Rose Red (23 page)

“Hmm.” The little man appeared to be
considering the possibilities. “All right, we will search in the
hills first. Perhaps we can drive them into the lowlands, where it
will be easier to capture them. Or to put an end to them. If we are
unsuccessful in the hills, then I will decide on a way for us to
penetrate the defenses around that villa, so we can search
there.”

The three men moved off together,
disappearing into the undergrowth. Rosalinda and Bianca stayed
where they were until well after the sound of voices had faded.
When they dared to move again, it was to put their arms around each
other, to cling together until their fear had subsided enough to
allow them to make rational decisions.

This was more difficult for Bianca to do than
for Rosalinda. Bianca was certain that the “young lordling” and his
friend for whom the nasty little man and his servants were
searching were Andrea and Francesco Bastiani. But how could she
reveal her suspicions to Rosalinda without admitting that she had
met Andrea in this very place and had not told her sister of it?
And what was she to make of that mention of Monteferro?

“We must go home at once and tell Mother and
Bartolomeo what we have seen and heard,” Rosalinda said as they
hurried out of the woods.

“Yes, I know you are right,” Bianca agreed.
“That dreadful little person and his henchmen can only mean danger
for all of us.”

“Here are the horses. We are fortunate that
those men did not discover them.” Rosalinda untied the reins and
helped Bianca to mount from a nearby rock before she leapt onto her
own horse’s back. She studied Bianca, wondering what lay behind the
unnaturally placid expression on her sister’s pale face. She did
not think Bianca had brought her to the forest and the waterfall
just to show her a lovely woodland glade. There had been some other
purpose behind today’s excursion.

“We should hurry,” Bianca said.

“We should also be careful,” Rosalinda
warned. “We don’t want to be discovered and captured by those three
men.”

They took the quickest, most open route to
the bridge. Once they were over the river and out on the wide
meadow, Rosalinda felt safer, for she thought it more likely that
anyone intending harm to them would be noticed by the men-at-arms
that Bartolomeo kept posted as sentries along the boundary of Villa
Serenita.

As they rode, Rosalinda pondered the mystery
of what Bianca could be hiding from her. And she could not escape
the recognition that her own once carefree days were ended, at
least for a time. When Eleonora heard the news her daughters had to
tell, she would insist that they remain at home, where she could be
sure they would be safe.

* * * * *

“Stregone. That is who Rosalinda has
described. Niccolo Stregone.” In Bartolomeo’s office, Eleonora
pressed a trembling hand over her heart. Her face was ashen, her
eyes dark pools of memory and fear. “After all these years, he has
discovered where we are hiding.”

“Mother, I do not think those men have any
idea that we are living nearby,” Rosalinda said. “They are looking
for a young nobleman and his companion. The only mention they made
of the villa was to say that folk in the village told them an
elderly widow lives here.”

“Please, dear God.” Eleonora clasped her
hands together in prayer. “Let them believe I am a hundred years
old and that I live here alone.”

“Mother,” Rosalinda went on, fixing her
parent with a sharp eye, “could this man they are tracking be
Andrea? Perhaps he is traveling with a servant or a friend. But if
so, why didn’t he come directly to the villa? Why should he hide in
the mountains again?”

“It may well be Andrea,” Bartolomeo put in
before Eleonora could answer. “Let us imagine that he was returning
here, but along the way he discovered that he was being followed by
that murderous Niccolo Stregone and his henchmen. Andrea would not
want to lead them to us. Instead, he would attempt to throw
Stregone off the trail by wandering through the mountains for a
time and perhaps even going elsewhere until Stregone gives up.”

“Stregone never gives up.” Eleonora appeared
more worried than ever by this possible explanation for the near
presence of an enemy. “Bianca, Rosalinda, leave us. I wish to speak
with Bartolomeo alone.”

“Mother, we may be able to help you,”
Rosalinda protested.

“I said, go!” Eleonora’s blue eyes flashed
fire. “And you are not to leave the villa without my
permission.”

Recognizing there was nothing they could do
to change their mother’s mind, Bianca and Rosalinda obeyed. But by
unspoken agreement between the sisters, Bianca did not close the
heavy door very tightly and the two of them stood in silence
outside Bartolomeo’s office to listen to what was said within.

