“We’ll add an embroidered band on all your hems,” I promised. “It will give you a few inches to cover your slippers, and make the gowns feel like new.” I turned to the pair of robe makers bustling about my chamber with cloth samples and mouthfuls of pins. “Be sure to refit her bodices too! Extra lacing and another dart under the bust—height isn’t the only place you’re growing,” I told Lucrezia.

She looked down at her modest breasts, which had made a sudden appearance earlier this year and been greeted with rapture. “Not growing fast enough!” she accused them, but gave a happy sigh as the robe makers came forward with samples of figured velvet draped over their arms and began holding up swatches. I liked my chamber best when it was a lovely cozy mess like this: gowns here and gowns there, sewing girls and maidservants picking through the piles like chattering birds, Lucrezia twirling in the middle looking down at herself and dreaming, and of course Leonello carping about something. “I am not a cloak hook,” my bodyguard’s voice complained from his usual corner, flicking a discarded sleeve off his propped boots. “Will you ladies quit draping things on me? Dio.” But his dark looks were no match for all the bustle of needles and pins and silks, and I heard a muttered oath as he went back to his book.

We’d all returned from Viterbo to Rome at the beginning of November, a Rome gone autumn-cool at last so that the wind tugged at the mane of my pretty gray mare as I trotted through the city gates in my ring of guards. Even the palazzo was chilly now, despite the hot coals in the braziers and the heavy shutters over every window, and at night I abandoned my filmy shifts and snuggled into a sable-lined zimarra. Maybe it was just the emptiness of my big bed that made it seem cold. My Pope had sent us on to Rome, but departed himself in a whirl of energy to take care of some papal business in Pitigliano—though the letters he sent me were enough to warm my bones. Rodrigo was all passion and sweetness again, now that I’d given in on the subject of Laura’s name—his way of apologizing for the quarrel we’d had on the subject. Not that he ever would apologize, but powerful men never do say they’re sorry for anything, do they?

“I really am taller than you!” Lucrezia smiled at me as the robe makers began to measure her hem. “You think I’ll be taller than Sancha of Aragon?”