The Ruby Ring

by Diane Haeger

  Raphael longed to point out that both men had long been known as partaking of the same private pleasures as Il Sodoma, and that, therefore, marriage had not tempted them. A wealth of young and handsome boys roamed the halls and chambers of the Vatican complex in the presence of this powerful cardinal or that, but he dare not speak it.

  “And the other reason?”

  “The other is Cardinal Bibbiena. He will not allow you to shame his niece and dishonor his family in that way when you have been her betrothed for several years already. The cardinal is furious enough with you that there is such public talk of another woman, and one of such scandalously low birth, in your life.”

  “There will be less talk if I am allowed to marry her.”

  “Out of the question! No. Now that is the end of it. We shall entertain talk of it no more!”

  Raphael could see the pope was becoming angry. The red of his face had deepened to a passionate crimson. But he would not—could not—let this issue die. He had never in his life wanted to marry anyone, or even to be with anyone forever, until he met Margherita. He would rather go against the great powers in Rome—Agostino Chigi, Cardinal Bibbiena, and the Holy Father himself—than lose the love of his life.

  “SO WILL YOU AWARD him the contract for yet another stanza?” Giuliano de’ Medici asked his brother once Raphael had been dismissed. “Or will you toss a bone at last to poor Michelangelo?”

  The pontiff drew yet another pastry from the tray, an oblong, sugared thing, dotted with almond slivers, and chewed slowly before he replied.

  “Alas, I have growing concerns over Raphael, brother. The once quiet gossip about this woman has grown swiftly to a roar here in Rome.”

  “Talk of it is everywhere,” Giuliano de’ Medici confirmed. “Agostino came to me last night with the same complaint. Raphael’s immortal soul is surely in jeopardy.”

  “It is not his soul but rather my legacy that concerns me! He must keep working!”

  “Chigi had been told by a source that the woman, this baker’s daughter, of all things, has seduced Raphael to such an extent that he is rarely even at his studio. Not so long ago, he practically lived there!”

  Pope Leo gazed back at the painted Madonna. “Perfect as a model or not, it appears this comely peasant has, at the very least, altered our Raphael’s good judgment, putting the completion of our most important commissions at risk, and endangering his standing with Cardinal Bibbiena.”

  “That niece of Bernardo’s does mean the world to him. The only time I have ever seen anything close to a human side of him is when it concerns Maria. I cannot think that he will let this go if Raphael means to carry on with his strumpet much longer.”

  “But what can we do? Lust is a very powerful emotion—or so I am told,” the pope observed.

  “As to Michelangelo and Raphael, it has long been a personal contest between the two. Buonarroti certainly has been fanning the flames of gossip, even from the distance of Florence.”

  “Ah, s,” the pope nodded, doubling his chin. “Did it not become so while Buonarroti was working on the Sistine Chapel and Raphael was just down the hall doing our Stanza della Segnatura?”

  “Indeed it seems to have begun there, each of them spying on the other’s work and comparing it to his own. Now it has become a further contest with Michelangelo’s second, Sebastiano,” admitted the pope’s brother. “Perhaps we shall gain more from a distracted Raphael if he feels the pressure of competition.”

  “Threaten him? As if he is no longer the only fair-haired boy in the eyes of his Holy Father?”

  “Precisely.”

  The pope began to smile. “There is something Raphael wants . . . something he has asked me for. A ruby ring that was uncovered at the Domus Aurea. I suspect it is for that girl. I have always given him his every desire in the past. But what if—”

  “Thought out like a true Medici!” Giuliano coldly laughed. “Before we take a more drastic course of action, why not do as you suggest. Put him in his place a bit, with the notion that disappointment can actually befall him like everyone else. Then let us sit back for just a bit longer, and see what Raphael will do.”

  MARGHERITA was sitting alone in the library, with its soaring bookcases and heavily musty smell of time and old leather. She was trying to read a copy of Ovid’s writings on love when Raphael found her. He stood for a moment watching her finger moving slowly over the words, her head bent in concentration. He was filled with a new wave of love for her, seeing the furrowing of her brow into an absolute frown of determination.

