The Serpent and the Pearl (A Novel of the Borgias) by Kate Quinn Page A

and writing her some admittedly excellent poetry. Surely Orsino had more courage than Petrarch—at least I was his wife, unlike Laura, who had been somebody else’s wife—and Orsino had a perfect right to sweep into my chamber if he liked. So I stuffed the crumb-scattered plates under the cushions on the wall chests, rinsed my mouth with rosewater from the ewer until my breath was sweet, pinched my cheeks to make them glow, and crawled right back into bed with my hair freshly combed about my shoulders. And once again, waited.
    But the only person to come through my door without a knock was my mother-in-law, which was not what I had in mind at all.
    “Ah, you’re awake,” she said, with no surprise on her face at all to find me alone. “I’d thought to let you sleep, after such a long night.”
    Did she know exactly how I’d spent that night? I looked at Madonna Adriana da Mila, square as the bed in a gown of violet velvet with embroidered golden-brown sleeves, her face placid under the fringe of darkened curls escaping her matron’s headdress.
    “Up, up, now,” she said with a brisk clap of her hands. “We must get you dressed at once. There is someone who wishes to speak with you.”
    “Orsino?” I tossed the sheet aside. Oh, did I have questions for my new husband, and whether or not a wife was supposed to present herself in modesty and silence, I intended to ask them.
    “No, my son left early this morning. We have an estate at Bassanello, you know—his attentions were urgently required.”
    “So soon?” All my sugar-induced hopefulness drained away. “I assume I will be traveling to join him.”
    “Perhaps,” she said brightly, and patted my cheek. “Now, I think the white and gold brocade—I saw it in your wedding chest yesterday, it will be just the thing with all that splendid hair of yours.”
    Maids came bustling in then, giggling and whispering and whisking me out of bed before I could protest any further. I was briskly laced into the white and gold brocade dress, and Madonna Adriana herself spent a great deal of time pulling puffs of gold-embroidered shift through the slashes of my sleeves. “Spanish brocade, so expensive, but
what
quality. Your brothers certainly spoil you!” A skinny cheerful-looking girl introduced as Pantisilea—“your personal maid from now on, my dear”—looped my hair in a lot of elaborate coils on the back of my head and covered it with a filmy veil, and I stood in the middle of all the bustle and wondered what in the name of the Holy Virgin was happening. I wanted my own chamber back, even if it was half the size of this one and not nearly as luxurious; I wanted sour Gerolama with her suspicious eyes ferreting everything out in a heartbeat; most of all I wanted Sandro, who might have a theatrical streak to suit a traveling player, but who for all his jokes and japes wouldn’t let anything happen to his
sorellina
. But I wasn’t under Sandro’s protection anymore, or my family’s. Just my young husband, who suddenly wasn’t anywhere to be found.
    “My, aren’t you a vision,” Madonna Adriana beamed. “No necklace, dear, you’ll soon see why—yes, I think you can go. Down to the courtyard, now, and don’t dawdle.”
    I looked at her bland broad face again for a moment. “Very well.”
    If you don’t know what lies ahead, make a good dramatic entrance and hope for the best. I swept down a series of steps with my chin high, through one vaulted chamber and then another, into the framing arches of the loggia lining the courtyard. I stopped there for a moment, blinded by the sudden glare of sunlight from the open sky above after the dimness of the
palazzo
, and when I blinked and shaded my eyes, I saw before me a man’s hand.
    “Come,” said a man’s deep voice.
    I’d prepared a pretty little speech of inquiry on my way down the stairs, meaning to ferret out my husband’s absence at once, but instead I found my hand resting on the broad ringed one