DELUGE (14 page)

“There will be many men and the equivalent of a whole cistern of water up there, in case the fireworks spread beyond where they should,” countered the dogaressa. “Surely, they can handle one lone arrow.”

Still, I hesitated, trying to figure out how to talk her out of it. I imagined a medieval newspaper and headlines.
She-Wolf Burns Doge’s Palace to Ground.

“Come now,” she said, so fat that her round head seemed to sit directly on her rolling shoulders, sans neck. “Are the legends of the She-Wolves only that? Do you truly have no talent as an archer?”

“I have some talent,” I’d returned.

“Talent enough to kill man after man in battle?”

“A fair number,” I allowed.

“Then how difficult shall it be?” she asked, giving me a look as if to say that I was being obstinate. Irritating her, and in front of her ladies-in-waiting, which was clearly a no-no.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

“No need to be so reluctant,” she sniffed. “It’s quite the honor. All the ladies of Venezia compete come Carnivale time to be the one chosen as angel.”

“Thank you, Dogaressa,” I said with a slow curtsey and bow of my head. And then I’d been sent off to be trussed up like a doll, placed in this gown with its ridiculously long train and now set upon the railing of the tower. In giant wings. With a flaming arrow. Awesome. I refused to look down, or look for Gabi and Luca and my parents. I had to concentrate on the task at hand. Do this thing and move on.

But I let out a little yelp as the men set me free, swinging on the rope, and was conscious of my arrow’s fire sending sparks toward my wings.
Good luck not burning to death.
I spun and lost sight of the target as I descended. I only had a few moments longer before it’d be out of range.

People shouted and screamed and clapped below me. My spin ended, and I saw the target at last. With a breath, I let the arrow fly and it arced over the crowd. For a heart-stopping moment, I thought it was going to go low, directly into the marble exterior of the building below it. But it didn’t. I’d managed to hook the very bottom of the target and the entire thing burst into flame, and one by one, explosions sent bright yellow, red, and orange sparks into the sky. It was something like a decent neighborhood Fourth of July back home, in terms of scope. No ball field show. But these people, who’d never seen anything like it, cheered like they’d just beheld a miracle. And when I landed at last at the bottom, men surrounded me, kissing me on both cheeks, as if I’d single-handedly saved the city.

Luca managed to break his way through, shoving one man and then another aside, almost creating a brawl, until someone identified him as “the She-Wolf’s man.” Then the same men he’d shoved aside were clapping him on the back and shoulder, trying to lift him on their own shoulders like some sort of hero.

It was crazy. It was funny. It was wild. And my legs were shaking so hard, I thought I’d collapse.

But he returned to my side. Wrapping a protective arm around my waist, using his other to make our way forward, toward the church. Finally, we left the biggest partiers behind us, and the crowd split, allowing us a clear vision of the doge, the dogaressa, and two men before them, in chains.

I paused.

Because here, at last, were the new Betarrinis.

~GABRIELLA~

They made Luca and Lia stop where they were, partway down the piazza. The doge, dogaressa and prisoners were between two bonfires, directly in front of the towering church, topped with its “onion domes” high above us. Then they set an apple on each man’s head.

“Now be still,” said the doge, who was covered by a ceremonial umbrella-thingy held by a man behind him. “If you are still and the She-Wolf of Siena manages to strike the apple off each of your heads, it will be proof that the Lord Almighty wishes for you to have another chance to speak the truth. If she strikes you through the eye, it will be proof that the Lord Almighty wishes for your lies to be silenced.”

The crowd around us erupted in excitement, all talking at once. But my attention was on the Betarrinis—or the guys who
said
they were Betarrinis.

The two young men, in dirty, bedraggled, modern clothes, appeared as if they were shaking already. They were no more than twenty or twenty-two, and with a striking resemblance to me and my dad. I shared a quick look with my father.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, edging closer to me. “Maybe a distant cousin’s kids?”

“You’ve remembered a cousin in Ravenna?”

“Who knows,” he muttered. “I could have distant cousins throughout Italy.”

