I took a deep breath but let it out shallowly, forcing some warmth into my face and smiling instead. My mother had always said there was no defense against the rude like a good, sweet-toned courtesy. “Yes, Lucrezia is such a beauty,” I cooed to Vannozza dei Cattanei. “A pity she doesn’t look like you. I think she takes after Rodrigo . . . that warmth of his, you know, and the laughing voice.” I gave a little shiver of pleasure. “So attractive.”

Her eyes flared a little. Maybe sweet-toned courtesy did work against the rude. In my own experience, I found it worked better with a hint of vinegar under the honey.

“You had better hope your own daughter grows up as pretty as mine,” Vannozza snapped. “She’ll be a far more useful marriage pawn when Rodrigo starts shopping her around in a few years’ time. I wonder if you’ll be allowed to attend her wedding, Giulia la Bella? Perhaps Rodrigo’s next concubine will be the one to walk your daughter to the altar. They’ll probably be just the same age.”

I molded my smile to an expression of sweet blandness. “Oh, Vannozza—may I call you Vannozza? Such venom, and I really don’t see why. I didn’t take His Holiness from you, after all. From what I understand, you were already long finished with each other.”

“Yes, Rodrigo finished with me.” The thin mask of courtesy had stripped from her face. Oh, good. “Just as he will finish someday with you. I wonder, my dear Giulia, if you’ll last as long as I did—ten years and four children?” Her eyes swept me again. “I doubt it. One more baby, and you’ll be stout as a barrel of cider.”

“Better a plump juicy peach,” I said, “than a dried-up old prune.”

“Better a slim swan than a fat little capon.” Vannozza smoothed her own waist, still narrow after four births, and I wondered if I could have Leonello stab her to death. One of those sharp little finger knives of his, planted right between those powdered breasts. Surely I could claim it was self-defense?

“Rodrigo loves me plump,” I said instead, with all the innocence I could muster. “You should have seen him when I was carrying Laura. He never had his hands off my stomach.” Or the rest of me—my Pope was not a man who believed in the cessation of nocturnal attentions during a woman’s ripening months. Thank the Holy Virgin, because my pregnant passions for sweets had been thoroughly matched by passions of a different kind.

“Yes, Rodrigo does like a budding woman,” Vannozza said, as though reading my mind. “It makes him feel young again. I suppose even old bulls find they can still kick up their heels when they see a young heifer.”