“I have, anyway.” I managed to lift the flagon, topping up my cup. I felt rage kindling deep in my torn chest, and I nurtured it like a small flame. Rage felt much better than pain. “You, Signorina Cuoca, have much to answer for.”

Her voice was wary. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s your fault we traveled the Montefiascone road into the hands of the French. I was standing guard outside Madonna Giulia’s chamber the night before we left Capodimonte. You brought her a plate of biscotti, and you trotted out some pretty story about a man giving you that bruise on your face”—I gestured—“and asked if we couldn’t travel a different way, just to avoid him and his party.”

“It’s true. I was attacked.” Her voice rose. “I didn’t know the French would be along the other road. How could I?”

“Oh, I believe that. Just not the part about you being attacked. Madonna Giulia, she’s a trusting soul, so perhaps she swallowed that story, but not me. I’ve seen you handle a cleaver, Carmelina. If a man tried to pry those long legs of yours apart without your permission, you’d run him off with a knife and then spit on him the next morning. Not go fleeing up the opposite road in a panic.” I contemplated the ceiling and whistled. “I like that about you, really. If I were in any condition for it, I’d challenge you to a knife-throwing contest, get you drunk, and try to coax those legs apart myself. There’s a certain height difference, but it’s surprising how that goes away once one is lying down.”

“You’re drunk,” Carmelina snapped. But her eyes were wide in that thin bruised face, and I felt a vicious satisfaction.

“It was that party of Venetians who stopped for the night, wasn’t it? I suppose you ran into someone who knew you. Cousin, brother. Maybe the Archbishop himself—tell me, did he know you from your convent?”

She went perfectly still then. The flickering light from the brazier threw a shadow off her high-bridged nose. Somewhere outside the vestry I heard a maidservant weeping, and Madonna Adriana hushing her.

“You’re wrong,” Carmelina Mangano said at last. Her voice had a rusty scrape like an old wheel. “You’re wrong, I never—”