His eyes closed. "Together."
They were together four hours later when Marco died.
Caterina stepped forward and gently unclasped Marco's hand from Bianca's. "Take her to her chamber, Sanchia." She closed her eyes tightly for an instant before opening them to say huskily, "I must stay here and prepare my son."
Bianca nodded obediently. "Yes, I'll go now." She stood up and looked down at Marco's face. "Arrivederci, Marco."
Not good-bye. Just till we meet again. Sanchia was barely able to suppress her tears as she gently took Bianca's arm and propelled her toward the door. Bianca's step was unsteady and Sanchia glanced up, expecting to see her face contorted with sorrow. Bianca's expression was serene. "Sanchia, I'd like to see the priest."
"We sent to the cathedral for him several hours ago, but he didn't come." Sanchia added gently, "Marco was a good man, Bianca. God will accept him without the last rites."
"God has already accepted him," Bianca said. "The priest is for me. I'd like to take confession before I die."
Sanchia gazed at her in shock. "Bianca, what--"
"I do not feel well. I told Marco the truth: God isgood." She smiled radiantly at Sanchia. "Together."
Sanchia's hand tightened on Bianca's arm. "As soon as I put you to bed I myself will get the priest."
Bianca collapsed on reaching her chamber and lingered for another two days before she was devoured by the monster ravaging Mandara.
It was proving to be a virulent, insatiable, indiscriminate monster, bringing down servants, soldiers, women, children. Fully half of those in the castle had been struck down by the third day and Caterina told Sanchia the townfolk had been as tragically affected. Sanchia was left with the nursing of Bianca while Caterina tried to ease the suffering of her people beyond the walls of the castle.
Sanchia was forced to send for Caterina at the hour of Bianca's death.
"Dear God," Caterina said softly as she opened the door and the foul stench assaulted her. "Dear God in heaven."
"I need more water. The servants were bringing me a pitcher of water every few hours and setting it outside the door, but they haven't come back since last night." Sanchia was dabbing futilely with a towel at the black suppurations on Bianca's body. "I've got to make her beautiful again. How can I make her beautiful, if I have no water to wash her?"
"Her boils burst." Caterina swallowed hard and then came forward to stand beside Sanchia. "Most of them die before that happens."
"I need water."
"There is no water. The well in the city is fouled. I am permitting everyone to come to the castle and use the cistern in the courtyard for their needs. The cistern is dry now, too." Caterina gently closed Bianca's lips which were stretched wide in a silent scream. "We'll have to take a wagon to the vineyard and bring back water from the well there."
"I must get her clean. She was so beautiful... "
"Shh, I'll help you." Caterina took the towel away from Sanchia. "But this little cloth won't do. I'll try to find a sheet and perhaps some water in a ewer in one of the bedchambers." She turned and left Bianca's chamber to return in only minutes.
"She kept asking for the priest," Sanchia said numbly as they washed Bianca's pitifully boil-covered body. "I couldn't tell her the priest was either gone or hiding, so I lied to her. When she was in such pain that she couldn't tell the difference, I pretended the priest was here and took her confession myself. Was I wrong, Lady Caterina?"
"Caterina." Lion's mother shook her head. "I would have done the same. God is too busy striking us down to bother with confessions at the moment." She turned to Sanchia. "You'll have to help me build a coffin for her. The men who were building them in the courtyard appear to have run away, and there's no one to do my bidding. Do you know anything of carpentry, Sanchia?"
Sanchia shook her head.
"Neither do I, but it can't be so difficult if those cowardly louts were able to do it." Caterina shrugged. "There must be some dignity in death. We're not savages to pile our dead on the door stoops or leave them in the gutters as those beleaguered souls in the city are doing."
"Is that what's happening?"
Caterina nodded. "There is no sanity. There's weeping and wailing from some and drunkenness and rape from others." She straightened. "I'll get my needle and thread and we'll sew a shroud from this sheet. Then we'll try our hands at fashioning a coffin. Where's Anna? She can help us with the sewing."
