resume our walk. People were coming toward us, from the city gates, wanting to know what a woman, with hair down around her shoulders, was doing, bound and dragged behind Lord Greco’s horse. And in men’s clothing, to boot.
They recognized him with cries of greeting, celebration. Apparently, Lord Greco was some sort of big deal in this town.
“Lady Gabriella Betarrini!” cried the knights, announcing our arrival. “The pride of Siena, now m’lord’s prisoner!”
The first piece of spoiled fruit surprised me. I gasped at the impact to my shoulder, and at first, thought I had been injured, was bleeding. But then another hit me on the back, still another my head, the juice and seeds dripping down to the stones beside my bloody feet. The crowds were gathering, growing thicker.
Not exactly the flowers I got in Siena, I thought.
But then someone threw a stone. It hit my arm, and I cried out in spite of myself.
Lord Greco looked back and frowned. “Nay!” he demanded, holding his hand up. “I have been charged with bringing this woman to the grandi. If they sentence her to stoning, so be it. But you shall not do so without approval!”
The crowd booed and hissed, and I felt a shudder of fear go through me. I was hated here. Really hated. For what? They didn’t know me! All I had done was fall in love with a son of Siena! And help my sister escape an evil lord. I hadn’t done anything that any of them might not have done in my place, had the tables been turned…
I tripped again, and the crowd laughed, then more rotten food came flying. I smelled the vinegar, the mold. I quickly found my feet and ducked between the rump of Lord Greco’s horse and the nearest knight’s. “Go,” I said to my captor.
He eyed me. “There is another way, Gabriella—”
“Get on with it!” I shouted, his use of my first name irritating me. It was irrational, I admitted to myself. A million people called me Gabriella, Gabi, Gabs…but not this man. He was not allowed to sound like he knew me. And I wanted him to remember my title, to show me a shadow of civility, even if I was wearing his clothes and was covered in spoiled juice. I wanted him to remember this injustice, that I had been tied to his horse, so that when I had the opportunity, when I regained my sword and my strength…
He met my gaze without faltering. He knew what I was saying with my eyes, read the hatred there. Then he turned and pulled me forward again, through the city gates. People were running in from every street and alleyway, shoving others aside in an effort to see me. The barrage stopped then, perhaps not allowed inside the city, I thought, but the jeering kept on.
“So the Sienese adorn their women in the fruits of the past year?”
“Is she a man or a woman? I cannot tell!”
“Where is your fearsome sword, girl?”
“The She-Wolf bleeds!”
“Behold, the pride of Siena! Today, she is ours!”
We turned a corner and then another, making our way deeper a
nd deeper into the city until we emerged on the enormous Piazza della Signoria, with the city hall modeled after Siena’s own. Back when the two had been sister cities, not such bitter enemies. Maybe back when Marcello and Rodolfo had been buds.
The men dismounted, and I glanced over my shoulder. The crowds had all come here, celebrating my capture as if their home team had just won the World Cup or something. But they looked upon me with hatred, panting with a crazy kind of anticipation in their eyes.
It hit me then.
They were waiting.
Waiting for me to be turned over to them.
For what? What exactly was the sentence for an enemy of the Commune di Firenze?
CHAPTER 21
“Tell us, m’lady,” said Lord Greco, hands behind his back as he paced before me. “Have you thought again about our offer?” Beyond him were eleven men sitting in high-backed, ornately carved chairs. Siena’s ruling body was the Nine. In Firenze, I was facing their counterparts.
And it turned out that Lord Greco was one of ’em.
Perfect, just perfect. One of the lords had actually gone out just to hunt me and Lia down. I sighed. You really know how to make friends and enemies, Gabs.
They’d given Lord Greco words of praise for bringing me to them. But they chastised him for losing my sister, “allowing” her to return to the safety of the Sienese and quite possibly warn them.
