Once inside the villa's office-workshop, that comfortable living space, I unfolded and pinned up the map of the Neapolitan bay area which I had spent the last week working on.

"We've been working on this together," my spouse explained, "but she's been doing the lion's share of the work and all the drawing. Why don't you go ahead and tell them a bit about it, Micina?"

"You drew this recently?" Claudia asked. "It looks old."

"Exactly the effect I was going for," I agreed. "The story is that I found this among my father's papers, so it can't look as if I drew it just last week, even though that's what I did. Remember when I put that big sheet of paper on the table before dinner? That's where the ring marks and the grease spots came from. After that, I drew up the map, and then I did a few other things to it." The 'other things' involved folding it up and having Mario wear it under his shirt on a day he was putting the mercenaries through their paces, then drying it out in the oven, thus giving it the water stains and crispy brown quality so necessary to an antique.

"Very convincing," La Volpe said.

"Thank you." I said. " All right. This map shows the Bay of Naples as it was then, as shown by the solid black lines, and as it is now, in dotted lines. You'll see how much the coast line has changed since then. Landmarks common to both eras are in red—that's how the exact locations of Pompeii and Herculaneum are triangulated. There were two other, smaller towns in the area, Oplontis and Stabiae, which are also mapped out. The map is based on several contemporary accounts, including the letters of Pliny the Younger," I explained.

"I've read those letters," La Volpe nodded. "Pliny the Elder got a message from a friend asking for rescue by boat. Pliny went, but he couldn't rescue the friend and he died as well."

"Yes, that's right. Although had he not been elderly, asthmatic and corpulent, he might have lived; he never got as close as all that." I turned back to the map.

"Fourteen hundred years ago and more, then as now, when Romans got sick of city life and longed for a whiff of fresh sea air in a salubrious environment, they went to the Bay of Naples. If they were rich and powerful, they had a second home in the area, and if they were very rich and very powerful, their vacation villas were in either Pompeii or Herculaneum. The two towns had distinct characters.

"Pompeii was wilder, faster, more given to parties and dissipation. Its brothels were legendary, and its patron god was Priapus, who had a permanently, um, ready manhood. His image, or at least his famous attribute, was everywhere." Claudia let out a snort/giggle. I went on as if she hadn't, but I gave her an arch look.

"Herculaneum was more elegant and dignified—old money versus new money. Hercules was its patron god. The common factor of the two towns was money. This was the height of the Roman empire, and self-indulgence was the order of the day. When these wealthy Romans of long ago built their villas, they spent lavishly. Their houses were filled with artwork and luxury goods of all kinds—frescos, mosaics, statuary, tables with intricately carved marble legs and pietra dure inlay tops, fine glass, vases carved of semiprecious stone, silver and gold dishes for the table, porphyry cosmetic jars and bronze mirrors for the vanity tables, and of course, jewelry."

"In 79 AD, about twenty thousand people, freeborn, slaves, high, low, and in between, lived in Pompeii and another ten thousand in Herculaneum, with perhaps another ten thousand all told, including the smaller towns and the countryside. Forty thousand or so, all told. Not all of them were rich, but those who were rich were, as I said, very rich. Pliny the Younger wrote that on August twenty-fourth of that year, Monte Vesuvio erupted.

"For two days and nights, the mountain vomited up poisonous gases, molten rock, boiling mud, ash so thick and heavy it made high noon look as dark as midnight. It shot great clouds of material high into the air, while the heavy mud and rock fountained down the hillside, and all of it poured down over these towns, burying them at least two dozen feet deep. Some people evacuated in time, escaping with whatever they could carry on their backs, on horseback, in carts and wagons, by boat—but thousands did not. The gasses and the ashes choked them, the molten rock and hot mud burned them. They fell, died in their tracks and were buried where they lay, under dozens of feet of debris and detritus.

"Everything they could not carry, everything those who died had on them, all the things that could not be pried up or hauled along—all of that is still there, waiting to be rediscovered."

"OOooooh," Claudia exhaled.

I looked to Mario. Time for him to take over. "The treasure is beside the point," he began, but La Volpe interrupted.

"You forget who you're talking to. I'm a thief. Treasure on that scale is never beside the point."

"A thief?" Claudia asked.

"A master thief," I reassured her. "Nothing like a common garden variety scoundrel."

"Well, that's all right, then," she concluded.

"Thank you," Gilberto gave her a sardonic smile.

"The real reasons," Mario raised his voice, "for going to the trouble of digging up these towns, are these. The Brotherhood wants an artifact that's somewhere under this temple here," he reached out and tapped the map at the location of Jove Vesuvio. "which you well know, old fox, but my niece doesn't. It's like what our ancestor hid under the villa—invaluable, powerful, and dangerous. Not to mention that it caused the eruption in the first place.

"The second reason is that Ginevra wants to find a mold that was in the food stores, a mold which will yield a medicine for curing infections. While we know where the first is, she has only a general idea of where to find the second. The difficulties are that our enemies would be sure to find out about the artifact and that we'd have to do more digging than is practical for the mold. However, both problems are solved if we have a patron to shoulder the costs and the troubles. My first choice is Lorenzo."

