Soon we were on the cobblestone entry road. As agreed, we paused so that the men could get situated, posing as wounded soldiers. It helped that there was blood upon both of them. Luca went as far as to lie across the saddle, arms dangling. Marcello hunched forward, as if barely holding on. I pressed on as fast as I dared and paused before the massive castle gates.
“Allow me entry at once!” I cried, looking over my shoulder as if I were being pursued. “I am Lady Gabriella Betarrini. Lord Paratore has sent me to retrieve my sister!”
Four knights stared down at me from the wall above. The little peephole window slid open, and a man peered out at us.
“Do not tarry,” I said. “We narrowly escaped a Sienese patrol. Let us in!”
The man’s small eyes shifted to the crimson on Marcello’s shoulder and then to Luca. “I do not know those men.”
Marcello groaned and shifted.
“They said that they are mercenaries, hired by Lord Paratore,” I said hurriedly. “But they are no account to me. I simply believed you may wish to take in your own wounded.”
Still, the man paused.
“Leave them here if need be,” I bit out, “but allow me entrance immediately. You try my patience.” I lifted my chin and clamped my lips together. “Lord Paratore will certainly be hearing-“
The man groaned and slid the tiny door shut. Perhaps he was a henpecked husband, and he’d decided to risk Lord Paratore’s wrath rather than my whining.
I heard the bolt lock clang, and the beam begin to slide. I allowed the corner of my lip to curl in victory, but then bit the side of my cheek, regaining my angry edge. I needed to stay in character. I moved forward into the courtyard as if I intended to drop the soldiers’ reins into the gateman’s hands.
It was then I saw four knights, hands on the hilts of their swords, advancing, two from either side. “No!” I cried, digging my heels into the sides of my horse cruelly hard. “You are spooking my mare!” I pulled hard on the reins, and as she reared, I leaned hard, forward, determined to keep my seat. The men paused, surprised, confused, and when the horse came down on all four hooves, I pressed her forward, as if she was out of my control, trotting away, dragging the two mounts behind me. We were quickly on the other side of the courtyard. “Now,” I said lowly.
Marcello and Luca sprang from their horses, each drawing their weapons as I ran to the door and opened it. Marcello and Luca entered. I slammed and barricaded it behind us, just as the men rammed up against it in pursuit.
“This way,” I said, grabbing my skirts and whirling, running down the hall to the door that led to the dungeon.
“Luca, I need to find a way to keep those gates open, or our hope of escape dies,” Marcello said.
Luca nodded once. “I will go with Gabriella.”
The men gripped hands briefly, and Marcello turned toward me and nudged my chin. “Do as he says, She-Wolf. I shall see you when this is all at an end.”
I nodded, half wanting to cry out at the thought of his leaving me. Didn’t we need to stay together? Weren’t we a team? But I knew what gaining this castle meant, to him and many more.
“Do you know of another way out of here?” he asked.
I thought back to my last visit. Did I remember someone leaving from the side, toward the back? When I looked back to see Lia in the window?
“There might be a passageway, back there and to the left.” I pointed.
I watched, still a little stunned as he turned on his heel and ran to the back of the building, in search of my alternative exit.
You had to go and fall for a guy who goes all-in for a cause….
“Come,” Luca said, easing through the door. We crept down the stairs, taking a sputtering torch with us. At the bottom, Luca lit another torch, which he handed to me as we moved forward.
They hadn’t even bothered to lock the dungeon. A shiver of fear rolled down my back. What if they had moved her? What if she wasn’t here? What if she was? What if her hands were paralyzed after spending a night hanging from them?
Luca stepped into the room at the bottom of the stairs and then stood stock-still. I peeked around the corner. Of course, it had to be him. Of all of the Paratore knights…
The hulking knight came to his feet and drew his sword. Another movement caught my eye. It was Lord Vannucci. He, too, rose.
