He looked at me with a thoughtful gaze as I began to rub my knotted thigh muscles. The same boy I remembered from just before my fall into unconsciousness: a lean amused face, auburn hair, a pair of black and penetrating eyes. Up close I could see he was perhaps seventeen, but he lounged back in his carved chair like a man grown—like a man who was master of all before him.

He continued to inspect me, top to toe, like a spavined horse he was nevertheless considering for purchase. “Fascinating,” he said at last. “How in the name of God the Father did someone such as yourself manage to murder one man, wound another, and then chase him halfway across the city?”

“Did you see the men afterward, Your Excellency? The man I killed, and the man I tracked?” No point in denying it; I’d been squarely caught.

“I saw them,” he returned.

“Then surely you know how I did it.”

“I wish you to tell me, which is entirely different.”

My turn to inspect him top to toe. He gazed back as calm as a leopard, not offended at all by my scrutiny. He wore an ornate silver cross over a bishop’s purple robes, but I saw nothing of God about him other than his clothes.

“I killed the first man by a knife through the throat,” I said at last.

“You are not tall enough to reach his throat.”

“I threw the knife.”

“From a distance, in the dark? Impressive.”

“Yes,” I said. It was impressive. Even the guardsman against the wall, a colorless sort of fellow with eyes like wet slate, had pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “The second man I hit in the hip, when he turned and stumbled,” I said. “It slowed him enough that I could pursue him.”

The young Bishop steepled his fingertips. “And what did you mean to do when you caught him?”

“Ask him a few questions. Then cut his throat.”

“Even if he gave you the answers you wished?”

“Yes.”

“What questions did you want answered so badly?”

I remained silent. He grinned, a flash of white teeth in a swarthy face.

“It was about money, or a woman. It always is.”

“A woman,” I said.

“He stole her from you, I suppose.”

“No. She was just a common tavern maid. But three men decided to kill her, including Don Luis and Niccolo the good guardsman, so I decided to kill them.”

“Why?”

Why, indeed? Murder, imprisonment, the gallows: so much trouble for a woman I didn’t even love. It would make a better tale if I had loved her—songs of brokenhearted men and the revenge they wreak for lost love are always popular in taverns. But I hadn’t loved Anna, or she me—in another year, I doubted I’d remember what her face looked like. There were so many faces like hers, overtired and ill-used and quickly forgotten.