"That makes sense. Remember the fuss made over the statue of Venus found buried on Medici property? This will top that by a thousand fold. I take it you mean to present this to him much as you have presented it to us, only with more drama. That may hook your fish, but you still have to reel him in and be certain he stays caught."

"Il Magnifico is quite well disposed toward the Auditore clan these days," Mario told him, 'and Ginevra has the means to make him even more so. Right, Micina?"

"He not only suffers from gout, but from eczema, and his children have worms. I have concocted remedies for both. Ongoing gratitude is the best kind." His skin problems were well-known to history, and Clarice had told me all about the children's various ailments. "I never envisioned myself becoming the secret apothecary to the Medici, but if that is my role, I will serve it with good will."

"Good, good," La Volpe nodded. "If he should somehow refuse, who do you go to next?"

"To the Crown Prince and Princess of Naples," Mario replied. "Ferrante is a bosom friend of Lorenzo's, and his wife is one of Il Magnifico's platonic loves." She was also Ipollita Sforza, aunt to Caterina, a noted beauty with a witty, cultured and educated mind. Married, of course, to a husband who did not appreciate her. It seemed to be the fate of the Sforza women.

"Given that they live nearer to the site, that makes sense," Gilberto nodded again.

"But this will be a huge undertaking," Claudia observed, "if the scale on this map is correct. I mean, the land will have to be bought or leased with full rights to everything on or under it, and that won't come cheap. Isn't it supposed to be good farmland in that area? Then there'll be laborers to hire, and people to supervise, clerks to keep track of what's found, a few doctors in case of injuries—You might as well say you'd need to set up a small town out there. People will need to be housed, fed, entertained—and for months, maybe even a year or more."

"Or a few decades," La Volpe agreed. "Which brings me to my next question. How will you keep your sponsor interested? What if your first discovery lies in a slum where folk were lucky to have a handful of coppers and a roof over their heads? Lorenzo will want to see results, and the results will have to keep coming, because you can't make a beeline for the Temple without bringing the Templars down on us."

"You are right, and that has been thought of. Micina?" Mario looked to me.

"Roman tax records yielded lists of who owned extensive property in the area, and where. The most likely prospects are marked with stars." I lied. The stars were all known treasure troves. "By beginning in the wealthiest districts, there should be enough finds to keep anyone's interest."

"What will we be getting out of this?" Claudia asked, sensibly. "I mean, we ought to get something for bringing him a treasure map."

"I plan to ask for twenty percent. Part of that will be for hiring the condotta." Mario told her.

"When you have a small town to entertain," I took over, "courtesans will be needed. Not just for the laborers, but this will attract a lot of visitors wanting to see the ruins and the digging. I mentioned the brothels—well, the better kind went in for frescos that were either meant to…inspire the patrons or else to show what was on the menu, so to speak." (Although I just didn't see how the couple on tightropes could manage to do that without spilling their wineglasses.) "I imagine the gentlemen visitors will find them just as inspiring, and they may want to try out some of their ideas as soon as possible, before their…inspiration fades. So to speak."

"But what about the thieves?" La Volpe asked, viewing me assessingly.

"Ah. That's not so simple. I have learned the Thieves' Guild is an invaluable resource, and in its way kin to the Assassins. I don't want to cut them out. If they wanted to put in an honest days' work, unskilled laborers will do fine for the big digging, but when we're down to the cities themselves, a more delicate touch is needed—small tools and brushes rather than picks and shovels. A thief's dexterous hands would be just the thing. If they don't want to walk the straight and narrow, and I expect they won't—." I let it trail off.

"I'm not so worried about someone making off with a huge statue or a mosaic floor, but the bodies, now skeletons, will still have whatever valuables on them that people grabbed up as they fled—which is to say, coins and jewelry, mostly. Exactly the sort of thing someone could pocket or even swallow. In my mind, it would be an even worse crime that a piece of history should survive fourteen centuries and a volcano only to be melted down for its metal content. If you have any suggestions?"

"I have one," Claudia offered. "Let people dig for the skeletons, but call them freelancers, and pay them for what they find rather than by the hour. I'm sure people would rather have cash in hand than have to travel miles and miles to find a fence or a pawnbroker. I'll be keeping track of our twenty percent and the expenses, right?" She sounded a little wistful.

"Yes, but I'm hoping you'll do more, such as keeping records of everything that is found and where." I told her. "Our sponsor will likely have his own staff, but I trust you more."

"But who will take care of things around here?" she asked.

"I'm hoping your mother will be up to it," Mario said.

"There are so many aspects of this that we haven't considered," La Volpe mused, "such as the Church. Lorenzo would have to offer them a share, say another ten percent, and ten to the King of Naples…but on the whole, I approve of this plan. It has my backing."

And that was that. The Assassins were about to gain an Archaeology division.