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hearty stew. “It would’ve been far safer. And without horses? Guards? Do you not know what could happen to you—to us, for hiding you?”
    I stared back at him. “Trust me when I say we had no other option.”
    “Siena owes you a great deal,” he said with a slow nod. “And as a loyalist, I do too. We lost this edge of the border, and the castellos, but we held a great deal. Most credit the Ladies Betarrini and Lord Forelli and his men for accomplishing that.”
    My heart pounded at the sound of the Forelli name on his lips. “Lord Forelli—do you speak of Marcello?”
    He nodded, once. “Lord Fortino has long languished in Firenze’s prison.”
    I paused, absorbing his words. Fortino in prison? Still? No. It’s not possible… “How long?” I asked.
    “Since the battle ended, more than a year ago now.”
    I glanced at Lia and Mom. A year ago. It’d been autumn when we left. It was winter now, so I figured we’d returned about fifteen months later. Fifteen months! Had Marcello given up on me?
    “Fortino still lives?”
    He shook his head gently. “I have not heard a report in some time, but we hear very little in the country.”
    “Especially on this side of the border,” his wife added.
    I sighed. Fortino had been in such poor shape when we last saw him—beaten and bloody—how could he have survived more than a year in prison?
    “Lord Marcello has been given the title in Lord Fortino’s absence and made one of the Nine.”
    “One of the Nine?” Lia asked in wonder. “He’s in Siena?”
    “As we speak,” Signore Giannini said. “He resides in Lord Rossi’s palazzo.” He stared at me, still clearly wondering why we hadn’t gone there first.
    “And the Rossis?” I asked. “What became of them?”
    “Tried for treason and hanged at the city gates,” he said with satisfaction. “Every last one of them.”
    I shuddered, thinking of Lady Romana, her father, and the rest of the family strung up from the gallows. They deserved it, for their treachery. How many Sienese had died trying to turn back an attack the Rossis had helped orchestrate? Hundreds? Thousands? But still, I had known them. Eaten with them, conversed with them…slept in their house. And poor Fortino. He’d almost married Romana, seemed to genuinely care for her. What damage had that heartache done to his battle for life?
    We each had a few bites of stew, conscious that we were taking the family’s only food, and filled up on water.
    “You can sleep here tonight,” Signore Giannini said. “But I must insist you be gone before daybreak.”
    “What would happen if we were discovered here?” Dad asked.
    Our host looked at him as if he were crazy. “We had to swear our allegiance to Firenze in order to keep our farm. My family and I would die if they knew of our betrayal,” he said. “And the man who found you would be very rich. The bounty for the Ladies Betarrini has been set for more than any other in my lifetime.”
    “A price on your heads,” Dad muttered under his breath in English. “Just what we needed.”
    Lia smiled. “Don’t worry,” she said lowly. “We’re used to it.”

Chapter Three
     
    The Gianninis managed to borrow a neighbor’s horse and gave us two of their own, too. Although one was an ancient nag with a sway back and another carried both me and Lia, we made good time; by noon we were about halfway to Siena.
    As the forest thinned and the road widened, I got more and more excited about seeing Marcello. “He remains your own,” Signora Giannini had said. “Long has he pined for you, even while he draws the eye of many eligible young women. Hurry to him,” she said with a sideways squeeze of my shoulders. “He will be beside himself with joy.”
    I intended to. In fact I continually fought the urge to break our horse into a full-on gallop. We’d just turned the bend when we saw twenty-four men on horseback, coming our way. “Good guys?” Dad asked.
    “They have to be, this far