Waterfall (15 page)

He flashed me a grin. “Will you be seeing to my bath yourself, m’lady?”

“Nay,” I said, lifting my eyebrows and smiling back. “I believe that Enzo is more than capable of seeing you through that.” I liked the color our game brought to his cheeks, even if we both knew it was futile. When he said he might be dead by tomorrow, he wasn’t joking. His skin was so ashen, his bones poking at his flesh that he looked like he belonged in hospice. But in the meantime, I could give him some hope.

Fortino disappeared on the arm of Enzo, moving slowly, and I assumed it was to see to his bath. I dared not ask; I didn’t want him to think I was truly flirting. He needed to see me more as nurse than Potential Girlfriend Material. More servants were brought in, and the room was quickly emptied. Tapestries were rolled up and removed. Furniture was carried out. The books, the precious books, so rare in these times-priceless, were they to survive until my own-were lovingly wrapped in linens and placed in trunks.

“Saints in heaven, what is going on here?”

I turned to see Cook enter the room, and smiled at her rounded eyes and pink cheeks. “Hello, Cook.” I moved over to the older woman and said, “I learned a bit of doctoring in Normandy, so Lord Fortino has asked me to do what I can for him.”

“Ach, you watch that one, now,” she said lowly, waving a finger. “He was quite the randy one before the illness got the best of him.”

Randy? Did she mean he was a player or something? He felt far from any kind of Romeo to me. I mean, if he wasn’t on the verge of death, it might be different….

But I nodded in understanding. “I’ll take care. May I ask you for something for him?” Her brow furrowed. “I wonder if we might give him good soups in a clear broth for the next week. Chicken would be best. Lots of vegetables and meat. Do you think you can manage that?”

“Certainly,” she said, as if offended. “I could do that in my sleep.”

“Wonderful. The more simple and hearty, the better. Let’s feed him five times a day.”

“Five times a day?” she blustered. “He barely eats once!”

“Yes, well, I will see an end to that.” No one could get better on such rations. And Mom always said that chicken soup had healing properties… if I could get him to even eat a cup of it every few hours, it’d give his body the energy to fight whatever was slowly killing him.

“If that’s what the master has asked for…”

“Yes,” I said simply, speaking for him.

Five maids arrived, steaming buckets of water in each hand. I looked about the empty room. “First, let’s sweep it out and put out that fire. Can you fetch some brooms? I will aid you.”

They glanced at each other, and I knew I’d crossed a weird line. “Fine, fine,” I said in irritation. “Do it yourselves. We must hurry, though. I want the water to stay hot.”

Two scurried out and returned in short order. In minutes they’d swept the room with their crude straw brooms, piling the dust and then carrying it outside. Another poured water on the fire and cleaned the embers from the fireplace and carried it out. I gazed around. “All right, now. Let’s start up high. Like this.” I picked up a bucket and threw the water in a massive arc, so it went to the top of the ten-foot walls, even reaching a portion of the ceiling. The maids twittered and giggled, but I ignored them. They were just nervous. “Like that. Every wall. Then the floor.”

They went about their business. In half an hour, lye had been spread, more buckets of water had been splashed, and all of it had been sopped up and carried out. I returned from the hallway and surveyed their work, hands on hips. “Nice work, ladies!” I crooned.

They looked at me, wide-eyed.

“Grazie, grazie,” I said. “This is perfect. Now I need those wooden chairs for Lord Fortino, and a bucket of boiling water and clean, clean cloth. Can you fetch that for me, please?”

“Yes, m’lady,” they all said, bobbing and moving out like a line of housekeeping soldiers. I was beginning to like this Lady business. I paused to enjoy the wonder of it. Where else might I have enjoyed such power as a typical seventeen-year-old? I could get used to this, I thought, crossing my arms, watching the women do as I bid.

The furniture returned, two simple wooden chairs, a table, and a more elaborate wooden settee. They hardly looked comfortable for reclining, but there was no way around it. If we were after a non-allergic room, this was it. They brought back the tapestries and crates of books, but I held up my hand. “Forgive me,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “But, for a week, could you put those in another room?”

