“Tell that to your Pope.” Leonello gave me a grin of pure mockery, eyes bright as glass and just as hard. Leonello had been cooler in my company these past months, sharper-tongued and a little remote. I knew well enough why—he didn’t like the moment of confession he’d let slip when I gave him his new doublet. I hadn’t been fool enough to pity him for the past he’d recounted, but he still resented me. Somehow the secrets he’d let slip were all my doing, but wasn’t that always the way of it? Men erred, or thought they erred, and it was always a woman’s fault.

Sancha of Aragon gave a little flounce of her skirts and a few other things as she settled herself again on her golden cushion. The Pope certainly did seem to be appreciating the Neapolitan breasts on such generous display before him! Not just Sancha but all her ladies, and the Roman ladies too were beginning to preen. I gave another forlorn sniffle, wishing the rain hadn’t damped my eyes to watery slits and my kerchief into a sodden ball. By the time the oaths had been recited, the ceremonial sword lowered over the heads of the bride and her little husband, and the guests escorted out of the chapel by spiral staircase into the sala above, I would have traded all the pearls in my hair and around my neck for a chance to collapse in a quiet bed and die, or at least let myself dribble and molder unseen. But the Pope’s concubine must be poised and beautiful and sprightly whenever in the public eye, so I gave a valiant sniff of my running nose and bestowed a kiss on Joffre as he descended with his new wife.

He and Sancha trod a graceful pavane after the lengthy banquet, Joffre squiring her solemn-faced through the complex passes even though he wasn’t tall enough to lift her in the turns of la volta that followed. Cesare Borgia came down to partner his new sister for that, her ladies descending like a swirl of bright blossoms to join them.

“You won’t join in, Giulia?” Rodrigo asked me where I sat nestled in a lake of my own skirts on a stool at his side. “I do like to watch you dance.”