“And by nightfall, I was back in Roma.”
He kicked the toe of his boot against the hard-packed mud of the courtyard. “And then they took you to San Giovanni, where we found you.”
“Yes.”
He studied me. “I must know, Gabriella. You had a knife at your throat, so I would understand.” He reached out and touched my cheek. “Truly I would.” He took a breath. “But…were you ready to accept it? Had we not been there, would you have become…his?”
I shook my head. “Nay. Nay. Rodolfo knew it. He could see it in my eyes, the answer I was prepared to give, regardless of the threat. That is why he demanded my release.” I reached for his hand. “Why does it matter? He stepped aside, made a way for us. Gave us the only edge he had the freedom to give. Is it not enough?”
He didn’t answer. He simply reached for my bow, took an arrow from the basket, and aimed. He let go of the bowstring, and the arrow sailed across, hitting the center so close to mine that it cracked. “Not until I know he does not wish to claim what is mine,” he said, looking at me over his shoulder.
“But I am yours,” I said, putting a hand at his waist. “If there was anything good that came of those days in Sansicino and Roma, ’twas that.” I drew closer, so I could whisper in his ear. “That. That I’m yours, Marcello. Always and forever. That is why I’m here.” I reached around and put a hand on his chest, and he covered it with his hand. “Always and forever,” I repeated. “It’s why God brought me here, to this time, this place. Because I am meant for you, and you for me.”
He dropped the bow and turned in my arms, taking my face in both of his trembling hands. “And there is nothing in your heart for Rodolfo?”
“Oh, Marcello,” I said, looking into his eyes. “I care for Rodolfo. But I love you. You have my heart. What must I do to make you believe that?”
Slowly, never dropping his gaze from mine, he dropped to one knee before me. His intense expression made my heart pound. “Marry me, m’lady. Marry me as soon as we can obtain your father’s blessing.”
And Mom’s. That might take a while. Oh, and there’s the small matter of convincing them all to live here forever…
I pushed the hesitation out of my mind, not wanting him to sense any of it. He’d misunderstand. I smiled down at him, at the earnest, hopeful, little-boy look in his eyes, and tears rolled down my face. And I was glad for them, glad to be feeling again. Alive inside. “Yes, Marcello,” I said. “If we can convince my family, I shall marry you.”
He rose, grinning, and lifted me up in the air, twirling me and laughing. I could hear the low, approving laughter of the guards. If it weren’t for the hour, I knew they would likely be cheering.
Gradually he let me drop, and I felt the strength of his arms and chest anew. There, in that moment, I remembered a bit of my own strength, my own power. But I was most acutely aware of Marcello, as he seemed to be of me. He bent and kissed me, gently at first, then more hungrily, pulling me closer. Abruptly he broke off, stepped away, his face flushed. I knew mine was as well. He lifted a hand toward me as we circled each other. “We must convince your father soon,” he said.
“My father and mother,” I said, looking at him with as much passion as he was looking at me. “And Lia. Very soon,” I said. I edged closer and lifted my lips to him. He kissed me then, restrained. Deliciously restrained.
Then he took my hand, led me to the turret, up the stairs, down the hallway and into my room. I had hopes of more kissing, drawing closer to him in the privacy of my quarters, tossing aside restraint, but he put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes with a grin. “God help me, Gabriella, I cannot take but another second of being close to you. Not if I wish to maintain your honor.” He raised an eyebrow. “Stay here, She-Wolf. I must run to the well and dive in.”
With that, he turned and left me, firmly shutting the door.
And I giggled. Then laughed. Laughed so hard I cried, until my stomach muscles hurt. I fell on my back, atop the bed, and stared at the stars above me.
Oh, yeah, I’m back.
I. Am. Back.
I’m engaged. I supposed that I had been technically engaged to Rodolfo, too, but that had been like a sentence—this was like a delicious, secret promise, filled with hope. I paced the room, thinking of a wedding, of looking into Marcello’s eyes and promising him forever, of kisses that didn’t have to end with separation…
And then I stopped cold.
