“Giulia, please.” Madonna Adriana’s broad face had already begun to perspire in the steam still coming from the bath. “You really cannot—”

“—miss my own brother’s deathbed?” Giulia flared at her, standing straight and naked on the mosaic floor, wet hair uncoiling in clinging strings over her back. “No, I quite agree. Please give Lucrezia my love, and tell her why I did not have time to thank Lord Sforza for his hospitality.”

Madonna Giulia turned away, tugging her wet hair over one shoulder and beginning to weave it into a hasty plait as she called to the maid—“Just a riding dress and a few spares, Pia, nothing else!” But Madonna Adriana’s hand fastened on her arm. She spoke in a low voice, one I shouldn’t have heard, but I spent all my days tuning to the sotto voce mutters of my sulky scullions.

“Giulia, my dear, Rodrigo was very angry with you when you disobeyed him before, in the matter of Lucrezia’s marriage. You think he will be forgiving again, when he’s just gotten over his temper at your last disobedience? At least ask his permission first. Then you can go to your brother with a full papal guard.”

Giulia took a deep breath, and I wondered if the flush from her cheeks came entirely from the bath’s heat. “Carmelina,” she said quietly, and I found myself hurrying to her side. “Go find Leonello now, and the stewards. We will all leave in one hour.”

Giulia

I wasn’t a half second out of my saddle before Sandro grabbed me up tight, lifting me clear off the courtyard’s dusty stones. “Sorellina,” he whispered. “I didn’t think the Pope would allow you to make the journey, with the French—”

“The Pope does not own me.” I felt my eyes prick and buried my face in my big brother’s shoulder. “Angelo, is he—”

Sandro’s lean handsome face was drawn tight about the eyes. “The fever took him this morning.”

My heart squeezed. I’d half killed my poor gray mare on the ride to Lake Bolsena, I’d lashed at Carmelina and Leonello and the rest of my entourage whenever they proposed a stop for sleep or water or rest—and for what? My big brother was dead. I hadn’t seen him since my wedding; I’d hardly given him a thought except to feel irritated when he wrote asking me to wheedle money or favors out of my Pope—but now he was gone, gone for good, and I’d never have a chance to mend things between us.

“Shhh, don’t cry.” Sandro ran a thumb under my welling eyes. “You came, and that’s what matters.”