Cesare Borgia strolled away, raising a hand in reply to the French captain who had trotted off with a final languid wave. The Pope sent a baleful look after the French party, muttering, “I’ll see them all in graves!” But Giulia Farnese smiled and tugged the Holy Father up into the carriage, and with a lurch it swung into motion again and rolled through the gates of Rome. I gave His Holiness the best bow I could manage from my litter, but he was kissing Giulia again and I looked out the window. It was too dark to see more than the shadows of buildings and passersby, the occasional lantern or torch or spill of light from an open door, so I took in a deep lungful of night air instead, banishing both Cesare’s games and the twist of agony from my hand. I smelled night soil and mud and smoke; river rot and dead cats and blood. It smelled like home.

“You’ll stay with me at the papal apartments tonight,” the Pope decided, finally sparing a kiss for Laura’s sleeping head before wrapping Giulia more firmly within the circle of his arms and his black velvet cloak. “Damn the cardinals if they complain. You can see the progress Pinturicchio has made on the frescoes—”

“After I see all my people safely home and settled,” Giulia interrupted him. “I want to put Laura to bed, and I intend to see that Leonello is made comfortable. Then I’ll come along to the papal apartments.”

The Holy Father waved a dismissive hand. “Let the servants tend to them.”

“I will tend to them, Your Holiness. They are my responsibility.”

I saw the Pope’s startled glance as he looked at his mistress. She’d never contradicted him in anything before, at least in my hearing. I turned my face away to cover a smile as she gazed back at the Holy Father with calm assurance. This was the woman who had faced down French pike-men unflinching. Not the starry-eyed, easygoing little beauty he had plucked from her husband and taken for his own.

I wondered if His Holiness realized just what a change there had been.

“I’ll leave you at the Palazzo Santa Maria, then,” the Pope finally conceded in his sonorous Spanish-accented bass. “As long as you come along to the papal apartments afterward! I want you with me tonight, minx—I’ve not seen you for six months, with all your journeying.” Before her capture by the French, my mistress had left her papal lover for a long jaunt to the countryside, first helping to settle his daughter Lucrezia in her new marital home in Pesaro, and then returning to the Farnese family seat in Capodimonte for another extended visit. “Six months,” the Holy Father grumbled, wrapping her tighter. “Six weeks is too long!”