The River of Time Series Read online

  Luca sighed heavily. “M’lady, the Paratores are not the Forellis’ only enemy. Surely you know that. Wander ten miles north or south of here, and you’ll find a castle or village who are firmly set for the Florentines. A Norman such as yourself cannot assume to know where it is safe to go. If you need to go, allow me to go as your guard. In the morning, out the gate.”

  “Nay. I must be away. I cannot sleep, knowing Evangelia might be out there.…”

  Luca glanced over the side and raised a brow. “Then I shall go with you now, through the gates.”

  “Marcello will not allow you to go.”

  “Marcello slumbers. Come, we’ll take a look, if we must. Then we can get back for a few winks before daylight is upon us.”

  “If we go through the gates, ten guards will be ringing the bells.”

  “So you truly intend to climb the wall?” he asked incredulously. “You’ll fall and break your neck. Then what will Marcello do to me?”

  “I will not fall,” I said with a grin, putting my feet over and finding a small ledge. “I wish I had some carabiners and straps, but this will do.” I gave the rope a quick tug then leaned outward. Thirty-two, thirty-one…the guards were probably turning by now, heading back in my direction. Quickly, I rappelled a foot down.

  “M’lady!”

  “I am fine, Luca,” I hissed, not wanting him to draw attention. “Quit worrying over me like Cook.” I went another foot and smiled up at him. The poor guy was in total shock. “Look away, Luca. Then you can say you never saw me leave, only that I disappeared in the dark.” I eased down quickly then, sliding as fast as I dared, half-expecting Luca to sound an alarm.

  But as I dropped, panting, to the soft peat below, I saw that as the silhouette of the guard returned, my rope was already gone, pulled in from above.

  I turned and ran, stumbling a couple of times over branches. I heard a shout from the castle but ignored it. Soon I was deep in the forest, on the narrow horse path that led to the creek. There was just enough of a moon out to see it. If I stayed on it, I should be able to find the Etruscan hill.

  It took me about ten minutes to realize I wasn’t alone.

  I stopped abruptly and turned, easing my dagger out of its sheath, but keeping it hidden in the folds of my cape.

  Then I exhaled a breath as I realized it was Marcello. I could make out his curly hair, his strong, wide shoulders. Luca was right behind him.

  I put a hand to my head when they came close. “You scared me to death,” I scolded.

  “Mayhap you are dead. Luca says you scale walls like a wraith.” He moved to my side and looked down at me, then grabbed my wrist, slowly bringing the dagger to the soft, ivory light of night. His eyes met mine. “Are you a spy as my father feared, Lady Betarrini?”

  “Nay!” Those words kept popping out of me, but they felt more natural now, not quite so weird. “I simply am in search of my family. And you will not let me go look for them, so I had to find another way.”

  He looked down at the dagger and then back to me.

  “I did not know it was you two, behind me in the woods,” I sputtered. “You think me daft enough to come out in the night, unarmed?” I shook off his hand and slid the dagger back into the front sheath. “I told Luca I wished to do this alone.”

  “And I told you,” Luca said, no trace of humor in his voice, “that I could not allow it.”

  “Why are you so certain that you will find your sister at the tombs?” Marcello grit out.

  “I’m not. I simply…have to know. I cannot sleep another night, thinking she might be out here, lost, looking for me.… What if the Paratores get hold of her?” I shuddered.

  “He doesn’t have her, m’lady,” Marcello said, his tone placating again. “He would’ve used her as bait…or demanded a ransom once he connected her to you.”

  “Well, that is good for us, then,” I said. “That makes it more likely that Lia is still at the tombs. I’ll either find her there…or I will not. At least on foot, we can approach without detection.”

  Marcello sighed and trudged past me. “If we’re to do this foolish thing, let’s get it done. I’d still like to get some sleep this night.”

  I hurried after him, struggling to keep up with his fast, irritated pace. Luca followed behind me. It was good to not be alone. I was far less creeped out.

