Francesca (35 page)

Francesca’s time finally came. She began her labors in early evening, and the first of the twins was born just before midnight. “Tell me! Tell me!” she demanded of her women, who were all attending her.

“A son!” Terza said. “And listen to him howl with his impatience,” she chuckled, handing the infant to Balbina, who saw the little one cleaned and then swaddled. The plump cook held the baby boy against her ample bosom, quieting him, a large smile upon her face. “Shall I take him to the duke?” she asked.

“Yes, take him to Carlo, his father,” Francesca corrected her gently. Then she gasped. “The pains are beginning again!” she exclaimed. And two hours later she birthed the second of the twins.

“A daughter!” Terza told her, “just like your mama.”

“Let me see her,” Francesca said happily.

“Let Roza clean and swaddle her first,” Terza advised. “You still have a bit of work left to do. You have delivered your babies every bit as easily and quickly as your mama did all those years ago. She would be very proud of you.”

“Prouder if we still held the duchy,” Francesca murmured.

“You are alive and the infants seem healthy,” Terza told her. “Be grateful and thank Santa Anna, your patron, and the blessed Mother, who was her daughter,” the serving woman advised.

“I will,” Francesca promised. She quickly expelled the afterbirth, and Terza cleaned all evidence of the births away. It was then that Roza put the female twin into her mother’s arms. The infant was awake but quiet. She stared briefly at her mother, and then, as if satisfied with what she saw, closed her eyes and slept. “Take her to her father and bring me my son,” Francesca said. She had barely seen the boy before he had been removed so his father might view his heir.

But before that might be done Rafaello came into the bedchamber, holding little Carlo in his arms. “What a lad!” he explained, well pleased.

“And here is your daughter,” she said, handing him the baby as he set their son in the crook of her arm. “I should like to call her Giovanna, after my father. Giovanna Maria Blanca. Maria for the blessed Mother, and Blanca for my sister Bianca.”

“Will your mother object to Blanca?” he asked her gently.

“This is not my mother’s daughter,” Francesca said. “She is ours. It is not likely my mother will ever see this grandchild, even if we can manage somehow to bring them word of these births, my love.”

He nodded. “Carlo and Giovanna. They are good names,” he agreed. “The priest arrived this evening before dark. We must choose godparents for the twins and let them be baptized quickly, so he may be on his way again.”

“Bernardo will serve both children as their godfather. Terza will be godmother to each twin,” Francesca decided. “With your approval, of course.”

“I will not argue such choices,” he agreed with her. “They will be so proud of the honor,” Rafaello chuckled, “and honestly I prefer it. Had you birthed these infants in the castle we should have had to choose some high-and-mighty lordling who would have sent a rich gift without seeing either Carlo or Giovanna. Bernardo and Terza will help raise them and protect them. Yes, you have chosen well, my love.”

The twin infants were baptized in the dining hall the day following their birth. Francesca was carried there so she might observe the proceedings. This was where the priest always held his services when he visited the inn in the winter. Overwhelmed at first by the great honor bestowed upon them, Bernardo and Terza performed their duties perfectly, and each child howled, outraged to be awakened as cool water was poured over its small head. The priest was pleased by this, claiming any demons inhabiting the two innocents had now been driven away by the holy baptismal waters and would not return.

The priest then departed, promising to see them again sometime in December.

It was full summer now. Francesca quickly recovered her strength and nursed her infants happily, and took up some of her duties as the innkeeper once again. Rafaello doted on his two children, marveling at how quickly they grew. July came to an end, and then August. It was September, and the few apple trees in the inn’s small orchard needed picking. Francesca realized they must begin in earnest to prepare for the arrival of their guests in late October and early November.

Though the twins’ cradles were in their bedchamber Francesca and her husband had begun to make love again. The birth of their children had released them from their self-imposed abstinence, and they were more eager than ever to share their passion.

“Do you think we wake the twins when we cry out while lovemaking?” he wondered one night. “You pleasure me so, my love, I cannot help myself.”