Mom and Dad are gonna SO freak.
And yeah, not in a good way.
The only thing that got me going again, the only thing that got me appropriately sober to face my family, was that I had to dress for my trek to Fortino’s gravesite. I was feeling kinda manic, alternately up so high I could barely stand still as Giacinta buttoned up the back of my tight-fitting bodice, and so low that I wanted to sink to my knees on the floor and weep at the thought of saying a final farewell to Fortino. It didn’t help that I was pulling on a beautiful, white gown. In medieval society, apparently everyone dressed in white for funerals, symbolic of the afterlife, and blue for weddings. But of course I was totally thinking Brides magazine.
I’d been thinking of my wedding day for a few years now. What girl didn’t? I’d always imagined it as a small ceremony, with us barefoot on the beach in someplace like Hawaii. But it’d probably have to be different here, marrying Marcello. The whole Sound of Music, massive church gig in Siena…
“M’lady?” Giacinta asked.
“Hmm?”
She paused, and I gathered this wasn’t the first time she’d spoken to me. I buckled down, trying hard to concentrate.
“Father Tomas,” Giacinta said, “he asked after you.”
I nodded, shoving away a pang of guilt for pretty much forgetting about him in the last forty-eight hours.
“He’s a kind man,” she mused, tackling the next set of buttons at my back. “The nicest sort of priest.”
“Indeed. I like him very well.”
“The men told me you saved him, back in Roma.”
I paused, trying to remember. It was honestly fuzzy in my memory, from the time of our escape at San Giovanni to my breakdown on the road.
Giacinta led me to a seat where she could begin work on my hair. She pulled apart a section and began to comb it, then twisted it into a coil that she wrapped into the next. I didn’t truly care. I trusted her—she’d done miracles with my hair before. “They say that he was done for this world, slumped over, bleeding to death in the saddle when you made it through the gates.”
“They exaggerate.”
She paused. “You did not go back for him?”
It was my turn to pause. I remembered the sound of it. Clashing swords. The cries of men. The dancing light of torches. The Roman guard, riding hard, toward us…
“Oh, m’lady,” she said, laying a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Forgive me. I’ve upset you.”
“Nay,” I said. “’Tis all right. We got through. Escaped. That is what is important.” I heard the waver in my own voice. Did she?
“Truly,” she said agreeably. But she was pretending, suddenly chirpy in her chatter about her toddler daughter, Cook’s return to work at the castello, and what was transpiring over at Lord Paratore’s.
“Giacinta,” I said coolly, “do you know if Lord Paratore is actually in residence across the valley?”
“He is, m’lady,” she said grimly.
Our old nemesis, so close, and with a hundred reasons to try to bring us down. Was my dream of peace, of happily ever after on Marcello’s arm just that—a mere dream?
There were a few years left before plague would decimate this valley and the ancient cities of Italia—all of Europe, really. We needed times of peace, prosperity to prepare. To shore up food, supplies. So that we could withdraw, close the gates, and do our
best to weather the storm. Because after all this, there was no way I would lose Marcello to the Black Plague. No way.
All I had to do was to convince my parents and sister to weather it with us.
Uh yeah, that…I thought, feeling another pang of doubt, panic.
But first I had to see Marcello through his mourning.
CHAPTER 23
We walked up from the castle into the winter-brown hills and, even with a wool cape around my shoulders and Marcello beside me, I shivered in the damp cold. The charcoal gray skies rumbled, a storm ready to break in minutes. We followed Father Tomas. My family trailed behind, giving us a little space. The hundred men on guard—seventy-five between us and Castello Paratore, twenty-five on the other—notsomuch. Clearly their goal was to make sure we got in, got out, without incident.
Marcello held his arm firm beneath mine, but one glance at him told me that tears were streaming down his cheeks.
Fortino had been his last living family member. What would it feel like for me, if Mom and Dad were gone and I was burying Lia? Was I mean, making him come back here?