“It matters little,” Lord Greco said, brushing off their concerns. He stared down at me, spying my small, defiant smile. “Even if Evangelia reaches Siena, our men will soon be upon them all.”
He cocked his head, hands on his hips, and said to me again, “Will you agree to gather the Nine in Siena?”
I slid my eyes up to meet his. “Never.”
He slapped me then, surprising me. I turned, took a half step back, but kept my feet. What’s with him? He was remarkably different toward me here, in sight of the city and her lords. Meaner. Slowly, carefully I stood straight again. “So it is true,” I said. “The men of Firenze must always resort to violence.” My eyes flicked up to Lord Greco’s. “My father always told me that a man who would strike a woman is no sort of man at all.”
“Your father,” he said evenly, leaning down, “taught you to be more of a man than woman. You do not know your place.”
“My place,” I returned, “is to defend all I know that is right and true. Ever since I arrived in Toscana, it has been your men who forced me to raise my sword, my sister to raise her arrows, to defend ourselves. It has been Firenze’s subjects who pursue us, attack us, abuse us.” I glared at him. “Siena has done nothing but show us kindness after kindness.”
He glared back. “Many men loyal to Firenze have died at the end of your sword, your sister’s arrow.”
“Forgive me for not relinquishing my sword and allowing myself to be slaughtered as a woman ought. Forgive me for helping to free my sister from the dungeon of Lord Paratore and then attempting to make certain he could never imprison, torture, or threaten another of us again. Forgive me for not dying at the hands of your venomous doctor, sent to poison me.” I glanced at Lord Foraboschi, who hovered in the background with a few other nobles, looking askance at my outburst. I shook my head with a sarcastic little laugh. “You ask far too much, m’lord, from me. From any woman, any woman with a pinch of courage in her heart.” I thumped my chest. “That is what my father taught me. Courage. Standing up for what is right. For who is right. And in this case, it is clearly my Sienese sisters and brothers.”
He sighed, straightened, and then placed chin in hand, staring at me.
“The She-Wolf of Siena has a sharp tongue,” said one of the others behind him.
“Indeed,” said Lord Greco, still studying me.
Abruptly, the rest of the men stood. Lord Greco bowed and stood to my side, so that all of them might look at me. “Daughter of Siena,” said the man at the center, apparently the main guy. “You shall find that we are not as unmerciful as you seem to think.”
He walked toward me, and Lord Greco grabbed hold of my arm from one side, his knight taking the other. What? Do they think I’ll deck this guy or what? I wasn’t an idiot.
The man was short, no taller than my chest, reminding me of Lord Rossi with his steady, methodical mannerisms. But when he looked into my eyes, I saw that while he was small, he was as tough as a terrier with a cornered rat. “You are the one that saved Lord Fortino Forelli? You are the one whom Sir Marcello Forelli loves, are you not?”
I stared over his head at the wall beyond him. I would not be a part of selling out Marcello or Fortino. I would not.
“She is, Lord Barbato,” Lord Greco said at last.
Lord Barbato peered up into my face. “What do you believe the brothers Forelli might give us in exchange for your freedom? Might they relinquish Castello Paratore and Castello Forelli? Might they swear their allegiance to us?”
I let out a breath through my nose, just barely keeping it from a snort. What scheme led them to believe they could conquer the castle, her men? Whatever their plans, I knew no man within the Forelli household would ever aid them. “Never.” I looked down into his eyes. “Never.”
He smiled, then. “I am not so certain.” He reached out and touched a strand of my hair. “Even in such disarray, my dear, you are quite becoming. I can see why Sir Marcello is smitten, why you and your sister have stolen the heart of every man in Siena.”
I tried to wrench away, but the men at my side kept me in place.
“What would the Forellis do,” Lord Barbato said slowly, “if Marcello Forelli’s intended had but days left to live?” He smiled. His teeth were small but straight and white. “Lord Forelli is likely dismayed at his own interrupted nuptials, this day. With greater disruptions ahead.” The men shared a laugh.
