DELUGE (47 page)

Life, as they say, went on, but it wasn’t the sort of life I bargained for. Fields were planted. Harvests were brought in. Winter came again, and so did our enemies, both Fiorentini and plague. And after the illness had ravaged the Republic for so long, so did some of our own, the Sienese, battling among one another. Life became a cheap commodity, no one assured they would live long—all striving to get what they could, while they could. It was a particularly brutal year in Italia—that last year of the plague—and I retreated further. I knew I was retreating, but knew it from a distance, and found it impossible to force myself to the border.

Luca and Tiliani could still make me smile, but it was a small smile, like I recognized the joy they brought me like a memory. He brought her in to me, and I saw that at almost a year old, she was beautiful and thriving, and felt glad for it, but I dared not hope it would remain so. Everyone was a potential target. The antibiotics we’d risked our lives for, worthless.

Would I bury her this year? Or next? Would she follow her cousin or lead him into death?

Just last month, Giacinta’s sweet, red-headed daughter and Marcello’s steward, Leo, had both died the same day. Twelve others within our walls went with them.

Luca placed our daughter in my arms, but she only remained there a minute before she reached for him again, whining. He took her, and his green eyes clouded with frustration. “Evangelia, this has gone on long enough. Where is the She-Wolf I took to wife? Is this what your father would want for you? For his grandchild?”

I turned my face away, to the window.

He came around, blocking my view, forcing me to look at them. “Evangelia, beloved, come back to us. We need you. I know it is a great deal to tolerate, but we are making it through. This plague shall finish its rampage soon, yes? We’ve made it this far. But we have today,
this
day. This fine spring morning. Come, come for a walk with me and our daughter in the woods. Or a ride?”

I shook my head slightly and looked to my hands. “Not now, Luca. I have a headache.”

He stiffened, knowing I lied.

Turning him away, as I had so often in our bed.

He left me then, to my own morose thoughts and the minutes that passed, one after another, until night and blessed sleep again returned to me.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

~GABRIELLA~

My sister walked about like a ghost, spooking everyone but herself, as spring moved into summer. She was almost serene, in countenance, but mostly, she just freaked me out, she acted so weird. Lia ate, bathed, slept. But it was all robotic. She accepted news of the dead and news of the living with the same, monochromatic reaction. An
oh
-life, I took to calling it. Not “OH!” Or
Ohhh
…Just…
oh
. She lived in a sort of constant-sigh world and neither Luca nor I could find a way to shake her out of it. To bring her back to us.

Holding precious Tiliani in my arms—gorgeous, impish child growing quite fat on a wet nurse’s milk and flourishing in the arms of her auntie and papa and gramma and maid—but not the mama she needed most—I knew I had to break Lia out of her trance.

Marcello helped me obtain a stack of large pieces of parchment, mounted to boards, along with some more easels from Siena. I placed them in the solarium, the dim window panes soot-covered in Dad’s absence. I felt the cold, hollow ache of missing him every time I entered the place, despite the warmth of the summer sun. He’d been the only one who cared enough to wash the milky panes, commenting on the miracle of glass-making at all in this era, and wanting to reminisce about our time in Venezia.

And yet I knew the jolt of entering the room might be just what was needed to melt Lia’s thickening layer of isolation, like coagulated, cool fat placed in a hot stove.

I took Lia’s hand one day and said simply, “Come.”

She followed, as usual, complacent, willing, neither a sense of wonder or hesitation in her. Just…emptiness. The wide span of
oh
.

The only place I saw her falter was at the threshold. She placed a hand on the doorjamb and looked at me, a trace of fear in her eyes.

“Come, Lia,” I said, gesturing toward a stool in front of the first, wide, blank canvas upon an easel.

She moved forward, walking in a stuttering, reluctant fashion but not voicing any complaint, as usual. She sank heavily to the seat.

I placed a chunk of charcoal in her hand.

“I want you to draw your pain. Your anguish. Your sorrow. Your fear. Your anger. Draw it out.”

Her bright blue eyes looked to me, to the canvas, and back again.

