The Wolves of St. Peter's

by Gina Buonaguro

  Seated in richly upholstered armchairs in their preferred corner were half a dozen of Raphael’s group. They may only have been apprentices and assistants, but Raphael paid them well, and they emulated their master with their fine dress and courtly manners. Legs encased in finely knitted hose stretched languidly in front of them, while their arms, clad in velvet sleeves trimmed with lace cuffs, were draped over the bared shoulders of their favorite girls.

  The painter Sodoma had the men laughing with one of his stories. He was as well-known for these as he was for the lascivious drawings he sold on the side, making no secret of the fact that the Roman clergy were among his most enthusiastic buyers. Tonight he was wearing one of his favorite gowns, of vivid aquamarine, and as he talked, he punctuated his story with flutters of a painted fan.

  The apprentices and assistants rose when they saw Raphael, and one of them gave up his chair and took another. They greeted Francesco too, though no one was willing to give up his chair for him, so he brought a straight-backed one from beside the fireplace and included himself in the circle. Normally he went straight to the tall glass-fronted bookcase that held Imperia’s valuable collection of more than twenty-five books: Greek and Latin classics bound in leather and edged with gold. He caught the enticing aroma of roast chicken, and his thoughts briefly turned to the three-legged chicken and its uncertain fate in Michelangelo’s hands, concluding that it was probably safe so long as his master found the bread and pot of cabbage soup on the hearth.

  He took the cup of wine Raphael handed him as Sodoma repeated his story for Raphael’s benefit. “You told me to seek him out for the burnt sienna I needed. You said he had the best, but you didn’t say he also had the largest wife in all of Rome. You must warn me of these things! You know it’s difficult for me to maintain my composure and keep from laughing in these situations. But I did my best, though I had to feign a fit of coughing. Then she took me to see her husband, who she said was working on a commission for a very important ambassador. It was a Madonna and Child, and he had taken a chicken, all plucked and ready for the pot, and sat it up on the table. He was using it as a model for the Christ Child!

  “I only bought half the pigment I needed because I must go back so I can see the finished painting. For right now, the Madonna—who I tell you is no beauty herself—has a headless chicken in her lap! Drumsticks instead of legs, with the most deformed feet! I was trying to picture Our Savior walking among the masses with legs like a chicken, curing the sick and infirm …” Sodoma was laughing too hard now to continue, while Francesco, wondering at the appearance of so many strange chickens in one day, laughed too, as did Raphael, though with the terrible knowledge of Calendula on their minds, their laughter was more subdued than the rest.

  Also present was Colombo, a goldsmith whose work was favored by the Pope. He played the lute and, over the preceding six months, had written songs celebrating Calendula’s beauty. Francesco had heard many of these, sung to her on evenings not unlike this one, though he was hard-pressed to tell the latest from any of the others. Colombo praised her eyes, which were as blue as the sky or the sea, her hair, golden like wheat or the sun or gold itself, her voice, as melodious as an angel’s song, a babbling brook, a meadow lark. Marcus, Francesco thought, won’t be the only one to take Calendula’s death hard.

  Then there was Dante. He was one of the finest wood-carvers in all of Rome, but with every full moon, he would undergo a transformation and believe himself to have changed form. Ever since Francesco had been in Rome, Dante thought himself to be a bat, coming out only at night, wearing a black-hooded cape. He would still join them, though, crouching on a chair and clutching his cloak around him. He voiced his fears that he would never be human again and was forever doomed to fly by night around the city walls. He hadn’t always thought himself a bat. Sodoma had informed Francesco that, for one stretch of the full moon, Dante had imagined himself to be a jar of olive oil. Francesco asked how he’d behaved as a jar of olive oil, and Sodoma laughingly told him it was much the same way as a bat, only instead of crouching on a chair, he kept trying to get on the table. He had also been on other occasions a dog, a chariot, and a coat rack, which Sodoma declared to be his favorite because Dante had stood still for an entire night with Sodoma’s cloak hanging over one outstretched arm.

