DELUGE (40 page)

I turned outward. “I bore a son, two years past. Do witches bear children? Nurse them at their breast?”

Again, more lewd comments.

All for the cause, Gabi,
I told myself, bearing it. Not reacting. Not calling for arrows to rain down upon their disgusting minds.

Barbato was laughing, shored up by our banter. When I returned to the gate, he said casually, “My men wonder if you would be so kind to disrobe, Lady Forelli, so that we might judge for ourselves if you be but man, woman, or some other creature.”

I laughed and shook my head. “You poor, simple-minded fools. So ready to accept the word of a man who builds his treasure off the backs of men who soldier for a cause. Do you not see?” I cried. “Do you not recognize that you are being used?”

“Enough!” Lord Barbato yelled. But I ignored him.

“Do you not see that Barbato and his friends make bags full of gold florins from sales of swords, bows, arrows, shields, while all of you earn…what? A good name? A small portion of land? A few pieces of silver?”

“She wields her tongue like a sword,” Barbato bellowed. “Guard your ears! Do not listen to her, she—”

“He uses everyone and everything he can for his own gain!” I cried. “He has used your sick brothers in this fight against us! We who only wish to live as your neighbors in peace!”

“Quiet, witch!”

“Think on it!” I cried, swiftly walking the parapet. “Think on it! Has Siena once sought battle with you, in these two years past? We have not! We have not! We have left you in peace! Just as we ask you to leave us in peace!”

“That is enough!” Barbato roared. “Enough! Surrender now, witch, or prepare to be breached and hauled out behind our horses in chains.”

It was my turn to emit a sarcastic laugh. “If I surrendered to you, Barbato, I doubt you would grant me any honor. I remember it well, Firenze’s
hospitality
.”

His face reddened. “Then do I correctly understand you? You shall not come down? You shall not surrender?”

“I told you. I need an hour to confer with my men and family.”

“You toy with me, witch.” His face tightened, and he lifted his arm.

All the men came to their feet and all of mine straightened, readying themselves.

And then the attack resumed in earnest.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

~GABRIELLA~

As we did our best to fend off our attackers, I thought of Captain Pezzati’s plan. To break out of the gate and fight our way out.

I knew that it meant our men would die in front of the castello rather than inside her walls. It would be a heroic way to go, but it would not spare them…nor us. Because I knew we’d still be outnumbered, and in time overcome. No, our best bet was to fight as long as we could, then retreat to the fortified inner portions of the castle and pray the doors would hold until Marcello and Luca could come…and that Barbato wouldn’t think of burning us out.

Lia returned to my side, panting, plainly weary. Her fingers were bloody from the continuous shooting, as were those of all our archers. It was getting so dark out it was difficult to see farther than the ground, and it was bitterly cold. There was the scent of snow on the wind. Yeah, that’d about cap off this perfect day…a good, old-fashioned blizzard. That’d be fan-freakin’-tastic.

Hope that my husband—and reinforcements—would come this night waned in the face of our bleak reality. Barbato was not calling off the attack. They’d come, and come, and come. They shifted in the deep shadows of night, while we had to have some light, to make certain we didn’t take down our fellow Forellis rather than any of the Fiorentini who made it across the wall. And that made us an easier target.

I shook my head at Captain Pezzati and Lia as more arrows shot past them and two more claws crossed the walls. So far, only one stream of Fiorentini had managed to breach us using that method, and we’d cut down the five men who infiltrated us, but it didn’t keep them from continuing to try. They knew what I was just realizing—in time, we’d be too weary to cut another rope, drop another rock, toss another pail of boiling water. In time, two or three streams of men would infiltrate the parapet, and others would follow.

“Under cover of darkness,” Captain Pezzati began, as a man behind him was hit in the shoulder, and another eased him to the parapet floor, “if we could get you far enough into the woods, you might have a chance to escape.”

“Nay, that’s madness,” I said. “’Twould be preferable to die here, on the wall, fighting, than to be overcome after watching you all sacrifice yourselves as our living wall.”

Lia nodded in agreement. “So we take refuge below, when we can fight no longer?”

I stared at her. There was one other option. An option that only she, my parents, Luca and Marcello knew of. A narrow escape tunnel out from under the new wing of the castle. It might get us far enough to do what Captain Pezzati proposed.

