"Doesn't it go to hell?"

"Hell, as the great Saint Augustine revealed, is not a place. It is an eternity. Which is not the same thing as the end of time. Hell is right here, now. As is heaven. In a sense." He took in Thur's and Fiametta's utterly baffled stares, and waved a hand. "Never mind that now. There is one other category of ghost. Somehow, sometimes, a spirit becomes self-maintaining, without a body or a ring or any other material anchor. Some become sin-eaters, feeding on fear, anger, despair—and seek to increase such sins in order to sustain themselves. Some seek out witches and magicians and attempt to seduce them to their aid. That is the origin of the true demon. They are, thank God, extremely rare. Much rarer than the reports of overexcited common folk would have you believe."

Monreale rubbed his face, pressing out the deep apprehensive grooves. "Yet as you describe the apparition, Prospero Beneforte's ghostly strength is already nearly that great. To create a temporary body even from something so insubstantial as smoke was a feat. In Ferrante's hands, enslaved to a ring, fed ... the things he would be fed, he could become terrible."

"Papa won't do evil!"

"Prospero Beneforte was a man. A fairly good man, as men go. Little troubled by sloth or gluttony ....erhaps a trifle too subject to pride and wrath. And avarice. We are all, even the best of us, still sinners. He may resist Ferrante for a time. But sooner or later the allure of life, or at least, continued existence in the world of will, must prove overpowering. I could not resist such a reward, out of my own strength. I could only throw myself upon the mercy of God and pray for rescue."

Fiametta sat chill and stiff. Thur could see her wrestling with this new and subtle dread. "He called for you," she repeated.

"Yes," Monreale conceded. "I hope he has not mistaken me for God. I shall set you some special prayers, Fiametta. And in the meantime we'll see what we can do to stop Ferrante by all the other means God gives us."

Abbot Monreale took Thur to a spot on the south wall away from both the postern door and the main gate. They had to clamber over the laundry roof to reach it. There was no moon, and Brother Ambrose had darkened his lantern. Thur peered, willing his eyes to see into the nearby woods. If he couldn't see any soldiers, maybe they couldn't see him.

Monreale and Ambrose could have been shadow-monks. Only Fiametta's white linen sleeves made a pale blur. Thur had been hoping Monreale would produce a cloak of invisibility, out Monreale merely intoned a spell over him. Perhaps he was becoming more sensitive, with all this magic about, for this time he felt something, if only a vagueness, settle over him with Monreale's words.

"Can they see me at all?" Thur whispered.

"Not readily," Monreale murmured back. "This is akin to the spell I laid on my little ears. It will pass off in a few hours. If Ferrante's men see a shape or hear a sound, they will attribute it to animals, or nerves. But if you blunder right into one as you did last night, the spell can't help you. So watch yourself."

Had it only been last night they had arrived at Saint Jerome? "Yes, Father." Thur took the rope, tested it, swung his legs up, and sat athwart the stone. He jammed his cap on more firmly. Fiametta stood on the roof, her arms wrapping her torso against the chill, skirt a dark billow. Thur could not see her face.

"Thur ..." she said. "Be careful. Uh ... your new clothes look nice."

Thur nodded, cheered. He let the rope ease through his hands, and began his descent.

Chapter Nine

Thur dozed away the last hours of darkness behind a tree near the road, a quarter-mile from Montefoglia's northeast gate. Golden dawn glowed up at last from the eastern hills. He rolled over and watched the dusty road. He did not want to be first through the gate, nor second. Too conspicuous. Third, maybe. The road stayed abnormally quiet for this hour of the day, so near such a large town. Everyone who could was staying as far from the soldiers as possible, Thur guessed. But eventually a horseman passed—likely a Losimon—and then an old man trundling a wheelbarrow full of vegetables. Thur slipped down onto the road in his wake, well back.

Thur swallowed, as the town wall bulked up. Squared-off stone and brick of various ages ran down to the lakeshore and up and around, cradling Montefoglia from harm. A mile of wall at least. Was Rome this big? In the clear morning light the city looked magical, exciting—men built this? Then what other wonders might men do? True, the wall was in need of repairs in a few spots, stones starting to rumble down. His heart lifted still. Why had he stayed so long in Bruinwald when this had been waiting on the other end of the road? Uri had tried to tell him ...

The thought of Uri, perhaps lying wounded for days among brutal enemies, ill-tended, made Thur lengthen his stride till he overtook the man with the vegetable barrow. The gate was an arched doorway in a tall square tower topped with red tile. The barrow-man was stopped there by three guards, an unarmed man wearing the livery of the city, and two sword-girded Losimons. Both still wore the fancy livery issued for the betrothal procession, festive green and gold striped tunics and green tabards embroidered with Ferrante's arms, now dingy and worse for the unexpected wear of a fight and a week of siege and occupation duties.

"Radishes?" said the city guard in a worried tone, poking through the contents of the barrow. "All you bring us is radishes?" In fact, the barrow contained lettuce and spring onions tied in bunches as well.

"Our men will bring in something, one way or another, if the countryside doesn't." The taller Losimon glowered at the old man. "Tell your neighbors that."

The old man shrugged, not daring any more open defiance, and trundled on through. The city guard turned his attention to Thur. "What's your business, stranger?"

Thur turned his red cap humbly in his hands. "I seek work, sir. I was told some men in the castle wanted to hire foundrymen."

The city guard grunted, and wrote Thur's name, which Thur gave as Thur Wyl, and business down in his record book. "And where are you from?"

"Meissen. Altenburg," Thur threw out at random. He'd once met a crippled miner from the Altenburg, hands eaten away and half-blinded from the corrosive cadmia. It seemed a good place to be from, far from.

"German metalworker, eh?" said the shorter Losimon. "They'll be glad to have you."

Thur turned eagerly to him. "Do you know where I should go and who I should see, sir?"

"Go to the castle—right and straight up the main street—and ask for Lord Ferrante's secretary, Messer Niccolo Vitelli. He's doing the hiring."

"Thank you, sir." Thur ducked away.

The streets were narrow, like ravines between the tall stone houses and shops all crammed together. The sky was squeezed overhead into a blue ribbon. Thur recognized nothing of the town at this new angle but the colors. There were not many people in the streets this morning. On a sudden, urgent impulse, it occurred to Thur that it might be easier to check on Fiametta's house first, before he became caught up in God-knew-what labors in the castle. He stopped a man bent under a load of firewood, and asked directions to Via Novara.

Thur turned the opposite direction from the castle. A dry gutter ran down the center of the cobbled main street. Near the eastern city wall he found Via Novara, and turned upslope to its end,

That big square house? It seemed almost a palazzo to Thur's eyes, all of cut stone. Fancy cast-iron bars decorated with leaves and vines guarded the downstairs windows; larger windows protected by wooden shutters ran in a course high above. How right a setting it seemed for Fiametta. This house would protect her like a human jewel at its heart, like a little Lombardy princess. No wonder she was worried about it.