Tuscan Rose (53 page)

‘Baa! Baa! Baa!’

‘God!’ said Fiamma. ‘She’s like a baby. I guess we’ll just have to wait until the men come back. One of them will have to do it.’

‘They won’t be back until this evening,’ Rosa said. ‘Can you watch this lamb all day knowing that later someone is going to slit her throat?’

Fiamma bit her lip and shrugged. ‘I suppose you’re right. And the men will be tired and hungry when they come back. They’ll be
angry that we haven’t dealt with this ourselves. I might have suggested that we draw straws but I know you won’t be able to do it.’

Fiamma went to the box where they kept the knives and selected one.

‘It’s not sharp enough,’ Rosa said, her heart in her throat. ‘She’ll die slowly and in agony.’

Fiamma touched her thumb to the blade and saw that it was blunt. ‘I guess that you and I are two hopeless town women,’ she said, sharpening the knife on a stone.

The lamb nudged Rosa’s leg again. Rosa couldn’t look at its trusting face. Did it expect mercy from a human being of all creatures? Couldn’t it see what they were?

When Fiamma had finished sharpening the knife she placed it in her belt and picked up the lamb. ‘I won’t do it in front of you,’ she said. ‘I’ll go into the forest.’

Rosa watched Fiamma disappear with the lamb into the trees. She had to turn away when she saw the lamb wagging its tail happily, as if this were some sort of game. The lamb was like a woolly dog. Rosa felt sick. Killing it would be like killing Ambrosio.

Rosa distracted herself by repairing some of the men’s clothes and tidying the hospital tent. She cut up the vegetables and began preparing a stew. When Fiamma hadn’t returned after an hour, she grew uneasy. Had she been caught by Germans? Had she stepped on a landmine? She regretted that because of her Fiamma had felt obliged to go away into the forest. Another hour passed and Rosa took her gun, checked it and reloaded it. She was alone in the camp now and had a strange sense that she was being watched. She couldn’t leave the camp unguarded—but where was Fiamma?

Another hour passed and there was still no sign of Fiamma or the men, who Rosa had expected to have returned by now. The sky was turning dark. She scanned the trees nervously. Suddenly she heard bleating and the lamb appeared from the forest, bouncing towards her. Rosa stood up, sure now that something had
happened to Fiamma. She picked up the lamb and heard a crackle of twigs. She took her gun and slid down into the trench, staring into the dim light. She heard another sound, this time from somewhere behind her. She remembered the day the storm-troopers had surrounded the Flock and was sure she was finished. At least the rest of the partisans weren’t there to be killed along with her.

A hand grabbed her shoulder. Rosa spun around and found Fiamma crouching down next to the trench. ‘I couldn’t do it,’ she said. ‘All I could see was your unhappy face.’

Rosa clutched her chest. ‘You gave me a fright!’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you call out when you approached the camp?’

Fiamma had a wild look in her eyes. She didn’t respond to Rosa’s question. ‘Then I thought about it,’ she said, tucking her hair behind her ears. ‘I didn’t want to kill the lamb either. I was going to kill her because I thought the men would be displeased with me if I didn’t. Then suddenly it occurred to me: to hell with that! Why should I be living my life to please men all the time? You and I are risking our lives, and many women like the Canary and Gina have lost theirs, and this country wouldn’t even give us the vote. Yes, darling, no, darling, I’ll kill a lamb and cook it for you, darling. No more!’

Rosa was puzzled. This was a side of Fiamma she hadn’t seen. She was normally so placid, so willing to please.

‘I tell you,’ said Fiamma, looking at Rosa with burning eyes, ‘if after this war is over we still don’t get the vote, I’m going to live in America.’

Rosa was considering reminding Fiamma that under Mussolini men hadn’t had the right to vote for the past twenty years either, when she heard the crackle of twigs behind her again. She put her fingers to her lips. ‘Shh!’ she told Fiamma.

‘Don’t shush me,’ Fiamma replied. ‘I’ve been put in my place enough!’

Rosa pointed to where the sound had come from. ‘Someone’s watching us.’

Fiamma climbed into the trench with Rosa and took out her pistol.

‘Who’s there?’ Rosa called out.

‘Nervous lot, aren’t you?’ answered a familiar voice. It was Ada’s. ‘You’ve made this new camp difficult to find!’

‘
Dio Buono
!’ cried Rosa. It was the second near heart attack she’d had in five minutes.

