And perhaps his grandchild, I thought. Not to mention that once out of the convent, that grandchild could be hidden safely away. Anyone’s child at all, certainly not the child of the Pope’s daughter with her reborn virginity.

I nodded. “We will see her things packed.”

“We shall send for them later. I want my sister away tonight.” Cesare Borgia had brought a small entourage; just the horse-drawn litter and a few guardsmen behind on horseback. His most trusted men, no doubt. “You two prepare to leave as well,” he added. “You may ride with my men.”

I felt my heart leap at that. I had Santa Marta in her usual pouch at my waist, and Bartolomeo’s letters—anything else in the convent, I did not care if I ever saw again. A pair of dresses too worn for decency, a few shifts, and a kitchen whose inadequate ovens I would never need to curse again.

“Where is Perotto?” Cardinal Borgia asked, glancing about.

Pantisilea was already accepting a hand up onto the horse of one of the guardsmen. “Scampered as soon as the noise began. Men always do, at a birth.” She swung her leg over the saddle in front of the guard, looking over her shoulder to twinkle a smile at him. “Well now, how are you?”

“Pity about Perotto. Well, I shall catch him later.” Cesare made a gesture, and the guardsman sitting behind Pantisilea calmly drew a dagger and stabbed her. I saw the blade only as a needle-flash of weak moonlight, but it found its way between two of Pantisilea’s bony ribs and she gave a noiseless gasp. Her body jerked, but the guard had his arm hard about her waist and he stabbed her again. Once. Twice. Three times.

There was very little blood. Just the desperate stiffness of her body draining away. She slumped over the saddle, silly Pantisilea who had kept me up so many nights this past year with her prattle about all her lovers. Silly Pantisilea slumped dead over the pommel, and the guardsman pulled her back against him, methodically arranging her head until she looked like a woman who had fallen asleep in the saddle.

“Put her in the river, Michelotto,” Cesare Borgia said disinterestedly. “Find the midwife too, and arrange an accident. Something innocuous. That trick with the falling roof tiles, perhaps.”

He was swinging out of his saddle now, moving toward me. I backed away, feeling panic freeze in my throat—another Borgia coming toward me, this one much harder to kill than Juan, and Leonello wasn’t here this time to save me with his knives and his wit. Or even Bartolomeo with his skillet. Oh, Bartolomeo—