Cascade (23 page)

The morning passed by like a version of medieval C-Span, cameras rolling 24-7. And I was the camerawoman, watching fishmongers and produce sellers and butchers and cloth merchants set up tents and peddle their wares. Bargain, barter, bicker.

They all greeted me as they arrived and departed, as if making some rude comment was a key to a locked entrance.

I ignored them and then thought of smart things to retort. Long after they were gone, of course. Already, my weary, dehydrated brain wasn’t working so well.

Come early afternoon, the market closed, and most everyone returned to their homes for a hot meal and an afternoon siesta. Only a few continued to walk the square, and again I was confronted by the smells of cooking sauces, sausage sizzling above fires, the yeasty odor of bread. I closed my eyes and leaned in the corner of my cage, hoping for some sleep of my own. At least when I was sleeping, I could forget my parched throat and empty belly.

I awakened to the crowds of evening, walking among their friends, gathering in huddles to share news of the battle not thirty miles to our south. I leaned to the side, hoping to hear what was happening, but could not make out more than a word or two. My eyes traveled over the people, obviously more of the aristocracy at this hour, although I didn’t see Lord Barbato and his peeps. Women were in fine gowns and jewelry; men wore exquisite tunics. They were the rich and powerful, apparently able to buy freedom to stay back from the battle for their husbands and sons. There were soldiers among them, drinking, cavorting, dressed in the matching tunics of their overlords. Was the battle going so well that they could send some home to the mother city?

I closed my eyes in pain at the thought.

They acted as if their own men were not dying now, lying in trenches or dry riverbeds, bleeding, suffering. Here in the plaza, they laughed and flirted and occasionally made a joke at my expense. In those moments, they would look up at me as a group, seemingly holding their breath. I’d look away, weary of such games, and then hear their laughter.

My hunger abated, reaching that place at last when you just feel empty but don’t have that insane desire to fix it and fix it
right now
. Hunger I could live with, I decided, other than the nagging headache residue it left behind. But I was so thirsty now that my tongue felt thick and dry in my mouth, as if it were a lump of dead flesh. My lips were cracking.

At least I don’t have to pee,
I thought dully as the sun set and the chill of night crept near again. I forced myself to rise and stretch my aching legs, staring to the south, where I could see smoke rising to the sky. A castle on fire? A forest?
Marcello, where are you?

More than twenty-four hours had passed. I wanted to scream, rip the limbs open at the top of the cage and climb up the rope. But the rope disappeared between two doors, doors I’d never seen open after the guard peered through. I assumed they were for molten lead or hot oil, the remnants of an old city wall. Now it was merely decorative, a lookout point for guards, a place to hold the city’s trophies.

Like me.

CHAPTER 23

Thirty-six hours,
I thought dimly. The market was in full swing by the time I forced myself to my feet, clawing my way awkwardly up the branches of my cage. Again, pain shot through my limbs as the blood began to flow to my feet. I hung there against the branches, clenching my teeth to keep from screaming. When the pain abated, I opened weary eyes on the people beneath me.

Whereas my tongue felt like a lump of dead flesh yesterday, today it felt shriveled, even odder in my mouth. Four nuns were walking toward me. I could not help myself. Even though I’d sworn I would not stoop to such measures. The idea of a drink, just a sip—

“Please! Sisters!” I cried, my voice monstrous and garbled, foreign to my own ears. “A bit of water! Only a bit of water!”

The one in front paused but did not look up. Her companion bent and said a word in her ear, and they immediately went on their way.

With frustration, I felt tears rise to my eyes.
Dry as the desert, Gabi, and you’re going to waste what you’ve got left on tears? Seriously?

But I couldn’t help it. I was trembling and weak, feeling not at all like myself. Tears streamed down my face. If I could only have some water, just a cup full, how much better I’d feel!

I wept as if I was the only woman who had ever suffered such horror, ever. Then I cried over my weakness, knowing that others had suffered far worse.
Come on, Gabi, get a grip. Get a grip!

