Here on the third level people stared at her openly. Their manner wasn’t hostile—some of them even smiled at her—but Lucia felt herself cringe. This wasn’t her place; they knew it, and she knew it. The pressure of those accusing glares made her long to flee back to where she belonged. She felt breathless, almost panicking, as if the air in these deep chambers were foul.

If only she could be like Rosa, who seemed to be accustomed to flitting between the stories with the ease of a dust mote in the Pantheon.

At last Rosa paused by a door. Lucia felt a vast relief. Whatever lay ahead, at least she was done with the ordeal of the corridor. Rosa opened the door, and let Lucia go through first.

She was immediately struck by a sense of richness. It was like a drawing room, she thought, with dark oak panels on the walls, and marble inlays in the floor, and furniture, tables and chairs and couches. The furniture looked as if it had come from a number of periods, perhaps as far back as the eighteenth century, but there was a wide-screen television, set in a large walnut cabinet. The furniture was heavily used: worn patches on the seat covers, scuffs on the table surfaces, even wear in the marble tiles on the floor. Clocks ticked patiently, their faces darkened by a patina of time. There was more of a sense of age here than in any room she had ever visited in the Crypt.

And there was a unique smell—sour, strong, quite unlike the antiseptic hospital smell of the corridor—something hot, animal, oddly disturbing.

At the center there was a bed, or a couch, the single largest piece of furniture in the room. There was somebody lying on the couch, still, frail looking, reading a book. There was one other person in the room, a young woman who sat patiently in a big, worn armchair, quietly watching the woman in the bed. Rosa nodded at the attendant, smiling.

Rosa led Lucia forward. Their footsteps seemed loud on the marble, but as they neared the bed they reached a thick rug that deadened the noise.

There was one large painting on the rear wall, Lucia saw now. It showed a melodramatic scene of a line of women, their clothing rent, standing before a mob of marauding men. The women were wounded and defenseless, and the intent of the men was obvious. But the women would not give way. The picture was captioned: 1527—SACCO DI ROMA, the Sack of Rome.