“Draw it out, Lia,” I insisted. “Show me what’s buried in your heart. Show me what’s blocking you from me. From Luca. From Tiliani. From Mom.”

She remained still, staring at the canvas.

“Do it, Lia. Get it out. Get it all out. Because this? This way you’re
living
? It’s lame, Lia. Totally lame. It’s not living. This is more like living
death
.”

She didn’t move or say anything, and I began pacing.

“What you’re doing is…horrible, Lia. It’s a
sacrilege
, dishonoring all who have died to save us. Those who loved us. You are emotionally starving your baby, your husband, yourself.” I sank to my knees beside her, tears dripping down my face.

“
Fight
, Lia. Find the fight again. Draw deep. Show me what pulls you from the light, from life. From love.”

She remained where she was, slack, practically dropping the charcoal from her fingers.

“Lia!” I cried, pushing at her shoulder.

I was scared. Had I lost her too?

“
Evangelia
,” I grit out.

I wrapped around her and took her hand in mine and clenched her fingers around the charcoal and took a deep breath. “You were meant for more than this, Lia,” I ground out in a whisper. “You are a Betarrini. A
Forelli
. A She-Wolf. Delve deep, Lia. There is life yet, left to grab, and you have abandoned it! Walked away from it! Let it go like it wasn’t worth your effort anymore!
Think!
Think what Dad was willing to sacrifice so that we might live. And yet you turn away from it!” I let out a mirthless laugh, sitting back on my heels. “Come back to us, Lia. Show me what blocks you. What makes you angry. What makes you sad. What makes you feel anything at all!
Show me
.”

I lifted her hand to the canvas and together we made a wide, black streak. A smudge that reminded me of the ash from the funeral pyres. The dirt of the burial grounds. “Show me,” I repeated softly, slowly dropping my hand from hers, half expecting it to drop back to her lap.

But it didn’t.

Her hand hovered there a moment. Then two.

And just as I was losing hope…she moved, in a jagged line, all the way down the canvas. Paused. Lifted her hand halfway. And made another, deep, angry line. Paused.

After that came a flurry of lines, conscious smudges with the fat of her fist, more lines, moments when she leaned in, as if watching the image emerge herself, first tracing, then lining with authority. Shading. More smudging.

What evolved brought halted breath and tears that clouded my eyes.

She filled one canvas and then two, then the third. I tacked new paper to the backboards and she filled the next three as well.

It wasn’t the dark, angry images I expected. Thunderstorms and waves. Tornadoes or birds with broken wings.

What Lia sketched were images of joy.

Mom and Dad. Laughing. Dad lifting a chubby Fortino, grinning in profile. Mom in Dad’s arms. Tomas and Adela, holding hands. Rodolfo and Alessandra, cuddling Chiara. Giacinta, tickling Isabella. Knights we had known and lost—from the moment we got here to now—looking heroic, or laughing. On and on it went. For hours. Canvas upon canvas.

I soaked through a handkerchief with my tears and running nose, and was well through another when she finally stopped after her twentieth canvas.

This one was of Dad, holding little Tiliani.

Something he would never do.

She stared at it for a long, silent minute. “He died,” she whispered. “He’s gone.”

“And yet not. He lives on, in us, Lia. In Fortino. Tiliani.”

Lia’s shoulders curved in a wide slope, and she began to weep.

Deep, aching, sobs.

A keening so cutting, it sliced me in two.

But it was a breaking.

An opening.

A chance again, at last, at life.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

~EVANGELIA~

We had burned Dad’s body along with Rodolfo’s, upon funeral pyres, their hands placed around the hilt of each of their weapons.

But unlike the others in the mass graves, we had dared to gather the ashes and bits of bone after the fires cooled and placed them in ossuaries, small, marble boxes the size of a small fireproof safe, back home in Boulder.

A year after the plague had waned, spit, nipped, bit, and then left us for good, like the dying dragon it was, we stood at harvest-time at the edge of the Forelli cemetery.

Here, on the hillside within view of Castello Forelli, Marcello’s ancestors were buried beneath full statuary of them side-by side, lying in remembrance—above bones long turned to dust—and others, buried beneath simple crosses, already eroding in time.

