Rose Red (32 page)

She fell silent, one hand on her still-flat
abdomen. And then she heard the sounds of horses riding away from
the villa.

“I cannot bear this waiting.” Bianca pushed
her hat down more firmly over her head, so her face was shaded.
“Vanni and Andrea have been gone for weeks.”

“Just over a month,” said Rosalinda, sitting
back on her heels to straighten her spine and shoulders before she
attacked the next clump of unwanted green leaves.

The sisters were in the garden pulling out
weeds, a task Rosalinda usually hated because it meant she had to
stay in one place for a while. Lately she had found it relaxing to
put her hands into the earth, to remove the weeds and thus assist
the plants to grow and flourish. She supposed the change in her
attitude had something to do with the new life growing within
her.

“When are you going to tell Mother?” Bianca
kept a close and loving watch on her sister these days and she had
noticed Rosalinda’s weary movements. She spoke softly, with an eye
on Eleonora, who was working a short distance away, cutting herbs
while the day was still cool.

“Not until I have to,” Rosalinda said.

“The longer you wait, the more angry she will
be when she learns the truth,” Bianca warned. “Especially when she
discovers that I have been mixing up our monthly linens to help you
hide your condition.”

“I keep hoping good news will come, that
Andrea will appear in triumph with unassailable proof that his
father was innocent of our father’s death. I fear it is a foolish
hope.”

Rosalinda wrestled a particularly tenacious
weed out of the ground. She held it up with its long root dangling.
“I ought to know better than to rely on dreams and hopes as if they
were facts. My hope has been like this root, deep and stubborn,
clinging to my heart as this plant was clutching the soil until I
pulled it out. Perhaps the time has come to uproot hope, too.”
Rosalinda opened her fingers, letting the weed drop into the wooden
bucket that sat on the ground between her and her sister.

“This might be a good time to tell Mother.
She has been remarkably quiet of late,” Bianca said.

“She is sorry for scolding us so harshly
after Andrea and Vanni left,” Rosalinda responded. “I think she
misses Francesco, too. Perhaps she even regrets her quarrel with
him.”

“How can she miss a man she knew for only a
few days?” Bianca murmured.

“It only took you a day or so to love Vanni,”
Rosalinda said.

“That was different.”

“Was it? Francesco is a healthy, vigorous
man, and a rather attractive one, too.”

“They did seem to have much in common.”
Bianca frowned, considering Rosalinda’s words. Then, in a
disbelieving tone she said, “Our mother and a man?”

“Why not?” Rosalinda asked. “She has been
alone for fifteen years.”

“I am sure she has not acted on her
feelings,” Bianca said. “If, indeed, she has such feelings.”

“Oh, of course she will not have such
feelings.” Rosalinda glanced at her parent and then at Bianca, and
a slight smile tilted the corners of her mouth upward. “She is a
mother, after all.”

“You are teasing me,” Bianca said.

“Am I? We both know Mother is used to hiding
her emotions.”

“Not when she is annoyed.”

“Have you ever seen her weep for our father?”
Rosalinda asked. “Or heard her bewail the ill fortune that sent her
into exile at a young age, to live out fifteen years of her life in
an isolated villa? She never displays jealousy of the happiness
that Valeria and Bartolomeo have in each other, nor is she anything
but pleased at joyous events in the lives of the men-at-arms and
their families. We take her interest in all of us for granted, but
I think she has been lonely beyond our knowing.”

“She is thirty-eight years old.” Bianca
stared at the slim figure of Eleonora in her old blue dress, hat
over her pale hair, basket on her arm, moving among the herbs.

“Not too old to love,” Rosalinda said. “Or to
be loved.”

“I never thought of our mother in this way.”
Bianca’s voice was filled with the wonder of a new discovery.

“Neither did I, until I loved Andrea,”
Rosalinda said. “Now I understand her better with every lonely day
that passes for me.”

“If what you say is true,” Bianca observed,
“she must be as worried as we are. And because she sent Francesco
away with angry words, she must be desperately unhappy, regretting
her anger now that he is in danger. I know that is the way I feel
about Vanni.”

“Now you know why I keep postponing my
shocking revelation,” Rosalinda said. “I don’t want to add to her
burdens. And, as I said, each morning I hope the new day will bring
good news.”

