by Speer, Flora
“Valeria,” Eleonora turned to her friend, “will you ask Bianca and Rosalinda to come to the sitting room?”
“They aren’t at home,” Valeria said. “They went riding.”
“No!” Andrea exclaimed, his thunderous tone causing Valeria to jump backward a step.
“How long ago did they leave?” Vanni demanded.
“Did they say where they were going?” Francesco asked.
“Bianca said only that Rosalinda wanted some exercise and that she was going, too,” Valeria answered, looking from one grim masculine face to another as she spoke. “It was, perhaps, three hours ago.”
“Andrea, we have to find them,” Vanni exclaimed.
“You will do no such thing,” Eleonora declared. “Is that your scheme? To kidnap my daughters, to carry them away and marry them by force? Guards! Come in here!”
“Will you forget your stubborn, misdirected resentment long enough to listen to me?” Andrea caught Eleonora by the wrists so quickly that she could not prevent what he did, and he held her facing him so he could look directly into her furious eyes as he spoke.
“Vanni and I mean no harm to your daughters. Niccolo Stregone has escaped from Aullia after making threats against Bianca. We believe he is on his way to Villa Serenita, if he is not here already.”
“Hold!” Bartolomeo shouted, stopping the guards who had rushed into the room at Eleonora’s cry and who were now about to take Andrea and Vanni into custody. Giuseppe had his hand on Andrea’s arm to pull him away from Eleonora, but he stepped back at Bartolomeo’s order.
“Madonna Eleonora,” Bartolomeo said, “I suggest we hear what Andrea has to say about Stregone. Andrea, if you will release the lady, I guarantee the guards will not touch you.”
Andrea let go of Eleonora’s wrists. She staggered and Francesco put an arm around her waist. When she pulled away from him, he removed his arm at once, but he did keep a hand at her elbow to steady her, and to that she did not object. She remained standing close to Francesco while Andrea revealed all they knew and what they had guessed of Stregone’s intentions.
“Do you expect me to believe these fabrications?” Eleonora asked scornfully when Andrea was done. “This is an excuse you have invented to gain entrance to the villa.”
“Are you willing to risk your daughters’ lives on that unfounded accusation?” Andrea demanded. “Will you allow old bitterness and anger, and your own stubbornness, to rule your actions now?”
“No.” On Eleonora’s face, fear replaced anger and scorn. She went white and began to tremble. Swallowing hard, she leaned against Francesco for support, and when she spoke again her voice shook. “Of course not. Nothing matters more to me than Bianca and Rosalinda and their safety.”
“We must begin a search at once,” Vanni said. “We have to find Bianca and Rosalinda before Stregone does.”
“Yes,” Bartolomeo agreed. He then proceeded to give concise orders to the guards, who left the room as soon as he was done.
“I’m going with them.” Andrea headed for the door and the terrace.
“So am I.” Vanni was right behind his twin.
“Not so fast.” Bartolomeo blocked their way. “I can see you have ridden hard, and you probably haven’t eaten recently.”
“I don’t care about that,” Vanni exclaimed. “I am going to find Bianca.”
“The guards who were here will begin the search and will inform their comrades to be on the watch for Stregone. Take half an hour,” Bartolomeo advised. “Eat, drink, and catch your breath. Your minds will be the clearer for the respite and thus you may find the girls more easily.”
“There’s sense in what he says,” Francesco spoke up. “I know I would search with greater energy after a chunk of bread and a wedge of Madonna Valeria’s good cheese.”
“You shall have it, and a pitcher of wine besides.” Valeria left the sitting room, heading for the kitchen.
“The first thing to do,” Francesco said, “is decide where Bianca and Rosalinda would be most likely to go. I suspect Rosalinda will be the leader.”
“She is as bold as ever her father was. Always, she prefers to ride the higher trails,” Bartolomeo said, “though whether Bianca will agree to accompany her on those paths, I cannot say. Let us hope they stay together. It will make our task easier.”
