“I won’t leave him. I wanted to give him a beating, not kill him.” Bartolomeo’s voice was still shaky, but there was steel there and it made me start cursing inside as he took a breath and began to lecture me. “Marco Santini got a beating, all right. He got more than I bargained for, and I’ll live with that, but I won’t live with abandoning a wounded man in the middle of the slums to be robbed and murdered.”

“We’ve no time for your conscience, boy!” I snarled. But Bartolomeo was already hoisting Marco Santini up over one shoulder like a dead pig bound for the spit. It would have been too much weight for most men, but the boy was fueled by fear and used to hauling carcasses through his lady love’s kitchens, and as he staggered into the dark under the cook’s heavy form, I cursed viciously and allowed myself a moment’s violent envy that I had not been born so tall and strong. If I had been, I’d need no one’s help to deal with Juan Borgia, much less a moonstruck apprentice too principled for his own good. Juan Borgia, my masked murderer, drawing farther away on his horse with every moment we wasted, approaching the trap I’d laid for him—I didn’t mean to lose this chance just to make sure some gambling fool of a cook got a bandage and a cold compress.

Briefly I considered leaving Carmelina’s apprentice to his idiotic chivalry. But like it or not, I hadn’t been born a young giant with the muscles of a Hercules. For this night’s work to succeed, I needed Bartolomeo.

It seemed an age to wait, but it was only moments before Bartolomeo came bounding back out of the dark, masked and anonymous again. “I left him at the nearest house,” he panted. “Gave a knock, then stood back—I saw them pull him inside; they were calling for water and bandages. At least they’ll see his wound tended, even if they summon the constables—” Bartolomeo bent over suddenly as though he felt sick. “Oh, Jesu, what if he dies? What if I killed him?”

“So what if you did?” I said coolly. “I’m more worried if he talks.” The plan had been to let Bartolomeo beat Marco into the required pulp, and then let Marco run off ignorant of who had ever attacked him. I knew Marco Santini; he was far too yellow-bellied not to run if he was getting the worst of a pummeling. He’d have run off, and Bartolomeo and I would have been free to follow Juan Borgia with no one any the wiser about who had made both attacks.

But since he now knew Bartolomeo was neck-deep in tonight’s work, I was improvising.