“I’m sure the killers will be brought to justice,” Giulia soothed.

But Lucrezia Borgia would not be soothed.

“It’s my husband, I know it is! My lord Sforza, he’s furious with Father about our marriage being annulled; he wanted to hurt us any way he could. He had Juan killed, he murdered my brother—”

“Now really, Lucrezia—” Giulia gave Leonello a hopeless look as Lucrezia struck her away again.

“If my husband had a hand in it, he’ll be sorry,” the Countess of Pesaro was shrieking now. “Cesare won’t wait for any annulment, he’ll make me a widow, and for my next wedding—” She collapsed in a wail again, perhaps remembering that Juan had escorted her at her first wedding. Though a distinctly uncharitable part of me wondered if there wasn’t a sliver of Lucrezia Borgia that enjoyed the chance to lay aside the gracious dignity required of a pope’s daughter, and have herself a good wallow.

“Should we return later?” I whispered to Leonello, but he gave his cynical shrug.

“Why not enjoy the show? Dio, one wonders how she’d carry on if a brother she actually liked was killed. Did she forget how Juan used to tease her till she cried about the spots on her chin, and how her feet were growing faster than her breasts, and how her first betrothals ended because no true nobleman could bring himself to wed a churchman’s bastard?”

Leonello spoke softly, but perhaps Lucrezia Borgia heard him over her own weeping and Giulia’s soothing murmurs, because she lifted her head from its tangled thicket of hair and fixed her swollen, red-rimmed eyes on the dwarf.

“Where were you when my brother was killed?” she demanded. “You’re bodyguard to our household, why didn’t you ride at my brother’s back with your knives when he needed a squire?”

“I am bodyguard to Madonna Giulia,” Leonello corrected, imperturbable. “The Duke of Gandia may have needed a guard, but my services were already required elsewhere.”

“Don’t you smirk at me!” Lucrezia cried, even though his face was entirely bland. “You never liked Juan. That little joke once where he told you to join the other dwarves in the mummer’s show—”

“I merely informed the Duke of Gandia that I do not tumble.”

“—and even if you had been at his back, I don’t suppose you’d have bothered to save him! Anything for La Bella, you’d walk on fire for La Bella, but when it’s my brother—”

“Lucrezia,” Giulia said firmly. “That is enough. There is no reason—”

“Oh, but every man is in love with Giulia.” There was a passing flash of spite in Lucrezia’s reddened eyes. “Even the family dwarf. It’s as plain as the nose on his face; I saw it when he kissed her before he jumped down into the bullring—”