Rose Red (6 page)

“She never stays angry with either of us for
very long.” Rosalinda paused with a thick woolen blanket in her
arms. “I think Mother was afraid, too, at first, only she has
learned to hide her fears better than you do. For all we know,
Andrea may be innocent of any evil intent. I cannot believe that
everyone in the world wants to see us dead.”

“I know you are right,” Bianca said. “Are you
angry with me?”

“Of course not. You are the dearest person in
the world to me. I love you too much to be angry with you.
Although,” Rosalinda teased, “sometimes I am just a bit irritated,
especially when you scream in my ear as you did a little while
ago.”

“Our lives will change with a sick man in the
house,” Bianca said.

“With Valeria’s good care and plenty of food,
he may not be sick for long.” Rosalinda’s gray eyes sparkled at the
thought. “From the way the snow is falling, Andrea will not be able
to leave very soon. This winter may not be as boring as I
expected.”

* * * * *

Upon returning to the sitting room, Rosalinda
discovered Andrea still lying before the fire with his eyes closed.
Eleonora and Bartolomeo were discussing how to deal with the
unexpected guest.

“One man, alone and unarmed,” Bartolomeo
said, “cannot do much harm if we are careful. Not in this weather,
which will allow no escape after an evil deed. And, certainly, he
is harmless while in his present condition. I will watch him
closely and if I think it necessary, I will set a guard on
him.”

“And when he leaves us, which he surely will
do if he recovers,” Eleonora said, “what then?”

“As he appears to be a gentleman, perhaps he
will give his word of honor not to reveal where we are,” Bartolomeo
suggested.

“Have you forgotten how little honor means
beyond the safety of these mountains?” Eleonora asked.

Unnoticed by her mother and Bartolomeo,
Rosalinda went to Valeria, who had finished stripping Andrea of his
wet clothes. The remnants of his linen shirt lay draped across his
loins. The fire had been built into a roaring blaze to warm him.
Rosalinda could tell that Valeria had bathed him, for a bowl of
soap sat on the hearth, along with a second pitcher of steaming
water.

Andrea had long, straight legs and his hands
and feet were slender. On the little finger of his left hand he
wore a plain ring with a single ruby deeply embedded in the gold
band. The stone winked in the firelight when Valeria moved his arm.
Andrea’s fingernails were broken and not very clean in spite of
Valeria’s efforts with water and soap, but that was to be expected
of a man who had been living in the mountains for weeks. His left
arm bore three long, almost parallel red scars, evidently of recent
origin and evidence to Rosalinda of a mauling by the bear whose
skin Andrea had been wearing. Apparently, the bear had attacked him
and that was why Andrea had killed it.

Rosalinda watched his broad chest rise and
fall with each breath he took, and she noted how breathing seemed
difficult for him. The painful thinness of what had once been a
powerful male body roused a fresh stirring of sympathy in her
heart.

“When he wakes, we should feed him some
chicken broth,” Rosalinda said, kneeling beside Andrea. Together
she and Valeria unfolded the blanket and wrapped it around him.

“There are more claw marks on his back,”
Rosalinda went on, noticing a second trio of scars across Andrea’s
left shoulder. “How did he fight off the bear?”

“Bartolomeo found two daggers in his belt and
took them into safekeeping,” Valeria answered. “They are the only
weapons he carried. A remarkable feat, to kill a bear with only a
knife, but I think that must be what happened. Most of the
discoloration on his clothes is from dried blood. I imagine some is
Andrea’s own and some came from the bear.

“Let us hope he does not develop lung fever.
He is so emaciated that I do not think he could withstand the
strain of a serious illness.” Valeria sat back on her heels. “I
have done all I can for him here. I trust Bianca will think to heat
bricks to warm his bed.”

Andrea appeared to be either semiconscious or
half asleep from exhaustion. He was not much help to them when
Bartolomeo, Rosalinda, and Valeria pulled him to his feet and, once
standing, he was unable to walk. With a groan from the effort,
Bartolomeo slung Andrea over one shoulder and headed for the
stairs.

“I will sit with him tonight,” Rosalinda
volunteered.

