Thorn

same league as the Medici and King Matthias. I thought to myself that the world seemed to be changing drastically. No longer, it appeared, would fighting, praying, and the maintenance of honor be all that were required of a successful man. Very well, I thought, I am going to have to learn to think as well. I have always been able to manage great changes in my lifestyle when necessary.

One day in the palace, with a group of officers pondering Colleoni's field artillery, I was sketching the weapons from memory as best I could, when some man entered the room where we were gathered but then immediately withdrew. This made me glance up, just in time to recognize the retreating back of one of the Boccalini.

'There will be trouble, Lorenzo,' I said to my young friend a little later.

Lorenzo had been in the room also, and had noticed the near-encounter. 'Perhaps not,' he soothed me now. 'We will try to prevent it. There are others, too, who, shall we say, do not work well together. Yet Florence must be defended. If the Boccalini and the Pitti can work with us, they can tolerate you as well.'

'Even when we meet face to face?'

Lorenzo furrowed his swarthy brow, considering. Already he looked forty. 'I suppose that you, my friend, are going to take an active part in the fighting, and will be going out into the field shortly?'

'Yes. The Duke has already asked my help in training and organizing new troops.'

'That is good, because the Boccalini will be staying in town. Meanwhile I advise you, not that you need any such advice, to guard yourself.'

Shortly thereafter, whether because of the Boccalini or for some other reason, it was delicately suggested that Helen and I might want to move out to Careggi, which was now beginning to be occupied by other military guests of rank; and yes, the painting came with us once again. From Careggi I presently departed for an advanced camp in the field. Helen appeared to be concerned as she bade me farewell. My own feelings about leaving my wife behind were fatalistic; I did not ask the Medici to put her into a convent, or to set a watch upon her whilst I was gone. What would be, would be. Somehow I had never got around to deciding upon a suitable vengeance for her earlier transgressions, and now . . . now other decisions were more demanding.

In the spring, under the direct leadership of the Duke, we mercenaries and the more valiant citizens of Florence met the more numerous forces of Colleoni at the town called Molinella, roughly halfway between Florence and Venice. The land there was marshy, and horses slipped and fell in mud, and some of the wounded drowned. What we fought was certainly not a great battle, by the standards of those combats that have changed the world. But for some hours we fought in earnest, which was not always the case when one mercenary opposed another. The fight began near midday, and went on, with pauses, until after dark, and the dead totalled six or seven hundred on both sides. Colleoni's new cannon served his cause well, until I managed to lead a squadron of cavalry into his rear, where we overtook a pack train carrying his reserve of gunpowder. After the ensuing fireworks he was unable to make headway. By nightfall the Florentine forces had been worn down, but so had the Venetian; still, it would have been senseless for Colleoni to advance against our fortified city walls, whilst our army still remained in the field against him.

Successful condottieri were nothing if not practical, and did not care to squander today lives that could still be useful to them tomorrow. With much practiced torch-waving, and shouting back and forth, a preliminary truce was worked out, though night had already fallen, making communication difficult. Then by torchlight the Duke and Colleoni embraced each other, exchanging congratulations on their personal survival.

I was suspicious of treachery, but those with more experience in these parochial wars laughed at the idea; and in the morning both armies indeed retreated, as had been agreed.

A few days later, I returned to Careggi. As I approached the villa, I found it difficult to maintain my fatalistic attitude on the subject of my wife. If she should be gone again—I had difficulty in trying to think beyond that point. But I recognized in myself the signs of inward rage.

To my surprise Helen came running to meet me, in the yard near the stables, having evidently observed my approach from the window of our upstairs room—this time we had not been granted the bridal chamber.

Before I had dismounted, she was at my stirrup. 'You are alive,' she said. Her eyes had a look I could not remember seeing in them before.

'It pleases you to see me so, madam?'

'Pleases me? Pleases me?' Helen sounded the words. Evidently she would not have thought of putting her feelings just that way. 'But you are all I have.'

Chapter Twenty-Two

The half-ruined building into which Judy and her three companions were urged at gunpoint was evidently very old. The door was shielded on the inside with a blackout curtain, in the form of a sheet of dark plastic; once that barrier had been passed, Judy, Bill, Pat and Helen emerged blinking in the white glare of a Coleman lantern set on a rough table. They were standing in a large room, walled with old brick in bad repair. Judy could recognize the soft- looking light brown that she had recently learned to identify as real adobe. Three temporary cots had been set up along one wall. More sheeted plastic was suspended overhead, to protect the beds and other contents of the room from the effects of what must be a leaky roof.

'Sit down. Here,' ordered one armed man, pointing to the open space in the middle of the hard-packed earthen floor. 'Hands behind you when you sit. Then nobody move.'

The four of them sat down. And nobody moved, or spoke. One man passed behind them, tying wrists. He was quick about it. It was as if he had had cords ready for some job like this, and had been practicing.

Hasty glances to right and left assured Judy that her companions were looking pretty sick. She herself was not quite as scared as they appeared to be; she had an inner certainty that help of a most effective kind was on its way. Judy was sure that he now was aware, at least dimly, of her presence here, near the very thing that had already drawn him so powerfully, and he was coming, at great

The trouble was that Judy could not be at all sure of how far he had yet to travel, or how long it would be until he got here.

As soon as four pairs of hands had been tied, the tallest of the masked men, the one who gave the orders, got the prisoners to stand up again and then went along the line going briskly and impersonally through all their pockets, and dumping out Pat's knapsack as well. Judy could see from the corner of her eye that the searcher took no money from Bill's wallet. He appeared to be chiefly interested in ID's, which he looked at and then put back. But Bill's car keys did disappear into the tall man's pocket.

This quick search completed, their chief captor stood in front of them, looking at them for a moment. 'Ralph,' he said abruptly then, 'better get the Jeep out.' And he tossed one of his henchmen the two sets of car keys he had confiscated. 'It'll take some towing to get both their vehicles around the hill and under cover, but we'll have to do it, now we've come this far. Ike, you go along and give him a hand. Cover up the tire tracks. I can manage here.'

The other two men went out of the room by a side door that led into some sort of hallway. A minute later Judy could hear an engine starting, as if the Jeep the men had been told to use were parked in some attached garage or shed, with no closed doors between. Gradually the sound of the engine moved away.

'Sit down,' said the ski-masked man who still remained. The four sat, a movement made awkward by bound hands. The Coleman on the table emitted a faint hissing noise, and sent out its glare. The masked man set down his shotgun, where he could reach it easily and at a careful distance from the others, leaning against a stack of crates that appeared to hold foodstuffs. Then he said: 'Well, people. We've got some things to talk about, before I can let you go.'

He certainly has no intention of doing that, thought Judy to herself. Whatever was going on here . . . had something to do with that painting. The painting, the old painting showing some woman . . . it was still wrapped in rough cloth. And now Judy could tell there was clear plastic around it too. And it still leaned against a rough adobe wall in darkness—within a few feet of where she was sitting at this very moment.

Judy opened her eyes with a start. But the sound she had heard was only the wind, scraping a pine branch lightly along the building's ancient roof.