“Your Holiness!” Juan cut him off, swaying in the grass. Glassy-eyed drunk; I could see it—drunker than when he had fumbled at my hip. “Do you know what he called me? The offense could not be borne!”

His opponent snarled, clawing off his bear mask. I recognized him—one of Ascanio Sforza’s party and a friend of Lucrezia’s husband; a young lordling who had once sent down a compliment for my salted ox tongue. “You said a pig’s mask would suit me better than a bear,” he spat at Juan. “Called me a lounging glutton!”

“And he insulted my birth!” Juan roared to his father. “Insulted my lady mother, called me a bastard!”

“We are,” Cesare Borgia noted dryly from one side. Juan Borgia’s elaborate tiger doublet was torn and dirty now, his face smeared with blood, but his brother in the glittering serpent mask was chill and immaculate as new ice.

“I will not hear my name insulted,” Juan howled, and I half-expected him to fling himself on the ground like a screaming child. “Your Holiness, I demand justice!”

The figure in the bull mask stood still, arms crossed over a burly chest. I wished I could see his face, but the bull’s muzzle gave nothing away.

The Count of Pesaro shouldered forward, square-faced and earnest beside his exquisite peacock of a wife, giving his friend in the bear mask a reassuring clap on the arm. “Your Holiness, surely we can blame this quarrel on the wine. My friend will be more than happy to apologize for any offense—”

“Of course, Your Holiness,” the young lordling said, starting to look nervous, but the Pope ignored them both utterly and gave one careless gesture to the guards.

“Hang him.”

No bestial howl this time; only silence. The young lord with his silly bear mask stood frozen. He only began to struggle when the guards seized hold of him. “Your Holiness! I never—I didn’t—”

“Your Holiness,” Lord Sforza began.

“I will not hear my children insulted,” said the bull, and then the shouting broke out again. Some pushing to see, some pushing to move away, Juan standing with his head thrown back and triumph in his eyes. I saw Madonna Giulia threading swiftly to the bull’s side, speaking in tones too soft to hear, but he only swatted her away. The young lord was screaming as they called for rope, a length of rope, and for a moment of sickened hope I prayed there was no rope. But someone found rope, of course they did, and the guards looped it about the young man’s throat.

“You’re mad!” the Count of Pesaro wailed. “You’re all mad, you bloody Borgias—”