Andrea was sleeping in the bed Bianca had
prepared for him, with heated bricks wrapped in cloths against his
feet and plenty of blankets to cover him.

“No, you will not,” Eleonora said.

“Though at present he is too weak to harm
anyone, still, your mother is right,” Valeria said to Rosalinda.
“It would be most improper for you to remain alone in a bedchamber
with a man overnight. Bartolomeo and I will take turns sitting with
Andrea. If Madonna Eleonora agrees, you may see him in the morning.
Let us hope he will be well enough by then to provide answers to
our questions about why he was wandering in the mountains and what
brought him to the villa. In the meantime, he desperately needs
uninterrupted sleep and warmth.”

Eleonora at once concurred with these
remarks, and Rosalinda had to be content to know she would see
Andrea again within a few hours. She could not dispute Valeria’s
contention that the man needed sleep. There were dark shadows under
his sunken eyes, and every sharp angle of the gaunt shape beneath
the bedcovers proclaimed a weariness beyond anything Rosalinda
could imagine.

Even in exhausted sleep, he drew her to him.
Her fingers itched to stroke his pale cheeks above the dark beard.
She longed to see his face clean-shaven. But, shaven or bearded, he
was her bear, who had saved her from a dreadful plunge down a
mountainside. By warning her of the rock fall, he had established a
connection between them; by coming to the villa to seek shelter
from the storm, he had allowed her to repay the debt she owed to
him. In so doing he had bound them together by a second thread of
circumstance.

In a way that Rosalinda was as yet too
innocent to comprehend, Andrea was, in truth, hers, and the
protectiveness she felt toward him would not be denied. But there
was something more, an inherent masculinity apparent in his relaxed
form, that called out to her, that touched a chord in Rosalinda’s
soul. It took her mother’s firm hand on her shoulder and Bianca’s
grasp on her hand to make Rosalinda leave the guest chamber.

Bianca was eager to talk about the evening’s
events, so after the girls had said good night to their mother, she
followed Rosalinda into her bedroom.

“Who can he be?” Bianca asked. “How did he
survive in the mountains? Valeria says he is a young man.”

“You are remarkably interested in him now,”
Rosalinda said, “considering how frightened of him you were at
first.”

“The only young men we ever see,” Bianca
responded, “are the sons of the men-at-arms and they are hardly
suitable companions for us. It might be nice to have a young man of
rank staying at the villa for a while. You have heard Mother’s
stories about the court at Monteferro, how elegant it was, how
cultured and refined.”

“Mother’s stories are mostly warnings about
intrigue and treachery.” Rosalinda spoke more sharply than usual.
She was feeling oddly irritated by Bianca’s sudden interest in
Andrea and by her dreamy tone of voice when she spoke of him.

“Not all of the stories are warnings,” Bianca
objected to her sister’s statement. “Mother has taught us manners
and proper bearing by recalling the more pleasant aspects of life
at Monteferro.” She sighed, looking wistful, and at once Rosalinda
was contrite over her petty annoyance.

“I cannot remember anything about those
days,” Rosalinda said in a kinder tone, “but you can, and I know
you still feel the loss. Bianca, do you wish our family could be
restored to its former position at Monteferro? I know Mother
does.”

“
It would
be lovely.” Bianca sighed again. “I remember Father holding me in
his arms, showing me the view from high in the
castello
tower and
telling me that all the farm land I could see beyond the city
walls, the hills in the distance, and the crowded city streets just
below us were my inheritance, and that I must cherish the land and
love the people of Monteferro. Yes, I would like to return there to
live, if we could do it safely. But all the menfolk in our family
were killed in one day, so there is no Farisi male left to rule
Monteferro.”

“
If you
were to marry a strong man, who loved you enough to take the risk,
and who had an army at his command—”

“
It isn’t
very likely that I will ever marry,” Bianca scoffed. “My dowry is a
war, with only a slim chance of taking Monteferro back from the
Guidi family who, according to Luca’s reports, hold it with iron
fists. What noble would want me on those terms? Even an
ambitious
condottiere
would insist on a surer prize for his military efforts. And
under such circumstances love, however strong and true, would count
for very little.”

“Circumstances can change,” Rosalinda
insisted. “There is always the possibility that ours will,
too.”

