Waterfall

by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  But the people wouldn’t hear of it. I was carried on my lounge into the Great Hall and deposited in the center of the dais. A goblet of wine was thrust into my hand, and a plate of grapes set beside me. Evangelia hovered nearby but was constantly drawn into conversations and introductions. Romana, to her credit, ventured near and gave me a pretty curtsy.

  “No doubt you would’ve given the swordsmen an apt challenger, just as your sister has done, were you not ailing.”

  I dismissed her praise. “Evangelia has always been a far better archer than I have ever been at swordplay.” I gestured down at my side. “Witness the results of my last challenge.”

  The doctor was there then, with us. “How is your pain, m’lady?” He bent and took my wrist in his small hand, feeling for my pulse.

  “The medicine seems to be keeping the pain at bay,” I said. I noticed then, the beginning tinge of its return. I gestured for him to lean closer. “It is my belly, Doctor. I think the medicine is upsetting my stomach.”

  He frowned and rose, sniffing as if perturbed by my secondguessing. “Impossible. I’ve never had a patient who had such a reaction. Have you been eating?”

  “Some.”

  “Clearly, not enough. Do you have pain now?”

  “Just a bit,” I said, trying to process his reaction. Why was he so defensive? Because I was younger? A woman? Questioning him?

  “Take another dose now,” he said, handing me the clay flask. “Another at bedtime, and so on.” He reached into his bag and pulled out the small packet of powder he’d sprinkled on my wound earlier. “Tonight, before bed, have your sister administer some of this, and sleep with it open, to the air.”

  I nodded, puzzled. It sounded as if he was leaving. Had he not intended to remain nearby? Promised to be available?

  “I must be off. I’m to visit another family not far from here, by nightfall.” He gave me a stern look. “You will take your medications as instructed?”

  “Yes, Doctor,” I said. A part of me was glad. He was weird. He made me nervous. I could take my medicine, with or without him there.

  He waited, and I realized he wanted to see me take my next dose in front of him. Obediently, I took a swig, making it look like a bigger mouthful than it was.

  Satisfied, he nodded once and moved out through the crowd. By the door, I saw him stop to speak with Lord Foraboschi, receive something and pocket it, then exit through the tall doors. Had it been the Rossis’ pull, their demand that set him on to a new patient, leaving me behind?

  I shoved the idea out of my mind and lifted my gaze to the room.

  My attention was drawn by a woman in a fine tapestry gown, her hair in an elaborate headdress, as she stopped in the center of the room. The crowd took their seats, and wine was passed around. The woman folded her hands, held them slightly away from her body, and began to sing without accompaniment, perfectly on pitch.

  Her words were in Latin, but her voice and expression could be understood in any language. She sang of love, loss, victory. She captured the attention of everyone in the room. When her last note rose and rose and rose, a shiver ran down my neck. If only I could sing like that…

  I wished I could turn and see Marcello, see how this singer affected him, but I could not. Marcello, Fortino, and most of the others were behind me, at the table with the Rossis and the other nobles. To turn and catch his eye then would’ve been seen by all.

  And I was with Lia now. We had to be off, gone from here. Every hour we tarried only brought more angst.

  I shifted, glad the small dose of medicine was dulling my pain, but again feeling a rolling wave of nausea come over me. My stomach twisted in a cramp, and I gasped, bringing my hand to my belly. Luckily, everyone at that moment was rising and cheering the singer, unaware of me for but a few seconds. I pulled my legs around and off the lounge, looking madly for Lia. I had to escape the hall-get to my room.

  I bent over at the next pang that pulled my stomach in a knot. My heart was racing, faster and harder than I’d ever felt before. My lips parted. Had I not been robbed of breath, I might’ve screamed.

  Cook was beside me in seconds, as was Lia. “M’lady?”

  “I am ill,” I ground out. “More than just my wound. I must return to my quarters-“

  Another pang of pain strangled me.