As the piazza emptied for siesta that afternoon, I sank back to my corner perch and fell into a sketchy, dream-filled sleep, waking again and again, and yet not able to stay alert either.

You are not alone.

I opened my eyes then and turned to my right, trying to get my eyes to focus in the fading afternoon light. Who was there, below me?

Lord Greco. He waited until a pair of women passed by, then with his foot, he casually traced the shape of a triangle.

I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, with the dim idea of calling out to him, to beg for water, but he had moved on through the arch and out of my line of vision. Slowly, I rolled my head to the left, looking down the street in that direction, but he wasn’t there either.

Could someone speak when dying of dehydration? When her tongue refused to cooperate? When one small movement made her dizzy?

He wanted me to remember the triangle tattoo, I decided, dragging my eyes up into the pale, washed out sunset. Why? So that I knew not everyone in this city was my sworn enemy? That he’d look after my body, after I died? See me properly buried rather than left here as Barbato threatened?

What was the point?

I could tell already that, come morning, I would not be able to rise. I was too weak, my arms and legs feeling like sticks of butter in a hot kitchen. Worse, I was getting to the place that I didn’t care.

That can’t be good,
I thought distantly, assessing myself as if I was my own nurse.

But really, wouldn’t it be easier to let go, give in, rather than fight? These people were not going to show me mercy.

I had only a day left in me, anyway. People could survive a long time without food. But without water? I knew it was impossible. I’d seen enough
Man vs. Wild
to know that. People set adrift upon the sea. Plane crashes in the desert. Lots of time on the food front. But liquid? Seventy-two hours, tops. Then the internal organs started shutting down. Once your kidneys went, you were totally messed up.

Forty-eight hours,
I thought, watching as stars began to emerge in the darkening sky, drifting again, as if I were in one of those life rafts.

I had a day left in me, then I’d be dead.

Dead like my dad. With my dad?

With him? Somewhere? Heaven? For the first time that day, I felt a jolt of hope. Peace.

Lia would have Mom.

And I’d have Dad.

Forever.

CHAPTER 24

I was dreaming of battle. I heard a man cry out then fall silent.

But then, oddly, nothing but the cooing of two doves in their muddy nest to my upper left. I opened my eyes, blinking—they felt so dry it was like my eyelids were scraping across them. I could see the dim shape of the arch above me, a black monster against a smattering of stars. But then the two small doors opened, and I could see the shape of two heads peering down at me.

The
tap, tap
of boots approaching rang through the plaza, and the heads disappeared. Beneath me, a group of twelve guards came into view, carrying torches. They looked up at me and then forward again as they moved to the other side of the piazza in their nightly formation.

Nothing had alarmed the guard. All seemed normal to them. I looked up again, wondering if I had dreamed that two sets of eyes peered down at me. But no, they were there again.

“Gabriella, ’tis I,” came a low voice.

Marcello?

My heart leaped.
Impossible
.

I was hallucinating. But I didn’t care if it was only a dream. I’d gladly give in to this one.

“Do not move, beloved,” Marcello said.

No worries there,
I thought. I couldn’t even force myself to speak.

“Has she lost consciousness?”

Who was he speaking to? Another responded. I couldn’t make out the words, but I knew the voice. Lord Greco.

“Bring her up. I’ll ride down with the cage, release her at the bottom.”

“You may have to carry her, when you do.”

“Lucky for us the city sleeps and the guard has passed.”

They began cranking on the winch. I winced at every click of the wheel—to me it was as loud as if it were a church bell ringing across the square. I let my head fall to the side, searching the cobblestones below for any sign of alarm.

They shared another word above me, then Marcello climbed down the rope. I wanted to reach up to him, touch him, but my strength was gone. “Mar…cello,” I whispered.

He stared down at me, his handsome face now visible in the faint light of a torch far below us. “Lower us down,” he said, speaking to Lord Greco but still staring at me as if I were dying in his arms, like that fateful night I almost succumbed to the poison. “I came as quickly as I could,” he said.

