The pope led us into the library, and my stomach lurched with fear at what he would say about my section of ceiling, but then he waved us onto the next room. “We’d like to see Perugino next,” he said, delaying my verdict for a few moments. (Pinturicchio stayed in the first room to gather his brushes. Oh, how I wanted to tell him that his Borgia apartment frescoes had given me such comfort recently, but I couldn’t talk about such things in front of the pope, and after that day, Pinturicchio left Rome, and I never saw him again. Now, he’s buried in some grave up in Siena, I believe, and I don’t think telling his sarcophagus would have the same effect.)

I don’t know, exactly, what happened under Perugino’s ceiling. I know there was looking and pointing, and the cardinal whispered and there were praises all around, but my ears were ringing too loudly to hear specifics.

“Now for the final room,” the pope said.

As Felice walked by me, she raised her chin. I took it as suggestion of a hanging. Wouldn’t you? Uno, due, tre . . . Oh, what was the point in counting? I was a dead man.

By the time I entered the room, everyone was grimacing at the ceiling. The pope looked as angry as if the French army had invaded Rome. I looked up. Thank Mary that they were standing under one of Sodoma’s sections—Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge, but you’ve never seen perspective so poorly managed. The pope scrunched his nose. Cardinal Alidosi’s mouth pressed into a firm line; he didn’t even need to whisper. His Holiness said, “And where’s your section, Santi?”

Every eye turned on me.

I raised my arm and pointed to the tondo above me.

As the pope’s face turned slowly toward the ceiling, my temples pounded so hard that it felt as if Felice had already fitted a vise. That’s when Cardinal Alidosi—face painfully pinched— leaned into the pope’s ear. I felt dizzy; maybe if I fainted, then His Holiness would step over my lifeless body and forget to fire me.

Then, the pope raised his hand, silencing the cardinal.

I inhaled with hope.

But then Felice leaned in, and my stomach turned again.

You won’t believe what happened next. His Holiness raised his other hand and silenced her, too. He stepped forward to stand directly under my tondo, and do you know what he did? He smiled. Smiled! Gums and all. Bramante gave a proud wink (as though he’d supported me, not Bramantino, all along). Perugino stared at his shoes. A thrill rose out of my stomach, through my chest, up my neck, and rushed between my ears, but then . . .

Felice said, “The young painter’s style does not fit with the others.”