Page 85 of Thus with a Kiss I Die
“I still sometimes see the dark of the dungeon. He sees only the light that came after, and is joyful.”
I had suspected that truth about Cal; that he felt comfortable enough to share that glimpse of himself caused my trembling to ease, and I felt as if I could once again breathe easily.
Cal continued, “No, it’s not possible for Holofernes to have killed my father. The following year, Dion came to me from my wife’s family, a cousin to her, and a young but skilled warrior. He was in the nature of a gift and not in place for the assassination. Which leaves us Marcellus.”
I sipped the wine and handed it back to him, and ate some of the bread crust with cheese—I wasn’t going anywhere near sexual apples or sticky, sweet honey—and when it was clear that Cal waited for my words, I said, “Some months ago, you told me that the very day Elder released you from the dungeon, Marcellus appeared in Verona with the sworn intent of serving the house of Leonardi. Your father recognized his fighting skills, and the need to have protection for you, who was not yet recovered, and hired him.”
“Now Marcellus commands my guard and the respect of all.”
“So you have said. Yet he was in place. He could have murdered your father, and now attacked Nonna Ursula.”
In an unspoken admission that yes, Marcellus was in place for Elder’s assassination, Cal said, “He was fighting at my side during the attack on Nonna Ursula.”
“You had him within view at all times? Because he could have obtained the tools and the accomplice to tear the grate off the wall outside her room, while he, within, slinked through the corridors and battered an old woman almost to the door of heaven.”
“The combat with the flagellants was all around us.” A concession that Marcellus had fought apart from him.
“If I understand correctly, the battle was pointed tooth and naked claw, a mêlée of unmatched viciousness.”
“You don’t like Marcellus.”
I tried to decide how to explain the relationship between Marcellus and me, and finally settled on the time-honored “He started it.”
Cal gave his brief burst of laughter, and the unused sound of it made me want to laugh, too. But the food and wine had begun to work its magic, my gut ached and my face hurt, and I grew weary.
Cal took the trencher out of my hands and placed it on the tray. “I would trust Marcellus with my life, and more important, with my sister’s life, my grandmother’s life, and your life.” He leaned over me as if to kiss me.
I couldn’t quite decide how to handle this. Say no? Say yes? Say nothing and let him do what he would, knowing my family was nearby?
But his face passed my face, and he picked up the icy cloth and placed it on my swollen cheek. “Now I go and leave you to sleep, and when you wake, your family will be around you, sunshine will beam through the windows, and Nonna Ursula will be awake to tell us who our villain is.”
“I do so pray.”
He eased a pillow out from underneath my shoulders, leaned close—
I heard giggling, and the chant I’d heard so many times about my sisters as I arranged their marriages: “Cal and Rosie, sitting in a tree,k-i-ss-i-n-g.”
I wanted to throw something at my darling siblings.
Cal gave a dry chuckle and straightened up. “Emilia and Cesario, I leave your sister in your capable hands.Adio,Rosie, and let our palms do what lips do. They pray.” He offered the flat of his hand to me, and I pressed my palm against his.
A nice twist on Romeo and Juliet’s meeting.
Cal walked past my family and into the corridor. He met Lysander, put a hand on his shoulder, then spoke earnestly to him. He gestured up, holding an imaginary lamp. Lysander nodded to him, then to me, and they walked away together.
Oh, good. They were bonding over lamps.
I glared at the two smirking children peering in my door . . . no, the four smirking children, and Papà holding the babies, and I halfway raised up on my elbows. “When I can stand, I’m going to make you all sorry!”
With wild shrieks, the children fled down the corridor.
I laughed.Little snots.
Papà lingered in the doorway, a big snot holding two potential little snots. “Mamma sends her love, and wishes she could come to you, but she needs more time.”
“I know, Papà. Kiss her and give her my love. I’ll be better tomorrow. I’ll come to her tomorrow.” My smiling lips straightened and became a determined line, and I held up one finger—notthatfinger—in defiance. “Then I’ll go to the palace and I will find the one who has brought this trouble on us all. I will end this terror, if it’s the last thing I do.”
The babies’ tiny faces screwed up and they began to wail.
