"Oh," said Thur. "You must tell Fiametta, She'll so pleased. She thought her magic was a failure." He paused. True love spell? What true love spell? "Working how?"

Vague fear washed through him. Had his new longings been manipulated by magic? That was an unsettling thought, but no. Real panic came with the notion that Fiametta might somehow be taken from him. But she didn't belong to him. His left hand clenched possessively.

"Fiametta cast this? Not Master Beneforte? Excuse me, I must have a closer look." He took Thur's hand again, but instead of peering, shut his eyes tightly.

Thur's brows wrinkled. Abbot Monreale was silent for a long minute. When he straightened again, opening his eyes, his expression was grave. "Brother Ambrose. Please fetch Fiametta Beneforte."

Alone with Thur, Monreale crossed his arms and leaned against his worktable. He sucked thoughtfully on his lower lip, gazed at his sandals, then glanced keenly at the young man. "So how do you like the girl, son?"

"I ... like her very well, Father." Thur replied sturdily. "At least... I think I do. I know I do. But what's the ring doing to me?"

"To you? The ring isn't doing anything to you. You, however, are doing something to it. Completing it, I suppose would be one way of putting it. Cluny's spell is reputed to reveal true love, but that is not perfectly accurate. More precise to say it reveals a true heart." He gave Thur an odd smile, above intent eyes.

Thur breathed relief. He was not enspelled. Well, he hadn't really thought he was.

"But are your intentions honorable?" asked Monreale. "Cluny is not always clear on that point."

"My intentions?" Thur repeated, confused. "What intentions?"

"Do you think of marriage, or are you in danger of drifting into the sin of lust?" Monreale clarified.

Marriage? The word had the weight of a rock hammer, swung from behind, meeting his head. Thur blinked. Himself, a husband? Like ... like a grown man? A dizzying gulf of maturity yawned before him, quite unexpectedly. "But ... I don't ... Father, if all had been as it was, as I'd been expecting when my brother's letter fetched me to Montefoglia ... Uri had arranged for me to be apprenticed to Master Beneforte, you see. As a poor apprentice, I could not have hoped—not for years, and by then she would have been married off to some rich fellow. Aren't we too far apart? Dare I think I could ... have her? It's true, Madonna Beneforte needs someone. .. ." Thur trailed off, his head whirling. Lust? In marriage he could have all the lust he wanted, presumably, and be blessed for it.

"Given the death of her father, Fiametta needs someone very much," said Monreale. "She has no relatives here. No woman should live alone, with no master to her household. Particularly not a young woman. And Fiametta Beneforte still less. A situation fraught with danger. There is a gap of rank between you, true, but the testimony of this ring is ... unusual. What you are, though, is very young and poor to be thinking of setting up a household."

He hadn't been thinking of it, till Monreale brought it up.

"Yet not too young for me to send into a danger I fear could be ..." Monreale trailed off. "God help me." That was intoned as a prayer. His voice firmed. "It's a rare and happy man, son, who ever finds his true vocation, his true love, or his true faith." He nodded to the ring. "There is no evil in this for you."

Footsteps sounded in the outer room, and Brother Ambrose ducked into the inner chamber, followed by Fiametta. Her wildly curling hair was subdued this morning in a thick braid down her back. It made her look serene, older, an effect slightly spoiled by a few stray wisps of straw sticking here and there to her filthy red velvet dress. Thur wanted her to look less tired and worried. She had laughed once, on the road yesterday, at something Thur had said. He wanted her to laugh again. Her laughter had been like water on the hot day. His distress for her weariness and worry became all mixed up in his head with a sudden picture of her, laughing, in a marriage bed, her smooth brown limbs flashing in some froth of nightgown ...

Monreale composed his face into stern lines. He pointed at the lion ring. "Did you make this, Fiametta?"

She glanced from Monreale's face to Thur's and back again, and said faintly, "Yes, Father."

"Under your Papa's supervision?"

She swallowed. "No, Father. Well, yes and no."

Monreale's gray brows rose. "Which? Yes, or no?"

"No." Her sculptured chin lifted. "But he knew of it."

"It seems to be a Beneforte trait, to dabble in questionable rings," said Monreale in a dry tone. "You know Master Beneforte had not licensed you as his apprentice."

"I've been learning the jeweler's craft for years. You know that, Father Monreale."

"The metalwork is not my concern."

"You knew I assisted him in his spells."

"Such assistance as was proper, under a licensed mage. This, however, is not a work of assistance. Neither is it the work of a clumsy amateur. How came you to know so much?"

"I often assisted him, Father." After a long, expectant silence, she added reluctantly, "I found the spell written out in one of Papa's books. Investing it in the ring was no problem, I already knew the gold-casting part. I just followed the directions very carefully. There didn't seem to be much to it. No flash. I was disappointed, at first, because I didn't think it had worked, because ... because Uri didn't put it on. I tried to give it to him."

"Ah!" said Monreale in a professionally interested tone, that he converted to a more neutral throat-clearing noise.

"But then I gradually realized that no one could put it on. That soldier, and the thieving innkeeper both tried hard to steal it for its gold, but they couldn't."

She glanced covertly at Thur. "Um ... is it working, Father?"

"We will discuss that later. So, you read your Papa's books. With his permission?"

"Uh ... no."

"Fiametta, that is the sin of disobedience."

"No, it wasn't! He didn't forbid me. That is ... I didn't ask. But I found out later he was watching me all the time, and he didn't stop me. So that's almost like permission, isn't it?"

Thur could have sworn that Abbot Monreale suppressed a smile at this sophistry, but the flicker of expression in the stern visage was gone again almost at once. "Master Beneforte never applied to me for your license."

"He was going to. He was just so busy, lately, with the saltcellar and the Perseus and all his other commissions. I'm sure he was going to."

Monreale raised his brows again.

"All right," Fiametta sighed, "I'm not sure. But we did talk about it. I begged him to, countless times. Father Monreale, I want to be a mage! I can do good work, I know I can! Better than Teseo. It's not fair!"

"What it is not, is properly approved," said Monreale. "Not properly supervised. I've seen souls lost to such hubris, Fiametta."

"So approve me! Papa's not here to ask for me, I suppose I can ask for myself now. Who else? I want to be good, let me be!"

Monreale said mildly, "You ran ahead of me. First comes contrition, confession, and penance. Then absolution. I haven't even finished my sermon on contrition yet."

Fiametta's brown eyes heated with a sudden glimmer of anticipation, at the leakage of humor and hope from behind Monreale's firm facade. She straightened alertly, almost bouncing. "Oh, get to my penance, Father, quickly!"

"Your penance will be to go to the altar of Our Lady in the chapel and pray, on your knees, for patience and obedience. When you feel your prayer has been answered, go eat your noon meal, then come back to me here. I urgently need a talented assistant in addition to Brother Ambrose, who is as exhausted as myself. I have a project to complete this afternoon, before Compline."