Feehan, Christine - The Scarletti Curse (40 page)

The two girls shrieked with delight. She could hear their shoes pattering
along the ground as they ran farther through the twisting labyrinth. "Stay
together," she cautioned, unable to prevent the admonishment from
escaping.

Often the passage through the labyrinth was narrow and led to a dead end or
backtracked in long, looping circles. Nicoletta was now deep within the maze,
following the children solely by the sounds of their voices. At times she could
hear them quite close by, as though she would be able to touch them if she
reached through the thick hedges. At other times they seemed some distance
away. The soldiers' boots thunked hard on the path as they ran to catch up with
her.

Startled by all the unfamiliar activity, birds rose into the air, flapping
their wings and shrieking protests, their beaks gaping open. At first Nicoletta
laughed at them, but then she began to find the darting creatures frightening.
She glanced up at the sky. A shadow was passing over the labyrinth. A draft
rose up from the ground to envelop her. At once she felt the cold.

Nicoletta stopped moving abruptly and went very still. Wings fluttered
overhead. Taking a deep breath, unwillingly she glanced up. The black raven was
perched in the branches of a thick shrub at the end of the passageway where an
sharp bend hid the rest of the path. It seemed to be growing darker in the
maze. She swallowed the sudden knot of fear blocking her throat. "Not you
again. Where are the girls?" She raised her voice, very frightened.
"Ketsia! Sophie!" Her voice sounded shaky. "You have to find me
now. Come to me!"

The fear in her voice alarmed the guards. "Donna Nicoletta, stay where
you are. We will come to you," Francesco offered. "Are you in
trouble?"

Yes, she was in trouble. The bird told her there was trouble. Yet she felt
no injury, no sickness. The wind carried no tales of accidents. The children
were still laughing joyously. So why was the raven there, warning her of
misfortune somewhere close by? Nicoletta couldn't very well tell the guards
that. She reluctantly began to walk toward the bird. It watched her approach
intently with its round, beady eyes. Nicoletta expected it to fly off in one
direction or the other, but instead, as she moved closer, it spiraled to the
ground, folding its wings and hopping to the edge of the bush that formed the
bend in the maze.

Nicoletta could feel her heart pounding hard, and her mouth went dry in
fearful anticipation. Shadows were creeping from the palazzo into the
labyrinth. Grotesque demons reached out, the guardians of the cursed palazzo
seeking to keep its secrets safe. She watched the bird as it hopped
purposefully along the ground.

Reluctantly she followed it around the bend. The maze gave a choice of right
or left, both abrupt turns, one slightly narrower than the other. The bird
chose the narrow, more overgrown path. The bushes here weren't as well kept,
and small branches poked at her skin as she slowly walked along. She heard the
giggles of the children as if from a very great distance. The noise should have
been reassuring, but it sounded mocking, as if the labyrinth had taken the
joyful notes and twisted them into evil laughter. The soldiers called to her,
both of them. They were running, and she could tell they had split up as they
searched for her. She wanted to answer them, but the fear choking her prevented
her. She was cold, even shivering, yet her skin was damp with perspiration. The
bird swung its head back toward her, staring with a touch of the malevolence
she associated with the windows and gargoyles of the palazzo.

"Just show me." she snapped, her fists clenching in the pockets of
her skirt. She didn't want to know more trouble; she was struggling to find a
place in her new home with a man she barely knew. A man who mesmerized her.
Tempted her. She shoved a trembling hand through her hair in agitation, tears
filling her eyes. She didn't want to know trouble. She didn't want to be afraid
anymore.

The bird croaked at her, an ugly, accusing tone. She dashed the tears away,
her chin rising in challenge. Almost at her feet, the bird was leaning into the
bushes and tugging at something light-colored. She knelt down to reach past the
creature, to grasp the piece of cloth and pull. It was stuck deep in the
prickly branches. Her heart began to pound. She recognized the fabric. She had
seen it dozens of times. It was usually a clean if faded blue, but now it
looked dirty and weathered, crusted with a wealth of brownish stains.