“I think we make them
believe
we’re inside the fortified portion. We leave everyone in the castello there. But we take Mom and Dad, Fortino, and a few men and go to the tunnel.”

“But ’tis
unfinished
,” Lia said. “There are days, mayhap weeks of digging left.”

“What tunnel?” Captain Pezzati grunted, his eyes narrowing.

“Not if we go directly up,” I said to her.

“Directly up,” she repeated. She edged around the wall, peering into the darkness to the northeast, as if trying to make her best guess as to where the tunnel ended and where that would put us.

“Of what tunnel do you speak?” Captain Pezzati growled again.

“Shh,” I said, eying the nearest knight behind him. But he appeared to not have heard. “’Tis a narrow siege tunnel. Created for just this purpose, bit by bit, by only our closest kin, so that no one would know but us. For just this reason.”

“But ’tis
unfinished
,” Lia said again, clearly getting angry. “It gains us nothing if we do naught but rise directly in front of Barbato’s tent.”

I sighed heavily and rubbed my forehead. “Do you have a better idea?” I asked in English, flipping my hand out to her. “We’re not gonna make it ’til morning, Lia.”

She stared back at me, her blue eyes flicking back and forth, thinking, thinking…then she looked to the captain.

“You could…seal it behind us. The tunnel. The castello might be overrun, but they would not find us there.” She glanced at me. “They could simply return the bricks to where they now lay, behind us.”

She proposed a tomb, of sorts. The mere thought of a confined space with so many bodies made me gasp for breath. But I grit my teeth and nodded. Only one thing made me smile.

If we were breached,
when
we were breached, the Fiorentini would not find us within.

And they really would think we were capable of a very dark magic indeed.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

~GABRIELLA~

We fought for hours, but as they sensed our strength fading, they brought ladder upon ladder to the wall, and we knew we could not keep them all away. We were down to twenty men.

“Come, m’lady,” Captain Pezzati said, gripping my arm.

I wasn’t arguing. It had to be near three in the morning, and I knew our battle was lost. I only hoped that Marcello and any Sienese knights he could muster were on their way. Across the castello, on the far wall, we saw Fiorentini streaming in, like ants climbing up and dividing in either direction, a constant line.

We raced down the turret stairs. At the bottom, a man prepared to close and blockade it, as I knew they would do in this main section. Here they had access to water and double doors. Mom and Dad were there, tending to the wounded, having wisely placed them in this Last Resort wing. As soon as she saw us, Mom rose and came to me.

“We are overcome, then?”

“Yes. We’ll leave them here,” I said, gesturing to the knights and servants. “I must get to Fortino and then we will take shelter in the fortified tunnel.”

I ran across the courtyard and encountered two Fiorentini. But despite my weariness, I knew they stood between me and my son. I ducked the first man’s swing and swung at the second man, missed him, but turned the sword hilt in my hands and stabbed the first in the back with one mighty thrust. I yanked it from his body and rolled to the right just as the second man brought his battle axe downward, missing me by inches. I was on my feet. I attacked the knight, and he seemed unbalanced and startled, backing up. Right into Celso, who finished him with one deft blow.

I went to the turret door and slammed my hand against it. “Mercede! Mercede!” I called the nursemaid. “’Tis me, Gabriella! Open the door!” Desi and Grasso, two of our terriers, followed behind me, barking.

“M’lady?” came Mercede’s tentative, frightened voice.

I turned and struck down another Fiorentini, who came at me, his neck grotesque with big, black buboes. He lifted his sword belatedly, and my own sliced his neck. Blood and pus squirted out in a broad, disgusting sweep. I almost vomited at the smell that ensued. Was that it? Had I just gotten infected?

I rammed against the door. “Come, Mercede! Now!”

I heard the bolt slide open and I yanked open the door, taking Fortino into my arms. He was crying. The dogs were barking. “M’lady!” Mercede shrieked, and I instinctively ducked, a knight’s sword narrowly missing my own neck and crashing into the wall above. Thankfully, Celso was still with me and took him on.

I took Fortino’s chin in my hand. “Hold on to me,” I said. “No matter what happens, don’t let go!”