  The architect Bramante was missing from Imperia’s that night. Like Raphael, he was from Urbino and had been instrumental in convincing Pope Julius to hire his still relatively unknown compatriot to paint the Vatican apartments. Present, though, was Imperia’s Sienese lover, Agostino Chigi, whose considerable wealth was in part due to his position as Pope Julius’s treasurer. Chigi was building a villa along the Tiber between the Vatican and the district of Trastevere and knew that the best artists to decorate his estate were those gathered around Raphael. In the short time Raphael had been in Rome, he and Chigi had become good friends. It occurred to Francesco that Raphael’s connection to the Pope’s treasurer had probably helped him secure his generous income, and he marveled not for the first time at how Raphael had such powerful friends and yet the humblest of demeanors.

  As was her custom, Imperia came in to greet Raphael. It was clear to everyone that her interest in Raphael was more than professional. Still, Chigi bore him no ill will, for what woman would not be charmed by Raphael? And although Raphael’s frequent visits to the brothel had added to the rumors of his virility, Francesco was sure he did not share Imperia’s bed, or anyone else’s, for that matter. Raphael’s pleasure at Imperia’s was an aesthetic appreciation of beauty, of which there was no shortage. He sought out models from among her girls, transforming each one of them on the canvas from a prostitute to the Holy Virgin herself, an irony not lost on anyone. Besides, as the smell of roasting chicken reminded Francesco, no one in Rome had a better cook.

  This evening, Imperia wore a gown of lavender, cut low over her bosom, with an overcoat and matching sleeves of purple velvet. It was the costume of a noblewoman, not unlike something Francesco had seen Isabella d’Este wear. But an accident of birth had made one a patroness of the arts and the other a whore. Raphael told Imperia affectionately that she grew more beautiful every day. She smiled with pleasure, standing close to his chair while resting one of her fine-boned hands on his shoulder. As she leaned over to kiss his cheek, a wave of her dark hair escaped from its jeweled comb.

  Francesco knew they could not delay the news any longer. Imperia had to be told; it was cruel to engage her in witty conversation while in possession of such a horrible truth. Indeed, Raphael stood and was offering his chair to her when Marcus burst into the room.

  Marcus was clearly in an anxious state. “Have you seen Calendula?” he demanded breathlessly. “She was to meet me hours ago at my studio. Is she here?” His eyes darted around the room as if she might be hiding in the corners.

  “I haven’t seen her all day,” Imperia said. “I thought she left with you last night.”

  “It wasn’t me. I left by myself.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “How about you?” he asked, addressing Raphael. “You were still here when I left. Who did she go with? Did you see him?”

  Raphael shook his head. “No, but I do have something to tell you all. I am afraid it is bad news.”

  Francesco watched Marcus’s face carefully as Raphael explained that Calendula’s body had been found in the river. He didn’t reveal that Francesco had seen her, or the terrible mutilation, saying only that he was very sorry she was dead.

  It wasn’t Marcus who reacted first but Imperia, who let out a low moan and fainted into Chigi’s arms. Dante whimpered and, tucking his head down on his chest, pulled the black cape that served as bat wings over his head, becoming utterly silent and immobile. Colombo, so little color left in his face, let out a gasp and looked as if he might follow Imperia into a faint. He clutched his lute tightly, and Francesco wondered if Calendula’s death would staunch the flow of Colombo’s songs or unleash a new torrent of them.

  Marcus seeme
d genuinely stunned. Not the reaction of a guilty man, Francesco thought. Francesco knew the world was full of good actors—those who could pull off the most convincing of deceptions to cover up the most heinous of crimes—but he didn’t think Marcus was one of them. He was a skilled painter but not an imaginative one, and Francesco was sure The Marigold Madonna would remain his only masterpiece.

  Sodoma had helped Chigi lift Imperia onto the settee and, with his sleeves fluttering wildly, frantically attempted to cool her with his fan.

  “How did she die?” Chigi asked quietly.

  Raphael’s reluctance to answer seemed to draw Marcus out of his stupor. “Answer him, man!” he demanded. “What happened to her?”

  Francesco felt it was time to reveal his role. Sooner or later, it would come up. “I saw her,” he said carefully, “when the police pulled her from the water.”

  “You?” Marcus’s tone was quiet but accusing. “You saw her?”

