Maybe that was when my new mistress’s little face changed from hesitant sympathy to cool hardness when Lord Sforza’s name arose. Because she’d stay in the Convent of San Sisto now until her marriage was annulled, and after that, the Holy Father and Cesare Borgia between them would find her another husband as fast as possible. “They want me out of sight,” I’d heard Madonna Lucrezia wailing to the avid ears of Suora Paolina and Suora Speranza. The nuns were the only audience she had left, and all of them clucked delightedly behind their veils to have such drama in their quiet midst. “Not one word of truth in anything my stupid husband said, and Cesare still says I’ll have to be married again as fast as possible! And until then I have to rot here until the rumors die!”

“I thought you wanted to stay here, madonna.” Pantisilea tried to console her. “Didn’t you just say you couldn’t stand to face everyone with all the whispering?”

More crying then. Logic, I remembered Leonello pointing out once, was not really Lucrezia Borgia’s strong suit.

The bells for Sext began to ring. That placid monotonous sound still sent a spike through my temple like a silver nail. I began to assemble the ingredients I’d need for cena, something cold because Madonna Lucrezia could not abide anything hot in this weather; something sweet because she could not abide anything spiced; not a salad because I could get no greens that were not wilted by heat and chewed by insects; not fruit because fruit arrived in this kitchen only after the wasps had been at it. You’d think that a wealthy convent like this one would feed its sisters like queens, but you’d be wrong. The choir nuns ate well, but from their private stores: the wine and the fine white bread and the fresh fruit they bought with their allowances or received as gifts from their families. They kept the good stuff locked away in their cells, Santa Marta rot them, and didn’t even bother touching the dismal gruel dished up in the refectory. And it had to be dismal, in case any sharp-eyed priest made an inspection with his nose sniffing for sin. “We eat humbly here,” I’d heard the prioress say piously. “Even the most well-born.” And she never bothered to mention that every sister who could afford it just stirred the gruel in her bowl for a while, and then went back to her own cell to dine on fresh bread and apricots and good wine from Ischia.