“I know some of Rosalinda’s favorite trails. I can show them to you,” Andrea offered. He thought of a rock-fall across a narrow path, and then of a sunlit meadow with a clump of tall fir trees where he and Rosalinda had spent a passionate afternoon. He grew warm at the memory of her kisses and of the sweet curves of her firm young body. If ever he held her in his arms again, it would take the devil himself to tear them apart. The devil or Niccolo Stregone.
Valeria arrived with a tray hastily piled with food and drink. In addition to the bread and cheese requested by Francesco and the promised pitcher of wine, she had included a platter of grapes and juicy plums.
“Leave that on the table,” Eleonora instructed. “Let the men serve themselves. Come with me, Valeria. I will need your assistance.”
After a quick look in Bartolomeo’s direction, Valeria followed Eleonora from the room.
During the next half hour, while the men refreshed themselves, they discussed with Bartolomeo the arrangements for securing the borders around Villa Serenita so no one could enter.
“Of course, it is impossible to guard the paths into and out of the mountains as I would like,” Bartolomeo said. “I have always relied on the river as a barrier to intrusion and have set men to guard the meadow and, most particularly, the old Roman bridge and the ford across the river at the other end of the valley.” Bartolomeo broke off suddenly, staring as Eleonora and Valeria returned.
Eleonora had changed her clothes and was now wearing a dark blue woolen riding dress, with her hair tightly braided and confined beneath a net. With its loose lines and long sleeves that buttoned at the wrist, the gown was at least fifteen years out of style, yet it set off Eleonora’s upright posture and still slender figure to perfection, and the color emphasized her pale complexion, giving her a curiously youthful appearance in spite of her worried expression and the hard set of her mouth. She wore matching blue leather gloves and carried a small riding whip.
“I am going with you,” Eleonora announced to the startled men.
“Madonna,” Andrea protested, “there could be danger.”
“If there is danger for me,” she responded, speaking so readily that it was clear she had thought about her arguments before appearing in the sitting room, “then my daughters will face even greater dangers. How could I not join the search for them, so I can be with them when they need me? You cannot stop me, Andrea. Nor you, either,” she snapped, her eyes on Francesco’s face.
“Madonna, I admire your courage,” Francesco told her. “But have you considered what you are risking?”
“I know exactly what the stakes are,” Eleonora said. “Bartolomeo, tell the stable hands to saddle a horse for me.
“Valeria,” Eleonora went on, “prepare a room in case there are injuries to be treated. You will need bandages, ointments, needles and thread—”
“I’ll see to it,” Valeria promised, interrupting her friend with a smile that said she understood Eleonora’s desire to be sure all would be in readiness should her daughters require such help. “I will also have food available when you, and the men-at-arms, return.”
“I am leaving three men to guard the villa and the outbuildings,” Bartolomeo told his wife.
“We women who are left behind can defend ourselves. You have taught us well, my dear,” Valeria said, smiling into Bartolomeo’s eyes. She let her glance rest on each of the other men in turn and, finally, on Eleonora.
“Come back safely, all of you, and bring our girls home, too.”
Chapter 20
Niccolo Stregone had decided he would go to France. There was still time to retrieve his treasure, to do the other deed he was determined to ac
complish before leaving, and then to make his way through the mountains before snow fell in the highest passes. If he was clever, he could be safe in France while his pursuers were stopped by the Alpine winter.
Stregone hated cold and snow. He hated France, too. It was a dirty country, as he remembered all too well from the one visit he had made there years ago. The French did not bathe as often as Italians did, and their language was abominable. Still, life in France was preferable to a painful death in Italy. Stregone did not doubt that, if he remained south of the Alps, he would not live much longer. He would be recaptured. It was inevitable. Torture and a hideously painful public execution would follow.
He had enough loot stowed away in his secret hiding place to buy himself a comfortable life in France. He would purchase a pleasant house and then make certain the servants he hired kept it clean. He would insist the servants bathe regularly, so they did not smell. He would burn only sweet-scented woods in the wintertime, to keep his house warm.