  “M’lady,” Marcello said lowly, on my other side.

  I looked up at him, desperate, frightened.

  “She is ill,” Cook said. “We must return her to her quarters.”

  “On her lounge,” he said, waving several servants forward.

  “Nay, now,” I said, trying to come to my feet again. I was so afraid I was about to vomit, right there, in front of everyone. But then another stomach pain came, rolling through me, making me shudder.

  Marcello frowned, bent, and swept me into his arms, careful to keep his hand from the wound at my side. Then he carried me out, the crowd dissolving into whispers behind hands. I couldn’t help it. At the next wave of pain, I cried out, wincing and shutting my eyes, hoping it would soon be over.

  Luca appeared before us, holding one door, Lia the other. I knew they followed us across the courtyard.

  “Where is the physician?” Marcello ground out.

  “He left,” I said.

  “Left? Departed?” He was incredulous.

  I nodded.

  His handsome face became stormy with anger. “He did not beg my leave.”

  “He spoke with Lord Foraboschi. Perhaps he dismissed him. Oh!” I cried.

  Marcello was practically running with me now. In short order, I was back in my quarters, in my bed. But I could not stay still. I was writhing in pain.

  “It is the medicine,” I said, shaking my head, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I tried to tell the doctor it was helping the pain but making me nauseous….”

  Marcello eyed Cook, and she turned to wave a servant over. When he bent to speak with her, she whispered in his ear, and he was off.

  Lia came to my side and took my hand in both of hers. “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, writhing, embarrassed, but helpless against the pain inside me.

  “You have to remain still, Gabi. Your wound-“

  “I know,” I said, writhing again, growing rigid, then lax. She was worried I’d rip my tender wound open. I was worried about it too.

  But my bigger concern was that something much worse was transpiring inside. Infection? A reaction to the medicine?

  Cook and Lia were apparently thinking the same thing. They pushed the men out the door, helped me out of my gown and into my short sleeping gown, then eased me to my side so they could look upon the scar. I glanced down, expecting the wound to be completely opened, oozing with infection. But it looked much as it had this morning, except for a tiny tear in the center, where my movements had pulled it open.

  “Maybe it’s inside,” I said to Lia, then grunted through another wave of pain. They were getting stronger. “An infection. Deep down.” But the frantic pace of my heart was scaring me more now. I couldn’t get it to calm down. It was pounding so hard I thought that it might look like those old cartoons, with a heart-shaped pillar bouncing in and out of my chest.

  The men burst through the door, my medicine flask in hand. Marcello’s face was white. “She’s been poisoned,” Luca said lowly to Lia.

  Marcello stared at me for a long moment, and for the first time, other than when he had confessed love for me, I saw a helpless expression upon his face.

  “What? Poison? What is it?” I asked.

  “Arsenic. Cloaked inside something else, we think,” Marcello said. He came and knelt beside my bed, stroking my face. “I shall hunt him down, Gabriella. He shall pay for these crimes-after he tells me who paid him to do such a horrific thing.”

  He was making me a deathbed promise. Giving me something to cling to as I departed.

  “There-” I coughed, winced, and then forced my eyes open again. “There is no antidote?” />
  His eyes, so wide and brown, grew even more forlorn. He shook his head, looking down in sorrow.

  I looked over my shoulder to Lia. There had to be an antidote. I’d taken it too long ago to throw it up. There had to be another option. If only we could Google it…

  We had to get out of here. Back to our own time. Immediately. It was the only thing that could save me.

  “Lord Marcello, I must speak to you in private,” Lia said, reading my mind.

  “I am not leaving her,” he said, staring at me.

  “Then have them leave,” I managed to say, my voice ragged.

  He studied me, then raised his hand, clearing the room of servants. Cook was last to go, reluctantly closing the door behind her. Luca remained. “He is as close to me as Fortino. Say what you must before us both,” Marcello said, pulling his eyes from me for but a second to look Lia in the eye.

