I finally understood. If José had to choose—his life or the freedom of Rome—he would choose Rome. As I rode forward with my contingent of medical aides, I knew too that I would make the same choice.

We took up residence in a nearby monastery. Once the home of a martyred saint, it was a simple structure that dated back to ancient Roman times. The monks begged and pleaded for us to go anywhere else. They were a church, not a hospital.

Stepping closer, I placed my hand on the hilt of my sword. “Do you mean to tell me that you would turn away dying people because they don’t bow down to your pope?”

The head monk’s beady eyes narrowed as he took in my baggy, worn-out red shirt tucked into my black pants. “I know who you are,” he whispered. “You’re the woman posing as Giuseppe Garibaldi’s wife. You can’t be here.”

He pulled against the soldiers who gripped his arms. “Please, she can’t be here. She is a blasphemer, a bigamist. The sanctity of this church is compromised by her presence.”

My second-in-command, Orgini, was a broad man who had been with the legion since Montevideo. “Lock the monks in the basement,” he ordered. “We’ll trade them for prisoners of war when this is all over. Oh, and bring up the wine and whatever else you can find. We have a long night ahead of us.”

The pleas of the monks echoed in the distance as they were hauled away. “To speak of the dust in another’s eye while ignoring the plank in your own,” Orgini said to no one in particular. “And they wonder why the new republic doesn’t embrace the church.”

“Come, we have work to do,” I said, leaving our new prisoners to their fates.

As rain poured down around us, we opened every window we could in a vain attempt to dissipate the thick humid air that clung to us. Throughout the night the war raged in the distance, and the bodies kept coming. By the break of dawn, all of my men were walking around with glazed eyes, trying not to trip over their own feet. “By the look of things, I would think that we are losing,” one of them grumbled.

“The battles are not over yet,” I corrected him, even though I shared his sentiment.

The morning sun had fully risen when José entered the sick tent, greeting the injured men who had not yet departed from this plane. I watched as he passed from bed to bed. He was blood-splattered and covered in mud. My insides clenched with fear. I couldn’t tell if he was putting on a brave front for the sake of morale.

I noticed the slight limp in his walk as he approached. “We won,” he whispered.