TWENTY-TWO

 

 

Allegreto rose to his feet at the creak of footsteps in the fresh snow. In the faint wavering glow from beyond the barred door, he stood alone in the storeroom, dressed in Zafer’s infidel clothes. The youth had wound his own turban around Allegreto’s head, tucked the tail of it with swift skill, then balanced upon Allegreto’s shoulders to hike himself through the false ceiling and follow Margaret into the secret passages.

From the sound of the footsteps outside the door, there were more than two coming. Torchlight danced and twisted on the walls, but Allegreto kept his gaze averted from it, preserving his night vision. He placed the open manacle of the chain around his wrist and gripped the links in his left hand. As a key fumbled into the old lock, he turned aside in the corner, hiding the long length of steel that he held behind his leg.

The door scraped open. Allegreto did not turn. He staked everything on foretelling Franco’s fury, that the Riata would not send some minion but come himself, fast and enraged, when he realized that Zafer had lied.

The shadow of a figure fell across the walls.

Allegreto ducked his head and lifted his arm, as if he hid his eyes from the glare of the torch. Over his sleeve he saw flickering light fall on the familiar torn features, the patched eye, while Franco Pietro shoved the smoking torch into a wall ring. In the instant that the Riata turned and took in the details of the room, in the moment before he would realize there was something amiss, Allegreto moved, dropping the chain and sweeping his sword upward, lunging to make the kill.

He seized himself short in the midst of it, barely driving aside the point of his sword as a woman stumbled into his path, shoved through the door by another man. Allegreto’s body and mind froze as if he had been struck by a storm-bolt. Elena stood between him and Franco. And Matteo, his cheeks bright red, his small body resisting the soldier’s hand with every step.

Allegreto did not drop his guard. Under the cruel discipline of a lifetime, he held still, taut, facing them with his blade at the ready.

No one spoke. Elena stared at him with her eyes wide and unblinking, terrified. Allegreto felt the wall and the corner at his back, all of his advantage evaporated in the instant he had hesitated.

Franco gave a sudden bark of laughter. "Of course!" he said, in a voice that was strangely mild. "It is Gian’s godless bastard. I smelled the rot from your stinking fire." He drew his sword with a hiss, thrusting Elena and Matteo back toward the guard.

Allegreto made a slight feint, a twitch toward the wall, to draw him further from her. But Franco Pietro was no fool to run himself wildly on an enemy’s sword point. They knew one another.

"Has your scheming gone awry?" Franco grinned, his lip pulled back like a dog’s snarl, a distortion in his scarred face. "By chance you did not mean for me to discover Matteo, or this maiden with the pretty eyes. This noble maiden. This bride that you thought to steal from me!"

Allegreto closed one eye in the same instant that he hurled a glass vial to the floor. A flash and a brilliant light filled the room as Franco leaped forward in murderous reaction. But he was blinded by the flare; Allegreto slapped the point aside with his blade and slipped past, heading for the guard.

While Franco’s man stood dazzled under the failing torchlight, Allegreto slid a dagger between his ribs, thrusting hard through the links of chain mail, straight up into the heart. The guard’s head snapped back and struck the stone wall. He crumpled to the floor, releasing his hold on his prisoners.

"Elena," Allegreto hissed. "Get out! Now!"

"I can’t see!" she cried.

He grabbed her arm. She scrabbled for the boy’s hand as Allegreto dragged them together and pushed them toward the door. Already Franco had found them through the afterimages, still blinking, but he swiftly marked his target. Allegreto brought his sword up to guard, covering Elena’s escape.

"Bastard!" Franco lunged forward, feinting to the left and then thrusting toward Allegreto’s right side. Allegreto made a backward leap over the guard’s body as he parried. He realized the trap too late as he collided with the wall, his feet restricted to a narrow space behind the dead man. He could retreat no further as Franco renewed his attack.

Allegreto made a sweeping parry, knocking Franco’s sword aside. He dived forward under the return cut, tucking and rolling to his feet. In one unbroken move he pivoted toward Franco’s back with a killing thrust. Franco just managed to turn and beat the blade aside.