Eyes wide with confusion, the servants turned and left, speaking in hushed Italian to those behind them, passing on the word. “Sorry, Fortino,” I muttered. “It’s hardly a cozy den without them, but you wanted my help….”

Fortino himself returned then, looking more pale than before. He was in a thin white dressing gown, shivering, even though it was a good seventy degrees. It was going to be a hot one today, but he, obviously, was not yet feeling it. I went to the opposite side of him and helped his servant get him to the chair.

“What have you done with my possessions?” he asked.

“It’s all in your own quarters for now. Remember, you gave me a week. I’ll fetch any book you wish, but we need to be careful what we add to this room. The goal, of course, is to make you feel better.”

“Goal?”

Seriously? He didn’t know that word? “Uh, desired outcome.”

He nodded. Cook arrived with the first of his soup, and I explained to him my hope-that he would try to eat constantly through the day, at least a cup of it, five times. He began the task gamely, but after a few bites, sat back, looking at me as if he might throw up.

“All right, all right. Next time,” I said, looking to Cook, “let’s just do the broth.” She nodded and departed, and another servant arrived, with a fresh bucket of boiling water, a dancing coil of steam rising from the sloshing top.

“Right here.” I gestured toward Fortino’s feet. She set it down and handed me a yard of clean, gauzelike silk cloth. “Do you have access to more of this? A lot of it? It’s perfect for the master, unlikely to disrupt his health.” We could use it to pad the wooden settee. He was already shifting uncomfortably, probably because he had so little fat or muscle. And I could use more to block off the windows, allowing air in but hopefully keeping some of the pollen out.

She bobbed a curtsy and set off to do as I bid, but I walked over to the table and the basket of supplies they’d brought me from the kitchen. I cut a lemon in half and selected some peppermint from a basket of herbs. Fortino regarded me with suspicious, worried eyes, as did his servant.

“Cease your fretting,” I said. “I do not aim to harm you.”

“Nay, just remove any comfort I have left.”

“My desire,” I said with scolding eyes, a little irked with him, “is to see you to better health. Try to remember that, all right?”

“I’ll remember…with every creak of this bench,” he said, waving at me tiredly.

I squeezed the lemon into the water and then let the rind float atop it. I tore the oblong mint into the steaming water, watching the pieces drift across the surface for a moment until the water at last stilled. I had no idea if these would do anything more than make it smell good. Was I remembering it right? That mint had calming properties? Whatever. At least its something.

I looked up at him. “Do you still feel sick to your stomach?”

He shook his head weakly.

“Here,” I said, waving him forward. “You must sit with your head above the steam, so you feel it upon your face. Breathe it in as much as you can. I’m going to use this,” I said, reaching for the yard of cloth, “to stretch across your head, making a form of tent, which will keep the steam coming your way. All right?”

The servant looked at me with distrustful eyes and then around the room, as if catching himself. I ignored him and placed a hand on Fortino’s back. “How do you fare, m’lord?”

He nodded in response.

“If it gets too much, if you’re feeling faint, please sit back and take in some fresh air, all right?”

He nodded again.

He was so terribly weak. If we were in my time, he’d definitely be in the hospital. He probably needed a transfusion or something. An IV, for sure. I needed to get as much liquid into him as I could. Water. Tea. Broth. That would go a long way in making him feel better. And hopefully my weak attempt at a breathing treatment would help him too. If only I had access to a nebulizer and inhalers, I could fix you right up….

He sat back, the cloth about his head and shoulders, panting, but within fifteen minutes the steam had brought some color to his cheeks. “Good, good,” I soothed. “You’re doing well.”

“It makes my nose run faster, but I think it aids my lungs.”

