Cascade (22 page)

They attacked my hair next, weaving one braid after another, forcing it into submission, along with more strands of beads, until at the end, they pinned all the braids into a knot at the nape of my neck.

A delicate ring of beads, a crown of sorts, was settled atop my head and pinned in place. The women backed off,
ooing
and
ahhing
over their own work, nodding in satisfaction.
Traitors
, I thought, glaring at them.
Selling me out, a woman, your sister, daughter, friend…

“You will let me die in that cage,” I sputtered, feeling regal in the gown, strangely powerful. “This is no fairy tale! This is war! And I am but a pawn in their game!”

“And, by far, the most beautiful pawn I’ve ever seen,” said a voice from the other side of the room.

I twisted to see him. Lord Greco. Leaning against the far wall. How long had he been there?

The servants scurried out as if to avoid the crossfire about to come.

He shook his head. “Lady Gabriella Betarrini, it is no wonder you have captured Sir Forelli’s heart. You are stirring in so many ways. Truly, you have the countenance of a queen in such finery.”

I clenched handfuls of my skirt as he neared. “M’lord, you must intervene. Please. I beseech you. You cannot let this horrible thing unfold.”

He was walking around me, checking me out. Furious, I waited until he came around and lifted my chin. “Are you quite finished? I am no prized calf to be considered from all sides!”

He gave me a gentle smile. “How I wish I had weeks to explore that mind of yours, Gabriella.”

I paused. Again, with my first name. Should I play up to him? Flirt? So that I might find my escape route? I let my eyes fall to the floor, as if I was suddenly shy under his attentions, wondering if I really had the guts to play it out. He was plainly interested. But he was also frightfully clever, seeming to see through me.

No, I’m not going there. I can’t.
It felt too wrong. Unfaithful to Marcello, even if it was only a ploy.

I raised my eyes to meet his, again defiant.

He let out a little breathy laugh, as if this pleased him, and eyed the closed doors. We were alone in the vast room. He offered his arm. “M’lady.”

Seeing no choice, I took it, wondering where he was taking me. He led me over to the towering windows opposite the doors and unlatched one, then another, opening the onyx panes, allowing the cool evening air to wash over me. I hadn’t realized until then that I was feeling a bit faint. But he’d seen it. Known it. I took in a deep breath, then another.

What he did next surprised me. From beneath the edge of his tunic, he brought out a cloth sack. He untied it swiftly, handing me a small loaf of bread and then a wax-covered round of cheese. “Eat. Quickly. It shall be your last meal in some time.”

I hesitated only a moment. Then I had half of it down in a couple minutes. “Why are you doing this?” I asked, mouth full, taking a goblet of water from his hand, studying him in the soft evening light that streamed through the windows.

“All is not as it seems,” he said simply. He urged me to take another drink and then refilled the goblet while I chewed the rest of the bread and cheese.

“Oh?” I repeated. “You are not the specter of death, come to usher me to my hideous end?”

“Do I appear as such?” he asked, quirking a smile at me from the side. “Drink,” he urged, lifting the goblet to my lips. “Truly, it might be your last for days.”

I frowned as I gulped it down, already feeling the thirst to come. I drained it, and he refilled it again, but I stood still, stubbornly waiting.

He stared into my eyes, then sighed and rolled up one sleeve.

On his left arm, right beneath the crook of his elbow, was a triangular tattoo.

Identical to one I’d seen on Marcello’s arm.

Our eyes met. I drew back, trying to make sense of it when I heard the boots of what sounded like a squadron of knights approaching through the marble hallway outside the great hall.

Hurriedly, he rolled the sleeve back down. “Drink, Gabriella. What is to come shall not be pleasant for you. But you are not alone. Remember that. You are not alone.”

CHAPTER 22

When I was led back into the vast piazza later that same day, the city was in full festival mode. Bonfires burned across the plaza. Musicians led the processional, as if I were truly a bride on her way to meet her groom. Again and again I searched for an escape route but saw none. There were simply too many people, people acting as if they were celebrating me but who were truly celebrating my public humiliation.

“The She-Wolf of Siena, conquered!”

“How could a bride so pretty be so fierce with the sword?”

“Where is your intended now, Bride of Siena?”

