The Ruby Ring

by Diane Haeger

  The stone wall around the castle had large open bays, each with a more magnificent view of the city than the last. There were small stone benches beneath each one, upon which to consider the grandeur. As she walked past these little niches in the stone, amid the cool afternoon air, Margherita still could not believe that she was actually a guest in a place like this—that she had not embarrassed herself or Raphael, and that a part of her now was actually enjoying the experience. She kept walking, the fragrance of the air reviving her, steadying her after the fright and anticipation that she had carried with her to the vaunted Castel Sant’Angelo a mere two hours earlier. Perhaps one day they could learn to accept her, after all, as Signor Chigi’s mistress now was accepted. Stranger things, she knew, had happened in the long history of Rome.

  Margherita descended a small flight of stone steps entering a charming little enclosed inner courtyard peppered with fat, gray pigeons. It was decorated with fountains and stone pots spilling over with geraniums. She sat on a stone bench supported by two carved lion’s heads and, for the first time today, felt herself fully exhale. A pleased little smile followed.

  “Hoping to escape, Signora Luti?”

  Margherita turned with a start toward the voice that came at her from the shadows. It was her dinner partner, Sebastiano Luciani. He was smiling casually as he leaned against a stone pillar, arms crossed nonchalantly over his chest. She realized, with a little jolt of her heart, that she had not heard him behind her.

  A moment later, he moved toward her and sank onto the same small bench. “Because, if you are, I will warn you that you would find it a frustrating and unsuccessful endeavor. These walls around us are fortified to keep us in, as well as to keep the common world out.”

  “I needed a breath of air.”

  “I should not wonder! They can be a daunting lot, all of those starched robes and crucifixes.” Margherita smiled at that, but she was uncertain how further to respond. “Of course, as you can see, I wear no ecclesiastical garb, so you are free to be as open with me as you like.”

  How did he know what she felt? In spite of all her lessons, was she still that transparent? She knew Raphael did not like him, but she did not understand why. He certainly was the most approachable of all the guests, and a fellow artist, beside whom Raphael once had worked. Raphael must be wrong about him. Raphael had spoken of his temper, driven by their competition. They had quarreled, Raphael had told her. But Sebastiano simply could not be guilty of those other awful things. And Raphael had always admitted he had no absolute proof that Sebastiano was behind the plot to injure his hand.

  “If it is any consolation,” he continued, gazing up at the broad, cloudless sky above them, “you do look far more at ease than I would guess you feel in a place like this. I did not sleep for two days the first time I was in the presence of the Holy Father.”

  “I suspect we will share that fate,” Margherita smiled.

  “To share any fate at all with you, signora, I should consider myself a fortunate man indeed.”

  Margherita was unsure if the comment had been flattery, or if something more had been implied. He was certainly more worldly than she. At the very moment her mind filled with the question of what the comment had meant, and how to respond as other women might, a voice cut into the awkward silence.

  “What are you doing with him?”

  The tone of voice was cold, the stare icier still. Raphael stood before them now, his body a ramrod of pure anger. Margherita reacted to it defensively, having tried all evening to make the right choices, say the right things. In that moment, she felt foolish and slightly afraid.

  “It was nothing! Sebastiano found me wandering and he was simply being polite.”

  Raphael arched a suspicious brow. “Sebastiano, is it?”

  “Forgive me, amore mio, but is that not how you refer to him?”

  “I am not an unmarried woman!”

  “Were it in my power, I would not be so, either!” She had spoken too quickly, and she regretted it the moment she saw his expression change. She knew he was doing everything in his power to receive the Holy Father’s approval in the matter. “Raphael, per favore, it was harmless. He truly was only trying to be polite.”

  “Odd, when it has been a very long time since he has been anything near polite to me!”

  “You make too much of a small thing.”

  He took her arm above the elbow, gripping it, neither of them noticing Sebastiano’s slim, satisfied smile.