“Yes,” I said with a smile, encouraged. “That’s what we want. To loosen the phlegm inside your lungs so you can breathe better.” I considered him for a moment. “M’lord, in your library, do you have a book by the nun named Hildegard? She is from Bingen, a place far from here, but she is known for her healing, her fame spreading to even my country. She might have some recipes to aid you.”

He shook his head, and I sighed in disappointment. Maybe the woman hadn’t even been born yet.

“How many more times will we do this?”

“As much as we can; all day if that’s what it takes,” I said. “Then, if you improve, less. But it’s worth a try, yes?”

He nodded again, so tired, and then bent forward over the bucket, determined to keep at it.

What would it be like to be twenty-one and think you could die any day?

The thunder of hoofbeats and the muffled shouts of men told us that Marcello and his men were back.

I hesitated, but Fortino said, looking out from beneath his tented cloth, “Go. But kindly return and tell me of their victory.” His words held none of the question in his eyes.

“Indeed.” I moved out of the room and out the corridor door to the courtyard. The men swirled, like leaves caught in a whirlwind, still hollering about their victory as if they’d won the World Cup or something. I quickly counted. All eighteen of them were back, plus two captives.

“They put up a brief fight, then scattered like dogs,” Marcello said proudly to his father as he dismounted. I struggled to hear over the noise, but I didn’t want to get too close, to interfere. It wasn’t my place. And Lady Rossi was already on the move, heading to her man. I wasn’t going to get in the middle of that.

“We captured these two,” I heard him say.

“Well done, son, well done,” Lord Forelli said, patting him on the back. “Have they spoken yet of the man who would back such a nefarious venture?”

“Nothing, yet.”

“Well, stake them here, in the courtyard. We shall get it out of them soon enough.”

I turned to study the elder Forelli. Stake them? Surely I hadn’t heard him correctly.

Marcello paused and then nodded. Had anyone but me seen his moment of hesitation?

Lord Forelli moved in front of the two prisoners. “I am Lord Lorenzo Forelli, master of this castle. You attacked a manor under my protection and killed a man. You shall pay for your crimes, but it will go better for you if you tell me who your master is.”

Refusing to do as he bid, both men looked anywhere but at the older man.

Lord Forelli waved his arm and then leaned forward to say so lowly I barely caught it, “You will tell me of your master, sooner or later.”

The knights, save for Luca, Giovanni, and Pietro, moved out and around the main building, to the back, where I assumed the stables were. Servants brought stakes and ropes, and in quick order, the three remaining knights had the prisoners staked to the ground, spread-eagled on their backs.

I took a step back, trying to cover my horror and probably not doing a very good job of it. I had heard him right, after all.

“Are you all right, m’lady?” Cook asked, coming beside me.

“What will they do with them?”

“A fair bit of torture, I’d wager, if they don’t tell the master what he wants to hear.”

I remained silent and Marcello came near, Lady Rossi beside him. Behind him, Giovanni kicked one of the prisoners.

“Why not throw them in the dungeon?” I said bitterly, unable to stop myself “Push bamboo shoots beneath their fingernails? Put them on the rack?” I never was good at standing idly by when someone else was being harmed.

Everyone turned to look at me, mouths hanging open. “Mayhap it is different in Normandy,” Marcello bit back. “However, I ask you to refrain from your judgment, Lady Betarrini. You clearly know nothing of how order is kept in Toscana.”

“Clearly,” I repeated, feeling Lady Rossi’s triumphant gaze but not daring to glance at her.

“If this troubles you, m’lady, mayhap you should return to your quarters.”

“Maybe I shall,” I said, feeling a sense of numbness come over me.

Lord Forelli strode over to us. “Once we have their master’s name, we shall get them to Siena,” he said to Marcello, ignoring me and Lady Rossi. “The Nine can see them-and their master-to justice. But we must first have a name.”

“It shall be done, Father.”

“Siena?” I said, seizing upon the word, worried I might’ve just blown it. “Lord Marcello, may I go with you? I may have better fortune there, finding my family.” I thought of the rectangular Fonte Gaia there again, in the piazza, Lia looking for me-