The Ruby Ring

  “And where do you work?”

  “That is my table,” he replied, pointing to a paint-stained table, cluttered with brushes and two palettes, amid all of his assistants. A large empty easel was set beside it.

  “You did not expect that?” he asked, with a hint of pleasure that for a change it was he who had surprised her.

  “I suppose I expected something more . . . more—”

  “Something more grand?”

  Her face flushed crimson. She took a moment to respond. “I might have expected a mastro, so critical to the very fabric of Rome as yourself, to require more private space in which to . . . concentrate.”

  “Camaraderie, not privacy, is the heart of this studio. Here, my assistants learn from me. And, just as importantly, I learn from them. These are my companions in life, as well as in art.”

  “And will they gain your reputation along with your talent?” she unkindly asked.

  For a moment he did not smile, nor say anything. Then, very suddenly, he tipped back his head and let a huge, happy laugh. “Signorina, you certainly are a challenge to understand,” he said through his laughter.

  “I was just going to say the same of you—Signor Sanzio.”

  “Please come,” he bid her, placing a hand gently at the small of her back, and leading her toward his own workspace.

  As they walked, Raphael was aware of the furtive glances of the other artists and apprentices upon her, and even a low, muffled snicker from the shirtless old man with a long white beard who was posing, seated on a Roman column. Margherita was being told she was not the first girl to be shown around the great artist’s studio, nor was she likely to be the last.

  “Do these men know the reason I am here?” she asked with discomfort.

  It took a moment, as he seated her on his model’s stool beside the easel. He glanced around like an afterthought when her question settled in upon him. “My men know me well, Signorina Luti.”

  “And should I not fear precisely that?”

  “They know you are the new Madonna model, and what value I placed on finding you. Your coming here today, after your previous refusal, holds divinity in itself. They know how exceedingly pleased I am that you have changed your mind.”

  “Only for the Madonna, Signor Raphael.”

  “S,” he said without smiling. “Only just that.”

  MARGHERITA REMAINED at the workshop for over an hour, with Donato protectively seated nearby, allowing Raphael to make several rapid red chalk sketches of her face and neck. In each he altered something just slightly—the tilt of her head, the focus of her eyes, the set of her mouth. For one of the sketches, it was only a shift in the direction of her gaze he sought. But what he felt was her watching him with rapt fascination, his powerful hand, the bit of hair there below the knuckles, and the long, tapered fingers that commanded the chalk, alternately caressing and gripping it to force an image up from a blank slip of paper. It was an odd kind of intimacy, her gazing at him like this, and Raphael felt the power in it.

  Finally, when he had finished, and the sun had paled from a rusty crimson to shadowy gray through the tall, half-open window shutters, Raphael led her to the door and summoned Donato, who had been waiting beside the fireplace, watching the unique encounter. Raphael chose his next words cautiously. It had amazed him that she had come here at all, and he must tread softly with that now.

  “Will you return tomorrow at this time to let me make a few further sketches for the painting?”

  “It cannot be tomorrow, Signor Sanzio. That is the day we make the schiacciata. It is our most important day. We always sell twice as many loaves of our fruit bread.”

  Raphael drew a palm full of gold coins from a pocket in his doublet and held them out to her. They glistened like jewels in the shaft of light through the window behind them. “Will this be enough to find someone else to assist in the baking?”

  She did not reach out to take them; rather, she tipped her head and silently studied him for a moment. The inbred grace there, and just a hint of her enormous pride, set him once again handily off balance. “Is it always about buying what—and who—you wish, signore?”

  “Money is not an evil, Signorina Luti.”

  She flicked her hand at the coins still looking squarely at him. “Nor is it always the objective.”

  She was right, of course. He knew it instantly, and he felt small for having been so quick with the offer. There was a goodness about her that surprised him again and again. It certainly set him off his game—the one he had played with women for as long as he could remember. With her, like it or not, he was in control of nothing. “I only meant that with this, you could have someone else assist your father so that we might continue our work together.”