Then, when he was bored, which would certainly happen after he had been safe and at ease for a while with nothing to occupy his mind, then he would work a little intrigue, gain a bit of power, insinuate himself into the confidence of some dim-witted nobleman until Stregone himself was running the nobleman’s affairs. If he could do it once in Aullia and twice in Monteferro and come away with his skin intact, he could do it in France, and more successfully, too, since the French were not as clever as the Italians.
He had returned to his native village with a purse tucked away in his saddlebag. Few folk in the village recognized him anymore, but they all knew the value of gold coins. By making a donation to the local church he had engaged the good will of the village priest, who in turn had chosen four sturdy, honest young men to act as bodyguards on the journey through the mountains. Assured of protection against the bandits who preyed upon travelers in the highest passes, Stregone had only to load his treasure onto the packhorses he had purchased and then lead the horses back to the village. On the morrow, he would be off for France.
There remained one other task. Before he left Italy forever, Stregone intended to kill the two stupid females who had almost found out his hiding place. Only recently had his spies discovered who they actually were. There was a certain delicious irony in knowing that the daughters of Girolamo Farisi had grasped his hand to rescue him from the river and that, later, they had been the ones to pull him out of the pool beneath that cursed waterfall.
Stregone felt no gratitude for what Bianca and Rosalinda had done for him. The wenches had to die. Though he had temporarily lost the high position and the ready access to powerful men that gave his life meaning, the deaths of Bianca and Rosalinda Farisi would round off his days in Monteferro and Aullia very nicely. Very neatly. Stregone always liked to tie up the loose ends of any intrigue he devised.
The Sotani brothers would be heartbroken. Stregone chuckled at that thought, then improved upon it. Nay, they would be more than heartbroken. Vanni might well find it difficult to hold power in Monteferro without Bianca Farisi by his side. Stregone laughed to himself, knowing just how that impetuous boy could be brought down and Marco Guidi restored. If Marco Guidi still lived.
But no. The great Stregone, manipulator of the lives of lesser men, would be far away in France, living a new life. Marco Guidi would have to fend for himself.
The day was perfectly clear, which meant there would be light until Niccolo Stregone, intriguer and proud villain, had done all he intended to do and had led the horses loaded with his treasure back across the Roman bridge and along the straight, ancient road, deep into the mountains, to the village where he had been born. He was certain that by the time the Sotani brothers discovered his absence from Aullia, gathered their men-at-arms, and made their way into the mountains, to Villa Serenita, it would be too late for them to save the women they loved, or to prevent the departure of their enemy from Italy.
Feeling almost happy, Niccolo Stregone kicked the horse he rode, urging it to greater speed, certain that all he wanted awaited him in the next valley.
Chapter 21
“Let’s stop at the waterfall before we go home,” Rosalinda suggested.
“Aren’t you tired?” Bianca asked. “I know I am weary. We have ridden to that terrible rock-fall and to a lovely meadow and I have listened to your romantic stories about both places. I am sure if you knew where to find the cave in which Andrea once sheltered, you would insist upon visiting it, too.”
“That is why we should go to the waterfall,” Rosalinda answered. “All afternoon we have ridden where I wanted to go. The waterfall is your special place, where you first met Vanni.”
“All the more reason to stay away from it,” Bianca muttered. “I am embarrassed to think of what I did there with Vanni.”
“Don’t be embarrassed on my account. I have long ago forgiven you. Come on, I’ll race you along the edge of the meadow.” They were just moving out of the hills and entering the flatter land, where it was possible to ride faster than on the rocky mountain tracks. Rosalinda gave her horse a slight nudge with her heels. “Come on, Bianca!”
“Oh, do stop!” Bianca cried. “You know you should not ride so fast. What if you are thrown? Rosalinda, come back!”