  She came around the bed and knelt beside me and Marcello. Luca hovered over his shoulder. “What I am about to tell you will be difficult to understand. We do not yet understand it ourselves.”

  I cried out, wondering if this was what it felt like to have a baby. Labor pains. My insides tearing. Was I already bleeding within? And added to that, was I about to have a full-on heart attack at seventeen?

  “Three weeks past we came to you, through the tomb.”

  “Yes, Yes, I know,” Marcello said. “We remember it well.”

  “Nay,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm, forcing him to look her in the eye. “We came from another time. The same place, but hundreds of years into the future. We came from that time, to you, here, through the tomb. It is some sort of portal.”

  His eyes grew large and his brow furrowed as he stared at her. “You are witches?” he asked, his tone incredulous. “Practitioners of some dark magic?”

  “Nay,” she said calmly. “Nothing but two girls who were transported through time-as if we walked through a doorway in error.”

  He rose, looking frightened and confused. “You speak of madness.”

  Luca stood beside him, arms folded, no trace of humor in his face.

  Lia rose too as I cried out with another pang.

  “I must get her home, Marcello. To our own time. She is dying here. You said yourself there is no antidote. But there, in the future, we have antidotes to nearly everything. If I can get her to Radda in Chianti in time…”

  I winced, thinking of how far the Etruscan site was from any real sort of medical care, even in our own time. I cried out again, sounding pitiful, even to my own ears. When it was over, I gasped for breath as more tears rolled down my face.

  Lia stepped forward and grabbed Marcello’s tunic with both hands. “Do you love her? Do you love her as you have professed?” she demanded, all tough, trying to snap him out of his shock.

  He stared down at me. I could feel his hot gaze but could not meet it. I was writhing again, shuddering as a wave of pain shook me from the center of my gut outward. The pace was increasing, the time between the pangs diminishing.

  “Yes. God help me, I love her,” he said angrily.

  “Then save her,” she said. “Save her. Help me get her to the tomb.”

  Luca went running to the stables for horses. Cook and Fortino appeared in the doorway. “I am taking her to another doctor,” Marcello lied, staring into my eyes as he stroked my sweating forehead. I was panting like a pregnant woman trying to bear through constant contractions. At least, like what I’d seen on TV. “She has taken a turn for the worse.”

  “Let me send a messenger,” Fortino said. “Bring the physician here. We shall send our fastest rider.”

  “Nay,” Marcello said. “She will not survive but another day. She has ingested arsenic. We must try and make it to Siena.”

  Fortino and Cook both brought hands to their mouths.

  “Pray that we make it.” He rose. “Please, return to the dining hall and spread word that all is well. Keep everyone at peace. And away from us.”

  “Lady Rossi,” I panted.

  “Leave Lady Rossi to me,” he ground out, pulling aside my covers, and wincing as he saw the widening pool of blood upon the side of my gown. The wound had opened a full two inches, now oozing with each twist of my body.

  Yeah, you’re doing a number on yourself, I told myself. But I couldn’t help it. I again grew rigid, holding my breath against the searing pain. And my heart was seriously going crazy.

  “Pull some leggings of some sort over her,” he said to Lia.

  He turned to the others. “Return to the dining hall and keep everyone inside. Bring forth the jugglers, the singer again. Captivate them. No one must see us as we depart. If somebody wants her dead, I want them to believe they have accomplished their task-so I can hunt them down at my leisure.”

  We could hear the clatter of horses’ hooves from outside, through the open doorways.

  Cook bent and kissed my forehead. “God be with you, m’lady. Your return shall be my constant prayer.”

  “And mine as well,” Fortino said, bending to kiss my hand, even as Marcello pulled me up and into his arms.

  The two turned and scurried out, shouting at servants in the corridor to follow them, return to the feast. Luca appeared and glanced at Lia. “You need water? Food?”

