The Wolves of St. Peter's (30 page)

“I can't believe you knew where to find me. You must have the nose of a hunting dog. Stick with me if you don't want to end up in the cook's pot.”

Is a chicken with three legs a good or bad omen?
Susanna had asked him. Her smile flashed before his eyes as vividly as if she were standing there. Francesco felt a lump in his throat, and as the ship slipped past the walls of the ancient city, he held the chicken close and cried into its feathers.

T
HANKS TO OUR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS FOR THEIR ONGOING
support and encouragement; Ivan “Bud” Caswell, Ian Coutts, Catharine Lyons-King, Susan Neal, June Richards, Andy Ruston, Alexander and Gail Scala, Walter Schuster, and Hannah Silverman for reading drafts and/or giving us valuable input; Christian Catalini for being our Italian language consultant; Cheryl Estrella as well as Krishna and Christine Agrawal for child-care support; and Jessica Tremblay and her “wolves” (Sharayah and Taima) for the author photos.

We are grateful to the staff at Westwood Creative Artists, in particular our agent, John Pearce, as well as to the staff at HarperCollins Canada, especially Lorissa Sengara, Noelle Zitzer, and Nicola Reddy, and to copy editors Sue Sumeraj, Stephanie Fysh, and Kelly Jones.

Special thanks to Westley Côté for the title and being our all-around Renaissance guy, and to Benvenuto Cellini for inspiring
Dante, as well as the necromancer and the “zombies.”

We found the following books to be invaluable and hope the authors will accept our apologies for the liberties taken with their brilliant research:
Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
by Ross King,
Renaissance Rome 1500–1559: A Portrait of a Society
by Peter Partner,
Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter's
by R.A. Scotti, and
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
by Steven Pinker.

For its generous financial support, we are once again grateful to the Ontario Arts Council.

GINA BUONAGURO
and
JANICE KIRK
live in Toronto and Kingston, respectively. After meeting in a French class in Kingston, they became writing partners and co-authors. They are the authors of two previous novels,
The Sidewalk Artist
and
Ciao Bella
. Visit them online at http://sidewalkartist.blogspot.ca or on Facebook.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

The Wolves of St. Peter's
Copyright © 2013 by Gina Buonaguro and Janice Kirk.

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EPub Edition © MARCH 2013 ISBN: 978-1-443-41747-1

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

FIRST EDITION

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ISBN
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