It was a beautiful view. The old cathedrals and the monuments and the Tiber were streaked with evening color, while below me the terrace sloped over some ruins down to Via della Lungara and the rushing cars.

I’m not suicidal, at least not in the ordinary ways, but I grew vertiginous then, looking over the side to the rocks below.

I considered the matter of the priests and saw myself in the confessional, in the darkness, seeking mercy. But what would I say? That I was not the instigator. Rather, it was my brother, the panderer. Who ingratiated himself to other men—and found favor in the world—by promising them his sister. Then, when these men were no longer useful . . .

I stopped myself.

What they seemed to want was humility, an admission of complicity, guilt. It was only then you could be forgiven. I didn’t know that I believed this. What they really wanted—whether it be one faction or the other—was something to hold over Orsini. That’s what Valentina had been implying, I think. Though at the same time, I wondered the opposite—whether it was a test on Orsini’s behalf, to see if I’d betray him under pressure.

I didn’t go to the confessional.

Maybe that was wise.

Because later, as I came into the main hall, headed to my room, there stood Paolo.

“I have gone through hell,” he said.

He looked grizzly, unshaven. Several of his security men accompanied him, and also a lawyer. We stood watching each other.

“Come,” he said.

Whatever my reservations, I showed no hesitation. I went and threw my arms around him.

21.

We were off the beach near Piran, on the Slovenian coast. It was our honeymoon, and we had taken the boat out onto the Adriatic. Rilke’s castle was visible somewhere on the other side of the inlet, and so was Trieste, the old port city, which had been given back to Italy after the Second World War. A vital place once but an outpost now, out of the mainstream, stodgy and forgotten. Frank Paris had taken me there when we first came to Italy. I didn’t speak of that now, just as we didn’t speak of my time in Il Sangue or whatever suspicions we might have of each other.

“Put some lotion on my back.”

“My pleasure.”

I was naked. We were both naked. We had moored about a hundred yards off the coast and then swam to the beach. Closer to shore, the sea was quite shallow, the bottom covered with rocks, so we’d had to stand and hobble the last bit, bowlegged, until we reached the sand. Paolo put his hands on my shoulders, clenching, massaging, loosening the muscles in my neck. He walked his knuckles down my spine. It felt good, even while it frightened me.

“Everything will be okay,” he said.

“Everything will be fine.”

“I adore you.”

“And I adore you.”