DELUGE

by Lisa T. Bergren

  “Straight away, m’lady,” she said, practically bursting with excitement to see to her task.

  I could hear the captain calling for knights to assume formation as we entered the turret. I knew his plan was to send out patrols to hopefully intercept our men returning home. And assist them, should any Fiorentini be giving chase. He’d send them out in groups of six, and keep the guys that Marcello and Luca trusted most here with us, as they had instructed. But he was as anxious as I to see the Forellis all safely home.

  I stopped partway up the stairs and breathed fast, gripping my belly.

  “Gabi?” Mom asked.

  “Contraction,” I panted, feeling the muscles bind from my back forward. “I think.”

  She frowned. “It’s probably just a Braxton-Hicks. Your body beginning to prepare for labor by pretending it’s the real deal, essentially. But it’s early for that. We need to get you to bed and make sure it’s nothing more.”

  “Give me just a moment,” I said, lifting a finger. After a minute, my muscles seemed to relax and I could breathe again. “Sheesh, this pregnancy stuff is a laugh a minute, isn’t it?”

  She laughed under her breath. “Just wait.”

  “You sure know how to encourage a girl, Mom.”

  “I do my best,” she returned. Her strong arm tightened around my waist and together we made it up the last of the stairs and into my room. I sighed with relief as Mom immediately began to unlace my overdress and unpin my hair. What would I do without her? I thought, gratefulness swelling in my heart, despite my exhaustion. There was no fire in the corner fireplace, but the room still felt warm to me. At least it was warmer than it was outside…and once I was in the big bed, under the wool blankets, I knew I’d be toasty within minutes. And asleep before I noticed.

  I sank to the edge of the bed, aware that I was still in my road-grubby shift, yet not caring. Giacinta arrived with a bucket of water, filled a basin, and carried it over to me with a cloth.

  “I’m so glad you’re home safe and sound, m’lady,” she said.

  “As am I.” I took the cloth from her hand, dipped it, wrung it out and washed my face and neck.

  “Is Lord Forelli coming soon, too?” she asked carefully.

  “As soon as he can. He’s in pursuit of some Fiorentini who tried to kidnap our kin.”

  “Your kin?” she said in horror.

  I remembered Galileo, then, with regret. I’d felt so faint… “Giacinta, do you know if my cousin, Galileo, was given a room?”

  “Oh yes, m’lady. Lady Evangelia saw to him.”

  “Oh, good,” I said, yawning.

  “Do not fret over anything,” Mom said. “We shall cover the needs of the castello until you regain your strength.” She turned to answer a knock at the door. It was a servant girl with the soup and bread she’d requested of Cook.

  “I can’t eat, Mom,” I said, starting to slump toward the pillows, already thinking of how lovely it’d be to fall asleep in my own bed…

  “Uh-uh!” she cried, grabbing hold of my arm and forcing me to sit up straight again. “Three bites of soup and half this bread. A cup of water. Then, then you can go to sleep.”

  Giacinta started to work on my hair, combing it out, and the tug of tangles and knots sent little shots of adrenaline through my body. Grumpily, I lifted the wooden bowl to my lips and sipped. It was delicious. And I discovered I was hungry. Okay, starving, actually. Soon, I’d gulped the whole thing down, and in between sips, eaten a good portion of the bread.

  “Good, good,” Mom crooned. “Feel better?”

  “A bit,” I agreed. She let me lie down on the bed as Giacinta stoked the fire in the hearth and then slipped from the room with my empty trencher and bowl. Mom moved to the corner table, uncorked a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass. I felt guilty. She had to be starving herself.

  “Mom…you should go eat. I didn’t even offer you any…”

  “No. I’ll see to that in a moment. How’s the belly?” she asked, overly casual. Clearly not wanting me to freak. “Any more contractions?”

  “Nah. I think it’s just that I kinda overdid it today.”

  “You kinda overdid the whole last week.”

