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Jewish either, I thought, trying to feel insulted but disarmed by Angela’s frankness and the warmth of her smile. “Are Catalans really Spanish?” I asked.
    “Oh God.”
    I winced. How carelessly these Christians invoked the Holy Name.
    “We Borgias are something and nothing, really,” Angela went on, and I found myself wondering if Duke Valentino had ever heard her talk this way, and how long her tongue might stay in her head if he did. “The Romans say we’re marrano and they’re probably right.”
    “Then we’re the same.”
    Angela was still holding my hand. Now she pumped it merrily up and down. “And we shall be friends. I’ve arranged for us to share a room. I hope you don’t mind.” I could not say I minded, but it gave me pause. Having no close female relatives, I was unused to sharing a bed. What if Angela snored, or ground her teeth, or kicked out in her sleep? What if I were guilty of any of these?
    If Angela noticed my reservations, she certainly did not let them bother her. “Now,” she prattled on, “who is that tall creature admiring her reflection in the silver? One of your friends? Can you perform a moresca? My cousin Cesare likes to see ladies dance it rather than gentlemen. ” Tucking my hand beneath her arm, she kept up her bombardment of questions except when she interrupted herself to introduce me to somebody or pass comment on a hairstyle, or the width of a sleeve, or the heaviness of someone’s makeup. If Angela said we would be friends, I thought, then there seemed to be little point in arguing with her.
    Donna Lucrezia sat at the head of the table, with Giulia Farnese to her right and Angela to her left. I sat next to Angela, though the honour of sitting only one place removed from Donna Lucrezia was lost on me now, and I longed to be as far from the high table as possible, with my friends from Santa Clara, where nobody was watching me. No one could eat until we at high table had taken our first mouthful of each dish. There were crayfish; there was veal in a cream sauce and suckling pig stuffed with figs. Repeatedly I reminded myself that it was no longer a sin for me to eat these dishes, but it was as though my body and mind had become disjointed from one another; my brain commanded my body to eat, but my gullet squeezed shut and forbade me to swallow. With the aid of copious swigs of wine, I managed to force down a few mouthfuls, then, glancing down the length of the salon to where Isotta and Battista were seated, saw everything double and realised I must be drunk. I remembered Simeon listing double vision as one of the symptoms.
    I longed for water but dare not ask. The liveried pages who stood behind each of us were as stiff and solemn as the effigies on tombs; I could not believe they would deign to hear me even if I could summon the courage to speak. So I drank more wine and, when the meats were cleared and bowls of fruit brought in, accompanied by dishes of sweetened curd cheese, found myself suddenly ravenous. My plate was indecently heaped with pomegranate skins and stones from bottled peaches in pools of syrup when Donna Lucrezia clapped her hands and announced that we should remove to a larger room on the ground floor where the musicians awaited us.
    I tried to stand, but felt as though I were once again at sea, in a squall, the deck rolling and slipping beneath my feet. Sugar water filled my mouth and nose with its sickly sweetness. Certain now I was about to vomit, I stumbled over the bench, pushing one of the solemn little pages out of my way, and fled the salon with Angela’s “Donata? Are you all right?” cutting through the buzz in my ears.
    Air. I needed air. I had to find a way out, but we were on the first floor and I had no idea where the stairs were. A window. Anything. I ran, turned, ran in another direction, tripped over the edges of rugs, caught my sleeve on a wall sconce. My mouth flooded with bile. Too late. Retching till I believed my throat would