The Ruby Ring

by Diane Haeger

  Raphael ran a hand through his smooth, brown hair and slumped back, letting a sigh of frustration. He felt protective of Giulio. In spite of his enormous talent at sketching, as well as paint and fresco work, he was yet a boy of eighteen. Vulnerable, tentative about his place in the world. Raphael knew that Giulio Romano, careful as any other serious artist of his hands—the critical tools of his trade—would never have been foolish enough to have engaged in a common brawl.

  No, this involved Aldo Romano again, Raphael felt certain of it. He had met Giulio’s father four years ago, when he had agreed to take on the son. Aldo Romano was a coarse and greedy man, small and bald. Giulio was tall, young, and smooth-skinned, his manner refined, steeped in youthful energy and innocence—the striking physical antithesis of his father. There had always been something different about Giulio. It was a gentleness that went beyond the fact of his youth.

  Raphael thought of the countless nights he had spent in the brothels of the Quartiere dell’ Ortaccio, accompanied happily by his senior assistants, Gianfrancesco Penni and Giovanni da Udine. But never Giulio. Even now, here among men upon whom the pressures were as great as the need for diversion, a father’s influence reined supreme. That had to be it. Why else did Giulio always refuse their company, and their masculine pursuits?

  He cast down his pen and washed a hand across his face. He was too tired to deal with more problems, but Giulio was his responsibility, and his friend, and Raphael felt the weight of that. He went to the easel where Giulio was working, applying a rich shade of umber to cover Raphael’s underlying guideline sketch of the prophet Isaiah.

  “Let us take a walk,” Raphael casually declared.

  Giulio glanced up in surprise. It was not like the mastro to be diverted during the tumultuously busy workday, especially lately. Giulio’s inquisitive fox-brown eyes were quickly wide with concern. Losing a position as important as his would be devastating to the young boy from the dark Bocca della Verit quarter of Rome.

  “Have I done something to displease you, mastro?”

  Raphael smiled. “I just require a bit of fresh air, and I would welcome the company.”

  Giulio put his paintbrush into a tall cup with a collection of other brushes, then wiped his hands on a cloth. Reluctantly, he turned preparing to do as he was bid. Outside the workshop on the Piazza Sant’Apollonia, facing the small walled convent that took in wayward girls, the autumn air bristled with a crisp northerly breeze as they strolled past it. Both of them were warmed by rich cloaks, Raphael’s of black velvet with silver thread, Giulio’s much simpler, of burgundy velvet with a black silk tie at his neck.

  They walked past windows adorned brightly with boxes of clematis, honeysuckle, and weedy geraniums, and then past a grand house with an open loggia. They turned onto a narrow alleyway, past a swarm of dirty-faced children in threadbare clothing who were playing kickball. From a pocket in his cape, Raphael drew forth a handful of coins and tossed them out to them. He always gave whatever he carried to urchin children when he encountered them, but moved on quickly after that, as if moving away from his own motherless youth before it could confront him.

  “I would like you to consider staying with me for a while, at my home,” he said without ceremony as they passed through a small square with its ancient central well and darkened arcades.

  Giulio looked up in surprise. “Live with you?”

  Ahead now, the next quaint little alley was stuffed with an endless web of houses and bottegas, one selling brightly colored majolica; beside it was the shop of a glove maker. Raphael stopped, pretending to consider the gloves on display.

  “I have that huge house, designed to impress, and yet all I ever do in the little time I have within it is ramble around listening to the echo of my own footsteps.”

  “What of your groomsman and the house girl? Are they not companionable enough?”

  “My man, Ludovico, lives in my upper rooms and makes himself scarce unless I need to dress or undress. And Signorina di Francesco Guazzi does not remain at my house at all. She cooks and manages the place for me, then returns to her family in the Borgo Pio.”

  “It is just that I have seen so many sketches of the girl in your folio, I assumed—”

  “You assumed she was my mistress.”

  “S. She certainly is lovely enough.”

  “That is true. And for a few scudi additional now and then she has been amenable to modeling for me. But I have not taken Elena to my bed,” he lied smoothly.

  And it was not entirely a lie, as his grand indiscretion had not occurred anywhere near a bed. But he lied now to protect Elena’s honor.

  Elena di Francesco Guazzi’s family once had sound wealth, prominence in Rome, and a strong friendship with the family of Cardinal Bibbiena. But lavish spending by Elena’s father had reduced their circumstances, created scandal, and brought about his suicide.

