A deliberate shrug of those velvet-clad shoulders. “He isn’t the match my daughter could have had, certainly. His ties with the other Sforza in Milan aren’t anywhere near as strong as he made out when he presented himself for Lucrezia’s hand.”

“So?”

“You don’t know, then?” Vannozza gave a faint smile. “I see Rodrigo doesn’t tell you everything, Giulia Farnese.”

The choirboys sang on in piercing sweetness—the Avernus sonnets, starting with the first where Aurora was compared to Ulysses’s Calypso on her sea-washed isle. Leonello was muttering something under his breath that sounded like Oh, Dio, not those damned sonnets again! but I wasn’t listening to him or to that lovely music and its even lovelier words.

“Calypso, smiling nymph of sanded isle—”

Vannozza examined her buffed nails. “Rodrigo still visits me, you know. He so values my advice, he’ll quite often come for a cup of wine or two before cena.”

“Holy Virgin, Vannozza, will you cease trying to make me jealous?” Though she had succeeded, just a little. I knew very well that Rodrigo had an old fondness for his former mistress—he even sometimes referred to her as his wife! And then couldn’t see why it exasperated me . . .

I put that aside, lowering my voice. “I don’t see why it matters, Rodrigo fretting to you about Lord Sforza’s shortcomings. Whether he is the ally that was hoped for or not, he is Lucrezia’s husband now. And he loves her, I have seen that with my own eyes, and he deserves better from her than flirtation when his back is turned. Even if flirtation is as far as it ever goes.” I did not truly believe Lucrezia would stray from her marital bed. She was surely just drunk on admiration and flattery.

“—In whose white arms Ulysses would not sleep—”

“You are hardly one to criticize my daughter’s behavior,” Vannozza snapped.

“Yes, yes, because I’m her father’s whore.” I brushed that aside impatiently. “Let’s not get stuck upon the obvious, Vannozza. I’m the great harlot of the Vatican, and no one expects decorum from me.” Which was precisely why I tried to give it. “But do you really want Lucrezia to take my path? She is Countess of Pesaro, and the Pope’s daughter. There are rules; there are expectations of her. High ones, considering her position, and she does herself no good by flouting them.”

“My daughter is the Pope’s child,” Vannozza dei Cattanei pronounced. The Twelfth Commandment, clearly. “Like her brothers. And they are above rules.”

“—Calypso’s arms, if yours, would surely keep—”