Torrent (5 page)

I tried to rise from my chair with the grace of some sort of beauty queen and walked toward him.

His hand moved to his chest. “M’lady, you are far more beautiful than I even imagined you would be in that gown.”

“I am most grateful for it, m’lord. Thank you for such a fine, extravagant gift.”

“There will be a hundred more for you, should you care to have them made,” he said dismissively, his eyes only on my mine.

“I couldn’t,” I said. “It’d cost a fortune.”

“You can. The coffers are full, Gabriella, and yours to use as you wish. And there’s the additional account holding the gold the Nine gave to you and Evangelia before. You are one of the wealthiest women of the city, Gabriella.”

I smiled. Because like, two months ago, I was begging Mom to borrow thirty bucks for a sweater.

Rich. I could get into that.

We took the secret tunnel down to the Palazzo Pubblico, where tonight’s ball would take place. Two knights led the way, with me, Marcello, Lia, Luca, and my parents following behind, and two other guards behind them. We could hear the people laughing and singing in the palazzo above, their own party already started.

“The last time I was in a tunnel with you three,” Luca said, “it felt far less promising.”

“Oh, that was horrible,” Lia said. “Don’t even talk about it.”

I sighed, remembering that terrible day, when he was so deathly ill, and the villa was being destroyed behind us. How enemy soldiers hunted us. How we had to go deeper into Firenze’s territory in order to try to escape. How we had to separate. It really was some kinda crazy miracle that let us survive.

I thought about the questions that had clung to me ever since I first arrived in this time. Musings about God’s reason for bringing us here in the first place. There had to be a rationale, some sort of mission for me to accomplish to warrant all that I’d been given—love, family, my dad’s life, money. I mean, people didn’t just land into that kind of luck, did they? Usually they deserved it, because they were worthy. Because God knew they’d do the right thing with all they’d been given.

I glanced back down the tunnel at Mom and Dad. They were archeologists, not medical doctors. They wouldn’t be a huge help when the plague arrived. But they were smart, crazy smart. Maybe they could figure out a way to help. But then I thought of the Forellis’ castle. How it once had been destroyed but, in present day, was whole. Our mucking around in the bogs of history had created that change—what would happen if we were able to treat and save all those who were to die in the plague? What would that change in the future? And was that a good thing?

“We’re here,” Marcello said as we emerged from the tunnel. He raised a brow and offered his arm. “Ready?”

I shook off my dark concerns.
Quit with the emo thoughts, Gabi,
I told myself. I was supposed to feel like a debutante on her presentation day. Or at least what I thought it might feel like to be a debutante at her first ball. In Colorado we didn’t do much of that whole Southern belle thing. Which didn’t mean we didn’t think about it…every girl, deep inside, wants her moment on the floor. That moment when she feels like a princess. Noticed. Admired. Known.

We’d had the rock-star reception in the piazza when we’d returned to Siena before, as her victorious She-Wolves. But this, this, I thought, as the entire room hushed and all eyes turned to us, was my Serious Princess Moment.

On Marcello’s arm I glided to the center. Lia and Luca, Mom and Dad, were right behind us. In the middle of the hall, Marcello brought me to a stop, and we stood in a line.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Marcello said loudly. “None is more glad than I to make this announcement. The Ladies Betarrini and Lord Benedetto Betarrini have returned to Siena.”

The room erupted in applause, and I grinned back at faces I recognized—the Nine, their wives, other nobility. Marcello gently turned me, and we greeted those behind us. There were a couple hundred people in all, but everyone stared at me like they knew and loved me.

That was the overwhelming sentiment of the moment: love. Never had I felt that kind of goodwill in one place, from so many. I was so caught up in it, so adoring My Moment, this chance to be with Marcello again—possibly forever—that I drifted in a kind of zoned-out bliss from dinner to dancing. When it finally ended, I was reluctant to let it go.

At the tunnel entrance I hesitated.

Marcello glanced back at me. “Gabriella?”

“We should go back through the piazza,” I said. We could hear that the city’s people were in full-fledged party mode. We could smell the smoke from the bonfires. “Let’s join them in their festivities.”

Marcello shook his head. “It’s far too dangerous. Come, you may greet your people during the light of day, should you still so desire it.”

“They fought alongside us, Marcello,” I said. “Many of our people gave their lives to our cause. Who are we to remain separate?”

“Remember your arrival? That was during the day, before the people were full of wine. Tonight they shall be relentless in their fervor.”

“It may take us a while, but we’ll get across Il Campo eventually. Come, love. This night has been far more amazing than I ever imagined. I’m not ready for it to end. Are you?”

He stared down into my eyes, as if searching my face for the right answer, and then he looked over at Luca.

“I’ll call in a few more men,” Luca said with a laugh. Lia had her game face on, and my parents seemed open to it.

I smiled, but Marcello frowned, as if second-guessing himself. “We will not take such risks often, Gabriella,” he warned. “But Siena would be most grateful for the opportunity to greet her She-Wolves.”

Six more of Marcello’s knights, dressed in gold tunics, assem
bled behind the other four that had been with us all evening. “You three will be with Lord Forelli and Lady Gabriella,” Luca said. “You
three with me and Lady Lia. And you four shall surround the elder Betarrinis.” He looked to Marcello for confirmation, and Marcello nodded once, affirming his plan.