  “She’d been hit over the head—”

  “She was murdered? And you think I had something to do with it!” Marcus glared at him, his voice shaking, and Francesco wondered if there was going to be a replay of the other night’s violence, only this time with Marcus attacking him. There was an uncomfortable shuffling in the room, and Francesco could see a few other curious guests now standing in the doorway, including Cardinal Asino and Paride di Grassi, who had given Michelangelo so much trouble that morning, as well as Michelangelo’s assistant Bastiano. Francesco wasn’t surprised to see Asino and di Grassi here—Imperia’s brothel was as popular with the clergy as it was with artists—but he was surprised to see Bastiano. If Michelangelo knew Bastiano was here, where Raphael and his group gathered—let alone with di Grassi, the bane of his very existence—he would fire him immediately, no matter how much he needed him. The same went for Francesco himself, of course, and Francesco tried to catch Bastiano’s eye in a show of solidarity, but the assistant turned away quickly.

  Raphael stepped in at this point. “Not at all, Marcus,” he said, not quite truthfully. “Francesco came to me to ask what should be done. And the first thing to be done was to tell you as gently as possible.”

  Marcus’s anger dissipated as quickly as it had erupted. He trusted Raphael, as they all did. “Where is she now?” he asked, sinking onto one of the chairs beside the fireplace, looking as if he were about to cry.

  “At the mortuary,” Raphael said. “And someone must collect the body without raising any suspicions from the police. I do not think it wise for you to go, Marcus.”

  “She didn’t have a family,” Marcus said quietly. “Well, not in Rome. She had a mother and a sister in Sicily.”

  Imperia had come to her senses and was now sitting up with Chigi’s help. He called for wine, and it was brought. As he gently updated her, it almost seemed she would faint again. “I’ll collect the body,” she said finally. “I thought of her as a sweet younger cousin, and I will say as much. I’ll take my father with me. With his connections at the papal court, we’ll be safe.” Imperia’s father was a favored singer with the Sistine Chapel’s choir.

  “I will pay any fee they ask,” Chigi offered, “and for her burial as well.”

  Imperia thanked him and then asked the question Francesco had expected from Marcus. “Was she still wearing her new ring?”

  Francesco shook his head, glancing reflexively at Raphael for help.

  “Damn that ring!” Marcus said bitterly. “That’s what this is about. She started acting strangely the moment she got it. Who gave it to her? Was it The Turk?” he demanded of Imperia. Francesco could see he wanted to know now more than ever.

  “She refused to say. But she was very proud of it. She would not take it off. How sad that maybe she died for it.”

  “Someone here has to know who gave her that ring!” Marcus insisted. “She must have told someone!” He glared at the spectators gathered in the doorway, and collectively they shrank back. Francesco saw that Asino, di Grassi, and Bastiano were no longer among them.

  “Calm yourself, man!” Raphael commanded. It wasn’t often that Raphael raised his voice, and Marcus obeyed, stepping back and sinking onto the settee next to Imperia, looking utterly defeated.

  So far they’d avoided revealing that the finger was missing along with the ring. Francesco thought this fortunate. It could be a wise idea to hold something back, something only the murderer would know. Still, he should prepare Imperia and spare her the shock of discovery. He would tell her to keep it in confidence.

  It was almost an hour before he was able to talk to Imperia alone, an hour in which Colombo, tears running down his cheeks, sang new songs to Calendula’s beauty. These were not at all unlike the others he’d sung, only this time in the past tense. Her hair was as golden as the sun, her voice was as melodious as a lark, and on it went. Marcus slouched on the settee, Sodoma fanned himself, and Dante stayed wrapped in his cloak, though he emerged long enough to eat some roast chicken. Francesco ate hungrily too, grateful now that he wouldn’t have to spend his coin on a sausage, and if the evening didn’t take on the usual gaiety, at least a measure of normality returned. One of the girls recited a sad poem about a medieval knight who’d lost his love in a raging storm. They listened and then clapped, though not too hard, and Marcus looked like a grieving man should: utterly bereft.

