the storm passes, you
must go to her."

Ugolini nodded slowly. "If I fail to convince her, I will be no worse
off than I am now."

"You will convince her," said Tilia. "You might as well start to put on
your red robes."

Real hope sailed across the sea of terror to Sophia now, and it was a
galley, a galley with sails painted a cardinal's red. She felt it
bearing her up over her dread for Daoud and for herself.

"I will go to the contessa with you," said Sophia. If he gave way to
panic again, she could stop him from doing too much damage.

"And I will return to my house," said Tilia, standing up.

"No," said Ugolini. "It was dangerous enough for you to come here. We
know this mansion is being watched. Stay here until nightfall."

Tilia smiled, went to him, and held his small, pointed face between her
hands. "I will stay. And if you succeed in persuading the contessa to
have David freed, we will have something to celebrate, you and I."

To celebrate! What a wonderful thought. Sophia had begun to feel she
would never celebrate anything again.

But moving Ugolini to act was only the first step, she reminded herself.
The contessa might prove to be against them, and Daoud might still be
doomed.

* * * * *

Sophia watched, eaten up by anxiety, as the Contessa di Monaldeschi
advanced slowly into her smaller audience chamber, leaning on her
grandnephew, a plump boy in red velvet.

"I hope you have not come to scold me, Cardinal Ugolini," the contessa
rasped.

Could this old woman really have laughed to see a baby impaled on a
spear, Sophia wondered as she and Ugolini bowed.

"Dear Contessa, scold you?" Ugolini said with a chuckle. "Whatever for?"
Sophia was delighted to see how completely he had, to all outward
appearances, cast off the terror that gripped him a short time before.

_Like all of us, when terror strikes, he needs to feel he can do
something._

"Ah, Cardinal. Surely you know." When she reached Ugolini, the tall,
bony old woman clutched at the boy's arm with both clawlike hands and
began, with an effort that made her compress her withered lips, to lower
herself to the floor. It hurt Sophia just to watch her struggle to
genuflect before the cardinal.

The contessa had aged a great deal, Sophia thought, since she first saw
her, over a year ago. She was thinner, more bent, moved with much
greater difficulty. Ugolini reached out to try to stop her from
kneeling.