“Rodrigo said that too,” I said, and her eyes flared at my use of her former lover’s name. Oh, Holy Virgin, would she just stop bristling? I hadn’t taken Rodrigo away from her; they’d already been long parted when he swooped me off my feet, but there was no use telling Vannozza that. One of those women who always finds an excuse to feel slighted; aren’t they tiresome? “His Holiness won’t listen to a word about Lucrezia,” I tried again. “You know how he is—‘Bah, Lucrezia’s just in high spirits! I like seeing a pretty young filly kick up her heels—’”

Vannozza gave an unwilling snort through her long nose. I leaned closer, lifting my nosegay of yellow roses to cover our conversation as the choir began a new tune. A good many eyes had flicked avidly in our direction, seeing the Pope’s current and former mistresses bend their heads so close together. “It’s not just about Lucrezia giggling and misbehaving during sermons,” I went on. “She listens far too much to Sancha, and Sancha is not a good influence.”

“That girl is a harlot,” Vannozza deigned to concede. Not the kind of girl a mother wants for any of her sons—and surely she had to know by now that Sancha was sleeping with all them (having recently added Juan to her collection to complete the trifecta of Borgia sons. I ask you). I pressed my advantage.

“Do you want Lucrezia to be a harlot too, Vannozza? She’s fluttering her lashes at that new papal envoy now, and my brother, and any other handsome man at court who crosses her path. And she used to be so in love with her husband; it floated off her like perfume.”

Maybe that was what truly troubled me. You could look about Rome and see any number of young wives who loved to flirt and giggle, and if you saw the fat or sour or graying men they were married to, you usually couldn’t blame them. But Lucrezia had always been different. Something of the maiden in the tower about her, surrounded by protective Spanish father and brothers as she was—and then Giovanni Sforza had come along and swept her away from the walls her family had put up around her, and I’d seen her blossom like one of these yellow roses in my hand.

I didn’t like seeing that glow of love turn into common, roving-eyed flirtation.

Vannozza dei Cattanei broke into my speculations. “Maybe it’s just as well my daughter is no longer so starry-eyed for Lord Sforza.”

I looked at Vannozza. My predecessor was looking smug, and that was hardly a good sign. “What have you heard about Lord Sforza?”