CHAPTER 15

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she returned.

I edged to the stairs. “Lord Greco, we surrender,” I said. I took a step and then another, expecting a dagger or arrow to come winging my way. Or were we worth more alive than dead? Marcello’s warning rang through my head like an alarm bell—Fight. To the death, if you must.

“Do you show any symptoms of plague?” he called, still hiding beneath the branches of the trees.

“None, as yet.”

Lia was behind me, already on the stairs.

“Throw down your weapons!” he demanded. “At once.”

“But—”

“Disarm!” he demanded, edging into view, an arrow across his bow. He was pointing it at Lia.

I didn’t think. From fifteen steps up, I leaped to the trees, knowing it would distract him. I heard Lia’s arrow race past me just before I hit the branches. Three small limbs cushioned the brunt of my fall, thankfully, but then gave way. A large one beneath them slowed my descent. I folded around it, swung with my momentum and fell feetfirst now. I reached out, grasping for a branch, anything, feeling the tug of my hair as a clump pulled out of my scalp, then deep scratches at my leg, face, arm.

At the very last, my fingers found a branch, and I held tight. I was hanging there, face to face with Lord Greco five feet away, his arrow pointing in my direction. “A gift from the heavens,” he said with a low laugh, “my prize to claim.” He pulled back on the bowstring and adjusted his aim.

I dropped from the branch, turning as I fell, and rolled away through the leaves. His arrow hit the ground, inches behind my leg—he was obviously trying to wing me—then another near my shoulder. But then I had the trunk of the tree to shield me.

I grabbed one of the daggers from my waistband, so glad they’d stayed put, and aimed at him. Lia was down the stairs now, taking her shot. It narrowly missed him.

He was good. His intuition uncanny. I let out a growl of frustration. He should’ve been dead five times over, facing Lia.

I threw the dagger, and it stuck in the tree, not three inches from his head.

I groaned. “Come on, Lia!” I cried, realizing, too late, that I spoke in English.

She came tearing through the wood, still uphill from me, and I turned and ran with her. We were decent runners, going for jogs most mornings from Mom’s archaeological site. Hopefully Lord Fancypants always has his running done for him, I thought. He had the advantage of running straight after us. We were weaving, conscious that he might still try to wing us with his own arrow. And, oh yeah, we had long, damp skirts on. Totally unfair.

But we have the advantage of sheer terror, I thought, a grim smile spreading across my face as I panted.

Lia shot me a look, wondering how on earth I could be smiling.

Hey, I’m thinking positively, I thought back at her.

She just looked confused, for some reason. Our sister telepathy had never been particularly good.

We ran over a mile, losing sight of Lord Greco somewhere afterward. He must have dropped back for reinforcements.

At last she pulled me to a stop, leaning down on her knees, panting. We could hear them. Horses.

“They don’t have dogs,” I said, gasping for breath. “At least there’s that.”

“Yeah, but a hundred men, combing these hills for us?” she said. “It’ll still do the trick.”

The sun was casting the last of its warm orange light on the cliffs above us. I stared at them, then down below, trying to get a sense of where we were. “Aren’t those passageways around here? The ones the Etruscans cut into the cliff?”

“Yes!” she said, her eyes widening in excitement.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing her hand and resuming our run.

Fifty yards farther, we came across the tomb that we remembered from our childhood visit. Massive fluted columns. Statues, not quite as ravaged by time as I remembered, their features more distinct. We could hear the horses churning down the road below us. They passed us, obviously aiming to cut us off, circle around, close in on all sides.

At last, we came across it. Up top, we could see the break in the stone. But down below, it was totally choked by brush.

“Well, hello there,” I said, “you big, beautiful overgrown passageway.” I looked over to Lia. “Let’s confuse ’em a little.”

She knew what I meant. We ran forward, as if we were still on our path, making sure we disturbed lots of leaves. Then, thirty yards ahead, we carefully climbed atop the stones of the tombs and leap-frogged back to the passageway. I pressed inward, ignoring the branches scratching my cheeks, pulling at my hair. Lia made her own way in from the edge.

“Don’t leave any footprints,” I said.

“Or disturb the leaves,” she returned.

