Margherita hung my tondo over our wedding bed—“Let it protect us while we’re too busy to look out for wolves”—and the next day, she accepted an invitation to stay in Chigi’s villa. She was determined to keep our union secret—even from my servants— and Chigi was happy for the intrusion: “I hope that her presence will tempt you to spend more time painting my walls, instead of the Vatican’s.” He got his wish: in the days after our wedding, I spent all of my time at his villa, sketching Margherita and working on preparatory drawings for my Triumph of Galatea fresco for his loggia. I drew fast and easy, not stopping to pull up sleeves or roll wrists, not counting to four or seven or any number, only drawing, like when I was young at my father’s feet. I took my time grinding just the right pigments for my Galatea: bright blues and greens for the sky and sea, a range of flesh tones for cupids and gods, and the richest red I could make for Galatea’s drapery billowing in the wind. And while I’m certain that some masterpieces influenced me—Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, no doubt—I didn’t directly copy any other artist for that fresco. I drew from my own mind, heart, eyes. “I’ll use your features for my heroine,” I told Margherita, positioning her as my model.

She dropped her face. “No.”

“I promised to immortalize you in paint, and without the Vatican, this is my best chance.”

“Perhaps. But this painting should be of someone else.”

“There is no one else.”

Margherita stood on her toes to whisper in my ear, and I smiled, conjured a memory, and drew that face as my Galatea. When we showed Chigi, his eyes teared, and we all stayed up late into the night, telling stories of the legendary Imperia.

Just as things settled into a pleasant rhythm, and I’d begun to forget that we were in Rome at all, Bramante entered the loggia, face as white as the day he’d told us of Alidosi’s murder. “So, this is where you’ve been hiding.”

I put down my chalk. “What’s wrong?”

“You have to come back to the Vatican.”

“Why?” I waved off Margherita. “I know the pope favored the Sistine.”

“It no longer matters what Pope Julius thinks.”

Chigi and I exchanged looks. “How can the pope’s opinion not matter?” I stood up. Had the schismatic council won? Had His Holiness been deposed? Had he been poisoned, assassinated, stabbed . . .

“He fell ill after the unveiling and didn’t have time to appoint Michelangelo to anything. The court has kept it quiet so far, but it won’t be quiet for long. He’s failing.”