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to say. "I didn't know she was dead. Sorry."
"Where," asked Ellison, "did you think that you had seen me before?"
"I dunno. Maybe I was wrong about that, too. Sometimes my ideas get all, all screwed up."
Stephanie straightened up. She was smiling briskly, almost like a nurse, as she touched the youth on the
shoulder. "You must be hungry and thirsty," she said in bright inviting tones. "Come along with me to the
kitchen, and we'll see what we can find. What's your name?"
"Pat." And Pat got up out of his chair quickly, following Stephanie like a puppy entranced by a first kind
gesture.
A few moments later, Ellison followed them both, keeping a little distance. Peering into the breakfast
room, he could see the youth seated at the table there, his back to Ellison, already chewing on something.
Stephanie was pouring milk into a plastic tumbler for him. Beyond, in the kitchen, the sink was modestly
stacked with dirty dishes from lunch. It would be tomorrow morning before any of the help came back.
Once the wanderer in his dirty T-shirt had been launched on a meal, Stephanie rejoined Ellison for a
conference. "What do you make of this?" she whispered.
Ellison tugged her a little further from the kitchen, into the next room. "I don't like it," he answered in his
own almost rumbling whisper. Then with a gesture he retreated further still, to where the boy had left his
pack. Ellison bent and opened it. A dirty, lightweight jacket came to view, along with a few other items of
spare clothing. In the bottom were some granola bars, their wrappers worn with a long time of jostling in
the pack.
Ellison stood, grunting. "And I don't know what it's about. But I'm going to take whatever steps are
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necessary to find out."
SEVENTEEN
Oh, I could regale you now with all the sights and sounds and smells of fifteenth-century Rome. But it
would be misleading, insofar as my story is concerned. The truth is, that at the time of my first visit to
Rome I was scarcely aware of my surroundings except as they affected my search for Helen. I was
beginning truly to wonder whether I might be the victim of some enchantment, so obsessively had this
woman's image, in paint and sketch and memory, come to dominate my thought. Of course I wanted
revenge on her, and on her lover but gradually I was coming to realize that I wanted something more as
well. More than mere vengeance, however ferocious, would be needed to give me satisfaction. What
exactly the other thing might be, I did not know. But I hoped I would know, in the first moment when I
looked on her again.
From Roman church to Roman church I plodded like a pilgrim, searching for the artist Perugino. I had
not imagined there would be quite so many Roman churches. At my waist was the dagger that had once
been left on a pillow, aimed at my head. Folded into my purse was a small bundle of sketches by
Leonardo da Vinci, likenesses of the sister of the King of Hungary. I was having trouble finding any
places to dispose of these pictures where I might reasonably expect them to be helpful.
On the third day of my Roman search I found a small church where, one of its priests told me, an artisan
named Perugino had been painting some murals a few months past. But the painter was certainly gone
from the neighborhood now, gone completely away from Rome the priest thought, and his mistress with
him if he had had one. The priest had never noticed any woman at all in Perugino's company, let alone
one speaking Hungarian and bearing a resemblance to my sketches.
I thanked him, and took my search for Helen to one of the nearby taverns. There some local men said
they thought they might have seen her said it with an exchange of winks. They were sophisticated
city-dwelling jokers, metropolitan wits who jested at the expense of the lovelorn barbarian on his fool's
quest. Somehow it was not plain to them that I was seeking vengeance and not love. I left one dead, two
wounded, and had to take my searching elsewhere. My best talents are not in diplomacy, nor in the craft
of the detective either.
After I had spent another day in fruitless prowling about Rome I visited the precincts of the Vatican.
There I located my former traveling companions, the Hungarian delegation come to ask for a Crusade;
while waiting to see His Holiness they had taken lodgings near the old St. Peter's. In Florence, where I
had dropped out, they had been joined by my old acquaintance Morsino. Now Morsino greeted me in
friendly style; he looked grave, though, when I told him of my recent brawl, and he counseled me to
make no further requests or demands for official help in any Italian city. King Matthias, Morsino thought,
was no longer fully committed to the search. As long as Helen continued to remain out of sight,
committing no more public scandals, that seemed to be enough for the king; and Morsino thought
perhaps it ought to be enough for me as well. The idea seemed to be to let sleeping Helens lie where and
with whom they would.
My own views, I promptly explained, were different. The king had sent me here with orders to search
for Helen, and search for her I would, for my own honor as well as that of royalty. If he, Morsino,
thought that he could organize the hunt in Rome more discreetly and effectively than I, well, he was
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welcome to take a hand. And this invitation the worried envoy at last reluctantly accepted.
I hung around St. Peter's environs for another two weeks, undergoing fits of restlessness that alternated
with periods of almost immobile depression. Then Morsino's efforts at last bore fruit. An agent hired by
him brought me a witness, a poor woman who swore she had once lodged near an artist and a Hungarian
woman who had been living together in the neighborhood of the church where Perugino had done his
painting. Shortly before their disappearance some months past my witness had heard the couple talking
about moving on to Venice.
* * *
I am not going to write much in these pages about the next twenty months of my life. It was a period in
which I did things that I am not proud of, and which there is now very little purpose in remembering. My
leg was fully healed by this time, and I could ride and fight effectively. Good fighting men, and, even
more, capable military leaders, were at this time very much in demand in Italy because of the ceaseless
squabbling of the city-states and petty principalities, not yet forged into a nation. I had not been many
days in Venice before I signed a soldier's contract with the eminent mercenary Bartolomeo Colleoni. My
funds were running low; and I expected to retain enough time to myself, and freedom of movement, to
allow me to continue the search for Helen.
Colleoni had then been for ten years the General in Chief of all the Venetian armed forces. But, like most
of the other successfulcondottieri of the time, he had as his ultimate goal the carving out of his own
personal domain. Some of his colleagues, like the founder of the Sforza dynasty in Milan, succeeded
admirably in this enterprise. Many others failed miserably; but, like Sforza and Colleoni, most had had
but little to lose when they began.
My new employer was famed for his vigor, both marital and martial, at an advanced age; for his ferocity
(which was somewhat remarkable even for the time); his collection of rare books (when all books were
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