“His Holiness doesn’t bother persecuting such men here in Rome. He told me once that if he did, the College of Cardinals would be half empty. In Florence, Fra Savonarola did his best to put every such man to the rack.”

“A sodomite escorting a whore,” I mused. “Not such an unusual pairing, really. I have always suspected sodomites and whores find each other restful company.”

“I am not a whore anymore, Leonello. Or hadn’t you heard?”

Another roar went through the crowd as we reached the fringes of it. I looked back and saw the flames climbing hungrily over Fra Savonarola’s robes, stretching greedy fingers toward his dangling head as the kindling under his feet spread into a nest of flames. Giulia did not look, merely drew her honey-colored cloak closer about her as though she found the bright spring day chilly. The guards beat a path for her through the outskirts of the crowd, toward the Ponte Sant’Angelo, and I followed.

“Why did you come to the execution?” Automatically I fell into my old spot: to her side and just slightly behind, the place where I could best keep an eye for attackers. “You don’t like such things.”

“Perhaps I have changed since you left me, Leonello.”

“I don’t believe so.”

“I felt—” She hesitated. “Guilty.”

I laughed. “Of all the sins on your shoulders, I doubt you can count Fra Savonarola among them!”

“He denounced the Pope and his family and his church as a nest of vipers. It was not true once, perhaps, but it is true enough now. Fra Savonarola speaks truth, and for that—” She twisted her head, looking back at the commotion around the pyre. The flames were rising high and bright now, visible even from here, sending a plume of black smoke into the air just as white smoke had been sent up when Rodrigo Borgia was elected Pope. Giulia crossed herself.

“If you hate this nest of vipers so much, why stay?” I couldn’t help asking. “You were always singing the beauties of country life, and now you have Carbognano. Green hills, simple pastimes, and a handsome young husband to enjoy them all with. Eden before the fall; not a viper in sight. Why not go back to it?”

“Lucrezia has requested that I stay for her wedding.” Giulia fiddled with a tie on her sleeve. “His Holiness would be just as happy to see the back of me now, but he won’t deny Lucrezia anything. So, I’ve been ordered to remain in Rome.”

“Why should that stop you? You’ve gone journeying before without the Holy Father’s permission.”

“Orsino wishes to stay too, for the moment.”

I laughed. “Surely you can maneuver that weedy, chinless sprout wherever you want him to go!”