Forgiving Rome

by Clay Ferrill

  Chapter Nine

  Springtime Rome

  21 February 1513 A.D.

  The bells of Saint Peters ring mid-morning

  Alone in the cold Grand Corridor, I startled when I heard the urgent bell toll so close and unexpected in the quiet stillness of this place. I momentarily lost my balance on the tall scaffolding that was holding me aloft and prone against the curved ceiling held by ropes in a sling of planks. My bucket tipped and spilled to the floor below with a loud splash. Looking through the slats of wood to the floor nearly 30 feet below, I panned my eyes to inspect the damage.

  The muddy egg tempera water seemed to only have splashed the stone walls below the drying fresco of The Stallion of God, the image of my beautiful Giuseppe there for all to see him in his glory. I sighed deeply as the choir then began, their song lamenting and sadly delivered, the emotion in their unison tinged with their shared grief at his passing. I could not stop my tears at this. Pope Julius II had died sometime during the night. I too had been here all through the night working hard to finish the work so His Eminence would be able to see The Stallion of God completed. It had been his desire when he bade me to paint it.

  I closed my eyes and apologized to him for being too slow in my work, but I had so wanted to make it perfect for him. He had so enjoyed seeing it even partially finished. It had brought him such joy that day just a week ago when he stood right down there and gazed up at it. He had collapsed on the way back up to his apartments that late afternoon and had never regained consciousness since the fall. I am satisfied he had seen it before he made his journey away from Rome and into heaven, forever. I would miss him dearly.

  I scooted my body down the sloped boards slowly, watching my feet through the pools of tears. Knocking any paint vessels to the floor and the mess that would make unthinkable. I eased myself to standing below the sloped boards and reached up for the jars of paint, each on their own angled shelf. Leonardo had helped me with that. Stacking them one on top of the other, essentially sealing them well enough for a day or so before they will be used again, I placed the heavy earthen plate over the top of the stacked jars and slowly made my way down to the floor. I would go to the main chapel and pray for my friend and wait for Archy who would no doubt be mourning his loss already.

  He will have already heard the bells’ sad toll by now. We had unfortunately just discussed this very possibility and had agreed to find one another in the main sanctuary when the unfortunate time came, even if that was years away still. The bells continued to toll as it waved its announcement as if ripples of bells across the face of the known world. God’s messenger has died.

  I removed my smock and just let it drop to the floor as I cried out loud. I thought then of the happiness he had witnessed when he brought my painting to me, later revealed by Marquesa to have been her plan all along when she invited us both together. Her invitation had been conditional to His Holiness: bring Yellow Roses in Moonlight with him or do not attend. She has long since departed and has stayed in France as the tensions between our countries grow each day. Archy rode her there to escort her safely from the country and then returned to me as fast as the horse would carry him back to me. I grow more and more nervous of Archy being recalled by his ailing King Louis. I despised him for having called Archy away from me once for so very long, though I would never share this with Archy. I would never want to place his love for me in front of his love for his King and his duty to country. Not as the more important thing to him.

  I flattened my hair with my hands and walked toward the central gathering area in the main sanctuary to join the mourners. As I approached, guards stepped into my path and crossed their spears, blocking my path. The passing gaggle of red robes, large brimmed red hats and the incessant mumbling with dramatic hand gestures meant the College of Cardinals were moving around in a pack. Each of them trying to appear as the most important man in Rome. How they lobbied and bartered to be nominated the new Pope. The egos of these peacocks sickens me. This often happens and the best thing to do is just get out of their way and stay out of their way. Looking through the two guards blocking my path my eyes were drawn to one man only. The face of Cardinal Giovanni Medici, who was staring directly at me. He scowled as the pack of Cardinals moved through the gathered there and pushed past them roughly as they headed up the stairs to the Pope’s private apartments to see his dead body for themselves.