But Rosalinda was well ahead of her. Bianca could see there was nothing for it but to follow her sister, and as quickly as possible, in case Rosalinda needed her help. They raced across the sloping ground, skirting the forest, keeping to the edge of the meadow, until Rosalinda drew up, laughing and breathless, at the place where the familiar narrow path wound its way into the trees.
“Rosalinda, how could you do something so dangerous?” Bianca cried. “Just think what might have happened!”
“I am more concerned with what did happen,” Rosalinda said. Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair was coming undone from its braid. Moreover, her face was glowing with an inner joy. “This babe of mine must be a son, who will love riding as much as I do.”
“How can you possibly know that?” Bianca asked, surprised by the tenderness and pride radiating from her sister.
“Because he just kicked me to tell me how much he enjoyed our ride,” Rosalinda answered.
“More likely, the poor mite was terrified that his mother would be thrown and he would be lost,” Bianca exclaimed. “Anyway, you can’t tell whether it’s a boy or a girl -Rosalinda, did you say the baby moved? You felt it?”
“He was digging his heels into me the same way I guide my horse.” Rosalinda rubbed the spot. “There has been some slight fluttering before today, but I wasn’t certain what I was feeling. These were his first hard kicks. Now I am sure he is real. There is a small person here.” Looking down at herself, she rubbed more gently.
“How wonderful. What joy for you to know it’s a vigorous child.” Bianca’s delighted smile disappeared almost immediately as a new thought took hold of her. “Once again, I envy you, Rosalinda. I will never experience what you are feeling right now.”
“Don’t be too sure. You know that old saying Mother repeats so often, about the way Dame Fortune plays tricks on us all, to upset the plans we make.”
“A fine trick of Fortune, indeed, if I were to marry and become a mother,” Bianca murmured wistfully.
“Or even become a mother without marrying,” Rosalinda teased.
“Don’t make jokes. Childbearing is serious business. Rosalinda, you must not ride anymore.”
“You are right. I have thought too much of what I want, and not enough about what the baby needs. After today, I will remain peacefully at home. But for now,” Rosalinda said, swinging a leg around and jumping to the ground, “since we are here, and since it will be our last chance until next summer at the very least, let’s visit the waterfall. I’m thirsty after our long ride. Aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am, but it will be painful for me to return to that spot.” Bianca stayed on her horse.
“All the more reason for you to go there. Lay your grief to rest, Bianca. Say farewe
ll to Vanni at the waterfall, as I have been saying farewell to Andrea all during this afternoon.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing? Truly?” Bianca asked. Slowly, she dismounted, too.
“I know I will never see him again.” Rosalinda’s lower lip trembled.
“Nor will I ever see Vanni.” Bianca’s voice broke. Without another word, she took her sister’s hand and together they started along the path.
The clearing was deserted, a quiet green haven after the bright sunshine of mountain and meadow. The amount of water gushing over the rocks and into the pool below was not as great now, in August, as it had been in spring, when the streams fed by melting snow had been in full spate. The moss on the stones around the pool looked dry and brown in the places where the spray no longer reached.
But the water in the pool was still cold and sweet when the sisters knelt to drink from it and to splash it onto their faces.
“What must it be like in winter, with the water frozen?” Bianca wondered. “Vanni could never climb on those rocks then.”
“Vanni will not climb on those rocks again, at all,” Rosalinda said. “He will not come here again. He would not dare, not after Mother sent him away and forbade him to return.”
Bianca rose from her knees, her hand on Rosalinda’s arm, dragging her sister up with her. She looked around the clearing, noting with painful resolve the very spot where she and Vanni had lain upon her cloak, where Vanni had touched her and done wonderful things to her. Bianca could not regret what she had allowed on that day, for it might well be the only taste of passion she was ever to enjoy, but she knew the time had come to root her inappropriate love for Vanni out of her heart. Only then could she return to the contented life she had known before that impulsive young man had disrupted her peace. Only after Vanni was completely gone from her thoughts could she be of true service to Rosalinda and her baby, both of whom were going to need Bianca’s loving help for years to come.