  I grinned at her, my face half-hidden in the pillow. “I dunno. Political intrigue. Watching Lia zipline. Fireworks. Crushing crowds. A murder attempt. A wedding. A race across the sea. A drowning man saved. A day-long horseback ride.” I turned over, with my hands interlaced behind my head. “Just your average week in Italia.”

  She smiled and reached over to push some hair out of my face and stroke my forehead and cheek. “Sure you’re okay? It really has been a lot for any girl to deal with, let alone a pregnant girl.”

  “Just tired,” I said with another yawn. “But…would you have Lia come and spend the night with me?”

  “Good idea,” she said. “I’ll send her up.”

  She was almost out of the room when I started. “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you as glad to be home as I am?”

  “Gladder, maybe,” she said.

  I don’t know why, but it made my heart smile to hear her say the fake word. “I love you, Mom.”

  “And I love you, Gabriella. Sleep well. On the morrow, your man will get home.”

  “Promise?” I asked, knowing she couldn’t possibly, but wanting to hear her say it anyway.

  “Promise,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  GABRIELLA

  But they didn’t come home the next day.

  Or the next.

  Or the next.

  Half out of her mind, my sister spent hours prowling the parapet walkways, as if she could will our husbands to emerge from the woods that stood between us and Firenze. Her thoughts were my own, and we gradually steered clear of each other because it just riled us both up to feel the other’s angst. And Galileo was as crazed as we were. Several times I saw the knights physically keep him from setting out.

  On the fourth day, Captain Pezzatti sent out additional scouts and patrols. Four men were equipped to be gone three days, their mission to enter Fiorentini territory and find out what they could.

  On the fifth day, I awakened early, dressed, and, after pacing my room for an hour, went down to the small chapel. Father Tomas was there—as I knew he was three times a day—on his knees, praying before a tiny altar and cross. I knelt beside him and began my own daily prayer, which amounted to little more than, Please, please bring them home. Please, God. Please?

  I felt Tomas stir beside me and a rush of cool air as his warm body left my side. I looked up and over my shoulder.

  “Do you think this will be the day?” I asked, my words sounding plaintive and weak to my own ears.

  He turned and put a hand on my shoulder, his round fingers like sausages. “I do believe it, yes. They are well, Gabriella. They shall return to us as soon as they can. Trust in our God, who sees them right now, just as he sees us.”

  I nodded and stared at the small cross and crucifix on the altar. Was it true? Could he see all of us? Did he truly have the capacity to care for all of us, all at once?

  I blinked heavily, feeling a new weariness behind my eyes. I hadn’t slept well since we’d returned, missing my husband’s reassuring presence in our bed.

  “I…I’m afraid, Tomas,” I said, rising and moving toward where he stood in the middle of the small, arch-covered room. Pews were apparently a later invention that I very much wished we had.

  He studied me with kind eyes and I felt known, loved. I could see why he and Adela, Luca’s sister, were falling for each other.

  “M’lady, do you know that God loves you? That he wants the best for you?”

  “I do. But does he not want the best for everyone? And yet still, we see heartache and loss every day.”

  “Indeed,” he said thoughtfully. “But our duty is to believe in the best, hope for the best, until that day we must face our own trial. Until then, we must not succumb to the devil’
s claim on our lives. He prowls about seeking to undermine us. Pressing us to give sway to our worst fears, rather than trust in our Creator. Did he not bring you here, to Toscana?”

  I nodded.

  “Did he not bring you to Marcello? To Castello Forelli?”

  In more ways than you know.

  He held my gaze. “Trust the One who brought you together with your husband. The One who shall see you reunited.”

  I sighed. “Thank you, Tomas.”

  He shook his head and gave me a small smile. “Not at all, m’lady. It is my good pleasure to offer you succor, meager though it may be.” He clapped his hands. “Today is the day. Our friends will return.”

  “You believe so?”

  “With everything in me.”

  EVANGELIA

  Gabs told me all about it. What Tomas had said. It kindled my hopes that afternoon, and I felt a bit lighter as I forced myself to try and read in the den for a time and chat with the knights on the wall, rather than simply stride past them, jaw clenched with anxiety.

