and saw shadows that
might be forest floor as far below him as his own height. Then again, he
might be seeing the tops of other trees. He drew his dagger and cut the
rope around his middle but held it with one hand. He took deep, relieved
breaths when the constraint was gone. He gave three sharp jerks on the
rope, the signal that he was down. After a moment all tension left the
rope, and he felt it falling in the darkness. Another moment and he
heard rustlings, thumps, and splashes as the rope landed at the bottom
of the crevice. Tomorrow's dumping, he thought, would quite conceal it.

He wondered briefly if David and Riccardo had safely left the dumping
shed and were on their way back to Ugolini's. He looked down again into
the darkness, realizing that if he jumped from here he might fall far
enough to kill himself. Having swung away from the pile of offal, he was
now more worried about breaking his neck. He pulled himself up,
straddling the tree and facing in toward the trunk. He slid down to the
trunk, then tried to feel about with his foot for another branch.

His feet met nothing. He swung over the side of the branch, feeling the
trunk with one hand and the space below him with his feet. Still
nothing. Now he was dangling from the limb, holding on with two aching
hands. If he had not worn gloves, he would have no skin left on his
palms.

_Well, here goes one hopeful atheist._ He let go.

He fell a short distance, feetfirst, into a pool of water. It came up
over his low boots, soaking his hose. There was no smell; apparently it
was a pure forest pool, probably a puddle enlarged by the recent rain.
Sighing, he sloshed out of it. Small creatures hopped and scurried away
from him.

_It could have been much, much worse._

Glad to feel his feet on the ground, he hoped the rest of his journey to
Siena would be less exciting than the beginning.

XLVI

Friar Mathieu sat in a cushion-lined armchair in the cloistered garden
of the Hospital of Santa Clara, the white wisps of his beard ruffling
like feathers in the morning breeze. The dappled shade of a pear tree
protected him from the June sun.

A young Franciscan, his tonsured head a gleaming pink spot surrounded by
a wreath of close-cropped black hair, stood at a tall desk beside Friar
Mathieu, writing on a piece of parchment.

"All things lead to good if one looks at them aright," Friar Mathieu
said with a chuckle. "That murderer in black gave me the ti