Allegreto paused as his enemy did, both of them shifting their footing, seeking advantage. There had been other ways to murder Franco, simpler ways. But it was long since they had fought in duello, well-matched as they had always been, long enough to brood on every offense and dream of taking retribution face-to-face, to count every insult in blood.

Franco grinned and made a quick cut towards Allegreto’s face. He blocked, but the Riata drew a long dagger and drove forward, forcing him to block again. Franco slid his blade along Allegreto’s until the hilts locked, then tried for a disemboweling thrust with the dagger.

Allegreto swept his left arm down and caught the stabbing attack on his arm guard, but he felt a fiery sting as the tip of the dagger scraped along his stomach. He back-handed Franco with his left fist, knocking the man half off his feet.

As Franco staggered, Allegreto slid his own dagger from its sheath. He could feel sweat down his back. His throat burned with smoke and exertion. The shallow cut bled in profusion, soaking his infidel’s sash. They had trained together under the same masters; they knew each attack and parry. It would be a match of endurance and wind soon enough if he did not alter his stratagem, and he had no aim to let such chance decide the outcome.

He made a quick, direct lunge, a common attack. Ever loyal to their teachers, Franco responded with the fitting downward parry. Allegreto spun suddenly away from the block and slashed with his dagger. The point slid across Franco’s torso, scored through leather and cloth, drawing blood. Only Franco’s good speed allowed him to avoid a serious cut.

"Gutter-born bastard," Franco snarled. His breath was coming hard.

Allegreto panted, letting his body slacken, feigning weariness. He held his arm across the bleeding cut and made a weak thrust. Franco’s eye widened in triumph as he moved in to take advantage. Allegreto shifted his grip on his dagger, ready to finish with a thrust to Franco’s undefended throat.

Something metal glinted at the edge of his vision. And suddenly, from nowhere, Matteo was lunging toward Franco with a naked blade.

Allegreto twisted wildly, pulling his thrust to keep from stabbing the boy. As he was thrown off balance, Franco struck. In the slow crystalline moment of ruin, Allegreto saw the tip of Franco’s blade moving in a line toward his heart. He brought his rapier up, just deflecting the thrust, but the blade sank into his shoulder, an instant of numbness and then pain as if a flaming brand pierced him through. He sucked air between his teeth, jerking back, his sword hand falling useless.

"My lord!" Matteo shouted, standing between them with the guard’s sword in both his hands.

"No!" Elena’s cry came from the door. She stood panting, her skirts covered in snow and her hands on the frame. Allegreto tried to lift his blade, but his arm would not obey him. He could not feel his hand, but blood streamed down his sleeve and he heard his sword clatter to the floor.

"Do you want him, Matteo?" Franco asked savagely. "Do it then! Be blooded on him—a fine vengeance for Riata!"

The guard’s sword was almost too heavy for the boy to lift but he raised the point to Franco’s chest. "Stay back!" he cried. "I won’t let you near him. I’ll kill you!"

Franco Pietro stood still, his gaze passing from Allegreto to his son and the trembling blade at his heart. For a long moment his scarred face held no expression. Then his mouth curled down, his disfigured face grew stark and reddened. "Kill me?" he whispered in hoarse disbelief. "I’m your father."

"I hate my father. I hate you! I’ll kill you!"  Matteo leaped forward, aiming the sword’s tip at Franco’s heart.

His father easily slapped the blade aside, overbalancing the boy and sending him sprawling. He turned on Allegreto. "God destroy you and your cursed house! Destroy it!" he roared. "What have you done?"

Allegreto stood glaring at Franco. His right arm hung limp, his shoulder blazing with pain. Blood dripped from his fingers to the floor.

"You’ve turned him from me!" Franco shouted. He squeezed his one eye closed, raising his face, his teeth bared in anguish. "Merciful God, let me kill you; let me tear your heart from your foul chest—" He came rushing at Allegreto with his sword, flinging Matteo aside as the boy tried to stop him.