We lurched, and I gasped, feeling what I had now dreaded for two days—falling. But we came quickly to a stop again. Marcello looked up and then nodded. We resumed our descent, this time more steadily.

Distantly, I worried that he might fall, but he appeared as strong as ever.

I saw the torches the night watchmen carried, along the far wall, before Marcello did. But I didn’t have the strength to try to warn him. They paused, obviously catching sight of my lowering cage and the form atop it, and hovered, staring across the acres of cobblestone, as if to make certain their eyes did not deceive them in the dark. My eyes met Marcello’s, and I let my head fall to the right, trying to point with my head, but he did not get it.

The bells rang then. “The prisoner! Someone attempts to free her! Knights to arms!”

Marcello swore under his breath, jumped to the ground before my cage hit it, and worked furiously at the knot that held the door shut.

I let my head roll right again, watching the knights run toward us as though I were watching a movie unfold.

“Gabriella,” he said urgently, “can you move?”

I tried—really put my mind to it—but was only able to lift one hand.

“It’s all right,” he said grimly, finally drawing back and ramming the knot with his sword, taking out a branch at the same time. He threw open the door and dragged me out, then lifted me into his arms. I looked past his shoulder to the knights, now just twenty feet away, heard the singing of arrows flying toward them, and watched the first two fall. The others charged on, two remaining behind with their fallen comrades.

They all shouted.

So much shouting.
It rang through my head like a pained echo in a deep canyon.

But then we were through the arch, Marcello hurrying as fast as he could, with my dead weight in his arms. Behind us, I could see two archers dressed from head to toe in black, fending off those who pursued us. Was one Lia?

“She shall catch up,” Marcello grunted, reading my mind. “Do not fret.”

He turned a corner, then paused and whipped around the corner again, his back to the wall, panting.

I could hear them then, another group of guards, coming our way at a dead run. Marcello glanced around, looking for a place to hide, then set me abruptly on the ground as the boots drew nearer. He yanked a skin from his belt loop and hurriedly uncorked the mouth of it, pouring some precious water into my mouth. Then he set it on my belly, rose and drew his sword at the same time, turning around the corner to strike the first knight in the midsection, the second at the shoulder.

His archers were there, then, taking more down in rapid succession.

I thought I heard Lia’s voice, then Luca’s, but I couldn’t be sure. There was a distinct possibility that I was imagining all of this, I assessed distantly. Hallucinating.

In minutes, I was back in Marcello’s arms, with no signs of pursuit, even with the bells of alarm still ringing in the plaza. We slowed and dipped into a covered alley, arches crisscrossing above us. Marcello lowered me to the ground again and gave me more to drink. I felt the water run through me like rain through sand—I could actually
feel
it flowing through me—making me believe it all might be real. My body screamed for more. “Easy, easy,” he said soothingly. “Not too fast.”

Lia and Luca pulled off their black robes, and I saw that my sister was in a pretty gown, Luca in a nice tunic. “Just four young people out past curfew,” Marcello said with a wink.

“With the Bride of Siena in our midst,” Lia said, staring down at me in consternation. “That dress won’t draw any attention.” She knelt beside me. “Are you injured, Gabi?”

I shook my head. “In need of food and water,” I said, my voice still croaky but at least working again.

“Your thigh, ribs?”

“Still as they were,” I said. The headache was back, throttling my brain from one side to the other, as if complaining that the meager amount of water was not enough. It made me forget about my other ailments.

“Can we make the river?” Luca asked Marcello, peeking around the corner. For the first time, I got a good look at him. I squinched my eyes up tight, and then opened them again, staring at him, wondering if I was seeing things. He’d been so sick, and now he seemed—

He whipped back. “Hide,” he growled.

We pressed against the wall as a contingent of knights came trotting past. More bells were ringing. We had to get out, now, before the entire city awakened and took to arms.

