DELUGE Read online

  The River of Time Series

  By Lisa T. Bergren

  The River of Time Series

  Waterfall

  Cascade

  Torrent

  Bourne & Tributary

  Deluge

  DELUGE

  Published by Bergren Creative Group, Inc.

  Colorado Springs, CO, USA

  All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.

  © 2014 Lisa T. Bergren

  Cover design: Gearbox Studios, David Carlson and Bergren Design

  Cover images: iStockphoto, royalty free

  Printed in the United States of America

  For the River Tribe—this one’s purely for you, my friends.

  Thanks for your passionate encouragement and enthusiasm.

  Table of Contents

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Part II

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Part III

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Part IV

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Epilogue

  Historical Notes

  Acknowledgments

  PART I

  PREPARATIONS

  Late Autumn, 1345

  CHAPTER ONE

  EVANGELIA

  “So, what say you, carina?” Luca asked me, calling me his little love. “Did you not promise long ago that if I returned to you from battle, we would speak of a certain blue dress?”

  I laughed under my breath and gripped his arm more tightly, used to his constant teasing. But this specific subject always set me on edge.

  We were walking to our favorite hill for an autumn picnic, a habit we’d gotten into since things had settled down on the northern front. For months now, Firenze had kept to their side of the newly reestablished border, apparently content to rest from battle, as we were. And even though the wind held the chill of deep November, still we came to this hill once a week to gain some privacy.

  “M’lady?”

  I glanced up at him as we walked, for the first time seeing the intent expression in his green eyes, noting his tone of seriousness. He usually dropped the marriage subject when I refused to engage. He was sweet and sensitive like that. But today the muscles in his jaw tensed, like they did when addressing his men or talking over the day’s plans with Marcello. Or when he was thinking about kissing me…

  “Oh, Luca. We’ve addressed this. I said we’d speak of it,” I said, looking down to the calf-high grasses, brown and dry as autumn settled in to stay. “Make plans. Dream of that beautiful day.”

  “Come now, love. We both know you promised more than that.”

  I glanced up at him and then quickly away. “Luca, there is none but you in my heart. But the idea of…” I swallowed hard, feeling the familiar heat of a blush on my cheek. “The idea of…carrying a child, as Gabi is now…” I shook my head. “’Tis enough to anticipate one babe in the face of an uncertain future. We need not tempt God with sending us another.”

  He shrugged my hand loose, took several quick, long strides ahead to then turn and face me. He held up one hand. I came to a stop.

  “I do not understand,” he said, squinting at me. “How does Marcello and Gabriella’s joy keep us from our own? Why would it?”

  I brushed past him and finished our climb to the top of the hill, then flung out the blanket I’d carried, trying to gather my thoughts, my argument. He was right behind me. I sat down and looked up at him, waiting for him to join me. But he stood there with his hands on his hips, clearly wanting an answer.

  “Consider it, Luca. There is already enough risk happening in our family,” I said. “Remember? With what is to come?”

  He took a deep breath through his nostrils, flung himself down on the blanket beside me, and rolled onto his back. He shook his head, then shifted to his side, taking my hand in his.

  “So we are to be held captive by what is to come, too? Live in fear of what might be rather than rejoice in what we’ve been given for certain? Should we not embrace these years of freedom before it’s upon us?”

  I gave him a small smile. I loved him. I did. But the thought of being his wife…being intimate with him…perhaps becoming pregnant as my sister had…

  Then facing the coming plague…

  Not only worried about my family, Luca, Marcello, my future niece or nephew, but my own babe as well…

  I shook my head and stood up, pacing back and forth, wringing my hands. “I can’t, Luca. Not yet. Not until we are through it. Past it.”

  He rose slowly, his face set in a look of confusion. I let him approach and gently take my arms, and looked up into the face I loved so well.

  “Saints above, Lia, what are you saying? That we cannot wed for…years? This illness—you have suggested it would take some time to be through with us, yes?”

  I swallowed hard. Would he wait for me that long?

  Was I risking…us?

  “Don’t you see? The plague…Luca, it will take a third—even half—of every city and town and castello. Mayhap more.”

  His frown deepened, as did the pressure from his fingers. “Don’t you see? That means two-thirds, or half, will survive.” His eyebrows lifted and curled together at the top in frustration. “And aren’t your parents doing everything possible to make certain we are in that portion?”