Ada and Paolina had come to the camp to give them the message that the Germans were holding three hundred hostages in Florence and had threatened to shoot them if any more Germans were killed. ‘They’ve also brought some guns up from the front and have situated them around the city. The Allies are now forty-five miles away,’ said Ada.

‘The Germans’ “scorched earth policy” has taken a turn for the worse,’ added Paolina. ‘They are raping whole villages of women and children and slaughtering livestock even when they have no intention of eating it themselves.’

Rosa shivered when she remembered what Osvaldo had done to her. It was so long ago now. But she would not wish that terror on others.

‘They are not going to make it easy for the Allies to march through the north and then take Germany,’ Ada said. ‘They have destroyed factories and laboratories in Florence and stolen artworks. We are going to be left paupers.’

‘It sounds to me as if they are an army terrified of the people around them,’ said Rosa. ‘And it’s a sign that they see the defeat of Germany as inevitable now.’

‘No,’ said Ada, shaking her head. ‘That’s exactly the opposite of what they think. They keep talking about a secret weapon Germany has been developing—something so terrible the world has never seen the likes of it before. They are going to use it on Britain first.’

‘They place a lot of weight on it,’ agreed Paolina. ‘Everything they do is to try to buy time.’

Rosa looked from Ada to Paolina. Was there any truth in the speculation or was it just propaganda? She had also heard the
rumours about a weapon so powerful it would bring entire nations to their knees in a matter of hours.

As well as the news, Ada and Paolina had brought food.

‘The farmers around us have been generous,’ Ada said. ‘The Gatekeeper said we should share it.’

Rosa opened the sack Ada had brought and found loaves of bread. ‘We haven’t seen this much bread…well, since before the war.’

‘It’s a peace offering from the Gatekeeper,’ said Ada. ‘We’d have a much better chance of getting the Germans out of Florence if our bands were together again. Do you think you could talk to the Falcon?’

‘I’ve tried,’ said Rosa. ‘But I will talk to him again. Maybe when he hears what you’ve told us he will come around.’

Among the other things Ada had brought was some milk, which the women all agreed they would give to the lamb.

‘But we don’t have a bottle,’ Rosa said.

‘You don’t need one,’ replied Ada. ‘What you do is dip your finger in the milk then let her suck on it until she learns to drink on her own. She’s old enough to do that.’

The women watched the lamb, who they had decided to call Speranza, which meant ‘hope’, drinking her milk and wagging her tail.

‘The men will want to eat her when they see her,’ said Paolina.

‘Too bad,’ said Fiamma. ‘She’s Raven’s pet now.’

Darkness was falling and with it came the sound of renewed shelling. Some of the explosions, although far away, vibrated through the earth underneath them. Rosa wondered if the mountains would collapse from the shocks.

‘You’d better stay here for the night,’ she told Ada and Paolina.

They were all glad when the men began returning in small groups from their mission.

‘They are evacuating the houses along the Arno,’ Luciano told Rosa. ‘They are about to declare the city in a state of emergency and all residents are to stay indoors. The Allies must be close. A
partisan from Florence told us that it’s a New Zealand battalion that’s clearing the route to the city.’

Rosa thought of the New Zealander she had nursed at the officers’ prisoner of war hospital. How proud he would have been.

Luciano noticed Ada and Paolina. Ada was adding some wild herbs she’d collected to Rosa’s stew, while Paolina came over to relay to him the information dispatched by Giovanni. Luciano saw the ample bread the men were being served with the stew and realised that it had been sent by Giovanni too.

‘I will go with you when you return to your camp tomorrow and speak to the Gatekeeper,’ he told Paolina. ‘The partisans in Florence have asked us to help take back the city and welcome the Allies when they arrive.’

Starling eyed Speranza, who was tied to Rosa and Fiamma’s tent. ‘When are we going to eat that?’ he asked.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Fiamma warned him. ‘It’s Raven’s pet.’

Starling rolled his eyes. ‘No, seriously, if you’re not going to eat it what do you intend to do with it?’

‘Wait until it grows bigger,’ answered Rosa, glancing at Fiamma. ‘Then we’ll shear it and make socks from the wool.’

‘Are you serious?’ Starling asked.

‘Of course,’ replied Rosa. ‘You don’t
need
to eat lamb to live but everybody
needs
a pair of woolly socks, don’t they?’

Starling stared at her, mulling over her words. ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he said.