We turned, periodically, to pat branches back into place, or cover our trail with rocks.

We were through the dense foliage, between the moss-covered, curving banks of the ancient walls, when we heard them. It was dark in the twenty-foot tall chasm, giving us hope. If they were forced to search via torchlight, it might be even harder to find trace of us. They’d go beyond, thinking that we were faster than they thought, confident that we were on the front side of the cliff, perhaps hidden away in another cave.

“This is good,” I said to Lia, taking her hand. “Really good.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “Except for one thing.”

“What?” I asked as we hurried forward, careful to not kick a stone that might send a telltale alarm back to the Creep-Fest back yonder.

“We’re going deeper.” She gestured ahead.

She didn’t mean deeper into the passageway. We both knew it would emerge up top, on the ancient site of an Etruscan city.

She meant deeper into Firenze’s territory.

“We’re just taking the scenic route,” I said to her lightly. But I was certain she heard my voice break oddly. I was having a hard time catching my breath, my heart was pounding so hard.

I was going away from Marcello. From Mom. And closer to the enemy than ever.

“They won’t expect us to do this,” Lia whispered, squeezing my hand. I realized we’d been holding hands for several minutes now, like two little girls trying to draw comfort from each other. But I didn’t let go.

“No, they won’t,” I said lowly, as we reached the top of the passageway and the vast flat of the ruined city. Here and there, the indentation of roads and the slight rise of foundations could still be seen. “The Ladies Betarrini have a few tricks left.” I turned to face her and pulled her into my arms. “I love you, Lia. If anything happens—”

“Don’t say it,” she said, clinging to me, then repeated, “Don’t say it,” anger edging her tone. She stepped away and shook a finger at me. “You promised me, Gabi. Remember? I didn’t want to come back here. I was too afraid because of what happened last time—”

“And look,” I said, pulling her forward and to the edge of the trees. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have found out what love was like.” We had to keep moving. Just in case…

She blew out a dismissive breath, and I sighed in relief. I’d distracted her. “Love? Serious like, maybe, but I barely know him.”

I raised a brow. “What’s not to like? He’s funny. You love funny guys. And handsome, in that California-dude look you’re into. And loyal. Not to mention clever and strong. He’s way better than that guy in Boulder who always texts you.”

“Well, yeah…but you can hardly compare them. Their lives are so different—”

“So are ours, with these guys. Marcello. Luca. They’re men, Lia. Not boys. It takes guys at home another ten years to have the maturity that these guys have.”

She pulled her hand from mine. “Yeah. They have to grow up fast here. People want to kill you all the time.”

I nodded. She had me there.

“Besides, Luca…”

She was thinking about him—how sick he was when we left them. Battling a foe far fiercer than another soldier. The Black Plague. “Luca will beat it.” I patted her shoulder. “He’s strong, Lia, really strong.”

She paused and pulled me to a stop again. I turned to face her. “What?”

“Marcello and Luca will not find us among the caves, down below.”

“No,” I said slowly. “They’ll see Lord Greco’s men combing the face of those cliffs and know two things: one, that they’ve lost our trail; and two, that we’re making our way to Castello Forelli as planned.”

“Via the scenic route,” she said with a small smile.

“Via the scenic route,” I agreed, slipping my arm through the crook of hers.

We slept on the floor of a shallow cave for several hours, then resumed our trek before daybreak, searching for a main road. I wished we’d paid more attention when Mom had pointed out the old Roman roads over the years. Chances were, there was one around here somewhere, most likely still in use. The Romans had been as good at crafting roads as the Etruscans had been at tombs, setting their massive stones at the right angle to make them endure the long-term effects of weather and traffic. I remembered that much—the perfect, angled lines, the ruts in the stones where wheel after wheel had worn them down.

We emerged on a mountain ridge and, shielding our eyes, looked to the valley below us.

“The road,” she said.

“Not like we can hop on that one,” I returned. Hundreds of troops were moving toward Siena in uniform lines. Peasants went the other way, on either side of the road, fleeing the carnage behind them, heading toward the sanctuary of Firenze. “Guess the battle is still raging.”

