“Yes.” He coughed. “I, um. It was, well, it was a battle—my men against some of those Milanese thugs . . .”

I snorted, not very softly. Orsino looked down at me as though a bush had spoken. “What’s that?” he asked Giulia.

“That is someone calling you a liar,” I remarked before she could respond. “You didn’t break that nose in any battle, my lord Orsini. Cardinal Farnese and I chat quite a bit, you know, when we play primiera, and it’s not all gossip from the College of Cardinals. He’s told me one or two other things closer to home . . .”

Giulia raised her eyebrows.

Orsino reddened, touching his crooked nose. “It was your brother,” he admitted to her. “Sandro laid into me. After he, well . . .”

“After he found out you’d agreed to lend out your bride as a whore,” I supplied helpfully, “Madonna Giulia’s brother found you out hunting, dragged you off your horse, and broke your nose and two ribs.”

“Really?” Giulia sounded rather pleased. “Sandro never told me. What are you doing here, Orsino? You are supposed to be marching on the French with your men by now; I had your last letter.”

So they wrote to each other? Interesting. I did not think the Pope would be pleased. On the other hand, very little about Giulia or her extended absence pleased him at the moment. And that did not seem to bother her one whit, which I found even more interesting.

“I sent the men on without me and went back to Bassanello. Then here.” He looked down at his boots, toeing a mark in the lakeside mud and smudging it out with equal care. “I—wanted to see you.”

Giulia looked at him steadily over Laura’s curly head. Her smile had faded, along with the nervous flick of her eyes, and now she looked as bland and neutral as a marble goddess gazing out over the heads of her worshippers.

“You’ve never been to Bassanello, have you?” Orsino continued, still not meeting his wife’s eyes. “It’s not much—just little hills and a fortress, really. It’s Carbognano that I want to show you someday—that’s beautiful. We have a castello there; it may just look rough and square and crenellated on the outside, but it’s beautiful inside. There’s a sala with a painted ceiling.”

“Goodness, the sophistication. Pack at once, madonna! This must be seen!”

“I’ve heard of Carbognano.” Giulia looked around for Laura’s discarded shift, stooping to retrieve it. “Is that the town you got lordship over from His Holiness, in exchange for the extended loan of your wife?” Her voice was level and fixed, not colored with anger, not colored with any emotion at all—but Orsino flushed.