I don’t believe for a moment that he meant it, not the way it sounded. You had only to see the Pope with his daughter to know they were entirely fond of each other, and not in any disgusting way. But the Pope clearly considered Madonna Lucrezia his daughter first and Lord Sforza’s wife second; everyone in Rome knew that—and it was the kind of thing to make any husband jealous.

If it had just been the Count of Pesaro doing a little resentful muttering up in Milan, that would have been one thing. But Fra Savonarola had gotten hold of all those rumors clear down in Florence, where he was supposed to be making a Holy City for himself and not just listening for smut. But priests are always listening for smut.

“The nest of Borgia vipers in the Vatican, violating even the laws of blood in their unholy lusts!” Fra Savonarola thundered to his flock, and soon his words were being repeated all the way from Rome to Venice, and in every city, town, and village hamlet in between. “Brother services sister, and father services daughter, no better than beasts wallowing in the mire—” On and on it went, and everyone from Fra Savonarola to Pantisilea seemed happy to embellish the rumors.

I imagine the Holy Father had waved it off as briskly as he waved off any foul rumor. He’d have heard it all before, no doubt. But with Fra Savonarola thundering on about the foul fruits of incest, the whispers had finally penetrated inside convent walls to Madonna Lucrezia’s sheltered ears, and she’d stormed and cried and nearly made herself sick with her wailing. And I couldn’t help but notice that not nearly so many of her fine friends came to visit now, those other nobly born young wives of Rome who had brought gossip and laughter and the latest fashions to the Pope’s daughter in her exile. “No one wants to be seen with me anymore!” she shrieked. “I might as well stay here and rot, I can’t face them, everyone’s talking about me—”