“Sit down, dear lady.” Leonello pushed a stool out for me with one booted foot, and by the time I was seated with a cup of that thin communion wine in my own hands, he’d outlined the bare and brutal details of the Duke of Gandia’s death.

“Stabbed nine times?” I shivered. “Someone wanted him very dead.”

“They did,” Leonello said.

I eyed him. “Any ideas who . . .”

“Take your pick of enemies. Rome is swarming with rumors.” Leonello waved a hand. “The Orsini, for his attacks on their lands? The Sforza, for the slight done to the soon-to-be-annulled Count of Pesaro? The Count of Pesaro himself, to punish His Holiness for this attempted annulment?”

“Leonello—”

“Or perhaps we must look closer inside the family. There was no love lost between Juan and Cesare, as all Rome knows. Or Juan and Joffre, who could perhaps have been more angry than we all thought about Juan bedding his wife.” Leonello looked thoughtful. “Though if Joffre is that angry to be cuckolded, he’ll have to wipe out Cesare next, which would be considerably more difficult. And after Cesare, the whole papal guard, most of the palace pages, and everyone else to whom Sancha of Aragon has given her kisses and her greedy little hands. Even myself.”

“You? And the Tart of Aragon?” Even with my head still reeling from the news, I couldn’t help but make a face. “I thought you had better taste.”

“Fortunately for me, her taste runs to the exotic. Even as far as the deformed and short-statured.” Leonello waved the Tart of Aragon away with one hand. “Back to Juan. There are, of course, all those outraged husbands and fathers out for his blood, the ones who had to console weeping wives and despoiled daughters. Count Antonio Maria della Mirandola, most recently, whose daughter surrendered her virginity most unwillingly. Who knows how many more like her have vengeful relatives?” Leonello gave a long innocent blink. “So, how are we ever to know who killed our good Duke of Gandia?”

I eyed him back in silence. Maybe he was as sinister as I’d first thought, at that. “How indeed.”

We looked at each other.

The Duke of Gandia is dead, I thought, and felt a bubble of violent relief swelling in my chest. Probably a sinful bubble, but there was no stopping its rise. I felt like laughing, or weeping, or maybe both. I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Another death will sober you rather more, I think.” Leonello nursed another small sip of communion wine. “Your cousin, Marco Santini. He was serving as Juan’s squire that night. He was not killed in the initial attack, but he was wounded and knocked unconscious. It seems he was dragged to a nearby house and tended there, but he died without waking.”

Sweet Santa Marta. Marco too? My eyes flew open; I gaped a moment, and Leonello looked at me inscrutably. I put the heels of my hands to my face to hide from his gaze. Marco.