“Will your bride price be met?”

They taunted and laughed. But at least now no one threw spoiled fruit or stones. I walked beside Lord Greco, my arm atop his, drawing strength from him, visualizing the tattoo beneath his shirt, wondering what it meant. It comforted me that he was somehow inexplicably tied to Marcello—even if he laughed along with those in the crowd.

Marcello. Has word yet reached you? Do you know what they intend?

Even if I tried, I could not imagine the Forellis without their castle, living anywhere but that precious corner of the republic. What would happen to them? If they lost their home, as well as their means of making a living? I shook my head. I could not be a part of that, regardless of the cost.

The crowd was parting before me, throwing flower petals at my feet, but they were dead, shriveled blooms crackling beneath each footfall. Each step pained me—the new slippers chafed my tender, bruised, and cut soles, and the strained muscle in my thigh throbbed. But the people laughed, thinking I reacted to the piles of crunchy petals.

Freaks
, I thought.
Who keeps piles of dead petals, anyway?
What kind of crazy ceremony called for such a thing?

We turned a corner into the piazza, and I saw, a hundred feet away, a cage of branches that curved from the top and were secured at the bottom. Dead, shriveled flowers on vines wound through the branches above. My eyes followed the rope, which held it aloft, to the center of a grand arch, fifty feet high, part of a wall that extended to the edge of the piazza. I swallowed hard.

Did they really intend to lift me to the top of that? What if I fell?

Lord Greco felt my hesitation and looked down at me with sad eyes. He pulled me forward, and the crowd parted farther until I could see that on either side were the rest of the grandi.

They stood, somber and waiting. Lord Greco waited until a knight opened the cage door, then he turned to me and waved me inside, as if he were offering me the finest carriage possible.

The crowd erupted in laughter.

I shook my head. “Nay. Please, nay. There must be another route,” I said to the men beside Lord Barbato, looking from one to the next, leaving my eyes on Lord Greco the longest. “This is hardly civilized. What if I were one of your daughters?” I cried. “Your sister?” I said to Lord Greco.

His arms came around me then, and he bodily lifted me inside. I nearly blacked out from the pain as he pressed into my bruised and broken ribs—on purpose? How could he be so cruel?
I am so confused…

He shut the door as I turned and tried to block it, in full panic now. The cage was barely bigger than my body.

Lord Greco would not look me in the eye as a knight tied it shut, and the rest of the men circled the cage.

“Lady Betarrini,” said Lord Barbato, directly at my door. “You are hereby sentenced to the cage until your groom comes to claim you, with the required dowry in hand, be it before or after your death. May his way be hastened.”

I gripped the branches that formed the door and stared at him. “May Castello Forelli lead the way to Firenze’s defeat,” I said, “and may your soul rot in the pit of Hades.”

He stared at me coldly and gestured with his hand for his men to haul me up.

The rope was immediately taut, and I felt the cage tilt and lift. I hurriedly set my feet on two of five branches at the bottom, feeling a shiver of fear race up my back when they creaked, as if groaning in complaint from my weight.

Lord Greco gripped the edge and swung it, making me lean far in the opposite direction. I spun, even as the knights above continued to haul me upward, and I thought I might vomit all across the jeering crowd beneath me.

I almost wanted to.
Would serve ’em right…

But I held it down. I needed every ounce of carb and protein and liquid inside me, if I was to survive what was ahead of me.

At the top, the cage continued to twist in the wind. I shifted my feet, trying to find a position that didn’t make my cut-up soles burn so badly. Above me, I saw that the rope went through two doors and wrapped around a winch atop the wall. A guard locked it down and then shut the trapdoors, sealing me off.

This can’t be happening.
Dimly, I remembered some movie in which the city’s prisoners had been caged and left to rot along the main road into and out of a city. I knew punishment was severe and often barbaric in this era. But this? Surely they wouldn’t allow me to die here in this cage! Someone, somewhere, would show me mercy in time. It was all for show. A parade of sorts. Right?

If they had cell phones, they’d be taking shots of me and sending them to Marcello, goading him, mocking us. Unfortunately for me, it might take a day to find Marcello with word—assuming he was near Castello Forelli or on the front lines. But what if he was elsewhere, nursing Luca? Still in hiding? I counted back. Luca had been ill for four days now. Was he rallying? Improving? Or dead?

