The Ruby Ring (14 page)

At least that was what he had told himself.

“For today,
s.
I have enough to begin the actual painting. But once I have laid it out—” He wanted to sound as if he were just considering this. “Then it will be critical to have her return for coloring, confirmation of expression, those elements, primarily.”

“Very well,” Donato agreed, without consulting Margherita. “We wish you to achieve what it is you desire.”

What I desire suddenly has less to do with painting her than it had at first,
Raphael was thinking.

“When will we be able to see the painting?” she asked.

“It may take some time, and we well may need to meet again more than once, before it is suitable for you to judge it. I have been, you see, taken up with the painting of another image, of late, and shall be again.”

He watched her eyes closely for a response. “A Madonna?”

“Oh no,” he smiled at her, betraying himself not at all. “Nothing like that. This portrait is of a very different sort.” Donato’s eyes shifted from Raphael’s to Margherita as Raphael said, “There is something I would like to show you. Would you come with me?”

Margherita looked at Donato for his approval. “With my brother-in-law?”

Raphael gave her a gallant look. “By all means.”

He told them nothing more, but as they neared the gates of the Vatican Palace, Margherita’s heart began to beat wildly, straining against the ties of her dress. Raphael, the great artistic
mastro,
was going to lead them into the very seat of power and influence in Rome, and they were going to do it with as much ease as if they actually belonged there. First, an inside glimpse of the Chigi Villa, she thought with a little burst of excitement, and now this! She and Donato exchanged a glance of disbelief as the papal guards, in their striped uniforms and steel helmets, nodded respectfully to their guide. He led them easily through the Porta Viridaria, named for the gardens kept behind the palace, through crowds of people clambering at the tall gates, then past the gates themselves.

They did not, however, go toward the great papal buildings, or toward the massive construction area of Saint Peter’s, but down a small dirt path, bordered by neatly manicured hedgerows, and dotted with classical urns and statuary, just beyond the ancient wall that connected the palace with Castel Sant’Angelo. She resisted the urge to ask him where they were going. He seemed to want to make a game of it. Margherita walked happily beside Raphael, taking in the lovely rosebushes, leafy oaks, cypress trees, and antique Roman sculptures. Ahead was the papal menagerie, with cages holding a cheetah, a lion, and parrots, at which they gasped in amazement—and then the most massive beast she had ever seen in her life was before them.

“Madre mia!”
she cried, hands flying to her face as they approached.

“
Dio!
What is it?” Donato asked, equally alarmed at the giant, gray animal standing in a pen full of straw.

“A gift to the Holy Father from the king of Portugal. It is called an elephant—and
he
is called Hanno. The other subject I am painting!”

“Hanno?” Margherita asked shakily as Raphael extended his hand slowly over the waist-high barrier and began to stroke the animal’s long, gray trunk, which arched up in what seemed like approval.

“It certainly is an odd-looking creature!” Donato chuckled, shrinking back a step with Margherita, as Raphael took a small handful of hay lying in a trough and offered it to Hanno. “What manner of beast is it?”

“He is actually very gentle. He would not dream of harming you. Only crowds frighten him, if the Holy Father sees fit to trot him out for a more public showing. That is the only time I have ever seen him disquieted.”

“Just the same . . . ” said Donato warily.

Raphael exchanged a glance with Margherita. “I believe he is lonely here,” he mused. “So far from his home . . . from his family . . . ”

“His family?” Donato laughed. “A massive beast . . . with relatives?”

“And why is that so difficult to believe? All creatures have others of their kind to whom they cleave, make families, and with which they live. I am told elephants are very sociable and family-oriented beasts. That has been taken from Hanno.”

Margherita looked at him again, then at the elephant. She drew in a steadying breath, moved alongside Raphael, then slowly extended her hand. “It’s so rough!” she laughed as she felt the thick gray skin. As if on cue, Hanno responded to Margherita’s gentle touch by folding his knees, kneeling to the ground before her, and inclining his head, as if he were greeting her directly.

“Goodness!” she giggled nervously.

“He likes you,” Raphael smiled.

“How do you know?”