Alessandra had asked for Rodolfo’s ashes to be buried here, saying he had had no kin greater than Marcello. And Marcello had agreed. We’d honored him months ago.

Now we gathered, finally ready, really ready, to honor Dad’s memory too, beside graves marked by Etruscan urns in which Gabi and I took to writing him notes he would never answer, but felt like he did, in our hearts.

The seven of us gathered at dusk—Marcello, Gabi and Fortino, Luca, me, Tiliani and Mom. No more. No less. Many more had loved Dad, but we were the ones who loved him most.

As the sun set, we shared stories of him. Of his bravery. Of his love.

As the stars came out, we shared his words of wisdom. Tales of how he wanted, more than anything, for us to flourish. Live life to the fullest. As we shared, we spoke of others, too, we had loved and lost. Of what they had added to our lives, invested in our lives, the seeds they had planted. And as we did so, I set their images atop the flames of a small fire, burning the images—with an illustration technique that would endanger us—commiting them solely to memory.

Gabi grabbed hold of a shovel, scooped up the ashes, and let them drop across Dad’s grave. “Life is costly…but worth the cost.”

“Indeed,” I whispered, cuddling Tiliani close. She squirmed, rejecting my tenderness, wanting down, to play in the ashes, to reach for the fire. I laughed under my breath, liking the strength and stubbornness within my toddler, the littlest She-Wolf. Fortino came to me, reaching for his cousin, and I let her down. Together, they ran off among the tombs, holding hands, giggling. Something I thought would make my Dad smile. Life, among memories of death.

The fire died down to embers as we stood there in a circle, remembering, remembering all who had died so that we might live. And when it was at last out and we turned to go, we paused at the crest of the hill.

Because lining the walls of Castello Forelli, and in the distance, Castello Greco, were people, all holding candles and torches and lamps, warm, flickering light under a darkening sky.

“Oh!” I said, bringing a hand to my mouth, staring at the beautiful spectacle of it.

“Mama!” Tiliani cried, turning to look at it and point with her pudgy finger. Little Fortino stood beside her, gazing out in awe.

“I know, baby,” I said. “I see it. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Luca wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Our people love you, Lia. You and yours. Remember you. Honor you.”

Mom came beside me, and Gabi by her, then Marcello. All of us staring at the spectacle that was our people. “Your dad would’ve loved this,” Mom said, her tone melancholy, but with the edge of hope.

I smiled, through my tears. “Yes. He would’ve.”

“Tuscan bliss,” she said, gesturing toward the castello, the horizon’s hills a silhouette against the last vestiges of twilight.

 
Bliss
, I thought, so hard-won. A fable, most times, but scratching the surface in moments like this. Sheer, startling joy. Even though we’d been through agonizing grief. Faced death, over and over again. Here,
here
was life, before us.

I stared at the line of fire, dancing before us, evidence of so many, within each castello, standing with us. Remembering. Commiserating. Honoring.

Here was community.

Love.

Life.

And in this place, in the distant past—the crazy, distant past—our future.

EPILOGUE

Summer, 1364

Tiliani Forelli laughed as she raced across the meadow and then up the steep ravine. She was bareback, her skirts up to her knees—which would make her Noni shake her head if she saw—but she was chasing Giulio and Chiara Greco, as well as trying to avoid her cousins, Fortino and Benedetto. Her little brothers, Rocco and Dante, were no serious threat. She considered letting them get closer before she claimed the prize, but the stakes were high. If she could be first to capture the flag, she’d get an extra portion of dessert tonight after supper. Papa had promised. And Cook had made her favorite sweetcakes…

There
.

At last she spied the flag that Lutterius had planted earlier, the barest glimpse of red, waving from the limb of a tree. Sheer luck, she decided, even as she steered her gelding in the right direction.

Together, they surged up the hill, all glorious muscle and strength and life. Never had Tiliani felt so alive. She wished this summer would never end, that the river of time would stop for once, so she could hold this moment. This perfect summer eve in her hand, eyes alight, smile on her lips, victory rumbling in her chest.

She leaned down as they crested the hill, tearing toward the tree, but then saw Fortino heading toward it, too, from the right.