Nicoletta was pleased to see they were hand in hand, already firm friends. She kissed them both, laughing as they danced around her in their exuberance. The breeze was fresh on Nicoletta's face, bringing the sea with it. She looked from the laughing children to the garden of flowers, shrubs, and trees and felt alive again.
Maria Pia smiled gently at her. "You have shadows in your eyes."
Nicoletta glanced up at the row of windows. They looked baleful, staring grimly at her. "I went to look at the artwork in your bedchamber and almost stuck my hand into a nest of scorpions someone had placed beneath the coverlet on your bed." She said it softly, making certain the yelling children would not hear her.
Maria Pia gasped, visibly paling. "Scorpions? Who would have done such a thing?"
"I am very afraid for Sophie, not to mention you, Maria Pia I think the soup Sophie ate the night she became sick was tainted on purpose. The voices she hears are very real. I do not know why her life would be in danger, but I think it is. You must watch her at all times. I have already asked the don to place guards at your door at night. He is moving you and the bambina to another room."
"Nicoletta!" Ketsia yelled. "Come on! Find us."
Nicoletta watched the girls disappear into the maze. "I had better chase after them. If I do not wear them out before nightfall, they will keep us both up too late."
"Ketsia asks more questions than any ten children," Maria Pia said with a smile, "and Sophie is beginning to follow her example. She is becoming more and more like a normal child. Ketsia is a good influence on her. I will watch over her all the time, Nicoletta."
"Well, I will go chase the little imps down and let you have a much-earned rest." Nicoletta glanced back at the unsuspecting guards and took off running, a flash of bare legs and long hair flying, her laughter taunting the soldiers as the labyrinth swallowed her up.
Maria Pia leapt out of the way as the two guards scrambled after their charge. Nicoletta was already well out of sight, running along the twists and turns, following the sound of the children's laughter. Small flowers were scattered along the paths, and beneath her bare feet the lush carpet of grasses felt soft and natural. She ran fast, lifting her face to the wind, feeling free. When Nicoletta knew she was some distance from the center of the courtyard, she slowed so she could enjoy the beauty of the maze. The shrubs were tall, well over her head, and very thick, forming a solid wall she couldn't see through. "Nicoletta!" Ketsia was giggling, her young voice carefree and happy. "Where are you?"
"Where are you?" Sophie echoed. "You cannot find us." There was more giggling just ahead, so Nicoletta slowed her walking further so she wouldn't catch up too quickly.
"I am right behind you," she called, attempting to block out everything sinister and frightening about the palazzo to enjoy this moment with the children.
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.
Chapter Sixteen
 
; 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 fadin
g in and out, Nicoletta could hear the pounding footsteps and loud voices like thunder in her ears.
Aljandro panicked and dropped her. He stood over her a moment while she gagged and choked. "I am not the only one who wants you dead." He spat at her, then turned and fled into the high walls of the labyrinth.
Giovanni and Francesco reached her at the same time. The don was like a man possessed. He shoved the guard away from her, reaching to gather her into his arms, his face a mask of fury as he took in the dark finger marks around her neck and throat. "Where were you?" He turned on the guard, the other soldiers running up. "I gave you one job--to keep her safe. One job! You find the man who did this to her. Find him and bring him to me! None of you dare return without him!"
Vincente and Antonello had followed their brother when he had set off at a dead run, unerringly following Nicoletta's path through the maze. "Who did this?" Antonello asked her gently.
It took several tries to make her voice work, swollen as her throat was. "Aljandro. Dressed like a soldier." She croaked the words, and each one hurt. Nicoletta clung to Giovanni, her body trembling in reaction, as much from being the target of such hatred as from Aljandro's nearly mortal assault.
"You find him!" Giovanni repeated, sounding every inch the don. "Do not return to me without him." The tone of his voice conveyed a very real threat. "I want every man searching for him. Antonello, you know what to do. Do not let me down. I fear I will not forgive any of you easily for the success of this attack on my wife."
He swung around and carried her through the narrow pathways, the twist and turns of the maze. Every step he took seemed to build his anger. "This will not happen again, Nicoletta. Never again!" he hissed under his breath, more to himself than to her. As he strode across the courtyard, he raised his voice and called for Gostanz and Maria Pia. There was rage in his voice, in his walk, in every gesture he made. A fury riding him so hard, Nicoletta was almost afraid to move.
She coughed several times in an attempt to retrieve her voice. Her heartbeat was returning to normal. She was very aware of Don Scarletti's growing agitation. He could not feign the trembling in his body, the rage running through him as hot and dangerous as any volcano. She nestled closer into his body, her arms circling his neck so that the bloodstained shirt fluttered for a moment against him. "I'm sorry I doubted you," she croaked hoarsely.