“If they are awakened they make no sound,” Francesca said, caressing his smooth chest with teasing fingers. She bent to kiss his nipples. “And when they do, then they must go in with Terza and Roza.” She nipped and licked where she had just kissed.

“Good,” he responded, pushing her upon her back and licking each of her nipples in turn. “Jesu! You excite me! I suspect you will always be this alluring, my love, may God have mercy on me.” Then he began to kiss her passionately, his lips devouring her, and his head spun with the simple pleasure she gave him.

She murmured her own pleasure, returning his kisses, her body eagerly yielding to him, her heart beating wildly. Was a husband supposed to continue to excite his wife after the birth of their children? When he nudged her thighs she opened to him eagerly. She wanted his thick length filling her with pleasure, sending her spinning through a cosmos of delight. She cried out as he did. “Carlo! Carlo!” she whispered in his ear. “Ohh, how I love you, my sweet husband!”

“And I you, beloved wife,” he answered her, groaning as the hot walls of her sheath closed tightly around him. “Jesu, Cara, you are so sweet. So sweet!” He began to move in her, his heart beating with a mixture of excitement and unbridled lust.

Her body rose to meet his every downward thrust. She whispered encouragement in his ear, repeating her vow of love over and over again until they were both dizzy. And then, unable to restrain himself any longer, he released his tribute into her eager womb, reveling in her cry as her body shuddered with her own pleasure. Afterwards he cradled her in his arms, nuzzling the top of her head with his lips, telling her softly of his great love for her. And they slept until Francesca arose to nurse the twins, content and happy with the life she now led. How odd that she should be happier here in the forest as an innkeeper than in their castle as the wife of a ruler.

The trees were now beginning to put on their autumn colors. One afternoon Rafaello and Matteo were up on the inn’s roof, making certain the slates were all in good order. Terza and Francesca were in the dining hall of the inn, polishing the tables, when they heard the rain that had been threatening all day begin. And then there was a loud thump. Startled, the two women looked at each other. Then they heard Bernardo shout in his deep voice, “Villain! What have you done?”

Dropping her cleaning cloth, Francesca ran outside, followed by Terza. Seeing her husband lying motionless on the ground, there was no doubt in her mind that Rafaello was dead. She gave one shriek of heartbreak, and then, looking to the roof, saw Matteo cowering. “Get down!” she ordered the man. “Get down now, for if you do not, as God is my witness, I will come up and pull you down myself!
Get down!
” Her voice was icy.

“It was an accident,” Matteo cried, but he remained where he was. “It was an accident, my lady. The wet slates caused him to lose his balance, I swear it.”

“
Get down, liar!
Before I kill you with my own bare hands I would learn why you have done this thing. Why have you killed the duke? To what purpose? Was he not always generous and fair to you, Matteo? Tell me why.”

While she was speaking, Bernardo had quickly climbed to the inn’s roof. Swiftly he scrambled across the wet slates and reached out to capture Matteo before he might escape. “Speak, villain!” he demanded of the now-terrified serving man. “Tell her why, or will you go to your death with another sin on your black soul?”

“The French!” Matteo gasped, barely able to speak with his fright. “The French promised to pay me to do the deed even before we fled the castle. They gave me a gold coin and said there were nine more should I be successful. But there was no opportunity at the castle. I have had to wait this long.”

“Gold? You slew my husband for gold? This was not a cruel, unfair, or unkind master, Matteo. This was a good man.”

“I will get my gold now,” Matteo said, unheeding of her words. “With ten pieces of gold I can buy a little farm, find a wife,” he told her. “I have done the French a great service. Now there is no duke of Terreno Boscoso to trouble them.”

“There is Duke Carlo,” Francesca said quietly. She was torn between anger and despair. She could barely look at Rafaello’s body. If she did not see it perhaps she could convince herself this was all a nasty dream.

“That infant? No three-month-old child can rule,” Matteo said.

“No, but I can, you fool! I can rule, along with the council, in my son’s name,” Francesca told him.

“You said we would never return to the castle as long as the French were there,” he said. He was not quite so afraid now. If he was quick he could escape the roof and make a run for it. With patience he could reach the town. Tell the French what he had done, tell them where the
duchessa
and her infants were hiding.