  Archy’s unmistakable shadowed figure covered the doorway as he searched the crowd looking for my face. I stepped through the guards as they withdrew to stand at attention again and began walking toward him quickly. I raised my hand in the air. I need him right now and he’s too far away from me. A menace plagues me. My feeling for this place suddenly confusing … me greatly … not safe here. We are not safe here. I must leave here at once … I feel … a bit … my spirit is leaving me. I fell flat on my face to the floor. The gasps of those standing nearby … I must have hit my head… hard, the reactions around me so dramatic and loudly echoing. My hair had come loose from its tether and it spilled out onto the floor in curls. The scream of the woman as she watched the blood flow from beneath my unseen face, the last thing I heard. Giuseppe?!

  I awoke two days later in our bedroom at Archy’s palace. He sat in a chair right next to the bed holding my hand. I smiled before I opened my eyes at the warm rubbing of his hand on top of mine, urging me to wake up and look at him. “Wake up for me my love. Open your eyes for me. Come back to me Raffy. Wake up.” I turned my head toward him and opened my eyes. His face descended on me with kisses everywhere his mouth landed. Tickling me.

  “How long have I been home? Wait. I fell. What happened? I heard the bells and cleaned up a mess I had made, my water bucket … and then … oh. Cardinal Giovanni Medici. His face so menaced me. It shocked me that he scowled at me. You know I have never even met the man, yet he seems to send me such hate with his eyes. I remember there was no air then. It felt like there was no air. I saw you. I believe it was you. Was it you? I could see the vast ceilings above me and the white doves released at his death flying around overhead. It made no sense. I could not draw breath. I remember nothing else.”

  I reached my hand up to my face and felt the cloth of the thick bandage there, my right eye completely covered by it and did it ever hurt when I pressed down into the tightly wrapped bandage over my eye.

  “You broke the tile floor Raffy. With your face you did. They really are quite angry with you for breaking their precious tile floor.” He smiled and his shoulders danced in a brief chuckle. He looked at me seriously then and kissed the end of my nose. “Are you in pain my love? May I get you some cold lemon water perhaps? Call Marguerite for one of her herb compresses?” He turned and presented me with a tall crystal glass full of cold water with thin slices of lemon floating at the bottom. “Yes. Yes. And yes, please. You know Archy, you only ever ask me questions requiring yes as my answer. Why do you do that my love?” I reached for the water and spilling a great deal on myself, I tipped the glass so steeply to get it into my body that it spilled down my throat and soaked my cotton nightshirt through.

  I held it out for a refill. He grabbed another glass already poured and handed it to me, putting the empty glass back on the tray. I drank it down slowly, cherishing the feel of the cold liquid’s life giving me its power as it descended my throat into my stomach. I have never tasted anything more delicious and quenching. I laid back in the bed waiting for his answer. He just smiled at me and a tear ran down his cheek. I drew my hand up to cover my face “I must look so horrible, do not look at me.” I let the water settle in me and closed my eyes. “Do you love me Raphaello?” he asked. I smiled. I see what he is doing. How could I not. Another question soliciting my single word answer “Yes” I said. He laughed out loud. “There you have it. Nothing else matters to me, as long as I don’t have to bear the pain of ever hearing you say no to me, my love. You are my very life.”

  I woke hours later, Archy curled up next to me under the covers of our be
d, his hairy chest nestled into my back. He had removed my wet nightshirt. I lifted my hand to the back of his head and let my hand rest there, his patterned heavy breathing cascading down my back. Lifting his arm from around my waist I rose to use the chamber pot and found none on my beside table. I walked to the bathing room in search of a basin and found the clean pots on the table by the door. I lowered it and emptied my body’s water into the bowl quietly. When I finished I rested the bowl behind the cloth curtain covering the lower shelf of the table. There was a fresh basin of water and an oil lamp burning, its light warm.

  I looked in the finely-hammered copper reflection plate at the large bandage wrapping my head. I touched the puffiest part of it again and felt much less pain than before. Untucking the end of it, I unwrapped the very long bandage from my head. Again and again I unwrapped it. The rest finally came loose and dropped in a loop around my shoulders. I pulled the rest of it free and placed it next to the basin and leaned in to get a closer look.

