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the city in the company of your agent.”
    “Why have we heard nothing of this?” Lorenzo asked. “Giuseppe’s own servant investigated and found nothing.”
    “In the interest of avoiding mass panic of the kind that sweeps through these fevered peasant minds as easily as a winter wind off the Alps, I suppressed my findings. Unfortunately, Nemours did not report his prisoner either, taking him for a madman. I only just learned of him.”
    “But nobody has positively identified this madman as Giuseppe Veronese. Is that what you’re saying?”
    “I am certain it is he,” Montguillon said. “But you shall have the opportunity to see for yourself. You will come with me to Lord Nemours’s chatelet.”
    Lorenzo’s first inclination was to protest. He wanted away from the oppressive atmosphere of the priory, and the unpleasant memories it raised. There was business to execute, and Lucrezia to consider. He had no desire to humiliate himself in front of her again, but at the least he could stave off Marco’s advances.
    “What if we reach the castle,” Lorenzo said, “and we discover that Giuseppe is normal in appearance? That he hasn’t lost his mind, and denies any knowledge of these wolf men? Denies it, that is, without torture?”
    “If his appearance is unaltered, and it appears that Lord Nemours is offering us a deception, then we shall have some questions to put to the king’s provost.”
    Montguillon’s lips pulled back in an unpleasant smile, as if pleased at the thought of bringing down someone so powerful as the king’s highest minister in Paris.
    “Very well,” Lorenzo said, turning toward the door of the chapel. He was anxious to end this interview. “Twenty-five miles you say? Are the roads good? Do you have a swift carriage?”
    “We’ll need every hour of daylight. I’d rather not be caught out on the road at night. Not with the servants of Lucifer abroad in the land.”
    The two men pushed open the heavy oak doors of the chapel, passed down another corridor, and reentered the scriptorium, where the young friar was still waiting with his hands clasped together while the copyists continued their work.
    “I’ll return in the morning,” Lorenzo said. “Two hours before sunrise.”
    “No, you’ll stay here,” Montguillon said. “We’ve already prepared rooms for you.” He looked pointedly at the saffron cross pinned to Lorenzo’s breast. “And there is the matter of your penance.”
    The friars in the scriptorium looked up from their manuscripts at this last word. They tugged at beards with their blackened fingers and rubbed at bloodshot eyes, their eyelids streaked with ink. Lorenzo flushed. He lowered his voice.
    “But if I’m scourged, I’ll be weakened, and I’ll need time to recover. If you want to leave in the morning, we don’t have time for any of that.”
    “You have plenty of time, my friend. Especially if you don’t repent. Nine thousand years in purgatory. An eternity in the fiery torments of hell.”
    “But I confessed and repented. I really don’t think—”
    “And as for temporal punishment, you may either submit willingly or struggle against your sentence. And suffer a greater purging.”
    Lorenzo fell silent. His heart thundered in his chest. Every friar in the scriptorium was now staring. Some men looked afraid, others pitying. One man leered at him with a face as ugly and stony as a cathedral gargoyle. The prior, those looks promised, was not an easy taskmaster.
    “Simon,” Montguillon said to the young friar. “Take Lorenzo Boccaccio di Firenze to the chamber. Present him to the devices we have prepared.”

Chapter Seven
    Martin stood in the doorway and cleared his throat. He held a whip in his hand. Lucrezia looked up from where she was fastening a leather collar around Tullia’s neck. It was reinforced with iron studs and would hopefully provide some protection for her throat.
    “Is the carriage ready?” she asked.
    “Yes, my lady.”
    His voice