“The practical kind.” Her eyes met Orsino’s, and I might as well not have been in the room at all. “My dear boy, I only want what’s best for you. You’re like your father—sweet as clover honey, but he had no notion at all how to forge a path in this world, and neither do you.” Adriana looked momentarily sad, and Orsino reddened to the color of a pomegranate. “You’ll need assistance in your career, Orsino, assistance and patronage, and how are you to get that if you anger the Holy Father?”

“So you’ll just pack me off to the man who put horns on your son’s head,” I shouted, “and it’s all for his own good?”

“A mother does what she must to make sure her children succeed.”

“I’m sure you feel very proud of yourself!”

“Not very.” She shook her graying head. “But the world is not a place of blacks and whites, Giulia Farnese. As I think you know by now.”

I rounded away from her, toward Orsino, and took his hands in mine again. “You don’t have to listen to her. She’s wrong about you, she is. Tell her!”

His fingers were limp and cold in mine. He looked at me once, and then he stared at his boots. “Maybe she’s right.”

“What?”

A tentative voice sounded through the door just then. “Madonna Giulia?”

I whirled, tearing my hands away from Orsino’s. “What?” I yelled all over again.

Carmelina Mangano’s long face appeared cautiously around the door frame. “I’m sorry to interrupt, madonna—but do you wish me to postpone cena? The dishes have been ready an hour, if you wish to eat . . .”

“Thank you, Carmelina. We’ll eat shortly.” I smoothed the front of my loose Neapolitan overgown, trying to unclench my fingers, and motioned her in. “You might as well know,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even. “I set off in the morning.” I looked at Orsino. “For Rome.”

“We do?” My cook blinked at that.

“Yes. Dawn if we can manage—” I broke off in surprise as Carmelina straightened, turning her face toward me full-on. “Holy Virgin,” I said, distracted despite myself. “What’s happened to you?” Her right cheek was one massive livid bruise.

She hesitated. Her eyes flickered as though she were thumbing through various stories, and she finally mumbled something about one of the travelers from Venice whom I had welcomed when they begged a night’s hospitality. I didn’t know whether to believe her, but she cut me off when I asked for the man’s name. “Just one of the cooks, madonna. It doesn’t matter if we’re leaving tomorrow anyway.” Carmelina hesitated, eyes flickering again. “Though if it’s not too much to ask—could we leave by the Montefiascone road? The Venetians, they’re setting out tomorrow too, and one of their guardsmen told me they meant to take the other road. If we were to leave by way of Montefiascone, we wouldn’t have to travel with their party . . .”