DELUGE

by Lisa T. Bergren

  Captain Pezzati’s gray eyes widened slightly with the edge of new hope.

  “Fly the flag,” I repeated. “Now.”

  “Yes, m’lady,” he said, with a genteel nod. He turned and went to a box beside the gate wall, opened it, and removed a musty, moldy ivory flag. He pulled down the golden Forelli flag, replaced it with the ivory, and raised it. It hung, limp, lifeless. But in moments we heard shouts from below and the arrow fire ceased. No more iron claws came loping over the wall. Everything became still.

  I ran my hands through my hair, aware that it had all come loose through the long hours. And then I rose, slowly, my hand on the cornerstone of the gate pillar, as if every Forelli who had ever resided within these walls might grant me strength.

  Captain Pezzati took to my left side, Celso to my right. I could smell them, rank with sweat. Or was it my own stink? I knew I hardly looked like the lady of the house, my hair in full disarray, my dress soiled and bloody.

  I scanned the men below. The Fiorentini remained still, their hands at their sides. Some hunched down to watch.

  “I am Lady Gabriella Betarrini Forelli,” I called. “I shall speak directly to your lord!”

  There was a pause. Some of the men looked over their shoulders to the woods.

  After a moment, Lord Barbato strode outward, cape over one shoulder, hands casually crossed on the pommel of his saddle. Two men flanked him, looking strong and determined.

  Barbato, I seethed. Of course it’s him. I found hollow comfort in the fact that at least Foraboschi was dead.

  They stood directly below me, just forty feet away, and I ached to give the nod to Matteo to take him out.

  “’Tis enough, Barbato. I don’t wish to kill any more of your men. Go home to Firenze.”

  Low laughter rumbled below while my men remained silent. I knew they were busily bandaging wounds, gathering additional arrows, just as mine were.

  “These men are here for one cause only, m’lady. To rid this corner of Toscana of the traitorous Grecos and our greatest enemies, the Forellis. Come now, my lady.” He spat out lady like it was a foul word. “End this folly. You know you are outnumbered.”

  I paused. “And yet we shall still relieve you of a great number of your men if we decide to fight to the death.” I turned to walk a few paces to the next space in the wall, killing a bit more time, milking it.

  “And why must we be enemies? Have we of Castello Forelli not spent years in peace with you, our neighbors to the north? Is not your truest goal, Lord Barbato,”—it was my turn to spit out his name—“to make war and line your own pockets? Is that not why you are here?”

  His face soured as he studied me. “Our enemies are not those of Castello Forelli. ’Tis you, Gabriella Betarrini Forelli. And your sister. The witches of Siena.”

  I blinked, uncertain of what I’d heard.

  “We are here for the witches of Siena, those who have brought the plague to our lands!” he cried, looking along the wall to my men.

  I blinked again.

  He was pinning the plague on us?

  “I know not of what you speak,” I said. “Has the plague taken your mind, sir? Are you a madman now?”

  “Only if you have bewitched me as you have so many others,” he said with an angry slice of his hand. There was grumbling assent all around him. Obviously, he’d been spreading these lies for some time. This, this was why the sick fought for him. They believed Lia and I had brought the plague to Italia.

  “This plague came from the Orient, not from a She-Wolf,” I said with a scoff. “Think on it. It came first to Venezia, to Sicily, via the ports. Not from within. Not from here.”

  He lifted his chin. “And yet rumor has it, that not one within your castello has fallen. In over two years of the pestilence among us. I know not of another household like it, other than yours and Greco’s. ’Tis witchcraft, through and through. You have cursed us, even your own Sienese, and we are here to rid our lands of our enemies, once and for all. In time, even the Sienese shall bless our names for ridding them of the She-Wolves and this wretched curse.”

  I wanted to laugh. He was crazy. And yet the story of the statues in Siena, of sane priests doing insane things, made me pause. This was a crazy time. Cuh-razy with a capital C. All around. They might really succeed in this attempt to pin the Black Plague on us. And Barbato would see us killed, as he’d hoped all along.

  A rider came up behind him, from the main road, and dismounted. He scurried over to Barbato’s back and said something to him. Barbato only partially turned but was clearly listening. His lips twisted into a grimace.

  Agitated, he clamped his lips shut and turned his head to hear the man out. After a long moment, he looked past the man toward what I thought was the direction of Castello Greco. Rodolfo…Alessandra…

  One of his men came over to him and spoke as well. Then the man strode away, and I could hear dim shouts.

  “They’re pulling out some of the men,” Captain Pezzati said out of the corner of his mouth.

  “It’s Castello Greco,” I murmured. “I think something might have gone wrong there.”

  “We can only hope,” he said. “If they have to take half their men, or even a third—we might have a chance.”

  Barbato turned back to me, only one man beside him now. “Surrender, Lady Forelli. If you and your sister come with us, we shall leave Sienese lands immediately.”

  I returned his steady gaze. “I need an hour to confer with my family.”

  He let out a scoffing laugh. “I am no fool, m’lady. You are a woman who knows her mind. Tell me of it.”

  “I have changed,” I said, as sweetly as I could. “I must speak to my family, and the men. I am but a woman, my lord far from home.”

  He laughed again, shaking his head, a hand on his hip. He lifted it then, speaking to his men. “See that? Even now she attempts to beguile and bewitch with her womanly ways.”

  “Let me take him out now,” Matteo ground out, his hand tightening around his bow. “He should not be allowed to utter such foul words.”

  “Nay,” I whispered. “’Tis a game. Allow me to play it.” I turned to pace back to my original spot, Pezzati and Celso trailing behind me.

  “Tell me, Lord Barbato,” I said. “What experience do you have in dealing with witchcraft?”

  He paused and frowned. “I have no experience with witchcraft, woman, other than my dealings with you.”

  “’Tis a weighty accusation.”

  “Indeed. But I know not of any others but you and other Betarrini ilk who emerge from tombs. One moment there. Another moment, not.” Agreement rumbled through the ranks below.

  Sneering faces. Hatred. They believed his lies. Believed them.

  And this was why Barbato went to such lengths to capture Orazio and Galileo—to force them to confess to witchcraft. To tie it to us, in time.

  I bit my cheek and forced a laugh. “You are touched in the head,” I said. “No one comes and goes from tombs. We’ve merely studied them, as scholars do.”

  He laughed and lifted his hand, pacing. “Do you hear her, men?” he cried. “Have you ever known a woman to learn her letters and numbers, let alone claim to be a scholar? This is a woman who has left her gentle ways behind her. She is a witch. She is other. Or she is a man and has engaged in the foulest of intimacies with Marcello Forelli.”

  I kept pace with him from above. “I am every bit a woman as each of your mothers!” I cried.

  Lewd comments and cries reached our ears, and every one of my men tightened with rage.

  “Steady,” I growled as I passed them. “Let them taunt me. I am wasting time. Steady,” I repeated.

  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, shore
d 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 dow
nward, 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.