* * * * *

During the darkest part of the night, a gate
in the wall surrounding the city-state of Aullia swung open to
admit a small group of men. Other men awaited them inside, and
together they made their way through the shadowed streets to the
ducal palace. There, at a side entrance, secret words were
exchanged and more men joined the group. Their footsteps were soft
but unrelenting as they headed for the reception chamber where
Antonio Guidi and Niccolo Stregone were. Any palace guards who
opposed the group were swiftly silenced, though these were few in
number, for the Guidi were not greatly loved, by either their
subjects or their paid protectors.

Antonio Guidi was not the actual ruler of
Aullia. He was merely the representative of his older brother,
Marco, who was the head of the family and who made his residence in
Monteferro. Antonio was a soft, lazy man who habitually
overindulged in food and drink, and who saw no reason to place
himself in unnecessary danger. When he saw the two dozen hardened
mercenaries who filed into the reception room uninvited and who
then took up positions around its walls, Antonio feared the worst.
Seeking shelter from the swords and daggers that gleamed in the
hands of the mercenaries, he at once placed himself between Niccolo
Stregone and a wide table. Then he saw the two men who had come
into the room on the heels of the mercenaries, and Antonio Guidi
knew there was no place of safety for him.

“
Bastiani!” Antonio Guidi’s voice broke on a gasp of fear as
he faced the helmeted
condottiere.

“Good evening to you, Antonio,” said
Francesco Bastiani. In vivid contrast to the other man’s well-fed,
overdressed figure, Francesco stood tall and hard-muscled beneath
his armor, ready for action and alert to any danger. He put out a
hand to slow the forward progress of the younger man, also wearing
armor, who had entered the room with him. “I urge caution, my lord.
You do not want to chance losing all just at the moment of
victory.”

“Andrea Sotani!” Antonio Guidi’s eyes bulged
as he recognized the person with Francesco. “You are supposed to be
dead. Stregone swore to me that you both were dead.”

“Don’t you know by now that you cannot
believe this treacherous councilor of yours?” Andrea taunted
softly. He sent a contemptuous glance toward Stregone.

“How dare you set foot in Aullia?” Niccolo
Stregone demanded. “The Sotani family has been exiled from this
city.”

“Not exiled,” Andrea said. “Murdered.”

“Is your brother dead, then, like your
father?” Antonio Guidi asked in a hopeful voice.

“I don’t think I am going to answer that
question,” Andrea responded, grinning in a way that made Antonio
Guidi shiver in spite of the heavy velvet robe he wore. “Instead, I
will let you wonder if I plan to extract a painful vengeance from
you for the death of more than one member of my family. I will tell
you that I have a large army camped outside the city walls.”

“Antonio, don’t listen to him,” Stregone
said. “He is lying and he’s trying to make us distrust each
other.”

“If the Guidi were wise,” Francesco remarked,
“they would have distrusted you from the first, Stregone.”

“Guards!” Antonio Guidi shouted to the armed
men standing around the room. “Seize these men! Take them to the
dungeon.” Not a soul moved at his command.

“In the year since you murdered my father,
you have ordered too many of their comrades to the dungeon. Your
mercenaries won’t follow you any longer,” Andrea said. “Now it’s
your turn to visit the dungeon, Antonio. Guards, take him
below.”

“Yes, my lord.” The guards stepped forward.
“Shall we take Stregone below, too, my lord?”

“Well, Stregone?” Francesco moved toward the
little man, who stood glaring at the guards as if daring them to
lay a hand on him. “Will you stay here with us and provide the
information we seek, or will you take the gamble that these men
will let you live long enough to reach the dungeon? They do not
view you with kindness, you know. Which is why they were so easily
suborned to Andrea’s side.”

“Don’t expect me to give you information that
will help you to take Monteferro into your hands in addition to
Aullia,” Niccolo Stregone said, with a sneer for both Andrea and
Francesco.

“That won’t be necessary,” Andrea told him.
“We already have Monteferro in our hands. We had other subjects in
mind for your interrogation.”

“I will tell you nothing.” Stregone’s lips
were drawn back in his feral version of a smile. “I don’t believe
for a moment that you hold Monteferro. Whatever information you
want, I’ll keep it to myself.”