I could not imagine it, trading places with him. I glanced back at them, Lia on Luca’s arm, Mom on Dad’s, just to reassure myself that they were truly all there, with me.
I fought the urge to ditch the formality and come under Marcello’s arm, wrap my own about his waist, to support him in the way I knew I’d want it. But this had to go his way, for him, now. Still, I kept stealing glances at him to make certain.
We climbed higher up the dirt path, up the hill, and for the first time I recognized that far more guarded us than I’d thought. There were hundreds of armed Sienese knights protecting us. Forming a living barrier between us and Paratore, to our north. But they were paying their respects again with us as much as paying attention to their duties. Wanting to say good-bye to Fortino. To silently say thanks. For sacrifice. For courage. For believing in what made the republic uniquely theirs.
Tears flowed down my cheeks anew, and I wiped my face again and again with a white handkerchief. At the top of the hill, we came to a stop, and I looked around again, amazed at the numbers. The funeral had already happened. Today they were here to be present, for Marcello, for me. Out of respect for Fortino. And somehow that was twice as moving.
Father Tomas stood at the far end of the mound of dirt that covered Fortino’s grave. He bent, with a grunt, and grabbed a handful of dark, rich earth, letting some of it sift through his fingers. Then he took a pinch with his left hand, let most of it fall away, and eyed us. “Fortino began as little more than a speck, no greater than this,” he said, flicking the rest away in the breeze. “And his body shall be reclaimed in time by this hill, this earth.” He waited until we looked back at him. “But his soul shall live forever. In heaven he has already found freedom and peace and the healing that he so longed for in his last days on earth. Father,” he said, lifting his face to the sky, “we trust that You have received this son into Your kingdom. Amen.”
“Amen,” we repeated after him. With one glance at Marcello’s face, I knew he had never heard such a thing from a holy man. It was much too personal, far too informal. I was scared that Marcello might lose it. I was about to lose it. But he seemed to gain strength from Tomas’s words instead. Perhaps it was the words of peace, healing, wholeness that helped him most. Because that was what Fortino had longed for, long before those last hours in the Sansicino cell.
Tomas said a few more words in Latin, picked up another fistful of dirt, and let it filter down over the mound, as if he was deep in thought. He took a final fistful, strode over to us, and picked up Marcello’s hand. Tomas looked into Marcello’s eyes with pure compassion. Marcello tried to steady himself as he returned the gaze. But when Tomas poured the crumbling dirt in his hand, Marcello’s tears began anew—and of course mine followed. “The body decomposes, becomes dirt,” the priest said in a whisper, “but what God created inside your brother lives. You shall see him again. Yes?”
Marcello nodded. “Yes,” he said, through choking tears.
The priest went back to the top of the grave, closed his eyes, and made the sign of the cross, then stepped back. Then we all turned to leave.
And it struck me anew that Fortino was gone. Never coming back.
I glanced up, over to Castello Paratore, its crimson flags waving in the wind. They seemed to embody Fortino’s suffering, his demise, his death.
Oh yeah, I thought. They have to go. They simply have to go.
We were a parade of people as we left the gravesite. I passed the simple stones that marked the graves of Marcello’s mother and father. Under the branches of three scrub oaks, I saw for the first time a stone monument with the statues of two nobles side by side, man and woman, lying on their backs.
I’d only seen such a monument in the high churches of England, France, and Italy. “Who is buried there?” I asked Marcello, pointing toward it.
He rubbed the last of the tears from his eyes and searched to see where I pointed. “My great-great grandparents. They loved each other very much and insisted that they share a tomb; they died within days of each other.”
I considered that. “How long has your family been here, Marcello, in this part of Toscana?”
He thought about it a moment. “More than two hundred years. Our land once stretched all the way to Firenze, but we could not hold such a vast property for long. My grandfather was the one who established the borders we now maintain, except for that which we share with Castello Paratore.”
