Thur fitted the bricks for the furnace floor and plotted his escape, as soon as he reached the end of this row, by excusing himself to go to the garderobe. A pounding noise came from the heavy timber gate to the stables at the end of the garden. Someone was unblocking it with a mallet. Thur looked up. A couple of big, loud Losimon soldiers in steel and leather backed through pulling on a rope. Their whoops seemed too good-natured to go with some combat, and Thur's work mates, after first freezing at their shovels, relaxed and leaned on them to watch.

Following the Losimon soldiers came a train of mules, roped together pack-saddle-to-halter. The first mule was a distinctive gray, the second honey-brown with a cream-colored nose—the gaily-striped saddle blankets were all too familiar. Oh, Jesus, it was Pico's mule train. Would the packmaster blurt out recognition of Thur? Would Thur be dangling by his neck from the castle wall, hanged as a discovered spy, within the half-hour? Thur crouched down in his half-built furnace and stared wildly. Damn it, Pico had said he was going to cut over the hills to Milan. What bad angel had inspired him to bring his load of copper to sell in Montefoglia, instead? Now, of all times?

But the eighth mule walked stiffly through the gate with no sign of Pico, or of his two boys. Only a quartet of dismounted Losimon cavalrymen tugged the animals along. Thur stood up from his crouch, wary and confused.

"Hey, Foundryman!" shouted the lead soldier. "Where do you want us to put this?"

Thur almost answered, Stack the pigs in pairs over there, but gulped down his mistake and said instead, "Put what?" He walked toward the mule train.

The mules were sweaty and dirty under their harness. Iridescent green flies were already plaguing new pink raw spots showing under the edges of the leather straps. One mule had been limping, and now stood with a hind hoof held gingerly tiptoe. All dove their heads to the grass and weeds at their feet, smacking dry and thirsty lips.

"My lord's new copper." The soldier flicked up the canvas of a pack-saddle and pointed proudly to a thick metal bar.

Thur stared at the lathered and exhausted animals. Pico would never have permitted—"Where is Pi—is the packmaster?" Thur demanded. Dread lent his voice an unaccustomed harshness.

"Gone to God," grinned the soldier. "He left us these in his will, eh?"

Thur swallowed. "Where did you find them?"

"We were on patrol, foraging up north of the lake yesterday. Too damn far from home, we were just about to quit and go back, when we came upon this fellow's camp in the hills. Our lieutenant fancied this'd be a gift to my lord's taste, so we took 'em. We ran them all night to get here. Stubborn beasts, we had to beat 'em with the flats of our swords to keep 'em moving, toward the end."

Yes, several of the animals' haunches showed long bloody welts. Thur had to allow, Ferrante's cavalrymen were just as cruel to their own beasts, and to each other. The sweat-stained, filthy soldier's features were lined with a fatigue scarcely less than that of the drooping mules. But the mules lacked his greedy elation.

"Pi ... didn't the packmaster ... I take it the pack-master objected?" Thur struggled to keep his voice cool, disinterested.

"A length of my officer's Spanish steel settled the argument soon enough." The soldier paused thoughtfully. "Didn't much care for what he did to the boy. The lad wouldn't stop trying to fight us, after it was over. Half-mad, I think, though his elder brother had a better head, and tried to hold him. Well, t'was no worse than some of the things that happened after the last siege of Pisa."

"Did he ... what did he do to the boy?"

"Half chopped off his head. It stopped the screaming, right enough, which was a relief.

"Killed him? Thur choked.

"Outright." The soldier spat reflectively. "Could've been worse."

Thur gripped his hands behind his back, to hide their trembling. "Did he ... kill both boys?"

"Naw. The smarter one ran off." The soldier glanced up. "Ah. Here we go."

Thur followed his gaze to the doors to the castle. Just descending into the garden was Lord Ferrante, dressed in the same fine mail tunic and leather leggings as yesterday morning. A clean white linen undercollar shone at his neck, and a gold badge in his green hat winked diamonds in the sun. Flanking him stamped another dirty and fatigued cavalryman. A dusty black beard framed a dark smile missing several front teeth. Thur stiffened—but there was no reason to suppose the man would recognize him from Catti's inn. It had been dusk in the innyard, and Thur had hung in the background till things went so terribly wrong. I should have recognized the man from his methods, though, Thur thought wearily.

"So," said Ferrante bluffly, coming up to Thur. "What value have we here, German?"

Thur walked to a saddlebag, and pretended to examine its contents. "Finest Swiss copper, my lord."

"Is it fit for our needs? Is it sufficient?"

"More than sufficient." Thur fingered Master Kunz's mark, stamped on the soft red bar. "I've ... heard of this forge. Very pure."

"Very good." Lord Ferrante turned to his men, and took a purse from his waist. He poured gold coins into his hand, held them up for all to see, poured them back, and handed the purse to his gap-toothed minion for distribution. The men cheered.

"Unload these beasts, then send your men to eat,"

Ferrante directed his lieutenant. "Deliver the mules to my quartermaster's constable, outside the walls." Ferrante frowned, walking down the line of mules. "See that they get water and hay, and their harness off, before you eat. Tell my head groom to check that dun's off-hind hoof. My mules must be made to last."

Ferrante wheeled away, and strode back into the castle. Under Thur's wooden direction, the hungry men made short work of unloading and stacking the copper pigs on the ground beside the furnace. Laughing and joking about their new-won gold, the soldiers led the mules back into the castle stable.

A bird trilled from the white blossoms of a plum tree espaliered to the garden wall. The workmen returned to their digging, shovels scraping through the hard-packed earth. The line of light creeping across the ground as the sun rose higher reached the stack of copper, edging it with blinding red fire. Thur swallowed nausea.

"I'm ... going to the garderobe," he said, turned, and stumbled from the garden.

Thur really did go to the garderobe, a slit cut into the castle wall at the back of the stables and used by the grooms and the workmen. But he exited again without, as he had at first feared, being violently ill. He leaned shakily against a stall partition and listened to the steady munching of a horse eating its hay. The presence of the big animals soothed him, a little. The dumb beasts were innocent. Though God had made Balaam's ass speak out against injustice, or so Brother Glarus had told the story. Why not Pico's mules?

An unfamiliar trembling shortened Thur's breath. Hatred. Wrath, as the list of the seven deadly sins had it. The murder of Pico's boy Zilio, so bluntly described, burned in his imagination, angered him almost more than the death of Uri. Uri had been a man, taking a man's risks. The Losimons hadn't any call to kill a child. They could have knocked him aside, or tied him up, or something.... His righteousness died as an image of the whey-faced boy groom across Ferrante's saddlebow troubled his mind. He shook his aching head in bewilderment.

He made his way to the stable door into the main court. A couple of grooms had taken Pico's mules outside, and tied them to ringbolts in the wall in the narrowing shade. They had watered them and stripped them of their harness, and now were rubbing them down and daubing goose grease on their sores. The mules snatched at little piles of hay, and grumpily laid their long ears back and nipped at each other. Thur squinted into the heat of the courtyard, and the light reflecting blindingly off the bulbous marble staircase. The sun was higher. Did it always climb this fast, of a morning? Across the pavement at the base of the northern gate-tower, two guards stood flanking a small entry arch.