CHAPTER 32

We looked like a small tribe of Indians chased by the entire U.S. Cavalry. And Giovanni was falling behind, nearly in reach of the enemy’s archer’s arrows. “C’mon,” I muttered, looking forward again, conscious that at this speed, I had to steer my horse or we might go tumbling on the rocky road.

We were forced to slow just short of the woods, to pick our way down a twenty-foot bank and across a massive floodplain, now dry. It was unnerving, hearing those who chased us draw nearer, but we took comfort in the fact that the same landscape would slow their pursuit.

“Make haste!” Luca cried to me, Mom, and the two men who rode behind us as our rear flank. Lia was beside him.

Mom and I reached the far bank, and our horses churned upward. We dared to pause and glance back. There, across the dry riverbed, was Giovanni, barely slowing his horse.

The look on Luca’s face made him appear as if he’d been kicked in the gut. We all felt it. Giovanni would be captured or killed within minutes.

“May I give him half a chance, Luca?” Lia asked. “Only a minute’s lead…He’ll die here, in this riverbed, without aid.”

“I’ll stay and assist,” Valente said.

“Let’s be about it,” Luca said, his mouth thinning into a grim line.

She handed her reins to him, slid off her horse, and stood between the men.

Luca looked to the other men. “Go, as fast as you can. We shall meet at the village. If Evangelia and I are not there two minutes after you arrive, carry on. Do you understand me?”

“We shall not leave you and Lia behind,” I said. “If we are to stand and fight, we shall stand together.”

Luca shook his head. “We do not intend to stand anywhere. Remember? This is all about keeping them,” he said, motioning over his shoulder, “from reaching Marcello and our men.”

“Go, Gabi,” Lia muttered, taking aim across the riverbed at the opposite bank. Our enemies would be there at any moment, and Giovanni was only a third of the way across. “We will be right behind you.”

I looked at Mom as the three men assigned to our care turned back, waiting on us.

The first men of Firenze arrived on the far side, a cacophony as men screamed to hold, pause, halt. Several horses tumbled down the bank, rolling. I shuddered as the sound of bones cracking echoed across the riverbed.

Lia and Valente shot their first arrows.

“Go!” Luca demanded.

With one last glance at Lia, Mom nodded, and we surged into motion, pounding down the narrow road that led us into the shade of the woods. There were brief spots of sunlight when we charged beneath giant oaks that had already lost their leaves. Then sudden dark when the trees again closed in above us, making it hard to see, with our eyes constantly adjusting.

So I wasn’t really surprised when Mom’s horse stumbled in a mud hole and went down, throwing her. She flew through the air and into the woods. We all pulled up, circling around. “Mom!” I cried. “Mom!”

She lurched to her feet, brushing the leaves off her arms. “I’m all right,” she said, “just a little shaken.”

My relief crashed against my horror at the sight of her mare’s broken leg. “No,” I moaned. It was impossible. A horse with two riders would never be able to outrun those who pursued us.

Pietro was off his gelding in a moment. “M’lady, take mine,” he said.

“Nay,” she said, shaking her head.

But he took her waist in his hands and roughly tossed her up into the saddle, then strode over to her horse to grab her staff. He trotted over to her and handed it up. “Be off with you. All of you. I shall hide here and slow them down as much as I can. And those who will be coming after Sir Luca and Lady Evangelia as well.”

“Pietro, I—” I whispered.

“To the end, m’lady,” he said with a nod. His eyes did not break from mine. “See that you get to it, that you save Marcello and Fortino, as well as yourselves, and I shall consider my life well spent.”

Inside, my heart again screamed at me to stay, to fight with him, but my mind understood that it would do no one any good if we all died here. And unless we escaped, we would all die this day. I looked at the other two men and Mom, then back to Pietro. “I shall remember you forever.”

He smiled and covered his heart. “To be remembered forever by one of the Ladies Betarrini is an honor I shall cherish with my dying breath.”

I turned from him then, before I changed my mind again. Our two escorts, Alonzo and Santino, churned down the road ahead of us, cutting the path. We hunched over, urging our horses faster. In half a mile the woods became more spread out, oaks among grassy hills. Down below us, through the meandering valley cut by hill after hill, was the tiny village of Chianciani, where we’d meet up with Luca and Lia.

Where are they? I thought. With the delay after Mom’s fall, I half-expected them to be directly behind us. I again dared to peer under my arm as I rode hard, never breaking pace.

My heartbeat picked up when I saw the other riders, first with joy, thinking it was Lia, Luca, and the other men. But it sank when I figured out that there were too many and spotted the crest of Firenze on the leader’s breastplate. I looked under my other arm and did a quick count.

