I saw the sour looks the other French were casting Leonello and gave silent thanks to the Holy Virgin that he was unconscious. If he’d begun lacing into them with his sharp tongue, they looked only too happy to finish him off on his makeshift litter right now, holy ground or not. No man likes to look foolish, I remembered my bodyguard telling me once. And that goes double when it’s a dwarf making him look the fool.

If Leonello didn’t get a surgeon for his wounds, the French wouldn’t need to finish him off with their swords.

“You will find a surgeon,” I informed the French general, letting my voice scale up to queenly outrage. “I will have my guard looked after at once. If you think the Holy Father will be pleased to hear how you have treated us—”

I went on in that vein awhile, striding up and down and jabbing my jeweled finger toward heaven and all in all throwing a marvelous tantrum. The young French captain had wilted when I raged, but General d’Allegre stood imperturbably, watching my breasts heave and not listening to my words at all. I remembered the way my Pope could play affable patriarch or wily diplomat or majestic fisher of men, switching from one role to the next as determined by his audience. Change your tactics, mi perla, I could hear him say in his Spanish bass, and I halted mid-tantrum. I fluttered my fingers at the base of my throat as though overcome, dashing at my eyes with a well-jeweled hand before I looked back at General d’Allegre. “Forgive me,” I said with a watery little sigh that was not faked in the slightest. My whole stomach was a mass of trembling knots. “This is all very upsetting. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course, madame.” Another French bow. “We will talk more tonight.”

“Oui, mon general.” I lowered my lashes with the barest beginning of a flutter. “Tonight.”

Tongues flickered behind thin lips as the French general and his officers looked at me, and for a panicky instant I thought I was surrounded by snakes.

Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

No one thinks how much blood it costs.

—DANTE

Leonello

A ceiling. Stone arches. Cobwebs. I concentrated on them.

Warmth, coming from somewhere. A glow. I blinked till the glow turned into a brazier, shimmering with heat and giving a little warmth to the sullen cold.

Softness. Blankets, heaped over me.

Pain. The less said about that, the better.

I closed my eyes, swallowing once or twice around the woolly dryness of my tongue. “Not to belabor the cliché,” I said, and was surprised how weakly my voice came out, “but where am I?”