“I changed the menu,” he said. “The stew will hold for tomorrow. Tonight we’re to serve salted ox tongue, a fish pie flavored with oranges, nutmeg, and dates—what are you scowling for, signorina?” He took the time to rap out a series of orders to the undercooks, letting me see how they hopped to his words like frogs, and then looked down at me with guileless innocence. “You left me in charge of the kitchens. How was I to know you didn’t want me changing the menu?”

“If you think for one moment I will allow an apprentice to change a menu without consultation—”

Yes, definitely enough pensive maundering for one day. My father was dead, and whether I could manage to grieve for him or not, I’d say prayers for his soul and more prayers for the fact that I was now likely safe—safe from discovery, safe from everything. But prayers could wait. For now, I had an apprentice to murder.

Leonello

Bloodshed made beautiful—I could think of no other words for it as I watched Cesare Borgia bring his sword down in one massive hewing sweep and lop a bull’s head half off its body. I had never cared for bullfighting, nor for cockfights, dogfights, or the baiting of bears, but the Pope’s son made this hideous dance of death into a thing of marvelous grace.

He hewed the bull’s head off in two more strokes. The beast continued to stumble toward him for an instant , as though determined to catch the young Cardinal even as its head tumbled onto the stones. Then the massive body crashed in a spray of bright blood, and Cesare put a boot to the great horned head with its glazing eyes and raised his sword for applause. His eyes glittered, his impassive mask cracked into a grin, and as applause roared around the piazza, he swept a cocky bow. Burly servants in the Borgia mulberry and yellow rushed out to drag the fallen bull away on hooks, and Cesare Borgia tossed his bloodied sword aside in a careless rattle and vaulted in one lithe motion up to the temporary dais where his sister and the other ladies sat in a flutter of veils and velvets. I had a place there too, though no one would notice my small dark figure amid all the radiance that was the Pope’s concubine, daughter, and daughter-in-law.

“Another bull!” Cardinal Borgia called, and Lucrezia struck him on the arm with her fan.

“You’ll be gored, Cesare. Two bulls aren’t enough for you?”

“Nothing is enough for your brother,” Sancha purred, arching her throat.