  Small square cloths, three of them, have adhered to the areas they cover, the dried blood there had soaked through them and has since dried hard. I dipped the loose bandage into the cool water and soaked the cloths to loosen them. I must see the damage underneath. I look disfigured by it. The yellow of the bruising around my eye the most alarming in contrast to the remaining white of the eye, once the bandage gone the blackened ring around my entire eye socket was clearly visible and blackish purple. Very swollen. It looked horrible and disfiguring and puffy. My eye brow pulsed and throbbed and I winced in pain.

  I raised my hand to touch it with my fingertips to see if the cloth was loose enough yet and Archy spoke behind me. “Do not touch there Raffy. The physician was able to push the cheekbone and brow bones back into place, but he cautioned the area will be very delicate and fragile until it is fully healed. That will be months from now my love. Do not touch there. You actually broke the tiles of the floor where you landed. It was not a jest. You broke the floor with your beautiful face. Now do not touch there.”

  I turned to face him standing there. His tall lean frame, hair wild, naked. His smile mischievous. He walked up to me and gripped my shoulders and on me. “You can touch yourself here though Raffy. Maybe touch yourself here a lot to catch up to me?” He his arms from around me and we walked back to bed. He retrieved our small unnoticeable earthen cup with a lid and set it on the night table. I crawled into the large bed and laid down on my back short of my head landing on the pillow. He crawled slowly up to me from the end of the bed and climbed over me and behind me, nestling his body there. His feeling against me urgent and pushing. I reached my arm over my head and around his shoulder, pulling myself up against him slightly, aligning my body with his need.

  His kisses and bites at my shoulder and neck, he repeated my name again and again. “My Raphael. My Raphael.” He froze in place for it, pulsing and pulsing and pulsing again. He collapsed onto his back and released me. I took over and slowly moved against his sweaty skin, my breath catching. He sat up and placed his mouth over mine. He fell over onto the bed and pulled my body into his chest. He was asleep before his head rested comfortably into the pillow, his deep breaths transitioning into snores and snorts. I lifted his arm again and walked to the bathroom to lower the lamp and splash more fresh water on my face. My skin there felt so hot.

  I turned to walk back into the bedroom after turning down the lantern and the face at the window made me jump as if out of my skin. It disappeared as quickly as it had sprung up to scare me. The hair stood up all over my body in terror. I looked over at the bed, Archy’s breaths deep and sleeping the only sounds. I walked to the open window and pulled it in and turned the wood to block it in place. Down in the gardens I saw the dim single flame from the lantern run bouncing toward the front of the estate, watching it grow fainter in the distance. Then exiting at the gates and running down the road toward Rome. Someone had seen us. Perhaps they had been watching as we shared ourselves with one another. That feeling of menace again overtaking me completely.

  I sat on the blanket on the upholstered bench staring at Archy sleeping and trying to gather my thoughts. I would send for my mother at first light. I want her here with us in this house safe. This sudden instinct to gather those I love around me urgent. I will ask Archy to increase our guard and I will not go back to the Vatican until the new Pope, whoever that will be, invites me to return as his resident artist. I do need a long rest and recovery period for I am quite badly damaged, perhaps disfigured permanently.

  I think then of the unfinished Grand Corridor and know that I cannot wait for an invitation. I had been commissioned to deliver that vision to Pope Julius and I must be a man of my word to him. A man of my father’s word to him as well. I had at least finished the entryway fresco The Deliverance of Saint Peter, much to the delight of His Holiness.

  This was now my fifth year, officially, as The Pope’s Resident Painter. I have been living in Rome for seven years two. One left. I will say it that way for the rest of my life. Eight years two, nine years two. The two are the years I spent isolated away from Archy, for I am only half the man I am when I he is with me in life.

  The Pope also has a resident sculptor and a resident architect. The three of us form His Holiness’s Arts Council. I must return to the Vatican. We have important work to do. My duty is of great importance. I got up and walked to the writing table. I penned a letter to my mother quickly, asking her to come to Rome urgently. I placed a golden ducat coin there, folding the paper tightly around it and folded an envelope to contain it. Rising to again go back into the bathing room, I raised the lamp flame with the wooden pinchers and melted the wax. I pressed a knuckle into the wax to adhere it to the paper. Slipping on my fine French caftan that Archy bought for me on his way back from Paris after seeing his mother safely back there and the protection of the French Royal court. A new gift for me each time we are separated.

