'We have a pope,' Benjamin spoke up. 'The Dutchman Adrian of Utrecht, a zealous reformer of Holy Mother Church. Adrian has threatened to scour all the blemishes from Rome and is busily banishing the prostitutes, warlocks, wizards and courtesans from the city. I even understand he has threatened to defrock bishops found guilty of corruption, as well as forcibly remove any cardinal whose fingers are tainted by corruption.'

'Yes, yes,' Agrippa murmured, narrowing his eyes. 'Pope Adrian is intent on cleansing the temple and driving out the money-changers and those who prey on God's people.' Agrippa glanced up; his eyes had that strange, colourless look. 'However, Rome is a sewer, a veritable Augean stables. Adrian is a sickly man. Those whom the Roman cardinals do not like tend to die rather sudden and mysterious deaths.'

(Never was a word so truthfully spoken! Now, as you may know, I am a member of the old faith; priests come to my house to celebrate Mass and I still say my rosary before a statue of the Virgin. The Church of Rome has purged itself, cleaned out the corruption, but in my youth Rome was the anus of the world. Read the history books yourselves. I wager even the devil himself was frightened of the precious pair Rodrigo Borgia, or Pope Alexander VI as he took the title, and his beloved nephew Cesare on whom Machiavelli based his book The Prince. They no more believed in God than a fox does in flying. They had one principle only. No, I lie, they had two: 'the Borgias come first and nobody second' and 'do unto your enemy before he doeth it unto you'. However, more of that precious pair later!)

On that warm, sunny day in an English garden, with the roses turning their faces to the sun and filling the air with their cloying perfume, such corruption seemed an age away. Nevertheless, Agrippa's silence and his sombre looks sent a shiver up my spine. Agrippa had his finger on the pulse of power; what he was doing, in fact, was prophesying the murder of a pope.