The Ruby Ring (12 page)

7

R
APHAEL DID NOT WISH TO BE IN THE SHABBY QUARTIERE
dell’ Ortaccio, with its darkly painted walls and creaking beds. No matter how grandly ornamented the houses, or how richly painted the women, this district of Rome, on low-lying land, too near the Tiber, was squalid. When the river level rose, the accumulation of sewage for miles was vile and stinking. But women of easy virtue were the only other indulgence Raphael could any longer allow. There was the mind-numbing amount of work, and the pressure, then afterward mindless release at places like this. He had no time for a proper mistress, and Agostino was right—he was wealthy, successful, passionate, and incorrigible.

Raphael knew how many feathers he had ruffled in Rome and Florence, but he no longer cared. He was two men: the libertine who they gossiped about, and the one no one knew, who was lonely and weary of the world.

Surrounded by a group of artists, he entered the brothel clad in a dashing smoke-gray velvet cloak with silver thread and a matching cap with a long purple plume. Raphael held up a jeweled hand, and the other guests all turned to see him. The bawdy laughter faded and he could hear their excited whispers that
Raffaello
had entered the room.

“Wine for everyone!” he declared with a broad gesture and a smile he did not feel.

One of the prostitutes took his cloak and another his cap, and the nicest velvet-covered chair was quickly offered at one of the busy gaming tables. But lust, not card games or dice, was what had brought him here this night. After draining one large goblet of wine, then a second, and exchanging a bit of polite banter with the awestruck gamblers, Raphael chose a girl with long, dark hair and wide but unexpressive eyes. It was better, he thought, that she made no impression on him beyond the size of her breasts, which burst forth above a blue lace bodice.

Once upstairs, alone with the fleshy, nameless girl, with her clouds of coarse and inky hair, the impending act was beyond his control. He was hard, achingly so, and the breasts beneath his tapered artist’s fingers were ripe and pliant. Yet driving into her, it was not her face he saw, but another—a fact which surprised him. Fascinating, desirable . . . unattainable . . .
Margherita . . .

God save him, but he should not want the Luti girl this way—he should not desire her carnally. She was surely a virgin. An innocent. But only now, with those forbidden images of her face in his mind, did he finally feel the release begin to build. The sensation came swiftly then, and at last he groaned and was pouring into her in a draining rush.

A moment later, his breath slowing, Raphael lay motionless in the tiny garret room, beside the lolling, plump girl, who smelled of wine and other men. His naked torso glistened with perspiration, his tight, muscular body was pleasurably spent. Music, laughter, and the pungent odor of wine and candle smoke snaked up through the unshuttered window beside them. On the painted table beside them lay his glistening coins. Payment. Gianfrancesco Penni was in the next room and Giovanni da Udine was slouched over a gaming table downstairs. It was late and, in search of revelry and distraction from the burdens of unending work, they had all drunk far too much wine, and he had given in to a vice he had promised the pope he would avoid.

Yet now, rather than relaxed and replete, Raphael swiftly felt an unfamiliar sting of guilty regret. Silently, he rose and strode naked across the creaking wooden plank floor to the pile of his clothes on a single chair, and he began to dress. The girl rose without a word, and dressed again in the erotically low-cut blue gown. Then she drew up the coins and tucked them safely into her tightly laced bodice.

Perfunctorily, Raphael pressed a kiss onto her cheek and smiled wearily.

“I will see you again soon?” she asked.

“I suspect not.”

She studied him for a moment, then smiled. “Are you in love?”

“Nothing so romantic as that, I am afraid. My work is the only real mistress I have time to desire.” He smiled. “And she demands too much of me these days to spend myself here.”

“Yet you forgot about that tonight!”

“And for forgetting, I shall pay a heavy price tomorrow when I must be in seven different places at one time.”

Her laugh was rich and bawdy. There was a wide gap between her front teeth he had not noticed before. That was odd. As an artist, he usually noticed everything. “In case you should change your mind, Signor Raphael, my price for you, in spite of your success, shall remain the same. You are a pleasure to see, and an even grander pleasure to bed.”

He opened the door and turned back to her with a jaunty little grin. “I shall try to remember that.” But of course he would not. Strangely, he knew that it would be a very long time, if ever, until he desired a place, or a woman, like this again.