Eight, and rapidly gaining on us. They’d sent their fastest riders ahead to hunt us down. “Riders behind us!” I shouted. One by one, the men and my mother glanced back. We urged our horses faster, but they were tiring, having already given us everything they had. I dared to again look at the men behind us, now dividing, intending to flank us, only a hundred paces away.

Where were Luca and Lia? Were they dead? Or had these riders come around from another road? If something had happened to Lia, there was no sense in pressing on. Even if I made it to the tombs, there would be no escape for me or Mom without Lia’s hand on that print too.

I looked back. Seventy-five paces. “Press on!” I called.

Ahead of us, Alonzo and Santino shared a look and then divided, easing their pace enough to let us fall to the inside, protecting the side of us that would be exposed first to those who pursued us. But the road was too narrow for us to ride four abreast. I looked at Mom. “I’ll meet you at the village! Up ahead, at the bottom of the valley!”

She nodded, and at a group of trees ahead, she and Santino went left and I went right, Alonzo beside me.

As we curved, I saw that four men were but twenty-five paces away. Holding the reins with my left hand, glad the horse seemed to know where he was going and how urgent it was, I slipped a dagger from the back of my belt and bit down on it, tasting the metal against my tongue. The sword would be useless until I was on the ground and fighting them, which, by the looks of things, would not be long.

A man drew his sword and charged toward Alonzo as if he intended to crash his horse directly into my knight’s. When he was ten feet away, his eyes solely on Alonzo, I took the dagger from between my teeth, timed the swaying, churning motion of my horse to make sure my aim was true and then sent it flying at him.

It struck him in the throat.

His eyes widened in surprise, and he immediately dropped his reins and sat up, his hands going to the knife. The three others surged past him, looking at us with deadly intent in their eyes.

I waggled my eyebrows at Alonzo and the shy man grinned. “Thank you for that, m’lady.”

“Mayhap we can pick the others off in kind,” I said. We steered around another clump of trees and I dared to look for Mom. The men who pursued them were getting perilously close too. Santino had drawn his sword.

“Take care, m’lady,” Alonzo said. “No two shall die the same way.”

“Let us stand and fight, then,” I said. “Take them down, then go to my mother’s aid.” I looked beyond his shoulder. “Another one, coming fast.”

My knight gave me another look, considering. “We stand when we have but two left. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

He reached for a chain at the side of his saddle, slowly, staring ahead as if he didn’t know the rider was coming for him with sword drawn. I forced myself to look ahead too, not wishing to give him away. I was sure we could both hear the lathered horse nearly upon us. At the last possible moment, Alonzo turned and threw the chain. I could see, then, that it had small balls on either end, sending it like a long, twirling stick at our attacker.

The chain sank, right before it hit the knight. He grinned in victory for but half a second and lifted his sword, preparing to strike, when the chain wrapped around his horse’s leg, immediately sending both rider and horse tumbling down. The way he fell…he wasn’t going to rise.

“Two left,” I muttered. I pulled up and rounded the next tree. The men behind us looked surprised and divided, one chasing me in a broad loop, the other after Alonzo.

I jumped to the ground and pulled my sword, rolling my neck, preparing for the blow to come. He was about my size, but with an intensity that freaked me out. His horse churned toward me, and I counted, timing his approach, getting ready to deflect his blow, wondering if I’d have time, then, to turn and at least hit his leg before he was past me.

Five, four, three, two…one. It was harder than I remembered. Deflecting a blow from above. I staggered back, wondering if I had been a fool to go to the ground. The height gave the horseman a definite advantage. But there had been no way I was going to take him on while we were both seated. It was too difficult to gauge how the horses would react. I preferred solid ground beneath my feet, even if I still felt like I was riding—kind of like getting your land legs once you were off a boat.

I left the tip of my sword in the ground, resting, while the knight slipped from his horse. He paused and removed his helmet, dropping it casually to one side as he walked steadily back toward me.

It was Captain Rossi. Romana’s cousin. I fought for breath, stunned.

“I want to see every bit of this,” he said, sneering. “I want to remember every moment of the day I killed Lady Gabriella Betarrini.”

I gathered myself, remaining still, wanting him to think I was weak, injured in some way. “You would kill a woman?”

“A woman like you,” he roared, lifting his sword in a circle and bringing it swiftly after me.

I shifted, and it swung past me, missing me by inches. If I could tire him a bit, it would help me to best him. Get ’im good and mad.

“That was a sorry effort,” I goaded. “Can you not do better than that?”

He growled, turned, and brought down the sword like a saw blade. I narrowly turned in time. But as he swung around, so did I, blocking his next blow and staring into his eyes. “’Tis not my death that you shall remember this day.”