When the men had settled down for the evening, Rosa and Ada, having had the least strenuous day, stayed up to keep watch. The sounds of shelling and cannons whistled and boomed through the night. There were six or seven massive explosions intermingled with the continuous crackle of gunfire.

‘I’ve been thinking about the night you were born,’ Ada told Rosa. ‘Who was where and what happened and when. I think the Marchese honestly believed you were dead. He loved Nerezza so much he would have brought you up as his own, not sent you to
a convent anonymously. You’ve seen the grave? It’s the monument of a broken-hearted man. After Nerezza’s death, he dismissed most of the old staff, which is not something a nobleman in the right state of mind does to loyal workers. It’s dishonourable. It was as if he couldn’t bear anything that reminded him of the days when he and Nerezza were growing up. He even had her portraits taken down. Some of them were great pieces of art.’

‘Yes, I’ve thought that too,’ said Rosa. ‘The other possibility is that Baron Derveaux took me to the convent.’

‘Why would he have done that?’

‘Because he’s my father. Perhaps Nerezza confessed that on her deathbed. Maybe he was afraid of a scandal—or wanted to protect me from the Marchesa.’

Ada’s eyes grew wide with surprise. ‘He’s your father? I don’t think he knew. He was in Paris when Nerezza died. He was her childhood friend but for some reason he wasn’t told how gravely ill she was. I am sure he would have rushed to see her if he had known. He is a bit of a gadabout but he’s not cold-hearted.’

Rosa and Ada lapsed into silence, thinking over the matter.

‘We can’t ask the Baron Derveaux what happened anyway,’ Ada said eventually. ‘He fled with his family to France when war was declared. Their villa is being used by Germans as a fuel storage unit. The Baron would be horrified to see what they’ve done to his furniture.’

Rosa sighed. Although Ada had told her the Marchesa was in Egypt when Nerezza died, she couldn’t help thinking that she’d had some role in her being sent to the convent. But who then was this ‘Wolf’? And had he been trying to save Rosa or simply doing the Marchesa’s bidding?

Ada looked at the sky. ‘Lately, I’ve been thinking of Orsola,’ she said. ‘You see, I think she was dormant until you came to the villa. Then all sorts of mischief started happening. She’s been there for centuries. She knows what happened to you as a baby.’

Rosa sat up at the mention of Orsola’s name. ‘Yes, I think of her
too,’ she said. ‘But not as darkly as I once did. I don’t think she is after revenge, Ada. I think she is a spirit seeking justice.’

Ada nodded. ‘You may be right. It’s as if she wants to sweep away the evil at the villa, but she needs human hands to do it.’

After their watch was over, Ada and Rosa headed to the women’s tent. Fiamma had taken Speranza inside, afraid if she left her unguarded one of the men would steal her. The lamb was peacefully asleep, tucked under Fiamma’s arm. Ada drifted off quickly but Rosa was restless. It was a hot night and the extra bodies in the tent made the air oppressive. She took her blanket and slipped outside, intending to sleep in the open air. She was about to settle down when she caught sight of Luciano some distance away, surveying the valley below. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and his torso bathed in the moonlight gave off an ethereal sheen. The sight of him was like a magnetic pull. She remembered one summer’s night in Montecatini Terme when it had been too warm to sleep.

‘It’s gone quiet,’ she said, stepping up beside him.

Luciano turned to her. ‘The calm before the storm, I guess.’

Rosa felt the warmth of his body although she didn’t touch him. She breathed in his scent, fresh like the forest, earthy and full of life. She moved away, afraid of the desire that was rising in her.

Luciano caught her by the arm. Her skin burned where he touched it. His arms encircled her waist.

‘Don’t,’ whispered Rosa. ‘I can’t resist you.’

But it was not Luciano who moved. Before Rosa knew what she was doing, she had clutched him to her. His hands ran over her back. They yielded to a force that neither of them could resist any longer. They kissed as if they were thirsty for love. Rosa was breathless. They pulled away for a moment, and then embraced again, tugging at each other’s clothes until skin found skin and they lay down in the woods together.

‘I’ve missed you!’ Luciano whispered, kissing her neck.

Behind him, the fir trees rose to the sky and the stars glistened. Those celestial lights meant magic to Rosa. She cried when
Luciano entered her: tears of grief, of abandonment, of love. They loved each other so much that it caused them agony and at the same time it transported them to a place far away from the battle for Florence, far from the war, far from death.