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The cold autumn air caused the tips of Tom's ears to turn numb. Defiantly, the thirteen-year-old swung the sharp ax over his head and brought it down in one swift arc, splitting the thick piece of oak cleanly in two. The growing woodpile next to him was near to being finished. His father, Ned Howard, had always taught him its size had to fill three empty graves in order to last the long winter months of ice and snow they would have to endure in their isolated cottage on the sparsely populated coast of Suffolk. They lived at the edge of the forest just outside the walled cemetery which served the nearby village of Oreford and winter gales from the North Sea would batter them with iron like force.

Che fortuna. What luck. The night was moonless which was perfect for what he was about to do. With only a flashlight as guide, a healthy and fit fifty-two-year-old Marcello Anselmi carefully made his way down the riverbank. There had been little rain in Italy for the past several months, and the slow moving Arno River was running low. Across the black expanse of water, he heard someone curse loudly and bang what sounded like a large metal pail.

The red sandstone cliff was perfectly flat, as if a great sword had sliced cleanly across it. The narrow track along its jagged edge forced the mounted group of warriors to snake carefully forward in one long line. William looked at the ocean hundreds of feet below him and already it was heaving great rolling waves at the small and treacherous island known as Devil’s Thumb. Like a malevolent sentry, the towering islet jutted a hundred feet above the sea’s surface.

There was no use complaining. She knew her decision to leave the comfortable inn just outside Swindon at dawn had been a terrible mistake. The fog was thick and muggy. High summer in England was usually clear, from sunrise to sunset. Days were seldom beset by early morning haze, as this one was. Anne was certain it would dissipate before midday, unfortunately this was not going to happen. She should have ordered her entourage to wait till it lifted.