Waterfall (16 page)

He shook his head. “The woods are rife with bands of robbers like these, capitalizing on the unrest between Siena and Firenze-to say nothing of the Paratores.”

“That could go on for weeks, months!” I cried. “Please,” I said, reaching out to touch his forearm, feeling the dagger glance Lady Rossi shot me, “I must try to find Lia. Please.”

“Lord Marcello,” Lady Rossi said, turning to flutter her eyelashes at him. “I do agree with Lady Betarrini. If I were separated from my mother and a sister for so long, not knowing if they lived or died, I’d be beside myself. And as I’ve expressed, I, too, would like to return to Siena. Our nuptials are not very far away, and there are many plans I must turn my attention to.”

“So you wish for me to see two women to Siena?” he asked in irritation. “In the midst of the worst strife we’ve seen in a decade?”

We both stared at him, waiting him out. Who’d have guessed I’d ever be on the same side as Lady Rossi?

“Fine,” Marcello said, throwing up his hands. “We shall leave on the morrow. But only because my father wishes us to see these men to Siena. And only if they give us the information we need.” He turned on his heel and walked off. And I turned away, resisting the urge to see if Lady Rossi shared my feeling of victory.

Upon his invitation, and eager to be apart from the rest, I took my supper with Fortino. I spent an hour urging him to eat some more.

“Please, m’lady,” he said, leaning back, eyes shutting, shoving away the wooden bowl, “will you not read me a bit of the poet?”

I picked up the volume from the table between us, fingering the parchment pages. The pages weren’t smooth and uniform like modern books-they were deckled and rough on the edges. I opened it carefully, feeling as though I should have on white gloves like my parents wore when handling artifacts. But of course, that wasn’t quite possible.

“What is it about the poet that you love so dearly?” I asked.

Fortino’s brown eyes slowly opened. “You do not care for his work?”

“I did not say that….”

He studied me a moment. “He is very wise. When I was a boy, I remember him coming to stay, a fugitive from Firenze. The pope was very angry with him, and my father was an avid supporter. So he lived with us for several weeks. Important men came from far and wide to listen to him.”

I watched him as he looked to the window, remembering.

“Did that make the pope consider your father his enemy too?” I ventured.

Fortino cocked a brow. “It certainly did not endear him. But Father did not care. The lines were already being drawn, between Firenze and Siena.” He reached for the book, and I handed it to him. “Dante gives us wisdom in regard to the faith as well as politics in this work. I find new insights every time I read it… or hear it read.” He opened it and turned a few pages. “Please, begin there.”

It was my turn to cock a brow at him. “I will read it if you will eat another bite as I read.”

He smiled. “Tyrant.”

“Truly, m’lord, you will feel better, the more you eat.”

“I’ve already eaten more today than I have all of last week.”

“Which is why you feel a bit better. Please. Just half that bowl,” I coaxed.

“Very well,” he said, not at all pleased with my bargain. He lifted the bowl to his lips and eyed me and the book.

I began to read. “`Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost.”’

I paused. Dark woods. Right road lost…. Perhaps the poet had more to say to me than I thought. But that was when I heard the men screaming. I half rose, letting the book fall. It freaked me out, hearing grown men scream like that.

“Lady Betarrini-” Fortino cautioned as I picked up the book and set it on the table again. But I was already moving toward the door. “You mustn’t go out there.”

“Why?” I said, looking at him over my shoulder. A man screamed again, and I faltered, as if I’d been hit.

“Because of that,” he said. “It is not a lady’s place to witness the base work of man.”

I swallowed a snort and turned toward the door when I heard yet another cry. “I shall return in a moment.”

I ignored his call, banking on the fact he was too weak to follow. But I had to know what was happening. It had to be the men who had been captured. I knew them to be mercenaries, Castello Forelli’s enemies, perhaps even killers themselves, but what was happening to them? I strode out into the courtyard and pushed my way between a line of soldiers, then came up short.

The two captured men were still splayed out on the ground. The first man had an arrow in each leg, literally pinning him to the soil beneath. He writhed in pain, as did the man beside him.

I looked in horror to Lord Foraboschi, who stood over the second man, drawing his arrow back to drive a second arrow into his leg too.

“If we tell you,” cried the man, writhing as if he could free himself, “we are dead already!”

“Remain still,” said Lord Foraboschi, “or I might nick an artery.”

“Stop!” I cried. A knight near me grabbed for my arm, but I dodged him. “Stop!” I shouted again, stepping past the first man.

Lord Foraboschi glanced at me and then back at his target, pulling the bowstring farther back. I was enraged, and before I could think more clearly about it, stepped forward and lifted his arrow just as he released it. It went flying across the courtyard, narrowly missing a servant.