W
HEN HE RETURNED HOME,
the sun had only just risen, its fragile glow a pale pink across the horizon, casting the buildings of the Via de Coronari in rosy morning silhouette. Yet Giulio was already out of bed. Raphael’s assistant was sitting contemplatively beside the great soot-stained kitchen hearth, a big black iron kettle suspended from a hook inside of it. His simple morning meal was uneaten on the table before him. Out past the windows that faced the street, they could hear the birds and the first horse of the day clop past across the cobbled stones. Raphael patted Giulio’s shoulder, then slumped into the chair across from him. “It is too early yet for Elena. But she will be here soon enough.”

“I could sleep no longer, so I fetched something to eat for myself. I hope you don’t mind.”

“My house is your house,
caro.
You may do as you wish here.”

Giulio smiled and took a bite of bread. There was a moment of silence between them before he said, “So you finally sketched the girl yesterday.”

“
S,
and I am pleased with the result. But I shall want your opinion on the positioning of the other figures in the work I have planned.”

“And were you fortunate enough to sketch the comely baker’s daughter late into last night as well?”

Raphael lightly cuffed Giulio’s head, and smiled. He was tired and sorely in need of a bath, but he would always be brotherly with his assistant. “You know very well I was out wenching and drinking with Giovanni and Gianfrancesco all evening. You might enjoy it yourself, if you would give it a try.”

Giulio looked into his mug of mulled wine, his expression swiftly changing. “It is not for me, that side of life.”

“A man’s needs are his needs, Giulio
mio.
Perhaps if you tried—”

“I have tried.”

They looked away from each other, unspoken thoughts hanging between them as pale pink light filtered in through the three arched kitchen windows. Raphael had always thought it unmanly not to desire women. Naturally, if one did not require it, the comparison to sodomites was unavoidable. In Raphael’s own life, he had never considered that there might be other reasons.

The heavy kitchen door swung open then with a little squeal, and a young woman came across the threshold carrying a wicker basket full of bread, cheese, and fish. A mlange of aromas came with her. “
Buon giorno,
Signor Sanzio,” she said softly, setting down her basket and removing her cloak.

Elena di Francesco Guazzi was almost twenty, but her small, plump body, light-gray eyes, and the smattering of freckles dusting the bridge of her nose gave her the appearance of one younger, and more vulnerable. Her straight, pale hair was held away from her face by a white cloth cap, and a shy, tentative smile bloomed above her little receding chin. Giulio stood politely as she turned to greet him.

“Elena, this is my assistant, the most brilliant and talented Giulio Romano, whose work shall one day exceed mine in its greatness. He shall be staying here with me for a time. You are to treat him as you would treat me.”

She nodded properly, then smiled. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Signor Romano. Whatever you require I shall do my best to find for you.”

“I would not trouble you by asking,” Giulio stammered nervously. “I am fine on my own.”

“It is never trouble that brings me here each morning. Signor Raphael has given my family and me a good life in circumstances far reduced from what they once were. I am honored to see to the needs of his assistant as well.”

Elena was engaging and sweet, Raphael thought. He was pleased to see, by Giulio’s expression, that he agreed. He admired her for her ability to set everyone at ease, even someone as confused and inexperienced as Giulio was just now about women. It would be good for her to be here, to help settle him into a calmer existence that could only enhance his work at the studio.

“Elena,” Raphael said, breaking the gaze between Giulio and her. “I am sorely in need of a bath. Would you see to heating the water? And fetch Ludovico from upstairs? I require a fresh costume laid out before I depart this morning.”

“At once,
signore.
” She turned to collect a large iron pot. Then, as an afterthought, she pivoted back. “I am pleased you are here, Signor Romano. The
mastro
could do with a bit of good company in this grand old house. It has been a long time since he has brought anyone home who mattered to him at all.”

Stung, yet knowing he had deserved the veiled sleight, Raphael paused for only a moment to glance over at her. Then he swiftly left the kitchen.

8

W
HEN SATURDAY FINALLY ARRIVED, RAPHAEL WAS DIS
tracted. His decision about the sort of clothes he should wear when he saw Margherita again had made him late for his weekly supper. She would likely see the manipulation in something too plain. Something too elegant, on the other hand, would only alienate her. He felt like an uncertain boy again, and entirely on edge, even before he entered the vast dining loggia at Chigi’s villa, ornamented by his own magnificent
Triumph of Galatea,
and the overwhelming hulk of Sebastiano’s
Polyphemus
beside it.

Attired in a moderately grand gray brocade tunic, with a slashed red silk shirt and hose beneath, Raphael moved easily into the crowd of invited Roman dignitaries, and was shown to his place. At the head of a table laid grandly with silver dishes sat Pope Leo in a large carved throne, draped in crimson, flanked by his cousin, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, and his brother, Giuliano, Duke of Nemours. Fanning out around him, like leaves on a tree, were several Spanish bishops and prelates. Raphael conversed politely with the duke’s courtesan, beside whom he had been seated, but his mind relentlessly returned to his own workshop and Margherita Luti.

