“Why not?” Juan Borgia shrugged, and gave an elaborate bow as I sidled back toward the doors, every hair on my head feeling as though it wanted to stand on end. Get to the kitchens, I thought, get to the kitchens where the lights are. Where people can walk through at any moment. Anything but this very dim, very empty cellar with its insulating stone walls through which you could hear almost nothing. Get to the kitchens where the knives are.

But it didn’t do any good, because Juan’s guard seized hold of me the moment I approached. “Bend her over,” Juan said, and I let out an earsplitting yell and began to flail. I knocked the hat off the guardsman and he staggered a moment. I flung myself against the cellar door and got it open halfway, making a desperate lunge, but the guardsman just grabbed my elbow in a grip that numbed my whole arm and hauled me back, cuffing me across the head. My ears rang from the blow, as my skirts were pushed up for the Duke of Gandia’s inspection.

“That’s the bum I remember!” he crowed behind me, and I heard a crash as another jug of wine was smashed open. “Bar those doors, Paolo, and let’s haul her back here where there’s room to work!”

I lunged for the half-open doors again, feeling the pouch-strings at my waist snap, and Santa Marta’s purse ripped away. But the guardsman spun me and shoved me in one motion so I tripped over my own feet and nearly fell as he dropped the bar on the doors. The cellar was freezing even on this warm June night, and I felt my skin shrink and prickle all over. Or maybe that was the terror, as the guard let me go and I came up painfully hard against the trestle table where the stewards decanted wine for cena. My gaze flew like a panicked bird around the cellar, but there was nothing here but casks and spouts and decanters. The guardsman had brought several branches of candles—oh, everything had been well prepared—and I had enough flickering light to see the Duke of Gandia stagger toward me. I made myself straighten before him.