t all surprised when she hurried up
the stairs leading to the front door of the Palazzo Monaldeschi. The
door opened. There was a blaze of torchlight, and she pulled down her
scarf to identify herself. Even from across the street Lorenzo knew her.

Ana, the woman who interpreted for the Tartars.

* * * * *

Sophia entered Cardinal Ugolini's cabinet holding a letter written by
Simon de Gobignon. It had been pressed into her hand by the French
count's young scudiero when she was out walking. She had read it over
and over again before bringing it to David.

He was alone in the room. As he looked up from his seat on a pile of
cushions on the floor, she caught her breath. In that white light coming
through the translucent glass panes, David's grayish eyes took on an
opalescence.

The cardinal's cabinet on the top floor was the best-lit chamber in the
mansion. When Ugolini was not using the room, David often came here to
study, write, and meditate. And when neither David nor Ugolini was
there, Sophia sometimes came to draw and paint.

She felt as if David were a magician, and that his eyes had cast a spell
on her. In Ugolini's cabinet it was easy to think of magic. She had
always associated magic with darkened chambers and cellars, but Ugolini
practiced his magic at the top of his mansion, in a room with many
windows.

"The long-awaited answer from Simon has come," Sophia said, tossing the
opened scroll down before David.

David spread Simon's letter on his lap and read it, while Sophia looked
around the room. On a table near a window lay that painted skull Ugolini
kept toying with. On one wall were two maps of the heavens. Sophia
recognized the constellations in one of them, but the other was utterly
strange. One arrangement of stars in the second map seemed to take the
form of a Latin cross. She studied with interest the paintings on
scrolls nailed to the walls, of plants and animals so odd-looking that
she thought they might be an artist's inventions. One was a bird without
wings, another a spotted animal that looked like a deer but had an
enormously elongated neck. It might be pleasant to try painting such
creatures herself.

As David's eyes ran over Simon's letter, his lips curled in a faint
smile. Was it a smile of contempt for Simon's passionate outpouring,
which she had, in her delight with it, all but memorized?

Lady, I cry you mercy. You know it not, but your gentle ey