  “It is my family’s business, and my work, Signor Sanzio. The task to which I shall return once you have completed your Madonna. It is my duty to help in the preparation of the schiacciata, a portion of which we deliver to the poor at church. I cannot leave my father to someone who knows nothing of our business for a handful of coins.”

  He took a measured breath, feeling Giovanni da Udine’s judgmental, disbelieving stare from across the room. “Very well then. When can you return?”

  She thought for a moment, and was silent. “It would be possible on Saturday.”

  On Saturdays, it had long been his custom to dine midday with Chigi. It was a gathering the pope himself often attended. In Raphael’s circle, things were all intricately woven together. It would be unwise to decline the standing occasion. There would naturally be inquiries if he did not attend, especially considering his past penchant for the ladies.

  Margherita must not be seen as any part of that.

  “Can you arrive on the hour of three?” It would give him enough time to break bread with Chigi and the Holy Father, then dash back to his workshop without compromising either commitment.

  “If you desire it.”

  “Indeed. I desire it greatly.”

  Something moved him to take her hand and draw it to his lips at their parting, but he resisted the urge with all of his strength. She would misunderstand the sentiment. After she had nodded to him and left, Giovanni da Udine looked at Raphael, arms crossed over his barrel chest. The burly assistant, with his wavy shock of prematurely silver hair, shook his head, biting back a smile. “If I had not seen for myself, I would never have believed it!”

  “I fear you are too easily struck, caro,” Raphael replied with believable nonchalance. He moved back to his easel and the preliminary sketch of Margherita that remained there.

  But Giovanni da Udine followed him, looking at the exquisite face gazing back at them in chalk lines and shadows. “And everyone here knows you are too easily seduced by a pretty girl.”

  “I have told you before, Giovanni mio, it is not like that with her.”

  “You do not find her attractive?” da Udine bruskly goaded.

  “She is exquisite.”

  “Not good enough for you?”

  “Probably too good for me, Giovanni.”

  “Her grace is dissuasive then?”

  “As is her caution.” Raphael removed the image from the easel and laid it on the worktable next to him, not wanting those eyes to unnerve him any more when he was working so hard at denial.

  Giovanni laughed. “Really, mastro. I have known you for a long time, and I have never known such a small thing as perception to stand in your way.”

  He tipped his head and cast a glance back at the door through which Margherita had only just passed, the cleanly scrubbed fragrance of her hair still heightening the air around them all. “Ah, but then neither of us has known this particular signorina before. Have we?” asked Raphael.

  JUST AFTER DARK that evening, when everything was alive with the rich golden glow of candles and oil lamps, Raphael walked into the magnificent Chigi stable building, and up the flight of stone stairs. Not exclusively stables, it was a grand building that housed a collection of fine horses on the gro
und level and elegant rooms above it. The walls were lined with tapestries and pastel-shaded frescoes. The floors were ornamented by Persian carpets. He had been summoned here to present what drawings and concepts he had formulated thus far for a new fresco with the given theme of the marriage of Cupid and Psyche. Raphael moved up the twisted stone staircase, past the ever-present scaffolding that his own workmen had left.

  In a grand salon at the end of the corridor, he found Agostino, his friend and mentor. As velvet-clad servants swirled around him, Chigi himself lay on a velvet-covered lounge. His second mistress, Imperia, her breasts exposed, seductively massaged scented oil into his bare feet. This flaxen-haired beauty, Raphael knew, was living here. Across the street, in the villa itself, was Francesca Andreozza, the mistress who had just borne his third child, and the woman most actively vying, by her fertility, for the vaunted title of Signora Chigi.

  Agostino lounged on his side, propped on his elbow, all beard and dark chest hair, gazing up at two of Raphael’s apprentices as they applied bright orange painted plaster to the drapery portion of Perseus Beheading Medusa. The room was grand beyond measure for the second floor of a stable. There were art treasures all around. Raphael always wondered if his benefactor fully appreciated the rich Bible stories and elegant mythological frescoes coming to life before him, or the irony of placing them here, where he housed a courtesan.