“I know, my dearest.” Bianca embraced her
sister, kissing her on the cheek. “You are always so good to me,
even when I irritate you. Thank you for encouraging my dreams. And
now, good night. I wonder if either of us will sleep after so much
excitement?”

To her own surprise, Rosalinda did fall
asleep, instantly and deeply, upon climbing into her bed. But she
awakened well before sunrise to the soft murmurings of voices in
the corridor outside her room. When she opened the door, it was to
see Valeria with candle in hand vanishing in the direction of the
room she shared with Bartolomeo, while Bartolomeo was making his
way toward the guest chamber where Andrea lay.

“The changing of the guard,” Rosalinda
whispered to herself. “Since Bartolomeo is always more lenient with
me than either Valeria or Mother, he will not object when I join
him. I am sure he heard me open the door, though I tried to be
quiet. He will be expecting me.”

She dressed quickly in the old russet wool
gown she wore when doing her morning chores and pulled her hair
into a single thick braid, tying the end with a bit of ribbon. A
fast splash of water on her face and she was ready.

She found Andrea lying motionless in bed.
Bartolomeo stood by the window, holding back the curtain to watch
the sky lighten.

“It is still snowing hard,” Bartolomeo said
without turning around. “Come in, my dear. As you saw a short time
ago, I have sent Valeria to sleep for a while, since she was awake
all night. Our guest is sleeping.”

“How still he is. How pale.” Rosalinda drew
near to the bed to look at Andrea.

“And how fortunate that he came to us when he
did,” Bartolomeo added. “He would not have lived through the night
in this weather.” He dropped the curtain and crossed the room to
stand beside Rosalinda.

“Who can he be?” Rosalinda whispered. “What
is the story that brought him here?”

“Judging by his clothing, by that ruby ring
on his finger, and by the fine daggers he was carrying, I would
guess he is the son of a nobleman,” Bartolomeo said. “Or, perhaps,
a rich merchant’s son.”

“Mother probably thinks he is a spy, sent to
watch us.”

“A poor spy, indeed, to allow himself to sink
into this sad state.”

“Mother will say his condition is a clever
ruse to get into the villa and gain our sympathy.”

“Your mother has tragic experience behind her
suspicion of strangers and her strictness where you and Bianca are
concerned,” Bartolomeo said. “She is determined to keep her
daughters alive and to find a way for you to regain your rightful
heritage.”

“It will be Bianca’s heritage, not mine. She
is the heiress to Monteferro,” Rosalinda said. “For myself, I would
rather live at Villa Serenita than at any court.”

“You remind me of your father, who never
wanted to be Duke of Monteferro. But like my dear friend Girolamo,
when the call to duty comes, you will rise to answer it.”

Andrea interrupted Bartolomeo’s comments,
stirring with a moan. At once Rosalinda bent toward him. When he
put up a trembling hand, she took it, finding it hot and dry.

“
Where –
where am I?” he asked, in a weak, hoarse voice.

“You are safe at Villa Serenita,” Rosalinda
told him, giving his fingers an encouraging squeeze. She placed her
free hand on his forehead. “Bartolomeo, he is feverish.”

“He needs food,” Bartolomeo said. “Valeria
left a pot of broth on the hearth to keep warm, and she also
brought bread and wine for him.”

Bartolomeo ladled some broth into a bowl and
Rosalinda began to feed it to Andrea. When he had finished the
broth, she gave him pieces of the bread dipped in wine.

“Not too much,” Bartolomeo cautioned, “and
not too quickly. He is half starved. Eating too fast will only make
him ill.”

“That broth was so good,” Andrea said. He
moved restlessly, frowning and wincing. “My feet are
throbbing.”

“I’m not surprised,” Bartolomeo told him.
“You have barely escaped a severe frostbite. Your feet will be red
and swollen, and very sore, for some days to come. I advise you to
remain in bed and not to try to walk until they are completely
healed.

“Young man,” Bartolomeo went on, “if you have
family whom you want notified that you are safe, we will be glad to
send a messenger as soon as the snow clears enough to allow travel.
You have only to tell us where the messenger should go and to whom
he should take the good news that you are alive and recovering from
your ordeal.”