“I will have the guards search these lands
inch by inch,” Bartolomeo promised.

“What good will a search do if Stregone has
discovered what we are planning?” Eleonora asked.

“Dear friend, we cannot be sure he knows.”
Bartolomeo spoke as if to calm her fears.

“
I am
sure,” Eleonora said. “Why else would Stregone leave Monteferro –
he who loves the city and hates all green and growing things? We
have had reports that Stregone, or his masters, the Guidi, are
having Luca’s home in Monteferro watched. No doubt they investigate
every person who enters or leaves that house, and their spies
follow any associate of Luca who leaves the city.

“You know I speak the truth, Bartolomeo. You
remember as well as I do the net of surveillance and intrigue the
Guidis wove about my husband, slowly gaining control of those who
lived or worked at the palazzo, so that when they were ready to
strike there were few left to come to my Girolamo’s aid. They
probably used the same method to overthrow the Duke of Aullia, and
now they are weaving their net around Luca, the wealthiest banker
in Monteferro, who holds their loans. It would be to their benefit
to bring Luca down and confiscate his wealth. What better way than
to prove that Luca is involved in a plot to restore the Farisi
family to power?

“I do not care what happened to the Duke of
Aullia when his false friends, the Guidi, turned on him, but I do
care about Luca, who has been honest in his dealings with me. I do
not want to see Luca destroyed for my sake.” Eleonora went on with
a sigh, “I had such hopes of regaining Monteferro for Bianca.
Bartolomeo, we thought we could trust Andrea because the prize we
offered him was so great, but what if he is one of Stregone’s
spies?”

“If that is the case, why is Stregone seeking
to capture him?” Bartolomeo asked.

“
Perhaps
Andrea has been working for both sides and Stregone has uncovered
his perfidy.
Gesu
!” Eleonora cried. “I came to Villa Serenita seeking safety
for my daughters and respite for myself from the plotting and
intrigue and untrustworthiness of those I knew in Monteferro. Now I
can feel myself becoming caught up in all of that again and I dread
it. Most of all, I fear for my girls. Yet I swore on my dear
Girolamo’s soul that I would restore his family to its rightful
position. What are we to do, Bartolomeo?” she ended on a most
uncharacteristic sob.

“What you are to do,” said Bartolomeo, “is,
first, drink this glass of wine and try to calm yourself. Next,
remember that every person on this estate is devoted to you. Each
of the men-at-arms has good cause to hate Niccolo Stregone and the
Guidi family. None of us will desert you or your daughters. And,
finally, know that I will see to it that no one intrudes upon these
lands who should not be here.”

“If Andrea is true to our cause,” Eleonora
said, “then we must do what we can to protect him from Stregone. I
cannot bear to think of the torture Stregone would inflict on
Andrea to make him tell all he knows about our plans.”

“Andrea knew the risks he was taking,”
Bartolomeo said. “We discussed them before he left. However, I do
have two young men, both sons of one of the men-at-arms who came
here with us. These boys love the mountains and are skilled at
hunting there, and they also have experience in climbing at great
heights. I will give them special instructions and send them out to
look for Andrea. If he is hiding in the mountains, they will find
him and bring him to the villa. Then we will hear what Andrea has
to say about Stregone and whether he knows the man or not.”

“My daughters and I would not have survived
so long without you, Bartolomeo.” Eleonora sounded weary and close
to tears.

“Just this once, allow me to give an order to
you,” Bartolomeo said. “I am going to tell Valeria to make a
soothing tisane for you, and I order you to drink it, so that you
will sleep well tonight. Without it, I am sure you will lie awake
worrying until dawn.”

“Dear old friend, that sounds more like good
advice than an order,” Eleonora said.

“It is advice you should follow.”

“I will. I promise. Thank you, Bartolomeo,
for your loyalty to me, to my husband’s memory, to my girls. You
and Valeria.” Eleonora’s voice choked.

“Go now and rest,” Bartolomeo said. “I have
instructions to give to the men.”

At this point Rosalinda and Bianca gave up
eavesdropping in favor of fleeing as quietly as they could, away
from Bartolomeo’s office to their own rooms.