  “I wonder if Nero’s Poppaea had this much difficulty!” she chuckled, glancing up and seeing him.

  Raphael knelt and took up both of her hands, not responding to her query. “We must speak of a serious matter.”

  “You are troubled?”

  “Only by the nature of the confession now before me.”

  “You feel you have made an error about this house?”

  “Never that!” he smiled grimly, pressing her hands together and bringing them to his lips. “You are where you absolutely must be. No, this concerns a time before we met. A different girl. She kept my house for me on the Via dei Coronari.”

  Margherita studied the expression on his face before she said, “And this girl who kept your house held some portion of your heart, as well?”

  “Elena never possessed my heart. It was only an indiscretion by a lonely, overworked artist, with more lust than judgment, an act that was regretted by both of us soon afterward. So regretted and feared, in fact, that I asked her to seek employment elsewhere after I met you so that you might not discover it.”

  She sank back, her lips gently parting as she closed the book and settled it onto her lap. “I see.”

  “In it, I was so unspeakably selfish, Margherita. I hate even to say it for the truth there, but I fully see now that I sacrificed a young woman’s livelihood, and her virtue, so that I would not risk your ever meeting her,” he confessed, feeling like a boy suddenly in his desire for forgiveness and understanding. “And I lost Giulio over it as well.”

  “Your assistant is gone from the studio when you are drowning in work? But why did you not tell me that?”

  He thought for a moment. When he spoke at last, he looked at her squarely. “I was ashamed, Margherita. Giulio had befriended Elena while he was staying with me. In addition to being a brilliant artist, he is a sensitive soul, and he could not bear to see me make an honest young woman suffer like that because of my own sense of shame and regret. He said that if I insisted on turning her out, he, too, would be forced to look elsewhere for employment.”

  Margherita was struck. She had known only a little of Giulio Romano, but she had seen how essential the young man was to the mastro’s success. “Did you truly believe I would not understand?”

  “I know not what I believed.” He washed a hand heavily over his face. “Only that it has been many years since I have felt any deep emotion at all toward anyone. I was greedy with it, Margherita, like a man who has gone too long without water and then suddenly finds a fresh cool stream.” He drew in a breath. “I was so wrong. I know that now.”

  “Then you must do what you can to change it.”

  She spoke so simply and full of conviction that he felt cleansed by it. She was right, of course. “And the girl, Elena, you will not blame her or be disturbed by her presence?”

  She reached out to caress his face. Her own expression was full of kind understanding. “Poor Raphael, caught between so many things, and so many people. Elena was someone from your past. A moment. I hope to be a lifetime, amore mio,” she said tenderly. “She need have no fear of me—if she will take you back, that is.”

  Raphael pulled her forward and kissed her deeply. “You always make me want to be a better man.” He smiled when they parted. “I will try to find her at once, and I will do my best to apologize, whatever her response.”

  “Whatever her response, it is the right thing to do.”

  He s
miled as he shook his head. “For a man who once believed it was the rest of the world that needed what I had to offer them, I am finding that I was actually in need as well. I certainly do need both of them in my life,” he confessed, kissing her again. “But my need above all others has very swiftly become you.”

  24

  ELENA WAS SHOWN INTO THE LARGE LIBRARY ON THE VIA Alessandrina, with its ancient books and windows of colored leaded glass—blue, red, and green—in geometric designs. A candle chandelier hung from its center. The space was enormous, giving the impression of great power. Its large and heavy carved doors were closed behind her with a sharp and fateful click, leaving her in the shadows and sunlight that filtered through the glass. She stiffened, and forced herself to prepare for what would come next. Then she saw that it was Margherita, not Raphael, sitting before her beside the fire, in a tall chair of embossed leather with silver studs. She had faced other disappointments. Surely she could face this.

