CHAPTER 13

“What?”

“You, your sister, shall exit here,” he said, nodding to the corner behind me. I turned and then edged away. He pulled on a wall sconce—a holder for two candles—and it tilted outward. I heard the dull sound of a metal latch unhooking, and a door opening behind a moth-eaten tapestry in front of me.

Dude. This is SO Nancy Drew. And Harry Potter. Nancy Potter.

I pulled aside the cloth and glanced from the small door in the wall beyond it, back to Marcello. “A hidden passageway?”

Marcello nodded. “Luca and I found it when we were just boys. ’Tis a tunnel that runs a mile north. It emerges in a cave by the river. Unfortunately, it comes out in a wood on Firenze’s side of the border.”

“Great,” I muttered.

He gave me a rueful smile and a small shrug. “At least we have an option for escape. If they manage to attack the manor, they would not expect you to flee into their own territory.”

“But what if they know about the tunnel? What if they’re lying in wait?”

“They do not know of it. I’m certain of it. My grandparents disguised the exit more carefully after they found out we had discovered it. Had our enemies found it, they would have used it to attack the manor long ago. Nay, they do not know. Besides, they will be hunting us on the Sienese side, where I will be leading them, making it look as if we are fleeing.”

My eyes met his. “I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself for me.”

He smiled and rubbed my lower lip with his thumb, then leaned in to kiss me—slowly, softly—then lifted his head and stared into my eyes. “I did not say I would sacrifice myself, Gabriella. Only lead them astray.”

“Nay,” I insisted, pushing him a step away, refusing to be swayed by his charms. “It is still far too dangerous. We shall remain together.”

He shook his head and looked to the main room, where the men conferred, then back to me. “We shall be far more identifiable together. We must part for a time, beloved, until we can again be safe at the castello, or in Siena herself. And with the illness among us…I cannot see you to safety. We must separate.”

I sighed, knowing he was right.

He touched my chin with his finger. “You must hide in the wood, until you’re certain you or your sister do not carry this plague. Then travel by moonlight, back to our land. I shall meet you at the castello in ten days’ time.”

I shook my head, not liking his plan. Yet I could not find a way to stop it, argue against it. And what of my mother? How was I to find her, make sure she was okay, if I was hiding somewhere deep within Firenze?

“You must depart now. As soon as you gather supplies, you must be off. Even now, the woods to the north gather with those faithful to Firenze. The longer you tarry, the more resistance you are apt to encounter.”

“But they fear the plague,” I said weakly.

“Lord Greco feared the plague. He has much to live for.” He looked away, as if lost in thought. “But there are many peasants and even knights who are willing to sacrifice themselves. Lord Greco and his fellow noblemen have likely placed a price on our heads that would be a fortune to a hundred families. In this case, the reward is not only glory for a man’s lord—it is also gold for his own pockets.”

Kamikazes, I thought. The Japanese fighter pilots who sacrificed themselves during World War II, flying into battleships, with the intent of bringing the great carriers down.

I didn’t know what to do with that kind of insane loyalty. Had I felt that kind of dedication…ever?

Only to family.

And to Marcello. My eyes met his. “Please—” I whispered, as his lips covered mine for a moment. “Please come with me,” I continued, when he released me.

He faltered. Sensing that he was thinking twice about it, I pressed. “Please, Marcello. Your plan is good in that it gives us an opportunity to get farther away. But without you, without Luca, if we encounter the enemy, what shall become of us?”

A slow smile softened his features. “The She-Wolves of Siena? Woe to the man who encounters them and stands in their way.”

“Indeed,” I said with a small grin. “But I admit that even the She-Wolves of Siena do best with the He-Wolves of Siena beside them.” Memories of our last battle against Lord Greco flooded through my mind. I shivered, and he pulled me back into his arms, resting his chin on top of my head as he stroked my hair.

