The Ruby Ring (24 page)

21

A
T FIRST SHE DECLINED TO RECEIVE HIM. SIGNORINA
Bibbiena was resting, Raphael was told by the square-jawed groom in a blue velvet tunic and gray shirt and hose, who opened the heavily carved doors to the cardinal’s villa on the Via dei Leutari on the chilled March morning. But Raphael would not be dismissed. He did not love her, but neither did he wish to dishonor her further so publicly by allowing her to believe they were still betrothed when he was now living openly with another woman. Whatever the repercussions, he at least owed Maria the truth. In this, Margherita made him wish to behave honorably—even if he could not honor his commitment.

“I must see her.”

“She is not receiving guests,” the guard repeated, his stony expression never changing. He was the same guard who had stopped Raphael outside of his workshop when Maria had left crying that dreadfully dark day.

“I am not a guest. I am Raffaello.”

“I know who you are,
signore.
Lately, there is not a person in this house allowed to forget it.”

Raphael glanced behind himself at the entourage of artists from his workshop, and a few noblemen, all in their velvet capes, hose and slippers, who did their best to follow him about Rome, from Chigi’s villa to the Vatican Palace, hoping to bask in the glow that seemed always to surround him. The remark they had overheard had not been intended as flattery.

“Either you see me to Signorina Bibbiena, or doubt not that I shall find my own way,” Raphael warned. “Do you wish to make a scene? The cardinal will soon hear about it if you do.”

Like a hidden key to a lock, the ploy worked. The servant turned and stiffly proceeded up the torch-lit flight of stone stairs.

Maria was in her bed when Raphael entered her richly wood-paneled chamber. Along with a retinue of young ladies, she was listening to a performance on the lute played by a young man in a parti-color costume, half gold, half green. Propped up by a collection of gold and blue velvet pillows, he could see that her nearly skeletal frame was covered by thick layers of concealing fur. Her face was masked with powder, the color of roses, to hide the gray pallor of her skin. It was clear in this drafty room so close to the river that there was no bloom of good health around her, and that the people were more a comfort than frivolous entertainment.

Seeing Raphael at her door, Maria only nodded, but the lute player instantly ceased his playing, and all eyes were then turned critically upon him. “I seek a private word with you,” said Raphael.

“I seek not the same with you,” she replied coldly as he approached the foot of her bed where two small spaniel dogs lay curled warmly at her feet.

“Shall we discuss the matter of our betrothal before these others then?” he stubbornly pressed her, knowing instinctively he would win with her, as he always did. It was a circumstance he never thought much about, or cared about, before now, when she looked so weak and ill, so vulnerable. Still, this must be done. Reluctantly, Maria nodded again and the others withdrew—all but the commanding guard, who seemed to have a suspiciously inappropriate expression of concern etched into the straight angles of his face.

“It is time for us to speak of that day,” he said once they were alone and he had moved to her bedside.

Maria coughed into her hand. It was a moment before she responded. “It is one thing for me to learn to quietly tolerate your infidelities,” she said achingly. “It will be quite another to speak of them with you.”

“It cannot be an infidelity, Maria, if you and I are not wed.”

“We are formally betrothed,” she volleyed weakly, “which you well know is as good as married. I have waited for you such a long time, Raphael, and betrayal, no matter the law, wounds the same.”

“Forgive me for hurting you.”

“I cannot. It was a vision that will be with me forever, you there wantonly with that girl, heaped together, bare and tangled, like rutting dogs!”

“She is not just a girl, Maria. I am in love with her.”

Pressing her face into her hands, Maria began to weep. It was at that moment, and for the first time in his life, Raphael thought what that emotion would feel like—the cold absolute of betrayal. He heard her words echo back at him as if they were his own. How might he feel, the question came to him, if it were Margherita before him, the same declaration on her lips as were now on his?

“I have treated you poorly these past years,” he said very tenderly. “I hate that I have never once considered your feelings, and now that I have, there seems to be nothing I can do about it.”

He rubbed a hand behind his neck awkwardly when she made no reply. Now that he had opened the wound it would be better for her to hear all of it. Steadying himself, Raphael glanced around the elegant room, with its fringed carpets, painted beams, ornate inlaid chest, and grand carved bed. On the bedside table were combs of ivory next to a collection of foul-smelling, silver-lidded jars.

“I intend to marry her, Maria.”

When she looked up, her tearstained face was set. “You will marry me. It was agreed to by our families, and both of us.”

“No,” he said very gently. “I will only ever belong to her.”

“You have belonged to me for four years!”

“Not truly. Not my heart. She is the only one who has ever possessed that.”

They were quiet with one another then. Awkward strangers.

“I am asking you for my freedom,” he finally said.

“My uncle would never agree, even if I did,” she warned in a wounded voice that came just above a whisper, and Raphael knew that she was probably right.

“Can you not reason with him?”

“Not about that. It is not that he finds you so pleasing as a husband for me, as that he despises the notion of losing.”

“He is right to see me for what I am, for your sake,” he said, then tenderly kissed the top of her head. “I swear to you, I wish you only happiness, Maria.”

