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in,” I said, hoping my tone conveyed more confidence than I felt. After all, it had been right about here that we’d once been ambushed on the road to Siena. “If they were Fiorentini, they’d hardly be so bold.”
    We pulled up and waited for the men. In minutes they were before us, their horses prancing on the muddy road. “State your name and business,” demanded the captain, his brown eyes snapping from one of us to the next.
    “We are the Betarrini family, on our way to see Lord Forelli,” Dad said, just as we’d rehearsed it.
    The younger man beside the captain let his mouth drop open, then abruptly closed it. They shared a glance and he nodded once. “It is they. I met them more than a year ago in the Rossi palazzo. At a ball.” His eyes traveled up and down me, then across Lia, obviously thinking we didn’t look nearly as hot as we had then. And we weren’t riding sidesaddle, causing many men to crane their heads for another look.
    “We shall escort you to Lord Forelli,” the captain said. “While these roads have remained safe for some time, Marcello would have our heads if any harm came to you.”
    My eyes met his. “You know Marcello?”
    He smiled, and I saw a cute gap between his front teeth. “Since we were boys,” he said with a nod. “I am Captain Anselmo Palmucci. This is my brother, Alessio,” he said, looking to the younger man beside him.
    “I am Lady Gabriella Betarrini.” I went on to introduce my sister and parents. Then we moved out, down the road, Captain Palmucci and his brother flanking me and my sister, while others protected my parents. An extra mount was found for my sister, and the men insisted my mother not travel on the old nag’s sway back.
    “Hardly appropriate,” said Captain Palmucci, “for any of the Ladies Betarrini to travel on anything less than a fine mount.” Arrangement were made to send the horses back to the Gianninis, and we moved out at a faster pace.
    “We have been gone for some time,” I said. “We gained word my father was alive—not dead, as we had presumed—and we were blessed to find him. Tell me, what has transpired for Siena in the last year?”
    “We turned the Fiorentini back in the great battle, but, as I assume you know, we lost both Castello Forelli and Castello Paratore, as well as another outpost on our northwest border. Since then there have been skirmishes here and there but no further battle.” He shrugged his shoulders. “They taunt us; we taunt them. But it is all bravado, an effort to keep the enemy in line.”
    “And…Lord Fortino Forelli? What word have you about him?”
    Captain Palmucci hesitated and then looked at me from the corner of his eye. “He remains imprisoned. The Fiorentini have been most vile in their treatment of him, but as of a month ago, he still lived.”
    I swallowed hard. It took little for me to remember the cold, shivering nights of the cage, the people throwing rotten fruit at me as I entered the city. How much worse had Fortino suffered? How much more could he tolerate, given his once-weakened health? The last time we were here, such continuous trauma would have sent him into asthmatic fits.
    “Marcello must have plans to free him,” I said.
    “He has tried every diplomatic road possible.”
    I stared hard at him. Diplomatic, right. But by now Marcello had to be thinking of something more Tough Guy. Like storming the city. The problem was that Firenze seemed to have twice the men Siena had. Hand to hand, our soldiers could be easily turned back. We needed a diversion to draw them out…or gain a way in.
    I thought of Lord Greco, the man who had both imprisoned and freed me, and how his tat matched Marcello’s—they were clearly a part of some sort of ancient brotherhood. My eyes slid over to Captain Palmucci. Was he one of them too?
    “Tell me, Captain Palmucci,” I said, “how is it that I met your brother at a ball in Siena, but not you?”
    “I was otherwise occupied, working on