  Unable, for propriety’s sake, to employ a young unmarried woman in his own home, the cardinal prevailed upon Raphael, by then betrothed to his niece. Raphael would understand the need for absolute discretion, the cardinal was certain. The task given to Elena would be unimportant. Saving the family from complete ruin by means of a respectable wage was the only goal.

  Raphael was still uncertain about why he had allowed the indiscretion, which had occurred almost a year ago. They had never spoken about it afterward. Elena had modeled for him several times and there had never been so much as a spark between them. But that one evening he had crossed the line, partly out of boredom, and partly, he knew, from the biting loneliness he felt in his grand house, with only his thoughts and his self-doubts to keep him company into the night.

  Yet whatever excuse he made, he hated himself for that vile sort of weakness. He was a scoundrel—a lonely one, but a scoundrel nonetheless.

  He would have given her more in compensation if she would have accepted it. Having to face her every day in light of that was not only penance, Raphael repeatedly told himself, but a reminder of the price to be paid for indiscretion. He might always get what he desired. But there were consequences to everything . . .

  Even for the great Raffaello.

  “Come stay with me and keep me company, caro.”

  Giulio smiled. The bruise above his eye had turned a gruesome bluish yellow. “But my family, mastro—”

  “Someone told me long ago that family and love do not serve as an advantage, Giulio mio, particularly in an artist’s life,” Raphael said philosophically, remembering his father’s words. “And sadly, it is true. It can be difficult for some to understand the existence we lead—what we paint, or why.”

  “Some like my father.”

  “I had considered him. I believe it would be better for you to be away from his influence.”

  There was a silence then between them as they continued to walk, Raphael’s hands clasped behind his back, as he nodded good-naturedly to the awestruck people of the neighborhood who saw the great artist in their midst. Men tipped their soft cloth hats reverently to him and women smiled and giggled in shock behind raised hands.

  “I appreciate your offer, mastro. It is generosity beyond compare.”

  “Indeed it is.” Raphael rolled his eyes humorously, hoping to diffuse Giulio’s discomfort.

  A stoop-shouldered old woman in gray cloth came before them then and held out a slightly wilted wild daisy to Raphael. He smiled, then bowing to her as though she were a duchess at the court of Urbino. He took the flower and watched her withered face light, before they continued on.

  “It is not to do with painting,” Giulio said at last. “but with my father.”

  “S.”

  “He says I am confused. That I am drawn to wayward things, and he must relieve me of that evil by his own hand. That it is the only way, he says, to ensure that I will become a real man.”

  “And what do you believe?”

  Giulio sighed and shook his head. “I wish I knew, mastro.”

  “It is difficult in the studio, non
? The male form is indeed magnificent, faced as we are so continually with unclothed flesh, being forced to consider, day after day, every nuance, every muscle of the male body, and you a young virile man yourself.”

  Giulio looked at Raphael, his full, youthful lips parted. “It is not like that. I do not desire what I paint or draw, mastro,” he declared, color rising into his full cheeks. “Certainly not in the sinful way your friend Il Sodoma does!”

  Giovanni Bazzi, the brilliant artist of the fresco in Agostino’s upstairs bedroom at the villa, had been a good friend to Raphael. He was a clever dinner companion and a talented artist. He was also, as Giulio’s father would have said, a sodomite. He had blithely accepted the sobriquet Il Sodoma, content that his talent, a winning smile, and highly placed friends would protect him from any real sort of danger or scorn concerning his proclivities.

  “But your father does not believe that,” said Raphael.

  “My father believes what he wishes, and only that. Men, he says, are not to see other men unclothed. My father accuses me of being like Bazzi because of what I draw and paint. For his interest in boys, my father says, his official name throughout Rome now is Il Sodoma, and you will be next!”

  “And Bazzi wears it like a badge of honor.” Raphael laughed and put his arm across Giulio’s back as they walked. “It defines him, he says. But that is not me, and it certainly does not define you.”

  “No.”

  “You are old enough to live a man’s life, Giulio. Stay with me awhile. Take some time to consider your future—what it is that will come to define you. And learn from the rest of us, the desires and the outlets . . . in short, the lives of artists.”

  “What of my father? Will he not reproach you, considering what he already believes of me?”

  “You leave your father to me.” Raphael smiled engagingly.

  “I shall not forget this, mastro mio. Ever. How will I ever repay your confidence in me?”

  “Only continue on painting in the manner in which you have begun. Keep learning along with the rest of us, and that shall be more than payment enough for me.”

  7

  RAPHAEL 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.

  WHEN 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.”