Torrent by Lisa T. Bergren

odor of rotting flesh told me he was riddled with infection.
    “He will not survive a journey,” Mom said sorrowfully, under her breath, to Marcello. Her blue eyes met his brown ones, and she shook her head, as if in pain for him.
    Marcello clasped his brother’s hand in his own and brought it to his chest.
    “Fortino,” Marcello said lowly, “we are here, brother.”
    Fortino opened his eye as if it took everything in him to do so. “You…you should not have come.”
    “We had no choice. We had to try.”
    “I am dead already.” He looked to me and then closed his eye in pain.
    I glanced at Mom, silently asking her for her assessment, as she finished pressing into his belly.
    “I think he’s bleeding inside,” she said bitterly, in English. “His belly is distended but hard as a rock. They have beaten him relentlessly,” she continued, switching to Italian. “You must not let them take Gabi.” Maybe seeing Fortino made it all the more real to her. It was one thing to hear of being thrown into a cage and being exposed to the elements. But to see the effects of a physical beating? Her face was stricken—half out of rage over Fortino, half out of panic for me. And Dad was right behind her.
    “I will fight it with everything in me,” Marcello promised them.
    “M’lord,” said Ascoli, coming closer. “Shall we begin?”
    “In a moment.”
    Clearly irritated, the small man reluctantly turned away, edging past Luca, Lia, and my father, who had joined our circle.
    “Fortino,” Marcello said gently, squeezing his hand.
    Fortino stirred, as if he might have fallen asleep for a moment. His good eye blinked open. “You have been a fine brother, Marcello. The best any man could ever ask for.”
    Marcello stared at him for a moment and swallowed hard, acknowledging his farewell. “As have you,” he said at last.
    “Honor our father’s name.”
    “With everything in me,” Marcello pledged. He swallowed hard. “I shall miss you, brother.”
    A tiny smile lifted Fortino’s lips, and he looked to me. “Find distraction in Gabriella. She was always meant for you.”
    “Well I know it,” Marcello said, smiling too.
    But then Fortino was asleep—unconscious?—closing his eye. Marcello hesitated and then leaned forward to put his ear to his brother’s mouth, listening. “He yet lives,” he whispered. In an instant his expression turned from agonizing grief to fierce determination. He rose and assisted me up too, then paused to whisper something in Luca’s ear.
    With that we proceeded over to a long table.
    “You shall be expected to stand behind my chair,” he said in my ear.
    I nodded, shoving down a wave of aggravation. So the boys will sit down and chat for hours, and the women are expected to stand? But I’d promised to stay by his side…so I went and did as was expected. Everyone was seated, and yet there was one open chair. But did they offer it to me? No way.
    Yeah, not everything in Medieval-ville was cool. Women’s rights were a ways off. A long ways off.
    My eyes followed the direction of Lord Ascoli’s gesture.
    The guards opened the tall doors, and through them strode Lord Cosmo Paratore.
    I stared at him, openmouthed for a second, panic stalling my heart and then sending it into a rapid thud-thud-thud.
    Marcello saw him then and abruptly stood, taking a half step between me and the man who surely wanted to see me dead. “Lord Ascoli,” Marcello sputtered. “How could you invite such—such— vermin inside your city walls?” He said it to our host, but he looked to Lord Greco, who was sitting back and casually eating a date. Was Greco putting on an act? Or had he known?
    “Cease your theatrics, Marcello,” Cosmo Paratore said, sitting down and gesturing toward Marcello’s empty chair. “Come, let us speak of what is to be done, once and for all.”
    Marcello put his fists on the table and leaned menacingly toward the man, with an unwavering stare. “Order the release of my