  “Come,” Raphael commanded. “We are leaving.”

  “But—”

  Raphael turned back suddenly, his face changed in a way she had never seen before. The stare he gave his rival was darkly menacing. “Leave her alone, Sebastiano! This is only between the two of us!”

  Still smiling, Sebastiano shrugged. “Perhaps not.”

  “Touch her, and I swear by all that is holy, I will see you dead! And, unlike you, I will need no henchmen to do the job for me!”

  “Threats so lack creativity, Raphael,” his rival yawned, his lips lifting into an unattractive sneer.

  “It was not a threat! You may consider it an absolute certainty!”

  RAPHAEL did not speak to Margherita again until they were home, alone in her bedchamber with its massive bed and soaring beamed ceilings. A fire blazed and crackled in the hearth, lighting and warming everything in the room, especially the tense expressions on both of their faces.

  “What was really wrong with you today?” Margherita asked, an arm placed gently at the small of his back. She had taken off her shoes and jewelry, but she had no wish to call Elena to undress her until she and Raphael had discussed this. It felt like a great and sudden barrier between them.

  He raked back his hair and stared into the fire as she sat down on the needlepoint hearthside bench beside him. “I petitioned the pope once again to allow us to marry,” he confessed.

  The fire cracked and flared. “He is still against it, even though Signorina Bibbiena acknowledges the end of your betrothal?”

  Raphael nodded somberly, unable and unwilling to tell her the full truth. He could not tell her that Pope Leo had angrily decreed a peasant girl to be too far beneath him for anything but a passing dalliance. His request alone, said the pope, was a grand insult to Cardinal Bibbiena and his much-loved niece. The pope had hotly declared that a marriage between them could never be ordained by God. That he must concentrate on the work . . . always the work . . . and forget her.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Margherita soothingly told him, with a hand across his shoulder, their faces made golden by the flames.

  “But it does matter! Without our marriage, none of them will ever—”

  She knew what he meant to say. The thing that would not leave his lips for love of her—that the patrician class of Rome, the nobles and the powerful clergy, would never accept her, no matter for how many breathtaking Madonnas she posed, or how she enriched his life. She would forever be a peasant who had dared to ensnare a man far above her station by the power of seduction.

  Raphael sagged against the hearth, then hung his head. “I will marry you, by God in his heaven!”

  “I know you will.”

  He turned to her then, his face alive and burning with his frustration. “We will go to Urbino! There we can be wed with no protest from anyone!”

  “And when you return here to the city, then what? Will you not have jeopardized all of your important commissions?”

  “I care not a whit about any of them if it means they come before you!”

  “The lives of your assistants then?”

  “What of our lives, Margherita? What of us?”

  “But you have me already.” She smiled comfortingly in the glow of the fire beside them. “And it shall be so, until you wish me in your life no longer.”

  Her reassurance was not the balm she hoped. His expression still bore the torment of the uncertain and dangerous future he saw before them if they remained unmarried.

  “
That is not the point. What I wish is to honor you by our formal union.”

  “I know. And I will wait for as long as it takes,” she said soothingly, running a finger along his cheek. “Perhaps the next pope—”

  “His Holiness is only gluttonous, not old! There is no hope for us in that! And in the meantime, with all of the men of Rome, like Sebastiano Luciani, who see you as fair game—”

  She tipped her head. “As if I have no control in that matter at all?”

  “But they are men who know well how to manipulate!”

  “And I am not wise enough to defend myself?”

  “You could not begin to defend yourself against the clever words or intent of one of them!”

  She stood then, stiff with indignation. “A victim, am I? A mere possession, allowing myself to be taken? If you believe that, Raphael, then you do not know me at all!”

  He reached out for her hand but she jerked it away. His eyes were a color she had never seen, and frightening. “Sebastiano challenges me in all things! Many here in Rome do! I must remain vigilant to the daily threat, and I must protect you!”

