I was moving toward him, disengaging my hand from Orsino’s arm, but Leonello slid into the crowd and vanished.

Leonello

I am no Latin scholar, but I can tell you one thing about the language of ancient Rome: it does not pair well with weeping. Latin is clipped, masculine, cool. Blubbering and wailing your way through terse Latin cadences, no matter how beautifully worded, is no way to impress anyone with your declamation.

“Try again,” I heard Cesare Borgia say patiently as Lucrezia broke down in her oration with a fresh welter of tears. “Take it up from the next line.”

“Why do I have to bother?” Lucrezia wailed from inside the chamber. When she was unhappy she was piercing, and her voice penetrated clearly through the half-open doors of her chamber to where I leaned against the wall of the stairwell outside. “My husband gave his testimony, he finally signed it before witnesses the way you wanted him to, so why do I—”

“You will confirm his testimony before the court when they hear the petition of annulment.” I could hear the smile in Cesare Borgia’s voice. “My pretty little sister with her lovely accent in Latin—the canonical judges will be moved.”

“I’m too ill to be dragged all the way to the Vatican!” I could see a flash of the Pope’s daughter through the half-open door: all but buried in her bed under a mound of furs and lap cushions, her eyes swollen from crying. She had not even risen to greet her favorite brother when he arrived like a dark arrow shot into the convent and sent all the nuns into a flutter. “Can’t you just read my testimony, Cesare?”

“It will look better coming from the Countess of Pesaro herself.” I heard the bed settle as Cesare put an arm about his sister. They were speaking Catalan, which the family always saved for private moments, but after serving them five years, I had picked up enough of it to understand. “Though you’ll soon be much grander than a mere countess, of course. Did I tell you the Duke of Gravina is sniffing for your hand?”

“He is?” Lucrezia sounded less damp and more interested.

“Ottaviano Riario as well, though he has that Sforza bitch for a mother, and I think we’ve had enough of Sforzas.” Another rattle of paper. “So, try the oration again.”

The sonorous Latin began, punctuated by periodic honks as the little Countess blew her nose, and I wandered away down the stairs. My head throbbed with every step. Perhaps from the wine I’d drunk to forget the recent things that needed forgetting. Perhaps from the memory of the last time I’d descended these steps, at a dead sprint away from Giulia Farnese’s stunned and pitying eyes.