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own sin—gluttony—and pressed back a smile. Neither the pontiff, nor his cardinals, cared anything for Raphael, the man. Each cared only for the projects that would reflect their own greatness—and they were willing to see them to completion by any means.
    He was so deep in thought that when he came to the last corridor he did not notice at first that his way was coldly barred. Two stone-faced papal guards now stood before him in puffed crimson-and-gold striped uniforms, and steel helmets with red plumes. Today their halberds were raised to bar him when generally he was given free passage in the vast papal wing, the decoration of which had been largely his doing.
    “What is this? I am expected,” he said with a sharp note of indignation, his voice echoing through the ornate vastness.
    “You are late. In your absence, His Holiness agreed to receive another,” said the guard whom he knew best. The tone had been low and revealing. Raphael knew it was a warning of something he would not like. “Now
you
are to be made to wait.”
    “Who it is, Bernardo?”
    The guard leaned forward slightly, the plume waving on his steel helmet. “Signor Buonarroti.”
    “Michelangelo has returned to Rome? I thought he had stormed off to Florence months ago when our new Holy Father refused him a commission!”
    “Apparently he has returned.”
    It had taken very little time, in the previous papal reign, for the two great artists with very different temperaments to become rivals. Secretly, Raphael, younger by over twenty-eight years, regretted that turn of events. Michelangelo Buonarroti was a true genius. The first time he had seen the artist’s sculpture of the piet it had brought him to tears, as it did nearly everyone who saw it. Nothing finer, Raphael believed, had ever been wrought on this earth by human hands. And, in fact, they had worked together, a corridor away from one another—Raphael on the pope’s
stanza,
and Michelangelo on his Sistine ceiling. But it was not long before others, who wished to fuel the flames of their budding rivalry, began accusing Raphael of copying the style and color of Michelangelo’s characters, and any sense of camaraderie was lost to them forever.
    Michelangelo was a sullen and temperamental sort who not only resented Raphael’s way with women, but the ease with which he apparently found more wealthy and powerful benefactors than he could accept. When the Medici pope, Leo X, had been elected a year ago, Raphael was offered the first, and best, commissions from him. To Michelangelo, who had been a great personal friend to the previous pontiff, nothing of value was offered. Eight months ago, he had left Rome. Now, apparently, with Raphael overburdened, overworked, and behind schedule, he had returned.
    Raphael found himself waiting alone on a cold stone bench outside the
stanza
that he had personally designed, and where his own crew of assistants was still painting. He glanced down the long vaulted corridor, delicately frescoed with intricate images from the Bible. Raphael’s smooth Umbrian complexion had mottled red when the tall painted oak door finally opened. Michelangelo, in white nether hose, a black velvet doublet, a cape, and a toque, swept out before him, then paused.
    He had aged, Raphael was startled to see. Michelangelo’s hair now was shot with gray, and his deep ebony eyes had dimmed and sunken deeply into a gaunt and withered face, all punctuated by a smashed little nose that had been badly broken years earlier. Raphael stood as they greeted one another coolly, yet with the familiarity of those who possess a deep history. “I might have known you would be here, Signor Sanzio.”
    “It is more than I can say for you—Signor Buonarroti.”
    Michelangelo grinned cautiously at that. His unmoving eyes were weary. “Ever the quick one, eh, Raffaello
mio?
Life and work are always such a game to you.”
    “My life, perhaps. But you, of all men, should know how seriously I take my