“I could have had that with you.”

“I would have broken your heart. You deserve better than that.”

He turned to go, and as he did she called out to him. “Watch your baker’s girl very carefully, Raphael, for she will not be safe once my uncle hears news of this.”

“I shall consider myself warned,” he replied, trying very hard to conjure his old, very cavalier smile as he considered the harsh change in Cardinal Bibbiena. The expression of pure hate in those eyes was symbolized now, it seemed, in a small, hotly contested ruby ring.

T
HEY WERE
working on the Battle of Ostia sequence in the pope’s new room. The water-based pigments they were spreading onto the freshly spread moist lime plaster were changing colors in a way Raphael did not like, but Giulio had taken charge, ordering some of the apprentices to remix a batch of new shades while others began to layer over the work with new plaster to begin the area again.

“I heard what you did for Signorina Luti. The new house,” Giulio cautiously began as Raphael stood behind him, hands on his hips, amid the collection of water-filled buckets, paint pots, and brushes. “What a splendid gift.”

“If I could give her the world, Giulio, I surely would.”

“So she will no longer need to come to the studio to meet with you.”

“No.”

“Or ever then to the house on the Via dei Coronari?”

Raphael turned to look more closely at the artist he considered his heir apparent, studying him for nuances as he would a model. “You are inferring something are you,
caro?
”

Giulio picked up a moist cloth and wiped his hands. “It concerns Elena,
mastro.
”

Raphael’s face changed swiftly, brightening as the question crossed his lips. “Has she found another circumstance at last?”

“I ask you as a personal favor to allow her to remain with you.”

Raphael looked away from the scaffolding and the work going on above them. He turned his attention to Giulio then, trying to study the intent behind the request. After a moment, Raphael led him out into the corridor with a firm hand. When they were alone, Raphael breathed deeply and leaned against a wall beside a large window barred outside by an iron grille. He looked reflectively out at the ordered courtyard with its fountain, sculptures, and ornamental hedges.

“Forgive me,
caro,
but I cannot permit that,” he replied in a low voice, fearing the spies who were frequently around. “I can have nothing that might endanger things with Signorina Luti until we are married.”

“But you said yourself you have been truthful with her about your past with women.”

“As I told Elena herself when we spoke of this, it would be quite another thing for the woman of my heart to be faced with the evidence of so great an indiscretion right in my household. The truth, Giulio, is that I despise myself for what I did to the girl. I have tried every way I can think to make amends but she has refused me, and so now I would prefer to think it never happened.”

“Elena will not speak of it. She told you so herself!”

Raphael turned his gaze upon Giulio, his eyes widening in surprise. “You were listening?”

“Not intentionally, no. But the result is the same. I regret that I did, but I heard your exchange myself and I know that Elena wishes greatly to remain in service to you. And work for her is essential.”

Raphael had begun to pace across the polished parquet flooring. “
Per l’amor di Dio,
Giulio! I cannot help that! I offered her money but she refused me! What more than that can I do?”

“Allow her to keep what she needs as payment for what you took from her!” Giulio leaned forward, his body tight. “I am asking as a personal favor,
mastro.
Allow her to keep her dignity by believing the words both of you spoke, that it was a mistake, that it is finished between you and in the past.”

“And if Margherita were to discover it, and discover that I maintain the girl still?”

“The only three who know of it have a vested interest in keeping it concealed.”

“You, Giulio
mio?
What is your interest?”

For the first time his confidence faded just slightly as Raphael looked at him in open surprise.

“She comes from a good family and she does not deserve what will happen to her if you do not change your mind!”

He lifted a brow. “You have not answered my question. Have you come to care for the girl?”

“Not in the way you mean,
mastro!
I have little time for a life of my own. What I have is dedicated to our work, of course.”

Raphael stroked his chin, considering that. All of these weeks Giulio had lived with him so that he might not only separate him from his father, but introduce the naive boy to all of a man’s pleasures, which he had been avoiding. Now Giulio appeared to have done it on his own.

“When the heart is involved, things can change.”

“I have some small concern for her, that is all.”

“Forgive me,
caro.
” His hand fell away from his chin. “But I have too much to lose if I change my mind.”

Giulio had never confronted Raphael. He had never confronted anyone. But something had changed. Whatever it was, it had been sudden within him, oddly profound, and it involved Elena di Francesco Guazzi.

“Then
I
cannot remain as your assistant.”

“Surely you do not mean that. We have so much work before us. Work I could not fathom completing without you.”

“Then respectfully,
mastro,
change your mind in this.”

“This is a new life for me, Giulio. Signorina Luti has given me that life, shown me a heart I never knew I had, hope, love . . . She is everything to me. You ask too much.”

“I have heard it said that
everything
comes with a price,” Giulio dared to say.

“If you were anyone else, Giulio,
anyone,
I would not even entertain such a threat! I need not answer for my choices to anyone. Do you understand that?”

“I have lived in your shadow long enough to know it well.”

Raphael looked at him incredulously. “Can it be that two souls so alike as we must part over this?”