A stout woman in a black gown came into the common room of the Angel and went straight to the hooded man. The lower part of her face was covered by a black scarf. Anyone watching the hooded Sordello and the veiled lady would think theirs was just everyday wickedness--an adulterous couple meeting for an assignation. She sat beside him on the bench. Their heads drew together, and Lorenzo, behind a door across the room, was too far away to hear. Lorenzo heard a scratching behind him. He turned, but it was too dark even to see movement. _Rats_, he thought. _This work continually brings a man into the company of rats. Four-legged rats and men like Sordello._ He put his eye to the peephole again, just in time to see a slip of paper disappear into the woman's deep sleeve. Whoever Sordello was reporting to, he was putting it in writing. Interesting that the man _could_ write. That put him a cut above the average bravo, in education, at least. The innkeeper came over to offer the woman wine, but she waved him away without looking at him. She stood up, brushing the seat of her gown fastidiously, like one who was used to sitting in cleaner surroundings. Without a gesture or a handclasp she left Sordello as quickly as she had come. Nothing loverlike about those two. Lorenzo decided to follow the woman, and left by the bolthole the tavern keeper had shown him. He doubted that the old bravo would do anything other than sit there and get drunk. He had to run through the alley beside the inn to catch a glimpse of her going around a corner. She was hard to see. The darkness of night was made deeper by the jutting upper stories of the houses, and she was wearing black. He kept running, his footfalls muffled by the mushy layers of moldering refuse that paved the streets. A woman going through the byways of the poorest part of town after dark was taking a great chance with her purse and her honor. She was either well paid or very dedicated. Lorenzo, whispering breathless curses, twice had almost lost her in the maze before she emerged onto a wider street, the Via di San Remo. There, lights from windows made her easier to follow. Now he was quite sure where she was going, and was not at all surprised when she hurried up the stairs leading to the front door of the Palazzo Monaldeschi. The door opened. There was a blaze of torchlight, and she pulled down her scarf to identify herself. Even from across the street Lorenzo knew her. Ana, the woman who interpreted for the Tartars. * * * * * Sophia entered Cardinal Ugolini's cabinet holding a letter written by Simon de Gobignon. It had been pressed into her hand by the French count's young scudiero when she was out walking. She had read it over and over again before bringing it to David.