DELUGE (8 page)

It made sense to me. He was clever, long used to navigating the complicated waters of being a blood brother to many who were considered enemies, and yet loving many on his side of the line too. It was his whole life, really. And he’d lost and gained big in the exchanges that resulted from that devotion. To his mind, how was this any different?

“We are not witches and warlock,” Dad said, trying to leave it at that.

But Rodolfo forced it. “Then from what time are you?”

Dad searched his eyes. “From a distant future.”

Rodolfo scowled in irritation. “How distant?”

“Almost seven hundred years.”

Rodolfo’s brown eyes widened, his lips parting as he stilled. Then they clamped shut, and his brow lowered. “How is that possible?” he bit out.

“We do not know.”

Rodolfo shook his head as he waved at the tomb. “Through there?”

“Yes,” Dad said. “It is some sort of portal, a time tunnel, through which we only thought that Gabriella and Evangelia could initiate travel. But now with these new Betarrinis from Ravenna…” He rubbed his temple and looked to the horizon, lost to his own thoughts.

“If only the Ladies Betarrini could travel through it, how did you and your husband arrive?” Rodolfo asked Mom.

“Holding on to them,” she said, gesturing toward me and Lia. I still couldn’t believe they were telling him. All of it. “Clinging to them for our very lives,” she said.

“It’s the handprints,” I muttered, irritated that he’d managed to get us to spill the beans. Marcello would be ticked when he found out. And yet I couldn’t see a way around it. Now we needed to use his knowledge to our advantage. “There’s something about the handprint frescoes inside. When Lia and I touch them, they’re hot. And we have to touch them
together
. Do you know if there were handprints in the tomb the Ravennans emerged from?”

He shook his head, still looking a bit dazed. “I do not. I thought…I thought it was the entrance itself. With the angels, the figures of both Greek and Legionnaire.”

Mom nodded, clearly gratified that she’d been right about him noticing that particular element.

Greco’s attention turned toward me. “So at any time, you and Evangelia can leave?”

“It appears that way,” I said. “Though we have no intention of trying. When we went back last for Dad—we retrieved him from a time before…well, before he died.”

Rodolfo visibly paled at this, the first time I’d ever seen him do so in some time. He stared hard at Dad. “You…you
died
.”

“Apparently,” Dad said, flinging out his hands. “It happened a couple years later. I don’t remember it, because for me, it never happened. They came and retrieved me two years before that ever happened.”

Rodolfo rubbed his face and stared at me, the pieces starting to slide together. “That’s why you first claimed your father was dead, but then later miraculously ‘found him.’”

I nodded. “But now…Now we’re wondering if we are only one part of a family that can somehow travel through time. If there are more tombs, other cousins that might emerge. Which would be rather…problematic. So we must get to these men you met. Find out if what they say is the truth.”

“’Tis the truth,” Rodolfo said definitively. “Now that I know all this,” he said, waving vaguely over at us and the tomb, then staring into my eyes. “Those men speak the truth. You must get to them, and then you must get them out of Venezia. Back to their tomb, or this one. Whichever! And
back to their own time
. Do you understand me?”

He loomed, dark and urgent, fear practically seeping from his pores. “Swear they are madmen. Cousins, kin, if you must. But claim they are stark, raving mad.” His large hands were on my shoulders. “For if the doge decides there is truth in them... If he thinks that you and your kin have a strange power he could harness to extend his own…You will be in grave danger. Do you understand me, Gabriella?” he asked, shaking me a little, his fingers digging in. His brows knit, and he looked to my parents, to Lia. Then over his shoulder toward his own castle, thinking, I knew, of his wife.

“Yes!” I said in agitation, pushing his hands away. Then again, more softly, “
yes
,” understanding his look of angst as the love of kinship, care. For all of us. Not just me. For the future, for his new bride, Alessandra.

He turned, went to his saddlebag, and came back with Dad’s flashlight. After one last flick of the button and observation of the foreign, miraculous light that came on, he slapped it into my hand. “And destroy
this
.”

I lifted the flashlight in my hand, felt the comforting weight of it, the memories it held for me of Dad in so many places, so many archeological sites. In some ways, it represented my childhood. But he was right. It had to go as fast as we could destroy it, in the hottest fire we could find.