Sanchia tried to focus her mind on something besides the last harrowing hours with Bianca. She hadn't seen Bianca's maid, Anna, since a short while after Bianca collapsed. "I think she may have run away too. She was frightened."
"We're all frightened." Caterina went to the door. "We'll probably have to carry Bianca down to the chapel ourselves. Perhaps we'd better build the coffin in the chapel." She opened the door and left the chamber.
Sanchia sat in the chair beside the bed and closed her eyes. Please, God, you've taken the innocent, the shining, the beautiful. Please, no more.
"Are you ill?" It was Caterina's sharp voice behind her.
"No." Sanchia opened her eyes to see Caterina in the doorway carrying her sewing basket. She straightened in the chair. "I was only resting a moment."
"There will be time for rest later." Caterina strode forward and set the basket on the bed. "Help me wrap the sheet around her."
It was well after dark when Bianca lay secure in her clumsily crafted coffin in the chapel.
"Come, do not linger here. They're no longer with us. Do you not feel it?" Caterina pulled Sanchia from the chapel and down the steps to the courtyard.
No torches lit the darkness.
No footsteps of grooms or guards sounded on the cobblestones.
Sanchia ran her hand wearily through her hair. "Perhaps I'm too tired to feel anything."
Caterina nodded. "We must rest." Her hand dropped from Sanchia's arm. "But first come with me."
Sanchia followed Caterina into the castle and up the stairs, but instead of going toward the bedchambers Caterina went to the door at the end of the hall leading to the tower.
"Caterina?"
"Come."
Sanchia followed her up the steps, past the chamber where Lion had carried her the evening that seemed so long ago. They stopped at a door at the very top of the tower.
Caterina opened it and preceded Sanchia into the room.
It was the chamber of the Wind Dancer.
The statue was not in its chest but sitting atop a pedestal. Across the moonlit chamber the eyes of the Pegasus appeared to shimmer with life as it stared blindly at them.
Sanchia took an instinctive step back. "I don't want to stay here."
"Please, if you would be so kind. I need someone here with me. I'll try not to be long." Caterina's voice was unsteady. "I have to say good-bye to my son. There's been no time before this. Marco liked this room."
Sanchia felt a rush of sympathy. Both she and Caterina had been forced to submerge their grief for the dead to help the living. She, too, had need to say good-bye. "Of course." She shut the door. "We'll stay as long as you like."
"Sit down and rest." Caterina indicated a chair across the room. She dropped down on the rug and leaned her head back against the stone wall. "And I'll sit here. Have you ever noticed children will never sit on chairs when they can sit on the floor? I used to bring Marco here when he was a small child to see the Wind Dancer and we would sit here on the floor together for hours and talk and play games."
Sanchia sat down beside Caterina. "I know. Piero used to sit on the floor beside my chair at the scribe table when I was copying and I would reach down and stroke his hair." She had to stop for a moment to steady her voice. "His hair was as soft as spring air beneath my fingers."
"Marco's skin felt like rose petals to the touch."
"Piero's voice was hoarse as a frog's when he first got up in the morning."
"Marco's fingers were always stained with paint when he came to meals."
"Piero w
as so terribly stubborn."
"Marco was so very gentle."
There was a long silence in the room.
Caterina said, "I can remember how Marco used to stare at the statue and make me tell him all the stories about the Wind Dancer that Carlo's father had told me. There were so many stories.... I was afraid I'd forget them, so I had a scribe set them down on parchment and had them bound in a book."
"And you gave it to Marco?"
Caterina shook her head. "Lion has them somewhere among his papers at the shipyard. By that time, Marco was no longer coming here. He had begun to paint and the Wind Dancer no longer gave him pleasure, only pain."
"Why?"
"I asked him that question once. He said he knew he'd never be able to fashion anything one tenth as beautiful and the knowledge of his own inadequacy filled him with sadness." Caterina paused, gazing at the statue. "It filled me with sadness too. For I knew I'd lost those hours with him and he'd grow away from me just as Lion was doing. Marco was never again as much mine as he was during those hours in this room."
Sanchia's gaze shifted from the Wind Dancer to see Caterina's eyes glistening in the dimness of the chamber. She did not know what to say. "Marco loved you. He seemed to love everyone."