“Now, see here,” I said, edging past Luca. “I am here to retrieve my sister. Lord Paratore promised me her release.” I blinked, relieved to see her not still dangling from the chain. She was in a cell behind the Hulk, sitting up at the sound of my voice. But seeing her, clearly miserable, helped me find my anger and push back my fear. I strode over to Lord Vannucci. “Release her. Now. And send us off with the promised gold as well. We must be away.”
Lord Vannucci didn’t move. He just stared at me so steadily, so coldly, I again imagined he was seeing right through me. “Who is he?” he asked, flicking his eyes toward Luca.
“It matters not,” I said, edging a bit between Luca and him. If he recognized him as Marcello’s captain…
“It matters to me,” he said, eyes narrowing.
“We are in love,” Luca said, stepping forward and slipping a hand around my waist. I struggled to keep my expression in order, lifting my chin as if I was verifying his words as truth. “Once we are safely in Firenze, we shall exchange our vows.”
Lia was now at the front of the cell, hands wrapped around the bars. I took in a little breath and cast her an encouraging smile.
Lord Vannucci stepped over to me and said lowly, “I thought it was Sir Forelli who had lost his heart to you.”
“Indeed, he did,” I said, letting a wicked smile turn up the corners of my mouth. “He was so lovesick, he never saw that my heart had been claimed by another. It aided me in opening the gates this night.” I stopped in front of him and looked up into his face. “I have done what you and Lord Paratore asked of me. Now honor our bargain.”
He whipped out his hand so fast I didn’t even realize it was his hand until I felt it pressing cruelly into the sides of my throat. I heard the slide of Luca’s sword, as well as the massive knight’s, but my eyes remained locked on Lord Vannucci’s. “You think me a fool,” he ground out. “You are lying.”
Lia cried out as he turned me around and rushed me to the stone wall, knocking me against it. I could see Luca doing his best to battle the massive Paratore knight, but he was not faring very well.
“What deception is going on here? Tell me now, and you may just survive this night.”
He released the pressure on my throat a little, and I hunched over, gasping for breath. I eased one hand under my cape, as if holding my chest, still trying to recover, but as I did so, I unsheathed my knife and then sprang away, raising the dagger between us.
“You little deceiver,” he snarled, advancing upon me as if he wasn’t scared at all.
“You are the deceiver, pretending friendship, alliance with the Sienese, supping with them, and then betraying them to the Florentines.” I pulled my sword from the back sheath, even as I dodged a swipe from the Paratore knight, who was aiming for Luca.
I heard Lia gasp, but my eyes remained on my most lethal enemy as he moved to pull an ax from the wall. My eyes widened.
“‘Tis a pity, slicing such a delectable creature to bits,” he said, moving toward me again. “But at least I’ll have her sister for myself.”
His words stopped me cold. I stood my ground and let him approach, timing his footsteps, calculating how fast that ax might come, probably gaining speed as it arced downward-
He whirled and brought the ax around, full force. I pulled back just enough, sucking in my breath, feeling it slice through my cape, as Lia screamed.
But as Lord Vannucci pulled up on the ax, intent on bringing it down on my head this time, I made my own strike, slicing through the leather of his pants and cutting his thigh.
He glanced down at his leg and his face became a mask of fury. “You little witch,” he
bit out, raising his ax with powerful arms and bringing it down so fast that I felt the wind across my forehead and nose. He didn’t let up then. He continued his attack, bringing it past me, beside me, over me again and again, never letting up, never giving me an opportunity to strike again, as I barely found time to take my next defensive stance.
I bumped into a stool, bent, threw my blade at him and then pulled the stool around to toss it at him. I was getting weaker and more desperate. I was shocked when he ducked in the wrong direction, perhaps thrown off by the fact that his ax was again whirling around in an arc, and the stool slammed into his nose. He let the ax sink to the ground and stumbled backward, holding his bloodspurting nose.
“Gabi!” Lia cried.
I glanced over to her and then to Luca, who was up against the wall, his leg pushing against the hulking knight who was trying to shove his sword into Lucas throat. Luca’s leg trembled; sweat rolled down his flushed face. The knight’s face was red and sweaty too, determined.