  It was Mom who found me up on the wall, well after night had fallen. I’d donned a woolen cloak, but still my teeth chattered in the face of a brisk wind that smelled of winter. Was Luca warm this night? Or lying somewhere, wounded and wondering about me?

  “Lia,” Mom said lowly, so many other words lingering beneath my name. It’s time. Leave it until morning. You need to sleep.

  “I know,” I said. But I didn’t move. She stayed beside me, silent. Waiting. Just reassuring me by presence alone.

  “If I was Gabi,” I muttered, “I’d be out there. On the search for them. I would’ve been gone two days ago.”

  “But you’re not,” she said carefully, “and even Gabi has resigned herself to staying here, where her husband knew she’d be safe. Where he’d find her as soon as he could come.”

  I heaved a long sigh. “Why do they not send word?”

  “Because, for some reason, they cannot.” She turned, so that her back was to the wall, and so that she could see my face. “Luca and Marcello know that you and Gabs must be mad with worry. They would not put you through that unless they couldn’t do anything else.”

  I nodded. Crazy thoughts went through my head. A litany of This is why you shouldn’t have gotten married… See? You marry the guy and now you’re probably pregnant with his baby and he’s dead… Maybe if I hadn’t married him, he’d be here, near me… He was so determined to save his WIFE he probably did something stupid… It’s all your fault, Lia. All your fault!

  “Come here,” she said, opening her arms. I sank into them, holding myself stiffly at first and then gradually relinquishing my pride.

  “I’m so afraid, Mom,” I said, the words clogging around a ball in my throat. “What if he’s hurt? Or…worse?” I gasped with a sob.

  “He’s not, Lia,” she said. “He’s simply doing what he set out to do. To free Orazio and bring him home. Which must’ve proven more difficult than they hoped.”

  I nodded again, clinging to her words like new islands of hope in a turbulent sea. “Tomorrow? Do you think they’ll come home tomorrow, Mom?”

  She pulled back and looked into my eyes. “On the morrow, daughter,” she said, using medieval jargon to try and set me back on track. She specialized in subtlety. “I’m certain of it. Now go and get some sleep. You don’t want your new husband to come home to you looking like you haven’t slept for five nights, right?”

  I laughed through my tears. “I haven’t slept in five nights.”

  “Yes, well,” she said, brushing my chin with her long, thin fingers. “You can fix that. Go. Sleep. Rather than stand out here, catching your death of cold. And dream of the morrow,” she said, leaning closer to me, “the morrow, when your sweet husband returns to you at last.”

  She was right. So, feeling beaten and a little guilty for abandoning my post—and making Falito promise to wake me if they heard any word about them—I went to bed. Mom came with me. Either as moral support or to make sure I actually got in bed, I wasn’t sure, but her presence reassured me. She helped me undress and slide beneath the cold covers, tucking a foot warmer near my feet. When I was settled, she leaned down and kissed my forehead.

  “Waiting like this,” she whispered, “is the hardest thing of all. You are not alone, Lia.”

  “I know,” I said. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Always, babe. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  Gradually, sleep overtook me. I was dreaming, dreaming of being back in Venezia. Of being in the room I’d slept in with Luca, but I was alone, and there was a man creeping in…and then another…and still another. I couldn’t move. It was as if my body was frozen, stuck, covered in mud. I tried to cry out as the first man neared me, hovering, hovering, then touching my face and hair…

  My belated scream seemed to crack my odd body prison and as my cry built, took form, I lashed out, striking the man’s face. He caught my wrist, then my other, his grip iron-strong. “Evangelia,” he said urgently. “Evangelia!”

  The voice was familiar. Known.

  “L-Luca?” I stammered, still trying to rise fully from my fog. Was this some trick? Was it truly him? It couldn’t be him. He was gone…

  “Evangelia,” he said, his grip easing as I calmed. He lifted one hand to stroke my face. “It’s all right, love. I’ve returned to you.”

  A knight pounded at the door. “Sir Forelli!” came his muffled voice. He pounded again on the door…our door. I was in Luca’s rooms. Our quarters now.

