Mandara was silent, the hooves of the horse clattering noisily on the cobblestones as the wagon wound through the twisting streets leading to the outer gates.
Rats and birds swarmed in the streets. Occasionally Sanchia would see a corpse left lying in the gutter or on a stoep as Caterina had described. She hastily looked away, especially when she caught sight of scurrying motion near the bodies.
The city gates were unguarded, thrown wide. They passed through, immediately bearing north to traverse the few miles to the vineyard at as fast a clip as the lone horse could manage.
“It appears deserted,” Sanchia said as they approached the large fieldstone winery. “How many men work in the vineyard?”
“Only one or two at this time of year. Of course, at picking time there are many more.” Caterina reined in the horse and wagon before the well. She raised her voice and called loudly, “Ho! Is anyone here? Leonardo!”
No answer.
Caterina shrugged. “It seems we’ll have no help.” She leapt down from the wagon. “I had hoped for better luck. We’ll be able to manage only the small casks by ourselves.” She strode toward the winery. “Start drawing water from the well. I’ll roll the casks out and you fill them.”
The task of drawing buckets of water from the well and pouring them into the casks was not so difficult after Sanchia developed a rhythm for the work. However, it was when the casks were sealed that the real labor began. Even the small casks weighed well over a hundred pounds when filled. Lifting the casks onto the bed of the wagon was an unbearable strain on Sanchia’s and Caterina’s muscles. The sweat was running down their faces and soaking through their gowns in dark patches when the last cask was stowed.
Caterina leaned against the wagon, her breath coming in gasps. “Cristo, I’m glad that’s over. I never realized water could be so—What’s wrong with your hand? It’s bleeding.”
Sanchia glanced down. A small cut bled freely on her right palm. “I don’t know. I must have cut it on one of the casks. Perhaps it’s a splinter. It’s not important.”
Caterina frowned. “What do you mean it’s not important? It could fester.” She lifted her skirt and began tearing at her undershift. “I’ve seen splinters that have laid low strong men. Do you want to go to your deathbed, you foolish—” She gazed at Sanchia in bafflement.
Sanchia laughed. She laughed so hard she was forced to cling to the side of the wagon to keep from falling to the ground. “Caterina, you can’t …” Laughter continued to overwhelm her.
“I see nothing the least bit amusing.”
“Caterina, madre di Dio, if I go to my deathbed in Mandara it won’t be due to a splinter. There’s plague.”
Caterina’s eyes widened and then she began to chuckle. “I believe I’ve heard rumors to that effect.” In another moment she too was laughing helplessly, tears running down her cheeks. “I didn’t think.” She shook her head. “A splinter. Sweet Mary, a tiny splinter …”
“We shouldn’t be laughing,” Sanchia gasped. “There’s nothing at all funny.” She started to laugh again. “Why can’t I stop?”
“Lorenzo once said something about how nature protects.” Caterina wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Perhaps laughter is the way nature keeps us sane when there’s too much sorrow to be borne.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I feel the better for it. Now give me your hand and let me bind it. If the plague doesn’t kill you, I won’t have this idiotic splinter doing so.”
Sanchia offered her hand and stood patiently while Caterina cleaned and bandaged the tiny cut.
“You could stay here, you know,” Caterina said in a low voice as she tied the knot in the makeshift bandage. “You might be safe here away from the city.”
“And I might not.”
“It’s not your home. No duty holds you at Mandara.”
“You need me.”
“Yes, I need you,” Caterina said wearily. “And God knows I don’t want you to leave. You … comfort me.”
Sanchia nodded, feeling great affection for Caterina as she looked at her. The woman before her was no longer the elegant, queenly lady of Mandara. Caterina’s amber silk gown was stained and her face carved with deep lines of weariness and suffering. Yet Caterina had never looked more the illustrissima than she did at this moment. “And you comfort me. Therefore it only makes sense that we stay together.” She gently took Caterina’s arm. “We’d better go. They need the water in the city. Where shall we unload it?”