She was really such a simple girl, certainly one unimpressed with his life or his art. Modeling to her was not the honor it had been to his other models, or even to Maria Bibbiena, who had modeled for him once, in the early part of their courtship. To Margherita Luti, it was purely business. Money for her father’s bakery, and nothing more.

Could it be her disinterest that intrigued him?

In any case, he argued with himself, even if he did find her appealing in a sensually earthy, common way, anything personal between them was out of the question. Even from the little he knew of her, Margherita was not the sort to bed with him. And if that were not enough, Raphael Sanzio was a man promised to another.

As if his thought of another woman had summoned her, Maria Bibbiena turned her head on her slim, aristocratic neck, and smiled her uneven smile. Immediately, she stood and began to move toward him on the arm of her powerful uncle, the crimson-clad Cardinal Bibbiena, in his cassock and skullcap. Maria was even thinner than the last time Raphael had seen her, her young face made gaunt and old now from illness and worry. She was an alarmingly frail girl, with wide owlish eyes and a tentativeness about her.

Against his better judgment, he had given in and used Maria Bibbiena as a Madonna model two years ago. Her pleading with him to repeat the honor, and thus increase the intimate time they spent together, had been unrelenting since. Looking at her, the hope in her eyes, his heart lurched, then sank, as it always did.

She came upon him clad in a gown of robins’ egg blue damask embroidered in pearls, with long bell sleeves. He stood politely, kissed her cheek, and embraced her. He then bowed reverently to the cardinal. Though his thin, straight hair was a darker shade than his niece’s, the cardinal had the same gaunt Bibbiena face, the same unsettling owlish eyes, long hooked nose, and hollow cheeks.

“Your Grace is looking exceedingly well,” Raphael lied.

“And
you
are looking successful as ever. Pray, tell us where have you been keeping yourself?” the cardinal asked.

While you were not in the company of my niece
was what he meant.

“Yet more commissions have come into my studio, Your Grace, and even with a collection of skilled artists about me, it is a daily struggle to keep up with it all. You have heard, I trust, of my recent appointments as architect of Saint Peter’s, and also as the pope’s commissary of Roman antiquities?”

“I have heard that,
s.
But many things in life, Raffaello
mio,
require effort and attention. Not only your work. You would do well not to let one go in favor of another.”

Maria was looking directly at him. But the hope on her face, rather than the anger she should have felt from his indifference, rocked Raphael. Maria, quite simply, adored him, when he felt only affection and pity for her.

“Your Grace always provides me with much food for thought.”

“Consider well, my boy.” He lowered his gaze in warning. “Especially that which affects the house of Bibbiena.”

Raphael nodded courteously. He walked a fine line with this man who held the ear of the pope and who had the power to cancel many of his commissions.

“I thank Your Grace, as always, for your wise words.”

Bibbiena smiled a dry, thin-lipped smile. “
Buono.
Now, walk awhile with your betrothed before you sit with the others to dine, and inquire after
her
world.”

It was a command, not a request, so Raphael led Maria into the long, vaulted hall, which he was now commissioned to paint. A gentle breeze off the Tiber rushed in at them through the series of open glass doors.

Maria linked her bony arm through his as they strolled, and he could feel her smile without actually looking over at her. He had no idea how he could extricate himself from their engagement if he meant to retain his many lucrative commissions, or even his life. No one crossed Cardinal Bibbiena without dire consequences.

“I have missed you,” she softly declared as they walked, her soft voice straining with open affection for him.

“Surely you know by now that my days are not my own.”

“I know it well. But so long as your time belongs not to another woman, I am content to wait.”

They stopped at a window with a stone seat and a painted embrasure. Raphael motioned for Maria to sit, then he sank beside her and took up her hands. “This existence can not be good enough for you. You are a fine woman who deserves a man who can be devoted only to you.”

She ran a finger along the line of his jaw and smiled. “It is enough,
amore mio,
that I am devoted to you.”

“But how can that be?” he blurted out.

“When we marry finally this shall all have been worth it.”

Frustration mounted within him. “But I am not prepared to marry anyone at this time, nor do I know when I might be! I have always warned you that my work is a jealous lover, Maria, requiring all of me!”