They made it sound like Firenze was being attacked, not like a trapped girl sought to escape her cage.

“Come,” Marcello said, helping me to my feet. “Better?” he asked, looking at me with his sad, handsome eyes.

“A bit,” I lied, blinking wide eyes against the searing pain in my head.

“Good girl. Can you run?”

“That…might be a bit much to ask.”

“I’ll hold her from one side, you the other,” Lia said. “We’ll make better time.”

Marcello immediately did as she asked. Luca went to the door, arrow drawn, and then nodded, pointing, encouraging us onward.

We moved out, toward the river, I decided, getting my bearings again.

Two blocks from it, we heard another group of knights approach at a steady run.

We again huddled in the deep recesses of a tunnel, hearts hammering in our chests as they passed by. Marcello grunted. “Rodolfo has pointed them in the wrong direction. But take care, the entire city is liable to be peering out their windows, aiming to see what the fuss is all about.”

We moved out, hurrying along as best we could, Marcello and Lia dragging me between them.

When we finally reached the river, Marcello pulled up short and quickly lifted me in his arms. “Laugh,” he directed. “Giggle. Pretend you’ve been deep in the sops.”

He lifted me higher. “Where is my threshold?” he said, stumbling backward as if drunk. “’Tis around here somewhere!”

“Just another groom anxious for his marriage bed!” cried Luca behind us.

Lia burst out in hysterical giggles.

I saw them, then. Four men, commoners, but with axes on their shoulders, staring at us, half in irritation, half in amusement.

“Good gentlemen,” Marcello said, as I curved my face into his neck like a blushing, embarrassed bride. “Too much wine, I confess. And those bells! The bells! They have me all confused. Would you be so kind as to point out Calle Lorenzo?”

We paused before them, and Lia and Luca kept giggling behind us.

“’Tis but three more blocks, Sir,” said one man at last.

“Good man, good man,” Marcello slurred. “Now go and see what that fuss is about, will you? Sounds like all of Firenze is afire.”

They set off beyond us, running again, and we hurried forward—me between Lia and Marcello—but then dodged left at the next street, toward the river docks not far from Ponte Vecchio.

Marcello quietly gave a whistle, and another came in response. In seconds, a large skiff drew alongside the dock. Marcello tossed a small bag of coins to a dockman, who appeared to be dozing in the corner. His only movement was to reach out, grab hold of the coins, and hurriedly tuck them inside his coat.

Marcello picked me up and handed me to Luca, who had climbed aboard.

“Luca,” I breathed, so glad to see him on his feet, his strength regained. My eyes had not been deceiving me.

“Ahh, m’lady,” he whispered happily, setting me in the front of the skiff. “This what they’re selling now in the markets of Firenze?” he asked Marcello, reaching for Lia. “Beautiful women ready for their wedding day?” He held on to Lia until she smiled and squirmed away.

“Apparently they have so many, they’re free for the taking,” Marcello returned. “Come, let us be away.”

Luca was already plunging his pole down into the dark waters, easing us away from the dock. I could feel the pull of the current, hear the lapping like a gentle lullaby, dulling the constant pricks of my headache.

Marcello handed me the skin of water. “Slowly, beloved. Slowly,” he reminded me in a whisper. “I’ll give you a bit to eat once we’re safe.”

Once we’re safe.
I remembered how vast Firenze was. There were miles of river ahead of us yet, a couple of bridges, and a guardhouse at the edge of the city, before we were clear.

He turned to Lia. “Evangelia, ready your bow,” he said, pushing down on a pole at the back of the skiff, directing us into the center of the river, away from either bank, where it was darkest.

He and Luca dug in with their poles, and when it grew too deep, they reached for long paddles.

I looked to the left as we drifted, closer to the piazza and the wall where I had been perched. The city had more torches alight here, their light reaching toward us in craggy waves on the water, as if they meant to betray us.

“Trouble ahead,” Luca said over his shoulder.