I grabbed another ax off the wall, whirled, and slammed the beastly, heavy thing between the shoulder blades of Luca’s attacker. He recoiled, tottered backward, and fell to the ground, the ax still lodged in his back.
I looked up at Lia, who had her face in her hands, staring at me with wide eyes. And in that moment, I felt torn between two worlds. My sister was gazing at me as if she wondered who had taken control of my body, and I was looking at my hands, dirty, blood spattered, as if they might belong to someone else, indeed. What was I doing? How on earth had I come to killing three men?
“Gabriella!” Luca cried, wrenching me to one side, just as Lord Vannucci swung his ax past me.
I fell against the cell door and looked back to see Luca charge against the man, pushing him across the floor, his long ax of no use in such close proximity. He rammed him into the wall and then punched him across the face. Lord Vannucci was instantly unconscious. He sagged to the floor.
With trembling fingers I pulled the ring of keys from the giant’s belt, afraid that he might not be dead, the ax still lodged in his back, like in some freaky horror movie.
Luca, panting, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and then stumbled over to the stairwell. He held his breath for a second, listening.
“Anyone coming?” I whispered.
“Nay,” he whispered back. “But we best be up top as soon as possible. I doubt the Paratore guards are feigning their own demise, assisting Marcello to open the gates.” He smiled, teasing me.
“Hey!” I cried. “I did my part. Twasn’t as easy as it appeared.”
He continued to grin. “I’m certain of it.” His eyes shifted from me to Lia as I finally found the right key, shoved it in and turned it.
Lia came through the door and drew me into a fierce hug.
I hugged her back, then turned to Luca.
“Saints in heaven,” he said, crossing himself even as he shook his head. “We might fight our way out of here, but then Marcello and I will spend the rest of our lives defending the gates, with two ladies as lovely as you behind them.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. Ever the charmer, this one. “Sir Luca Forelli, I present my sister, Lady Evangelia Betarrini.”
He crossed the room as if he had all the time in the world, took her hand, looked into her eyes, and then bent to kiss her knuckles, his eyes never leaving hers.
I sighed when I heard Lids breath catch. It was enough that I was torn, with my feelings for Marcello. I didn’t need Lia all messed up too.
“Luca,” I said, more sharply than I intended. I paused, eased my tone a bit. “We need to get up to the courtyard, right?”
His eyes sharpened, and the dreamy haze disappeared. My knight was back. He turned, hurried over to the wall of weapons, and began shoving daggers into his belt. I did the same. “Are you decent with a sword too, m’lady?” he asked over his shoulder to Lia.
“Me? Nay,” Lia said.
“She’s an archer, remember?” I said, wrapping a dagger sheath around my calf and tying it off.
“Ahh, right,” he said, eyebrow cocked. “Most excellent.”
“Yeah, yeah, Romeo,” I muttered, grabbing the leather quiver of arrows from him and handing them to Lia. She already had the bow in her hands and was looking at it like it was some museum artifact-which, of course, it could’ve been. “Come on.”
My mind was on Marcello again. We ran up the stairs and out the building from the side, edging around it.
Guards at the top of the castle parapet were charging forward, to the front gates, when we first heard it. The sound was loud enough that it reverberated in our chests, a tremendous pounding. They were here, the Sienese, attempting to storm the gates, to break them with a massive battering ram. The sound became rhythmic within a minute’s time, a tremendous pounding, a battle between trees.
Luca curved an eye around the corner, and it was all I could do to keep myself from throwing him aside and looking for myself.
“Gabs,” Lia hissed, and I immediately flattened myself against the wall again.
A knight ran by, not ten feet above us on the wall. I was sure all three sets of our eyeballs followed his every move. But his attention was outward, not inward.
“Gabriella!” Luca said over his shoulder. He was moving out.
“Stay behind me,” I said to Lia.
But there was little need to urge her. She was like a shadow, so closely did she follow me. I smiled a little smile. We were not going to be separated again.