We walked in silence. Two hundred years. Being the daughter of Etruscan archeologists, I was kinda used to the idea of ancient history. But personal ancient history? I didn’t know many back home in Colorado who’d had family there for more than two generations, let alone two centuries. I felt Marcello’s connection to this land and the castello in a new way. When you lived in a spot so beautiful, a spot that had seen old generations die and new ones born, you fought for it. It was yours in more than a name-on-a-mortgage-document sort of way. It was yours because it had been claimed by your own, years before.
I spotted Mom and Dad ahead, speaking to an older man with a terrible hump in his back. “Who is that?” I asked, gesturing with my chin. I’d never seen him before.
Marcello looked down the hill. “Ah, yes. Signore Cavo. He’s a dealer in ancient artifacts. I imagine they shall get on quite well.”
It figured. Mom and Dad seemed to have an inner sense, a gift for finding those who shared their passion.
I thought of the beautiful amber and copper jewelry that Rodolfo had given me. Perhaps the merchant could get them back to him. The faster I could get rid of anything that reminded me of that day, the better.
Through a go-between. I doubted Marcello would be cool with me hanging out with Rodolfo at all. At least for a while.
We walked along outside the castle wall, and my eyes traced the line where new stones had been placed against the old. The Fiorentini had done a good job rebuilding the castle; it was hardly a patch job. You had to really look to see where they’d replaced stones. I remembered that terrible night, when we came back to see the front destroyed, the wall torn down. What did it feel like to Marcello, to once more be home? He’d never complained, never spoken of worry, just waited for his opportunity to regain what was rightfully his.
We entered the gates, and inside the Great Hall, Cook and the other servants had created a feast, setting it before us on a massive banquet table. There were fat chickens, slow roasted on spits; piles of loaves of bread; fish; oranges from Seville; and mince pies. It didn’t take me long to figure out that this was some delayed funeral celebration. Apparently they’d been waiting for me.
Servants circulated, refilling goblets of wine, and soon, people were singing and telling stories of Fortino. One man stood up and told of hunting with him when they were boys, regaling us with
tales of his superior marksmanship. Another told a joke that had always been Fortino’s favorite. I wondered if this was what an Irish wake was like—the goodwill, the laughter.
Marcello rose, raised his goblet, and waited for all hundred guests in the room to do the same. When every eye was on him, he said, “Fortino was the finest brother that I could have ever asked for. He was not only a brother to me, but a fine friend, and I shall mourn his loss forever. But I choose this day to celebrate his memory. To celebrate his loyalty and sharp mind, his generosity and care. I choose to celebrate that, even when he was so near death, he enjoyed a period of renewed health, vitality because this woman entered our lives.” He gestured to me.
The room erupted in “hear, hears” and then settled.
I smiled at the people, nodding once, pleased that I had been able to help Fortino, at least for a time, but then thinking Marcello would go on to speak about his brother.
But he was looking intently at me, and my heart stilled. Oh, no. Not yet! Not here! Don’t say it! Not in the middle of all these people—
He looked to Dad. “We mourn the passing of my brother. But my brother knew that your daughters were some of the finest women to ever pass through our gates.”
I could see Dad slowly rising to his feet in the corner of the room, and yet I could not bear to meet his gaze. Marcello walked over to him, utterly confident, never fearing—apparently never considering—that Dad might turn him down. Mom stepped forward, sliding her hand through Dad’s arm.
“Lord and Lady Betarrini, I am deeply in love with your daughter, Lady Gabriella.”
Dad’s brow lowered. Mom looked concerned. Oh no. No, no, no—
Marcello saw it too and hesitated.
But then everyone else was coming to their feet, faces full of anticipation and hope. There was no way through but through. Quickly I moved to Marcello and took his hand. He smiled down at me and lifted it to his lips to kiss it. The action seemed to strengthen him. “Lord and Lady Betarrini, I humbly ask for your blessing over my coming nuptials. I hope to make your daughter, Gabriella, my bride, as soon as possible.”
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