DELUGE (45 page)

But I was only as far as my hands and knees when Rodolfo was there, blocking the blow, then pushing him back, with a series of parries and strikes and punches and shoves.

Luca reached me, then, helping me to my feet before turning to fight another Fiorentini, this one plainly sick with the plague. “What in the saints’ name are you doing here?” he grunted over his shoulder.

Wearily, I drew an arrow and shot his assailant from the side. “Saving you, again, it appears,” I said with a small grin.

He laughed under his breath and shook his head, half in fury, I knew, half in total dismay.

“Forellis, now!” bellowed Otello, and I turned to see the opening was holding and for the moment, we had room to run. Rodolfo picked up an ailing, older man in his arms, Alessandra at his side. Otello turned to pull Baldarino’s arm across his shoulders. The knight was bloody from head to toe, but alive. Marcello was ten paces off, near the edge of the woods, fighting a large knight.

“Did you get it?” I asked Luca, now working with me, Matteo and Falito in taking down any Fiorentini that drew near, even as we worked our way toward the exit point.

“We have it,” he grunted. “
Down
.”

I crouched without question and felt the cold whoosh of metal near the back of my neck—setting every hair on end—and then heard the clang of sword against sword. I was rolling, rising, aware that my kerchief had fallen, when I felt a hand on my braid. The man pulled, and I was on my feet, wondering for a moment if he had pulled most of it out.

He wrenched me around to face him. He was huge. Twice my width and six inches taller. His mouth, filled with decaying teeth, opened in a wide grin of victory. I expected him to pull me back into a strangle hold, was preparing for it, but instead he shoved me with such strength that I lost my footing and yet covered a good twelve feet of ground. Two other Fiorentini grabbed my arms and rushed me toward the woods.

“Nay!” Marcello said, running to intercept them. “Release her!” he yelled, striking at the one on my left, forcing him to fight. An arrow came through the back of the neck of the one on my right, its bloody head sticking out as the man choked, dropping my arm. I turned to look over my shoulder.
Matteo, God bless him.

Instinctively, I ducked and turned, spotting one after another Fiorentini advancing.

“I know it’s been enjoyable,” Luca said, grabbing my arm, “but I believe it’s time to leave this relaxing little picnic spot.” We ran down the jagged corridor, past some men who were wounded but holding the line for us. Matteo and I kept firing arrows all the way, easing some of the pressure, but I was thankful for Otello’s plan. Without it, we’d have simply become mired in the same tar pit as the others.

We were almost out, Rodolfo twenty paces in the lead, when another group of Fiorentini managed to get around the Sienese and attacked on horseback, down the hill.

“Get behind me, Evangelia,” Luca grunted, lifting his sword.

I did as he asked, feeling the ground tremble as the Fiorentini came down toward us, like shadowy soldiers from hell, their faces indescript in the darkness.

Rodolfo had set down the old man belatedly. He was just lifting his sword when a man rammed him off his feet as he galloped past, striking his shoulder with a spiked metal ball on a chain, then coming straight toward us. In quick succession I saw Greco fall, the rider perilously close, then felt Luca whirl and strike above me as I ducked.

The man cried out, his leg gashed to the bone. His horse pulled up and turned in a circle when he felt the release of his rider’s leg. He turned and glared at me, at Luca’s back, and then pressed in to come at us again.

Alessandra was screaming, but I pushed thoughts of her away, made myself breathe and draw an arrow and take aim rather than cry out to Luca, who was still concentrating on another group of knights, coming at us, down the hill.

I shot him when he was just fifteen feet away, so close that the horse brushed past me, turning me, until I was again facing the monstrous knight who had grabbed me before. Two other Fiorentini rode between us, but he remained focused on me, striding forward, as if there was no one else in the woods.

“Luca,” I whispered.

“Hold, Lia,” he grunted, pushing me a little to the left, unknowingly
toward
the knight, as another rider rode past us on the right, slashing with his blade.

“Luca…” I said. The big knight now ran headlong toward us, too close for me to shoot. “
Luca!
”

My husband turned just in time to push me out of harm’s way, kneel with the shaft of his sword against his thigh and impale the knight on the end of his sword, just before his own sword pierced Luca’s breastplate. Luca let out a cry to match our attacker’s and the two rolled, over and over, until they came to rest, Luca atop him, his sword half buried in the Fiorentini’s chest.

