The two maidservants wandered away, unnerved by my sudden lapse into silence, and I was just as glad they were gone. I lit the tapers around Anna’s body and settled back onto my stool for her death vigil. I felt the volume of the Iliad in the inside of my doublet and pulled it out.

“‘The Greeks all night with tears and groans bewailed Patroclus,’” I read. “‘On his comrade’s breast, Achilles laid his murder-dealing hands, and led with bitter groans the loud lament.’”

No loud lament here. No one to care Anna was dead but me. Not like Patroclus, who at least had all the heroes of Greece to mourn him.“‘They washed the corpse, with lissome oils anointing, and the wounds with fragrant ointments filled . . .’ No oils and ointments for you, my good lady,” I broke away from Homer to tell my friend. “I’ll be lucky if I can buy a Mass for your soul.”

The coins on her eyes gleamed at me.“‘All night around Achilles swift of foot, the Myrmidons with tears Patroclus mourned.’”

I broke off, closing the little book. “At least Achilles knew who killed his friend.”

Anna was silent. I looked at her.

“Who killed you, my girl?” I asked her. “Answer me that, eh?”

No reply.

Giulia

S o you are confessing to the sin of fornication outside the vows of your marriage? A grave offense, madonna.”

“No,” I said, exasperated. “That’s not what I said at all. I said he’s trying to tempt me to the sin of fornication outside my marriage vows. He started trying the day after my wedding, two weeks ago. I ask you!”

“So you desire a man besides your husband, and that man a most holy cardinal?”

I glowered in the direction of the confessional grille. The dark little space was stuffy and smelled of stale incense, the wooden shelf was hard under my knees, and through the ornately carved wood of the grille I could see only flashes of the priest’s vestments. His disembodied voice was pinched and disapproving. I hadn’t really expected a priest to take my side on this, especially not over that of a cardinal, but—well, I’d been raised to take my troubles to the confessional, and habit died hard.

“No,” I tried again. “Cardinal Borgia is the one doing the desiring, not me. He thinks by waving a pretty necklace or two under my nose—”

“You are guilty, then, of tempting a man of the Church to break his vows of celibacy?”

“Considering his five bastards, I think he’s broken them before,” I pointed out.

“It is not your place to reprove a man of God.” The priest certainly had no trouble reproving me. The voice pinging at me through the grille was icy. “The Cardinal’s fleshly sins are a matter for his own conscience. You must not add to his burden.”