He moved to kiss my forehead, my eyes, my cheeks, my lips for several long, searching moments. Right then, I wished we could stay together. Forever. Get married, if that was what it took. I just knew I couldn’t stand to be torn from him again, that I wanted more time to be together. To walk, hand in hand, to talk, just talk, for hours. And to kiss. Kiss like this—

He abruptly released me. I stood there for a second, dazed, coming down from the temporary high. He shut the trapdoor, set the sconce to rights, and motioned for me to follow him upstairs. I trailed behind him, reluctant, still trying to think of an option other than his terrible plan, when we heard a shout from the wall.

Marcello groaned and grabbed my hand.

Lia met us at the door. “What is happening?”

“Attack,” Marcello responded. He lifted Luca’s sword, by the door, and carried it over to him. The man struggled to rise and sat there, his upper body propped on one elbow.

He grabbed hold of the sheath and pulled it closer, staring at Marcello. “Battle upon us?”

“More like a war, my friend. Firenze knows we’re here, and Siena is racing to our aid. It shall be fierce.”

Luca sighed and threw off the covers and let his legs swing to the ground.

“Nay!” Lia cried, moving toward him. “You must stay—”

Marcello grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. “Lia. You shall go with your sister. Now.”

She wrenched her arm from his hand and stared back up at him, as furiously defiant as he was insistent. “I am not going anywhere without Luca.”

Behind her, Luca chuckled.

“You are of no assistance,” Marcello complained to him, still staring at Lia like she was a rattlesnake poised to strike.

“Forgive me, m’lord,” he said. “We happen to be in love with two of the most stubborn women in all of Siena.”

We all stilled. Even Marcello glanced at him. Love? Luca and Lia—in love?

“It’s his fever talking,” Lia said, brushing it off. “But still, I shall not abandon my friend, ill as he is, to face off an attack.”

Your “friend.” Right. Got it.

She moved over to the bed, grabbed his boots, and helped him slip them on, taking care to not look in our direction. When he rose, she was again by his side, helping to steady him, even though he probably outweighed her by forty pounds. “We go, Marcello,” she said. “But we shall go together.”

Her tenacity gave me strength too. “Si, Marcello, adiamo insieme. Let us make this journey together. I cannot bear to be parted from you again.”

He sighed in exasperation and ran a hand through his hair, eyeballing all three of us. “Very well. But remember this moment,” he said, shaking a finger in our direction. “This is your plan, not mine.”

“And if it proves to be successful?” I asked, teasing him.

He relented and smiled. “Then, of course, it was my plan all along.”

We left the room and hurried down to the tunnel entrance.

Are You there, God? Do You hear me? I said silently, even as I accepted my sheath and sword from Marcello and strapped it on. Please give us a break here. And get us safely through this tunnel. Uhh…amen.

I strapped a dagger to my calf, ignoring the knight in the corner who was staring at my bare leg as he perched on the edge of a chair. Marcello saw it too and barked an order at him. I smiled and grabbed several more short blades and tucked them into my belt. I felt waaaay better heading out with the guys with us, even if Luca was as sick as a dog. Leaving them behind would’ve made me throw up.

With us together, I had a sense of hope.

Or is that You…God?

Marcello gathered with the men in the courtyard and explained our plan.

“And what if Lady Gabriella is correct, that you have the plague?” asked one, eyeing Luca, then Marcello.

“At least we shall be on land that belongs to the enemy. May it spread back to those who sent it to us.”

The men chuckled. One by one, they clasped arms with Marcello and nodded toward Luca. “Until another day,” Marcello said. “I know you shall make Castello Forelli and all of Siena proud of her sons again this day. I pray that we shall all soon be reunited at the castello. Remember that you must be without symptoms for at least ten days before you return there. Understood?” He looked about the circle of remaining knights. One by one, they thumped their chests with a closed fist, promising to do as he bade. “For Siena!” Marcello said.

“For Siena!” they returned, so loudly that it scared me a little.

We could hear the roar of soldiers beyond our walls, like a rolling thunder, then the clattering of arrows atop the tiled roof. In seconds, we could smell smoke.

“Shall we depart, or shall we pour a cup of wine and sit by the fire?” Luca asked, wiping his forehead of sweat.

