his clan, then he’s welcome to join us as well.” He paused for effect again, and then added, “Which is more than you can expect from the other clans. They all despise the pair of you for your relationship. And how long will it be before they find out about your connections with that judge?”
So he knew about Quattrini, too? She should have guessed.
“Sooner or later,” he said, “they will kill you and young Carnevare. A number of them would already like to; your own families are making plans to clear you out of their way. I, on the other hand, am offering you the future.”
“The Hundinga were trying to kill me,” she pointed out. “On your orders.”
“They were supposed to be observing you, instilling a spirit of respect in you,” he contradicted her. “There are always risks in letting dogs off the leash, and this time they went too far. That wasn’t my intention, and they’ve paid for it. Look at the newspapers. There’s been a helicopter crash off the coast.”
The longer he talked, the more he sounded like a feudal lord back in the Middle Ages. Without a shadow of doubt he was obsessed with King Lycaon, and whether his idea of Lycaon was a crazed delusion or just something spooky ultimately made no difference. As soon as he got out of here, he would be in command of the others all over again.
“I did what you wanted,” said Rosa. “I gave you evidence against Trevini. And I came here because you asked to talk to me. Will you leave Alessandro alone now?”
She had expected a long silence. Dramatic, to show her how small and weak she was compared to him. Instead, he simply said, “Of course.”
She pushed back the plastic chair and started for the door.
“Sometime,” he said, “I’ll be asking you a favor. Maybe a large and significant favor, maybe only a small one. But you will grant it.”
She kept her back to him, halfway to the door.
“You will grant me that favor, Rosa Alcantara. That is my condition.”
It would have been so easy to say no. She had never had difficulty in doing that before. Just a brief no, that was all. And then the lines would have been drawn. She on the good side, he on the bad one.
Except that it wasn’t so easy.
“Agreed,” she said.
She took the last few steps and knocked on the door, much too fast and hard, in time with her hammering heartbeat.
“Good-bye, Rosa. And don’t forget—”
Over her shoulder, she glanced at the black surface of the glass, in which all she saw now was her own reflection. She was looking into her own eyes.
“—I am not your enemy.”
THE ALCHEMISTS
IT WAS A MILD afternoon, and the air smelled of spring. Not unusual here at the end of February, as the taxi driver had explained in broken English as he drove Rosa away from the Lisbon airport. They had been on the road for an hour and a half, the last part of the way up the narrow, winding street leading into Sintra’s historic city center.
The colorful palace towering above the town was enthroned on a densely wooded mountain. The Rua Barbosa do Bocage, a little road in the eternal shade of mighty trees, wound its way around the sides. Rosa recognized the wall and the gate of Quinta da Regaleira. She and Alessandro had met Augusto Dallamano here last October, in the villa built by a Freemason and alchemist. Dallamano had taken Rosa ninety feet down into a shaft in the ground along a slippery spiral staircase, and there he had told her more about the statues on the seabed, the stone panthers and snakes that the Stabat Mater would later snap up from under their noses.
Today she passed the entrance to the Quinta without stopping. The taxi continued along the narrow street, past dense bushes and walls overgrown with moss, hiding behind them some of the oldest and most magnificent villas of Portugal.
After less than a mile the GPS announced that they had arrived. The driver stopped in front of a small gap in an ivy-covered wall. A steep path led uphill, turning left after a few steps. Heavy branches hung low above the path up, and weeds grew in the cracks of broken paving stones. The builder of this property might have wanted not to be found too easily, but he hadn’t counted on GPS.
The cabbie gesticulated and said something in Portuguese.