Yuk it up, fellas. I’m all LOL myself.
Lord Barbato turned back to me. “Would Sir Marcello come for you?”
I refused to give him the satisfaction of a response.
He glanced back over at the other men, then up at Lord Greco. “Would a man in love not do anything he could to save his woman?”
Barbato interlaced his fingers and turned them out, cracking them. “We offer a truce. We do not have to conquer Siena, though we have the power to do so. No, we can be magnanimous neighbors, offering a celebration as proof of our good intentions. Our desire for unity.” He paced back and forth, tapping his chin, nodding to himself, then he looked to me. “We are not the villains you make us out to be,” he said. “We would relish a lasting peace with our neighbors. But we shall have Castello Forelli and Castello Paratore, as well as other castles on the northern border—if not Siena herself—before this battle is done. The Forellis would be wise to go the way of the Rossis.”
So. There it was. Another confirmation that the Rossis were in on it.
He turned away from me, strode to his seat, and stared back. “Bathe and dress her in the finest wedding gown the dressmakers can create. Braid flowers into her hair. Then send this message to her beloved: ‘Lady Betarrini awaits you, Sir Marcello Forelli, in a cage at the Firenze city gates, a lovely bridal bird, seeking her groom. If you can meet her bride price. But she has limited time, for she shall have no food or water. If you do not arrive in time, she shall perish in her cage.’”
“Lord Barbato,” said Lord Greco at my side. “She could convince the Nine to gather within Siena, I am certain of it. And we could follow through on our original plan, avoiding much bloodshed on both sides.”
Lord Barbato flicked out his hand dismissively. “Look at her, Lord Greco. Into her eyes. She has no intention of aiding our cause. We shall follow our alternative plan. Without the seven castle outposts, they shall be crippled, in disarray. I believe we shall find the Nine far more amenable to negotiation once we have them in hand. Siena shall become our sister city once
again, eager to do as we ask rather than defy us at every turn. We can take the other five. I am confident that shall be done in a week’s time. ’Tis Castello Paratore and Castello Forelli that must be breached, or they shall stand for months, giving Siena far too much time to rally her support.”
The others were nodding.
“And if Sir Forelli does not capitulate?” asked Lord Greco. “What if he does not come to claim his bride? Or Lord Forelli forbids it?”
“Then the road becomes more difficult,” Lord Barbato said casually, picking at a hangnail. He glanced up. “Lady Betarrini shall die, her corpse shriveling and decaying in the cage.” He gave me a look that sent shivers up my spine.
“That was never our—” Lord Greco tried.
“Lady Betarrini will become an entirely new symbol for Siena,” Lord Barbato said, rising. “All shall see what becomes of those who dare to defy Firenze. Weakness exposed. Love, unrequited. Desire, unmet. Life itself, coming to a perilous end.”
I was taken to Lord Greco’s home, a palazzo on a hill in the heart of the city. There was a fine garden and fountain in back. The knights brought me to a grand hall, and I collapsed on the warm stones in front of a blazing fire, shivering in spite of it. My mind was swirling, trying to figure a way out without betraying Siena.
Lord Greco did not remain with me. He hadn’t said a word to me all the way to the mansion, even when I begged him to let me go.
An army of female servants entered a half hour after we arrived, and the knights disappeared outside the doors, closing them firmly behind them. I knew they stood right outside, at the ready. Even if I managed to escape the room, could I make it to the edge of Firenze unseen?
I was undressed without ceremony and given a thorough bath, and clean bandages were wound around my feet, thigh, and ribs. The maids remained eerily silent, as if they knew they were contributing to my murder. A light, delicately woven underdress, reminding me of butterfly wings, swept down over my body. It had the lightest lace I’d ever seen at both the sleeve and bottom hem. Under it, I wore pantaloons in a similar fabric.
The River of Time Series Page 50