  But how was I to enter the tomb with them hovering about?

  Marcello stomped forward, never looking back. I paused to let him go ahead and put my hands to my knees, gasping for breath. Apparently, I needed a bit more cardio in my workout routine.

  He disappeared into the dark, but Luca stayed behind me. “He’s angry.”

  Ya think? I was breathing too hard to speak.

  Luca took a step closer, dropping his tone. “Mayhap it’s different in Normandy. Here, few dare to question m’lord’s decisions. Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t drag you back to the castello.”

  “You didn’t have to tell him,” I gasped.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “He didn’t ever…have to know…I was gone,” I insisted.

  “He did. The protection of Castello Forelli is his responsibility.”

  I gaped at him. “You thought me a spy too?”

  “I didn’t know what to think, m’lady. I—we’ve—never met a woman like you.”

  There’s a good reason for that.… I stood up straight. “Listen, simply get me to those tombs. I’m certain that I will find something there that will give me hope in finding Lia, or…cease fretting over it.”

  He nodded and took the path before me. We caught up with Marcello a few minutes later. He said nothing, just took the rear guard position when we passed.

  And then we were there. I could see the curves of the tomb roofs, stretching out before us, the wide, flat plain on which they had been built. “Lia,” I said in a stage whisper, aware of the Paratore castle, no more than a half-mile away. If the wind was right, could they hear us? I wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Evangelia?” I tried again, edging around a second tomb, hunched over like the men. None of us wished to be seen by a Paratore patrol in the pale moonlight. “Lia?”

  I held my breath, hoping against hope that she’d emerge, jump into my arms. That I wouldn’t be alone.

  But the only response, after a pause, was the crickets, resuming their song.

  She wasn’t here. She hadn’t made it through the leap in time. Did that mean she was back in our time? Or lost somewhere in between?

  “Mayhap she is inside, sleeping as I did,” I said to Marcello. “Let me crawl in, have a quick look.”

  “I will go.”

  “Nay,” I said, grabbing his forearm, then quickly releasing it. “You will frighten her, if she’s in there. She might scream.”

  He considered me a moment, then gestured inside. “Make haste.”

  I bent at once and crawled, as best I could in the cursed skirts, through the tunnel, standing to my full height when I knew I must be beneath the large, rounded dome. “Lia,” I whispered, still hoping. But the echo of her name wrapped around the room and disappeared out the entrance as if it had never left my lips.

  I sighed. She really hadn’t made it. How was that possible?

  I stepped in the shards of the pot I had broken and let out a yelp.

  “M’lady,” Marcello whispered.

  I jumped a bit, thinking he had entered, but he was merely at the entrance. There was no time to hesitate any longer.

  I squinted hard, trying to make out the frescoes by the dim light that entered through the narrow passage, looking for the two handprints. It was too dark. I closed my eyes, thinking back, pacing out where I thought the prints had been, feeling for the place of warmth….

  I glanced to the tomb entrance, thought,
Good-bye, Marcello, then blew out my cheeks and placed my hand on the spot.

  I had to be right over them. Or at least within inches. But the entire wall was cold. No warmth anywhere. Quickly I switched hands, wondering if I had remembered it wrong, that I had actually used the other hand…but only cold stone met my left too.

  “Lady Betarrini…”

  “I’ll be right out,” I whispered back, stalling him. My heart was thundering. I put both hands on the wall, shifting them about, wondering if I was just missing the prints, if it had to be exact…

  I leaned my head against the stone wall, trying to absorb its cold message.

  There was no gateway home.

  I was trapped.

  CHAPTER 7

  He scared me so badly I jumped.

  It was only Marcello, but I’d been so lost in my swirling thoughts about the future, about Mom and Lia, that I totally missed his crawling through the entrance. I jumped away and tried to put my head in gear. What had he asked?

  “Lady Betarrini,” he said, and I realized that he’d been saying it repeatedly. “Are you quite all right?”

