A Name in Blood by Matt Rees

crowd in the Church of the Gesù. ‘I’m trying to get a commission out of the Jesuits who run this place,’ he said.
‘Let’s just get our communion cards stamped and be off. Don’t make trouble.’
    ‘Look at these silly buggers. The damned, they’re supposed to be.’ Caravaggio’s voice was loud enough to draw the attention of the worshippers awaiting the Eucharist. He
heard Prospero’s warning, but the canvas goaded him with its incompetence and pomposity.
    In the lower reaches of the painting, turning their faces from Christ, the sinners rested. They were guarded by a swordsman. ‘He’s a caricature of the assassin in your Martyrdom
of St Matthew ,’ Prospero said. ‘But all the turbulence of your work is so fey and banal here.’
    ‘The condemned don’t exactly look like they’re suffering the torments of hell.’ Caravaggio laughed. ‘It’s as though Christ just told them he didn’t like
what they’re wearing.’
    A sharp voice, nasal and imperious, cut through the babble of the congregation. ‘Your sacrilege doesn’t surprise me, Merisi.’
    Giovanni Baglione held his plumed hat at his hip. His chest puffed out under an expensive padded doublet studded with knotted lengths of silk. His chin was high, pugilistic and triumphant, like
one of the nudes in his Resurrection .
    Prospero nudged his friend. ‘Be nice.’
    Caravaggio felt a glimmer of compassion for the man. Why can’t he just paint? Why this competition with me? His technique isn’t so bad. He could make something of himself. But
he’ll never match my work. ‘Baglione, let’s not get into anything here.’
    Baglione’s eyes flickered around him, as though he believed the entire congregation waited for his response. His slender fingers, gloved by soft skin farmed from an unborn calf, flicked at
a lapis lazuli rosary. ‘If you don’t stop your slander, I’ll have you called before the Inquisition.’
    A crowd gathered about them and Caravaggio felt the onset of a rage trembling through his chest, growing with each breath. ‘You think I’m scared of the Inquisition?’
    Prospero lifted his palms in resignation. ‘Here we go.’
    ‘I care for art.’ Caravaggio tugged at a silk rosette sewn over Baglione’s breast. ‘If that leads to insults, it’s only because I care for art more than I worry
about your feelings.’
    ‘Paint as you wish,’ Baglione said. ‘But I say you’re here to destroy art. Your technique—’
    ‘My technique is good enough for you to make a hash of copying it in this clumsy piece of dung on the wall behind us. It’s the worst thing you’ve painted. I’ve never
heard anyone say anything good about it.’
    Caravaggio was so emphatic that the Jesuit at the altar raised his head from the Host. It wasn’t unknown for a fight to start in the crowded quarters of a church and the priest tensed in
alarm. Caravaggio shut his mouth, and the Mass went on.
    Baglione headed for the door. ‘Maybe the Inquisition would like to hear about you and Cecco, your little butt-boy.’ He dodged between the worshippers ascending to the church.
‘You wished for the commission of this Resurrection yourself. It’s clear that you’re envious of my status.’
    ‘I eat dickheads like you for breakfast.’ Caravaggio leaped down the steps to pursue Baglione. In his haste, he collided with a heavy gentleman. He found himself dazed and pressed to
the steps by the fallen man’s weight, his feet higher than his head. Upside down, he watched Baglione rush across the piazza, his cape flowing behind him.
    Prospero took Caravaggio under his arms and sat him upright. ‘Let’s go back into the church,’ he said. ‘We have to get the Holy Host inside you before the Devil takes
you.’
    Caravaggio rubbed at a trickle of blood from his eyebrow.

    In the piazza outside the Pope’s palace, the bailiffs hauled a criminal into the air by the strappado. Lifted at the wrists with his hands bound behind his back,
his