“Very true,” I said, and we both fell silent. I kept one unobtrusive hand on my dagger as we hastened along, the sound of my boots muffled in the cold. Florence’s streets were empty except for the occasional beggar or harried housewife or drinker too far gone in his cups to be careful. All Florence knew by now it was better to stay in, stay safe, stay behind locked doors where at least they couldn’t be seized by Angels and accused of sinning.

The moment we were safe inside her sister’s doors, Madonna Giulia sank down on the first wall bench without even bothering to shed her cloak. She was looking at something—whatever it was the Angels had thrust into her hands before the struggle began.

“What’s that?” I asked as I took off my cloak, and she showed me wordlessly. A pamphlet: cheaply printed, smudgily illustrated. The familiar bulky figure of Pope Alexander VI showed on the first page, reproduced badly in his papal tiara. He had been printed with a leer on his face and the flames of hell licking around him.

“Do people really believe such things?” Giulia whispered, turning the pages with the very tips of her fingers. “It’s—it’s filth.”

“People love to tell filthy rumors of the great, Madonna Giulia.” I motioned the guardsmen inside—Get yourselves a good drink, you’ve earned it—and turned back to my mistress where she sat with her snow-damp skirts around her on the tiles of the entry. “Your cloak, if you please.”

She surrendered it without argument, still looking down at the pamphlet. “This isn’t just filthy rumors, Leonello, it’s foul. And it’s not just—here they say the Holy Father steals the estates of dead cardinals to fill his coffers—that he sells offices and benefices by the cartload—that he promotes his family and his ‘rapacious Catalan minions’—really, minions? That any king in Europe who wishes to put away a devout queen to marry his mistress can buy a divorce from ‘this bastard marrano pope . . .’” More pages turned. “That Juan is a murderer and a violator of virgins . . . that Cesare practices the dark arts and fornicates with his sister—how can people believe such things?”

“Because they are true,” I said.

Giulia looked up at me from her bench. “What do you mean?”