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satisfied and turned, walking crisply from the room without explanation. Siobhan followed quietly. Diana led down a hallway, up one floor to a study with an excellent view of a public plaza below.
    Siobhan commented quietly, “Oh look, more naked Greeks on the ceiling. Looks like they’re up to something important though, doesn’t it?”
    Diana ignored her, and from a carved wooden desk, produced a gilded box. She snapped open several clasps and raised the lid. From within she pulled a wooden object, perhaps a foot in length, with a metal tube imbedded across the top, and a thick knob at the back. On top, a complex wheel held a piece of pyrite ready to strike against a metal pan. The body of the device was carved to look like intertwining vines of ivy. It weighted heavy in Diana’s hands. To try to lift it and point it with one hand would be very difficult for her. Keeping it in both hands, she held it for Siobhan to see.
    Siobhan squinted. “What is it, exactly?”
    Diana frowned, disappointed. “It’s a wheellock pistol. It was a gift to my father from some painter and inventor. It’s one of the first of its kind. My father took me to Milano a few years ago in hopes I might marry one of the cousins of the Sforza family. The painter worked on a consignment for them there. Leonardo showed me how to use it. I think I remember.” She looked back into the box and found the small ivory horn with gunpowder, and a dozen or so metal balls.
    “Do you think you really could dispatch someone with that?” Siobhan looked skeptical.
    “At least I’ll have the option, won’t I? Is there anything that we’re forgetting?”
    “A small measure of good sense, I’m beginning to think,” Siobhan murmured.
    Diana felt her blood rise at the insubordination. “You’re welcome to stay here and do laundry if you prefer.”
    “Forgive me, lady. I just hope we are up to the task.”
    Diana regarded Siobhan for a moment. “Me too. I don’t feel like I have much choice. You do, however. You could very well be killed. Already my mother and the nun were killed. I won’t hold it against you if you stay behind.”
    “I couldn’t have that. I’m with you, lady.”
    Diana nodded, feeling relieved and mildly guilty at the same time. “We should go before my father realizes that we’re up to something and tries to stop us.” She moved for the door. “I’d hate to see good sense get in the way of our plan.”
    ****
    For the delivery, they made up a package sealed with wax and containing several long bricks. These gave the parcel a realistic weight, yet also made carting it across Firenze an unforeseen annoyance. Naturally once this was discovered, the labor largely fell to Siobhan. Diana carried the pistol and a length of good silk rope in her pack.
    Once they were outside the Romancier, their final deliberations revealed the weaknesses of their plan. “You can hardly deliver the package.” Siobhan pointed at Diana’s clothing. “You’re dressed for mourning. Mourners don’t deliver packages.”
    “Uggh!” Diana put her hand up to her forehead. “I can be such a fool sometimes.”
    “Well, you can be forgiven since you’ve just been through a considerable shock. I’ll deliver the package, but you’ll have to break into his room once I discover which is his. Can you get through a lock?”
    Diana managed a wry smile. “You can’t live successfully in my father’s house without learning a few skills. If you can determine which room belongs to Giuseppe Mancini, I can get us inside. Don’t use his full name though…”
    “I remember the plan,” Siobhan assured her.
    With that the Irishwoman left, disappearing into the Romancier. Diana leaned against the side of the building and waited, which never had been her strongpoint. She fidgeted, sighed, looked beseechingly at the sky. She counted the gold sequin coins sewn into the bosom of her dress, then remarking upon the squalor of this section of town, decided covering