promises. Meanwhile, Orsini makes an enemy of the cardinal, befriends Belli's enemy Pierre de Bayard, paints a monastery, and falls deeper in love with Camilla, a guest of the d'Estes. Without knowledge of Andrea's success, the duke and cardinal send him to bring to Ferrara a living saint, Lucia Brocadelli of Narni, a woman whose stigmata are the talk of the region. Despite the Duke's earnest inducements and her willingness to go, the people of Viterbo will not release her. After a pleasant sojourn at the Citta del Monte, Orsini meets the saint, whose obvious piety deeply affects both him and Belli. In making his attempt to free her, Andrea is captured, but Belli succeeds, and Andrea talks his way out of the fracas. In Rome, the pope grants his niece, Angela, lady in waiting to Lucrezia, a betrothal to her former lover, Orsini, and reveals his plot against the Varanos, who will come to Rome for the Jubilee. Cesare, thinking his father's actions precipitous, arrives in Rome to stop the arrest and the betrothal. Orsini attempts to detach himself from the favor of his former lover, and has himself knifed for his trouble. Belli, distrusting the sovereigns and potions of the medicos and dottores, tends to the wound himself. With his contacts in the underworld, Belli interrupts Angela's attempt to assassinate her rival for Andrea's affection, and, in an unnerving interview with Cesare, he secures Camilla's safety. Borgia's conquest of the Marches had proceeded smoothly up to this point: his father, Pope Alexander VI, declared all his vicars in the region deposed and the citizens, largely seeing these rulers as cruel and petty, viewed Cesare Borgia as a great improvement when he eventually took power. In this way, Giovanni Sforza, first husband of Cesare's sister Lucrezia, was soon ousted from Pesaro; Pandolfo Malatesta lost Rimini and Faenza surrendered. But Borgia can only gain Citta del Monte through treachery, as low taxes and the love Varano's people bear him leave no obvious angles to stir up unrest, and Borgia cannot afford protracted warfare in the Marches. With Ferrara in alliance, he recalls his spy in Varano's court so that Orsini may take his place as captain of the guard, to suborn its people and assassinate its prince. At Citta del Monte, Orsini falls further from Cesare's orbit, taking Varano as his new role model. Varano is a man of noble