“You hurt her, Lucrezia.” I enunciated the words. “Madonna Adriana has decided to go back to her niece in Liguria.”

“All because of a little joke,” Lucrezia muttered, and that was when I slapped her. First with the flat of my palm; I paused to let her look shocked and then slapped her with the back of my hand, as I’d seen her hit clumsy maidservants.

She took a step back, holding her cheek, and I wondered if she’d slap me back. But she stared at me another moment, and then she burst into tears.

“I hate you,” she sobbed, and flung herself down on the marble edge of the bagno. “I hate you, Giulia Farnese—everyone looks at you instead of me, they all do, and Sancha says you’re just jealous I’m the Pope’s daughter so you take all my attention away. Father loves you more than me, and when Laura grows up he’ll love her more than me too, because she’s yours, and anything yours is perfect.”

I didn’t know whether to feel more exasperated or astonished. “Lucrezia, really—”

“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.