  Margherita’s face went ashen, something deep changing within her as she moved across the bedchamber, twisted the iron door handle, and drew back the door. “You brought me into this competitive world of yours! You entreated me to become a part of it, to learn it, and compete in it using my own skills, even knowing what determination that would take!” When she looked at him, her eyes were deep with sincerity. “Raphael, I love you with all of my heart, but you must learn to believe in me, and to trust me!”

  He stood slowly, gazing at her with the distance of the room, and the weight of misunderstanding, between them. “You are putting me out?”

  “It would be best if you returned for tonight to the Via dei Coronari, or to your studio, giving us both some time for . . . reflection.”

  He went to her, arms extended. “Margherita. Do not do this—”

  Her hand went up in defense. Tonight, she had walked among cardinals and bishops, and sat in the presence of the Holy Father himself, as one who was actually entitled to do so. It had taken her a personal strength she had never even known she possessed, and now she was entirely spent.

  “Have we not both said enough for one evening?”

  As they looked at one another in the silence of her question, Margherita saw the torment of a complicated man, besieged by people who only wanted to take from him. Even so, he had chosen to trust her, and to love her. She was, he said, his only bit of family now. But in their time together, she had also come to know the tumult of creativity and self-doubt that defined his world, and she could not allow herself to be caught up in that dangerous current. Her duty, she believed, was to be the light, the beacon, and the bit of reason he needed to keep him from his own dark demons.

  “As you wish.” He nodded soberly, coming to stand before her at the open door. The lamplight from the corridor beyond, for that moment, bathed them both in a single cone of shimmering gold. Very lightly, Raphael pressed a kiss onto her cheek. “I shall speak no more now. But I do bid you, consider well what I have said, and do not trust those who have not earned your trust. I did not easily learn that myself here in Rome, but eventually I did learn it well.”

  “This night, amore mio, I will be unable to think of anything else.”

  27

  EACH WEEK WHEN SHE RETURNED TO THE BAKERY AND the little house in Trastevere to visit her father, Margherita came with baskets of gifts. There were always gold florins for each of them to spend as they chose, and sweets for her young nephews—especially little Matteo upon whom she doted. Fine new dresses were sent for Letitia, and new, well-made shoes for her father, along with a comfortable new bed brought in from Venice. Raphael’s personal gift to the family had been two young, able-bodied men he hired to help in the family bakery so that the burden might be lifted from Francesco.

  While Margherita had offered her sister a position managing the new house, Letitia preferred being a big fish in her little pond in Trastevere, where she could boast about the family’s newfound fortunes. In addition, Raphael had offered to take Donato from the Chigi stables and give him the position of attendant and personal guard to Margherita for the long hours when he could not be with her himself. It was a position Donato gratefully and swiftly accepted.

  In spite of the envy on her sister’s face, and her father’s growing avarice, Margherita felt honor bound to share her good fortune, not only with her family, but with Padre Giacomo and the little parish church that not so long ago had been the center of her world. As the months passed, the visits to Trastevere became shorter—yet their requests greater. And the time they all wished to spend on the Via Alessandrina was increasing as well. There was always much to discuss. Letitia petitioned for two new beds for her growing elder sons. And Donato could not possibly make do with only the two new doublets designed by Raphael’s own tailor—not now, when he was known to have an affiliation with the famous artist, Letitia insisted. And if Letitia was going to be expected to spend time socially in her sister’s company, the dresses she wore, like Margherita’s, would need to reflect her changing status. When she left the bakery, or they left her home, her head full of new requests, Margherita felt not regret or sadness, but only relief to be away from them.

  Her world had changed, and now so had she.

  As Raphael had warned her, there were actually very few whom she could trust, and, in spite of Letitia’s grating behavior, she was grateful to have Donato there as support as she tried to navigate in this new and far more complicated world.