The
conversation she had overheard left Bianca confused. None of the
facts as she knew them from her own experience or from listening to
her mother explained why Andrea had not come to the villa. At no
time during her meetings with him had he acted as if he were
fleeing or trying to hide. Even the
condottiere
with him, though cautious, had
not been overly concerned. Andrea had said he was searching for a
dwarf. Bianca believed he meant Niccolo Stregone. Having
encountered Stregone twice without knowing who he was, she could
understand why her mother feared the man. There was something
intrinsically evil about him. She found herself wondering what
would happen when Andrea and Stregone finally did meet.

In the days that followed, Bianca’ s old fear
of violence rose up again to terrify her, to make her so dizzy that
she came near to fainting several times a day. She could not eat or
sleep and had great difficulty in keeping her mind on the simplest
household tasks.

A week passed with no word of Andrea, or of
Niccolo Stregone, and Bianca thought she would go mad from the
strain. No matter the danger to her, she had to see Andrea again.
With a single-minded ruthlessness that would have surprised her
sister and dismayed her mother, Bianca concocted a plan.

Her monthly flux was due to begin in a day or
so. Using it as an excuse to claim she had a headache and a
cramping in her abdomen, Bianca accepted a cup of hot herbal brew
from Valeria and retired to her bedchamber, asking that no one
bother her, so she could drink Valeria’s medicine and sleep until
nightfall.

Once in her bedroom, she tossed the contents
of the cup out the window. Next, she wrote a letter to Andrea,
folded and sealed it. She might not need it, but she wanted to be
prepared. Then, being fairly sure she knew where everyone in the
villa was on a warm, early summer afternoon, she made her way to
the stable and saddled her horse. Only a stableboy saw her, and he
did not dispute her right to go riding if she wanted.

She knew where all the men-at-arms were
posted, so she was able to avoid them as she took a roundabout
route to the spot in the woods that she knew best. If she did not
find Andrea there, and if he did not appear before it was time for
her to return home, she would leave the letter for him, safely
weighted under a rock, in the very place where they had lain
together. She was sure that if he should spend even a few moments
in their special place, he would look for some trace of her there
and he would find the letter.

Rosalinda was by nature too healthy and
active to tolerate for long the round of indoor chores that
Eleonora had imposed to keep her daughters within the villa after
the appearance of Niccolo Stregone. Sewing, fine embroidery,
counting linens, or supervising the cleaning of unused guest rooms
could not distract Rosalinda from thoughts of Andrea. She longed to
hear his voice, to gaze into his soft brown eyes. Most of all, she
wanted his arms around her again.

Deprived of Andrea’s company, and of the
freedom that might have given physical release to her growing
impatience with her mother’s restrictions, she grew ever more
irritable. After a week of confinement during some of the best
weather of the season, she had had enough. One afternoon, while her
mother and Valeria were occupied in the kitchen, Rosalinda crept
out of the house and headed for the stable.

“Are you going out, too, Madonna Rosalinda?”
asked the stableboy. “Madonna Bianca left over an hour ago.”

Hiding her surprise at this news, Rosalinda
saddled her horse and headed for the place in the woods where she
had last seen Niccolo Stregone. Though she did not know it at the
time, she chose the same route Bianca had taken and thus she also
avoided the guards. Rosalinda was certain she would find Bianca in
the little clearing by the waterfall and she thought she knew
why.

She believed that Bianca was hoping to
discover some trace of Stregone, or of the two men for whom
Stregone was searching because, like her sister, Bianca was sure
one of those men was Andrea. It was very unlike Bianca to defy
their mother’s orders to remain at the villa, but then, Bianca had
been acting strangely since well before the day when she had taken
Rosalinda into the wood to show her the waterfall.

Rosalinda found Bianca’s horse tethered to
the same sapling they had used for the purpose during their last
visit to the forest. Dismounting, Rosalinda secured her own horse
before setting out on the overgrown path to the waterfall. Not
wanting to frighten Bianca, she moved as quietly as she could. When
she stepped into the clearing, the couple standing beside the pool
did not hear her. Rosalinda stopped dead, her jaw dropping in
astonishment.