The people erupted, applauding and coming over to us, dividing us from my parents, thumping Marcello on the back, kissing both my cheeks. It took about ten minutes for the crowd to abate and people to flow out into the courtyard for dancing and singing. I was a little surprised at the festive mood—who knew funerals could be such fun? I’d never been to a medieval funeral feast; I only knew we were already at capacity at Castello Forelli.
Marcello stiffened when my parents were finally able to approach us again, chins high, shoulders back. They did not offer congratulations and hugs. Lia and Luca were to one side of them, their expressions screaming You Are SO Busted.
“Family meeting,” Dad said in English, staring right into my eyes.
Inside I was thinking, What? Now? But I knew better than to debate it. I took Marcello’s hand and squeezed it. “We can go to the library,” I said. It was the only room in the castle that was likely unoccupied.
Dad led the way—out the door, across the courtyard, and into the wing that stirred sweet, warm thoughts of Fortino whenever I entered. But as we all filed in—Mom, Dad, Marcello, me, Luca, and Lia—it was about as cold as a room could be. Logs had been laid in the corner fireplace, ready to be lit.
Luca closed the door and stood to one side of it, arms folded.
“How could you?” my dad said, striding over to Marcello and poking him in the chest.
“Dad,” I said, holding tight to Marcello’s hand, angry at my father’s aggression.
But Marcello took it. I’d never seen anyone attack him so—or him be so docile in response. He was showing deference, respect. Could Dad not see that?
“You should have asked for our blessing in private,” Dad ground out, almost nose to nose with Marcello. “She is underage,” he added, casting a furious finger in my direction.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” Marcello said, eyes to the floor. “Forgive me for not coming to you and Lady Betarrini alone. I only thought…” He paused, took a deep breath and then lifted his other hand, palm up. “My only defense is that it was Gabriella I met first, long before I met Lia, her mother, and now you, sir. From the start”—he lifted my hand in his and looked into my eyes—“she claimed my heart. Like no other. I know that for her—for you all, sir—this seems rather sudden. As though it’s happened within weeks. But you must understand; for me, Gabriella has carried my heart for almost two years. I feel as if I’ve been engaged to her for the past year and a half, when she promised she would return to me. And here, sir, here in Toscana, Gabriella is of age. Many women who are fifteen or sixteen marry.”
“It’s true,” Mom said softly. She slid a hand over Dad’s shoulder. Her affirmation echoed of support. I looked to her in wonder, as did Dad.
“You’re in favor of this?” Dad asked, exasperation in every line of his face.
“I wish we had had the opportunity to speak of it before, Ben. But yes, I suppose there’s an inevitable aspect to it.”
Dad shook his head and then paced, hands on hips. “We have yet to even speak of how long we’re to be here,” he said, throwing out one hand. “Do you not all see that her marriage also commits us to life here forever?”
“And yet if we return, we do not know if we shall be together,” Mom said, staring into his eyes.
Dad resumed his pacing, his fingers pinching his scalp as if he might be able to pry wisdom out of it.
Lia met my gaze. You okay with this? I silently asked her.
She smiled and glanced at Luca, then shrugged, as if to say, How could I leave him? And then she glanced at Dad. We were all worried—worried that if we went back, he’d disappear or ultimately meet his death again. We had no idea how much sway we had with history, with destiny. Sure, Castello Forelli had been rebuilt, whole. But was that really because of us? Or because of events that had transpired when we were here, therefore changing the future? Would such changes go as far as changing life itself?
There was only way to be sure that we would be together: We had to stay here.
I stared at the stones of the floor, waiting for Dad to come to the same conclusion. If Lia and I were both on board, and Mom was somewhat supportive, then he had to come along for the ride. The question was…would he go for this whole marriage thing?
He stood there, staring at the logs in the fireplace, hands on his hips now. Thinking.
