The Ruby Ring

  “There will be a handsome severance to tide you over until you find a new studio, which of course you quickly shall,” he offered, his breath painful in his chest, knowing well that Sebastiano would snap Giulio up in a heartbeat.

  “That will be much appreciated, mastro.”

  Neither man moved. Raphael, still focused on the pillar, then rubbed his hands together, but he would say nothing more, in spite of how he ached to do so. Everything was over suddenly for the sake of a servant girl with whom he had once made a drastic mistake. A mistake that had just cost him dearly.

  GIULIO WAS gathering up the few belongings he had at the house on the Via dei Coronari and preparing to take them downstairs when Elena appeared at his door. They were alone in the house now.

  “You are leaving?” Elena asked. She stood in the doorway dressed in an elegantly simple costume of pale-green. Her hair was tucked beneath a matching cap, and her head was tipped against the doorjamb.

  “S.”

  “You have found another circumstance then?”

  “Not yet. But I will.”

  “Then why not wait until you have?”

  He stopped and turned to her. He was still disappointed, and it showed in his pure, youthful features. “It is complicated, Elena.”

  It was the first time he had spoken her name aloud, and in a familiar way. The sound of it resonated, stopping them both. “I must leave here, that is all,” he added, knowing he could not possibly tell her the truth.

  Giulio ran a hand behind his neck as she studied his expression, her light-gray eyes cautious and discerning.

  “I have become rather accustomed to having you here,” she said in an amazingly frank and open tone that stunned him. “You have kept me good company in the early evenings before I return home.”

  He turned to her. They were separated by an inlaid chest at the foot of his bed. “You always seemed rather uncomfortable by my nearness,” he told her truthfully, feeling an odd sensation that it truly mattered what she said next. As he waited, watching her, Giulio felt the hair prick at the back of his neck, realizing that Elena was the first girl he had ever been anywhere alone with in his life. He knew now how much he desired that.

  “Although I was unaccustomed to it, it became necessary for me to work. Cardinal Bibbiena was my mother’s childhood friend. She was able to call in one last favor with him, which is the only reason I was given a circumstance with Signor Raphael. My discomfort has been less with you than with reconciling myself to that fate.”

  He was, for a moment, moved to apologize for being forward enough that she was reminded of her family’s social and financial decline. But when he tried to speak them aloud, the words would not come. Confusion, and the barrier of his own long-held control, stopped him. The charged silence then became something awkward, full of things aching to be said. But neither had the power to say them.

  “I wish you well then,” Elena said thinly.

  “I fear he shall be rather alone without either of us. We were, both of us, his true friends,” Giulio said, yet knowing that Raphael would be too taken up with his new inamorata to notice it, or to miss the presence of either one of them, for the moment at least.

  22

  SILVERY LATE-AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT SLANTED IN THROUGH the high arched windows of the vastly impressive stables as Antonio swept straw into a pile for Signor Chigi’s best English bay. As he did, a group of men in close conversation came through the stable doors and moved steadily nearer to him. All of them were grandly dressed in knee-length capes of velvet and brocade, and wearing small hats trimmed with feathers and jewels. And he could see, at last, that the man in the center was Agostino Chigi himself. Antonio had seen the banker at a distance one other time, but he had never had occasion to be this close. He felt himself go suddenly cold and his skin turn to gooseflesh at his nearness to such power and influence.

  He could hear them speaking of the pope’s hunting party, the opulence of it, where great, brightly colored tents were erected and then filled with tables, chairs, food, wine, and musicians to entertain his guests. Imagine a life, he thought, leaning on his shovel, where one had the luxury of time and education to recall such banalities in a walk through the stables. As one of the horses whinnied, he knew this was his chance, a pivotal moment for a simple stableman who craved better, and strongly believed that he deserved it.

