Or that was what it felt like.
Maybe I was just losing my mind.
The music faded, and the quiet was so intense, the wind was loud as it whistled through the air.
“Take your mask off,” Noemi whispered. “Make a show of it.”
That almost felt like too much pressure, to perform under this much stress, but I knew the fate of our relationship might depend on this. It almost felt like the wheels of a cart—one spoke goes and the entire thing stalls in the mud.
I stared straight ahead, and sort of like a strip tease, slowly reached for my mask, and inch by quivering inch, pulled it away. A tender breeze passed, like the men had all collectively sighed when my face was fully exposed, and then they roared with applause.
Each man before me took a knee, withdrawing his sword, and stabbed it in the ground.
A few seconds after, I felt all eyes on me, and I nodded subtly to my husband while raising my arms like a bird about to be set free.
At my signal, unleash hell for me.
My husband bowed to me, kissed his fingers, then offered them to the sky.
Luca stood, raised his arms, and the crowd became silent once more. He said something in Italian or maybe even Latin, and I was pretty sure it meant,let the challenge begin, or something close, and the men all applauded while I followed Noemi to where Luca was.
We each took a seat beside him.
Two men walked onto the amphitheater’s floor, one going toward Nazzareno and one going toward Renato. I wasn’t sure about Renato’s box, but Nazzareno’s was missing a man. It wasn’t Beni. His build was different. He was tall and a bit lanky. He must have felt me staring at him and turned his masked face towards me. He lifted a hand and so did I. Then he turned forward and I could tell his knee was bouncing a little.
Whoever had gone to Nazzareno unfastened his robe and removed it, then disappeared underneath the colosseum. Renato’s man did the same thing. After a minute or two, the two men hadn’t made it back to their seats, so I assumed they were waiting underneath.
A drum started to beat, and it was loud, but not as loud as the pounding of my heart as Nazzareno and Renato stepped in the middle of the field and stared at each other. The drumbeat stopped suddenly, Luca lifted his arms, the third horn sounded, and as soon as his arms came down and the horn faded, the two men started to circle each other, a sword in one hand, a shield in the other.
I had a moment of flight or fight, but instead of doing either, I sat, my blood frozen in my veins.
For a second, I thought I had turned to stone, like a statue, and I wondered if those statues were woman who had come before me and had felt fear on this level.
Another tepid wind surged against my face, and I felt something cool rolling down my cheeks. Tears. I hadn’t even realized I was crying. I was too paralyzed to wipe them. I let them roll silently.
Luca noticed.
I wondered if he was thinking about his mamma in that moment—how she had asked to stop this on her deathbed.
I wondered if tears had silently rolled down her hardened cheeks too.
The clash of swords clanged in the air louder than the drums.
Nazzareno found an opening and took it. Renato took a step back, but not before I saw blood rolling down his arm from where Nazzareno had nicked him.
This wasn’t a battle to the death challenge, but it could still result in death. One wrong move and either man could get mortally wounded. Judging by the faces they were making, it was the same as fight to the death for them.
No matter what, though, one man had to get seriously injured for this challenge to be called. And I wasn’t sure if Luca was going to throw something unexpected into the battle because of what Lothario had done to his son.
Another swipe of silver through the air.
Every swipe at Nazzareno felt like a swipe at me.
And when he took a slice to his arm, I took one to my heart.
It was keeping score.
Arms.
