Rodrigo’s hand jerked in mine.

“They pull the horse up, right near where I’m hiding, and I’m hiding by now, Your Holiness. Hiding and praying. There’s a spot where the sewers come into the water, it’s full of rubbish . . . they drag the body off the horse, and they give a great heave and into the river it goes.” Giorgio Schiavi licked his dry lips. “The man in the saddle, he asks if the body’s been sunk. They all say ‘Yes, my lord’—he sounds like a lord, you know. I didn’t get a look at his face, but he speaks good. Even though he’s a small man in that saddle compared to them, they look at him like he’s the one giving the orders.”

I was the one to start trembling then. Oh, sweet Holy Virgin—but I firmly shut away all thoughts of the utterly impossible.

“The body’s gone down,” the wretched wood seller yammered on, “but his cloak’s still floating. So they throw stones at it till it’s gone too, and then they leave.” Sancha of Aragon gave a great sob, clutching Joffre’s arm, and our witness came to a halt. “That’s all,” he mumbled. “Your Holiness.”

“Why did you not report this?” Cesare said in his velvety voice.

For the first time, Giorgio Schiavi looked too startled to be afraid. “I’ve seen a hundred bodies dumped there,” he said. “Until today, when guards came about asking for any information on murders done that night—that’s the first time anyone’s made inquiries about any of them.”

“Dumped,” Rodrigo echoed. His eyes stared at the carpet, seeing nothing. “They dumped him there, with the rest of the sewage. Like my son was trash—”

“We don’t know that.” I folded my poor Pope in my arms, not caring when I heard Burchard’s click of the tongue for Rodrigo’s papal dignity. “We don’t know it was Juan, you heard Messer Schiavi, a hundred bodies have been put into that river—”

“We’ll have the Tiber dragged at once.” Cesare was snapping orders to the guards. “Summon every fisherman and boatman who can be found. Ten ducats to the man who brings up the body—you’ll see, Father, surely it won’t be Juan—”