“Our Holy Father appears to be enjoying himself,” Leonello observed at my side. I cast him a sharp look and his hazel eyes met mine, penetrating as any of his knives, slicing through to the thoughts I was trying to hide.

“Yes, very much,” I said brightly. “And you, Leonello? Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Tolerably. No one has yet asked me to juggle anything.”

“They wouldn’t dare,” I couldn’t resist saying. “Not the way you look in your new livery.”

He slanted me an irked glance, and I resisted the urge to tell him he should be proud and not irritated. From the embittered son of a harlot and a failed juggler to this cool, hard, handsome little presence in the heart of the papal entourage! But I held my tongue. Whether tall or short, men don’t like getting advice, do they?

Was that how I’d lost Rodrigo? a little voice in my head wondered. Telling him I knew better in the matter of Lucrezia’s marriage?

I hadn’t lost Rodrigo. I couldn’t have. Just because his eye was wandering a little tonight—well, why shouldn’t it wander? I was hardly an appetizing distraction with my runny nose and watery eyes. Certainly no match for queenly Caterina Gonzaga. Why did she have to be not just taller than me but slimmer? She didn’t look like she had to swear off sweets and cheese and wine just to get into her dresses. Oh, I couldn’t bear these effortlessly wand-slim women! Just wait till she bore a child or two; then we’d see if she was still inviting Cesare to measure her waist with his hands and casting regal glances over her shoulder to make sure Rodrigo was watching! I sneezed four times in a row, groping blindly for a kerchief. Ugh, why can’t I just die? I thought, and chewed morosely on a morsel of Ligurian cheese. I always eat when I’m sick.

More dancing, more music, more of the bawdy jokes that always cropped up at wedding celebrations, especially as the bedding drew closer. I didn’t imagine it would be much of a bedding—Joffre was trying to look lordly, but he flushed redder with every shouted jest, and he looked so very, very young. “Madonna Giulia,” he muttered, retreating from his father’s lewd grin and casual muss of the hair. “What if I don’t know what to do?”