Allegreto brought his left arm up with a snap, releasing his poison dagger in a sidearm throw. Franco knocked the blade from the air with a sweep of his sword. As it hit the floor, Allegreto already had his throwing knife from his right bracer. He flung it hard, aiming low even as Franco raised his sword to protect his chest. The knife struck home, halfway to the hilt in the top of Franco’s thigh. He gasped and stumbled, losing his grip on his blade. It flipped from his hand and clattered to the floor. Matteo leaped forward, brandishing his sword as his father lurched to one knee.

"Stop!" Elena yanked Matteo back by both shoulders, barely saving Franco from a sword through his throat. In the instant Allegreto knelt to retrieve his rapier left-handed, she set her foot across the blade. "You will not. Enough!"

He could hear voices outside, Zafer and Philip’s men. He let go of the hilt, pressing his hand over his bleeding wound. He looked up at her, his vision hazed. "Philip comes." With an effort he made his feet again, turning to the door. "Here!" he shouted, without taking his eyes from Franco.

Philip entered first with a brace of his men at his flank. His glance took in Elena and Matteo and the Riata struggling to stand, his hands gripped over the blade in his thigh. "Bind him," the bandit ordered. "Secure the weapons." He gave Allegreto’s wound a passing look and raised his grizzled eyebrows. "We’ve occupied the mint. The garrison is yielded. A messenger stands ready to signal the citadel that—" He paused, with a frown toward Franco Pietro.

"Signal them," Allegreto said. "He’s as good as dead." 

"Signal what?" Elayne asked sharply.

"To take the city in your name, Princess." Allegreto leaned against the wall to hold himself up. He cradled his arm, resting his head back on the stone as he smiled. "Monteverde is ours."

 

* * *

 

In the sputtering torchlight, blood spilled down Allegreto’s white sleeve and covered his torn tunic. It spread in a dark scarlet pool beneath the body on the floor. It dripped from Franco’s leg. Even Matteo was spattered with it. Elayne turned toward the door, drawing a deep breath of the frigid night air to possess herself. She held the frame, and then reached down to grab Nim and the mastiff as they tried to nose curiously past her.

"Matteo. Take the dogs." She forced a tremor from her voice. The boy hurried to obey her, dragging the animals out into the snow. When she looked back, Philip’s bandits surrounded Franco Pietro, holding him up as they made fast the bonds. He did not struggle, but his face was a hellish vision as he stared with his one eye at Allegreto.

In Zafer’s clothes and white turban, Allegreto seemed a stranger; propped against the wall with his face half in shadow, a bloodied foreigner, as hell-born as his enemy. But he was alive.

She had seen the blade aimed for his heart, seen it pierce him.

He was alive. Zafer was alive. Margaret was safe.

Instead of relief, a rank fury boiled up in her. She closed her eyes, struggling to contain it.

"What do you want done with him?" Philip asked.

Elayne’s eyes snapped open. He meant to address Allegreto, she knew, but she answered him instead. "Detain him," she said coldly. "And Navona, too. They are both under my arrest."

The old bandit turned around to her, his shoulders straightening. She saw Allegreto drop his bloody hand from his wound and look up.

"I am Ligurio’s only living heir," she said, lifting her head. "I am Monteverde. And I will not let them destroy it like this. Take both of them."

No one moved. They all stood looking at her with a baffled horror, as if she had burst into flame before them. Elayne glared back, her eyes stinging with fierceness, with the force of her grandfather’s vanquished dream.

"Take both of them," she said again. She did not look at Allegreto; she could not, but she felt him there, a motionless shadow at the edge of her blurred vision.

The Englishman made a sound, half a laugh and half a grunt. "Do you mean it, Princess? Because I’ll end with my head on a stake if I follow you and you draw back from this."

"I listened to what you said in camp," she said. "I will not have war against ourselves. And that is what will come of it."

"She speaks true," Franco Pietro said hoarsely. "Kill me if you will, but all of Riata will rise against you for it. We’ll never let a Navona sleep easy in the citadel."

