The Medusa Amulet by Robert Masello Page A

was she surprised to find no keyhole. He was ingenious that way—but so was she. When he was deeply absorbed in his work, he thought nothing of letting Caterina riffle through his many sketches and notebooks—he was always writing, writing, writing; she had once joked that he must be trying to outdo his idol, Dante.
    But among all the papers, she had noted a rectangular design just like this box, and there was a series of circles with many small numbers and lines and letters surrounding them. Circles like the ones embossed on the box. And the letters G and A and T and O—as in her nickname. She had memorized the placement of the letters, and thought that if she turned the corresponding circles—and yes, she discovered, they did indeed turn—so as to spell out the word, the box would undoubtedly open.
    She smiled at surmising that she had outfoxed the master.
    The first circle, where the G had been noted, was in the upper left corner of the lid. She turned it easily, then turned the A on the upper right. The T was at the lower left—she turned it twice around—before finishing with the O. Then waited for the box to click open.
    It did not.
    She hated risking her fingernails again, but she had to, and tried to find a little crevice that she could use to pry the lid up.
    But it was perfectly sealed.
    She tried the whole ritual again, turning all the circles, feeling for a latch, but again there was nothing. The master artisan had made another foolproof mechanism.
    She wanted to drop the damn thing on his snoring head.
    She studied it again, wondering if the box could be opened with a simple use of force. To do that, she would have to find another time, a time when she could finagle her way into the studio when Benvenuto was gone; but even then, it would be well-nigh impossible. The iron was welded so firmly, the hasps so tight, it was like a solid block. She would not have known where or how to strike it.
    Outside, in the Via Santo Spirito, she heard the slow clip-clopping of a horse’s hooves. A woman’s voice called out an invitation to the passing rider: “It’s late,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
    Caterina grimaced. Never , she thought. Never would she let herself be reduced to that. She hadn’t come all the way from France to wind up as some common whore.
    But then she almost laughed at the picture she presented instead—a naked model, on the floor in the dark, her legs spread on either side of a locked iron casket she was unsuccessfully trying to break into.
    A faint breeze stirred the hot summer air, raising goose bumps on her arms and shoulders.
    She could put the box back and forget the whole thing, but when, she wondered, would she ever get another chance like this? Think , she told herself. Think like he did .
    In the quarters below, she heard the dog bark, followed by one of the apprentices throwing a saucer at it.
    Benvenuto rolled over again, onto his other side, and for a moment it looked as if his hand was groping for her. But then it fell slack off the side of the pallet.
    And she knew the answer.
    He was always quoting the late master, Leonardo, and more than once he had mentioned that da Vinci could write backwards, so that the best way to read his writing was to hold it up in a mirror. Benvenuto had tried the trick himself, but to no avail. “It is a gift that God bestows, and alas, in this one thing, He has forgotten me.” He was forever comparing his own talents to those of his friends and rivals—Bronzino, Pontormo, Titian—and of course Michelangelo Buonarroti.In fact, he was such an admirer of Michelangelo’s that he had once come to blows in his defense. “Of all the men in Italy,” he declared, “Michelangelo is the one chosen by God to do His greatest work!” His marble statue of David , in Cellini’s view, was the testament to that.
    But even if Benvenuto couldn’t write backwards, he could do other things in reverse, such as setting a lock. Carefully, she