Lupo thinks there's something unforgettable about the smell of Rome, a scent like stone, like leather, like dung, like fish, and like sewage wrapped up in the musky aroma of suffocating, holy incense trying to cover it up.
Lupo had boldly told Lanz that he smelled like this, and it earned him a week long black eye.
In all honesty, Lupo knows Lanz smells nothing like the blend of stench coming from Rome. There's some similarities, he won't lie (leather, linen, dung—no, no: fish), but there's also some differences which he enjoys getting a whiff of here and there when he manages to sidle up close, those little secret scents he tries to track sometimes to live up to his nickname: the metallic drench of coin, freshly tilled earth, smoke and wood, tobacco, onion, cilantro, stolen bread. The thief doesn't smell like any one thing in particular, and Lupo believes he likes that the best.
Lupo tells Lanz this, that he thinks Lanz smells "like life," and, afterward, Lupo thinks he prefers the black eye over the irritable grumbling Lanz does for three days, asking him, "What the shit does 'life' smell like, you goatish giglet?"
To which Lupo remarks that he didn't know Lanz knew such big words, and he gets another week long black eye, the other Templars, like Teodor, wondering aloud, "Did you fall between the pews or a he-woman's legs?"
Lanz later tells him that his blushing goes very well with his purplish black eye.