tion Lorenzo had sealed a bargain with Marco di Filippeschi, who
was ready to help Daoud against the alliance if it meant striking a blow
against the Monaldeschi.

Before any plans were made, though, there remained the question of
Sordello.

A stout woman in a black gown came into the common room of the Angel and
went straight to the hooded man. The lower part of her face was covered
by a black scarf. Anyone watching the hooded Sordello and the veiled
lady would think theirs was just everyday wickedness--an adulterous
couple meeting for an assignation. She sat beside him on the bench.
Their heads drew together, and Lorenzo, behind a door across the room,
was too far away to hear.

Lorenzo heard a scratching behind him. He turned, but it was too dark
even to see movement.

_Rats_, he thought. _This work continually brings a man into the company
of rats. Four-legged rats and men like Sordello._ He put his eye to the
peephole again, just in time to see a slip of paper disappear into the
woman's deep sleeve. Whoever Sordello was reporting to, he was putting
it in writing. Interesting that the man _could_ write. That put him a
cut above the average bravo, in education, at least.

The innkeeper came over to offer the woman wine, but she waved him away
without looking at him. She stood up, brushing the seat of her gown
fastidiously, like one who was used to sitting in cleaner surroundings.
Without a gesture or a handclasp she left Sordello as quickly as she had
come. Nothing loverlike about those two.

Lorenzo decided to follow the woman, and left by the bolthole the tavern
keeper had shown him. He doubted that the old bravo would do anything
other than sit there and get drunk.

He had to run through the alley beside the inn to catch a glimpse of her
going around a corner. She was hard to see. The darkness of night was
made deeper by the jutting upper stories of the houses, and she was
wearing black.

He kept running, his footfalls muffled by the mushy layers of moldering
refuse that paved the streets. A woman going through the byways of the
poorest part of town after dark was taking a great chance with her purse
and her honor. She was either well paid or very dedicated.

Lorenzo, whispering breathless curses, twice had almost lost her in the
maze before she emerged onto a wider street, the Via di San Remo. There,
lights from windows made her easier to follow. Now he was quite sure
where she was going, and was not a