Allegreto sprang upright from the wall, holding his arm against his chest. "Brave words!" His lip curled. "See what’s left to rise when I’m done with you. And I’ve never slept easy since I could say my father’s name or yours—that will be no great burden to bear."

"You won’t sleep in possession of Monteverde one night, easy or not." Franco wrenched at his bonds and went halfway to one knee as he tried to step forward. "We’ll burn it to the ground before we let you take it!"

Allegreto grabbed his throat, grimacing as he dragged him up. "I’ll see you swing from the gates long before you can burn anything, Riata. Before morning I’ll see it!"

Elayne reached down for the hilt of his sword. The handle turned in her fingers, slick with his blood, but she held it tight as she straightened. "Philip," she said sharply. "Arrest them both."

Allegreto dropped his grip on Franco and glanced at her as she raised the sword. "Elena," he said, almost below his breath. "Do not."

"Both of them."

Philip jerked his chin. One of his men moved hesitantly, lifting his hand toward Allegreto.

"Elena!" There was no fear in his voice, or even anger. It was disbelief.

"I will not hurt you. No one will hurt you or Franco. You are both in my protection." She had no way to enforce her words, no guard or garrison at her command, but she said them. She said them with Prince Ligurio’s will, from the power of his vision of what Monteverde could have been. Could still be, if she had the heart and resolve and good fortune of a thousand angels at her back.

She had bound him once in a game before her, a defeated warrior at her command. In stark reality he was bleeding, and she was only a girl, untried and outrageous in what she asked, the sword tip trembling in her hand. She could not force him—she did not think all of Philip’s men could, or would, prevent him from walking out the door if he willed it.

His mouth was set. With each breath the muscle in his cheek drew taut—pain or fury, she could not tell. He looked at Franco Pietro and Philip and bared his teeth. His dark gaze passed to Elayne.

He stared for a long moment at her. His look held all the truth between them, that he had trusted her, when she knew he had never trusted anyone before. That he had let her take his defenses and put his life in her hands and love him.

"Allegreto," she said. "Help me."

He blinked at the sound of her voice, turning his head a little, as if he heard it from a great distance. And with the same bewilderment, the same blank pain, he lifted his face upward like a prayer. "Ah, God," he said in a helpless voice. "Don’t do this to me."

"For me," she whispered, serving him a betrayal that went deeper than Franco Pietro’s blade.

"Monteverde bitch," he said softly.

Franco made an incredulous sound as the fetters clattered in the bandit’s shaky hand and closed on Allegreto’s wrist. The Riata looked up at Elayne, scowling.

"You will have what is rightfully yours," she said to him. "Navona will have again what was his. As it was under my grandfather. Will you accede to it?"

Franco wet his lips. He glanced at Allegreto and back at Elayne. "I do not comprehend this." He thrust out his chin. "What of our betrothal?"

"There is no betrothal."

"You forswear it?"

"There is nothing to forswear. I have given no consent." 

"That contract!" he exclaimed, instantly understanding her.  "Damn the English pig, is Lancaster behind this?" He grunted as he shifted on his wounded leg. "Have you sold us to the English?" 

"I have not," she said.

"Better the English than Navona," he sneered. He was breathing deeply, his face creased in pain and hate as he looked at Allegreto. "Has he got another bastard like himself on you?"

In the half-light Allegreto lifted his eyes from the fetters on his wrist.

"No," she said bluntly.

She saw the faintest brush of Allegreto’s lashes, an instant of some expression that passed over his face, impossible to comprehend before it was gone. He stared at her coldly. Elayne felt her heart break inside her throat, tear into pieces that would never mend.

"What of my son?" Franco Pietro asked. His voice rose. "I want my son."

Elayne thought of the boy with a blade at his father’s throat. "Matteo will stay with me, until I deem otherwise. He will not be in Navona’s power."

"I don’t trust you, that you come here this way," Franco Pietro exclaimed. "In secret, and at his hand."