  “What does it matter if we put off our betrothal for a few more years?” I asked, breaking away from him, taking a step back. “We’ve only been together a few years and—”

  “For you,” he said, cutting me off, making a slicing motion with his hand. He saw my sick expression and groaned, clenched his hand and looked to the sky, then back to me. He took my hands in his, and they felt warm and welcome around my own.

  “Evangelia,” he breathed, leaning down to rest his forehead against mine.
“You’ve had my heart since the beginning. But it does not matter,” he said, such pain and angst in his tone that it made me want to cry in earnest. “Because whether I’d been yours for a day or a decade, I’d feel it as an eternity. All I want,” he said, lifting a hand to stroke my cheek and look into my eyes, “is to be your husband, and you, my wife. ’Tis all I want,” he repeated, so faintly I could barely make out the words. “Please,” he said, sinking to one knee, my hands in his. “Will you not trust our future to the hands of God? Will you not be my bride? Now, rather than later?”

  My heart pulled at me, begged me to say yes. To nod and watch him rise to his feet, face alight. To feel him lift me in his arms and laugh in my ear.

  But I couldn’t.

  I’d risked everything to be here, to stay here, with my family. With him! Wasn’t it enough? For now?

  I just couldn’t put anything else on the line. Not even for Luca.

  “’Tis only a few more years,” I whispered, begging him with my eyes. “Mayhap three or four? That’s all I need. The worst of what is to come should be past us by then.”

  He let out a sound of exasperation, rose on leaden feet and paced away from me again, his hands in fists at his side. He stood there for a minute, maybe two, before I dared to come up beside him, wrapping my hands around his arm and resting my cheek on his shoulder. “Evangelia. You realize that one of us could die in a hundred different ways even before this plague is upon us? In battle? From another illness? Saints, Lia, one of us could fall down the well while fetching water and break our neck. We cannot live in fear. We cannot.”

  “I understand,” I muttered, feeling miserable and guilty. “But this is one risk that we don’t have to take. Something we can control. What if we both perish? We can still love each other without the risk of bearing a child who might end up an orphan.”

  I could feel the rapid beat of his pulse. “It’s a false belief,” he said in a measured way. “We control nothing. Our lives, our futures are in the hands of God, not our own.”

  I sighed heavily. “I guess we must agree to disagree.”

  He turned and faced me again, his expression grim. “What sort of nonsensical phrase from the future is that?”

  I shrugged, feeling the heat of a blush on my face. “’Tis only something we say when we cannot come to an agreement.”

  “Well, that is not how it is done here. Now. In this place that you’ve said is your own. Here, we discuss until we are in agreement, one way or another.”

  He was clearly angry, gesticulating with agitated moves. I shifted uncomfortably. He hardly ever was frustrated with me.

  He cocked his head and folded his arms. “Tell me the truth, Evangelia. Do you still think about returning? Leaving this and all that threatens us behind? Leaving me?” The last two words were quieter, laced with pain.

  I felt heat on my neck and cheeks anew. Until he’d said the words, I hadn’t really allowed myself to fully consider it. But yes, it was true. Ever since Gabi had figured out that she was pregnant, I’d thought of the tomb, the time portal, as our escape route if the worst happened. At least for some of us…

  “Evangelia,” he whispered.

  I put my hands to my temples, massaging away the sudden throb. “Mayhap,” I whispered back. “If there was no other option. Mayhap I’d turn to the tunnel.”

  He paused for a long moment, then gently put his index knuckle under my chin and lifted it. “Say that again,” he said grimly, looking into my eyes.

  “If there was no other option,” I said again, a bit louder. Feeling the misery. Desperately wanting him to understand, to support me.

  It was as if I’d hit him. His green eyes looked into mine, back and forth, before he sucked in his breath. I actually saw tears in his eyes. I’d told him, promised, pledged that I wanted to stay. That my life was here, with my family…with him. But now I’d admitted I kept an exit plan in the back of my mind…

  “You would leave me. Leave us,” he said flatly. “With no knowledge that you could return for certain.”

  “To save my family? Yes,” I said.

  “A family. Of which I am clearly not part,” he said.

  “No! I didn’t intend…Luca, you know what I intended by saying that.”

