Nico stands across the table beside a shorter woman. Alana presumes she is the pathologist, but he doesn’t introduce her. He motions to the dead woman. “Sonia Poletti.”

“The plague?” Alana asks.

Nico nods. “Pneumonic plague. Same as Vittoria.”

“Don’t tell me that she worked at the same construction site.”

“Worse.”

“How can it be any worse?”

“Sonia worked here. At the hospital.”

“Oh, Jesus! In what capacity? Doctor? Nurse?”

Nico shakes his head. “Sonia was a phlebotomist.”

“A lab tech? How much contact could she possibly have had with Vittoria?”

“Not much, apparently. She drew blood on her the day Vittoria first arrived. No contact after.”

“Was there a body-fluid exposure? An inadvertent needle poke with contaminated blood?”

“Sonia would have had to report an incident like that. There is no such record.”

Alana holds Nico’s stare. She knows what he must be thinking: if such casual contact was enough to infect the lab tech, then anyone who crossed paths with Vittoria, or Sonia after she fell ill, might also be at risk, including him.

“Had she been a patient for long?” Alana asks.

“Sonia never made it beyond the emergency room.”

Alana hesitates, almost afraid to ask the next question. “How long had she been sick?”

“Hours. Apparently she was well yesterday. But she awoke with a high fever and shortness of breath. She didn’t have the strength to climb out of bed.”

It feels as if the room’s temperature plummets several more degrees. “Was she coughing?”

“Sì, c’era sangue ovunque,” he says, lapsing into Italian perhaps without even realizing it.

“Nico?”

“My colleagues in the emergency room . . . they say she was spraying blood everywhere.”

Chapter

Eight

It is the twenty-ninth day of January. Shortly after dawn, as I was preparing for surgery, I received the most unexpected summons. Two priests arrived, both strangers to me. Without so much as an introduction, the taller of the two announced that the Archbishop requested my presence.

How can I be of assistance to His Grace? I inquired of them. Is he unwell?

It is not for you to ask, the second priest said. You are simply to comply.

I accompanied the priests in silence. I was on foot while they each rode a sturdy horse, up the narrow road to the palace of the Archbishop. Like the nearby basilica of Santa Maria, it is perched on the hilltop in the neighborhood known as Castello and commands a fine view of Genova and the harbor beyond. I was breathing heavily from the climb and, I must confess, was pleased to finally reach its massive doors.

The grand palace boasted the highest ceilings I had ever encountered outside of a cathedral. The walls were adorned with masterful paintings and rich tapestries. The air was dense with the scent of burning incense and candle wax.

I was made to wait in the antechamber. I felt ill at ease to have been summoned by a man as eminent as the Archbishop. The only time I had ever laid eyes on him before was from a distance, as he led the annual Corpus Christi procession through the streets of Genova. I assumed that he, or someone dear to him, must have contracted the plague.