“And that fellow who tried to extract my rings from me on my way back from confession two years ago, remember him?”

“Dio. I’d forgotten.” I took another cooling swallow of lemon water, letting the silence lapse. My skin tingled, but not from the balm she was rubbing into my legs—from her touch. Her touch could have undone a saint, much less one wretched, haunted dwarf.

“Now that the wedding is over, I’ll be returning to Carbognano.” Giulia moved from my calf muscles to my stunted feet. They looked like ugly misshapen roots in her small white hands. “Come with me, Leonello.”

I found my tongue again. The rough side of it, anyway, and I let her have it, pulling my shredded pride around me. “You want a bodyguard again, my little rose? You’re not the Pope’s darling anymore, you know; no one will care about harming you. It’s Caterina Gonzaga who needs guarding now, and with that nasty tongue of hers I’m sure someone will manage to kill her no matter how many bodyguards she has. The Pope may do it himself,” I added. “She’s very irritating.”

“Laura has been asking after you.” A curtain of hair swung forward, blocking Giulia’s face as she kneaded at the arches of my feet. “Orsino wasn’t very good with her—he didn’t really like her, truth be told. He wanted to send her away to be fostered in France, or Milan, or Venice. Anywhere he wouldn’t have to see her and be reminded of Rodrigo. And Rodrigo didn’t want her either, once I said she wasn’t his. You’re the one Laura misses most.”

“Then the little rosebud has no judgment,” I mocked. “Just like her mother.”

“Laura’s cleverer than I am,” Giulia said, undeterred. “Soon she’ll start Latin studies. If you came to Carbognano, you could be the one to teach her.”

“I hate the country.”

“It would be far better for you than this snake pit, Leonello.”

“And why didn’t you flee this snake pit if you hate it so much?” I took another swallow of lemon water, turning the argument back on her. I didn’t need knives; I could fend her off forever with nothing but words. “You could have stayed in Carbognano after your husband’s burial. Why did you come back?”

“Because of you!” Her face lifted out of the curtain of hair, and I saw that her dark eyes were full of tears. “Holy Virgin, Leonello, are you blind? I was waiting for you to come back from Romagna or the ninth ring of hell or wherever it was Cesare Borgia sent you these past months. Lucrezia begged me to come back to Rome for the wedding, but I didn’t come for her, I came for you. And God help me, but I am not going home without you.”