Bourne (River of Time 3.1 Novella)

by Lisa Bergren

  "I knew you would come to our aid in time," Rodolfo said in a monotone. I gave him a hard look, but he wouldn't return my gaze, still watching Luca as if he couldn't be trusted. Which he probably couldn't. The other men formed a semicircle around us, watching. Waiting.

  "Why?" I asked. "Luca is the captain in charge of any knight that departs these gates. Even you, so new to us, understood this."

  Still, Rodolfo wouldn't look at me.

  Luca neared again, and Rodolfo tensed. Luca was shorter than Rodolfo by several inches, but you'd never know it by his demeanor. He got right up into Rodolfo's face again. "Because he's wracked by guilt," Luca said.

  He looked over at me meaningfully, and I felt an arrow go through my heart. What was that? Guilt over my own memories?

  Others neared. My Dad, with Tomas. Captain Pezzati and his patrol rode in. "Let us go to the Great Hall and speak of this in private," I said.

  "Nay!" Luca shouted, making me jump. His face collapsed in sorrow. He shook his head and rubbed his neck with a grimy hand, which he then lifted to me, begging me in gesture. "Forgive me, m'lady, but permit me to see this through. In Marcello's absence..."

  He took my silence as all the permission he needed. He moved toward Rodolfo again. "You are my brother." He angrily rolled up his sleeve and lifted the tattoo into his line of vision. He snorted in derision. "You may as well be my brother by blood." He dropped his sleeve and lifted both hands to grip Rodolfo's shirt. "You have sacrificed everything, everything for Siena. For this house. For these people." He leaned in, inches away from Rodolfo's face again. "And I shall not let you kill yourself as a means of appeasing the pain." He said the last so quietly that I wondered if only I heard it.

  He backed away then, as we all seemed to be holding our breath.

  "I deserve a night in the stocks," Rodolfo said.

  "Shall that do it, then? Or shall we torture you as well?" Luca said. "What shall it take to free you? So that you might live, rather than sacrifice your very life?"

  "Luca..." I said, but it came out in a whisper. How had things come to this?

  Luca let out a strangled cry toward the sky, a mixture of fury and frustration and pain, his hands on either side of his jaw. He stood there like that for two seconds, then three. Then he lifted a hand of dismissal and turned away, the tension leaving him in a wave. "Put him in the stocks. Mayhap when dawn comes, he shall see that he was born to be one of us all along."

  He walked away, parting the group in two as they made way for him.

  "Nay," I said. "Nay! Sir Forelli!"

  Luca paused, stiffened, but did not turn.

  "Gabriella," Dad said, and reluctantly, I looked in his direction. Slowly, he shook his head, urging me to leave it be. To let them do this their way.

  Luca looked over his shoulder, waiting on me. "M'lady?"

  I glanced from him to Rodolfo. Even he didn't want me to come to his aid. I sighed and said, "I trust you to see this through to a good end, Captain."

  "Thank you, m'lady," he said. "May I suggest you return to your quarters? What is about to transpire might be beyond even your feminine fortitude." He was remembering the night I'd come to the aid of the two men splayed out in the courtyard, one of the first I'd been here. When I didn't understand the wages of war, the price. He didn't want me to interfere again.

  I turned and stumbled toward the doorway that led to my quarters, to Marcello, feeling empty. Lost. Adrift.

  Dad wrapped his good arm around my shoulders. I was glad—so glad—he was with me. Because I couldn't do this alone. I felt inside out. Like I was drowning.

  But what I really wanted was Marcello. The thought of him made me desperate to see him, and I broke away from my father, scurrying to the door and flinging it open, not bothering to wait for him. I picked up my skirts and took the stairs two at a time, winding my way upward, then ran down the hall, remembering how it was just a few days ago, lit with candles and strewn with rose petals....

  Mom's face didn't hold the hope, the good news I so desperately needed. She was leaning over Marcello, placing a wet cloth on his forehead. In the dancing light of the candle beside his bed, I could see he was flushed and sweating so much his skin appeared wet, glistening. "Oh, no," I groaned, rushing over to the bed and scrambling to kneel beside him. "No, no," I said, quietly laying a hand on his chest, then pulling it away, shocked by the heat that rose from him in waves. I held my hand to my chest as if it still burned, felt the knowledge like a wound.

