“Perhaps an accident in the slums . . . I swear, I’ll have that rat’s nest by the Piazza degli Ebrei swept clean after this!” Rodrigo swept a hand back through his graying hair, and I found myself wondering if it was grayer than it had been. I was so used to seeing my Pope as invincible, confident as Alexander the Great, from whom he had taken his papal name. Perhaps only when he was worrying so visibly could I see any signs that he was old.

He looked older still when nervous little Burchard burst in. “Your Holiness, something has been found—”

“Juan is hurt?” Rodrigo’s face drained.

“No, he is still—unaccounted for. But his squire has been found. Or to be precise, the man who was acting as his squire.” Burchard addressed his words to the woven carpet. “That man was found stabbed last night.”

“Last night?” Cesare’s voice lashed like a whip crack. “And only now are we hearing of this?”

“He was found stabbed, unconscious but still alive . . . he had been dragged to the nearest house, but the household was too frightened to make any report to the constables until day had risen. By then, the man was dead.” Burchard cleared his throat; the sound fell like a stone into the room. “It appears he died without saying a word—about the Duke of Gandia, or who attacked him. Them, I mean. Attacked them.” A sigh. “Gott im Himmel.”

Rodrigo went so gray that I ran to his side, but Cesare got there first. “We will keep searching, Father,” he said, gripping his father’s arm in steel fingers. “I’ll have my own men out, down to the last page boy. We will find my brother, but you should rest.”

My Pope hardly seemed to hear him. Cesare looked over at me, command in his eyes as though he addressed one of the papal guards. “Take my father to bed and keep him there,” he ordered me. “Allow no one to disturb him, for any reason—not until I send word, and I won’t unless we find my brother.”

I found myself nodding tersely.

“Sweet Christ—” Cesare made the same gesture his father had, rubbing a hand over his hair, only his hair was still auburn and vigorous. “My idiot brother. As many enemies as he’s made, and he goes haring off alone into the night with a man in a mask? What possible temptation could have made him act such a fool?”

A cool little voice suddenly echoed through my head. I am looking for a man, it said. I have found him, and now I am baiting a trap for him.