CHAPTER 12

Lia reached him first, three strides ahead of me and Marcello.

Luca was shaking off the hands of the other knights, evidently having just fought to regain his feet.

“Luca, lie down,” I said.

Lia reached up and touched his cheek, then drew back as if she’d been scalded. Worried, she looked my way. “Still burning up.”

“Nonsense. I’m well enough. But I still might need a pretty, blue-eyed nurse to tend me, day and night, to make certain I stay that way.” He smiled over at Lia.

His smile quickly faded as his legs folded beneath him. Luckily, the knights were close enough to catch him and gently help him to the bed.

He was trembling, giving in to the fever’s tremors again. We pulled a blanket across him.

“Surely we can do something for him,” Marcello said.

“Please, Gabi,” Lia said, looking down at Luca. “Tell us.”

I widened my eyes in her direction, totally exasperated. She knew as much as I did! But her helpless, desperate look made me act. “Hot, clear, broth,” I muttered. Was it feed a cold, starve a fever? Or feed a fever, starve a cold? I couldn’t remember. Or if it even applied to plague. I just wanted to try something. “More clean water, cold and hot. Rags, vinegar.”

Marcello nodded once and rose to repeat the requests to those outside.

“Yes, a sponge bath,” Luca teased, a smile on his lips even as he winced and panted for breath against some unseen pain. “I simply cannot tend myself. I need you ladies to assist.”

“In his dreams,” Lia said in English, rolling her eyes at me.

In minutes, servants returned, with two knights behind them, carrying water and vinegar and rags.

Lia poured some cold water into a basin, dunked a rag into it, and carried it over to a small table beside the bed. She sat on the edge, wrung out the cloth, and placed it on Luca’s forehead. He was trembling, but he caught her hand and held it a moment. “Mayhap you and your sister should be as far from this room as possible,” he said.

“Nay,” she said. “We are likely as infected as you. The disease is spread through fleas, but also coughing. Blood. Touch.”

He hastily released her hand. “But you show no signs of it?”

“It is because of our superior strength,” Lia teased. “You pretend to be a mighty knight. But it takes an enemy smaller than a speck to take you down.”

Luca grinned, but he let his eyes close as if the irises themselves burned with the fever.

She wrung out the cloth again and put it back on his head. Then, as his breathing became more even, as if he was giving into sleep or unconsciousness, she added vinegar to the water and washed his hands and forearms and then, carefully, the swollen nodes beneath his armpits.

“In some cultures, vinegar is considered an aphrodisiac,” he said suddenly, still with his eyes closed.

“In my culture,” Lia returned, “it’s the smell of old, fat ladies laboring to clean foul places.”

Luca chuckled, and then trembled so hard the whole bed shook.

“Shush now,” Marcello said sternly. “Save your strength, cousin, to fight this battle within you.”

A knight returned to the door. “Sir Marcello, may I have a word?”

“Certainly,” he said, moving from his sentry position beside Luca. He squeezed my shoulder and gave Lia an encouraging smile. “I’ll return shortly. Watch over my cousin. He could ask for no better nurses than you two.”

“Not sure about that,” I muttered to Lia in English, as he disappeared.

“Yeah, if only I could drop back home and find out what to do. For sure, you know?” She folded her arms in front of her.

“I know,” I said. I gave her a close-lipped smile, then said, “He’s strong, Lia. Inside and out. If anyone can fight this off, it’s Luca. Right?”

She nodded, but I could see the fear in her eyes. She cared for him. Really cared. It made my heart skip a beat.

What if she watched him die?

A massive creaking sound outside made me move to the window—not glass, but rather nine panes of thinly sliced, almost transparent, ivory stone. I unhinged the lock, and the entire thing swung inward.

From here, I could just see the front gate. Marcello was standing in front of it as his men opened both sides. “What is he doing?” I muttered. Did he not fully get what a quarantine should be like?

As the gate doors were opened, I caught sight of a patrol of about twelve men, their captain leaning forward, a bright red stain at his shoulder. Injured.

I lifted a hand to the wall and my other hand to my mouth. Beyond the patrol, a contingent of Sienese seemed to be on the move, with great clouds of dust rising in the sky. What was happening? Weren’t our reinforcements due about now?

Marcello abruptly turned, the gates were shut, and with a few hand motions, he had knights on the run.

Whatever it was, it was bad.

I glanced to Lia. Luca’s eyes blinked open. “Stay with him,” I muttered. “I’ll be right back.”

Marcello met me outside, took my hand, and led me back into the main room. It registered then, in my cloudy brain. The knights were arming themselves, taking stock of the meager weaponry available in the cabinets beside the front door.

“Gabriella,” Marcello said, pulling me into a private corner. “Firenze is on the attack. They’ve cut off the reinforcements. They march on us now.”

“Firenze?” I asked blankly. “But Lord Greco, he knows we have plague among us. He wouldn’t…he was—”

“His intent must be to kill us, claim victory from afar, while containing the illness. But there is more. Gabriella,” he said, taking my hands in his, “they very nearly captured your mother.”

“My mother?” I frowned, trying to make sense of what he was saying. I shook my head. “Nay, she is back at the castello. Safe. She would never have—”

“She insisted. Threatened to go without the men if they did not bring her here. She was coming.… Gabriella, she told my men she wanted to come and take her daughters to safety.”

The tombs. She had intended to get to us and escape. Return home. “But she is all right? She made it back to the castello?”

“I do not know. The men that came here split from a group of twelve others who were to see her back to safety. We’ll know soon enough. If we can survive the night ourselves.”

He ran a hand through his hair in agitation, then leaned closer to my ear. “They intend to destroy this mansion, and all within it. Burn us out or to cinders. More men from Siena will ride to our defense, of course, but even if they get here in time, we are about to be at the center of a long and difficult battle.”

I took a deep breath and stood straighter. “They will find we are not easily vanquished.”

“Nay,” he said soberly. He cradled my cheek in his hand. “They shall not find you at all.”