In the morning, the streets were jammed with people headed toward the great square at the Basilica. According to tradition, the identity of the new pope wouldn’t be revealed until he stepped out onto the balcony. In reality, the identity was revealed through feints and rumors, deliberately so, so that the name of the chosen would run like a whisper through the streets.

This whisper hadn’t yet reached us at Palazzo Orsini.

Because of the traffic, our staff was running late. One of these was relatively new, Zanche Alessandra, a dark-skinned, Moorish-looking woman who’d been hired as a political secretary. In the current situation, though—given all the defections—her job was to assist with the itinerary and the domestic staff. If she resented this, she didn’t mention it. Though striking in her looks, she could be officious, prim. I’d never known her to be late, but that morning—while the white smoke streamed from the Basilica—she’d been approached near the Corso. The man was affable enough, at least at first, and seemed to know her. At least, this is what she told me. A man with black hair thinning on top, skin the color of putty. Sharply dressed, with a familiar manner.

“You work with Senator Orsini?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How about a favor?”

He sidled closer, and she backed away.

“You misinterpret me.”

“I hope so.”

“The favor isn’t for me but for yourself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It would be wise for you to quit your position with the senator.”

“Why?”

He grabbed her arm. From the way he moved, the man seemed accomplished at such intrusions. He moved without seeming to move, communicating by the way he held her and by the expression in his eyes, the turn of his mouth, that he had the ability to snap the bone if that’s what it came to, or run her through with a knife, and to do so in such a casual way that the crowd on the street wouldn’t notice and might even stand aside for him as he left the scene. He stuck his chin into her face.

“Before too long, Orsini and his slut will pay for their crimes. So if you want to live, my suggestion—find another employer.”

Then he let her loose.

––––––––

The man was Lodovico.

I took Zanche upstairs to tell Paolo.

I burst in, but my brother was already there, along with my husband’s security chief: Antonio Gasparo De Lucca. If I have not mentioned Gasparo before, it was because he worked in the background, unseen, but was becoming more visible now. Although Johnny did not trust him, the two of them had been on the street together all morning, listening for news from the crowd. Now everything was happening at once.

Gasparo and Zanche exchanged a fluttering glance.

“It’s the German,” my brother said. “They chose the German. Ratzinger is pope.”

“All right,” Paulo said.