“Serenissimo,” Lia said, as the crowd quieted. She waved away the man who handed her a new bow and quiver of arrows. “I have already done what the dogaressa required of me in—”

“And you did a fine job of it,” the doge said, striding a few steps toward her. “Ne’er has our city had a more skilled angel descend to this piazza.”

The crowd erupted into a new round of cheers.

Lia took a moment to gather herself. Then, “You are most kind in your praise, my prince,” she said with a slight bow. “But regardless of my prowess during my descent, I must confess that I feel quite weak-kneed after the excitement. I could not possibly take these two men’s lives in my—”

“You shall. Or I shall hang them this night for their defiance.”

Lia’s mouth closed abruptly.

The doge smiled and lifted his arms. “You see, you are now able to be an angel of deliverance, if God smiles. For these two have sorely tried my patience in these last weeks, and I’ve decided they must either be placed in the madhouse or be hanged. With no family to pay the monthly stipend for the madhouse—unless you, Lady Betarrini, wish to claim them—the only answer is this. I think it rather generous of me.”

We all held our breath. One of the guy’s apples fell from his head, and he scurried after it, grabbed it, then returned to his knees. A guard placed it atop his head again. Clearly, he was terrified and saw this as his only way out. What had the doge and his men done to these young men? Our potential cousins?

I moved to step forward, to join Lia and Luca, but Marcello grabbed my arm. “Nay,” he whispered. “Your presence will only heighten the tension. This is Evangelia’s fight. Let her fight it.”

I wrung my hands and stared at my sis. The ridiculous wings made me think of old Victoria’s Secret commercials. Except she had a whole lot more clothes on. But would they get in the way of her shooting with accuracy? She’d managed to strike the fireworks target…

“I will not shoot with this bow,” she said to the doge, gesturing toward what the ducale knight offered her. “Only my own.”

The doge gave her a long, level stare and then nodded to a steward beside him to go and fetch her bow. She was agreeing to it? She actually intended to shoot those apples off?

“And if I succeed,” she dared to continue, “the first words the men share will be with the kin they claim.  We need to meet with them. In private. For an hour. We need that time to ascertain if they truly are kin to us, and if we should pay for their keep in a madhouse here or in Toscana.”

Sheesh, that was smart
. I’d never seen her act so strong, and my heart pounded with pride, alternating with panic. I knew she could do it, but with the shifting light of fires, the distance, the stakes…

All around us, the crowd was abuzz, men immediately taking bets for or against Lia. On and on it went, growing louder as people panicked, worried they wouldn’t get someone to accept a bet in time, while Luca helped Lia take off the ridiculous wings. Finally, the knight returned with her own bow and quiver.

Lia set the strap of her quiver over her shoulder and slowly reached for one arrow, staring at the young man on the left, a hundred paces away. Mercifully, she flew the first arrow without further pause, nicking the fruit, hitting the top right quadrant, but succeeding in driving it from his head. He collapsed in tears, falling to his face in relief, but then sitting back up, hugging himself, looking agape at his brother. The other one was younger, and now shaking so much that the apple was teetering on his head.

“Be still, cousin,” Lia said quietly as she nocked another arrow, her words echoing across the stone tiles. “I can do this,” she said, drawing back the string and taking aim. “You may trust me.”

The crowd was silent. No one coughed. No one moved. It was impossible, but in that piazza, crowded with perhaps a thousand people, it seemed no one even breathed.

And when she let the arrow fly, it hovered mid-air, moving in slow-motion for a time, then picked up speed, driving through the apple and pinning it against the wooden door of the ancient church behind the younger man.

This time, the crowd really did go wild.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

~EVANGELIA~

Everyone moved toward us, from all sides. Luca had no chance against them, though he tried. People were laughing and shouting and lifting me up, chanting, “She-Wolf! She-Wolf! She-Wolf!”

I looked back over my right shoulder, to the consternation on Luca’s face, him reaching for his sword—

“Nay!” I cried, “Nay! Please. Let me down at once. Please.”

A man with a bulbous nose and deeply dimpled chin near my head heard me and began shouting, “Let her down! Let the She-Wolf down!” He pulled at one man’s arms and then another’s, joining Luca in the effort, and my heart faltered as I thought I might fall to the piazza tiles.