“I come here nearly every day to visit him, and I have never seen Hanno kneel in greeting to anyone—except the Holy Father.”

“Not even you?”

“Not even me.”

Margherita knelt as well, and reached out her hand to Hanno, just above his trunk and she began to stroke him again. “I find it so sad. To think of him taken from his wild home somewhere, and brought here to be stared at, poked at . . . laughed at.” Hanno lightly wound his trunk around her forearm just then, in a manner that felt to Margherita much like a caress. She laughed softly again. “I believe he understands! He really is extraordinary!”

Raphael was smiling at her broadly with what she thought was pride. “I knew the two of you would get on well.”

“
S,
I believe Hanno does fancy me. I sense that he does, anyway.” She was still stroking the elephant’s rough, dry skin and did so until suddenly it did not feel so foreign to her any longer. “Try it, Donato!” she smiled at her sister’s husband. “It really is not so bad. He is rather gentle.”

“Oh, no! I believe I will leave
that
for you two brave souls!”

“I would not mind coming here to see him again sometime,” Margherita said, gazing with a warm smile at the animal who still knelt before her.

“And I would be honored to escort you,” Raphael replied.

After a time, they strolled together away from the menagerie, up the rise of the hill and through the lush grounds, protected, yet in the center of the bustling city. The branches above them made a broad leafy canvas of shade as they walked.

Donato hung back and eventually sank onto a stone bench as though the walking had wearied him. But they did not notice. Raphael was explaining yet another of his many tasks to Margherita, this being his work as commissary of antiquities where work excavating at the Domus Aurea was well under way.

“The magnificent building was conceived and built by Emperor Nero, then destroyed, buried, and hidden from the rest of the world by an envious successor—Trajan, if I am not mistaken.”

Raphael’s eyes lit with surprise as he regarded her. “Well. I
am
impressed.”

“That a common girl from Trastevere knows anything of emperors’ palaces?”

“That you would find history of interest.”

She gazed up at the lacy tree branches. “When we were small, my mother used to tell my sister and me stories about the grandeur of this city. They were her version of bedtime tales. I believe she wanted us to dream of bigger things, to believe they were possible. So she filled our heads with tales of Nero and his beloved Poppaea.”

“Ah, such a scandal!” Raphael chuckled. “His beautiful mistress!”

“Later his wife.”

“It is true,” Raphael concurred.

“My mother told us of Poppaea’s love of music and art. She was as common as we are, my mother used to say, so excitedly that her eyes danced—I can see her even now in my mind. Poppaea taught herself the things she did not know, and managed to become an empress. I think that is why that one was always my favorite story.” She stopped for a moment as a shadow of sadness passed across her face, then disappeared behind a slightly embarrassed smile, which faded into one of sadness. “I miss her greatly.”

“I miss my own, as well,” said Raphael.

“You lost your mother?”

“As a child,
s,
and my father not long afterward.”

“I am sorry.”

“It is a loss from which one never quite recovers, and I have found it is best not even to try. Rather to hold the moments inside, nurture them, and care for them fondly, but solely.”

“I am told so often not to dwell on her memory, to move on in the company of those still living,” she said sadly.

“Would that it were that simple.” Raphael shook his head. “But, here or not, they are a part of us . . . and they shall be forever an element of who we become.”

Margherita studied him.
“S.”

“But you have happy memories. Stories to make you smile. Images . . . moments that are a comfort.”

“It is true.”

“Like the story of Nero’s second wife?”

Her embarrassed smile returned, and her mood eased. “My mother told us about
all
of the great emperors’ wives, if you can imagine—and the story of Caesar and Cleopatra. I loved every word of them all. They were great fantasies for a little girl who—” She stopped for a moment, then began again. “My father said she was filling our heads with nonsense, that things like that never happened to real people.”

“And what does he say of you having met
me?
”

“Meeting you is a fairy tale for any girl, Signor Sanzio. Surely you know that. But like all beautiful tales, there must be an end to it. That is what he would say.”

“How sad for him that he never heard the tales with happy endings.”

