same standards as you.'
Enraged, Lucrezia threw her to the floor. 'What did he talk about? His plans for Naples?' She paused. 'Did you…enjoy it?'
Wiping blood from her face, Caterina said: 'I really can't remember.'
Her quiet insolence drove Lucrezia into a blind fury. Pushing the guard aside, she seized an iron bar used for slatting across the door and brought it down heavily across Caterina's back. 'Perhaps you will remember this!'
Now, Caterina screamed in intense pain. Lucrezia stood back, satisfied.
'Good. That's put you in your place at last!'
She threw the iron rod onto the floor and strode out of the cell. The guard followed her and the door slammed shut. Ezio noticed that there was a grille set into it.
'Lock it, and give me the key,' ordered Lucrezia from the outside.
There was a rattle and a rusty creak as the key turned, then a chain clattered as the key was handed over.
'Here it is, Altezza.' The man's voice was trembling.
'Good. Now, if I come back and catch you asleep at your post, I'll have you flogged. One hundred lashes. Understood?'
'Yes, Altezza.'
Ezio listened to Lucrezia's footsteps as they grew fainter. He considered. The best way to reach the cell would be from above.
He climbed up until he came to another opening, giving on to a guard's walkway. This time, sentries were on duty, but it seemed that there were only two, patrolling together. He calculated it must take them five minutes to complete the circuit, so he waited until they had passed and then swung himself inside once again.
Crouching low, Ezio followed the guards at a distance until he came to a doorway in the wall from which a stone stairway led downward. He knew that he'd climbed into the Castel two floors above where Caterina's cell was located, and so, two flights down, he left the stairway and found himself in a corridor similar to the one in which he'd seen the encounter between Cesare and Lucrezia, only this time it was clad in stone, not wood. He doubled back in the direction of Caterina's cell, encountering no one, though passing a number of heavy doors, each with a grille, which suggested cells. As the wall curved following the line of the Castel, he heard voices ahead and recognized the Piedmontese accent of the guard who'd been talking to Lucrezia.
'This is no place for me,' he was grumbling. 'Did you hear the way she spoke to me? I wish I was back in fucking Torino.'
Ezio edged forward. The guards were facing the door, as Caterina had appeared at the grille. She spotted Ezio behind them as he withdrew into the shadows.
'Oh, my poor back,' she said to the guards. 'Can you give me some water?'
There was a jug of water on the table near the door, where the two guards had been sitting earlier. One of them picked it up and brought it close to the grille.
'Anything else you require, Princess?' he asked sarcastically.
The guard from Turin sniggered.
'Come on, have a heart,' said Caterina. 'If you open the door, I might show you something worth your while.'
The guards immediately became more formal. 'No need for that, Contessa. We have our orders. Here.'
The guard with the water jug unlatched the grille and passed the jug to Caterina through it. Then he closed the grille again.
'About time we were relieved, isn't it?' said the Piedmontese guard.
'Yes, Luigi and Stefano should have been here by now.'
They looked at each other.
'Do you think that bitch Lucrezia will be back anytime soon?'
'Shouldn't think so.'
'Then why don't we take a look down the guardroom-see what's keeping them?'
'All right. Only take us a couple of minutes anyway.'
Ezio watched as they disappeared around the curve of the wall, and then he was at the grille.
'Ezio,' breathed Caterina. 'What the hell are you doing here?'
'Visiting my tailor-what do you think?'
'For Christ's sake, Ezio, do you think we have time for jokes?'
'I'm going to get you out. Tonight.'
'If you do, Cesare will hunt you down like a dog.'
'I think he's already trying to do that. But his men don't seem all that fanatical, to judge by these two. Do you know if the guards have another key?'
'I don't think so. The guards handed theirs to Lucrezia. She paid me a visit.'
'I know. I saw.'
'Then why didn't you do anything to stop her?'
'I was outside the window.'
'Out there? Are you mad?'
'Just athletic. Now-if Lucrezia has the only key we know of, I'd better go and get it. Do you know where she is?'
Caterina considered. 'I heard her mention that her quarters are at the very top of the Castel.'
'Excellent. That key is as good as mine! Now-stay here until I get back!'
Caterina gave him a look, and glanced at her chains, and at the cell door. 'Why-where do you think I might go?' she said with a dry smile.
TWENTY-FIVE
He was getting used to the contours of the outer walls of the Castel Sant'Angelo by now and found that, the higher he climbed, the easier it was to find hand- and footholds. Clinging like a limpet, his cape billowing slightly in the breeze, he soon found himself on a level with the highest parapet and silently hauled himself up onto it.
The drop on the other side was slight-four feet to a narrow brick walkway, from which stairs led down, at occasional intervals, to a garden. A rooftop garden, in the center of which was a stone building, one story high, with a flat roof. It had broad windows, so the place was no extra fortification, and the light of many candles blazed within, disclosing opulent and tastefully decorated rooms.
The walkway was deserted, but the garden was not. On a bench under the spreading bows of a button- wood tree, Lucrezia sat demurely, holding hands with a handsome young man whom Ezio recognized as one of Rome's leading romantic actors-Pietro Benintendi. Cesare wouldn't be too pleased if he knew about this! Ezio, a mere silhouette, crept along the walkway to a point as close to the couple as he dared, grateful for the moon, which had risen by now and provided not only light but also confusing, camouflaging pools of shade. He listened.
'I love you so, I want to sing it to the heavens,' Pietro was saying ardently.
Lucrezia shushed him. 'Please! You must whisper it only to yourself. If Cesare found out, who knows what he would do.'
'But you are free, are you not? Of course I heard about your late husband and I am very sorry, but-'
'Quiet, you fool!' Lucrezia's hazel eyes glittered. 'Do you not know that Cesare had the Duke of Bisceglie murdered?-my husband was strangled.'
'What?'
'It's true.'
'What happened?'
'I loved my husband. Cesare grew jealous. Alfonso was a handsome man, and Cesare was conscious of the changes the New Disease had made to his own face, though God knows they are slight. He had his men waylay Alfonso and beat him up. He thought that would act as a warning. But Alfonso was no puppet. He hit back; while
