“Very well.” Lucrezia heaved a gusty sigh. “Pantisilea, fetch some rosewater compresses for my eyes. Carmelina, you go get me a plate of something—I don’t care what. Oranges, maybe. They were Juan’s favorite.” Her chin began to tremble again.

I opened my mouth, but Giulia was ahead of me without needing to be asked. “I’m going to take Carmelina back with me,” my mistress said. “She’ll be badly needed back at the palazzo in all the fuss that’s coming.”

“Oh, but I need her here.” Lucrezia mopped her eyes again. “I’m not going to eat that stale convent bread and gruel, am I? No, Carmelina stays here with me.”

“Lucrezia—”

“No.” The Pope’s daughter put her chin up. “You are not taking her too—I suppose you want Pantisilea back as well? You can’t be bothered to stay with me, so no one else is allowed to either?”

Giulia looked exasperated.

“Go running back to my father if you must.” Lucrezia flung herself back into the pillows, eyes oozing all over again. “Carmelina stays here.”

“I work for Madonna Giulia,” I dared to say. “If it please you—”

“It doesn’t please me.” Lucrezia Borgia looked genuinely surprised. “And it’s pleasing me that matters.”

“I am taking her with me,” Giulia began, looking irritated again, but Lucrezia cut her off.

“My father pays all the palazzo servants, Giulia. Not you. Not to mention the fact that he endows this convent. If I tell the prioress that Carmelina and Pantisilea must stay here, then they will not be allowed to leave!”

The Pope’s daughter would not be budged. She was crying again when Giulia finally cast her eyes up to the heavens and departed.

“Oh dear, I am sorry,” Giulia whispered to me just outside the door. “I’d take you with me now anyway, but if I upset her any further, Cesare will have my head. When she calms down, I’m sure she’ll change her mind—I’ll write her a letter about it in a few days, I promise.”

“Thank you, madonna.” I bobbed a curtsy, and Giulia gave me her own warm glance in return. But her eyes flicked down the stairs where Leonello had fled. “You had best be on your way,” I managed to say. “Let me get you a few biscotti for the carriage ride.”

Her smile definitely looked a little wan. “Yes, I always eat when I’m traveling.”

I watched out the nearest window as my former mistress set out across the convent grass for her carriage. Maybe this was my punishment. The man who had hurt me was dead, but I was still locked inside these walls—and who knew how long it would be, before I paid my penance for it, and Fate or Lucrezia Borgia released me?

I heard my new mistress’s impatient voice floating from her chamber. “Carmelina, where are my oranges?”