I let out a mirthless laugh of wonder at my husband’s skill, at the miracle that he hadn’t been harmed too, when I saw his face. He was looking in horror, past me.

Belatedly, I turned. Marcello was running toward Rodolfo, who was surrounded by three knights, trying desperately to defend Alessandra and the old man, while clearly wounded. One knight grabbed hold of Alessandra and dragged her backward, and when Rodolfo’s attention turned toward her, another stabbed him in the lower back.

“Nay!” I screamed, taking aim with my arrow and managing to fell the third man. Marcello attacked the second, who had stabbed Rodolfo, even as his friend fell to his knees.

I turned my attention to Alessandra, fighting her captor as he tried to drag her off, away from the Sienese who now closed in to free us. But I was out of arrows.

Stealthily, I ran toward them, grabbing hold of another dagger. Four Sienese knights trailed the duo, keeping Alessandra’s captor’s attention. And in the same way that the Fiorentini’s companion stabbed Rodolfo, I took down the man who held Alessandra.

He gasped, arched his back, and crumpled, Alessandra limping away from him. I left the knights to see to his end or his capture, going to Alessandra and giving her a brief hug before turning back toward Rodolfo. We moved toward him, together, with trepidation. More Sienese were between us and the Fiorentini now. We were reasonably safe. We were. But not Rodolfo.

I could see he was bleeding out, even in the feeble light. Alessandra went to one side, and I to the other, each taking a hand. The pointed steel ball had hit above his clavicle and nicked an artery. I was surprised he had been able to keep his feet as long as he had. And the wound at his back…gently, I turned him partway over to see and then looked with sorrow at his wife. I shook my head. I was sure he’d been stabbed in the kidney. Not even Mom could save a man with a wound like that.

Rodolfo lifted Alessandra’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “I have loved you, Alessandra. Do not forget that. Thank you…thank you for loving me.”

She wept, curling her head in toward his good shoulder. “Do not leave me, Rodolfo. Do not leave us. Chiara…and the baby…”

The baby? She was pregnant? I cried too. Chiara. Alessandra…what would they do without him? I could feel Luca and Marcello near, heard them panting for breath, spitting out blood and dirt, but my eyes stayed on Rodolfo.

He looked to me. “Take care of them, Evangelia.”

I nodded, tears flowing down my face. “I shall.”

He looked up to the men, behind us. “Take care of them all, brothers.”

Marcello and Luca knelt by his shoulders. Marcello gripped his hand. “As if they were our own kin,” he said. “You have my word, brother.”

“And mine,” Luca said.

Rodolfo took half a breath and then stopped, still staring at Marcello. I felt the life seep from him, the cold, still finality of death.

Alessandra wailed, and Luca forcibly lifted her up and away from her husband, a sight so terribly wrenching I thought I’d vomit. Marcello helped me to my feet, an arm around my shoulders. “We shall return for his body,” he said, his dirty face now tear-streaked. “But now we must get you to safety. There are still Fiorentini about.”

We paused by the old man. I saw, then, that it was Alessandra’s father, in the last stages of plague, gasping for breath.

“Leave him,” Marcello said, after kneeling beside him a moment.

“Nay!” Alessandra cried. “I must bring him with me! He may yet survive.”

Marcello’s brown eyes shifted from her to the old man. I felt the waves of futility and fury and mercy and sorrow wash through him. Here was a man who had disowned her, a Fiorentini, dying of the plague and yet…he sighed and turned toward two men. “Tie cloths about your faces and carry the old man to the castello.”

“Yes, m’lord,” they said.

The fight continued behind us as we trudged toward home—our horses scared off and lost to us for the time being—but it was waning. The Fiorentini had lost their most precious prey; night was closing in in earnest; and we were all battle-weary. After our own losses, I think we were all more than ready to rest behind Forelli walls.

But when we arrived at the castello, so thankful to see the row of torches illuminating the blessed, high walls of our sweet home, I saw something that made my heart freeze.

Mom and Dad—and the knights assigned to protect them—were no longer there.

CHAPTER FIFTY

~GABRIELLA~

Lia, Luca, and Marcello burst into our room, looking half-crazed and totally battle-worn. Their faces were red-raw from the cold, and blood and mud spattered their clothes.

“Dad!” Lia cried in relief, running to his side. Slowly, her eyes moved to Mom, lying beside him, and she turned to me, silently begging me to tell her what she plainly knew already.