"Yes, but Bianca most of all. I should not have tried to take Bianca from him. I thought it was for the best." Caterina's eyes closed. "Now I don't know what is for the best. Nothing is clear."
"No, nothing is clear." Sanchia reached out tentatively and covered Caterina's hand with her own.
Caterina stiffened and for a moment Sanchia thought she'd pull away. Then Caterina sank back against the stone wall, her fingers clinging to Sanchia's. "Is it selfish of me to want to mourn my son when so many others are dying? Surely a son's death deserves a private grief." She paused and when she spoke again her voice vibrated with pain. "Marco!"
Sanchia could feel the tears running down her cheeks as the grief of her own loss welled up within her in an overwhelming tide. Her shoulders began to shake as great sobs racked her body and she wept for all of them. Piero and Bianca and Marco... and all those whose names she did not even know.
And the emerald eyes of the Wind Dancer gazed serenely at Caterina and Sanchia as they huddled together, silently sharing their grief, until neither had more tears to shed.
The next morning after waking from an exhausted sleep Caterina and Sanchia left the tower room and the Wind Dancer and went out again to face the Medusa.
The first order of the day was the fetching of the water from the well in the vineyards. They hitched a horse to a wagon and Caterina drove into the city.
Mandara was silent, the hooves of the horse clattering noisily on the cobblestones as the wagon wound through the twisting streets leading to the outer gates.
Rats and birds swarmed in the streets. Occasionally Sanchia would see a corpse left lying in the gutter or on a step as Caterina had described. She hastily looked away, especially when she caught sight of scurrying motion near the bodies.
The city gates were unguarded, thrown wide. They passed through, immediately bearing north to traverse the few miles to the vineyard at as fast a clip as the lone horse could manage.
"It appears deserted," Sanchia said as they approached the large fieldstone winery. "How many men work in the vineyard?"
"Only one or two at this time of year. Of course, at picking time there are many more." Caterina reined in the horse and wagon before the well. She raised her voice and called loudly, "Ho! Is anyone here? Leonardo!"
No answer.
Caterina shrugged. "It seems we'll have no help." She leapt down from the wagon. "I had hoped for better luck. We'll be able to manage only the small casks by ourselves." She strode toward the winery. "Start drawing water from the well. I'll roll the casks out and you fill them."
The task of drawing buckets of water from the well and pouring them into the casks was not so difficult after Sanchia developed a rhythm for the work. However, it was when the casks were sealed that the real labor began. Even the small casks weighed well over a hundred pounds when filled. Lifting the casks onto the bed of the wagon was an unbearable strain on Sanchia's and Caterina's muscles. The sweat was running down their faces and soaking through their gowns in dark patches when the last cask was stowed.
Caterina leaned against the wagon, her breath coming in gasps. "Cristo, I'm glad that's over. I never realized water could be so--What's wrong with your hand? It's bleeding."
Sanchia glanced down. A small cut bled freely on her right palm. "I don't know. I must have cut it on one of the casks. Perhaps it's a splinter. It's not important."
Caterina frowned. "What do you mean it's not important? It could fester." She lifted her skirt and began tearing at her undershift. "I've seen splinters that have laid low strong men. Do you want to go to your deathbed, you foolish--" She gazed at Sanchia in bafflement.
Sanchia laughed. She laughed so hard she was forced to cling to the side of the wagon to keep from falling to the ground. "Caterina, you can't... " Laughter continued to overwhelm her.
"I see nothing the least bit amusing."
"Caterina, madre di Dio, if I go to my deathbed in Mandara it won't be due to a splinter. There's plague."
Caterina's eyes widened and then she began to chuckle. "I believe I've heard rumors to that effect." In another moment she too was laughing helplessly, tears running down her cheeks. "I didn't think." She shook her head. "A splinter. Sweet Mary, a tiny splinter... "
"We shouldn't be laughing," Sanchia gasped. "There's nothing at all funny." She started to laugh again. "Why can't I stop?"