  Elena was not alone in her trepidation. Everyone in the house had wondered why Margherita had insisted on speaking privately with the former house girl. Particularly Raphael, who, along with the others, was not admitted to the library when Elena arrived. After a moment, Margherita lay her book onto a small side table, stood, and advanced toward Elena, who had begun, quite noticeably, to tremble.

  “You asked to see me, Signora Luti,” said Elena in a tone that came just barely above a whisper. She had wisely chosen the title for a married woman, rather than that of a young girl, out of respect.

  “I did.” Margherita steepled her hands, once covered in baker’s flour, now ornamented with gold. “So then.” She exhaled, and waited for a moment. “You are Elena.”

  “I am, signora.”

  The two women faced one another directly as Magherita walked slowly into the colored light cast from the windows, the odd turn of fate obvious to both of them now. Elena born to privilege, reduced in circumstance by fate. And Margherita born into poverty, elevated now by an unlikely love.

  “What is it you would want with me, may I ask, Signora Luti?” Elena haltingly asked, as frightened by the question itself as the response.

  One heartbeat, then two. The small fire in the hearth crackled, then flared in the silence as each gazed upon the face of the other. “I shall be blunt. It is my wish that you accept a position as my personal attendant and companion.”

  A hand splayed across Elena’s mouth, and she blurted out before she could think, “I could not!”

  “Your assets are wasted in domestic chores, here or anywhere else,” Margherita calmly said, beginning to deliver the small speech she had been practicing all morning. “I know of your family and your background, Elena. But much about all of our lives has changed these past months.” She straightened the folds of her skirts and continued. “There are few I can trust in this new life. Among those few I count Giulio as a kind and honorable soul. He believed in you enough to leave Raphael over your dismissal, which is certainly a good enough indication of your character.”

  “Forgive me, signora, but to serve you of all people!”

  “I wish you not to serve me, Elena. Rather, I believe I would benefit from the companionship of a steady ally to help me navigate this frightening and complex world in which I find myself and which, most days, frightens me quite to death. And someone to teach me to seem like a lady when I am presented to Signor Sanzio’s friends. A circumstance I have thus far avoided, but which I must face, sooner or later.”

  “But you are a lady, Signora Luti. The finest!”

  “Not one like you, taught from birth.”

  “It is difficult to believe that you would do this for me, take this chance, considering all things.”

  “It is no more difficult to believe than that you would help me learn what I need to know.” Margherita smiled tentatively then. Her dark eyes were full of sincerity. “I need someone I can trust, Elena. The fact that Giulio trusts you is enough. You would begin as my lady’s maid and companion. The rest beyond that is ours to make between us for ourselves.”

  “But what happened between—”

  “Let us speak not of such things that cannot be changed, and which have no bearing on tomorrow. As a foolish young girl, not so very long ago, I believed it was unseemly for a woman to earn money to help her family. Knowing of you, of your determination, your spirit, and your pride, I am ashamed of that view, Elena. Ashamed when, looking at you, I see how noble a thing it can be. So rather than look to either of our pasts, let us begin a new history—if you are willing.”

  Margherita then indicated a chair beside her in which she wished Elena to sit. After a moment’s hesitation, Elena sank onto the edge of the tapestry-covered chair, with its finely carved arms and legs. “So tell me then. You truly grew to womanhood in this sort of luxury?” Margherita asked her, glancing around her own magnificent library, still in awe of it.

  “Indeed, it was so. And yet I have learned through my own transformation that it can all vanish as quickly as it comes. No lady must ever forget that, no matter how secure she believes herself to be.”

  “I see that we have more in common than anyone else might believe.” There was another moment of silence, this one fueled by contemplation.

  “Will you agree then?” Margherita finally asked, watching her.

  “If you are absolutely certain it is what you wish.”

  “I could not be more certain.”

  Elena nodded deeply, deferring to a girl who once might well have deferred to her. “Then it would be my honor to serve you, signora.”

  “It is my better hope that we shall not be mistress and servant, but rather one day that we shall become friends,” Margherita said, her words full of sincerity. “It seems I need a true friend above all other things if I am ever to move forward, as Signor Raphael wishes me to do.”