  “Do I?” His face was a mask of hurt. He looked down at the ground, digging the toe of his boot into a dry clump of grass, thinking. After a moment, he leveled a gaze at me. “You’re right,” he said, slowly nodding, and my stomach dropped. “I understand your intentions now, all too clearly. I have been a fool, chasing after you. Losing my heart to you. When you never could be mine forever. I’ll leave you in peace now.”

  “No, Luca,” I said, my heart breaking as he turned to walk down the hill, feeling the tearing between us. “Luca,” I groaned, a ball forming in my throat.

  But he did not turn.

  “Luca!”

  He left me there, on our picnic hill.

  I sat down, alone on the blanket, his form growing smaller in the distance.

  And then I gave into the ache inside and wept.

  CHAPTER TWO

  EVANGELIA

  Many things fueled my tears.

  Frustration that he couldn’t understand, wouldn’t understand.

  Indignation that he’d said he’d wait forever, but clearly hadn’t meant it.

  Anger that Gabi had pretty much railroaded us all into this crazy medieval life forever.

  Irritation that I seemed to get a grip on my fear about the future one week, but then fell right back into it the next.

  Fear for Gabi’s unborn child alongside one of my own…and the idea of placing them in two little coffins.

  Yeah, pretty macabre, I know. But the plague? C’mon, not many American teens had to tackle that big of a threat. I mean, we’d had the swine flu scare, but even that had turned out to be nothing. But the Black Plague? This girl knew exactly how bad it was going to get.

  And that reminder made me cry again, thinking about all the people I already loved in the castello, and how half of them might die. Having to bury Fortino had pretty much wrecked us. Same with all the knights who had died in battle after battle, and some of the villagers who had not survived their injuries or illness, no matter how hard my mom tried to save them. We wept over them too.

  Then there’d been that time that Luca had contracted what Mom thought had been a minor strain of plague that swept through Italia before, scaring us that it had come early. I remembered seeing him down, weak with fever, with those terrible buboes all over his body…I shivered and wiped my face and hugged myself, rocking slightly. No, once was enough. I couldn’t share my heart and future with anyone else, besides all the people I loved already. Not fully. I was already exposed on too many fronts. Weak, and practically begging the universe to hand me a nice, fat, agonizing pain sandwich. And that thought made me cry again.

  “Evangelia?” asked a tentative voice from a short distance away. “Are you in need of assistance?”

  I looked up and saw Adela Forelli and Tomas on horseback. They’d taken to a daily ride as much as Luca and I had our picnics, and it was clear to anyone that they were practically inseparable. Their love, and their shared look of worry, made my throat clog with new tears.

  “Nay, I am well,” I managed, swallowing hard against the ball in my throat. As much as Luca loved his sister, Adela and I had never become close. Tomas—I might’ve confided in. Adela? Not so much.

  Tomas looked around, confusion and concern in every line of his round face. “Where is Captain Forelli?”

  “Captain Forelli?” I repeated, stalling for a time, well aware that Luca’s sister was difficult to fool. “He’s back at the castello. I-I wanted…I decided to take a bit of time for myself.”

  “Luca knows you are here. By yourself. But he chooses to be in the castello?” Adela repeated, clearly not believing me. “My brother wouldn’t give you the chance to be by yourself if he could be beside you.” She cast me a wry grin.

 
“Yes, well…we had a bit of a falling out.” I said the last part in a rush, as if in confession.

  “Ah,” Tomas said, lifting his chin, his wise eyes examining my tearstained cheeks. He looked at Adela again and, with little more than a nod, Tomas slid from his saddle and went over to lift her down.

  I barely managed to stifle my groan. The last thing I wanted was company, well meaning as they might be. And especially these two. The dynamic God-duo, an ex-monk and an ex-almost-nun. I could practically hear the sermon already. But there was no stopping them. They sat on either side of me, hugging their legs. At least Tomas had ditched the robe that he’d once worn. Their clothing was simple, but more normal. Tomas’s hair was even growing in a bit where he’d once shaved it, an awkward inch-long fuzz that usually made Gabi and me giggle.

  “What has you two quarreling?” Adela asked gently.

  I felt the tension gather between my shoulders, torn between sharing everything and telling them to mind their own business.

  When I didn’t give an answer, Tomas said, “Would it not ease your heart to speak of it, m’lady?” He reached over to pick a long stalk of drying grass and began to splinter off the seed head, bit by bit, letting the wind carry it away.