“Nay?” He lifted his sword and met mine again and again.

“Nay. Your last thoughts shall be of your own death.” I whipped around and aimed low, for his legs.

He yowled when I sliced his thigh. I ignored the sudden remembrance of my own aching leg, turning and bringing my sword around again, one-handed.

He blocked my strike and sneered in my face. “The lady must—”

With my left hand, I rammed my dagger into his gut, just under the edge of his breastplate, and waited for the knowledge of his impending doom to register in his hateful eyes.

He dropped his sword and closed his hands around my neck, pushing me back.

Surprised, I took a fumbling step and then fell, him on top of me.

I didn’t get him right, deep enough, I thought. Still he pressed his thumbs into my throat, murder in his eyes.

My own eyes were becoming narrowing tunnels of black when I felt him rock atop me, then roll away. I sat up, gasping, rubbing my throat, wondering if he had collapsed my windpipe.

Luca leaned down into my line of vision and smiled, clasping my hand and helping me up. “So the Rossis are rotten from core to peel,” he said. “Be you well, m’lady?”

I didn’t know where he’d come from, but relief flooded through me at the sight of his smiling eyes. “Fine, fine,” I lied with a gasp, glancing over at the captain’s lifeless form, waving Luca off even while wishing I could lean on him. “Giovanni?”

He shook his head sadly.

I absorbed that for a sec, suddenly realizing how close to the edge we were. My mother, Lia, the other men were bound to be in need of help. “Go.”

He turned and ran, and I hobbled after him, trying to get my eyes to focus again and my breathing back to normal.

Luca passed Lia as she let an arrow fly. It sliced into the shoulder of a knight circling my mother, and he staggered to the side.

Mom didn’t hesitate. She brought up the edge of her staff and rammed the knight in the face, then turned the long stick around and rammed the pointed end into his gut.

“Whoa,” Lia said as I reached her.

“I know,” I said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, still panting. We hobbled toward her, my leg suddenly aching like crazy. “Our mom is some kind of freakin’ warrior queen.”

“Luca,” she whispered, breaking away from me and running down the hill. I saw him then, fighting two knights, bending crazily backward in a moment to avoid one’s strike, then rolling to avoid the second’s.

I lurched down the hill after Lia, my right thigh again demanding favor. But by the time I reached them, Lia had taken down one knight, Luca the other. Mom and Santino came over to us. Alonzo rode toward us, three horses’ reins in hand.

Valente was on the ground, a gash across his head and a broadening circle of blood at his belly. I felt for a pulse. He was gone.

“More coming!” cried Alonzo, handing us the reins.

I glanced to the ridge—a mile distant—and frowned as I saw the hundreds of men there, poised to rush us, crush us. “Okay, maybe this whole bait thing wasn’t my best idea,” I muttered in English. We were only halfway to the tomb, and the sun was getting lower in the sky.

Luca and Santino lifted me and Mom into our saddles. Lia was already atop her own horse. Luca grabbed Santino’s arm, and the man swung around and up, behind his captain. His horse was a quarter-mile distant—fortunately right by the road we had to take—drinking from a creek. We all turned and charged forward, well aware of the cloud of men not far behind us.

We’d lost three of the six men we’d set off with—Giovanni, Pietro, Valente. But we still had Luca, Alonzo and Santino beside us. I glanced back and allowed myself a small smile of satisfaction. At least the plan was working. Hundreds of men were now after us, rather than after Marcello, cascading into the valley like water into a funnel. My man would be free to carry out his own plan this day; perhaps he was even on the offensive now, working to defeat those who dared to attack his noble city or hold his brother.

Outside the village, we captured Santino’s horse at the small creek bed. We had no choice but to allow the horses to drink for a full minute. We hurriedly filled our skins and drank from the stream too, all the while watching the men coming closer and closer.

“Their mounts will be in similar shape,” Luca said. “They will have to stop too.”

“You hope,” I said, mounting while my gelding still drank. The others did the same. Unable to bear the pressure any longer, I yanked my horse’s reins upward, forcing him back to the road. In seconds, we were galloping in pairs toward our next cover—the woods that filled the valley leading to Castello Paratore and Castello Forelli.

To our southwest, we could see clouds of smoke rising in the sky, but none were close to Siena. Probably a few villages getting torched by the bad guys, I thought. I welcomed the cool of the woods as we hit the crossroads of the old Roman road that ran between Siena and Firenze, and the cobblestone path that ran down our familiar valley. We pulled up and circled, oak leaves scattering around us, wanting to make certain that the men knew exactly where we were going.

We did not want them to give up on us. Not yet.