An hour later, the doors opened, and His Holiness entered leaning one arm on Felice and the other on Michelangelo. The sculptor hadn’t spoken to me since the cardinal’s death. Alidosi had been his trusted friend and supporter, and like everyone else, I’m sure Michelangelo blamed those of us from Urbino for the murder. The threesome stopped in front of my Philosophy wall. That was the first time the pope had seen it. “Perfect,” he muttered. He looked old and tired, beaten and spent. Then, he let Felice and Michelangelo guide him across the room and behind a private door. I looked down to pick a blotch of brown paint off a fingernail.

Guillaume joined me in a back doorway. I said, “You shouldn’t be seen with me.”

He replied, “Eh, I’m French. It’s my country at war with the papacy, and my army that now marches down the peninsula. Je pense que I’m more traitor than you.”

I kept picking at the spot of paint, but it wouldn’t come loose. “Do you believe the cardinal turned traitor on the pope?”

“Quelle histoire.” Guillaume shook his head. “We all know, bien sûr, how loyal the cardinal was to the pope. But the other rumors?” Guillaume shrugged. “In France, it’s not so much a problem, but here? Here, those rumors stick, painfully so, especially when . . .” Guillaume looked at his shoes. “Especially when the pope hangs a portrait of the suspected man in his . . .”

I smoothed down my vest. “You think my portrait is part of . . . ?”

Guillaume wouldn’t look at me.

My hands turned clammy. I tucked hair behind both ears. Was that why the duke had commissioned that portrait from me? That painting wasn’t a gift—was it?—but a trap, a way to fan the flame of suspicions about the relationship between the pope and the cardinal. Uno, due, tre, quattro, uno, due, tre . . . “But the duke commissioned that painting before Alidosi even left for Bologna, long before the war, long before the loss.”

Guillaume shrugged. “But not before the duke knew that the cardinal was becoming too powerful, with too much influence over the pope, and the duke might one day want to hurt Alidosi or have . . . how do you say? Leverage over him.”

I brushed imaginary dirt off both of my shoulders. “The duke used me.”

Guillaume shook his head. “This is no one’s fault except the man who held the dagger.”

He was trying to be nice, but all I could think was: why would he try to reassure me that it wasn’t my fault unless people thought it was? I ran my tongue over each individual tooth, counting as I went. Guilt is distasteful as spoiled egg, isn’t it?