  “I—I am. Forgive me. It is only that…I was certain Evangelia would be here, asleep in a corner. I had so hoped…”

  I sensed more than saw him take a step forward in the dark. “You have been through a great deal. Please. Luca and I shall escort you back to the safety of the castello. In the light of day, it will feel far less overwhelming.”

  “I do not think so,” I said, shaking my head. “Somehow, I think it will feel far more difficult.”

  “You could do far worse than come under the protection of Castello Forelli.”

  I could almost see him tensing, lifting his chin, pulling back his shoulders.

  “Yes, of course,” I said. “But—please try to understand…I am most grateful for your family’s friendship. But Evangelia…she might be the only member of my family within reach. If she is still here at all.” My voice cracked, saying that last bit.

  “I do understand,” he said, his voice gentling. “If it were Fortino who was lost, I’d do anything I could. I know it is difficult, but we will not accomplish anything more here, this night. And Evangelia—she’d want you to be safe, would she not? You’ve seen for yourself what transpires on these lands. Let us return to the castello and pursue a new search for your sister come morn.”

  “Yes,” I said, sniffling, trying to hold back full-fledged sobs. That was all the guy needed…me, a total mess. I had to hold it together. At least until I was back in my room.

  “Please,” he said, stepping aside, apparently waiting for me to exit first. He probably wondered if I was flippin’ insane, coming in here, hanging out like it was my best friend’s living room. It was a tomb, I reminded myself as I crawled out, yanking on my skirts in agitation when they got in the way. A tomb. Place of the dead. As familiar as these places were to me, they probably creeped the guys out in a big way.

  If I was to return, I’d have to find a way to do it on my own. But there was really no point now that I knew the prints wouldn’t get me home. So what was I to do? Was there a way home at all?

  I could see Luca, about fifteen feet away. He spotted us and pushed off his perch on a tall boulder.

  “It’s terribly dark, m’lady,” Marcello said, so close a shiver ran down my neck. “Please, take my arm.”

  “Yes, of course,” I said, as if I did it all the time. I was digging the gallantry of medieval men, even if it did make them chauvinistic at times. Even in modern times, the Italian guys seemed to echo their ancestors.

  We’d just taken a step toward the path when Luca paused in front of us and held up a hand. A half second later, he waved it and dived to the left, between two trees. Marcello grabbed my hand and yanked me to the right.

  “In there,” he whispered, motioning toward a low cave. I could hear it then. Hoofbeats approaching. A Paratore patrol.

  Crouched, I hurried inward and then turned. Marcello drew his sword, crouched, and came in too, turning to face the entrance. Our quarters were so cramped, he was right in front of me. To keep from tipping over, I laid a hand on his back, taking comfort in the steady rise and fall of his breath, even as four horses walked by. The guards were talking, distracted, obviously not entirely on task. But were they to discover us, Marcello and Luca would be outnumbered. But only by one. I had my broadsword too.

  Happily, they kept moving, and when we could no longer hear them, Marcello glanced over his shoulder and whispered, “Come.” We crawled out of the cave and brushed ourselves off.

  They didn’t have to say what I knew—it would’ve been very bad for me if the Paratore patrol had come across me at the tomb. We resumed our walk back to the castle.

  “M’lady, what of your kin in Normandy? Your father?”

  “My father died six months ago,” I said dully. No matter how many times I said it, it never seemed quite real.

  “God rest his soul,” Marcello said. The news didn’t seem to throw him like it did most other people. But then, most other people didn’t live in the fourteenth century, where the life expectancy probably topped out at about forty. “And the others? Uncles? Cousins?”

  “Nay, there is no one else. Only my mother and sister and me, now.”

  “I see. And what brought your mother to Toscana?”

  I hesitated. I couldn’t tell him she was an archeologist. “She…she has a business selling Etruscan artifacts.”

  “Etruscan?” Marcello said. I could almost see his big eyelashes blinking in surprise. But it was only my imagination.

