“Well, naturally she was christened Orsini. The law, you know.” Rodrigo had explained it to me when I was pregnant—existing bastards were one thing, but no sitting pope could officially sire a newborn child. That hadn’t precisely pleased me, but it was the law.

“You think Rodrigo Borgia would be stopped by a law?” Vannozza looked amused.

“The scandal—”

“He doesn’t care about scandal, and never has. If he’d really sired that child, he’d have found a way around the law. He’d have been proud to do it.” Vannozza smiled. “Rodrigo loves his children, you see. But he doesn’t love that one. She’s just a cuckoo in the nest.”

I felt like I’d been stabbed. Laura began to fuss as she felt the sudden protective clutch of my arms around her little body. But I’d let the Holy Virgin herself take me off to heaven—or hell if my sins demanded it—before I’d let my wrinkled, spiteful cow of a predecessor see me flinch.

The truth was, my daughter had been born nine months after I’d first gone to Rodrigo’s bed—and a week before that, to my husband’s bed, if that awkward coupling against a wall counted as a bedding. Of course Laura’s father had to be Rodrigo—how ridiculous, to think that Orsino’s one clumsy fumble around the stiff barrier of my skirts had borne more fruit than all the languorous hours I’d spent in my Pope’s arms. I’d never had a doubt who Laura’s sire was.

Does Rodrigo . . . ?

“Why don’t you concern yourself with your own daughter rather than mine?” I managed to say. “Lucrezia’s chamber is at the top of the stairs on the east side of the palazzo, if you really do insist on waking her.”

“Thank you.” We exchanged a last long measuring look, and I refused to drop my eyes or smooth my hair or fiddle with my rings—refused to give her one solitary indication that she might have pierced my armor. I held her eyes, and finally she gave a flick of her brows that reminded me of Cesare and swept around me toward the stairs.

The click of Vannozza dei Cattanei’s heels and the rustle of her plum and russet velvets retreated behind me. The goat bleated after her. I stared at the fountain, jogging Laura, who was fretting, and felt a small reassuring presence at my side.

“Shall I arrange a fatal accident for her?” Leonello suggested. “A swift blow over the head, perhaps, and then I’ll bash away at the ceiling until a few stones come down and make the whole thing look like a tragic accident. A favorite assassination method, I’ll have you know.”