The Ruby Ring (5 page)

Raphael was surprised, and taken off guard—the desired effect, he assumed.
Politics?
he thought.
What on earth has that to do with me?
“I would not dare to offer an opinion on something so important,” he cautiously replied.

“Nonsense. You are among our inner circle here,” Pope Leo nodded, doubling his chin. “And from time to time all of my most intimate members have been called upon to offer keen insight in matters to which I have become too close.”

“Your Holiness knows I am but a simple artist, unqualified to advise someone so great and learned as yourself on matters of state.”

“Ah, but your art betrays you, my son.” He smiled patiently. “Nobility has always come through your paintbrush, as in the grand motif of church history you have brought to life here in our midst.” The pope glanced around them, as if to punctuate his point. “I therefore desire not advice on the matter, but rather your own noble observations.”

Raphael knew, as did everyone within the papal sphere, that Pope Leo wished to remain neutral in the political firestorm for power brewing between France’s young heir, Emperor Maximilian, and Henry VIII in England. Not yet king, nevertheless Franois was endeavoring to form a pact with Spain to obtain Milan and Genoa by matrimonial alliance. He also knew how vexed the pontiff was over what to do in the matter. Pope Leo was a peaceful man, and his prime concern was the independence of the Holy See, and the freedom of Italy.

Knowing this, with the greatest care, Raphael said, “Then, if I am to be tested in this way, Holy Father, I would say that one is prudent to sail with two compasses. Negotiation on all sides for as long as possible seems the most judicious course in any difficulty if peace is the objective.”

“Very well said indeed, my son.” The pope’s rosebud lips lengthened into a more pleased smile. “The truth of the matter,” he conceded a moment later, leaning forward, as if in confidence, “is that this small test was prompted not by me but by Bibbiena.”

That surprised Raphael. Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena had been his first ally at the Vatican, even before Leo ascended to the papacy, and before Raphael had become betrothed to the cardinal’s niece. It was, in fact, Bibbiena’s loggia that had inspired the new pope to commission one of his own, decorated by Raphael, based on the unearthed palace of Nero, called the Domus Aurea.

“His Grace, the cardinal, wonders if perhaps the reason you have yet to marry Maria, after so lengthy a period of betrothal, is because you are not the man of the world you presented yourself to be. And that if you are not qualified to marry his niece, the power and access bestowed upon you here has been in error.”

I have not married Maria Bibbiena because I do not love her, nor can I ever. Knowing that, I can only hurt her, and she does deserve better than a man who sees opportunity in every other woman he meets, and generally partakes of it . . .

“I am saddened to hear that after living among you like this for so many months, my actions alone have not been proof enough of the man I am,” Raphael said instead, his mind filling quickly with images of the thin, pale, and consumptive niece who rarely smiled or spoke.

“You know you have become like a son to me, Raffaello, and care though I do for Bernardo, I cannot bear to think that he might be correct in this, that his Maria is . . . well, that she is too far above you.”

So the sudden examination of current events was apparently the pope’s convoluted way of coming to the true heart of the matter. To, as it were, frighten him into submission. Nor was it a coincidence that he had been summoned to this particular room that, by his hand, remained incomplete for a full year. Or that his greatest rival had been received here first.

So that was what this was about. Not only a censure, and to remind him of his place, but a visual warning of just who would swiftly be there to take over the
stanza
projects—if he failed to put himself back on track.

There were some truths on both sides, and Raphael was determined to have confidence enough to see that through. “I have come to realize that to go through with marriage to Signorina Bibbiena would be the gravest of errors for us both.”

Still the pope was calm. “But did you not, of your own accord, promise yourself to that very young lady of his family whom His Grace offered to you in marriage?”

It seemed a lifetime ago now, and he, someone else entirely. “These past years, Signorina Bibbiena and I have only grown apart, Holy Father.”

“We speak of a marriage, Raffaello
mio,
not some frivolous random matter of the heart! Is it not business for those of the world like ourselves? Bibbiena, who brought you before me, has been good to you, and you have benefited greatly from your association with him and his niece, not to mention, dare we say, with your Holy Father.” He then lowered his watery, bulging-eyed gaze powerfully on Raphael. “No other artist in all the world is on the brink of marrying so high as you are!”

