“His Holiness ordered the pace himself when I started out from Rome,” she went on in her creamy voice, “and I must say it was a killing pace! Warm this wine for me over the brazier, won’t you, Orsino? That’s a dear boy. And then perhaps you’ll run along and allow me a word with Giulia. I’ve one or two things to discuss with her in private.”

“I think—” Orsino blushed as he took his mother’s cup, but he looked at her squarely. “I think I should stay.”

“Really, dear boy—”

“There is nothing you can say to me that you cannot say in front of my husband,” I interrupted, and gave Orsino a quick smile.

Adriana looked at the pair of us and gave a shrug. “As you please. I’ve a letter for you, Giulia, from His Holiness. You really have made him very irate, you know.”

“Yes. I know.”

“You don’t sound very bothered by that, my dear.”

“I’m not.” Giulia la Coraggiosa, I remembered Carmelina saying. “He doesn’t own me, after all,” I said, and gave another glance at Orsino where he stood warming his mother’s wine over the brazier.

“Maybe not, but His Holiness is still frantic to have you back.” Madonna Adriana gave a little smile. “Cardinals and ambassadors pressing him day and night about the French, and all he cares for is getting you safely back to Rome.”

“Hmm.” I picked up my mangled altar cloth again and began unpicking a crooked stitch. Orsino drew a deep breath. Shout at her! I winged the thought toward him, arrow-like. Put her in her place! But he crossed the room silently and gave his mother back her goblet.

“Thank you, dear.” Adriana blew on the surface of the warmed wine. “Now, Giulia. Your return to Rome isn’t just a matter of what the Holy Father wants anymore. It’s a matter of safety. You really must not be here when the French army comes—have you heard what happened to the other towns they’ve passed through? Men murdered, women having their fingers sawed off for their rings, altar boys raped—you know the French. Babies no older than Laura having their heads dashed against the stones—”

I jabbed the needle into the ball of my thumb, and winced. I’d managed to put the French rather successfully out of my mind lately, what with everything else I had to worry about. “Is the army really so close?”

“No more than a few days north, my dear. The advance parties may be even closer.”