“We depart at daybreak on the morrow,” I said. “Pray that we can accomplish what we must.”

“That I will,” he said, with a wonderstruck shake of his head. “Because only with God can you go and sift sanity from madness.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

~EVANGELIA~

I pretty much didn’t talk to Luca until we were at sea, on our way to Venice. I knew I should tell him of what had happened with Rodolfo, but, well…we were hardly on speaking terms yet. So I let it slide.

As far as I could tell, Gabi hadn’t yet told Marcello either. He seemed free, easy, almost on vacation as he led her about the deck of the ship.

Lutterius was throwing apples for me, above the waves, and I was practicing, shooting them down, arrow after arrow.

After about ten, I sensed that Luca was behind me. Without turning, I said, above the noise of the sea, “Please, Sir Luca. Won’t you join me?”

He hesitated and, after sharing a look with Lutterius, I kept shooting, waiting him out.

Eventually, he dared to join me at the rail, leaning upon it. Lutterius, in deference, handed him his last apple, and then disappeared belowdecks.

Luca gave me a smirk and then chucked it, as high as he could.

I smiled, waited for it to arc, slowly drawing my arrow, and then shot it, just before it hit the water. Arrow and apple somersaulted across the waves and then bobbed there, twenty yards distant.

“Fairly impressive, m’lady,” he allowed.

I laughed quietly and then leaned on the rail beside him. “Fairly? What must I do to fully impress you, good sir?”

“You know what would impress me most, Evangelia,” he whispered, his green eyes a cauldron of conflict—all at once hopeful and challenging and defeated.

“Hmmm,” I said with a heavy sigh. “And again we come to that, yes? Our predicament. Please, might we set it aside? Just for a time? Through Venezia?”

He took his own deep breath, staring toward the setting sun, and I admired him from the side as the rays cast a gentle glow over his skin, highlighting the stubble of a sandy-colored mustache and beard.

“So say we set it aside through this sojourn to Venezia, but what then, Evangelia?”

“I do not know,” I confessed. “Mayhap nothing will be different. But at least we would have that time together. Rather than endure this dreadful divide where neither of us is happy.” I dared to touch his hand with just my pinky and ring finger, and he froze.

Slowly, slowly, we both looked at each other. He moved his long, strong fingers to cover mine, and my heart pounded as he lifted my hand to his lips.

“Ahh, Evangelia,” he said resignedly. “I suppose that it is far less trouble to keep you near me, even if I cannot have the promise of your heart forever. It nearly tears me to pieces to stay away from you.”

I smiled gratefully. “It was the archery, was it not? That made you give in? Wasn’t it my skill with bow and arrow that first made you claim your love?”

He smiled ruefully and looked out to the sea. He still held my hand and I grew quiet, well aware that we both felt wounded, hurt, and it would take some time to come together fully. To bridge this chasm between us.

If we could, truly, given that what I wanted and what he wanted were so opposed.

It was as if a layer of caution nestled between us now. But it was better than being apart, I mused.

Even if I couldn’t promise Luca forever, it certainly felt like I was his, and he was mine.

Weren’t we?

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and we stared out to the endless waves, the distant coastline of what would someday be Croatia, and I hoped.

I hoped.

CHAPTER EIGHT

~GABRIELLA~

Come morning, I stared at the roiling waters and fought to keep my breakfast in my belly. I hadn’t felt this heave-ish since my first trimester. Ya know, other than when Greco was creating all sorts of his own havoc.

Lia joined me at the ship’s rail.

“So it turns out,” I said, panting, “that pregnancy and sailing aren’t the ideal companions.”

“Stare at the horizon,” she said. “Remember that whale watching trip in California? Keep those eyes on the horizon, not me.” I did as she said. “Good. Now, breathe, Gabi. Slowly. In and out.”

Again, I followed instructions, and gradually, my stomach began to settle. The ship felt small, tall and tippy, like a double decker sailboat with two sails. For a time I’d considered going below decks and trying to ride it out, but Mom had gone before me and came up, shaking her head. “You don’t want to go down there.”

