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“I already pulled on the ring,” I said. “The ropes hold it tightly in place. I suspect it won’t budge or rotate until we loosen those ropes.”

“Maybe the eyes have a secret compartment with a collapsible knife?” Gio suggested, half joking.

It was a stretch, but I was open to all possibilities at this point. “Can you reach them?”

“If you give me a bit of a boost. Be careful not to skewer me on the horns.”

I cupped my hands, and he put one foot in them as I lifted him up. He reached carefully between the horns and pushed on the glass eyes, but nothing happened.

“That’s not good,” Gio said as I lowered him down. “This seems like an impossible task.”

“It’s not impossible,” I said. “We just have to consider our options.”

“What options?”

“We have to solve at least one of the knots on the harness to loosen the rope around the ring. Maybe that will give us enough ability to slide the ring around and find a hidden mechanism that will allow the ring to separate. I don’t see any other options. Let’s do that first and then worry about how to remove the ceiling rope and the ring later.”

A quick glance indicated that Stefan had begun attacking the knot on the right side of the bull’s harness. Gio and I went to help him. I compared the knots on both sides of the harness and quickly recognized they were different, but similar in complexity. I left Gio and Stefan to work on the left side while I went to work on the knot on the other side.

Each rope passed through a small but solid iron ring on the harness and formed an enormous knot the size and shape of a volleyball. It was tied in such a way that the end of the rope wasn’t showing. I studied it for a moment. The rope wrapped around itself again and again until the surface was pebbled with extremely tight rope loops. There was a definite pattern to each knot, but it didn’t offer any immediate insight as how to untie it.

No way to know unless I tried to unravel it.

I attacked the knot, listening with amusement as Stefan and Gio alternately cursed and praised the knot’s genius.

“How’s it going?” I called out after a few minutes.

“Pazzo.It’s insane. How did they do this?”

“They designed it by computer,” I replied, certain I was right. I’d read enough scientific articles by physicists and mathematicians who specialized in creating and untying incredibly complex theoretical knots. But how did Brando expect us to unravel such a complex knot in two hours without a computer?

“Great, a computer-generated Gordian knot,” Stefan added in frustration.

“What’s a Gordian knot?” Gio asked.

“It’s one of the few things I remember from my Greek mythology course in college. It comes from an ancient Greek tale of a knot created by the peasant Gordius, who wanted to thank Zeus for making him a king. I don’t remember how or why Zeus made him a king, but he did. In gratitude, Gordius dedicated his most prized possessions, an ox and cart, to Zeus. In the center of the town he now ruled, Gordius tied his ox to a post with a highly intricate knot, eventually dubbed the Gordian knot. An oracle then foretold that whoever untied the knot would rule Asia. For years, no one was able to untie the knot. Then Alexander the Great conquered the area, heard of the oracle, and decided to attempt it.”

“Did he untie the knot?” my mother asked, still working on the knots at the hitching post with Vittoria.

“No,” Stefan said. “He tried, but to his great frustration, he never could. So, instead, he sliced the knot with his sword, freeing the bull, which somehow was still alive, I guess. He then went on to conquer much of Asia.”

Vittoria stood up, rubbing her back. “Perhaps that’s a message that we should be looking for a way to cut the knot instead of trying to untie it.”

“Hand me a sword, darling, and I’m all about the slicing,” Gio said to her, holding up a hand as if he were wielding a sword. “I’m more of an action guy than a thinking guy anyway. I leave all that deep thinking to Romeo.”

I rolled my eyes, but Alessa came up behind me to study my knot. “Perhaps Vittoria is right, and the legend is a clue that we should look for another solution.”

“If you have one, I’m all ears,” I said.

“I don’t. But I’ll keep thinking.”

I studied the knot again. However it was created, the rope had to have an end. Another fact was that end must be near the surface, just cleverly tucked away and hidden. We just had to find it to unravel it.

“Look for the end of the rope,” I instructed everyone. “It has to be near the surface.”

“Easier said than done,” Stefan said with a grunt. “These knots are so tightly wound and compressed, there isn’t much surface to pull. Even when we do get purchase, it doesn’t budge.”

He was right. We needed something sharp and strong to pry the strands apart. But what? I stepped away from the bull and surveyed the room again.