Nicoletta sank to the ground, clutching Cristano's shirt to her. She felt it
then, the terrible haunting vibration, the aftermath of violence. Cristano was
dead, murdered here in the maze, dead all this time. While she married and made
love with the don and laughed with the children, he was dead, his life taken
from him for all time, his only crime that he had wanted to marry Nicoletta.

Her husband had taken him into the maze. Her husband had walked out of the
maze alone, with his knuckles scraped and blood on his immaculate shirt. Her
husband had said Cristano had been spotted in a
villaggio,
and he had
called off the search.

Pressing the shirt to her, she sat there on the ground, rocking back and
forth, tears falling to soak into the grass, while overhead the branches of the
bushes began to sway from the wind coming in off the sea. Bands of fog drifted
in as well; and the bird circled lazily in the sky, its sharp eyes surveying
the scene below and the forlorn woman weeping.

What is it? I can feel your pain and sorrow, but you are attempting to
close your mind to me.
The words shimmered in her thoughts like gossamer
wings, the voice beautiful, comforting, but deadly all the same. Nicoletta knew
the don was already moving toward her. The connection between them seemed to be
growing stronger and stronger. If a wife had feelings for another, and her
husband had the don's tremendous gift
and
his dark jealousy, wouldn't
that be cause enough for murder?

"What is it?" It was Francesco who found her, reaching to pull her
from the ground, bloodstained cloth and all. "Donna Nicoletta, have you
suffered an injury?"

She couldn't look at him with the tears running down her face and the
evidence of her husband's guilt in her hands. "Where are the little
ones?" she choked out, not wanting the children to see her so distraught.

The guard called to his partner, Dominic, to collect the two girls.
"You must return to the palazzo. Donna Nicoletta," he said softly,
his eyes on the material she held in her hands.

She nodded and went with him. What was the point in trying to explain?
Francesco was utterly loyal to the don. Like everyone else, the guard would not
worry over the death of a peasant, especially one who had been silly enough to
challenge his don.

Giovanni was pacing across the entrance to the maze, Vincente and Antonello
with him, suggesting they had been in a meeting together when the don had
become aware something was amiss with his bride. He rushed to her side,
sweeping her stiff body into his arms, bending his head to press a brief kiss
to her temple.

Nicoletta struggled to remain still, not wanting to make a scene and push
him away from her. It shamed her that she wanted his comfort even as she
condemned him. She felt the way his body went rigid, further evidence he was
reading her thoughts. "What have you found that has upset you,
piccola!"
he asked gently.

She raised her head to look at him, her dark eyes eloquent with accusation.
"Cristano's shirt. I have seen this many times. It was his, and it is
covered in blood." Her eyes remained locked to his. "I know he is
dead. When I hold this cloth, I know." She admitted it quietly, seriously,
daring him to call her a liar, to try to argue with her, or to condemn her by
naming her witch. Let him name her as such. Better to die an honest death than
to sleep with a man, enduring such intimacy for all the years of her life, when
he was a murderer.

Is that what you think? Is that truly what you think? Can you touch me
and not feel the truth in your heart?
There was deep pain in his tone, in
the words brushing in her mind, an accusation. Giovanni turned to look at
Antonello over her head. "Did you not tell me Cristano was in the
villaggio
you had passed through on your way back home?"

Antonello shrugged, his face expressionless. "I have seen the man only
once, Gino. I may have made a mistake. I did not speak with him, simply
observed him drinking in a tavern. Another man called him Cristano."
Antonello turned his attention toward Nicoletta. He bowed slightly in the same
courtly manner Giovanni often displayed. "I am sorry, sister. It seems I
am responsible for this misunderstanding. I reported the sighting immediately,
as we needed the soldiers to hunt for our missing cousin, Damian, and to guard
our borders from the King of Spain, who often looks to gobble up our
lands."

There seemed to be a simple sincerity in his voice and manner, but Nicoletta
didn't trust any of them anymore. She didn't believe a word Antonello was
saying. She held Cristano's shirt to her, the evidence of his demise. When,
exactly, had he died? She was connected with Cristano, yet the bird hadn't come
to her as he lay dying. She should have felt the vibrations of violence the
moment the murder had occurred. It made no sense. Why hadn't she felt the
disturbance if her husband had slain Cristano in the maze? She had been close
to the two men, separated only by the walls of hedges. Was the don capable of
blocking out her strange ability to feel the ominous portent of mortal injury
or death?