“You may change your mind after a bit of
tender coaxing on the rack,” Francesco said. At his signal, the
guards took Stregone by the arms and forced him out of the
reception room behind Antonio Guidi. “After a few days of torture,
a double beheading in the piazza might be nice,” Francesco remarked
as prisoners and guards reached the door.

At these words, Antonio Guidi’s knees gave
way, a weakness that required the guards escorting him to carry him
out of the room. Niccolo Stregone was braver than his master. He
laughed, a bitter, harsh sound. Pulling his arms out of the grasp
of his guards, he left the room on his own, his pointed chin high,
his dark eyes hurling daggers at those surrounding him.

* * * * *

In Monteferro, a similar scene was being
enacted. Vanni was already inside the city, hidden in Luca Nardi’s
house. Near midnight, Vanni and Luca appeared at the entrance to
the ducal palace and were readily admitted by the guards, who knew
Luca and knew he came often to the palace at odd times.

Marco Guidi was as astonished as his younger
brother to discover how easily a hated despot could be overthrown.
But he was not the soft weakling that Antonio was, and so he fought
until Vanni brought him to a halt with a wicked thrust to his sword
arm.

“I am sorry about this,” Vanni said to him.
“Madonna la duchessa Eleonora Farsi begged us to shed as little
blood as possible, but you were determined to resist.”

“Eleonora Farisi?” Marco groaned as he spoke
the name, but whether it was from the pain in his arm or from the
realization that his rule was over, neither Vanni nor Luca could
tell. “There is no stopping a determined woman, is there? But
Eleonora Farisi has no living male heir.”

“She has two healthy daughters,” Vanni said,
“the older of whom I intend to marry.”

“I knew we should have killed the entire
family when we assassinated the duke,” Marco said.

“The same way you tried to kill my family?”
Vanni asked. “I hope it makes you miserable to learn that in
addition to me, my brother is very much alive and so is Francesco
Bastiani, whom you also tried to kill. The two of them are
presently at Aullia. I trust they are in control of the city by
now.”

“Give me a dagger and let me die,” Marco
Guidi said.

“We are going to do our best to keep you
alive,” Vanni told him. “For the present.”

“If you want to be secure in your rule of
Monteferro,” Marco Guidi warned, “you will have to kill Niccolo
Stregone. While he lives, your life is not safe, nor are the lives
of Eleonora Farisi and her daughters.”

“That,” said Vanni, “is very likely the only
subject in this world upon which you and I agree.”

* * * * *

“In the name of heaven, Vanni, will you
kindly get rid of all these servants?” Brushing past half a dozen
bowing men, Andrea stalked into the reception room at Monteferro.
He was followed by Francesco Bastiani, who looked no happier than
Andrea at the escort that had accompanied them from the palace
entrance.

“It has been like this for the past four
days,” Vanni said, waving the servants aside with a blithe gesture.
“They are so delighted to be rid of the Guidi family that they are
falling over themselves to anticipate my every wish.

“Besides, Andrea, you are the representative
of our nearest neighboring city, the first head of state to visit
since I took control of Monteferro. Thus, you must be greeted with
the proper degree of magnificence. It would help if you were to
dress the part,” Vanni ended with a frown for his brother’s
serviceable green wool doublet, matching hose, and riding
boots.

“Do your people know how high their taxes
will be to pay for all of this?” Andrea’s searching glance took in
the rich furnishings of the room and the retainers clustered in the
doorway, hanging back at Vanni’s gesture.

“That’s another reason they love me,” Vanni
said. “I have promised to review the matter of taxes. For years the
Guidi have been extorting every ducat they could from these
wretched people. As a result, the treasury is full.”

“How nice for you.” Andrea’s tone was dry.
“In Marco Guidi you have had the better brother to rule your city
for you. Thanks to Antonio Guidi and his extravagances, Aullia is
close to bankruptcy. My treasury is empty.”

“You’ll find a way to turn things around. You
always do.” Vanni’s confident grin lasted only as long as a single
heartbeat. Noting that Francesco was dressed in the same simple
manner as Andrea, Vanni asked his brother, “Am I correct in
guessing that this is not a congratulatory visit? What’s wrong? And
who is ruling your city in your absence?”