The cardinal’s niece covered his hand with her own cold, heavily jeweled fingers—the extent, thus far, of the intimacy between them. He was unpleasantly reminded of how thin and brittle her small body was. “Work may be your only lover, Raphael, so long as
I
become your only wife. My uncle and the Holy Father are counting on that.”

He needed a cup of wine. No. There was not enough wine in all the world . . .

Raphael stood and faced her wearily. Maria remained calmly seated, her watery eyes cast up adoringly at him, her heavily embroidered skirt fanned out around her legs like the petals on a lush spring flower.

“You have not answered my question, you know. The one I posed in this very corridor the last time we were together in it.”

When would he call her to model for another of his Madonnas?
Raphael sighed at the inevitability of it as he gallantly helped her back to her feet. For a moment, he felt real compassion for her, a young woman willing to throw away her entire life for a man who could never love her.

“As I have told you, I am swimming in commissions, Maria. I am barely keeping myself afloat. Forgive me, but I cannot consider such a generous offer as yours just now.”

Her spine stiffened. “His Holiness has told my uncle that you have found time to paint one particular Madonna without my assistance.”

So that was what this was all about.

Raphael led her slowly back toward the loggia, where the guests were beginning, amid conversation and laughter, to dine.

“It was a standing commission, Maria, one I am relieved is nearing fulfillment at last.”

“And you find this new woman superior to me?”

“Not superior,” he hedged. “Just more appropriate for the concept.”

They were seated at the table now, and Raphael could not help but feel relief. What, he wondered, would Maria Bibbiena think if she knew he planned to leave this meal early enough to meet this other model? And, moreover, what would her uncle do?

“Tell me only that you shall paint me again,” she pressed, grabbing his wrist with surprising firmness.

Do not force me to lie to you,
he was thinking.
You deserve better than that.

“I would be honored, of course, to have you model for me again when the project calls for a model with your style and particular beauty.”

He could not tell her the truth. Cruelty had never been an option. He only hoped that in the end, time would wear away Maria’s hope of a future between the two of them, as well as relieve her uncle of his patience with delay.

Right now, time seemed his only hope.

Just then, with a great showy flourish, and in a swirl of burgundy velvet, edged in silver thread and striped hose, Il Sodoma entered the room through the tall, frescoed arch. It was a dramatic entrance, meant to be appreciated. He had a style and a presence Raphael long had admired, mainly for the attention it deflected from a reputation that otherwise might have been his downfall.

Il Sodoma’s frescoes at the monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore were breathtaking. Raphael had traveled there especially to view them. His delicate and graceful piet,
Saint Sebastian,
and his
Road to Calvary
had fascinated Raphael, and their common artistic language had begun a friendship. But talent alone in a city of gossipmongers and ambitious power players was not enough. Bazzi had always expertly deflected the more serious consequences of his amorous adventures. His grand fresco upstairs, gracing Agostino’s personal bedroom wall, was a masterpiece.

“Ah, Raffaello
mio!
” Bazzi exclaimed in an earthy baritone. His lips were full and feminine beneath a neatly trimmed swirl of umber-colored mustache. Large feather plumes adorned his hat. “You are the very picture of health and success!”

“As are you.” Raphael smiled and embraced his old friend.

“But if the rumors of a new Madonna are true, you shall once again have me at a distinct disadvantage.”

“You have always held your own with me, Bazzi,” Raphael chuckled.

“And
you
flatter me, Raphael.”

“
You
make too much of my success, compared with your own.”

“There is no comparison, Raffaello, especially not in the divine eyes of our beneficent Holy Father.”

“Times can change,” Raphael volleyed, remembering Michelangelo’s meteoric rise under Julius II, and his subsequent fall from the pinnacle of papal grace in the eyes of Leo X.

“So, apparently, has your model for the Madonna.”

He sat in an empty chair beside Raphael, and filled his cup in almost a single fluid movement. “I hear you have found a new virgin.”

A true courtier, Raphael merely smiled and nodded.

“So the rumor is true.”

“I shall only say that she shall make irrelevant every other Madonna I have ever painted.”

“You’re in
love
with her?” Bazzi gasped, as though the thought was repugnant to him.

“Don’t be absurd,” Raphael countered, adding a soft chuckle for effect. “She is only a girl.”

“Yet a girl who has changed your vision of Madonnas!” Bazzi persisted slyly.

Raphael was relieved when de’ Rossi, a doe-eyed cardinal with a low, straight fringe of bangs on his forehead, leaned toward him across the table and rescued him from Il Sodoma’s clutches. Yet still the damage had been done. In spite of a kind heart, sweeping talent, and an enormously engaging style, Bazzi was the biggest gossip in Rome.