“Sì, sì. I’m a guard. You. Leave.” Why did his voice sound so halting?

“Who are you?” I ascended the ladder and climbed onto a curved staircase of the main scaffolding. From the floor, the scaffolding looked stable, but high up, it moved, no doubt designed to absorb the weight of workers; the swaying made me dizzy.

“Get out,” the intruder called in an improbably low tone. Was he disguising his voice? Did I know him? Was it a cardinal? A rival artist? Maybe Michelangelo was right; maybe Bramante was trying to kill him, or at least sabotage him. It couldn’t be the pope . . . could it? Whoever it was, he was fast. Billowing behind his back was—what? A cape? The moonlight caught his hands: a stack of papers.

“Are you stealing Michelangelo’s sketches?” I took off, no time to count steps. The intruder turned up a staircase, down another—“help, someone help,” I cried. I high-stepped over a railing and leapt off, dropping down, cutting off his path. When he turned back, his foot slipped, and then he was falling, and I wanted to shield my eyes—who wants to watch someone crack to their death on a marble floor?—but instead I reached and felt something against my palm, so I clutched tight. It was his arm, his other hand now flailing for mine. I used my other arm, my leg, my knee, my elbow, to hold us onto the scaffolding. His weight pulled us, but I wedged a foot in a corner to stop our slide—“someone help!”—and when I reached over to pull him back up, that’s when the moonlight illuminated that face.

I was so shocked that I almost let go.

Long black hair, smooth features, full lips . . . It was a woman? Yes, I took note of her bosom rising up out of the swooping neckline of her billowing gown, who wouldn’t? Her eyes were wide, mouth open, legs swinging over the marble floor far below. I grabbed on with both hands and pulled. The lady twisted herself so that I dragged her up onto the scaffolding on her side and that’s when I saw . . . “Santa Monica,” I blurted. “You’re with child.” I hadn’t seen a woman so . . . so . . . full since my mother gave birth to my sister; why wasn’t a woman that pregnant already in confinement? And her gown—not a cape at all—was long and black with flowing sleeves. Despite the curving neckline, those were widow’s weeds, if I’ve ever seen them. Was the father of the child dead before the baby born? How sad.

As the lady clambered to her feet, clutching a stack of Michelangelo’s drawings, she reached into her pocket and pulled out—what was that? A blade caught the light. A sword?

I stumbled backward. “What are you doing?”