He turned and looked at Mom, Lia, me. “A large portion of your desire to remain here is to save me,” he said quietly. “But what if,” he asked, each word tinged with misery, “I lose each of you?” He shook his head as if that were the most intolerable thought in the world. “We have seen the mortal danger of this place, firsthand,” he said, coming over to me and touching my chin.
“I swear by my life that Gabriella, and you, sir—your whole family shall—”
“Nay,” Dad said, cutting Marcello off as he lifted a finger toward him. “You cannot promise safety. You cannot! A day is coming, Lord Forelli, that no number of men and swords and arrows can guarantee victory.”
The plague. He was referring to the Black Plague.
“And then what?” he went on, looking into my eyes. “Then shall I be risking not only my wife and daughters—and son-in-law,” he added, brows wide in exasperation, and a dismissive wave toward Marcello, “but also grandchildren?”
“Gabriella,” Marcello said slowly, his gaze on Dad, “of what does he speak?”
I shook my head. “We cannot tell of it yet.”
“If it concerns your safety, then I must—”
“’Tis…of the future,” I said, finally looking at him. “And it is as dire as my father makes it sound. We shall all be in horrific danger here.”
Marcello stared back at me. “Then we shall go away for a time.”
To where? America had yet to be discovered by Columbus, and all of Europe would suffer as wave after wave of the plague decimated their populations. And as for the Far East…I had no idea if they had suffered too, or when.
“A journey would not spare us,” Marcello said, reading the expression in my eyes.
“Nay,” I said sorrowfully.
“Is it Firenze?” he guessed.
“Please,” I said, begging him not to press me. “I cannot say. We are not certain how our presence, let alone what we share, changes the future. We’ve already seen some evidence that it does.”
“But if it is for good that you change it,” Luca said, stepping forward, “who would argue with it?”
I rubbed my right temple, feeling a serious headache coming on. “I don’t know. Maybe God?” Suddenly I wished that Father Tomas was in on this conversation, that he knew what had happened to us, that he could help us figure it out…
“God is for life,” Marcello said, turning to face me and taking both my upper arms in his hands. “Are you telling me that we shall be in danger of losing you and there is nothing you could do to stop it?”
“It’s an illness,” Luca guessed, walking among us, looking at our faces. In a second he knew he was on the right track. “You wear the same expression that you did when I was so taken by the plague.” He stopped by Lia, and she looked quickly to the ground, as if she could hide the truth from him by not letting him see her face. “’Tis a plague, m’lord,” he said.
Marcello frowned and pressed his fingers into my arms. “Gabriella. Tell me.”
I stared into his big, brown eyes and thought of him taking ill, of saying good-bye to him forever, of seeing him die like Fortino, and a lump formed in my throat. He was not going to let me go, not without knowing. And yet if I told him he might send me far away—
“It shall be one of the worst the world has ever seen,” Mom said at last, clearly aching over each word. Telling him what I could not. “Before the decade ends, a third of Siena’s population shall die.”
His mouth dropped ope
n, and he released me, staring at me as if I had uttered such words, not Mom. “Siena.”
“Siena,” Mom said, and my eyes confirmed it for him. “Firenze. Venezia. Roma. Germania. Brittania. Few shall escape it. It will roam, far and wide, like a dragon with endless hunger.”
We were all silent for a minute.
“A third,” Dad said to Marcello. “That means that two of just this group, here, will likely die, if not all of us.”
Marcello met his gaze, and I didn’t like the man-to-man look they were giving each other. My heart grew heavy, slowed to a dull thud, pa-thud, pa-thud…
“And in Normandy,” Marcello said. “Your physicians can treat this illness?”
Dad nodded. “It is an old disease. And new medicines seem effective at stopping it.”
“So she would be safe there. You all would be safe there.”
“Far safer than here.”
“No. Dad…Marcello,” I began.
Marcello turned toward me, misery in every line of his face. He took my arm with one hand and touched my cheek with the other. “I’ve long told you that I want nothing but for you to be well, to be safe. How could you not tell me of this threat?”