  “The Normans…they apparently will buy anything,” Luca said over his shoulder.

  “Mayhap I should aid you in searching those other tombs,” Marcello said, his voice thick with laughter. “I might earn enough to fund our next assault on the Paratores.”

  “Etruscan art is of no value here?” I asked, irked at their teasing.

  “Very little,” Marcello returned. His tone softened. “But most of what we find are potsherds. Who cares for broken vessels?”

  “More than you might believe,” I muttered. I thought of my parents, working in sanitized conditions, humidity levels carefully set, piecing together potsherds, rebuilding vessels. I thought of their elation when they discovered unbroken pots, and the one I had destroyed.

  “Her business…she makes enough to keep you and your sister in your home, with ample food?”

  “With that and what remains of my father’s estate.” That was pretty true. Archeology was never the big moneymaker. Mom and Dad had earned their living with the occasional summer university gig, writing books on the Etruscans and picking up some speaking engagements and articles. But it was Dad’s life-insurance money that was keeping us afloat now. There was no way Mom could afford rent and food and airline tickets to and from Roma without it. Not if she wanted to keep the house in Boulder, which Lia and I pushed her to do. It was one thing to spend summers here, another to give up on American life entirely.

  “Then you are three uncommon women,” Marcello said softly, looking my way. “It is difficult for the fairer sex, without a protector.”

  I tensed, then forced myself to relax. I needed him and his family. And he was right. In this day and age, especially, it was better for women if there was a man by their side. It just was the plain truth. “My father taught us well,” I said, pushing my shoulders back. “We three Betarrini women will be all right.”

  I thought I saw a flash of a smile. “I believe you.”

  I’d pleaded a headache, needing time and space to sort out my thoughts, but even spending all day in my room had left me with nothing more than a real one. Headaches were no fun in modern times, but at least at home, I could pop a couple of Advil and feel loads better. People in these times relied on herbs and tonics. I wondered what they wer
e treating poor, sickly Fortino with. Did they believe that leeches were a viable treatment in this era? I shivered at the thought. Best not to really get sick here, now. I tried to think back; Mom had been studying natural remedies the last few years, interested to know how the Etruscans might’ve once healed their own. She’d subjected me and Lia to long lectures on the subject, as well as a few tries at field medicine. But I didn’t remember anything in regard to headaches.

  I moved over to the basin of water and splashed my face, again and again, then dried it off with the rough cloth. I picked up a wide-toothed comb—carved out of what looked like ivory—and shivered at the thought of some walrus somewhere giving up his life for the tusk it came from. I ran its short spokes through the tangles of my hair anyway, then retied it with the leather band Marcello had given me, wound it into a crude knot, then pinned it with one pin. I felt it, testing it to see if it might stay for half a minute. Then, blowing my cheeks out, I decided it was good enough. It was soon dark. No one was out at this hour, most having retired after supper. That appeared to be the castle’s routine: to bed with the sun, and up with it too.

  It was crazy. Who back home would ever willingly adopt that schedule?

  Sunset was well past us, judging from the bit of sky I could see in my window. I edged open my door and peeked down the hallway, half expecting Marcello to have posted a sentry at my door, given my behavior the night before. But no one was there. Only the flickering, dancing torchlight moved.

  I edged out the door and closed it softly behind me. I’d heard others moving in and out of rooms down this hall, but not in the last day or so. Was I alone now? I moved down the corridor on tiptoes, past the door that led to the courtyard, to one of the turrets that climbed up to the allure, the wall walk at the top. Cautiously, I eased open the wooden door, pleased to see that it was not locked.

  The stairs, carved out of the stone tower, circled upward on the edge, like the coil of a DNA double helix I’d seen in my biology textbook. I placed a foot on the bottom step and stared upward, wishing I could see better in the deep shadows. Would they take issue with my being up there again? Surely, Marcello had warned them all by now to watch out for his mad houseguest, willing to scale the castle walls to escape.