She only closed the door, then pressed her ear against the heavy timbers, listened, and waited.
Carlo has assured her the transformation itself would take place quickly.
Inside the room, Niccolo didn't immediately notice as his shoulder-length hair grew longer and more unkempt. His garments began to feel binding, and the temperature in the room seemed to soar. He unleashed some of the fastenings on his shirt, surprised to see his chest hair thicken into a dense pelt of hair that soon began to take on the qualities of fur.
At the same time, his very bones and joints began to change. This part of the change involved obvious pain, which Lucrezia heard from the other side of the heavy door. She heard the guttural groans from the lover that she had soon found so tedious and unwanted in such a short span of time. They took on an even more animalistic nature than she had come to expect from Niccolo.
By the time the young and handsome nobleman realized something untoward was happening, it was too late. He tried to call out, but his words were lost in yelps and barks. When Lucrezia returned to the room, she found him still struggling to escape from some of his clothing. His form had become one of the sleek hounds like the ones he used when he went on hunts for boar and deer with friends.
Lucrezia stooped and picked up the ring from the floor. "Quite an effective spell, don't you agree?"
Niccolo listened in horror, realizing that every foul rumour he had heard of Lucrezia was in fact true. He started to protest, but his effort produced only a mournful howl. He wriggled out of his heavy garments and advanced on Lucrezia. His growling revealed the depths of his anger, but she had come prepared. In a loud voice of authority, she summoned Niccolo's own master of the hounds.
The stocky man of peasant stock stepped into the room, and Niccolo realized that the man must have been waiting just outside the chamber.
"One of your master's hounds has escaped the kennel," Lucrezia spoke in a disapproving tone. "See that he is returned to the kennel and doesn't escape again."
Niccolo was too stunned and awkward in his new form to resist when the man grabbed him by the scruff of the fur at the back of his neck and twisted a leather collar onto him. Then, by simply attaching a leash, Niccolo found himself escorted from the chamber. Lucrezia stopped the man just outside the door.
"I almost forgot," she said as she handed the man a small bag that jangled with gold coins. She wanted Niccolo to know that he was also being betrayed by his own servant. The man smiled and accepted the bag.
"And remember that I never want to see that hound again," she said coldly.
"Yes, my Lady," the man said in a gruff voice, departing and leading the new hound through the drafty corridors.
Still in shock, Niccolo soon found himself thrust into the pens in the stable's kennels that held the other members of the pack of hounds he maintained for hunting.
Fierce and territorial, several of the other dogs immediately fell upon the newcomer, snarling and even biting. He had no choice but to fight back, and managed to convince the other hounds to accept him, albeit reluctantly.
The master of the hounds watched and laughed. "Welcome to your new home," the man said.
Overwhelmed with a surge of anger, Niccolo threw himself at the confines of the pen. The man only laughed and jeered. "Ha, settle down, you cur," the man said. "If not, I'll ask the stable-master to send for someone to geld you. That will settle you."
Niccolo cursed the man, and he cursed Lucrezia Borgia and her entire damned clan. He wished he had never heard of them.