Sancha was crying noisily now. Joffre tried to comfort her and she struck at him. My Pope was shaking in my arms, shoulders heaving under his cope, and silly Burchard was still taking notes as though that would put everything right. Poor Giorgio Schiavi looked about him with open mouth. When a wood seller imagines the glories of the Vatican, the illustrious dignity of God’s Vicar on earth, I doubt he imagines anything like this. “Thank you, Messer Schiavi,” I said, disentangling myself from Rodrigo for a moment and ushering the poor wood seller out through the chaos. “Your loyalty and honesty will not be forgotten.” I pressed all the coins I had into his hands and flew back into the sala. “We will all pray,” I said, and no one could hear me over Sancha’s wailing so I gave her a good slap. Why not, she’d already hit Joffre and he wasn’t making any noise to speak of. That shut her up, and I clapped my hands.

“We shall all pray,” I repeated, taking out the rosary beads in black amber and gold that my Pope had given me at Easter, and slowly other voices joined mine in saying the Rosary. “Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipoténtem, factorem cæli et terræ—” I gulped out the words, suppressing the tears that wanted to follow them, because I loathed Juan Borgia but I wanted him to live. I could not bear the terrible, frozen grief on his father’s face, so I bowed my head over my rosary and prayed to the Mother of Mercy that my Pope’s most beloved son was alive.

But the Mother of Mercy was not merciful that day. Because as the bells for Vespers were ringing over the city a few hours later, tolling so sweetly they caught at the heart, the Tiber gave up her dead and Juan Borgia was dragged from the water.

They took him to the fortress of the Castel Sant’Angelo, to be washed and dressed in his military finery. “We should wait,” Cesare said, stone-faced as ever. “We should wait until he is tended, Your Holiness.” But my Pope just gave one great cry, a cry that split me like a sword, and rushed from his private apartments.

“Sweet Christ,” Cesare said viciously. “I didn’t want him to see Juan this way—stabbed nine times—”