  “HOW CAN YOUR HEART be so good?” Raphael asked her later. They lay together in the grand tapestry-draped poster bed, listening to a soft summer rain beyond the shuttered windows of the dark-wood bedchamber they shared.

  “It is not a question of that.”

  He turned onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow and looking at her amid the candle glow that flickered and danced around them. “It is to me. I am the painter, yet it is you who see clear through to my soul.”

  She ran a hand along his jaw. “Elena is a kind and gentle girl. I did nothing you would not have done for love of me.”

  “You do things every day for me, Margherita, that my mind could never have conjured.”

  “Flattering words that seem most unlikely.”

  “Very likely, alas,” he disagreed. “And true. Before there was you, I lived nearly every day of my life enjoying what the world, and the people in it, could do for me. Appalling as it is to admit, I came to feel entitled to that at every turn . . . and I got it nearly everywhere I looked.”

  “Until a baker’s daughter on Il Gianicolo turned away from you.”

  “Until that day.” He smiled. Then his face went suddenly serious. “And because of it, I wish to give you something extraordinary.”

  “Speak not of that again. You have already given me the world. What more could I desire than what I have this very moment?”

  “I told you that I wanted you to have something,” Raphael insisted. “The meaning of which you shall understand the moment you behold it. A thing,” he mused, “as rare and irreplaceable as you are.”

  “I see you have something particular in mind,” she remarked with a little half smile.

  “Oh, indeed I do,” said Raphael, never having forgotten the exquisite ruby ring, and his many cautious inquiries to Pope Leo on its behalf. Now that the pontiff was so pleased with his new Madonna, it seemed unlikely that anything—or anyone—would prevent him from possessing the ruby ring that was meant absolutely for Margherita’s hand. Not even a vindictive man like Cardinal Bibbiena.

  25

  September 1515

  AS SUMMER TURNED TO FALL, AND ELEN
A DI FRANCESCO Guazzi became Margherita’s companion, Giulio Romano and Raphael were reconciled. There was too much at stake, with all of the outstanding commissions, for them to stand on past angers. Giulio returned to the studio by day to work on the elaborate frescoes in the pope’s private dining room, and at night he returned to his suite of rooms upstairs at the house on the Via dei Coronari. While he spent most of his time with Margherita at her new house, Raphael maintained his former address out of respect for the woman he still was not free to marry.

  His personal conflicts now resolved, Raphael forced himself back into a rigorous routine of work, trying to appease the various factions who had come to question his dedication. Giulio had heard a rumor that was swiftly spreading, that the pope was entertaining the idea of awarding a new and important commission to Michelangelo Buonarroti.

  Not only that, but Agostino Chigi was said to want Sebastiano Luciani, of all artists, involved in ornamenting the room where the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche was nearing completion. This, after Chigi had refused him work, in favor of Raphael, for several years. The potential danger in that could not be overlooked.

  A softly growing whisper of a downfall was in the air, but Raphael alone could not stop or confront it. The whispers of it were as forceful as the wind, and as impossible to contain. But in spite of the danger there, Raphael would not give up the love of his life.

  Trying to stem the potentially dangerous tide, Raphael worked like a demon late into every night. Only then, his vision blurred and his painting hand aching, would he go, exhausted, hungry, and ravenous with desire, to spend a few passionate hours with Margherita. He would rise then in the early morning darkness once again to tackle, full force, the great volumes of work that awaited him.

  In the months that followed Giulio Romano’s return to his life, Raphael’s production of masterpieces once again peaked, particularly in his use of Margherita as model. He sketched her first in red chalk, then painted her several times more as his Madonna. Particularly, he became intent on turning the sketch he had made that first night in her new house into a finished, richly painted Madonna. He envisioned her seated in a chair, holding Matteo Perazzi, looking directly at the beholder, as any other dedicated mother might do, in clothing that bespoke a common life, not divinity.