“At least you make it quick for the poor bulls,” Giulia said, and the ladies all made room as Cesare flung himself down in a chair among them, calling for wine. Christmas and all its festivities had passed and the year turned; the sky was steel-gray above and breath puffed white on the air, but Cesare Borgia had declared himself in need of celebration and announced a bullfight. Bullfights were not such a common thing in Rome—“More Spanish oddities!”—but that did not stop the city’s idlers from packing into the Piazza San Pietro to watch.

“Why not the Colosseum instead?” I’d suggested. “We could kill prisoners instead of bulls; hark back to Imperial Rome instead of Spain. Far more civilized!” But the ancient Colosseum was a wreck of crumbling stone, and so the Piazza San Pietro was fitted with temporary wooden seats and a chute and transformed into an arena.

“A bullfight in honor of Our son-in-law,” the Pope had said expansively, clapping the new-returned Lord Sforza on the shoulder. “To celebrate his return to Us from his soldiers.”

“If he thinks we missed him,” Cesare said indifferently, not bothering to whisper, and the Count of Pesaro swelled in outrage before his little wife whispered quick assurances in his ear. Lucrezia had smiled at her brother behind her husband’s back, though, and even now Lord Sforza sat swamped in all the feminine flurry, bad-tempered and flushed and overlooked. Lucrezia’s husband was guest of honor, but no one had eyes for anyone but Cesare, who had stripped out of his doublet after the very first fight and taken on the next bull himself.

“A splendid fight,” I said as the young Cardinal tossed down a cup of wine. “To kill a bull with a sword and on foot—tricky.” The flamboyant rejonear had killed the first bull from the safety of horseback, pricking it to death with the long lance, but that was too dull and safe for Cesare, who had thrown himself against the huge snorting beasts on foot, and with nothing but a sword. “And only three strokes to sever the neck. I congratulate you.”

“To sever a man’s neck is near as hard.” The January day was cold, but Cesare seemed oblivious, lounging back in his half-unlaced shirt with his dark auburn hair tumbled about the faint dent of a tonsure, and his breath puffing white on the air. “I think because men struggle harder than bulls when it comes to dying.”

“And women?” I asked. “How do they struggle?”

He grinned. “Just like they struggle beneath you in a bed.”