  Antonio moved forward on firm legs that nonetheless began to buckle with anticipation as they neared him in their fine cloaks, braided with silver thread and jewel-spotted fingers. Antonio nodded deeply, hoping his reverence would sugarcoat the warning he intended to deliver.

  “My great pardon, signore.” He felt the words pass across his lips, yet the sensation of them like this, spoken with such deference, was foreign. It was not his custom to openly defer to anyone. He held his breath and waited for one of them to react. They did not.

  “Signor Chigi, per favore,” he called out to them again, summoning what he could from his own shallow well of bravery.

  To his relief this time, as he had no other strategy, they stopped directly before him. In an instant, their collective, critical gaze was upon him. Antonio felt his heart race wildly, but he forced himself to stay absolutely calm, divining that they would respect the appearance of outward dignity in another man.

  “What is it, boy?” asked one of them, a portly, silver-haired man with pockmarked skin and a bulbous nose.

  “I desire a private word with Signor Chigi,” he said as boldly as if he had a right to ask for such a thing. There was a moment of silence and then the men—five of them, including Chigi—began to laugh at the absurdity of the request.

  “Go back to the dung you were mucking out, boy!”

  “Now, now, Frederico, that was unnecessarily harsh,” Chigi chuckled beneath his breath as he lay a long finger upon his dark beard.

  “Surely one must know his place here,” the bald man argued.

  “It is a private matter concerning Signor Raffaello,” Antonio interrupted, unwilling to lose this single opportunity.

  Chigi arched a thick black brow. “It seems to me his bold spirit has earned him a moment of elevation from that place,” he decreed with boastful magnanimity.

  “As you wish.” The bald man shook his head disdainfully. “But we dare not be late to meet with the Holy Father because of this.”

  “I will give him but a moment to state his business.” Chigi took a few steps away from his companions and Antonio followed. They were facing a wall of horse stalls, each with carved and grandly painted doors, housing some of the most shining, expensive animals in Rome.

  “I warn you, boy, before you speak a word more, I will not look favorably upon idle gossip,” Chigi warned.

  “I come not with gossip of the artist but firsthand knowledge, Signor Chigi.”

  “You must understand, boy, how unlikely that would seem.”

  This was it. He would have no other opportunity. Antonio felt his lungs constrict. “He is bedding my betrothed, and he claims now actually to love her.”

  Chigi barked out a sudden harsh sound, throwing his head back in ribald laughter until tears came to his eyes. “Would that I had one of his paintings for every time I heard that of the mastro!” He shook his head. “Forgive me, boy—”

  “The name is Perazzi, signore. Antonio Perazzi,” he said, feeling his own sense of indignation rise up no matter how he tried to suppress it.

  “Well, in any case, you would do well to understand that to be the oldest tune played in Rome, Antonio. I am sorry for you if you have been hurt by the loss of a girl, but, mark my words, she will return to you, for there will be no other option once he has tired of her. She will return less of an innocent certainly, yet far more capable of keeping you happy beneath your bedcovers!”

  Chigi was still laughing as he turned to walk away, shaking his head amid small bursts of laughter from himself and the others.

  “He has bought her a house on the Via Alessandrina,” Antonio
flatly announced, now loudly enough for all of them to hear. “Her father tells me she keeps him from his work night and day, and that he rarely returns now to his studio.”

  It was that last revelation that stopped the great banker, who realized that he had seen only Raphael’s assistants working on the pope’s new frescoes for many days, and that Raphael was still only in the beginning stage on the new fresco at his villa. For the rest of it, all Chigi had seen so far were various sketches and drawings. As his own wedding to his mistress drew ever nearer, Chigi intended the frescoed Marriage of Cupid and Psyche not only as a representation of the event, and a gift for his bride, but to adorn the wall for their magnificent wedding banquet.

  The thought that Raphael might be too distracted to complete it angered him greatly.

  “What is in this for you?”

  “The return of my woman, signore. Only that.”

  “As I said, she will be back when she begins to bore him.”