Lia
. Lia and my mother would receive the word, even if Marcello or Fortino were not within reach. Together, they’d find some way to come to my aid. We’d been given gold, in Siena. Maybe they could use some of that to hire some mercenaries to help come bust me loose.

I looked down.
Who am I kidding?
The people of Firenze seemed pretty committed to this whole hostage deal. They danced and feasted—even with so many men off to the battle, the square was packed. The festivities became louder, more raucous, as the wine set in and the hours ticked by. It was the only good part about my high perch—they couldn’t reach me. I shivered in the cold evening autumn breeze, wishing my bridal gown was a high-necked one, and at last, I gingerly sank to the bottom, trying to give my poor feet a break.

The cage was so narrow, I had to sit with my knees to my chest. But I discovered that the generous folds of fabric from my skirts and train could be utilized as a sort of padding for my rear end, when adjusted right. The crowd pointed and laughed when I sat down, as if I had just admitted defeat or something.

I ignored them and looked up to the sky, the stars dim against the glow of the fires beneath me. I tried to ignore the fact that I was already thirsty, tried to forget the feel of Lord Greco’s cold goblet at my lips. I leaned my forehead against a limb and found him again among the throngs beneath me, near the rest of the lords, dancing with a pretty woman. I didn’t know what his connection to Marcello was—what that tattoo was about—but he obviously wasn’t riding hard to meet him. He wasn’t squiring himself away in some secret place, talking with knights who might dare to come to my rescue.

Then, as if he sensed my stare, he turned in the dance and glanced up at me.

I looked away, back to the stars. He had probably played me the fool. Showed me the tattoo to give me false hope, encourage me to go quietly to my doom. Somewhere, someway, he and Marcello had been close enough as friends to have received the same mark on their arms. Perhaps that friendship was long over.

The smell of meat cooking over the fires had been drifting up toward me all evening, but now my stomach rumbled. Just the idea of not having another meal made me feel more anxious.
Think of the Hunger Pledge, Gabs,
I told myself, remembering a time sophomore year when a group of us raised money for the poor by going without food for twenty-four hours.
Just pretend you’re doing that again.

But at least then, I’d had water. And no one was having a barbecue in my backyard…

I dozed off as the fires died down and the square emptied. Only nine or ten revelers remained, so drunk they could not make it home, sleeping where they fell, or in corners of the piazza, leaning against the buildings. I awakened a few hours later, my breath fogging in clouds before my face. I was shivering uncontrollably.

Even worse was my shrieking bladder. I heard a guard on the wall above me and saw the light of his flickering torch. “Sir!” I called, trying to get my teeth to stop chattering. He ignored me at first. But when I kept calling, he finally moved over to the wall, directly above me by about fifteen feet, and peered through the trap doors. “I…I need to relieve myself.”

He rolled his eyes. “So be about it then.”

I paused, his words sinking in. Even for this—
this
—there was not to be some semblance of…of…civility?

He walked off, taking up his position again. The square was already coming alive, workmen there to clear the debris of the fires, getting ready for the morning market.
It’s only going to get worse, Gabi.
Quickly, I lifted myself to my feet, letting the feeling come back to my legs with the pin-prickles of blood flow, then gathered my skirts, shoved down my pantaloons and squatted.

I concentrated on the agony of my hamstring as I ignored the laughter and surprised shouts of two men below, and above me, the low chuckle of the guard. As soon as I was done, I hurriedly lifted my pantaloons, let the skirts fall and resumed the process of stretching out my sore legs, trying to push aside the humiliation.

I clutched two branches before me and stared out to the east, taking comfort in the pink glow, the first bits of sunrise, appearing there. In an hour, it would be far warmer. I stretched my fingers, which looked weirdly white, wondering if September was too early to get a case of frostbite.

You are not alone,
Lord Greco had said.

But the words came back to me in my father’s voice.

You are not alone,
he repeated.

I feel alone. Never have I felt lonelier.

You are not. You are seen. Known. Remembered.

Fab. Can someone who remembers me get me out of this mess?

There was no more voice in my head, warming my heart.

There was only the cold morning.