Mom was sick too.

Dad reached out to touch Lia’s cheek, weeping, then thought better of it. “Thank God,” he whispered, closing fevered eyes. “I was so worried, Lia. So worried about you.”

I hurried over to Marcello, hugging him in relief then pulling back. “Did you get it? Was it there?”

Marcello released me, closed the door behind him, then reached under the wide armhole of his tunic and fished it out.

“Oh!” I cried in relief, staring at the wooden box. The antibiotics. Orazio and Galileo…they had done it. Saved us.

I opened it slowly, like it was a golden treasure out of an Indiana Jones movie rather than a set of ten-buck antibiotics. To me, it was priceless.

The wooden box was cheap veneer, but I thought it clever of the boys to put the syringes in it. Far less conspicuous than the white plastic First Aid box Mom had been forced to hide. And easier to burn when we were done. Inside were eighteen syringes, taped to the lids, and a note.

I read it aloud in a hushed, reverent whisper. “Forelli-Betarrini family, may this serve you in your greatest need, as you served us. Go with God, Orazio and Galileo.”

There was another note, hurriedly scrawled across the top. “Dose for six adults,” I read, “one per day; three days each.”

My stomach somersaulted. This wasn’t a miracle-medicine for eighteen, but only six. Still…it would help six. That was six more than we could save a minute ago.

I turned toward Dad.

But he was shaking his head.

“No, Gabi.”

I frowned. “What?”

“No. You’ve already broken quarantine, bringing us in here. Exposing you all, repeatedly.”

“There was no way I was leaving you out there—”

“You broke quarantine,” he said sharply. “Our…first line of defense.”

“Yeah, well, you went and got the
plague
of all things. Now we’re going to fix that.” I ripped off the first taped syringe and looked around for a basin of water and clean cloth. We’d need to clean his skin before inserting it…

“I thank you, Son, for retrieving that medicine,” Dad said in Italian. He was speaking to Marcello, man to man, who stood slightly behind me, to my right. “But ’tis not for me. There is medicine for six. You. Gabi. Fortino. Lia. Luca. And their child.”

I sucked in my breath, feeling slightly sick. I wasn’t hearing him right…

“No, Dad.” I fell to my knees beside Lia.

Mom pushed herself up to a sitting position and brushed back the hair from her perspiring face. “We’ve discussed it, girls,” she said quietly, sounding confident, but I didn’t miss the anxious glance she cast Dad. “We shall put our lives in the hands of God. He brought us here. Gave us a second chance for your dad…for all of us, really.”

I blinked. Mom…She didn’t go in for this sort of God-talk. Not normally. But then…never before had we been confronted with death as we had in these last days. Never. I wished Tomas was here…

“That is crazy,” Lia muttered, rising and pacing, wringing her hands. Luca reached for her, but she brushed him off. “We almost died out there,” she said, gesturing toward the door, “to bring you this medicine. Now you refuse it? In case we
might
need it?”

“I couldn’t live with myself…” Dad said, working hard to form each word, “if I lived, only to watch one of you die, because I took one of the doses.”

“And what of us?” I asked. “What if none of us ever contract it, and we sit here, with the medicine that might have brought you healing?”

Dad stared at me, silently begging me to stop arguing. But I couldn’t. Not now, not on this point.

“What if…” he said slowly, swallowing hard, “we all take a dose, and Lia’s babe is born, only to contract this dread disease? Or Fortino gets sick? Just the thought of burying one of you makes me want to die right now. And a grandchild? It’s not the way it should be, girls. Not the way.”

I stared at him, not allowing myself to look in Lia’s direction. I couldn’t say it. She had to.

But we were all silent a moment, the only sound our quiet sniffling. Mine. Lia’s. Mom’s.

Lia took Dad’s hand, stubbornly holding on to it when he tried to withdraw. “Dad, we risked our lives to save yours. So did Orazio and Galileo, in a way. They didn’t know if they could get back, but they risked it. We’ve lived our lives here for the present, not for the future or the past. Just the day. We’ve been thankful for each day we’ve been given. And to hoard this medicine, for my child, or Gabi’s,”—she paused to look my way and I nodded my encouragement—“would be to live in fear of the future. We have to make our best decision today, for this day.” She reached over to take Mom’s hand too. “And trust God with our tomorrows,” she said in English.