  I went downstairs with the lantern and found Marguerite in the kitchen setting up her baking dough for the morning. Handing her a silver ducat coin I asked that she see to it that my mother receive this letter as quickly as horse legs will carry her 17-year-old son Luigi to my farms in Urbino. He is to take Archy’s fastest steed. She seemed very pleased with the generosity of the coin. These have little value to me. It was silver, so 500 ducats. Enough to buy ten horses. My letter had urged her to pack for a long stay and to please bring Ilsa with her. My heart has been aching to see her. I closed sharing the news of our beloved friend Pope Julius’s death and assured her that I would see the Yellow Roses in Moonlight returned to her, and rightfully so. He had promised. I signed it with sincere love.

  Marguerite looked at my face and winced, the loose bits of fabric had in fact started to come loose. I must look a fright. I held up my hand to cover that part of my face and she swatted my hand away and smiled. Sitting me down on her stool. She gathered a knot of apron and lowered it into a pot of boiling hot water and raised it to pat at the patches there. She then lightly pulled them free after repeated soakings with more hot water bathing the pieces of cloth. She smiled. Apparently, they appeared in good condition to her. I would have to settle for that. Still, she pressed me back down when I tried to get up and leave.

  She then applied a smelly camphor poultice that stunk to high heaven and cleared my sinuses, but immediately relived the throbbing sensation and dulled down the pain a great deal. Holding it to my cheek gently, I thanked her, kissed her cheek and made my way back upstairs to Archy, still snoring and snorting, the big lumbering oaf. I settled again onto the bed next to him and his arm came around my middle pulling me into his chest without waking up in the least, snoring loudly. So familiar our sleep has been these past years. We have been fortunate to have been blessed with a true happiness here I think.

  As I laid there thinking of my mother coming to visit and perhaps just relocating here permanently, Ilsa as well, I thought of The Stallion of God and rubbed Archy’s hairy arm around my waist. To have known such love as
this is truly a miracle. It is highly uncommon for men of our age, both 35, to be unmarried. I plan to take my mother’s repeated advice and find suitable women mates for us to be seen with in public. We both have perhaps waited too long and at great risk. Him French aristocracy and his wealth renowned, and I am the Pope’s resident artist painter, equally well known now. My mother knows of us and our love for one another. I know this even though I myself have never had a conversation with her in person with my voice. I have often thought of that conversation though, and the emotion I would show her when I professed my undying love for this man that holds me so safely and with such profound love for me in return.

  Speaking those words to her may actually frighten her. That would not do. I do not like to see my mother frightened.

  I have written in my many, many letters to her often how much I love this man and how my life would be bitter and pointless without him. She had responded, urging again nearing a firm command of me, for us to keep up pretenses socially and be seen in public at opera with beautiful young women of position and stature. Matters not if they are pretty or desirable. They must have money and powerful families, but most importantly, they must have influence. She had emphasized the point repeatedly since in every single letter. She would never stop asking until she sees her way. I believe she is right and that this is perhaps why I have been overcome with such feelings of dread and menace of late. It feels good to have made the decision. I just hope we are not too late.

  I lay my head more comfortably in the pillow and feel Archy’s hot breath on my shoulder. He stirs in his sleep and nestles his middle to me and pushes a few times, then falls back into a deep sleep again. I sigh against the night then, the feeling now receding, no longer the sharp feel of urgent menace plaguing my thoughts. It was just very unsettling. The face. Before I drift off to sleep I resolve to make the trip into Rome in the morning alone. I will send the carriage back and resume my living arrangements there at the Vatican in my private apartments until I decide otherwise or my mother and Ilsa safely arrive. Archy will understand, surely. I must remember to tell him about the face at the window and to increase the guards at least at night when he and Marguerite will be here alone until her son returns from Urbino with mother and Ilsa. I can’t wait to see her.