“Nay, nay,” I said, feeling him slipping from me emotionally and physically as he dropped his hands and stepped away—as if he were disappearing underwater, growing dim in the darkness even while he was right before me. “There are no guarantees, regardless of where one lives!” I strode over to my father and switched to English. “In our world a tractor can end a life in an instant! Car accidents…murderers, plane crashes, new viruses…” I glommed onto that. “Remember Dr. Jeffries?” I asked him, glancing at Mom, too. “Remember how he was on site, working with you, and then, boom, forty-eight hours later he was dead.” It had been some weird virus that struck his heart.
I looked at all of them, lapsing back into Italian. “We are attempting to play God, when maybe God put us here in the first place.” Father Tomas’s words by the stream came back to me. I could see his stick in the river, the water dividing on either side. “We can only move forward with what we have been given. Negotiate the river of life. Of time. And we’ve been given this,” I pleaded, waving at our circle. “Family. Love. Joy. Life. Can we not embrace it, for as long as we have it? Isn’t it what we all most dearly want, deep down?”
They all stared at me, thinking.
“We could always make the leap back,” Lia said, “if we did get sick. The tunnel appears to heal.”
I nodded. “Yes. Mom, you remember the blood on me?”
She nodded too, looking a little green at the memory.
“But what if a virus is—” Lia began.
I interrupted her. “I almost died that day. Marcello, Luca—they sent us home because they knew it was our last hope. Dad,” I said, going over to him and again switching to English, “Marcello put my hand on the print. He sent me away in order to try to save me. You have to trust him, Dad. Trust him, as I do. He’ll put my life ahead of his, every time. And if you keep pressing him like this, he’ll have no choice but to side with you. To send me away without even trying at all.”
“Nella nostra lingua, per favore,” Marcello said. In our language, please.
“He’s generous like that,” I said, ignoring his request. “Giving. He’ll give up on what he wants, for me.”
Dad stared back into my eyes, hesitating. Then, “As a husband ought.”
I froze. “Are you saying…?”
He turned away from me and walked over to the cold fireplace, staring at it again for a moment, and then turned to Marcello and reverted back to Italian. “It is clear to me, m’lord, that my daughter loves you, and you, her.” He glanced at Mom, and she nodded. Then he looked to Lia, and she did the same.
He reached a hand out to Marcello. “Gabriella has rightfully pointed out that life is a risk—that our lives are in God’s hands—no matter where you are. And if you two wish to take that risk together, we shall stand beside you. Together we shall face what comes.”
Marcello glanced at Dad’s hand, then up into his eyes. “And if I wish to send her away, for her own good?”
A slow smile spread across Dad’s face, and then he laughed. “You may send them away, but you cannot keep them from returning, can you?” He cocked his head and looked at me, Lia, and Mom with pride shining in his eyes. “The Ladies Betarrini…you have yet to see what they can accomplish. ’Tis best to pay attention to their wishes and give it good weight.” He stopped and clapped Marcello on the shoulder, like a father to a son. “Learn that quickly, m’lord, and you are destined for a long and happy union.”
CHAPTER 24
We rejoined the others, thereafter properly ready to celebrate and dance and toast, to both Fortino’s memory and to my future as Marcello’s bride. I met up with the men that I had first met in Il Campo—Signores Salvatori, Bastiani, and Bonaduce—there to pay their respects. As I finished my fifth dance with them—a raucous peasant dance that left me breathless—I smiled at Father Tomas and joined him in the outer ring to accept his warm congratulations. We stood side by side, watching the others as they laughed and danced, Lia and Luca and Mom and Dad now at the center, coming together in a skip, hands raised.
Dad’s here, dancing. I couldn’t help it. Time and again, it struck me…that he was alive, that we were together. Maybe it was in visiting Fortino’s grave that Dad’s resurrection hit me anew.
“’Tis as Fortino wished, this,” Tomas said.