“On the steps of the cathedral. We’ll keep two of the casks for the castle and leave the others.”
“Should it not be rationed?”
“Who is to ration it? The priest is gone and we’ll be too busy nursing the sick.” Caterina turned and strode to the wagon. “We’ll make a trip every day and draw fresh water.” She climbed into the driver’s seat. “Unless this well also runs dry or becomes polluted. It wouldn’t surprise me. Good fortune seems to have forgotten Mandara.”
Sanchia found her life in the days to follow a despairing round of fetching water, nursing the sick, preparing the dead, and building their coffins. Only one young scullery maid recovered from the disease, and Sanchia had no faith her cure was permanent. Death was everywhere. Why should anyone be spared? She knew it was only a matter of time until the Medusa touched her as well. When children as innocent as Piero and Bianca were taken there was no doubt a sinner such as she would be taken, too.
And poor, shining Marco …
“I went to the piazza to fetch the physician for young Donato. To no avail, I see,” Caterina said as she knelt beside Sanchia on the cobblestones of the courtyard. “Here let me help you with that.” She began to bathe the body of the groom, who had died only minutes ago. “It’s strange how we no longer notice the stench,” she said absently. She looked up. “The physician has fled the city.”
“He could not help anyway.” Sanchia shrugged. “But fleeing will do him no good.” She looked up at Caterina. “We’re all going to die, aren’t we?”
“Probably. But I resent the whoreson giving up the battle before it’s lost. I didn’t. You didn’t.” She tossed the cleaning cloth back into the water in the basin. “The city is almost deserted. Those who aren’t dying or cowering in their houses have fled like the physician.”
Sanchia spread a clean linen sheet over the body of Donato. She supposed she should say a prayer over him, but she couldn’t seem to think of any words.
“Some of the sick have crawled to the steps of the cathedral and lie there begging God and the saints for aid. I doubt if God will answer. Perhaps you’d better go and see if you can substitute.”
“Me? Alone?”
Caterina nodded. “I’ll soon be of no help to you.”
Sanchia stiffened, her gaze flying to Caterina’s face. She had thought she had become numb to all sorrow but she found she was wrong. “When?”
“When did I notice this pesky boil beneath my armpit? Last night.”
But Caterina had kept on working unceasingly, probably on strength of will alone. Sanchia studied Caterina’s face and for the first time noticed the flush mantling her cheeks and the lines of pain drawn around her lips. “I won’t leave you.”
“I didn’t think you would.” Caterina’s smile lit her strained face with sudden brilliance. “I suppose I should try to persuade you to do so and go to those who have more need, but I think I’ll indulge myself by dying with a friend nearby. I have no desire to die alone and smothered by four walls.” Her smile faded and she held out her hand to Sanchia. “Will you come with me to my garden … friend?”
Sanchia slowly stood up and took Caterina’s hand. She held it very tightly as they walked to where the Medusa waited in the sunlight, among the roses for Caterina.
“Why didn’t he come back?” Lion murmured, his gaze on the charred skeleton of the Dancer at the dock. “He said he was returning to burn the shipyard. Why didn’t he do it?”
Lorenzo shrugged. “Perhaps Borgia snapped his
fingers and he had to come running. Damari is clever enough to put aside his own personal vengeance where his ambitions are concerned.”
“Or perhaps he wanted to draw me to Solinari where he had set his trap.”
“Basala said he had only a small troop of men when he raided the shipyard. Do you think he had a larger force at—”
“I don’t like it,” Lion cut in with sudden violence. “Any of it. It doesn’t feel right.”
Lorenzo’s gaze went back to the wreckage of the ship and then to the other blackened hulls sitting in the shipyard. “This has hurt you. Consider that you may not be thinking clearly.”
Lion’s hand tightened on the reins. “Damari meant to hurt me,” he said hoarsely. “And he’s depending on me to rush wildly to Solinari after him. Why?”
Lorenzo merely gazed at him.