  “We need nothing but to get her home,” she said, striding past him. Marcello followed her, holding me hard against him as I grew rigid with another seizure, arching back this time. Outside, he handed me to Luca for a moment, mounted, then reached for me, pulling me into his arms, stretching my legs across the mount, the better to hold me through the ride ahead, I assumed. No attempt at a sidesaddle this time.

  Distantly, I understood that I’d be dead if I fell off the horse. My sides would split open, and it would be all over.

  He shouted at the tower guards, and the massive gates were opened before us. Would it be the last time I ever saw Castello Forelli? I felt a wave of sorrow, wishing I was well, able to take one last look.

  He kept a firm grip on me as we tore down the path, the same path we’d taken the night of the attack upon Castello Forelli, and later Castello Paratore. I could tell he was trying to be gentle, easing me forward to duck a branch. But every movement was either an agony to my side or a searing to my gut. And my heartbeat was making me crazy. I literally thought it might stop at any point.

  Again and again we came to a stop as the pain overtook me and Marcello struggled to not let me slip to the ground. I concentrated on taking one breath at a time, of surviving just one more breath…

  In time, we were crossing the creek, climbing the winding path to the top of the hill. To where I had first met him. Luca and Lia were already there, faster on their own horses. Luca held a torch high, waiting by the tomb’s entrance, his brow a mass of confusion and frustration and fear. He handed the torch to Lia and reached for me. I pretty much slumped down into his arms. I hurt too much to even think about being embarrassed. I was crying pretty hard by then.

  Marcello dismounted and followed Lia into the tomb’s entrance, then turned to accept my body from Luca, dragging me inward. Luca followed behind.

  When we reached the center, Marcello looked up at Lia, who stood near the handprints, waiting. “You merely touch those, and you will be gone? Back from whence you came?”

  “I hope so,” Lia said, “for her sake.” Her face was a mask of sorrow and fear. “Let me hold her. I do not think that you should be touching us when our hands are on the prints, lest you leap through time with us.”

  “Mayhap I should,” he said, rising, with me in his arms again.

  “Mayhap we both should,” Luca said, stepping closer.

  “Nay,” Lia said. “It might keep us from going. And if you were to come to our time-you would be as lost as we felt here.”

  I panted, the pain constant, but I could not keep my eyes from Marcello’s profile, trying to memorize the line of his nose, the curve of his cheek, the strength of the muscles twitching in his jaw and neck.
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  This was it. One way or another, I was saying good-bye. Forever.

  I could tell I was dying then. Because it didn’t hurt.

  It was more of a dim assessment. An understanding. Fact.

  “Gabriella,” he said, looking down into my face. “If all it took was for you to touch the prints to return to your own time, why did you and Evangelia not do that as soon as you could?”

  “We had to be together,” I said, panting. “It doesn’t work with just one of us. And there was…you.”

  His brows lowered a tiny bit. “You stayed-because of me?”

  “Forgive me,” I said, shaking my head. “I interfered. Between you and Romana. In so many ways.”

  “Nay,” he said, kissing my forehead tenderly, then my lips, for such a brief moment I wondered if I’d dreamed it. He set me on my feet. Lia wrapped her arm around my waist to hold me up, her fingers from her other hand already on her print.

  Marcello lifted my hand in his, kissing the pad of each of my fingers, then looking into my eyes. “You did not interfere, Gabriella. I love you. You have stolen my heart,” he said, closing my hand in a fist, covering it with his own. “You hold it now. Do you understand that?”

  “I do.”

  “Then, if you love me, Gabriella,” he said, his eyes mad with urgency, “as I love you, return to me.”

  “You cannot ask that of her-” Lia said.

  “Return to me,” he continued, ignoring her, never looking away from my face, “and you shall find me waiting.”

  I wanted to tell him there would be no return.

  I wanted to tell him to go to Romana and do what he ought. What was expected of him.

  But all I could do was watch as he slipped the palm of my hand to the wall, directly above the print.