  Fever. Infection. Internal trauma.

  Please, Lord. Don't take him. Don't let his days be done...

  "Gabi, he's been burning like this for an hour. Sometimes it's the body's way to deal with whatever he's suffering from. If he can get through this..."

  I looked up at her. "And if he can't?" I said. "If he can't?" I shrieked, the panic building. Mom came around, climbed across the bed and gathered me in her arms from behind.

  "We have to take him, Mom," I said. "Lia and me. To the tunnel. To safety." I felt her intake of breath, saw Dad blanch, clamping his lips shut. "We could leave you two here. Return to you. After...after he is okay."

  Dad shook his head. "No way. You're not going anywhere without us."

  "And we can't, Gabi," Mom begged, squeezing me in a hug. "We can't," she said meaningfully.

  I closed my eyes, feeling every weary, burdensome minute of the day we'd just endured. "We can't," I whispered back.

  It was an impossible situation. Lose Marcello? Or lose Dad again?

  "No," Mom said with a gentle shake of her head. "We agreed to see through life here, come what may. Together. I have hope yet, Gabi. He is strong, sweetheart. Believe in your husband. Believe in him. He can make it through this."

  "You don't even know what's wrong! Not really!" I said.

  "No," she said. "But look at him. Look at him."

  I made myself to do as she said, searching his face. Even weakened by illness and wounds, he did look powerful. Strong.

  But didn't they say the big guys were the first to faint in a delivery room? The first to succumb to the weird viruses, surprising everyone around them? The big men who collapsed on the basketball court while dribbling, their hearts refusing to beat one more time?

  Please, Lord, I prayed, thinking of Father Tomas's words. Grant us more days. Please, please, please give us more days.

  ***

  My parents stayed with me through the evening, insisting I down a few bites of stew, a few swallows of water, a few bites of bread, more water. Eventually, Lia arrived and Mom told Dad it was his turn to rest. She went with him, not liking his "color." She turned to us at the door. "He probably just overdid it."

  "Ya think? He was pierced by a sword," I muttered.

  "Don't worry over him," Mom said. "You'll send for me if anything changes?"

  I nodded and looked over to Lia, her golden gown bearing the ruinous blood from her afternoon of suturing. "You should go too. You've been through so much. Go. Get some sleep."

  "Are you sure you don't want me to stay here with you?"

  "No. I'll be okay. I'll call for Giacinta if I need help. She can come for you and Mom if I need you." I prayed I wouldn't. Needing them would mean that Marcello had worsened.

  Reluctantly, Lia slid off the foot of the bed and stood there. "You sure?"

  "I'm sure." But then I stopped her at the door. "I need one more favor tonight, Lia."

  She waited, but my hesitation made her blonde eyebrows lower with wariness. "What?" she asked in a tone that said maybe.

  "Check on Rodolfo. It's cold out there." I shivered and ran my hands over my arms. "Feels like rain."

  Her brow lowered further. "Gabi, Dad told me—"

  "Please," I said wearily. "It's nothing but care for a friend. I swear it. He...he's hurting. Feeling lost." I looked over at Marcello and stroked his forehead. "I understand a bit of that. And I'm a part of the reason he's here, feeling this way." I lifted a hand, hushing her comeback before it popped out. "I k
now. I'm only a part. But I am a part. Please...just make sure he's okay?"

  She gave me a long, tired sigh, a single nod, and then left.

  I laid down next to Marcello, and it was then that I noticed he'd stopped sweating, even though he felt raging hot. His teeth were chattering, and he was shivering. It was weird, but I felt like it was a good sign. Whenever I'd had a fever, it'd moved to the chills right before it broke. But I remembered how I wanted every blanket available when it happened, and Marcello already had every one in the room. I tapped my lips, considering him, wishing there was something I could do for him.

  Dimly, I remembered an episode of Man vs. Wild where the host told viewers the best treatment for hypothermia was another person's body. Skin against skin. I laughed under my breath at my own hesitation. Why not? We were married, were we not? I slid off the bed and out of my gown, tiptoeing over the cold, stone floor to hop under the covers.