Francesca saw the sly look in Matteo’s eyes as they shifted about, looking for the right moment to jump. “Kill him!” she said to Bernardo.

The huntsman shook the surprised servant by the collar. “Slowly or quickly, my lady?”

“Just do it. I do not want to hear the sound of his voice again.” She looked at Matteo. “You will burn in hell for what you have done this day, traitor, but God will protect me and my children.”

Bernardo let the serving man live long enough to hear her curse. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he snapped the man’s neck. It was that sound that finally forced Francesca to realize the true state of things. Her strength evaporated, and she fell to her knees beside her husband’s broken body, weeping furiously. “My love, my love!” she whispered over and over again, until finally a sobbing Terza, with Roza’s help, lifted her mistress and brought her again into the inn.

As she did, Bernardo sought a spade and began to dig a grave next to the house. Matteo’s body, which he had tossed from the roof before descending, he would take deeper into the forest and leave for the wild animals. The man did not deserve a Christian burial for his wicked crime. But as he finished digging, Terza came out to speak with him.

“She will not have him simply put into the ground. There must be a coffin. One day, she says, she will take him home to be buried in his family’s crypt. Roza and I will wash him and dress him in clean garments.”

“There is little to constructing a coffin,” Bernardo said. “If it will give her some measure of peace I will gladly do it, and we will bury him on the morrow. Have you prepared a place for him, Terza?”

“Set him on one of the tables in the dining hall. Your fellow huntsmen are not here yet, and no one will ever know,” she replied.

Bernardo agreed, thinking to himself he would certainly never eat at that particular table. Then, carrying the duke into the inn, he set him gently down on a table nearest the door. His neck had been broken in the fall. There was no blood in evidence. “Where is she?” he asked Terza as he prepared to return outside again.

“We took her to her bedchamber. Roza is with her. I could give her nothing to ease her anxiety, for she must feed the twins.”

Bernardo set the duke’s body neatly, straightening out his legs, crossing his arms over his chest. “Then I will leave you to your unhappy task,” he said.

Roza shortly joined Terza. “She has fed the twins and now sleeps, but restlessly,” she reported to her senior.

Terza nodded. Together the two women stripped the duke’s body and washed it. Then they dressed him in clean garments. It was not the elegant clothing of his high rank, for that had been left behind when they fled the castle, but the simple garments of an innkeeper and hunter. Terza found two footed candelabra in the inn’s cellar, and bringing them up, set candles in the several holders and lit them.

Balbina came from her kitchen and seeing her master laid out so neatly, began to weep loudly. “What will happen to us now?” she wailed.

“Nothing, you foolish woman!” Terza snapped. “We will go on with the mistress guiding us, as she always has. The duke was the duke no matter what, but the
duchessa
is strong and she is brave. She is every bit her mother’s daughter. On the morrow we will bury the duke. Then we will give the lady time to mourn while we continue to ready the inn for our visitors.”

“But will the lady recover from this terrible loss?” Balbina wondered.

“She must, for there are her children to consider. I have told you that she is like her mother, and
Signora
Orianna put her children above all else. So will the lady now,” Terza told the cook. “For now the inn is her home, but wherever she goes Roza and I will be with her.”

“And I also,” Bernardo told the three women. “I have known the duke since he was a lad coming into the forest to join us. We became friends, and now I will guard his wife and his children with my own life. As long as I live no harm will come to them.”

Shortly afterwards Francesca came into the dining hall. She knelt at the foot of the table and prayed. Her thoughts were jumbled, and sometimes she lost track of what she was thinking. Rafaello was gone. He was dead. She could not believe her life had been altered so quickly, in such a brief time. This morning they had made love, and been happy.

Now he was dead, dead, dead. She felt the tears slipping down her cheeks, but she made no sound. The initial shock was over for her. She had the twins to consider. She rose to her feet and spoke to the two women and Bernardo. Balbina had already returned to her kitchen, weeping as she cast a final look at the duke.

“Roza, you will remain with the twins tonight. They have nursed very well, and with luck will not awaken now until dawn. Bernardo, the coffin?”