After another hour or so, a pair of rough hands loosened the cord and yanked it off. Cellini gasped for a breath of the fresh country air.One of his captors leaned back in the opposite seat and surveyed him with a crooked smile. The other two, he presumed, were up on top, driving the horses.“They said we’d need ten men to subdue you,” the man said, glancing at the ropes binding his prisoner’s hands and feet. “And now look at you, trussed up like a prize pig.”Though there were black muslin curtains in the open window, the moon was bright, and Cellini was able to see enough of the countryside to know what road they were on and to guess where they must be going.Rome.Which meant that these men, prepared to abduct a man of Cellini’s stature—a man in the current employ of the Duke de’Medici, the ruler of Florence—could only be in the service of the Pope himself, Paul III. No one else would have dared.But for what offense? Cellini had served the Papacy well for years. He had fashioned the elaborate cope, or clasp, for the ermine gown of the previous Pope, Clement VII, and made a dozen other jeweled ornaments, silver ewers and basins, coins and medals, for the leaders of the Church.