Don Scarletti gave orders to his men to search the labyrinth inch by inch
for further evidence. Vincente seemed furious. "Gino, is there something
going on we should all know about?" he demanded angrily. "If Damian
were alive, he would have found a way to contact us. What are all these secret
meetings you and Antonello have been conducting lately, and your visitors we
others are never allowed to see? People do not just disappear or get murdered
in our own courtyard!"

"This is not the time or the place to discuss such things,
Vincente." Giovanni's voice was like a whip. "We must find out what
happened to this boy."

"Man," Vincente corrected. "He was a man who had eyes for
your woman. If you disposed of him for some act or betrayal, you need only say
so. He had no right to come here and attempt to steal your bride."

Nicoletta gasped, both hands shoving hard at the wall of Giovanni's chest.

He tightened his hold around her, refusing to allow her to escape. "Use
your brain, Vincente." His voice was pure menace, low and arrogant and
filled with contempt, a whiplash that caused his youngest brother to wince.
"The boy could not have been killed in the maze and left there, or the
vultures would have been overhead. And what of the soldiers who searched the
labyrinth that day? When did I have time to dispose of a body? One soldier
might be so loyal as to aid me, but an entire regiment? I doubt I wield the
kind of power for that large a conspiracy. There has been no whisper of a body
found. The boy was alive when I left him."

"I wish to help in the search," Nicoletta said. To her own ears
she sounded defiant. If there were any further clues, perhaps the bird would
reveal them to her. And she would be able to think more clearly without the don
in such proximity to her.

A small silence followed her words. Reluctantly Giovanni dropped his arms
and allowed her to escape. "If that is what you think best,
cara,
then you must." He spoke quietly, his gaze on her fingers as they smoothed
the bloodstained cloth.

Nicoletta whirled around and immediately reentered the maze. She didn't want
to give him a chance to change his mind. Her teeth bit nervously at her lower
lip as she attempted to reason things out. What Giovanni had said to his
brother made sense to her. He hadn't had time to murder Cristano and dispose of
the body. And he had returned to the palazzo almost at once.

When had Cristano died? Why hadn't she "felt" his death? The
question beat at her like the rhythm of a drum, like her own heartbeat. She
moved through the labyrinth slowly, keeping her gaze fixed on the ground,
searching the bushes for telltale signs of violence. Several times she came
across soldiers as they walked the pathways carefully on the orders of their
don. Why hadn't she felt Cristano's death? Though she had been but a small
child, she had even known when her mother died.

Giovanni's words not only made sense, but he sounded sincere. Nicoletta
sighed and shoved a hand through her long hair, sweeping it back to secure it in
a haphazard knot to keep it away from her face. She wanted to believe Giovanni.
The answer was there, so close, niggling away at the back of her mind, if only
she could reach it.

Nicoletta rounded another bend and nearly ran right into the arms of a soldier.
From far away she heard the sound of the raven, a loud squawk of warning. Deep
within her, the shadow lengthened and grew. The soldier caught her shoulders to
steady her, his grip so hard she looked up quickly. For a moment time seemed
frozen. A single heartbeat. One terrible moment of recognition. The steadying
hands instantly wrapped around her throat and squeezed hard, nearly lifting her
off her feet, cutting off her breath and all ability to scream for help.
Aljandro, dressed as a soldier, waiting for his moment of revenge. Almost at
once panic welled up, and everything went black, with tiny white stars shooting
at her.

Nicoletta!
The voice was a cry in her head, anguished, terrified,
furious. Giovanni demanding that she fight her assailant, demanding she not
leave him.

It gave her strength. Reaching up blindly, she tried to jab her fingernails
into Aljandro's eyes. She kicked at him and attempted to drive a knee between
his legs. Dimly she heard shouts close by. Giovanni's raised voice giving orders
to find her, that she was in trouble. The guards were rushing to do the don's
bidding. Giovanni was racing to find her. Although reality was fading in and
out, Nicoletta could hear the pounding footsteps and loud voices like thunder
in her ears.