"Lorenzo once said something about how nature protects." Caterina wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. "Perhaps laughter is the way nature keeps us sane when there's too much sorrow to be borne." She shook her head. "Anyway, I feel the better for it. Now give me your hand and let me bind it. If the plague doesn't kill you, I won't have this idiotic splinter doing so."
Sanchia offered her hand and stood patiently while Caterina cleaned and bandaged the tiny cut.
"You could stay here, you know," Caterina said in a low voice as she tied the knot in the makeshift bandage. "You might be safe here away from the city."
"And I might not."
"It's not your home. No duty holds you at Mandara."
"You need me."
"Yes, I need you," Caterina said wearily. "And God knows I don't want you to leave. You... comfort me."
Sanchia nodded, feeling great affection for Caterina as she looked at her. The woman before her was no longer the elegant, queenly lady of Mandara. Caterina's amber silk gown was stained and her face carved with deep lines of weariness and suffering. Yet Caterina had never looked more the illustrissima than she did at this moment. "And you comfort me. Therefore it only makes sense that we stay together." She gently took Caterina's arm. "We'd better go. They need the water in the city. Where shall we unload it?"
"On the steps of the cathedral. We'll keep two of the casks for the castle and leave the others."
"Should it not be rationed?"
"Who is to ration it? The priest is gone and we'll be too busy nursing the sick." Caterina turned and strode to the wagon. "We'll make a trip every day and draw fresh water." She climbed into the driver's seat. "Unless this well also runs dry or becomes polluted. It wouldn't surprise me. Good fortune seems to have forgotten Mandara."
Sanchia found her life in the days to follow a despairing round of fetching water, nursing the sick, preparing the dead, and building their coffins. Only one young scullery maid recovered from the disease, and Sanchia had no faith her cure was permanent. Death was everywhere. Why should anyone be spared? She knew it was only a matter of time until the Medusa touched her as well. When children as innocent as Piero and Bianca were taken there was no doubt a sinner such as she would be taken, too.
And poor, shining Marco...
"I went to the piazza to fetch the physician for young Donato. To no avail, I see," Caterina said
as she knelt beside Sanchia on the cobblestones of the courtyard. "Here let me help you with that." She began to bathe the body of the groom, who had died only minutes ago. "It's strange how we no longer notice the stench," she said absently. She looked up. "The physician has fled the city."
"He could not help anyway." Sanchia shrugged. "But fleeing will do him no good." She looked up at Caterina. "We're all going to die, aren't we?"
"Probably. But I resent the whoreson giving up the battle before it's lost. I didn't. You didn't." She tossed the cleaning cloth back into the water in the basin. "The city is almost deserted. Those who aren't dying or cowering in their houses have fled like the physician."
Sanchia spread a clean linen sheet over the body of Donato. She supposed she should say a prayer over him, but she couldn't seem to think of any words.
"Some of the sick have crawled to the steps of the cathedral and lie there begging God and the saints for aid. I doubt if God will answer. Perhaps you'd better go and see if you can substitute."
"Me? Alone?"
Caterina nodded. "I'll soon be of no help to you."
Sanchia stiffened, her gaze flying to Caterina's face. She had thought she had become numb to all sorrow but she found she was wrong. "When?"
"When did I notice this pesky boil beneath my armpit? Last night."
But Caterina had kept on working unceasingly, probably on strength of will alone. Sanchia studied Caterina's face and for the first time noticed the flush mantling her cheeks and the lines of pain drawn around her lips. "I won't leave you."
"I didn't think you would." Caterina's smile lit her strained face with sudden brilliance. "I suppose I should try to persuade you to do so and go to those who have more need, but I think I'll indulge myself by dying with a friend nearby. I have no desire to die alone and smothered by four walls." Her smile faded and she held out her hand to Sanchia. "Will you come with me to my garden... friend?"
Sanchia slowly stood up and took Caterina's hand. She held it very tightly as they walked to where the Medusa waited in the sunlight, among the roses for Caterina.
"Why didn't he come back?" Lion murmured, his gaze on the charred skeleton of the Dancer at the dock. "He said he was returning to burn the shipyard. Why didn't he do it?"