  After a visit with Hanno in the Vatican gardens, Margherita walked along the muddy cobbled street with her new companions, Donato and Elena. Margherita felt the safety in numbers and did not travel through the city without the constant companionship of them both. And she preferred walking, rather than riding the lovely horses Raphael offered. It was easier to maintain her dwindling anonymity by being among the people on the streets.

  It was a pleasant day for so late in November, and a blaze of gold sunlight shimmered down on the cobbled stone piazza through which they passed on their way back home. Today had brought a more difficult visit to the bakery than usual, and thus her time with sweet-tempered Hanno, who still sank to his knees for her, and wrapped his trunk around her arm, had been welcome.

  With so many things pressing on her mind she did not see the collection of finely gowned patrician ladies coming toward her. Nor did she, at first, hear their low, cruel whispers breaking the silence on the quiet square.

  “By my troth, it is her!”

  “No!”

  “I would know that trollop anywhere!”

  “Tart!” they tittered. “And out like this, as proud as you please!”

  “They say Signor Raphael has bought her a fine house, and he spends more time there with her than at his work for the Holy Father!”

  “I have heard it said that she has the impudence to continue posing as the great Virgin Mother while there is nothing left of the virgin about her! She is even called signora now!”

  They cackled like hens, not looking directly at her, but speaking loudly enough to be certain she could hear them. Donato slowed his pace when a dirty-faced boy crossed their path, hand out, hoping for a coin from the finely dressed man. Margherita only wanted to be away from this place and from these women, knowing that they meant her nothing but harm. As the two factions drew ever nearer, and Donato was distracted searching for the coins, she felt her body tense.

  When Donato kindly patted the boy on top of his head, handing him what coins he had with him, the ring of four women, all in their sweeping velvet finery, stopped, as if having cornered prey. It was a great irony, Margherita thought, that they had all just emerged from a little stone church at the opposite end of the square.

  “She is not as comely as I would have thought,” said one of them, a stout, silver-haired woman with a long hooked nose and faintly pockmarked skin. “But she does have th
ose eyes everyone speaks about.”

  “Eyes or not, I would know Raphael’s harlot anywhere!”

  Realizing at last the danger, Donato faced them head-on, tall and confrontational. “Is there a problem?” he asked in a deep, commanding voice that shook even Margherita with its implied threat. Surprisingly, once again, they laughed.

  “Not for us. But then we are not making a sow’s ear into a silk purse!”

  Again there was a chorus of cruel tittering that filled the peaceful square. Donato put a protective arm around Margherita’s shoulder, and Elena followed them as he steered her away.

  “Flee if you will!” another called out in an acid taunt that echoed through the little piazza. “But you cannot outrun the gossip that has filled this town!”

  SHE WEPT until there were no more tears. Then she vomited a vile mix of despair and frustration that came up through the depths of her innocent belief that love could solve all things, heal all things. Yet it was not Raphael who smoothed the hair away from her face and stroked her arm until the trembling ceased—it was Donato. Brother. Friend. Now confidant.

  “I am a laughingstock in Rome!”

  “They are old, bitter women. You must not take them as anything more.”

  “It is all coming undone, Donato! There will be no marriage, no honor . . . no resolution to this! I should never have allowed myself to love him for what, in the end, it shall do to us both!”

  Donato turned her away from the corner of the building and held her arms squarely as Elena waited silently beside him, her own expression grave with the shock of what had just occurred.

  “Don’t speak that way! Raphael adores you, and you do love him!”

  “The forces against us are great! I was a fool to believe anyone besides Raphael could ever accept me as I am! And where is the future in it for the two of us, Donato, if they cannot?”

  “WELL, THEN? Will it be completed in time?” Cardinal Bibbiena pointedly asked, gazing up at the mammoth fresco in the great hall of Chigi’s villa. Scaffolding was everywhere, with paint pots and draperies littering the elegant inlaid marble floor. A collection of apprentices were beginning to prepare the pigments with the wedding but a day away.