When the soon-to-be-former Countess of Pesaro took to her bed late in August and declared there was no point anymore in getting up to face the day inside these dreary walls, she was not jesting. “Just leave me here to molder,” Lucrezia Borgia said darkly to the giggly younger nuns with whom she’d happily shared perfumes and gossip a few weeks ago. “Let me rot. No one cares a jot, anyway. Carmelina, more wine and some of those little burnt-sugar stars—”

Even confined to her bed, the little Countess kept Pantisilea and me in a trot most of the day. Pantisilea had to massage her feet because they ached, and then her temples because they ached more, and then I would be sent for cold lavender-scented pads for her eyes and perhaps just something to nibble—“I don’t know what I want, Carmelina, surprise me. Quince and ricotta tourtes again? Well, I suppose.” And then she would usually weep for a while, while Pantisilea, who had a sweeter voice than my crow’s caw, would sing some soothing little song while I waved a fan until my arms ached, or Lucrezia dried her tears, or both.

And then were the days when the Pope sent his daughter a letter or perhaps a gift of wine or fruit or a length of cloth. Lucrezia did not rise from bed to receive the papal envoy, but she always made sure to bathe first, sending everyone out so she could pat herself all over with rosewater, and then arrange herself back in bed in her best lace shift, and pearls in her ears, and just a bit of red ochre to bring some color to her cheeks. Because the papal envoy, well—

He swept in to make his bow before the day bed: Pedro Calderon, known as Perotto: slender, swarthy, dashing, and handsome. “Madonna,” he said, with a flashing smile and a sweep of his feathered cap. “Your radiance dims the room.”

There was a great deal of fluttering and complimenting, to which Pantisilea and I listened with interest as we hovered outside with trays of sweetmeats and cups for wine, and then finally Lucrezia’s silvery voice called for us. “But why won’t he sign?” my mistress was pouting as we entered with curtsies. She had a new embroidered shawl about her shoulders from His Holiness, and a new letter, too, though she’d tossed that to one side. “Cesare assured me he would sign it!”

“He would have done so.” Perotto had an assured courtier’s voice, soft and reassuring. “The Count of Pesaro would have signed last week, madonna, but the canon lawyers—”