  I moved his nearest arm to make room for me, not wanting to hurt him. I wrapped my thigh over his, which were clad only in leggings. And I nestled into the crook of his arm, resting my head on his shoulder and my arm across the expanse of his chest, willing my own body heat to ease the shuddering within him. "It's okay," I whispered. "Shh, shh. I'm here, Marcello. You can make it through this. I know you can. You are strong. You can do this. I love you, Marcello."

  And then I prayed, prayed for hours as he shivered, his teeth chattering so loudly they awakened me every time I dozed off.

  Bring him back to me, Lord. Don't take him now. Please don't take him. We need more days. More days...

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ~EVANGELIA~

  I heard the spatter of rain outside, even before the guard opened the door, allowing me exit to the courtyard. The rain made me more reluctant to do what Gabi had asked of me. But standing in the hallway teeming with the wounded and moaning hurt my heart too. I glanced down the hall, filled with perhaps thirty men crammed in like sardines. Maids circulated with water. Father Tomas was at the end of the hall, bending over a man, closing his eyes, praying. From the look on his face, the man wasn't going to make it.

  I hurriedly looked away, feeling the burden of another loss like a sack of grain over my shoulders. I'd done my share of nursing the wounded today—pushing through the horrible stitching until my skirts were heavy with blood, my eardrums dull from the sound of men's screams. There was so little we could do...so many lost to wounds that at home would be so easily fixed. I just didn't have it in me to give any more to these men, tonight. All I had left in me was to see through Gabi's request and sink into my own bed. I pulled the hood of my cape over my head, clenched the front of it closed, and nodded to the guard.

  He looked down at me, eyebrows furrowed. "Raining hard now, m'lady. Sure you don't wish to pick your way through the corridors instead?"

  "Nay. 'Twould take me an hour," I said, looking down the crowded hallway and using it as an excuse. The fewer who knew of my true mission, the better. Lady Forelli sending me to check on the man who had been supposed to marry her in Rome? Yeah, that would set the castle tongues wagging.... The guard opened the door for me. "Do you require escort, m'lady?"

  "Nay, thank you," I said. "I think I can manage." Stepping out into the courtyard, I felt the first fat droplets hit my hood.

  I took a covered lantern from the wall, taking comfort from the light of the wide, dripping candle inside, and walked around the kitchen, then to the front of the Great Hall, where the courtyard spread wide and open from castle wall to castle wall. The rain was indeed falling hard, splattering up from swiftly forming puddles, sizzling on the roof of my lantern. I felt cold water seep into my slippers but did my best to ignore it, focusing on my task. Maybe with the rain, the guards on the wall would be huddling in the towers rather than staring at Lady Evangelia hanging with Lord Rodolfo Greco.

  He was in the center of the courtyard, alone. After all, he'd have difficulty escaping, even if he somehow extricated himself from the monstrous wooden block that held his neck and hands. He knelt in the water, and I could see he was wet through and through, shivering.

  I shook my head. It was barbaric. And Luca had ordered it. Heck, Greco had apparently asked for it. I didn't think I'd ever fully understand the way a man thought. At least these men. But I knew that what drove Rodolfo was overwhelming guilt. For betraying Firenze to aid us, for helping Gabi escape their impending matrimony, and most likely—from what I could gather—for feeling something for her in the midst of it. It was as crazy-complicated as an episode of Pretty Little Liars.

  I paused awkwardly, not knowing what to say, how to begin. "Oh, hey, how are ya?" just didn't seem to fit. He managed to turn his head an inch and gaze at me with his dark eyes, dismissing me a second later. "You should not be here, m'lady."

  "Neither should you," I returned.

  "My punishment was justified." He stared straight ahead, rain dripping down his face.

  Conflicting emotion warred within me. Half of me wanted to free him; half of me wanted him to suffer. If he was so close to Marcello, Luca, Fortino, and Tomas, why couldn't he have figured his loyalties out sooner rather than later? Why hunt me and Gabs on behalf of the Fiorentini? Put us through all that? Why hadn't he left the Fiorentini when he helped us bust Gabi loose from the cage that had almost killed her? Why'd he have to lose everything before choosing to join us fully?