"Then we must wait until you can," Elayne said. "I will do my best to be just. But Monteverde is first. Before Riata. Before Navona. Monteverde is what we all are, before we are anything else."

 

* * *

 

With a troop of bandits she took d’Avina. It all happened swiftly, like a spark in a dry field of corn. Philip held the mint, easily seized when everyone in town had run to the fire, and easily defended once his men closed the great outer doors in the massive wall. The fortress of Maladire was hers, the small remnants of the Riata garrison surrendered to Philip’s men, cut off to anyone who could not pass the secret entrances.

The townspeople seemed frozen in doubt. They huddled in a mass beyond the burned-out bridge and guardhouse, shouting and milling without direction. They knew something momentous had happened, but none could cross to the castle over the smoldering remains of the bridge.

She ordered Philip to have the bell rung in the piazza.

In all of their blood and battle wounds, she took her prisoners. She allowed Zafer to bind up Allegreto’s arm in a sling with his turban. Franco had to be half-carried, unable to walk on his leg. But Philip’s bandits were efficient jailers. They moved their injured captives through the underground ways, up through the mint, and out onto the torch-lit dais in the piazza with speed.

She still carried Allegreto’s sword. She stood foremost on the dais, overlooking the uneasy crowd of people gathering below. The freezing air burned her cheeks and turned her breath to frost.

Be clever. Lady Melanthe had said it. Be bold if you must, and act on the edge of a moment.

Prince Ligurio would approve it. She felt so sure that he would approve that it was as if he stood beside her and whispered what words to say.

"I have come here first!" she shouted, her voice a cry that died away in echoes in the night. "I am Elena of Monteverde, and you are my father’s and my grandfather’s people." She looked down into the eyes of a man who stood just below her, a young miner from his clothes. "And my people."

He stared up at her, his grimy face intent in the firelight. His mouth opened, and he gave a little bewildered nod as she held his gaze.

Elayne nodded back to him. She lifted her face. "Tonight in the fortress, while the bridge burned, the leaders of Riata and Navona fought." She gestured back to Allegreto and Franco Pietro with the sword. "Look at them."

The miner looked, wide-eyed. The crowd around him looked, murmuring, and saw what she wanted them to see—two men bloodied and torn by their combat.

Below her, there were richly dressed men in fur, and thin-clad miners mixed with women and children. They filled the piazza now, a sea of faces fading into darkness. She knew there were Riata among them, and others loyal in secret to Navona. She knew the Riata would lose from what she did, the Navona would rise. But there were others, too, all those who belonged to neither house, those her grandfather had written of who only suffered from the endless discord.

"This is what Monteverde has been," she said over the crowd, holding up the bloody sword. "A battleground for wolves! And I’ve come to put an end to it. I’ve come in the name of Prince Ligurio and my father, to rule in peace, and with equal justice. I have no allies. I am not of Navona, nor Riata. I have nothing to overpower you—only these few outlawed men who stand beside me." She raised her voice in fierce emotion. "But it is not bandits who have bled Monteverde of concord or peace!"

She looked down at them as her shout died away. There was utter silence in the piazza, only the hiss of torches and the soft groan of the snow underfoot as people stirred.

"By chance you will not have a woman over you," she said into the quiet. "It will be your choice. Tonight I hold the mint and the castle and these two men by my small force. Tomorrow, in the morning, you will each bring a stone, every man and woman of you, and place it in a pile. This is how you chose your leaders long ago, under the old republic. There will be one for each of us. Franco Pietro della Riata. Allegreto della Navona. Elena di Monteverde. So look at us here—at what we are—and think of what you want for yourselves and for your children."

She stepped back, lowering the sword, turning away. In the silence Allegreto stood in the fetters, gazing at her like a man watching a comet cross the sky.

The young miner raised his fist. "Monteverde!" he yelled. Someone in the back took up the shout. People pushed forward, reaching their hands toward her. She felt a spurt of fear, but they were not enraged—they were smiling as they pressed and shouted, taking up the chant.

She dropped the sword and knelt down and touched their hands.