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“Then keep busy. Wash him and prepare him and take him to the chapel. I’ve had several men building coffins for the last few hours. I thought we might have need of them.” She paused. “After you’ve finished come to Marco’s chamber. That’s what I came to tell you.”

“Marco,” Sanchia repeated numbly.

Caterina nodded. “Marco has fallen ill. He needs you. He needs us both.”

“Plague?”

“Yes. We aren’t as fortunate as I had hoped. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern about the length of time it takes to strike someone down.” She turned and her voice was slightly uneven. “I must go to my son. Come when you can. You’re needed there now and will probably be needed even more later.”

Bianca was in Marco’s chamber when Sanchia returned from taking Piero’s body to the chapel. In her yellow silk gown she looked as incongruously lovely as a buttercup. She insisted on staying in the chair beside Marco’s bed in spite of their protests.

At one point Marco begged Caterina to send Bianca away. “She won’t understand,” he whispered. “She’s not meant to.…” Once more he lapsed into unconsciousness.

“Bianca, do go sit in the garden,” Caterina suggested gently. “Sanchia and I will tend to Marco’s needs.”

Bianca shook her head, her hand tightening around Marco’s.

“We’ll take wonderful care of him.” Sanchia’s hand clasped Bianca’s shoulder. “I promise you, cara.”

“But why should I go to the garden?” Bianca glanced up at Sanchia in wonder. “Marco won’t be there. I can’t go there without Marco.”

Sanchia had a sudden poignant memory of Bianca and Marco laughing and playing on the flower-garlanded swing.

“Marco is sick,” Bianca said with dignity. “I’ll stay with him until he’s better.”

“But he may not—” Sanchia’s eyes widened. Bianca knew . The knowledge that Marco might not live was there in the serenity of Bianca’s face. Marco had been wrong about how much of the true world Bianca could understand. She not only had understood but had accepted.

Marco opened his eyes at that moment and Bianca turned swiftly back to him. “They wanted me to go to the garden. Isn’t that silly?” She smiled down at him. “We can always go to the garden another time when you’re well enough to paint me. You said you wanted to paint me in the swing, remember?”

“Yes.” His gaze caressed her face. “Beautiful. So beautiful…”

“But right now we can sit here and think about all the flowers and your lovely fountain, can’t we?” Her palm caressed his feverish forehead. “It’s so hot today. Why don’t you try to think of the water flowing and the smell of the roses?”

“I will.”

“And we’ll be sitting there on the bench together beside the fountain and you’ll be teasing me.”

“Together…”

“Oh, yes, we’ll always be together. God is good. He’d never make us part.”

His eyes closed. “Together.”

They were together four hours later when Marco died.

Caterina stepped forward and gently unclasped Marco’s hand from Bianca’s. “Take her to her chamber, Sanchia.” She closed her eyes tightly for an instant before opening them to say huskily, “I must stay here and prepare my son.”

Bianca nodded obediently. “Yes, I’ll go now.” She stood up and looked down at Marco’s face. “Arrivederci , Marco.”

Not good-bye. Just till we meet again. Sanchia was barely able to suppress her tears as she gently took Bianca’s arm and propelled her toward the door.

Bianca’s step was unsteady and Sanchia glanced up, expecting to see her face contorted with sorrow.

Bianca’s expression was serene. “Sanchia, I’d like to see the priest.”

“We sent to the cathedral for him several hours ago, but he didn’t come.” Sanchia added gently, “Marco was a good man, Bianca. God will accept him without the last rites.”

“God has already accepted him,” Bianca said. “The priest is for me. I’d like to take confession before I die.”

Sanchia gazed at her in shock. “Bianca, what—”

“I do not feel well. I told Marco the truth: God is good.” She smiled radiantly at Sanchia. “Together.”

Sanchia’s hand tightened on Bianca’s arm. “As soon as I put you to bed I myself will get the priest.”

Bianca collapsed on reaching her chamber and lingered for another two days before she was devoured by the monster ravaging Mandara.

It was proving to be a virulent, insatiable, indiscriminate monster, bringing down servants, soldiers, women, children.

Fully half of those in the castle had been struck down by the third day and Caterina told Sanchia the townfolk had been as tragically affected.

Sanchia was left with the nursing of Bianca while Caterina tried to ease the suffering of her people beyond the walls of the castle.

Sanchia was forced to send for Caterina at the hour of Bianca’s death.

“Dear God,” Caterina said softly as she opened the door and the foul stench assaulted her. “Dear God in heaven.”