  “Ah, Raffaello mio! Come va? So have you come with drawings for me?”

  “I hope they are as you wished,” he said, forcing a humble tone. While he respected and admired Chigi, there had always been something he could not quite put his finger on, something that made him wary. Perhaps it was the reality that were it not for Raphael’s singular talent, which he desired to harness, there would have been nothing at all to align their two very different worlds. Certainly he was indebted for the great banker’s patronage; Raphael was simply mindful of the greater things that separated them.

  Chigi took a sugarcoated grape from Imperia, then groaned out loud as he swallowed it. With a Cheshire smile beneath his smoke-gray eyes, he said, “I often ask myself if there is anything finer in all the world than feasting with all of the senses at once?”

  Raphael imagined that Chigi did not so much require a response as a smile of complicity while he drew the girl down to him. He kissed her sensually, fondling her bare breasts, not caring that there was an audience around him, or perhaps heightened by it. A moment later, he motioned the girl away with a broad, nonchalant sweep of his hand. Raphael averted his eyes as Chigi sat up, his nude torso exposed, then wrapped himself in the long silk sheet, looking not unlike an ancient Roman in a finely spun toga.

  “I was thinking of adding more cherubs,” Raphael said, ignoring Imperia, as Chigi unrolled the drawings and began to study them. “Brilliant,” the banker smiled. “The drawings are perfect,” he said, as he draped a fraternal arm across Raphael’s shoulder. “But will this, exactly as it is, actually ever grace my loggia?”

  What he meant was, will it be finished?

  “I hope I have not disappointed you so far.”

  “You have not,” Chigi smiled. It was a vain yet winning smile from a man who was tall to the point of majestic, with a wavy shock of crow-black hair and prominent Roman nose. “But can you make this project your first priority?”

  “Unfortunately, His Holiness requires the same distinction.”

  “Ah, bene.” Chigi shrugged. “Then there are two things you must remember. First, that no one comes before the Holy Father. Second, that I introduced you to him in the first place.”

  He grinned so slyly that it forced Raphael to chuckle. His first benefactor in Rome had been Cardinal Bibbiena. But there was something vastly endearing about Agostino Chigi’s arrogance. He certainly had not gotten to where he was without those qualities, thought Raphael admiringly.

  “But seriously, caro. Is there anything you need just now? More assistants to speed things along?” He was so charming when he was feigning magnanimity, Raphael thought with a little half smile.

  “An experienced assistant would be nice,” Raphael agreed. “But one who needs to be trained, no matter how talented, would be like adding a larger rock for Sisyphus to push up his hill.”

  The two men moved together toward an open gallery. Below them lay the formal gardens, and before them a vast table was set with white linen, sweet wine, and every sort of cake and exotic fruit.

  “Then tell me, what do you need, Raffaello?”

  “Time I do not have to finish the Madonna for His Holiness.”

  Agostino chuckled, and Raphael was instantly sorry for the admission. “Another Madonna, is it, when so many other projects beckon? Have you not, to your credit, painted dozens of Madonnas already?”

  “It was commissioned, promised, and begun.”

  “And with so much more important work to complete, you feel compelled to do this now?”

  “I believe I have finally found the model to help me see it to completion.”

  “Do let me guess. You met her last night drinking mulled wine down in the Campo de’ Fiori with that insatiable apprentice of yours . . . what is his name? Da Udine?”

  “In truth, I met her in the broad light of day on Il Gianicolo. Certainly light enough to assess that her eyes are extraordinary and—”

  “And how kissable were her lips beneath?”

  Raphael shook his head and smiled ruefully. In the middle of Sodom and Gomorrah, he was trying to describe Madonnas. “Her mouth interests me only in how it is to be painted.”

  Chigi chuckled and braced a hand on Raphael’s shoulder. “You like my Imperia, do you not? Now, her lips are desirable!”

  “Indeed, she is lovely.”