“And why didn’t he burn the ships and shipyard when he came here and discovered we’d taken the Dancer and sailed for Genoa? It would have been a better opportunity. Why did he hold his hand then and strike now?”
“He could have wanted to destroy the Dancer as well.”
Lion shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Then do we go to Solinari and reconnoiter?”
Lion was silent, his gaze on the Dancer. “What if Damari meant to draw us not to Solinari but away from Mandara?”
Lorenzo stiffened, his gaze whipping to Lion’s face. “You think he might have persuaded Borgia to give him reinforcements to attack the city?”
“I don’t know what he’s done, but all this has an odd feel to me.” Lion suddenly called over his shoulder at the men milling around the shipyard, “Mount up! We’re going back to Mandara.”
Seventeen
Sanchia was sitting on the steps of the chapel, her head resting back against the stone wall, when Damari rode into the courtyard.
The setting sun was behind him, and at first he appeared only as a squat, dark figure against the blood-red orb. Then, as he drew closer, she recognized him, but oddly felt not the least surprised. It seemed fitting that he should be here in this place of death and sorrow.
“Ah, Sanchia, how pleasant it is to see you.” Damari swung down from his horse. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t come any closer. It’s only wise to take certain precautions. Tell me, do you have the disease as yet?”
“Probably.” Sanchia shook her head wearily. “I don’t know.”
“And the Lady Caterina?”
“Dead. Yesterday.” She paused. “I think it was yesterday. They’re all dead. Marco, Bianca … Piero.”
He nodded. “Excellent. I was hoping the lady had been taken. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have business inside the castle, I’ll rejoin you shortly.”
He crossed the courtyard and went briskly up the stone steps and into the castle.
Sanchia leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. She should probably go back down to the piazza and see if any more victims had been brought to the cathedral. She would go soon, but it was comforting to sit there next to the chapel. She didn’t feel so alone when she was this close to Caterina and Piero.
“Wake up and bid me good-bye, Sanchia.”
She opened her eyes to see Damari tying a familiar mahogany chest on the hindquarters of his stallion. The Wind Dancer.
“You see I have it again. I told you I’d get it back.”
He seemed absurdly pleased, she thought with vague surprise. Did he think the loss of the statue mattered now?
“You didn’t believe me, did you?” He glanced up as he tightened the rope. “I’m truly glad you’re here to see my triumph. I was afraid there would be no one left alive to appreciate my cleverness.”
“No one is alive.”
“Well, you’re half alive. That will do.” He smiled. “Tell me, did the boy die at once? I thought he was ill when my men put him in the wagon.”
Piero. He was talking about Piero. “Not right away.” She managed to focus on what he was saying. “It was you who took Piero?”
“One of my men, actually. It was truly a brilliant plan. It had come to my ears that the plague had attacked a tiny coastal village not far from Solinari and it was only necessary that we spread the disease here. Now who would make a better carrier than the child you had taken to your bosom? My informant had already told me that both you and the child were here at the castle. We had only to steal the child, smuggle him out of the city. and transport him to Fontana. We kept him in the charnel house there for two days, making sure he was properly exposed to the disease.”
It was Damari who was the monster of death. The horror of his words pierced her apathy and exhaustion. She gasped. “How could anyone do such an evil thing?”
“Of course, it was necessary to conduct the plan with the most exquisite precision and timing,” Damari went on calmly. “I returned to Pisa to raid Andreas’s shipyard and draw him and a goodly portion of his men from Mandara. Then I sent two of my men with the wagon and orders to abandon it a few miles from the city gates. After the raid I had to bring my men back here to stop those who were fleeing the city.”
“Fleeing …”
“But of course. The disease couldn’t be allowed to spread. Borgia and His Holiness were afraid there would be an outcry if the disease were carried into another city.” He smiled. “I assured them that wouldn’t happen, so I waited in the hills and when the scared rabbits came streaming out of the city we eliminated them with a barrage of arrows. I had to be careful to keep my men at a distance. Those who I find it necessary to bring close to the plague will also have to be eliminated.”