But in the end, my body and shoulders were held erect and my legs gradually angled downward. Still, the press of the people kept me nearly aloft, and I’d touch one slippered foot to solid ground only for it to be lifted as the other met stone. They were moving me, slowly, toward the front of the piazza, where the doge and his minions were. I had a brief moment of panic when I realized my bow and quiver had fallen or been pulled from my shoulder, but when I looked back, I saw that people were passing it forward, right behind me. A hush fell over the crowd as I reached the end of it, to the five-foot span of space that separated the commoners from the nobles, who stood on the steps of the church. Luca was spit out of the masses behind me, and hurried to catch up, looking disheveled and frustrated, pushing back a shock of dirty blond hair from his sweaty face.

But my attention was on the doge and the knights behind him, who held the two Betarrini men. I paused and looked the doge in the eye.

“Your challenge has been met, Serenissimo. Now, please honor our agreement by allowing me and mine to have a word in private with your two prisoners.”

A cheer went up behind us and I saw the doge’s eyes harden. We both knew he had no option. He’d as much as promised. Lips clamped together, he waved one hand of dismissal, and we were all set in motion. The crowd was yelling and applauding and officials were attempting to quiet them, apparently in preparation for a speech or something from the doge. It pleased me…maybe it’d take a while to do what he had to, helping to assure us of the time we’d been promised.

The Betarrini boys were in front of me and Luca, their hands bound, a knight on either side of them with beefy hands locked on their forearms. They kept looking back at me, half in gratefulness, I decided, and half in anger. Maybe they didn’t like that I took their lives in my hands. But really, what option did we have? I didn’t know if the doge would’ve ever granted us a private audience, and I wasn’t crazy about anyone hearing what we were about to talk about.

I itched in anticipation. Soon we’d know if these two were crazy or fellow time travelers. The thing was, they didn’t look nutsy. They looked like…family. A couple of inches taller than Gabi and me, with those trademark Betarrini curls, olive skin, and big, brown eyes. Eyes that held no edge of madness.

These guys appeared weary, beaten, but
sane
.

Goosebumps ran up my arm and down my back.

“Evangelia,” Luca said, leaning toward me, “Forgive me. I tried to keep them from taking you—”

“I know,” I said, giving his arm a squeeze. “In a crowd like that, even the best knight could do little against them.”

He gave me a grateful look, but he was still troubled, warily surveying the last of the people as we disappeared into the Palazzo Ducale. We turned left, entered a hall to our right and emerged in the center of the palace in an open courtyard. High above us, the sky was a velvet blue, with stars twinkling like winking eyes at us.

We were led up some steep, wide stairs, covered in a barrel-vaulted ceiling, then down another hall, and finally into a room on our right. The ducale knight in charge turned to me.

“You shall find the privacy you seek here,” he said, “and we may be assured that our prisoners will not escape. Would you care to have a guard inside with you?”

“Nay,” Luca said, stepping forward. “Lord Forelli and I can certainly protect the women.”

“As you wish,” said the man, stiffly gesturing inward. We walked inside—my folks, Gabi, Marcello, the two new Betarrinis, and Luca and me.

The door closed with a solid sound behind us.

Mom moved to light more candles from the one the guard had given her, while Dad gestured to two chairs across from a settee. The young men settled gratefully onto them, leaning forward to rest their heads on their bound hands. Luca poured two glasses of water and handed one to each man.

“Drink,” he said, and the two obeyed, noisily draining the glasses dry in seconds.

“Any wine?” asked the elder one.

“Nay,” Luca said, bringing the pitcher back to refill their glasses. “But now that your tongues are wet, use them. You’ve managed to spread gossip from Venezia to Roma. Tell us your story. The truth, please. Only the truth.” He set the pitcher down, straightened, and folded his arms. “Begin with your names.”

“I am Orazio Betarrini,” said the elder one, in Italian, “and this is my brother Galileo.”

“We are your great-grandnephews,” Galileo said to my dad, rolling his hand to denote future generations.

“From Ravenna,” added Orazio, nodding excitedly, as if that would confirm things for Dad.