“But, tell me, Holy Father, as payment, do I owe the cardinal my soul?”

It surprised Raphael that the pope gave him a fat, wet-lipped smile. “Your freedom, my boy. Only just that.”

“I cannot give him that!”

“
Santissima Maria!
What is it that you
do
wish?”

“To be free of my promise to marry Maria.”

“And that is the one thing, dear Raffaello
mio,
that is not mine to give you. Nor, for the sake of good Bibbiena’s honor, would I if I could.” A moment later, in the echo of a strained silence, he said, “Michelangelo Buonarroti has just left us.”

“We exchanged our greetings as he departed.”

The pontiff brought his gaze back to Raphael. His full face held a sheen of perspiration, but there was something more in the bulging blue eyes and contrite smile. There had been something underlying in the comment, and the addition of his greatest rival to the conversation. “Did you ask Michelangelo if he had come to Rome to steal your commissions from you?”

Raphael lifted a brow. He felt his jaw tighten. He waited, one beat then two, cautiously choosing the words, and the tone in which he spoke them. Their normally easy manner with one another had swiftly changed. “Did he come to Rome for that, Your Holiness?”

“If he did not tell you, then perhaps it would be best for you to be left to wonder for a while, as it seems a good means of returning you to the focus of your work, and to remembering from where it originates.”

Raphael shrank back a half step, surprised at the frankness of the pontiff whose custom it was to be jovial and affectionate with him. “Holy Father, has my work displeased you in some way?”

“Only your lack of it, Raffaello
mio.
Of the outstanding commissions you hold, I am distressed to see that only the drawings of the
stufetta
for Bibbiena are near completion. And I trust you shall understand my intemperance in being disregarded so that you may begin another Madonna, no matter how magnificent the model. It does tend to chafe at a pontiff waiting for his own official portrait to be complete.”

“At your suggestion only, Holy Father, I have searched for the model these months to complete the commission. I have also had my work at the Chigi funeral chapel, and now, as well, Signor Chigi is pleased enough with my past work to have enlarged his latest request. He has now included a mosaic ceiling to his family’s private chapel. And forgive me for saying that everything seems to have the same deadline of yesterday!”

“Much of it is work, in the initial stages at least, for your many assistants,
non?
”

“The execution, perhaps, Your Holiness, but the concept and structure rest solely with me.”

“Perhaps a new perspective . . . another artist with a bit of youthful vigor to lend you a hand?”

Raphael kept on with his caution. He saw quickly where this was going. “Has Your Holiness someone in mind?”

He scratched his shining chin and the jewels on his fingers glinted in the light. “Michelangelo tells me that his good friend Sebastiano Luciani would be willing to consult on this room.”

The pope was a patient and generous man but he was also a Medici, not given to fully revealing his allegiances to any one in particular. Raphael felt trapped suddenly by that, by his own waning ambition, and by something unexplainable that was drawing him away from the torrent of work before him. He leaned forward and clasped his hands.

“Before I do anything more, this room shall be complete for your more formal audience after Mass on Sunday, if I must work without sleep to make it so. I will need no more assistance on it than that which I already have. And”—he held his arm out flamboyantly, charmingly—“as a crowning glory, a symbol of my indebtedness to you for your patronage—and your most gracious indulgence of me—I shall bring Your Holiness the first sketches for the most glorious, innovative Madonna you can imagine, within a fortnight, and they as well shall be my personal gift to you!”

“This chamber complete?” he pointed, each breath heavy, labored.
“Finally,
by Sunday?”

“Sunday it shall be.”

The pontiff seemed genuinely pleased with Raphael’s groveling, and with his promises. A more sedate smile now lengthened his small, thick lips. It broke the tension that had sprung so suddenly between them. “Well, I am
most
anxious to see it.”

He put a hand on Raphael’s shoulder in a fatherly gesture. The square emerald ring on his last finger sparkled in the light through the long wall of leaded-glass windows. “And what of the women, Raffaello
mio?
Do I have your word that you will cease with your distraction there, at least until some of the outstanding commissions are complete?”

