He lunged forward, driving his attackers back a step, and then turned and ran. He spotted a door halfway down the alley and headed for it, but one of the masked men coming from the other direction reached it first. Longo parried the man's thrust and punched him hard in the face. He then grabbed the dazed man, spun and hurled him face first into the door, which banged open. The man landed unconscious on the floor, and Longo followed him into a dark room crowded with vats of tallow. He slammed the door shut behind him. The bolt that locked the door had been broken, so Longo held it with his shoulder.
A second later, someone rammed the door from the other side. Longo staggered back but managed to hold it closed. Again someone rammed the door, and this time Longo stepped away and allowed it to swing open. A surprised attacker stumbled into the room. Longo cut him down and then slammed the door closed again. He could hear the remaining four men outside, discussing what to do next. Longo waited a second, then pulled the door open and rushed out.
He dropped two of the men immediately, stabbing one in the gut and then spinning and slashing the other across the face. A third man lunged for his chest, and Longo just managed to twist out of the way. He hacked down at his attacker's arm, and the man dropped his sword and fell to his knees, holding his bloody arm and crying out in pain before fainting.
Longo turned to face the last man, who had backed well away. 'We shall meet again, signor,' the man said.
'Who are you?' Longo demanded. 'Who sent you?'
The man turned and ran. Longo slumped against the wall of the alleyway, his thigh burning with pain now that the fury of battle had left him. Beside him, the man clutched his bleeding arm and began to moan. Longo rolled him on to his back and knelt down, one knee on the man's chest. He pulled the man's mask aside and slapped him. The man's eyes fluttered open. Longo drew his dagger and held it close to the man's face.
'Who sent you?' he growled. The man did not respond. His eyes closed as he began to lose consciousness. 'Tell me!' Longo insisted, pressing the knife against the man's nose.
'Paolo,' the man croaked, and then he lost consciousness. Longo stumbled into the courtyard of the Grimaldi palazzo with the unconscious man slung over his shoulder. 'Paolo!' he roared as he dumped the man unceremoniously on the ground. 'Where are you? Paolo!'
Paolo, his face pale and eyes wide, came down the steps of the palazzo. 'What has happened?' he asked. 'Who is that?'
'You tell me,' Longo snarled. He grabbed Paolo by the collar of his shirt and slammed him against the wall. 'He and ten other men attacked me shortly after I left you tonight.'
'H-how did you escape?' Paolo managed.
Longo ignored the question. 'You are my kinsman, else you would be dead now,' he hissed. 'I know you sent them.'
'You sent that English brat to kill my brother,' Paolo spat back. 'You are a murderer.'
Before he could even think, Longo had his knife at Paolo's throat.
'Longo! What is this?' the elder Grimaldi called out as he descended the palazzo steps. He gestured to Longo's blood-stained clothes. 'What has happened?'
Longo released Paolo and turned to Grimaldi. 'Your son hired men to kill me.'
'Paolo, is this true?' Grimaldi demanded. Paolo looked away. 'I'm sorry, signor,' Grimaldi sighed, turning back to Longo. 'I knew that Paolo was upset over his brother's death, but I never thought he would go so far.'
'Something must be done,' Longo said. 'I will duel him, tomorrow.'
'I cannot allow it,' Grimaldi replied. 'Paolo is my only son. If you strike him, then you strike me. I do not wish to be your enemy, signor.'
'Nor I yours,' Longo said. He turned to Paolo and spat at his feet. 'Count yourself lucky,' he said, then turned and strode away.
'This is not over,' Paolo called out after him. 'Carlos is not done with you. That English bastard of yours is as good as dead!'
'William,' Longo whispered and broke into a run. 'William!' Portia giggled. 'Your beard, it tickles!'
He stopped kissing her ear. 'But you think me very handsome with it?' he asked with a grin. Now eighteen, William was inordinately proud of his short, reddish-brown beard.
'I find you… acceptable,' she teased.
'Acceptable?' William asked, kissing her neck. His hand moved slowly up her leg.
'William!' Portia gasped, pushing his hand away from her inner thigh. He moved his hand to her back and pulled her down into the straw of the hayloft, kissing her passionately. She opened her mouth and pressed herself against him. His hand slid down her side to her hip, and then between her legs. 'Stop!' she exclaimed and pulled away. She was breathtaking, her long black hair tousled, her dress half undone and her dark eyes lit by the low flame of the lamp William had brought. 'You do not love me,' she pouted.
'Why do you say such things?' William asked.
'You know why,' she said. She turned her back to him and pulled her knees up to her chest. 'You are the same as all the others. You only want one thing.'
'You know that is not true,' William said, placing his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off.
William had met Portia two years ago, a few weeks before the Genoese ambassadors came. She was fifteen then, the daughter of a leather worker in a nearby village. Word of her beauty had spread throughout the region, and more than one prosperous merchant had already approached her father with talk of marriage. The boys of the village followed her in an adoring crowd, but Portia would have nothing to do with them. Later, she had confessed to William that the boys had terrified her. Her wet-nurse – a bitter widow who had lost her husband and child to the plague before taking in Portia – had told her horror stories about what men would do if they ever got their hands on a woman, and Portia had believed her.
William had wooed her for weeks before Portia had even spoken to him. Even then, communication was slow at first, constrained by Portia's shyness and William's halting, broken Italian. Eventually, Portia had grown appreciative of his constant attention. With William around, she no longer had to worry about the groups of boys who whistled and leered at her when she went about town, at least not after he single-handedly chased off a gang of would-be lovers, slapping their backsides with his sword and threatening in English to cut out their tongues and stuff them up their arses. Portia had begun to look on William as a friend, and then as something more.
Portia's father did not approve of William. He did not want his daughter married to a soldier. So they met in secret, spending long afternoons walking the countryside and magical nights here in this barn behind a farmhouse just off the main road. It was the only place in the countryside they could find that was safe, private and reasonably warm, even if it did smell of chickens and cow manure.
'What do you want me to say?' William asked her.
'You know what I want.'
William swallowed hard. 'Will you marry me?'
Portia turned, a smile lighting up her face, and threw herself upon William. 'Yes,' she whispered between kisses. 'Yes, yes.'
The stable door creaked open and they both froze. 'My father!' Portia whispered. 'He'll kill us!' She rolled off William and began to lace up her dress.
William crawled to the edge of the hayloft and peeked down. It was not Portia's father. A man dressed in black stood in the shadowy light, a sword hanging from his waist. He was small with dark features. He looked up, and his eyes met William's. William caught a flash of steel and a second later a dagger embedded itself in the wood of the loft just in front of William's face. He scrambled back.
'Stay here!' he told Portia. He grabbed his sword and swung over the edge of the loft, dropping to the stable floor below. He rolled as he landed and sprang to his feet just in time to parry a sword thrust aimed at his heart. His attacker lunged again, his movements quick and graceful, and William skipped away backwards, stepping behind one of the wooden posts that held up the loft. 'Who are you?' he asked.