I shied away from that thought. “It can’t hurt, can it?” Lessons, discipline, a little quiet. Maybe it wasn’t such a terrible thing, having Laura to myself for a while without Lucrezia forever breezing in to flatter her and dress her up and urge her to bleach her hair. I already missed Lucrezia, but there were times I wanted to tell her that if she wished for a daughter to spoil and play with like a trained monkey, she should have one of her own.

If Lucrezia had any daughters, though, they wouldn’t be coming from Lord Sforza. My Pope was quite open about it now—a way was to be found to annul Lucrezia’s marriage to the Count of Pesaro, and he wasn’t fussy about what way, either. “If consanguinity won’t do the trick,” Rodrigo had mused, “perhaps we can pretend Lucrezia’s previous betrothals weren’t properly reversed?”

“Really, Rodrigo,” I’d said. “You’d make your own daughter a bigamist?”

“So she can someday be a duchess rather than a countess? Of course.”

Poor Giovanni Sforza had stamped all the way up to Milan to beg assistance from his more illustrious cousins, but I did not think much of his chances. My Pope was utterly unfazed by the sight of the French King on his doorstep with an entire army; he didn’t bat an eye when the Orsini threatened to overrun the papal states; and he laughed openly when the College of Cardinals threatened revolt over Juan’s newly acquired territories and titles. What chance did Lucrezia’s poor nervous husband have of standing down the Holy Father?

Juan’s overbright eyes and wet mouth; Lucrezia’s convent retreat; poor Lord Sforza’s fuming. Really, was the whole world going mad? I felt too weary to think about any of it anymore, and I couldn’t help another little sigh as I entered my chamber and sank down on the cushioned wall bench. Two of my maids sat in the corner gossiping and sewing, and Leonello took the opposite corner and picked up his latest book. It was the romance of Tristan and Iseult, which I’d begged him to read out loud while I sewed or practiced my music—he had such a fine deep voice for reading. Not to mention the added pleasure it gave me to watch his ears turn red with irritation during the more overwritten love scenes. Just by looking at those earlobes, I could calculate how long it would take him to groan and heave the book across the room. But he seemed too distracted to read now; his voice kept trailing off, and a description of Iseult’s glistening sapphire-hued orbs didn’t even move him to a snicker, much less his usual humorous tirade on dim-witted maidens and their even dimmer romantic escapades.