Oh, how I wanted to double back and count my steps to ensure that I landed on the threshold on a perfect count of seven, but I didn’t want to alarm the crowd of assistants with superstitious behavior at a moment like this. Instead, I silently counted to four, took a deep breath, and opened the door. Inside my father’s workshop—my workshop—work had ended in a rush: tempera settled in a cup, brushes soaked in buckets of water, rags lay in lumps on the floor, as the new Duke of Urbino flipped clumsily through a stack of panel pictures in a corner. Francesco Maria had grown broad since I’d seen him last. His hair was receding, but his beard was thick. He was only eighteen but already looked middle-aged. Why he was wearing full body armor, I didn’t ask. “I thought you were talented. Did you paint this?” The new duke held up a scene of the Crucifixion. The figures were awkward. The colors were bland. There was no style.

Picking a rag up off the floor and neatly folding it, I shook my head.

“It’s horrendous.” He dropped the wooden panel onto the floor and grabbed another. “And this?” A Holy Family. The perspective was poor. Joseph’s hands were strange at best, and baby Jesus was . . . Beh, ugly.

“No, Your Excellency.”

“I thought this was your workshop.”

“I’ve been working abroad and have left my men . . .”

He interrupted, “I want to see something of yours.”

“I’d be honored to escort you to see my new altarpiece in progress in Perugia.”

“No one cares what happens in Perugia. I want to see something here. Now.”

I would’ve suggested importing my newest altarpiece with a snap of my fingers, but he might’ve taken me at my word and expected me to deliver. Royals can be so unreasonable, can’t they? Instead, I opened my sketchbook. “The worst of these drawings are better than anything being produced in Urbino.”

He waved my drawings away. “The former duke was content to march in second place behind Florence.” He tried to cross his arms, but his armor didn’t bend enough, so he fumbled before settling his hands on his hips. “He thought Florence was too powerful to be beaten: ‘Florence is like the fifth element,’ he would say. ‘Wherever one finds Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, one also finds Florentines.’” The duke kicked an easel, and it toppled over. “Unlike him, I’m not content with second place.”

“I’m not, either.” I picked up the easel and put it back on its feet.

“And yet here you are—my duchy’s most revered painter— folding rags and picking up easels like a common servant. How am I supposed to send you to Rome?”

I stood up straight and smoothed out my jacket. “Rome, Your Excellency?” I painted my tone with a thick glaze of surprise.