“I need more water. The servants were bringing me a pitcher of water every few hours and setting it outside the door, but they haven’t come back since last night.

” Sanchia was dabbing futilely with a towel at the black suppurations on Bianca’s body.

“I’ve got to make her beautiful again. How can I make her beautiful, if I have no water to wash her? ”

“Her boils burst.” Caterina swallowed hard and then came forward to stand beside Sanchia. “Most of them die before that happens.”

“I need water.”

“There is no water. The well in the city is fouled. I am permitting everyone to come to the castle and use the cistern in the courtyard for their needs. The cistern is dry now, too.” Caterina gently closed Bianca’s lips which were stretched wide in a silent scream.

“We’ll have to take a wagon to the vineyard and bring back water from the well there. ”

“I must get her clean. She was so beautiful…”

“Shh, I’ll help you.” Caterina took the towel away from Sanchia. “But this little cloth won’t do. I’ll try to find a sheet and perhaps some water in a ewer in one of the bedchambers.” She turned and left Bianca’s chamber to return in only minutes.

“She kept asking for the priest,” Sanchia said numbly as they washed Bianca’s pitifully boil-covered body.

“I couldn’t tell her the priest was either gone or hiding, so I lied to her.

When she was in such pain that she couldn’t tell the difference, I pretended the priest was here and took her confession myself. Was I wrong, Lady Caterina?”

“Caterina.” Lion’s mother shook her head.

“I would have done the same. God is too busy striking us down to bother with confessions at the moment.” She turned to Sanchia.

“You’ll have to help me build a coffin for her.

The men who were building them in the courtyard appear to have run away, and there’s no one to do my bidding.

Do you know anything of carpentry, Sanchia? ”

Sanchia shook her head.

“Neither do I, but it can’t be so difficult if those cowardly louts were able to do it.” Caterina shrugged. “There must be some dignity in death. We’re not savages to pile our dead on the door stoops or leave them in the gutters as those beleaguered souls in the city are doing.”

“Is that what’s happening?”

Caterina nodded. “There is no sanity. There’s weeping and wailing from some and drunkenness and rape from others.

” She straightened. “I’ll get my needle and thread and we’ll sew a shroud from this sheet.

Then we’ll try our hands at fashioning a coffin.

Where’s Anna? She can help us with the sewing. ”

Sanchia tried to focus her mind on something besides the last harrowing hours with Bianca. She hadn’t seen Bianca’s maid, Anna, since a short while after Bianca collapsed. “I think she may have run away too. She was frightened.”

“We’re all frightened.” Caterina went to the door. “We’ll probably have to carry Bianca down to the chapel ourselves. Perhaps we’d better build the coffin in the chapel.” She opened the door and left the chamber.

Sanchia sat in the chair beside the bed and closed her eyes. Please, God, you’ve taken the innocent, the shining, the beautiful. Please, no more .

“Are you ill?” It was Caterina’s sharp voice behind her.

“No.” Sanchia opened her eyes to see Caterina in the doorway carrying her sewing basket. She straightened in the chair. “I was only resting a moment.”

“There will be time for rest later.” Caterina strode forward and set the basket on the bed. “Help me wrap the sheet around her.”

It was well after dark when Bianca lay secure in her clumsily crafted coffin in the chapel.

“Come, do not linger here. They’re no longer with us. Do you not feel it?” Caterina pulled Sanchia from the chapel and down the steps to the courtyard.

No torches lit the darkness.

No footsteps of grooms or guards sounded on the cobblestones.

Sanchia ran her hand wearily through her hair. “Perhaps I’m too tired to feel anything.”

Caterina nodded. “We must rest.” Her hand dropped from Sanchia’s arm. “But first come with me.”

Sanchia followed Caterina into the castle and up the stairs, but instead of going toward the bedchambers Caterina went to the door at the end of the hall leading to the tower.

“Caterina?”

“Come.”

Sanchia followed her up the steps, past the chamber where Lion had carried her the evening that seemed so long ago. They stopped at a door at the very top of the tower.

Caterina opened it and preceded Sanchia into the room.

It was the chamber of the Wind Dancer.

The statue was not in its chest but sitting atop a pedestal. Across the moonlit chamber the eyes of the Pegasus appeared to shimmer with life as it stared blindly at them.

Sanchia took an instinctive step back. “I don’t want to stay here.”

“Please, if you would be so kind. I need someone here with me. I’ll try not to be long.” Caterina’s voice was unsteady. “I have to say good-bye to my son. There’s been no time before this. Marco liked this room.”