So here I’d stood for hours, in the center, at the lowest point. It was maybe nine and we still had a couple of hours to go. If the winds remained favorable, we’d arrive in Venice by afternoon. Silently, I thanked God that we wouldn’t be spending another night on this ship. How on earth had Columbus crossed the Atlantic in the
Santa Maria?

Marcello came to join me after breaking his fast. I’d decided against food, in general, for the foreseeable future. “Are you feeling a bit better?” he asked hopefully, offering me his arm. I took it and leaned my head against his shoulder.

“A bit,” I said.

“Perhaps a morsel of bread—”

“Nay, nay,” I declined quickly.

He frowned in concern. “The baby—” he whispered.

“The baby is fine,” I said, laying a hand on my belly. “Plenty of mothers are sick for many more months than I have been. It’s just the sea.”

“Mayhap this was a foolish venture,” he chastised himself. “We’d best stayed safe at home.”

“And sent my family alone? I think not.”

“We could’ve managed,” Lia said defensively. “You simply did not want to miss it.”

“Undoubtedly. Between these other mysterious Betarrinis and seeing medieval Venezia, there was no way you were leaving me behind.”

“Nay, with what’s ahead, I think we’ll need every one of us to find our way through,” Marcello said. “There are treacherous waters before us, beyond the lagoon and its doge.”

We stood there, the three of us for a time, before Luca came up. I breathed a sigh of relief as he stood beside Lia. Whatever had transpired last night had apparently helped them make up. Or at least they’d found their way to a truce, of sorts. I could still feel tension between them, but it was nothing like it had been.

“What shall we expect?” I asked Marcello. “When we arrive?”

“We’ll find our way to a palazzo of my cousins, and they shall make our presence known to the doge. I assume an invitation to court will arrive within a day or two, and we shall find a way to meet these mysterious Betarrini kin. Or at least discover their current whereabouts.”

The captain arrived, a folding chair in his arms. He set up the rickety teak chair and gestured toward it. “M’lady, please, take your ease. My own wife is in her last months of confinement, due with our third child at any moment. I know she tires easily, as must you.”

“Thank you,” I said, sinking gratefully into it. Sitting down, after hours on my feet, felt incredibly good.

Mom and Dad arrived then, carrying water. “Keep sipping at it,” she whispered.

I knew they’d devised a method of cleaning the water as we traveled, well aware that it would be difficult for me to stay hydrated. Back at the castello, we could trust the well water. But on board the ship, or on the streets of Venezia, it might prove more challenging. Dad talked about how the Venetians filtered their water, though, actually taking salt water from the lagoon and sending it through a sand filter beneath the streets, which in turn fed a cistern from which a small city block could draw water from a well.

“It’ll actually be much safer than most Tuscan wells,” he’d whispered to me.

I sipped at the cup Mom had given me, still keeping my eyes on the horizon as the others discussed what was ahead, who Marcello knew in the city, who we could count on. And gradually, my eyes grew heavier and heavier until I was asleep.

I awakened as the captain shouted directions and sailors repeated commands, hauling sail, belaying rope, tying down this or that. Lia was grinning at me, clapping excitedly. “Oh good! You’re awake! Hurry to the rail. You have to see this, Gabi.”

Marcello helped me from my chair, and I rose, stiff after apparently passing out for hours. It was a small miracle I hadn’t fallen out of my chair, but I suspected Marcello had something to do with that, as I’d woken to find his strong hands on my shoulders. I gaped at what was ahead and around us. Ships of all sizes sailed about us, some mere feet off our bow. African ships with dark-skinned men in bright-colored fabric passed us, cheerfully waving. Three ships flying the French flag passed in another, the captains greeting with sharp salutes.

Our captain was swearing and shouting one command and then counter command, trying his best to avoid a collision, until at last all sails were brought down and we came to a standstill.

“Waiting for the harbor master to send someone to bring us in,” Marcello explained. “In a port this busy, there are papers that must be filed. But at all times the Venetians take precedence. We others must squeeze in when we can.”

We continued to stare in wonder as small skiffs sailed by at breakneck speed, apparently not fearing our proximity or the lagoon’s thick traffic. Men in rowboats heavy with hills of silver anchovies skirted by, heading toward the wharves, their afternoon bounty evident. Others carried goods—boxes of chickens, bales of fabric and cotton, rounds of rope, a floating mercantile of sorts.