His sharp Medici nostrils flared almost imperceptibly, but Raphael took the warning within the question. Perhaps it was true that Michelangelo had returned to Rome only to inquire after the Julius tomb. Or perhaps it was to advance Sebastiano’s claim. But either way, Raphael must take no chances with the lives and welfare of dozens of assistants who depended upon him, and on the good graces of their pontiff.

“You have my word,” Raphael agreed. And the promise was not all that difficult, drawn as he was, not by the thought of women, but of one woman—the mysterious girl on Il Gianicolo—and his hope that by now Giulio had found out who she was, and where she lived.

O
NCE RAPHAEL
had taken his leave, a tall, exceedingly elegant man with a thick black beard emerged from the collection of cardinals and clerics at the pope’s side. He was clothed in a pumpkin-colored silk tunic and hose, beneath a luxurious fur-trimmed cape of forest-green velvet. A heavy bronze medallion hung from his neck. On either side of the pontiff, yet another crimson-clad cardinal now stood.
Like great ecclesiastical bookends,
thought the wealthy banker, Agostino Chigi. But Giovanni de’ Medici had been his friend before he had taken the title Leo X, and Chigi owed a debt to that stroke of good fortune. He must never forget by whose grace he held a place at the pontiff’s very grand Vatican table, or at his musical parties, and opulent hunting events—those were the places where real policy was made. Chigi had given himself great wealth. Pope Leo had given him the power to use it.

“I say let us enjoy the papacy since God has given it to us,” Pope Leo frequently said. Having been elected pope barely eight months before, he planned to make the most of his life’s appointment. And so he did enjoy it, from food, to music, to an exploration of the most glorious arts. Made a cardinal at age thirteen by the far-reaching powers of his infamous family, he had survived the first papal election, called the first scrutiny, by receiving only a single vote. His supporters bade their time and advised him well. Despite some concern that so youthful a pontiff might not be up to the burden, at the age of thirty-eight, Medici, nevertheless, became Leo X.

Chigi, was a big man on a bull-like frame with a crown of dark, thick rings of hair. He bowed reverently, and kissed the ring on Leo’s plump finger in accordance with the custom. The pope’s hand smelled, not of the many pastries he consumed, but of chicken grease from an earlier meal, Chigi noticed, as repulsed as ever. Giovanni de’ Medici did everything in a grand way. He ate much, drank overly, and enjoyed life to excess, in spite of an inconvenient call to reflection and prayer.

“You heard everything, I presume?”

“Certainly far more than expected, Your Holiness,” Chigi replied in a well-schooled voice, dripping sincerity like honey wine. “I had no idea our dear Raphael was so behind schedule on his commissions for everyone else as well.”

Pope Leo stood, stepped down from the dais, and took Chigi’s arm. They moved slowly together then out of the richly decorated room and into the corridor in time with the pope’s sluggish, shuffling step.

“And it will certainly continue unchanged if he goes forward with more of his Madonnas. I had expected him to be finished with the frescoes for my family chapel at least by All Saints’ Day, since we missed the summer. And of course, Your Holiness awaits the completion of your audience chamber there, which craves the utmost of his personal attention before all else,” Chigi recovered with a deeply deferential nod. “Not to mention your formal portrait, which he has yet even to begin.”

One of the papal secretaries, a balding, slightly stoop-shouldered man named Bembo, dabbed the pontiff’s glistening forehead with a white silk kerchief, edged in Venetian lace, as they walked. “He trusts you, does he not?”

“I believe it is so, Your Holiness, for it was I who brought him to Rome in the first place.”

Pope Leo imperiously stroked his chin with two of the fat fingertips.
“Molto bene.
Then we shall direct him to proceed with the works for you before all others.”

“It must not be! Your Holiness is first in all things!”

He held up a firm hand. “Patience, Agostino
mio.
It is the greatest of the virtues. Having Raffaello tied closely to you shall serve greatly to enhance your hold over him. And a trusting friend is one who speaks freely. A more approachable friend to him shall suit me. Only someone who has the benefit of his intimacy will know when it is his appetites, and his women, who stand alarmingly in the way of his production. We needs be apprised continually of where the center of his heart truly lies. For without Raffaello’s full attention, he shall never be able to give us the volume of work we desire.”