will never see again. It is he who will drive you in a shrouded carriage to Bonifacio where you may mingle with the night revelers and take the crowded morning steamer to Naples. You have fifteen minutes to gather your things and meet on the front steps. There are none to carry your luggage, I'm afraid." A guest found his voice, or part of it. "And you, padrone?" he whispered.
"At the last, I give you my life as your final lesson.
Remember me! I am the way. Go forth and become my disciples! Rip out the corruptors and the corrupted!" He was raving mad, his shouts echoing throughout the great house of death. "Entrare!" he roared.
A small child, a shepherd boy from the hills, walked through the large doors of the north verandm He held a pistol in his two hands, it was heavy and he was slight. He approached the master.
The padrone raised his eyes to the heavens, his voice to God. "Do as you were told!" he shouted. "For an innocent child shall light your path!" The shepherd boy raised the heavy pistol and fired it into the head of Guillaume de Matarese.
The old woman had finished, her unblinking eyes filled with tears.
"I must rest," she said.
Taleniekov, rigid in his chair, spoke softly. "We have questions, madame.
Surely you know that." "Later," said Scofield.
Light broke over the surrounding mountains as pockets of mist floated up from the fields outside the farmhouse. Taleniekov found tea, and with the old woman's permission, boiled water on the wood-burning stove.
Scofield sipped from his cup, watching the rippling stream from the window.
It was time to talk again; there were too many discrepancies between what the blind woman had told them and the facts as they were assumed to be. But there was a primary question: why had she told them at all? The answer to that might make clear whether any part of her narrative should be believed.
Bray turned from the window and looked at the old woman in the chair by the stove. Taleniekov had given her tea and she drank it delicately, as though remembering those lessons in the social graces given a girl of "ten and seven years of age" decades ago. The Russian was kneeling by the dog, stroking its fur again, reminding it they were friends.
He glanced up, as Scofield walked toward the old woman.
"We've told you our names, signora," said Bray, speaking in Italian. "What is yours?" "Sophia Pastorine. If one goes back to look, I'm sure it can be found in the records of the convent at Bordfacio. That is why you ask, is it not? To be able to check?" "Yes," answered Scofield. "If we think it's necessary, and have the opportunity." "You will find my name. The padrone may even be listed as my benefactor, to whom I was ward-as an intended bride for one of his sons, perhaps. I never knew." "Then we must believe you," said Taleniekov, getting to his feet. "You would not be so foolish as to direct us to such a source if it were not true. Records that have been meddled with are easily detected these days." The old woman smiled, a smile with its roots in sadness. "I have no understanding of such matters, but I can understand if you have doubts." She put down her cup of tea on the ledge of the stove. "There are none in my memories. I have spoken the truth." "Then my first question is as important as any we may ask you," said Bray, sitting down. "Why did you tell us this story?" "Because it had to be told and no one else could do so. Only I survived." "There was a man," interrupted Scofield. "And a shepherd boy." "They were not in the great hall to hear what I heard." "Have you told it beforeT' asked Taleniekov.
"Never," replied the blind woman.
"Why not?" "Who was I to tell it to? I have few visitors, and those that come are from down in the hills, bringing me the few supplies I need. To tell them would be to bring them death, for surely they would tell others." "Then the story is known," pressed the KGB man "Not what I've told you." "But there's a secret down therel They tried to send me away, and when I would not go they tried to kill me." "My granddaughter did not tell me that." She seemed truly surprised.