"I will go to the contessa with you," said Sophia. If he gave way to panic again, she could stop him from doing too much damage.
"And I will return to my house," said Tilia, standing up.
"No," said Ugolini. "It was dangerous enough for you to come here. We know this mansion is being watched. Stay here until nightfall."
Tilia smiled, went to him, and held his small, pointed face between her hands. "I will stay. And if you succeed in persuading the contessa to have David freed, we will have something to celebrate, you and I."
To celebrate! What a wonderful thought. Sophia had begun to feel she would never celebrate anything again.
But moving Ugolini to act was only the first step, she reminded herself. The contessa might prove to be against them, and Daoud might still be doomed.
Sophia watched, eaten up by anxiety, as the Contessa di Monaldeschi advanced slowly into her smaller audience chamber, leaning on her grandnephew, a plump boy in red velvet.
"I hope you have not come to scold me, Cardinal Ugolini," the contessa rasped.
Could this old woman really have laughed to see a baby impaled on a spear, Sophia wondered as she and Ugolini bowed.