“How’d the two of us set all of that in motion?” she asked, looking at me, really looking at me. She reached up and pulled a leaf from my hair, then another. “You’re not looking so hot, Gabi.”

“Neither are you,” I said, tucking her hair behind her ear.

We both bent and broke twigs from a nearby bush and attempted to gather our hair into a bun. We shoved the twigs through and they held—for the moment, anyway. “Better?” I asked.

“Yeah, except for the gash across your cheek.”

“Battle scars. We can tell anyone we meet that we’re fleeing the front lines, and be telling the truth.”

She smiled. “How’re those ribs?”

“They hurt like crazy, every time I take a breath,” I said. When we’d lain down for the night, I’d discovered it at last. A broken rib or two from my insane leap into the trees. The adrenaline from our escape must’ve masked the pain for hours. Kind of like when moms are able to lift cars to save children pinned beneath. Superhuman kind of stuff. Sad that it was over. Now I had to deal with regular-human kind of pain. “I’d kill for an Advil. Or five.”

“Let’s look for some foxglove,” she said. “Remember how last year, Mom made us that tea every time we got a headache?”

“Little late in the season for foxglove.”

“You never know,” she said, raising a brow.

“Right, right,” I said. “Thinking positively.”

Now that we had the road in sight, we moved parallel to it, searching for a good spot to try to cross unseen, to the eastern side—where we could then head south and avoid Lord Greco’s search. We walked six, maybe seven miles that day. But there was never a letup in the stream of soldiers.

“It’s almost night. We’ll find a crossing spot soon,” Lia tried.

“Maybe.” Down below us was a vineyard, its straight rows of vines curving along crossbars. “Let’s go down here.”

We picked our way down a small, dried-up gulley. Here and there were pools of stagnant water. While our throats were parched, we dared not drink from them. We were Colorado girls. Our dad had taken us camping once or twice. We knew a breeding ground for giardia when we saw one.

We held strong, but when we caught sight of the well in the empty yard, we raced down to it. Lia hauled up the bucket and set it with trembling hands atop the edge. She cupped her hands and sucked in the water. I was right behind her, splashing it in my face in the effort to get more of it down my throat at once.

“My well will go dry if every fleeing villager that comes through here helps themselves,” said a woman at the door of the house. She wore no weapon, but the threat in her voice said we’d better watch out. She was as tall as my grandma—a good foot shorter than I—but she sounded equally as tough.

Lia glanced at me.

“We beg your pardon, Signora,” I said with a slight nod. “But we have been on the road all day, without water. We could not stop ourselves. Might we…repay you with a bit of work?” I glanced around. “I see your vines still bear their fruit.”

“Husband conscripted into the ranks,” she said, nodding toward the highway, still below us. “He may be gone days, even weeks.”

I swallowed hard. So it happened on the other side of the line too. Soldiers, taken from their homes, never to be seen again. At least in our day and age they had dog tags, a means to identify them, send word home to loved ones. It was so like Signora Giannini’s story, but this lady was twice her age.

And now her fruit rotted on the vine. Her means of living, her future, her way to get through the winter…

She sighed and padded out to the nearest vine, then looked to us. “I am Signora Reggello.” She came over and lifted my hand, saw the calluses there, and gave a grunt of approval, then glanced at the cuts on my face, my arms, the sword sheath I wore over my shoulder. Then she went to Lia and did the same. “You are uncommon peasant women, but do not tell me your names. I am too old to bear the burden of secrets.”

I glanced at Lia and back to the old woman. “Our men are gone too,” I said. “When the men are gone, women must do what they must to survive, no?”

She studied me a long moment, then nodded her small, gray head. She gestured out to the vines. “Most of it is too far gone to save. But with your help we could bring in the last of it before it too, turns.”

“We’re fairly good with a vinekeeper’s knife,” I said, smiling at Lia, remembering that day—only about a week ago?—when we beat Luca and Marcello so soundly harvesting the Giannini vines.

“Glad to hear it,” she said, tossing up her hand as she turned, as if she truly didn’t care. “First we eat, sleep. Work come morning.”

Lia grinned at me, threw her hands up, and followed the old, squat woman into the small building.