“Even my husband—I saw how he looked at you when we went to Pesaro three years ago, and all the ladies arranged themselves in tableaux for that contest of beauty. I was Primavera in a special dress, and that proud slut Caterina Gonzaga came prancing out half naked as Venus, but all you did was cast your lashes down and drop to your knees like a Resurrection saint—you didn’t take a stitch off, and every man in the room was still panting for you. Including my husband.” A great moist sniff. “Not that he’s to be my husband much longer. Who knows whom I’ll marry next, maybe some hideous old man. I’ve been a good wife, I have, I tried to put up with Pesaro, and I put up with all my husband’s stupid unshaven captains putting their boots on my table, and what do I get for it?” she cried. “What do I get for it? I get my marriage annulled, and I don’t even get any babies! You’re not a proper wife at all, and you get everything in the world. You’re beautiful and everyone loves you and you even got a pretty little girl who looks just like you, and why can’t I?”

Lucrezia just sobbed then. “I’m sorry,” I heard indistinctly through the tears. “I’m sorry—” And my surprise and exasperation melted away into pity. I sat down on the edge of the bagno, and she put her head on my shoulder and cried.

“I don’t really have everything in the world, you know,” I said quietly, but she was making too much noise to hear me, and when do girls of seventeen ever hear sense anyway? I’d been little older when Madonna Adriana had to deal with my tantrums and shoutings, and now I could feel some sympathy for her. I put my arm about Lucrezia and stroked her wet hair, and finally she lifted her head.

“Is Adriana really leaving?” Wiping at the reddened slits of her eyes. “I didn’t mean it, what I said. I was just trying to make Sancha laugh—I don’t mean half the things I say when I talk to her.”

“Then go up and make Adriana a good heartfelt apology.” I smoothed the hair out of her eyes. “And I do wish you would stop trying to impress Sancha of Aragon.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” Lucrezia sighed, wiping at her eyes again. I felt my way carefully.

“Perhaps a change is what you need.” I looped up a wet lock of her hair and pinned it back out of her eyes. “Someplace quiet, peaceful. Someplace you can think.”

“That would be lovely.” Lucrezia scrubbed at her cheeks. “Was Rome always so noisy and hectic, or was I just too young to notice?”