They would essentially form a barrier around all of us, but I knew it was the best I was going to get. So I went with it. We moved out, and within minutes a cry went up, waving through the crowd in a repeated echo. “The Ladies Betarrini! She-Wolves! The She-Wolves!”

We were halfway through the piazza when circles of dancers and throngs of people stopped us. People were howling like they were wolves out during a full moon, laughing and cheering. Everyone we passed kept a respectful distance, but they reached out their hands for us to touch them, like we were bestowing magic or good will or something.

“She touched me!” screamed a woman.

“I’ve been touched!” yelled a man.

And so it went, over and over as we made our way forward.

A large man dared to step forward. “Begging your pardon, m’lord,” he said, “but I wondered if the lady would be so kind as to consider a brief dance.”

I wanted to dance. Not in the provincial, hoity-toity manner of the nobility within the Palazzo Pubblico, but in the earthy, celebratory way of the people outside, moving with so much joy, so much momentum, their breath clouded before their faces in the cold, dark night as they passed by.

Marcello kind of scoffed—which really bugged me—and was shaking his head, preparing to say no. “I would be most delighted,” I said. I stepped forward and took the man’s hand, and two men on fiddle-like instruments—
viellas,
if I remembered the term right—immediately began to play the song they’d been playing when we arrived.

“What is your name, sir?” I asked.

“Nanni Bencini,” he said so bashfully I imagined he was blushing to his collar, though in the dark of night I couldn’t see it. “M’lady, you’ve done me the greatest honor.”

“Say no more, good man,” I said. “Simply show me the ways of your dance.”

Others filled in around us with Luca, Lia, and my parents on the far side of the circle, grinning my way. It seemed that all their dances were done in circles, reminding me of a bat mitzvah I’d gone to last year for a friend. I just hoped they wouldn’t lift me up on some sort of rickety chair. That’d really make Marcello—who was already silently steaming behind me—go ballistic.

“Come, Marcello,” I said, “Join us.”

“I’ll stay here and keep watch.”

The other three knights on guard duty exchanged a look, but Marcello remained stubbornly focused on me.

Whatever,
I thought, shrugging my shoulders and turning back to the circle. He really could be so irritatingly
decided
at times. Maybe this would help him loosen up. Give me a little more freedom. Because, well, I had a dad again. And I didn’t need Marcello for some psycho father-figure-slash-boyfriend role. I needed him as my boyfriend. That was it.

On either side of me, men were showing me the dance steps, the women beside them doing the same. The musicians slowed the music so we could catch on to the steps, and then a man on the far side called out, “Get on with it!” and they immediately went to double time. We were off, kicking out our heels, tapping our toes, lifting our knees, and then galloping three paces to the right. Strong hands grasped mine, and then we were weaving, trying to keep to the dance steps while moving in and out of other lines of people. I laughed when I missed steps, and others laughed with me, instantly forgiving or perhaps too drunk to care.

I was concentrating so hard on the steps that it took me a while to figure out we’d joined with other circles of dancers. My family was separated, and yet the joy and goodwill among the people made it seem like they were all family to me—like the greatest family reunion ever. Like even if I didn’t know all their names, I knew I belonged with them. Pulled, I lurched forward and laughed, catching up again, smiling as people came together in the center of our current circle and clapped.

At one point I was on the high side of the shell-shaped piazza, and I could see the entire mass of dancing people below me. They were singing a new song, each on the trail of the person ahead of them, interweaving. I ducked and went under the arms of a group waiting for ours to pass by, and then when we were at the center, it was our turn to pause and let a hundred others go under our arms.

Lia and Luca passed by me, Lia laughing, Luca looking like he might be regretting the whole thing. Lia called over her shoulder, “It’s like a town-wide, medieval version of Twister!”

I laughed, and they were gone. We’d lost the guards somewhere in the mix. I hadn’t seen my parents in fifteen minutes—they were likely on the other side of the square—and I’d changed partners thirty times because every time we moved into a tight circle, released our companions’ hands, and yelled “
Vita!”
we turned and were claimed by a new group of people. I had no idea why we were shouting
Life!
to the sky, but I’d never really understood the whole Macarena phenomenon either. I just went with it. And it was super fun. The most fun I’d had at a dance, like, ever.

But I was feeling guilty about leaving Marcello behind. He’d probably be ticked off and scared out of his mind, even though we were in the heart of Siena, surrounded by her people, probably safer than we’d be anywhere else. But if I’d just gotten
him
back after a fifteen-month absence…

I craned my neck and tried to see where my current line of dance partners were heading, hopefully down toward where I’d left Marcello, or up near the top left of the sprawling arc, near an entrance, where I could duck out and wait for his arrival. That was close to the palazzo. Maybe he waited for me there anyway, hoping to grab us as we came by, like netting prize goldfish from a bowl teeming with others.

I barely paid attention as new men took my hands and pulled me down toward the center of the piazza again. I was looking for my sister, my parents, any of the Forelli knights, hoping to duck out—

That was when my companions tugged me to my knees, making me clunk one on the cobblestones. I winced and looked around in confusion, thinking this might be another dance move I’d yet to learn, but three earnest faces stared at me. “M’lady, we aim to free Lord Fortino Forelli.”

I blinked several times, trying to make sense of his words. “Fortino? You can get to him?”