Rodrigo looked tempted, but I scolded and chivvied him into his pose in the splendid jeweled cope that would show to such nice effect in the finished Resurrection, and he resigned himself. The cardinals and archbishops settled themselves about the walls, whispering behind ringed hands or going through documents as they waited, and the remaining pages, servants, and petty dignitaries squashed in as best they could around the clutter of paint and plaster, buckets and drapes and artist’s paraphernalia. Leonello settled on a stool at my feet, pulling out a book and ignoring us all utterly. He seemed to have suffered no ill effects from his hair-raising stint in the bullring—really, I could have clouted him for being so rash! “I shan’t kiss you next time you decide you feel like throwing your life away,” I’d scolded him. “I’ll knock you down and sit on you instead, until the madness passes!”

“Some things are worth risking one’s life for.” He looked sober and troubled at that, but he still went off whistling the way men always do when they feel they’ve proved some nebulous moral point with a totally unnecessary act of bravery.

“If Your Holiness will perhaps lift the chin?” Pinturicchio glanced at Maestro Botticelli, glanced at the Pope, and cleared his throat. “Just a touch—”

“We cannot read with Our chin in the air!” I stifled a smile at the irritation already rising in my Pope’s face. If there was anything Rodrigo hated, it was sitting idle—he’d looked about for Maestro Botticelli, ready to discuss my portrait, but the papal secretaries had come forward first with baskets of sealed letters and official missives, pleading for the papal attention. “How long will this take?”

“The merest, um—I will do a sketch only; I will transfer the Holy Father’s image to the wall in paint at a later time. Perhaps an hour—”

“You have half that,” my Pope said, and assumed the pose with his hands pressed together in prayer. He was to be shown kneeling at the tomb of Christ during the Resurrection, though hopefully Pinturicchio could paint that irritated expression into something a touch more exalted. Painted as he looked right now, my Pope just seemed irked that Christ was taking so long to climb out of the tomb.