“.... I am in no position to judge you or anything you do.''Yet you think I could be judged were you not so magnanimous as to forgo the exercise?”

“You are bruised.''Am I? I hadn't noticed.''Lucrezia says you killed the bastard.'... Cesare's hands were shaking. Hard, sun-darkened hands made to hold a sword or lance unflinchingly, but they trembled against my pale skin.”

“Truly, Francesca, if all women were like you, I would become a Turk solely for the purpose of assembling a harem.”

“We all make choices, Francesca. You are no different from anyone else in that regard. If you truly think otherwise, you are deluding yourself.”

“Della Rovere knows," I said, "or at least he suspects." "What makes you say that?" "I saw him in the passage a short time ago. He looked. . . upset." "You know he is prone to constipation? Perhaps it was that.”

“Christ's breath, how do you even have the wit to live?”

“Something unfathomable moved behind his eyes. He sighed deeply.'Do you ever, even once,' he asked, 'consider the price of caring about you?”