Cardinal Alidosi’s lips parted. Felice gave me a look—anger or awe, I couldn’t tell. Luckily, my courtly instincts took over, and I dropped to my knee and kissed the holy ring. “Grazie, Your Holiness, for putting your faith in me.”

He said, “You can see the treasurer to collect your salary.”

I exhaled. I would eat tonight.

“And the others are dismissed.”

Perugino slumped down hard on a stool. Sodoma squeaked. Lorenzo Lotto spit, this time not at my feet, but at his own.

I didn’t know whether to applaud, cry, or hug Michelangelo. (Can you imagine if I’d hugged him? Have you ever tried? Oh, what did he do? Punch you, scream, run away in holy terror?) I didn’t do any of those things, sì certo. I stood politely as everyone gathered to offer their congratulations.

As we all filed out of the rooms, I chased after Michelangelo. “Maestro, thank you,” I said. “I can never repay you for . . .”

He whirled on me. “You think that had anything to do with you?”

I blinked hard. Twice. “Uh . . .”

“That had nothing to do with you. It’s your countryman Bramante who seems to think when someone is too good they no longer deserve a job. That was for him. I’ll die before I let an Urbinite beat a Florentine. Die.” He turned and marched away.

As I tucked my hair behind my ears, the pope—with Felice on his arm—sidled up next to me and grinned after the departing Michelangelo. “Why, this is shaping up to be a wonderful competition, isn’t it?” The pope said with a musical lilt. “A Florentine in the Sistine, and an Urbinite in my apartments. May the best painter win.”

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXII

As soon as I collected my first payment—a handsome hundred ducats tied up in a fine leather pouch—what did I do? Eat a lavish meal? Go to the barber? Secure a proper set of rooms? Of course not. I asked around about where I might find a certain lady.

“Don’t even speak that name inside the Vatican,” admonished Bramante. “You saw what happened to poor Pinturicchio.”

“I’m not going to march one of the ladies through the palace; I only want to visit.”

He shook his head but allowed me to join him and several cardinals headed that way, including Cardinal Riario. (You remember him: Fafel, the man who greeted me when I exited the corridor connecting Michelangelo’s workshop to the Vatican. The gossipy fellow related to the pope, my duke . . .) Now, if I were as charitable as legends make me out to be, then I might skip the story that Cardinal Riario told me on the walk over, but I find it instructive to know why he didn’t like Michelangelo and . . . beh. I also find it funny.