  "You're wondering why I switched my allegiance at the eleventh hour," he said, still looking forward.

  I jumped a little. Well, uh, yeah, I thought. "Mayhap," I said.

  He paused so long, I thought he didn't intend to answer.

  Any sense of fear seemed to evaporate. I dared to move in front of him and squat, so he'd be forced to look into my eyes. The light from my candle lit up the lower part of his face, making him appear like the most handsome ghoul ever seen. But I wasn't concentrating on that. His answer was important for us to know. All of us.

  "Even when they stripped me of my title and took my home," he said, "I intended to remain true to Firenze. I'd aided Marcello, Fortino, and your sister in good conscience. Even if my Fiorentini brothers didn't understand on a political level, I knew if I was to sit any one of them down, look them in the eye, and tell them why I made the decisions I did, they would have understood, man to man."

  I let out a scoffing laugh. "Are you certain of that?"

  His dark eyes flicked to meet mine. "Do not become so fearfully hardened, m'lady. I know many Fiorentini you would consider dear friends, in time."

  "If they didn't yearn for my head on a platter. That, I find, disrupts a friendship."

  I thought I saw the ghost of a smile.

  "Many of my decisions were honorable, the humane response, even if teetering on the brink of war called for harsher choices. My friends, my truest friends, would have understood that. Supported me in that. If I hadn't allowed Gabriella to slip away in Roma, all would have been forgiven. Up until Barbato and Paratore convinced them to lay the blame squarely at my feet and use me as bait, to draw Marcello out, I had hope. Hope that I could help Firenze and Siena reach a treaty. Enter into a time of peace."

  Raw grief seemed to come off him in waves. Here was a man who had been so powerful, so scary...and now he just seemed...broken. I could identify a little with him; after all, my life had just taken a drastic turn too. Forever.

  "Some dreams are not meant to be," I said softly.

  He said nothing.

  "Mayhap, in time, another opportunity for peace shall come to pass. The point of decision is behind you, Lord Greco. Why not move forward from here? Accept your lot, and make the most of it."

  It was his turn to scoff. "Take up residence in Castello Paratore, as Marcello has suggested? Await a murderer's poison in my cup of wine? An arrow through my chest as I go for a ride in the wood?"

  "Have you not heard of the She-Wolves of Siena? They know a little about such things." I cocked my head with a little conspiratorial smile. "It's not as bad as all that."

&
nbsp; He smiled then. "Yes," he said, his teeth chattering. "I imagine you do." I resisted the urge to push the wet hair out of his eyes. It had to be driving him crazy. But that little "confusion" that had happened between Gabi and him? Yeah, that wasn't going to happen between us. That would just be...messed up.

  "Lord Greco," I urged, "this night in the stocks does nothing but weaken you, when we need every able-bodied knight we can gather. Let me go to Luca and convince him to—"

  "Nay!" he barked, surprising me so much that I stood and backed away on trembling knees. Any sense of camaraderie evaporated. "Nay," he repeated, regret softening his tone. "Luca did as he had to do. He is captain of every man who leaves Castello Forelli's gates. I disobeyed him. Any man who does so deserves such punishment."

  I studied him and felt the rain begin to seep through my cape. This was why Luca had been so furious. Lord Greco had painted him into a corner, forcing his hand. Moreover, I knew Luca had been angry because his friend had endangered his own life, as well as those in his command. He deserved punishment, truly. Gotta set him straight. But this?

  I sighed. I knew this kind of guy. He was like the smart, talented dude on the wrong path at school. Brilliant, good looking. Money. Bright future and all that. But constantly self-sabotaging in some misguided effort to right whatever wrong he felt within himself. He'd wring out every ounce of punishment on himself that he deserved—he didn't need Luca judging his crimes too. He probably had been doing it even before the Fiorentini fully turned on him.

  I'd seen my share of teen movies and TV shows. Kids wrestling with dark issues—the only thing that fixed them was a serious dose of love and kindness. And a good mentor. Maybe Tomas could help him out on that front. In the meantime...

  "Lord Greco, it will be well, in time," I said softly, pulling my cape from my shoulders. His eyes narrowed as I went around the stocks, behind him. "This night, you are born anew. Into a new life."