Miquel is silent for a bit after he's sure he has heard the question correctly and digested it. Meanwhile, gnawing lips and wiping sweaty palms, Cesare watches him.
"That is..." Miquel resettles his immaterial weight on his heels. "That is very difficult to answer, Don Xellos." Uncertain, he throws Cesare a look, but he knows Cesare is the very least person to ask. "See, neither Machiavelli nor Da Vinci had answers for it, and they were both far greater men than I, with more learning and a higher understanding of the things between heaven and earth."
He's never felt comfortable speaking of it, and never will - he's too afraid he might bring the thing forth by merely thinking of it. "At first it would be enough to hold him through it, sometimes slap him a bit, but mostly just... I don't know. Stay close and let him know I was there and keep vigil. Later when I couldn't be with him-" he avoids Cesare's eyes when he says that, "-other people used other... methods. But I believe you asked something else. What it felt like." He pauses, tries on words like gloves, discards most of them.
"Like trying to wrestle down a wave of tar," he says eventually.