get them first. I would somehow do it.
  As soon as the sun was up, so was I, and walking around the town, my saddlebags over my 
shoulder casually, as if they didn't contain a fortune, I sized up quite a portion of 
Santa Maddalana, with its treeless, narrow-stoned streets, built centuries before, 
perhaps some of its buildings with their wild patternless mortared stones going back even 
to Roman times.
  It was a marvelously peaceful and prosperous town.
  The forges were already at work, and so were the cabinetmakers and also the 
saddlemakers; there were several shoemakers dealing in some fine slippers as well as the 
workaday boots, and quite a cluster of jewelers and men who worked in a great variety of 
precious metals, as well as the usual swordmakers, men who made keys and the like and 
those who dealt in hides and furs.
  I passed more fancy shops than I could count. One could buy fancy fabrics here, right 
from Florence, I supposed, and lace from north and south it seemed, and Oriental spices. 
The butchers were having a time of it with the abundance of fresh meat. And there were 
many wine shops, and I passed at least a couple of busy notaries, letter writers and the 
like, and several doctors or, rather, apothecaries.
  Carts were rolling through the front gates, and there was even a little crush in the 
streets now and then before the sun was even high enough to come fiercely down over the 
close-tiled roofs and hit the bare stones on which I plodded uphill.
  The churches rang their bells for Mass, and I saw plenty of schoolchildren rushing past 
me, all rather clean and neatly dressed, and then two little crews being paraded by monks 
into the churches, both of which were quite antique and had no ornament on the front at 
all, save for statues deep in niches - saints who scarcely had any features left to them 
at all - the heavily patched stones of the facades obviously having weathered the 
frequent earthquakes of this region.
  There were two rather ordinary bookshops that had almost nothing much, except the 
prayer books one would expect to find, and these at very high prices. Two merchants sold 
really fine wares from the East. And there was a cluster of carpet sellers, too, who 
dealt in an impressive variety of country-made goods and intricate carpets from Byzantium.
  Lots of money was changing hands. There were well-dressed people showing off their fine 
clothes. It seemed a self-sufficient place, though there were travelers coming uphill 
with the clop of horses' hooves echoing on the barren walls. And I think I spied one 
neglected and very much fortified convent.
  I passed at least two more inns, and as I crisscrossed through the barely passable 
alleyways here and there, I ascertained that there were actually three basic streets to 
the town, all running parallel up and down the hill.
  At the far deep end were the gates by which I had entered, and the huge farmers' 
markets opened now in the piazza.
  At the high end was the ruined fortress or castle where once the Lord had lived - a 
great cumbersome mass of old stones, of which only a part was visible from the street, 
and in the lower floors of this complex there were the town's governing offices. There 
were several small grottoes or piazzas, and old fountains almost crumbled away but still 
giving forth their gurgling water. Old women were busy, shuffling along with their market 
baskets and their shawls in spite of the warmth; and I saw beautiful young girls about 
giving me the eye, all of them very young. I didn't want any part of them.
  As soon as Mass was over and school had begun, I went to the Dominican church - the 
largest and most impressive of the three I could readily see - and asked at the rectory 
for a priest. I had to go to Confession.
  There came out a young priest, very handsome with well-formed limbs and a healthy look 
to his complexion and a truly devout manner to him, his black and white robes very 
clean-looking. He looked at my attire, and my sword, indeed he took me in very 
respectfully but quite comprehensively, and obviously presuming me to be a person of 
importance, invited me into a small room for the Confession.
  He was gracious more than servile. He had no more than a crown of golden hair clipped 
very short around the top of his bald head, and large almost shy eyes.
  He sat down, and I knelt close to him on the bare floor, and then out of me came the 
whole lurid tale.
  With bowed head, I went on and on with it, rushing from one thing to another, from the 
first hideous happenings that had so stirred my curiosity and alarm, to my father's 
fragmented and mysterious words and at last to the raid itself and the dreadful 
assassination of everyone in our compound. By the time I came to the death of my brother 
and sister, I was gesticulating madly, and all but shaping my brother's head with my 
hands in the empty air, and gasping and unable to catch my breath.
  Only when I was utterly finished with every last word did I look up and realize that 
the young priest was staring down at me in perfect distress and horror.
  I didn't know what to make of his expression. You could have seen the very same face on 
a man startled by an insect or an approaching battalion of bloody murderers. What had I 
expected, for the love of God?
  "Look, Father," I said. "All you have to do is send someone up that mountain and see 
for yourself!" I shrugged, and implored him with my open hands. "That's all! Send someone 
to look. Nothing's stolen, Father, nothing's taken, but what I took! Go look! I'll wager 
nothing has been disturbed except by ravens and buzzards if such are like to go up there."
  He said nothing. The blood was palpitating in his young face, and his mouth was open 
and his eyes had a dazed, miserable look.
  Oh, this was too marvelous. A silky boy of a priest, probably fresh out of the seminary 
used to hearing nuns tell of evil thoughts, and men once a year muttering resentfully 
about vices of the flesh because their wives had dragged them to their duty I became 
incensed.
  "You are under the Seal of the Confessional," I said, trying to be patient with him, 
and not to play the Lord too much, because I could do that with priests if I wasn't 
careful; they made me so mad when they were stupid. "But I will give you permission, 
under the Seal, to send a messenger up that mountain to see with your own eyes..."
  "But son, don't you see," he said, speaking with surprising resolve and firmness in his 
low voice. "The Medici themselves may have sent this band of assassins."
  "No, no, no, Father," I pleaded, shaking my head. "I saw her hand fall. I cut off the 
creature's hand, I tell you. I saw her put it back. They were demons. Listen to me. These 
are witches, these are from Hell, these beings, and there's too many of them for me to 
fight alone. I need help. There's no time for disbelief. There's no time for rational 
reservations. I need the Dominicans!" He shook his head. He didn't even hesitate.
  "You are losing your mind, son," he said. "Something dreadful has happened to you, 
there's no doubt of that, and you believe all this, but it didn't happen. You are 
imagining things. Look, there are old women around who claim they make charms..."
  "I know all that," I said. "I know an ordinary alchemist or witch when I see one. This 
was no side-street magic, Father, no country bunch of curses. I'm telling you, these 
demons slaughtered everyone in the castle, in the villages. Don't you see?"
  I went into the lurid particulars again. I told how she had come into the window of my 
room, but then when I was halfway through it, I realized how utterly worse I was making 
it by going on about Ursula.
  Why, this man thought I'd woken in a hot dream, imagining a damned succubus. This was