“Leave your fussing, madonna,” I said irritably, pushing back the blackness that threatened to swamp my vision. “I assure you, I haven’t traveled in such comfort in all my life. I feel like a sultan.” Madonna Giulia had her carriage back; the French general had tactfully returned the stolen horses and even added a wicker-bound flask of his own wine should La Bella find herself thirsty on the day’s ride to Rome. My mistress had displaced her sister and mother-in-law to ride with her maidservants, and insisted I take the whole second seat for myself so I could make the journey lying down in comfort. But my pride demanded that I sit upright, and La Bella scolded me for being a stiff-necked fool, and pride and pain and scolding together had me half-lying and half-sitting, and altogether half-comfortable. It was still better than being crammed into the wagons with all the rest of the servants, and for that I had to thank her.

“I wasn’t going to have you bumping all the way back to Rome in that jolting wagon,” she returned. “Not after what you did for me.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I drank in the cold air from the open window, the wind coming in to slap at my unshaven cheeks. The dry brown hills were empty of passersby—one look at the mass of swaggering soldiers and the French lilies on their rippling flags, and every villager within eye or earshot went to ground. We might as well have been riding through a land of ghosts. “Though it was quite an impressive tantrum you pitched this morning until they moved me,” I conceded. “All that shrieking and stamping of feet.”

“Yes, I’ve gotten very good at tantrums, haven’t I? It may only have been two days, but I think the French are quite glad to see the back of me.” My mistress had a temper sweet as honey and a nature as easy-flowing as a running stream; in ordinary days her servants doted on her and took shameless advantage of her—but for the French, she played an entirely different role. She had put on a splendid performance as the Pope’s pampered mistress: throwing fits, hurling insults, and exploding into tears at the slightest provocation. She looked very grand in her sumptuous traveling furs, and when she moved to wrap Laura more soundly in her own cloak, I saw the gleam of a huge pearl at her throat.

I tilted my head. “They let you keep that?”

“Yes.” Madonna Giulia looked down at the enormous teardrop pearl that had been her Borgia Pope’s first gift. “I spread a good many of my other jewels among the French officers—goodwill gifts, you know. But I did keep my pearl.” She patted it like a pet.

I kept my voice neutral. “What else did you have to give the French, besides your jewels?”