A masked man interrupted the evening briefly—a tall figure, broad and silent in black doublet and a cap in the Borgia colors of mulberry and yellow, a black mask below it covering his face. More men in masks; how they had haunted this whole bloody business, but in truth they were not so uncommon in the Holy City. Every lord who sent a gift to another man’s wife or a bribe to an underling put his messenger in a mask; every boy trying to duck his tutors for a little after-hours hilarity did the same. At Carnivale, even the respectable in Rome went masked. My masked messenger made straight for the Duke of Gandia, who turned from the dark-haired beauty he was romancing and looked on irritably as a letter was presented. “I await your answer.” The words came muffled behind the mask, and the Duke snorted as he broke the seal. But his irritability faded fast, color rising in his face, as he saw what fell out of the folded paper, and he dismissed without another glance the piqued brunette he had been planning to bed that evening. “At nightfall,” he told the masked man, who whispered some discreet directions and then took himself away. And when the Duke of Gandia seemed in high spirits for the rest of the evening, his mother pinched his cheek fondly and Cesare Borgia just sat back to watch.

“I don’t know what you put in that letter, but it worked.” Bartolomeo’s freckled face appeared ghostlike in the air before me as he took off the mask. It was still not even twilight at that point in the night’s narrative, and my accomplice lowered his voice from the passersby hurrying on their way home before dark. “The Duke of Gandia says he’ll come at nightfall.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He said, ‘I always knew she wanted me.’ Who did he mean?”

“Never mind. You know where to wait; be ready when he splits from the others. Do you have the letter?”

Bartolomeo gave it back to me. A good boy, I thought. He looked drawn and nervous, but determined. I hoped he would not lose his resolve for tonight’s work.