Luca, hunched over, scurried to an outbuilding twenty feet away, and after a second’s hesitation, we followed suit. But halfway across, I spotted him.
Marcello was under attack.
And in grave danger.
“Lia,” I mumbled.
She straightened, beside me, and her long fingers wrapped around my upper arm. “Is that him?”
“That’s him,” I said. But I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed by fear.
Marcello was trying to keep three knights at bay, and two men were drawing arrows on him from up above.
I was about to watch Marcello die.
“Lia…
But she was already moving forward, calmly crossing the courtyard like she owned it, ignoring Luca’s harsh whispers. Her attention was on the first knight, pulling back his bowstring, taking aim. She paused, sensed the wind, and revised her aim, then let her arrow fly.
I watched it, as if in slow motion, as it shot across the space and split through the first knight’s throat.
But Lia was not done. She was already on one knee, squinting and taking aim at the second as he turned, spotting us. She let the next arrow fly, and the arrow struck him in the chest, driving him backward, over the parapet wall.
“Saints in heaven, I believe I’m in love,” Luca growled, running past me, sword drawn, to go to Marcello’s aid. He glanced from my sister to me with a wink.
Lia was drawing a third arrow, as if she was calmly taking another target in practice, not eliminating the enemy, and Lucas momentum spurred me on too. I drew my sword and ran after him, shouting, trying to draw the attention of those bent on bringing Marcello down.
Marcello tripped and fell to his back and stilled, watching his opponent as the man drew back his spiked ball.
I stumbled, watching him, and almost went to the dirt myself. But then I saw him dodge the pounding swing and leap to his feet from his back. He smiled and whirled, bringing his sword around, again at play, not yet beaten.
His smile allowed me to take what seemed like my first breath since I spotted him, surrounded. Hope surged through me. We just might get out, I thought. We all might live. Please, God, let us live.
And as I ran forward, as the foreign sound of a warrior’s cry rose in my throat, as I clashed with the first knight and felt the jarring clang of our swords that made me shudder like I’d just taken a jolt from a loose electric wire, as Marcello caught sight of me and mouthed my name-the din too loud to make out the syllables-as Lia took
down two more knights from the walls with her arrows, as Luca narrowly saved Marcello from a death blow, leaving me breathless, I knew we were gaining.
Impossibly, we were gaining.
“Look out!” Marcello cried, his voice breaking through the dull sounds that seemed to fill my ears, as if I were underwater, looking at me with wide, frantic eyes. But I couldn’t move out of the way fast enough. The man came from behind, the coward, and I was just turning to parry his strike, but I was too late, too late, too-
The deepest I’d ever been cut before was a kitchen knife incident. And it didn’t require stitches.
This was way worse.
As Luca jumped between me and my attacker and blocked his next blow, I hobbled away, unable to see anything but the blood seeping out into an ever widening pool of crimson at my side, crimson like the Paratore flag. I put my hand to my wound and pulled it away, staring at it, thinking that it was like something from a Halloween store. Fake blood. Like that much blood couldn’t be real.
I lifted my fingers and blood actually dropped from them, plopping to the cobblestones at my feet, exploding, dividing, hopping into ten more.
I didn’t feel any pain for a minute, maybe two. Probably shock, I assessed distantly. I turned, trying to get a better look at the gash.
Okay, huge mistake. I saw my gown, sliced open. Flesh, like a rare steak.
I turned and gasped for breath as Lia ran to me, taking a shoulder roll to dodge raining arrows, then taking aim and shooting again. Would we never reach the end of the Paratore knights? Were they not all supposed to be over at Castello Forelli?
She glanced at me, my wound, and then paled. She dropped her bow, letting it skitter to the ground-was it odd that I couldn’t seem to hear it?-and ran the few remaining paces to me. She took my arm as I went to my knees, fighting the urge to vomit.
“To your back, Gabi, go to your back,” she said.
I did as she said. But how was this supposed to go? I did as she said; I had always been the one to see to her scrapes and bruises, to comfort and care.
Waterfall: A Novel Page 23