“Lady Betarrini!” Marcello cried. I could hear the men behind me collectively suck in their breath, and it finally registered that perhaps I shouldn’t have done that….

Lord Foraboschi turned toward me, his eyebrows knitting in hatred. “What are you?” he seethed, stepping toward me, raising his hand. “A filthy Florentine sympathizer? A Guelph?”

He was about to backhand me, but Marcello caught his arm midstrike. “M’lord, that is quite enough. I will see to Lady Betarrini.”

Lord Foraboschi, was thinner, older, and several inches taller than Marcello, but there was no way he could overpower him. He looked at Marcello and then to me and back again, his anger clearly growing. But Marcello’s men, Pietro, Giovanni, and Luca, were right behind him, waiting to aid him if a fight was to ensue.

“Bah,” Lord Foraboschi spat out, wrenching his arm from Marcello’s grasp.

One of the prisoners groaned, and I turned toward him. Tears were lacing down the side of his face, and he gritted his teeth, doing everything he could to keep from screaming. “Please,” I muttered, forgetting the mess with Foraboschi, feeling my heart race even faster, “we must get these arrows out,” I said. I knelt beside the man, thinking through how to remove the arrow, bind the wound-

And that was when I felt Marcello’s hand on my arm, Lucas on the other. They lifted me and hurried me past the circle of men, back toward my quarters. My feet barely touched the ground. “Stop! We must help them! Marcello! Luca-“

We entered the hallway, and the door shut behind us. Then the men released me. “You,” Marcello thundered, pointing at me, “shall not go out there again!”

“Somebody must stand for decency!” I spat back. “What kind of barbarians are you?”

“We?” he said, eyes awash in confusion. “We?” He shook his head, shared a look with Luca and paced back and forth a couple of times. “Do you know who those men out there represent?”

“No doubt, your political enemies.” My tone was full of sarcasm. Big. Freakin’. Deal. Wasn’t life more important? Every time?

“Those men,” he spat out, “killed a good man. A man I considered a friend,” he said, tapping his chest. “We were boys together. He married a fine woman two years past-someone I also considered a friend-and fathered two beautiful sons, one barely walking, one still a babe in his mother’s arms.” He stepped closer to me, inches from my face. “Those men,” he said, nodding his head toward the courtyard, “those men you are so eager to defend, made my friend watch as they burned his family alive. Then, and only then, did they kill him.”

My mouth was dry. In the last five days, I had seen men in battle, men wounded. But a woman? Two tiny children? A husband, a father, forced to watch such horror? My knees weakened, and my head swirled.

Oh, Mom. Lia. An so far from home. So, so far-

“M’lady!” I heard Marcello dimly grunt, as if he were far away.

But I was falling.

Blacking out…

When I awakened, I was in my room, Marcello beside me, looking miserable. Luca was standing by the door, as if on guard, trying to stare straight ahead. Failing at it.

“Forgive me, m’lady. I forgot myself,” he said before I could speak.

“It’s… it’s all right,” I said, lifting a hand to my head and staring at the ceiling, piecing together what had happened. I’d fainted. Unbelievable. Since when did I become a fainting sort of girl? I’d passed out only once before, when I was sick.

“You were overwrought,” he said, standing, bringing a hand to his own head, as if it ached. “As was I.”

I sighed and sat up, swinging my legs to the ground. The guy was really beating himself up over this… and I realized now that I had deserved his earlier words. I didn’t have a handle on how things worked yet, here. Now.

I mean, duh. I was living in medieval times. People were monsters in this era. I had only come across a tiny piece of what was going on out there. Marcello was simply using the tools he had at hand to try to get the information he and his father needed… not that I thought Lord Foraboschi was okay. He was a major creeper. He clearly liked shooting those guys. I shivered at the thought of him.

Marcello bent and touched my shoulder lightly. I shivered at his touch. “Do you have a chill?” he said. “Perhaps a blanket-“

“Nay,” I said, laying my hand on his and looking into his eyes. “I am well. Truly. Please. Fret no more over me.”

Our faces were overly close, and in that moment something more passed between us. I’d never felt this kind of thing with a guy-such a connection. I knew, in my head, that we were practically strangers; but this thing-whatever it was-made me feel known. Seen. Acknowledged and appreciated and admired.

I shivered again and dropped my hand. He pulled his back and stepped away, staring at me as if he couldn’t figure out what had just happened. “I…I must see to the men,” he said, gesturing with his head. “You will remain here?”

I understood his question.

“I shall not interfere again,” I promised. On any level…