  “Sooner will be better than later. And humbled to me for this humiliation will be better still.”

  “You are a bright man, Antonio Perazzi,” Chigi smiled thinly, scratching his beard, “and not a little brave to confront me with this, as you have. They are assets I value.”

  Antonio nodded respectfully. “Many thanks, signore.”

  Chigi moved near to him again, put an arm around his shoulder as an old friend might, then said in a very low voice, “Can I trust you to be my ears and eyes in this matter until it is resolved? Bring me more evidence of this if it continues on?”

  He wanted to say that he would indeed—for a price. But Antonio thought better of being mercenary with the second most powerful man in Rome. If he were patient, there would be a handsome reward when the time was right.

  23

  May 1515

  SPRING WAS WELCOME TO ALL BUT THE HOLY FATHER, who was taken up with his dangerously mounting financial debt. The pope was made particularly angry by his advisers’ inability to solve the continuing crisis. In light of his fiscal complications, and his excessive spending, the need for the sale of indulgences had created greater complications than he had expected. The growing voices of dissent had begun to alarm the usually jovial pontiff and make him susceptible to great bouts of temper.

  Those who knew him well walked a fine line. They could try to obtain an audience with him early enough in the morning to find him well rested, or late enough in the afternoon to see that he had consumed enough food to mollify him. So it was when Raphael came to the pontiff’s private audience chamber, along with two of his assistants, who bore for their master the newly finished draped image of Margherita Luti as the Madonna.

  As Giovanni da Udine set it on an easel, then peeled back the black velvet covering, the image unfolded before them all. Light hitting darkness. Supple shapes. Softened angles. Muted, innovative color. And at the center—the face. Soft, luminescent. And the eyes, so penetrating, were inescapable to the viewer.

  From his velvet-covered papal throne, Pope Leo glanced at Cardinal de’ Medici, who sat in a chair of embossed leather with gold studs placed against a tapestry-covered wall. Then he turned his critical gaze upon Raphael. There was a heavy and awkward silence in the private rooms of the pontiff, with its heavy wooden desk, prie-dieu, and creaking wood-plank floors.

  “Does the finished product please Your Holiness then, or do you, perhaps, desire alterations?” Raphael finally asked, breaking a dangerously long silence as the pope and his cousin studied the painting.

  Pope Leo glanced at his cousin, then looked up at Raphael. “It is a masterpiece, my son. A true, breathtaking masterpiece. Look at how the Madonna hovers above the clouds there,” he pointed. “Celestial, and yet she is everywoman. A woman, a Madonna, who is real in her beauty and emotion. She . . . her face . . . ” He bent his head. “For some reason she makes me want to weep.”

  “I am honored that Your Holiness is pleased.” Raphael bowed reverently.

  “Rather, it is that I am—enchanted.” The pope turned back, settling his bulging-eyed gaze on Raphael, who stood, hands clasped behind his back, in grass-green summer satin. “So this is the model of whom you spoke?”

  “It is.”

  “I should have known to trust your instinct in this, Raffaello mio. Her face will bring great solace and peace to the worshippers at the church of San Sisto.”

  And he, not his predecessor, would be credited for delivering it to them. It would become yet another symbol of this pope’s legacy. “I pray Your Holiness is correct.”

  “I am a wise man, Raphael, named pontiff by the intervention of God Himself, and so I am never wrong, as my words come through me directly from Him. And you would do well to heed them.”

  “Your words of wisdom are gold to me, Your Holiness,” Raphael wisely replied, with just the proper tone of schooled humility to flatter a vain man.

  “A pleasing thing to hear.” Pope Leo smiled in response. “Then, let me say that it has come to my attention, my son, that, of late, in spite of my rather stern warning, you have become distracted from your work for us here, and elsewhere.”

  Raphael studied the face of the pontiff. He had not expected this. He was set off balance by it, which he knew was the purpose. Raphael searched his mind for the diplomatic response. He had seen the pope’s increasing edginess of late, and on occasion been the victim of it.