“But you’re here now.”
“Ah, but I’m not afraid of the disease.” He rubbed his pitted cheek. “If I was meant to die of any disease, the pox would have gotten me when I was a child and that Lady bitch persuaded her husband to send my mother and me away from Mandara to a pox-ridden village. No, I was spared to do great things, to lead armies, to create kingdoms.”
Sanchia shook her head. “You’ll die here, like all the rest. Everyone dies here.”
For a moment an expression of uneasiness crossed Damari’s face because of the certainty in her tone. “Not me. I have another fate awaiting me.” He gave a final tug to the rope and swung onto the saddle. “Do you smell the smoke yet?”
“No.”
“I do.” He lifted his head and sniffed. “I set fire to the castle and to the gardens. My men are torching the city now. Another precaution His Holiness insisted on my taking. Naturally, we torched the village of Fontana after we took the boy from the charnel house.”
“Lion …”
“You’re wondering why I let Andreas leave when he too might have become infected?” He shrugged. “I had to accept the risk. I had to draw his forces away so I could be sure of walking into the castle unopposed. If he does carry the plague elsewhere, we’ll merely put out a story that he fled in terror from the disease and it was his fault the sickness was brought to more innocents.” He smiled. “I will, of course, now proceed back to Solinari and dispose of him at my leisure.”
As he gazed down at her a flicker of regret passed over his face. “I’d really like to take you with me. I quite enjoyed our time together in the dungeon. It’s not often that one runs across a woman with the courage and endurance you possess. I had promised myself another such experience after Andreas took you from me.” He shook his head. “Too bad. But Borgia would be most irate if he learned I’d let anyone live who knew of his and his father’s involvement.”
“You’re going to kill me?”
“I’ve already killed you,” Damari said. “I was merely considering resurrecting you for a few day’s amusement. Good-bye, Sanchia. If you’re fortunate, the fire may end your life before the plague does. I hear the plague gives a very painful death.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes again, trying not to see the pictures his words brought to mind. “Yes, it’s very painful.”
She heard the clatter of Damari’s horse’s
hooves on the flagstones as he left the courtyard. A moment later the first acrid wisp of smoke drifted to her nostrils.
They came upon the first dead seven miles from Mandara.
Lion looked down at the body of a child of perhaps eight years crumpled in the road beside a wagon. An arrow had pierced her narrow chest, pinning her to the wood of the wagon wheel.
Lorenzo reined in beside him. “A man, a woman, and two more children are lying farther down the road.”
“Arrows?”
Lorenzo nodded. “The wagon is piled high with furniture and household goods. It looks as though everything was tossed into the wagon with great speed. They obviously left the city in a hurry with no intention of returning.”
“And were waylaid and murdered.” Lion looked away from the child lying against the wagon wheel. “Women and children too. Nothing appears to have been stolen. Why would they have been murdered?”
“Shall I order them buried?”
“No.” Lion turned his horse. “Later. We have to find out why they were running from Mandara. Hurry.”
They came upon two more bodies a mile down the road and then an entire family butchered a quarter of a mile farther. After that, Lion stopped counting the dead that littered the road and gullies and spurred on toward Mandara.
They first saw the glow lighting the night sky as they left the foothills.
Lion heard Lorenzo’s harsh imprecation but couldn’t tear his gaze from the macabre, obscene beauty of the sight before him.
“Mandara.” Lorenzo gazed stonily at the burning city in the distance.
Lion heard the shocked murmur of the men riding behind him. They had wives, friends, families in that inferno just as he did, he thought dully. Sanchia, his mother, Marco, Bianca …
“Caterina,” Lorenzo said hoarsely. “There have to be prisoners.”
Lion felt a spring of hope. Lorenzo was right. None of them had to be in the burning city. He spurred forward and put Tabron into a dead run.
“Lion,” Lorenzo shouted above the thunder of the horse’s hooves. “If it was Damari, where’s the condotti?”