I looked over at him, quickly, trying to focus in on his words. “Fortino spoke of…this?”
“He neared death several times during his imprisonment in Firenze, when I was attending Lord Greco. Time and again, Lord Greco intervened, and Fortino renewed his hope to return here. To come home. But he talked of you, and of Lord Marcello…He often mused that if he didn’t live to return, that he had great hope for the two of you. That you would return to Siena from afar. And that Marcello would take you as his bride. He had such dreams for the house of Forelli.”
It made me want to cry, thinking of Fortino dreaming of, hoping for us. Me and Marcello. “I miss him,” I said simply.
“He was a fine man.”
I nodded and forced a smile as Lord Rabellino—one of the Nine I’d met in Siena—came up to us and kissed both my cheeks as he held my hand in his. “M’lady, this night you have not only made Lord Forelli proud, but all of Siena. A wedding between one of the Nine and a She-Wolf? Siena will have never seen what is to come.”
“Thank you, m’lord,” I murmured. I smiled, but I was thinking about my barefoot-on-the-beach dreams. Simplicity. Intimacy. Quiet. Guess that’ll be impossible.
Mom and Dad came over then and asked if we could talk. I glanced at Marcello, and he silently nodded, as if to say, I see you. Go, if you must.
Father Tomas and Lord Rabellino were already walking away, deep in conversation. I stared after them, curious what one of the Nine would want with the humble priest. I hoped he wasn’t going to offer him a job. Or a position. Whatever they called it. I wanted Tomas to stay here, with us.
Mom, Dad, and I climbed the turret, and we exited through the short, rounded door at the top. I knew that this night, with so many of Siena’s faithful celebrating, just outside the castle walls, that the guards would overlook my presence. Any approach on Firenze’s part would sound an alarm with plenty of time for us to take shelter. And I wanted them to see it, the view from the top.
We walked along the edge, toward the back of the castle, looking down at the people. I glimpsed Father Tomas’s face as he talked to Rabellino, and I hesitated, seeing alarm in his expression. I’ll have to find out about that later, I thought. Right now Mom and Dad needed me fully Present and Accounted For. They deserved that much. After all, they’d just given their permission for me to marry a fourteenth-century nobleman.
How often was a parent asked to do that?
We paused in the center of the back wall and stared out over the valley beyond. We could see three massive bonfires and dark figures dancing past them. I had seen mountains of food exiting the castello over the last couple of days—Marcello’s nod to his people. Now I knew why. There had been no way to bring them all inside the castle gates.
“I feel as if I’ve reentered a dream,” Mom said, wrapping her arm around my waist as I leaned against the far wall. Dad came around to my other side, and I stood there a moment, just absorbing the sensation of both of them being present with me, shoulder to shoulder.
“I don’t know how to begin,” I said. “How to thank you both for trusting us with this decision. I know it’s a leap.”
Dad laughed. “When you jump nearly seven hundred years in time,” he said lowly, putting his hand on my shoulder, “it’s not a whole lot further to do this. It’s all a form of madness, really.”
“Or ultimate reality,” Mom returned with a smile.
We stared into the night for a time. Then Dad said, “We want to be sure we’re clear with you, Gabi. It is our understanding that if we are here when the plague descends, and either one of you become ill, we shall take you and Lia home.”
I let it sit a moment. I guess I’d heard it as a possibility, not a plan. “And what of Marcello?”
“He is one of the Nine,” Dad said. “He’ll be difficult to keep from Siena—”
“Which shall be vital,” Mom put in. “The cities suffered the greatest fatalities by far during the plague.”
“And if Siena is suffering,” Dad said, “he shall consider it his place to stay, will he not?”
I thought about that. “Yes. You’re right.”
“So we want you to consider it, Gabi,” Dad said. “Consider it fully. You may not be saying good-bye to Marcello now, but you may well be saying good-bye to him in the future.”
The River of Time Series Page 86