One wicked July, a boy approached the ancient archway of the Porta di Santo Stefano. Squinting into full summer sun, he saw the heavy wooden doors shut tight. Although it was midday and the normal time for business, no guards stood outside, no people sought entrance. The year before, the scene would have been very different.

In happier times, any traveler arriving with honest purpose could enter Genoa for a small fee. But now cities detested strangers, and the boy was afraid of being turned away. He stepped off the road and into an untended vegetable garden, concealing himself in the overgrown arbor. A feeble breeze stirred the wilting vines, carrying with it the nasty scent of burning hair. There were hard green grapes just starting to grow, and the boy plucked and ate them eagerly. When his sour little meal was through, he settled down in the hot dirt to wait for an opportunity. He peered through the leaves, his eyes following the dirty stones of the city wall southward to where they met the Ligurian Sea.

The squeaking wheels of a cart brought his attention back to the road. It was loaded with dusty sacks, once filled with flour, now to be used as shrouds. In spite of the punishing heat, the cart’s driver was wrapped up in a heavy cloak, his hood ringed with salt lines from drying sweat. Cracked leather gloves covered his hands and yellowed linen covered his face. None of this was strange to the boy. He crept out of the arbor as the wagon rolled past, jumped up lightly, and burrowed into the empty sacks. The driver continued on, oblivious, and when he reached the archway, the gate was pulled open without question.