“And we can sing a great hymn of thanks, once il Duche is over the horizon,” Pantisilea said with relish. She was one of Madonna Giulia’s maids, far above the kitchen girls in the palazzo hierarchy of servants, but Pantisilea was cheerfully indiscriminate: she slept with all the male servants and befriended all the female, and that was as much distinction as she ever made as far as hierarchy was concerned. She paused now to cross herself and spit at the mention of the Duke of Gandia, and the other maids did the same. “I can’t wait to see him go, God rot him. He had me over a basket of laundry once, did I tell you? I like myself a nobleman now and then, don’t think I don’t, but he smelled like a brewery and lasted about three strokes! Are you sure you don’t want to watch him leave, Carmelina?”

“No,” I said, touching my purse and the crackle of paper inside that was the letter. “Bid the Duke of Gandia good-bye without me.”

Pantisilea made a face, and the cluster of maids headed off laughing toward the Piazza San Pietro, where most of the city had flocked to watch the Duke of Gandia receive the jeweled sword and white staff of Captain-General of the papal forces. He would be leading those same forces off against the remnants of the French, not to mention those branches of the Orsini family who had supported the French against the Pope. For Pantisilea and the rest of the maids it was a holiday; Bartolomeo had packed them one of his hampers as though they were off to a picnic. That boy couldn’t see anyone out the door without making sure they had enough food for an army; he was worse than a Sicilian grandmother. But I didn’t share the maids’ festive mood, and I didn’t care a bit about the Duke of Gandia’s coming campaign. I turned the other direction, shivering even in my heavy cloak.

The Duke of Gandia had not gotten a fair day for his departure—it was blustery, gray, with a spiteful October breeze that tugged at my skirt hem, and the looming threat of rain. I was more concerned with the letter in my pouch alongside the hand of Santa Marta. I wondered what Santa Marta made of the words my younger sister had written in her looping childish hand.

Pray for our family, Carmelina, because a fever took Father to God.