  “Is Your Holiness displeased with some of my other work?”

  “Not yet,” the pontiff replied, reaching up for the ever-present tray of pastries. After a moment, his fat hand hovering, he chose one, stuffed a portion of it between his lips, and slowly chewed. Then he spoke again. “But we are concerned for your ability to fully concentrate on that to which you have previously committed.”

  Raphael looked at the cardinal, then back at the pope. “May I ask from what foundation Your Holiness’s concerns arise?”

  Cardinal de’ Medici whispered into the pontiff’s ear, then turned his gaze to the window. “You are behind schedule on Signor Chigi’s wedding fresco, are you not, my son?”

  “A few weeks, perhaps, but I did not promise its completion for yet another—”

  De’ Medici leaned over and whispered to the pope again, never looking directly at Raphael. “And the decorated stuffeta, when was that due for Cardinal Bibbiena?”

  “It is a challenging time, Your Holiness,” he truthfully admitted. “My position as commissary of antiquities, which of course is a great honor, takes a large portion of my time, as do my drawings and the architectural planning for the new Saint Peter’s.”

  The pope’s bulging eyes twinkled. “As does a new woman!”

  “I shall not allow anything to interfere with my work for you. Your Holiness has my word upon it,” he said, not wanting to become engaged in a new debate over Margherita. “Your next stanza will be completed by month’s end.”

  “A man of honor must never promise what cannot be delivered.”

  “Your Holiness speaks wise words as always, but it shall be done.”

  “It is a blessing then, I should imagine, that you have the able hand of Signor Romano to oversee this, and assist you in all else. We have seen much of his work here, and it is obvious to all who have why he holds so high a place in your studio. Delegating competently, we too know well, is as important as creating.”

  Warily looking for some sort of trap set cleverly here between the two men, Raphael glanced at the face of Cardinal de’ Medici. Was it known, he wondered, the estrangement of the artist and his talented young student, Giulio Romano? Since coming to Rome, he had never taken time for himself. Now that he was trying to balance work with a small glimmer of a personal life, the town was in an uproar.

  The pope’s inferences could not have been more clear, and Raphael felt the weight of expectation and consequence pressing down upon him: his allegiance to the pontiff versus his love for Margherita.

  But how could he reconcile them and not endanger one for the other?

  “We have
heard it said that there is a new woman in your life. Did we not long ago speak of that in the most serious terms, you and I?”

  Raphael felt himself tense, yet he struggled to keep his composure. “I believe we spoke of my former penchant for loose women, Your Holiness, and your wish for me that I repent from knowing them. And I have done that in favor of love.”

  “Love, is it? Can the powerful want of fleshly delights not urge the logic of the mind to believe almost anything?” he patiently asked.

  “Respectfully, this concerns my heart, Your Holiness—more than anything.”

  The pontiff finished munching a round, sugar-covered pastry and absently brushed away the crumbs that had pooled in his ample lap. “And what of the cardinal’s niece, the girl to whom you are formally betrothed?”

  “I can no longer stay true to that pledge, and I have told her so.”

  “And what? Do you intend to marry this . . . this girl who models for you when she is not baking bread in Trastevere?”

  “You know of Signorina Luti?”

  “Does not all of Rome, my son? I am told it has become quite the scandal.”

  Raphael conceded that with a nod. “My greatest desire is to marry her, Your Holiness, and vanquish any scandal.”

  Deep in thought, Pope Leo rubbed his fleshy chin between his thumb and forefinger as the room fell silent. “Entirely out of the question,” he finally decreed. “That will not be possible.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “The reasons are many. First, we have not known of another important mastro such as yourself who has ever entertained thoughts of more than the involvement of a casual mistress in his life. Not Michelangelo Buonarroti, nor Leonardo da Vinci, certainly. Work can be the only true passion for men like you in order to remain successful. That is the first important reason.”