He nodded, big tears slipping down his face. I swung him onto my back and his small hands knotted beneath my chin, choking me, but I didn’t care. That choke meant that my boy was with me, alive.

“Chiara, stay with Mercede!” I cried. But I knew my directive wasn’t really necessary. The girl clung to the nursemaid in stark terror. Is this what had happened to her parents? To Rodolfo and Alessandra?

More Fiorentini had swarmed the courtyard. Lia was on the far side, firing arrow after arrow, and I concentrated on her. “Follow me!” I screamed to Mercede, and we ran.

“Down, Gabi!” Lia cried when we were halfway across. I ducked, praying Fortino wasn’t sticking up too far, and heard two arrows whistle past us in quick succession, two men crying as each found their mark.

“Run, Gabi!” Lia shouted, turning to shoot to her left, then swinging to the right.

I ran toward her like a high school quarterback spotting the end zone, praying Mercede and Celso were right behind me. Desi and Grasso scurried along beside us, growling.

“Gabi!” Lia said, looking left.

She took down one knight, the force of her arrow spinning him away from me, but wasn’t fast enough to catch the second. He barreled into me, tackling me to the ground. I heard Fortino cry and felt his grip break at my neck. I immediately turned to crawl toward him. He was on his back, eyes wide, the wind plainly knocked from his little chest.

Celso blocked a blow that would have killed me for certain, and then Dad was there, scooping Fortino up in his arms, offering me a hand. “C’mon, babe. Time to go.”

I took it, and he yanked me up and through the tunnel doorway. It slammed shut. I blinked, taking stock while looking about in my shell-shocked fog, the dogs circling around my legs. Fortino, in Mom’s arms. Dad. Lia. Mercede. Countless wounded, each with a sword in their hands or near them. “Celso,” I mumbled. “Celso!”

I turned toward the door, but Captain Pezzati blocked me. He shook his head as the second door was shut and locked. “He shall see to his duty,” he said grimly.

He’d chosen to stay outside. To defend the door as long as he could. To defend us and give us a few more precious minutes.

I wept, gasping for breath. So many men–brothers, really—now dead or dying. My eyes swept across the wounded and ten weary but hale knights. Fifteen more were maidservants, stableboys and squires.

“Come, m’lady,” Captain Pezzati said, gripping my arm again. “We must get you to that inner chamber.”

“Nay,” I said, shaking my head. “We shall not leave you or them.”

“Should this last segment of the castle be breached, we shall fight to the last, even the wounded among us,” Captain Pezzati said. “You may trust us.”

“I do trust you,” I said. “Every one of you. And you may trust us. We shall not abandon you.”

Captain Pezzati’s face reddened with frustration. He turned his grip on my arm, and I knew he was preparing to drag me to the tunnel, if need be. “Our duty is to Lord Forelli, and his priority was your safety, and your family’s.”

I wrenched my arm away. Strength rose within me as passion and understanding and life flowed through veins that had seemed long empty. “You are our family,” I said, looking at each of them. “You are our brothers. Our sisters.”

I looked to Mom and Dad and Lia, then. Making sure I wasn’t alone in this. Each of them nodded an assent. Only little Fortino and Chiara made me pause. But this was right. Good. I was as sure of my course as Tomas and Adela had been when they left us.
I can do no other.

“Close and bolt the second siege doors,” I said, looking to the far end of the tunnel. “We shall remain with you until this is done.”

The men looked bleak. Several women were crying.

“What does it matter?” Giacinta said, her daughter, Isabella, in her arms. “They shall kill us whether or not you are here. Why not take shelter? Save yourselves! Take the children with you!”

The girl clung to her mother’s waist, weeping.

“Nay. We shall not leave you,” I ground out. “Together, we shall fight. Marcello and his men must be on their way to us by now. They must. We will simply hold out long enough for them to come to our aid. And we shall do that together.”

We heard the muffled crack of a door—the outer one?—and all looked to the secondary door. I’d never been more glad for reinforcements than I was in that moment. And yet I was aware of Celso and others who had not made it inside with us. Would any of them survive? I had to fight the urge to fling open the doors and charge out to lend my sword to the cause again—only Captain Pezzati’s firm commands stopped me. He reoriented the Betarrini-Forellis to the very center of the room, with the wounded on either side of us, and able warriors on each end.