  “It’s all right!” Luca called over his shoulder, his green eyes never leaving my face. “The lady simply had a night terror.” Half of his own face was in shadow—the only light in our room one lone candle—and in my stupor, I still struggled to free myself of the doubt that it was really him.

  “La-Luca?” I said again.

  “Laluca?” he said, a wry grin transforming his beloved face from concern to laughter. “Don’t let the men hear you say that. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “It’s you,” I said in a whisper, reaching up to touch his face.

  “In the flesh,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “And speaking of flesh…if you’re quite past your fright…” He moved in to kiss me, and I welcomed him, letting the warmth of him—the manly scent of him cover me, remind me, convince me that I wasn’t dreaming.

  But when his kisses deepened, I put both hands to his chest. “Wait.”

  He backed off a few inches. “What is it, Wife?”

  “Did all return with you? Were you able to find Orazio?”

  “Si, my love, si,” he said, placing tiny kisses across my cheek, over the hill of my nose and then on to the other cheek and ear.

  “Are all well? Was anyone wounded?”

  “All are well,” he whispered, his breath hot in my ear. “No one wounded beyond repair.” He began to plant tiny kisses down my neck.

  “And Marcello?”

  He paused and looked up at me. “Are you truly asking about my cousin just as I prepare to make love to you?”

  “Is he well?” I insisted. I needed to know. So I could stop worrying on behalf of Gabi, too.

  “He is well.” He sat up and folded his arms. “Anything else you must know before you allow me to bed you?”

  I smiled. “Nay.” And then I opened my arms to him.

  He needed no further invitation.

  But as I returned his kisses, I laughed and cried all at once.

  “What is this?” he asked, noticing my tears, pausing. “Am I hurting you?”

  “Nay, nay,” I said with a contented sigh, placing a hand on either side of his beloved face. “I am only so glad, so relieved to have you home, husband, that it brings tears to the surface.”

  “Ahh,” he said, peering at me as if confused. As if he didn’t quite trust that I told him the truth. “Women are truly strange, wonderful creatures, aren’t they?”

  “I do not know,” I said, still smiling/crying/sniffling. “I am
one.”

  “That you are,” he whispered huskily, apparently deciding it was okay to proceed. “That…you most delightedly…are.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  EVANGELIA

  I awakened in Luca’s bed. Our bed. And this time, he was there with me.

  I laid on my side, one arm tucked beneath my head, staring and staring at the wonder that was my husband. The man I almost lost by turning away from him. The man I refused to marry. The man I worried would never return to me. How could I ever have denied him? He was wonderful. Funny and thoughtful and loving, and dang cute, too.

  His shoulder-length hair curved in waves on the pillow. He hadn’t let me cut it for months, having grown weary of the men’s chiding him for his “sheep-shorn” hair. There was a golden-brown sheen of morning stubble across his chin and cheeks, and I could see the pulse in his neck. I loved his nose—long and straight, flaring in perfect nostrils. And his lips…those lips that formed words to cajole me into laughter or whisper seductive things in my ears…

  Luca’s eyes blinked once, twice, and he turned his head to look at me, as if he’d sensed my stare. “Good morning, Wife. See something you like?”

  “Something I like very much,” I said with a small smile.

  “No more than the feast that I see before me.”

  “A feast?” I asked lifting a brow. “I don’t know if I care to be compared to food.”

  “Nay, nay,” he said, his own brow knitting in soft complaint. “There is no finer comparison to a woman. Besides, what more might a man need besides a fine meal inside his belly and a fine woman in his bed?” He shook his head a little. “I can think of no other.”

  I smiled. “A roof,” I said benignly. “A fire. Clothes.”

  He let out a scoffing sound and reached out to touch my cheek. “Those things are nice, yes. But if I had you, and I had food, I’d always consider myself a blessed man.”

  I grinned. “Tell me of it, Luca. Why did it take so long to wrest Orazio away?”

  The humor drained from his face, and he flopped over to his back. He opened his arm and glanced back at me.