  Though Francesco watched for him, there was no further sign of Bastiano. It bothered him that Bastiano had turned away when he tried to catch his eye. He should have been forming an alliance with Francesco. I won’t tell if you don’t. And what was he doing here with Cardinal Asino and Paride di Grassi? He couldn’t help but think Bastiano was up to no good.

  When he finally found his opportunity to speak with Imperia, she took the news of the missing finger calmly and swore not to tell anyone. She gave him a torch when he left, and he used it to light his way between the large, stately square that was Raphael’s world and the small, squalid one that had become his own. It was well after midnight, and the relentless drizzle spluttered in the torch’s flame. He checked to make sure his dagger was still at his side and walked as quickly as the choked streets would allow, suppressing the urge to cast glances behind him, knowing that with every backward glance he would grow more suspicious.

  It didn’t help that he could hear what sounded like wolves in the distance, a yipping and howling that seemed to come from the hills beyond Trastevere. Could they even be inside the walls? He had never known a wolf to carry off anything other than a sheep, but he was sure the local wolves, like everything here, would be bigger and meaner. He imagined them with ribs protruding under matted coats, blood and saliva dripping from gleaming white fangs as they slunk along in the rain. It was, as Raphael had said, a cursed city. Violence finds people here so easily and for so little reason, he’d said. People were murdered here every day. Men drew their daggers without provocation. The smallest slight or affront to honor, whether real or imagined, could mean death, and an amethyst ring was as good an excuse for murder as any. Everyone in Rome was a Guido del Mare.

  He heard what sounded like footsteps behind him and, pulling out his dagger, reeled around. He swung his torch from side to side, showering the alley with sparks, but saw nothing more than a cat. It dashed in front of him and disappeared over a wall. A black cat, he thought, his heart pounding, and chided himself for this lapse into superstition. All cats looked black in the night, and even if it were truly black, it foretold no ill will. Still, he held his torch high, willing himself to see into dark doorways. But nothing else moved, and so he resumed walking, turning into the alley behind Michelangelo’s house and disturbing a rat as he carefully navigated the rubble.

  From somewhere close by came a dog’s anxious bark, followed by the muted wail of a baby. He paused at the gate, looking longingly at the path that would take him to Susanna’s bed. He now regretted being harsh with her. It would do him good to stretch out beside her and sleep well into the morning. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this tired be
fore, not even that night only a brief two months ago when he had fought Guido del Mare. But that night, his heightened passions and fears had kept him going, and tonight there was nothing but sadness and unease.

  Torch still in hand, he could hear Michelangelo’s snores even before he pushed open the door. The room was deathly cold and damp. The hearth had not seen a fire for another night, and the cabbage soup pot was now collecting drips from the leaky ceiling. The candle on the table was burned down to a stub, and Francesco could see that Michelangelo had been sketching out a new version of The Flood.

  In the drawing, naked figures huddled together on a rock, clutching each other as they waited for the rising waters to carry them away. In the middle of the picture, more naked figures clambered toward a capsizing boat, while in the bottom left-hand corner, more heavily muscled people struggled up a mountainside, bringing with them their babies, their elderly, their household belongings. But they wouldn’t be safe there, either. They had not been admitted to Noah’s ark, and they would soon all die as the waters engulfed them and filled their lungs. The ultimate price for incurring God’s wrath. Whatever Michelangelo’s reasons for tearing out his original fresco of the scene, this sketch showed that what was to replace it would be infinitely better.

  Francesco lifted up the drawing and found another beneath it showing a bearded man straining under the weight of a seemingly lifeless younger man. He traced the outline of the muscled thighs, erotic, beautiful, and frightening in their power. It was as if Michelangelo had taken all the desire he was too prudish to fulfill in life, dipped his brush in it, and spread it across the canvas.

  Michelangelo snorted in his sleep. Francesco looked up from the drawings and, raising the torch, saw him lying on his back, hands under his head, with his elbows jutting out. The chicken roosting on the headboard over Francesco’s side of the bed appeared to be asleep too, if not snoring. It listed to one side, the unused leg sticking out into the air on the other. Michelangelo rolled over, and Francesco feared the light from the torch might be waking him. But he was soon snoring again, and the chicken did its little hop, changed legs, listed to the opposite side, and shat on Francesco’s pillow.