“If you perform it satisfactorily. There may even be lasting employment for you, past the election of the new Pope. I have no objection to hiring murderers, and neither does His Eminence my father.” Cesare Borgia scooped my knives up in one hand, careful of the sharp edges. “Useful souls.”

“We are.” The nicely calculated set of odds I’d constructed around the likelihood of my death went tumbling down. Outside, the clamor of bells had risen to a storm, but nothing could match the storm of emotion raging inside me. Who knew hope could be such a violent thing when it surged in the chest like this? “Oh, we are.”

“What is your name, little man? You would not tell my guards. Even Michelotto, and he has a frightening way about him.”

“I am Leonello, and no one frightens me. What in the name of God are those bells pealing for?”

“Those?” Casually, Cesare Borgia crossed the room and flung open the leaded windows. The mad cacophony rushed in, assailing my ears. Surely every bell in Rome was ringing. “I imagine the Pope is dead, God be praised. Which means my father has a funeral to attend, and I have a Conclave to bribe.” Turning to face me in a swirl of purple cassock, he proffered my knives back to me in a hilt-first steel nosegay. “What do you say to my offer, Leonello?”

“I have a condition.”

His brows drew together. “You are hardly in a position to name conditions.”

“This house you speak of, for your sister and the mistress,” I said, ignoring him. “Does it have a library? And can I use it?”

He laughed. “Yes. And yes.”

“Then, Your Excellency”—I gave my most elaborate courtier’s bow, taking my knives back from his hands—“I am your man.”

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

Habemus Papam.

—OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT UPON THE ELECTION OF A NEW POPE

Carmelina

Roast peacock,” Marco told me dreamily. “With a flaming beak and a gilded breast. And a sugar subtlety for a sweet afterward, molded in the shape of a bull—the Borgia bull, you understand?—dyed red . . .”

“No, no, and no,” I said firmly. “Cardinal Borgia doesn’t care for elaborate meals at the best of times, and this is hardly the best of times. You’re cooking for a Conclave, not a wedding!”

But Marco was full of dreams, not listening to me at all. Cardinal Borgia, in the insane rush of preparing for Pope Innocent’s massive funeral and the papal Conclave to follow, had suddenly found himself in need of a cook to provide his meals during the protracted voting. And having far too much caution to hire a strange cook when his own grew ill, he had asked his cousin Madonna Adriana if he could borrow her cook: Maestro Marco Santini.

“Think of it!” Marco was striding up and down the kitchens, waving his arms. “Cooking for the College of Cardinals!”