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“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked mockingly.

“Are your wits so dazed you cannot give me my proper set-down? I suppose I must make allowances for your recent ordeal. However, I hope you will not be long about it, or I’ll be forced to deprive you of my company. You know how I detest being bored.”

He turned to Lion, who had discarded his blanket and was quickly dressing in the clothes he’d brought.

“I’ve taken the liberty of sending the troop to Pisa with instructions for your steward to give them each a small sum to start a new life somewhere else.

” His gaze went to the blackened stone of the walls of Mandara.

“They obviously have no future here, and you have no immediate use for them.”

Lion nodded. “You did well.” He pulled on boots. “Have you found other survivors of the fire?”

“Only a handful. We quartered them in a field a few miles from here and as yet there’s been no sign of the plague among them.” He grimaced. “And we spent most of the week burying the bodies in the foothills we chanced upon when coming here. There were eighty-seven of them.”

“The population of Mandara numbered well over a thousand,” Lion said. “Damari has claimed a high toll.”

“What do we do now?” Lorenzo asked. “I admit I’m abysmally weary of sitting around and waiting for you two to rise like Lazarus from the tomb. Damari?”

“Not yet. We go to Pisa. But first, I have to visit the survivors and see how all goes with them.” Lion swung onto Tabron’s back.

Lion’s sense of responsibility again, Sanchia thought. There was no longer a Mandara, but as long as his people needed him he was ready to give. “Should I go with you?”

Lion shook his head. “Sit in the sun and rest. Lorenzo and I will be back shortly.”

“I’ve done little but rest for the past two weeks.”

“Tarry here. It will do you no harm and will save me worry. Lorenzo said these people ‘appeared’ to be free of the plague. I’ll not go close, but I don’t want you within miles of them.”

Sanchia nodded in acceptance. Lion would go no matter what she said or did, and she had no desire to see the refugees from Mandara. The sight would stir too many memories of those last days. “I’ll stay here.”

“Santa Maria , such meekness!” Lorenzo mounted his horse. “Where is your spirit, your tartness? What a disappointment you’re proving, Sanchia. And you, too, Lion. You have the settled air of a couple married a decade or so.”

Sanchia’s gaze met Lion’s and the faintest smile touched her lips.

In a strange way she felt Lorenzo was right.

During their week of isolation together they had known only sorrow and fear and the need to comfort each other.

The bond between them had toughened and yet become more supple, like fine leather after years of use.

As if he had read her mind, Lion nodded imperceptively. “We’ll return soon,” he said as he and Lorenzo set off.

Sanchia sat down on the bench beside the door of the winery and closed her eyes as she lifted her face to let the rays of the sun bathe her cheeks. The air was clean and sweet, and a feeling of peace gradually settled over her. With it came the strange certainty that the plague was gone.

The Medusa had moved on.

Lion returned alone two hours later. When she inquired into Lorenzo’s whereabouts, Lion shrugged as he reined up before her. “He’s gone to Mandara. God knows why. There’s nothing there but ashes and ruins. He said he had a whim to see it one more time before we left.”

“A whim.” Sanchia turned to look thoughtfully at Mandara. She could not imagine anyone wanting to go back to that charred wasteland. Then, suddenly, she knew why Lorenzo had returned. “I have to go back too. Will you take me?”

“No!” Lion turned to look at her in amazement. “Why, by all the saints, would you be mad enough to do that?”

“Not madness. And not a whim,” she said soberly. “But I have to go back. There’s no danger there now. Not even the plague could have lived through the inferno.”

“You can’t be certain.”

“No, but I feel it so strongly.” She smiled. “It has passed us by, Lion.”

“If you have to go, then I’ll go with you.”

“No.” She held up her arms and he muttered a curse as he swung her up before him on the saddle. “You can take me to where the city gates once were.” She settled herself back against him. “And wait for me there, as I waited for you here.”

Lorenzo was sitting on his horse looking at the blackened ruins of the rose garden when Sanchia guided Tabron through the rubble to draw even with him.

She flinched as she looked around the garden.

The devastation of the town had moved her terribly when she was riding through it, but this ruin had much more emotional meaning for her.

Where there had been flowering beauty there was now only charred bushes, blackened fountains, cracked benches.

The wooden arch over the arbor had crashed down to bury the marble bench beneath, and there was no sign of the pretty garlanded swing where she had watched Bianca and Marco at play that first afternoon.

Lorenzo didn’t look at her. “I don’t want you here.”

“She did,” Sanchia said quietly. “She called me friend and held out her hand to me and said, ‘Come with me to my garden, for I don’t want to die alone.’ And I took her hand and we stayed here together and talked of many things until she could no longer speak sensibly.

But even then she held my hand tightly and would not let it go until she was taken.

I wrapped her in a sheet and dragged her to the chapel to lie with the others.

I had to make her coffin with my own hands. She—”

“Be quiet. I don’t want to hear this,” Lorenzo said hoarsely. “Leave me.”

“I cannot leave you. What she said in this garden has worth and meaning for all of us. She said she had no regrets about anything she had done. She only wished that she had taken more time to nurture and appreciate the people around her as she had this garden.”

“Is that all she said?”

“No, but it was all much the same. Live in the rose gardens of life, live fully and well, and do not fear the thorns.” She paused. “She did say one more thing. But that was much later, when the pain had nearly crazed her and she no longer knew of what she spoke. She said, ‘I love you, Lorenzo.’”

He stiffened as if she had struck him. “She was…an extraordinary woman and my very good friend.” His voice was uneven. “Naturally, you will not repeat her words, as they could be misunderstood.”

“You don’t have to protect her any longer, Lorenzo,” Sanchia said softly. “And certainly not from me. I would not even tell Lion this, but you have the right to know. Because I think you are one of the gardens Caterina didn’t get a chance to nurture and bring into full bloom.”

He was silent, gazing out over the charred garden. “It was not an easy death?”

“No, none of them died easily.”

Lorenzo’s hands suddenly clenched on the reins. “She was—” When he spoke again his voice was so low she had to strain to hear. “I thought I was…empty inside, but she was there all the time.”

“She’ll still be there as long as we remember her.”

“Yes.” Lorenzo turned his horse and Sanchia felt a thrill of pity as she saw the stark desolation in his usually expressionless face. “But she’s not here in this garden any more. I thought perhaps she might be.”

Sanchia turned Tabron to follow him, but he suddenly reined in and glanced sharply over his shoulder at the blackened wreckage of the marble bench in the arbor. He tilted his head to one side as if he were listening.

“What is it?” Sanchia asked, puzzled.

“Nothing.” His gaze was still on the arbor. “I thought I heard something.”

“What?”

“Bells.” He turned and rode slowly out of the garden. “It must have been the wind rustling through those burned bushes, though I could have sworn I heard the jingle of bells.…”