His eyes settled on her so earnestly then that she needed to look away. She was quite certain that he meant to kiss her, and the thought of that quite frightened her to death for the absolute power behind it—and because suddenly she desired it with every part of her body.

As if sensing her reticence, they began to walk again. And as they did, Raphael changed the subject entirely, speaking to her of his other new assignment, as architect for Saint Peter’s—and to that Margherita listened intently, nodding in understanding as he spoke.

“So I see the project quite differently from Bramante before me. He conceived the great basilica in the shape of a Greek cross, topped by a cupola. He wished a dome more grand than the Pantheon. But I say it must be in the shape of a Latin cross. And also Bramante’s design will never hold such a massive vault as he intended. So that will all need to be seen to and reconsidered mathematically, as well. Rather a massive undertaking for a simple artist as myself.”

She was looking over at him. “And rather an impressive honor for a simple boy from Urbino.”

“It has been a very long time since anyone has reminded me that there was ever anything simple about my life.”

“You are, however, the product of your youth, are you not? As you are a part of those who defined it? No matter where life has taken you now?”

“Well, I am heartened that you find it to be so, anyway.”

Again they stopped. Raphael turned to face her. Sensing his eyes upon her, Margherita turned to face him as well. The cool autumn breeze rustled the tendrils of her hair that had come loose from her cap. Neither of them could see Donato. He seemed to have disappeared.

“Why on earth should what
I
think matter to you?”

As they stood in shimmering afternoon sunlight that had begun very swiftly to descend in a brilliant gold-and-crimson ball, Raphael reached a hand to touch her cheek. It stilled there. “Can you honestly tell me,
bella
Margherita, that you know not the answer to that by now?” He spoke her name softly, gently like a prayer, as he moved a step nearer to her. Margherita’s heart began to beat so swiftly that she began to feel dizzy. “Is it not obvious that I am enchanted by you?”

“And
I
am afraid of
you.
”

Instead of feeling affronted, he smiled charmingly. “
Dio,
you need not fear me!”

“Oh, I believe I must, Signor Sanzio.”

They were close enough now for Margherita to feel his breath on her upturned face. She could smell the musky maleness of him as his hand stilled at the line of her jaw. Then, close as they were, Raphael very lightly moved his lips over hers in a gentle kiss.

Antonio had kissed her before. But not like this. At that moment she dared to think of Letitia and Donato, and what they did in the privacy of their bedchamber. She felt something deep and low within herself stir, something hot and very powerful. His dark eyes . . . strong corded arms . . . and such sweetly tender lips . . . The sensation became an ache. Her heart was hammering.

It was a moment before Margherita could draw herself away from the craving, but when she did it was harshly. “No!” she declared, squaring her shoulders as she stepped back from him. “You shall not have me that way!”

His response was a softly mischievous smile. “And what way is that,
signorina
?”

“In the way of all others! I will
not
be a diversion like that!”

“Is that what you believe has begun between us, a simple diversion?”

“Nothing has begun between us!”

“Then you know very little.” He flipped a hand at her dismissively, and it was the first passionate gesture she had ever seen crack his smooth, and always elegant, demeanor.

“You sound like my father.”

“Then your father is a wise man. You would do well to regard him.”

“And
you
would do well, Signor Sanzio, not to assume that everyone in the world will be so easily seduced by your talent or your charm.” Donato was upon them suddenly then, breaking the tension. Margherita turned away from Raphael. “It is late. We must go.”

“
S,
go then,” Raphael agreed, knowing he was unlikely to change her mind about anything. What his expression did not reveal was that it was also the thing about her that had bewitched him the most.

“A
RE YOU ALL RIGHT,
CARA?”

Donato broke the silence once they had returned to the Via Santa Dorotea, and sat alone in the warm, lamp-lit kitchen long after the bakery had closed, the curtains drawn protectively, cocooning them safely from the frightening new world that lay beyond. Of all the rooms in the house, Margherita liked it best here, feeling safe amid the sacks of flours, the stacks of wooden bowls, the spoons, and the reassuring aroma from the rich buttery loaves that lingered there. She held Matteo on her lap, swaying him gently to sleep with a back-and-forth movement of her knees as Donato asked the question.