Without warning, the duke hit me across the side of my head with his armored hand so hard that I stumbled backward. I pressed my hands against my face—my cheek stung—and tripped over my own feet. I fell, my hip landing hard against the wooden floor. “Understand this, boy,” the duke snarled. “I want you to rid Urbino of its competition. For good.” When I only responded with a whimper, the duke made a motion as if to kick me. I balled up my legs to protect my stomach, but he didn’t strike. Not yet. “Do you know why I want you in Rome?”

My head was pounding; my ears whirred.

“Because the pope is looking for a painter for the ceiling of . . . the Sistine.”

I dropped my hands away from my face and looked up at the duke. “The Sistine Chapel?”

He nodded.

My heart thumped quick in my cheek—from the duke’s blow, but also from excitement. The Sistine? One of the holiest chapels in all of Christendom, where the College of Cardinals gathers for conclave to elect popes? Could this be true? Pope Julius’s uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, had built that chapel back in the 1470s and named it after himself—Sistine, as in “of Sixtus”—and hired the greatest masters of his day to decorate its walls. Hiring a new painter to decorate the ceiling of that great chapel would be a fitting way for this pope to honor his uncle. And since my duke happened to be nephew to the pope . . .

I stopped whimpering.

The duke bent down, grabbed my collar, and said, “Donato Bramante—citizen of Urbino like you—works for the pope, and he’s considered the greatest architect on the peninsula. Don’t you want to work for the pope and become the greatest painter?”

I tried to lick my lips, but my mouth was too dry. I whispered, “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Good.” He stood up and marched toward the door. “I’ll write to my uncle and recommend you for the Sistine.”

“I . . . I . . .” I stood up.

“No need for flowery gratitude. You can thank me by keeping your promise.”

The duke reached for the door and . . . Beh, what would you have done? I said, “I’m not going to do that.”

“What?”

I don’t know how the duke looked because I kept my eyes on my shoes—a pair of brown leather, with a drop of red paint on one toe. “I’m not poisoning anyone,” I said.

“Michelangelo is your rival.” He spit that last word like the devil.

“Sì.”

“I can end your career.”

Stomach coiling like rope on a pulley, I repeated, “Sì.”