  “Then take her to your bed this evening as a little gift from me. Or, if you like, take her here, in her own bed. Evidence of how pleased I am with your work, and your friendship.”

  “The offer is a generous one, Agostino, and I bid you thanks.”

  “You know that she is fond of you.”

  “And I am fond of her. But a backlog of work will keep me occupied all the rest of this night, I am afraid,” he wisely replied, and unrolled another of the drawings before Agostino could repeat the offer.

  “Well,” he shrugged. “This is a new turn for you. I do not believe you have ever refused a woman. Especially one of mine!”

  “His Holiness has asked me to avoid those sorts of diversions, and I am doing my best to honor his wish.”

  “That is commendable, if not entirely practical for a lusty man like you, caro!”

  Raphael glanced down at his own drawings, refusing to take the bait. “Well, the practical side of me would very much appreciate knowing what you think of this one.”

  Agostino tipped his head, seeing that the debate was over. Finally, he, too, looked down at the drawings for his newest fresco.

  It seemed to Raphael that since Chigi had chosen a marriage theme for the new design, perhaps he did mean to marry the mother of his children, after all. At least he had gambled on it by portraying the bride and groom as Francesca and Agostino, surrounded by a throng of family and friends. Gianfrancesco Penni would do the detail work of flowers and tiny cherubs, and Giulio Romano, of course, would help him with the lion’s share of the actual characters.

  “Does my vision of the story please you then?” he asked as Chigi silently studied each area of the long, narrow drawings that would grace the wall of the loggia where it met the ceiling. “Or are there changes you would desire?”

  After a long silence, Agostino looked back at Raphael. His gray eyes were very wide. “Can you actually achieve this, with all of the detail, in a year’s time?”

  “Realistically, it will take a bit more than that with all of the work you have already ordered at your family chapel.”

  “Very well. One must not hurry perfection, after all.” He was smiling. “Nor must a man deny basic needs, Raphael, lest he be drawn in a dangerous direction. Consider, will you, my offer of
Imperia? She shall give you what you need, as any proper courtesan should, yet distract you not from the important work.” He anchored his hands on his hips, leveling his gaze. “And for the rare breed of men like you Raffaello mio, the work is the only thing of true consequence. It is life, is it not?”

  Smiling, yet without reply, Raphael turned his attention back to the fresco and scaffolding, where several of his own assistants labored. “Before I leave you for the evening, tell me, Agostino, is the palette of colors they are currently applying to your liking?”

  “If they are colors conceived by you, Raffaello mio, they are gifts from God I shall not refuse,” he replied, meaning every syllable—at least of that. But the warning, and the sleight, so cryptically delivered, still hung heavily between them. Raphael was not to become distracted by a woman. At least not one particular woman who might ever become an obsession. Raphael belonged to the powerful of Rome. And they, by any means, would keep him that way.

  “We shall see you on Saturday, as always?”

  Raphael moved toward the door. Margherita Luti, he still suspected, would be dismayed by the hypocrisy of the world in which he thrived. But this was the world he had created for himself, and which had made him a very rich man. It was the life he had thought he desired.

  “As always, Signor Chigi,” he replied. Raphael’s private thoughts, for the moment at least, remained his own. He had too much at stake to do otherwise.

  6

  AS RAPHAEL SAT HUNCHED ON A WOODEN STOOL AT HIS worktable, finishing an ink-over-stylus drawing, his fingertips blackened by ink, he could not keep his mind from what had happened earlier in the week. Perspiration beaded on his brow as he gazed down at the Conversion of Saint Paul, another work commissioned by the pope. But it was Giulio Romano, and the nasty gash on his face, that troubled him most profoundly.

  Around Raphael the workshop vibrated with the hum of activity. Male models of different sizes and ages sat in varying stages of undress, their bodies twisted, bent, and shaped into forms that would fit subjects in the ever-increasing list of commissions. It took Raphael, his three principal assistants, several junior assistants, and a host of apprentices just to keep their heads above water—and to keep Il Sodoma, Sebastiano, and Michelangelo from nipping at his heels.