Marcello smiled. “I think we shall depart.” Pietro tossed him a lit torch. He caught it and turned.

At the door, Giovanni handed me a second torch, wound and ready to be lit. “Take care, m’lady. We don’t wish to fish you from Firenze’s pools. There are many sharks in those waters.”

I smiled back at him. “I’m fairly adept at swimming.” I glanced down the tunnel, where Marcello’s torch danced in the dark, with Luca and Lia following behind. “I must be off.”

“I shall guard this entrance with my life. Make haste, m’lady,” Giovanni said. And with that, smoke swirling down the hallway behind him, he shut the door.

I turned and hurried along the dark tunnel, glad for the light of Marcello’s torch, for the smooth stones beneath my feet, and that we were away, free of the burning mansion behind us. Perhaps ten feet above, men fought and cried out, their voices muffled by earth and stone. Behind me, the darkness yawned.

At last I was behind Luca, his big boots already dragging across the stones. “Feeling well, Luca?”

“Like I was just born,” he lied, panting.

“Uh-huh,” I muttered.

The tunnel was so low hanging, the guys had to duck as they walked. Farther behind, in the deep, dancing shadows of the torch and my comrades before me, I kept bumping my head. When Luca did the same, he paused and rubbed his head. “The thing was carved from the earth by far shorter people than we.”

“Indeed,” I said.

He sighed and pressed forward. A couple minutes later, we met Marcello and Lia, who had stopped.

“Cave-in,” Marcello explained.

It was a particularly creepy place to be standing. Above us, we could hear laughter, a leader among our enemy calling out orders, cries as they sustained return fire. As though we’d neared the surface. “It sounds like the battle that day I first came out of the tomb,” I said lowly.

“Only a hundred times bigger, I’d wager,” Luca said, leaning against the wall, panting, closing his eyes. He clearly felt horrible.

“No way through but through, that’s what our dad always said,” Lia muttered.

She looked to Marcello, and he stared back at her.

“We’ll pass back the stones,” Marcello said. “Gabriella, you must form them into a second wall, making it look like a cave-in behind us, so that if we are pursued, they shall come across it and believe we did not come this way.”

I nodded. Smart plan. “Capito.” I understand.

“You rest for a bit,” Lia said to Luca. “Sit. There.”

He nodded.

No funny comment? My eyes met Lia’s worried ones as he sank to the ground. He leaned his head back and was immediately breathing as deeply as if he were tucked into bed at his mother’s house.

Marcello passed a stone to Lia, and she passed it to me. At first, I tossed them a way back, giving it that casual, caved-in look we were shooting for. About ten minutes later, my arms already aching, I began to be more methodical in my building method. We picked up the pace, hearing the enemy troops roar in excitement and then move forward, away from us, toward the villa. Clearly, they were making gains.

Luca was snoring now. I was glad he was getting rest—he’d need it for the journey to come. But man, did I wish we had his strong hands, arms, and back as part of our chain gang.

“We’re through!” Marcello said, looking back, panting. At the top of his pile was a tiny hole. I found it oddly encouraging. Desperate, Gabs?

“We’re about halfway to the ceiling,” I said, looking back at the pyramidlike pile I was making behind us.

“All right. Raise that wall as fast as you can,” he said.

With renewed energy, we continued our task, hearing the forces above again make headway toward the villa. How soon until they flooded inside the gates? Found our entryway? I peered down the tunnel with each stone, as if I might be able to suddenly see in the dark. I pictured Giovanni standing guard, unwilling to let anyone pass—but even he would eventually be overcome by a hundred of his enemy.

Lia had twenty-four arrows in her quiver. She could take out a few if I ducked, before they raised a shield before them and charged. I shivered at the thought.

We’d been working on it for over an hour, and the wall was shoulder high now. Just another fifteen or sixteen stones…Lia was slowing, Marcello waiting behind her instead of maintaining our previous rhythm. “C’mon, Lia. Keep it up. We have to hurry,” I said in English.

