“Of course.”

She was gone with a swift bob of a curtsy, relief in every line of her body. I turned back to Orsino and Adriana, both still regarding me. “Enjoy cena, both of you,” I said. “I have a great deal of packing to do.”

Adriana’s face had turned looked thoughtful. “You have gotten quite independent, haven’t you, Giulia Farnese?”

“Perhaps,” I said, and looked at Orsino. “I am twenty years old, after all—no longer quite such an ignorant little goose as I used to be.”

My husband’s whole body was hunched with misery. “Giulia—”

I looked at him, my husband in the blue doublet that matched his eyes. Eyes all soft with love, and full of tears. I’d been so touched, these days past when he was wooing me. Touched enough to imagine myself at his side, his wife in truth and not just in name.

“Giulia,” he said again. “I’ll take you back—when the Pope doesn’t—I mean, when he’s . . .” Orsino cleared his throat. “Our own life in Carbognano, and our own children—I’ll grow all the roses you want in the garden—”

“I want you to grow a spine,” I said, and slammed the door.

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The French forced their way into houses, driving out the inhabitants and then burning their firewood, eating and drinking all they could find without paying for anything.

—JOHANN BURCHARD, “AT THE COURT OF THE BORGIA”

Carmelina

We’re safe!” Bartolomeo scrambled up into the wagon after me, toting his bundle of clothes and a huge hamper. “He was starting to stir so I gave him another whack with the skillet.”

“Tell me you didn’t kill him!” I whimpered. My eventual berth in hell was already probable; I had no desire to make it inevitable by adding my father’s murder to the weight of my sins.

“Not dead, but he’s down like an ox at the slaughter yard. He won’t stir for hours.” Bartolomeo’s eyes sparkled in the gray of dawn. “He won’t be found either, not with all this bustle of Madonna Giulia leaving. Everyone’s far too busy to notice that some guest’s private cook is missing.” My apprentice gave a flap of his hand at the throng in the courtyard: thirty guardsmen clattering about on their horses, maids carrying out one last bundle of clothing or casket of letters, Madonna Adriana climbing wearily into the carriage that had brought her here only yesterday afternoon. With all the racket my apprentice could have shouted his words and not been overheard, but he kept his voice to a dramatic whisper and leaned his head close to mine in the packed confines of the wagon. “By the time that Venetian whoreson wakes up or gets found, or someone goes looking for him, we’ll be long gone, signorina. And in the opposite direction, too.”