“I’m doing all I can,” she grumbled back at me. She handed me the next stone so hard I almost dropped it. Not on purpose, I knew. Her fingers were probably trembling like mine now, weak, untrustworthy.

Luca came to a few minutes later and forced himself to his feet. He studied the nearly complete pile and stretched out his hands for a rock. “Here, allow me to assist,” he said with a grin.

I laughed. “You have,” I said, panting, “the most uncanny timing.”

He cocked a brow and smiled back, then turned around and asked Lia to stand aside. Mouth open in a pant, she wiped her forehead of sweat and nodded, backing up.

Quickly, Marcello tossed rocks past us and directly to Luca. He set them in place, finished blocking off the passageway and then added a second layer to strengthen it.

When he was done, he leaned back, looking so pale he was almost blue, and glistening with sweat in the fading light of the torch. “Thank you,” I said, touching his arm. I knew how hard it had been on him. But seriously, I didn’t know if Lia and I could’ve done any more.

A sound echoed down the long tunnel and made us all freeze in place.

Someone had tripped the door latch.

They were coming.

“Make haste,” Marcello said, waving me forward, helping me over the pile. Now holding the torch, I scrambled awkwardly across it, then leaned back to help Lia across too. Thankfully, the tunnel ahead appeared empty, the way clear. Would they buy the cave-in behind us?

We weren’t sticking around to find out. Luca came next, then Marcello, protecting us from our pursuers.

“Put the torch out!” Marcello growled.

I dropped it and stomped it to ashes. It had almost burned out anyway.

We hovered in the darkness, each listening hard. We heard a shout and then another, then the muffled sound of footfalls. Could they hear us, too? I tried to be as silent as I could as I hurried down the tunnel. Reaching out to feel the rough stones of the walls, running blind. How much farther? Would we find ourselves in the midst of an enemy camp when we emerged?

The men behind us fell abruptly silent. They must’ve reached the cave-in site. We pulled to a stop and glanced back, four mice fearful that our hole was about to be discovered by the great big cat. Their torchlight filtered through holes and cracks in the pile. We could hear the men talking, debating, then the sound of one stone falling on another.

The tunnel was surprisingly straight and uniform, and we could see the place our enemy lingered in the distance. At the top of the rocks, where it was but two stones thick, torchlight danced through the cracks.

“Stay completely still,” Marcello whispered.

They moved another stone. No doubt they could see through to the other side. To us. “Bring the torch closer!” a voice said, echoing down the tunnel.

I couldn’t bear to watch. To observe the moment of discovery. It was enough to listen. I closed my eyes. Please, God, please, God, please, God…

“He can’t see this far,” Luca whispered.

I hoped he was right. Because I felt completely exposed and vulnerable.

“There’s another cave-in up ahead,” said the man. “Not as high.”

“They’re not down there,” said a second. “They’ve made their escape to Siena. Above ground.”

“Back to the mansion!” cried another. Abruptly, the soldiers turned, and gradually, their torchlight faded. Relief flooded through me, making me feel suddenly weak, exhausted.

“It’s okay, Gabs,” Lia whispered after a moment, once she was sure they were gone, pulling me in for a hug. “Maybe we should just hide here. Until they’re gone-gone.”

“No,” I said. “We have to move on. If Lord Greco takes down the villa, and yet doesn’t find us within the wreckage, or on the road, escaping, he’ll come back to this tunnel. We need out.”

I blinked slowly, as if that might clear my vision and I’d be able to see. “Shall we light the other torch?” I whispered back to Marcello.

“Nay. Let us feel our way forward. We might have sore need of that torch later. I think we are nearly to the end.”

“I hope so,” I muttered, moving forward, tapping my foot in front of me like a blind woman’s cane, my hands on the wall. The last thing we needed was to break a leg on our way out. It was slow going, but in another fifteen minutes, I could see a bit of daylight. That, or I was losing it, imagining things…

But no, there it was. The rectangular form, light on all four edges.

“A door,” I said over my shoulder, picking up the pace, feeling more confident now, with the end in sight.

But that was just before I tripped.

And landed in a deep, cold pool.