The Ruby Ring by Diane Haeger

raked his hands back through his hair and gazed down at the image. He had offered her all that he could. But something was holding her back. Something over which even the great Raphael of Urbino had no control. It was, lately, a theme of his life, he chuckled ruefully to himself. The more things he tried to harness, the more they slipped from his reach. The work was like that, a blinding and varied host of commissions with which even he, and a collection of vibrant, powerful assistants and apprentices, could barely keep pace because, at the heart of it, he would always compare himself with his great mentor, Leonardo da Vinci.
    And even with his great rival, Michelangelo—for whom work
was
life.
    He glanced down again at the red chalk drawing and felt an unexpected shiver. It was beyond him, and for now, so was she.
    Raphael closed the folio, stepped back, and glanced around his workshop until his eyes rested upon Giulio, who, at eighteen, was his youngest senior assistant. So full of raw, natural talent, he thought, yet plagued by a hesitation he had not yet been allowed to understand. Raphael went to his table and stood over Giulio’s shoulder as he sketched the flawlessly featured boy whose light curls were like soft locks of gold curled softly near his face. Raphael wondered where Giulio had found so perfect a youth, one whose bare chest was hairless, sculptured and smooth as alabaster. The master watched his assistant work, filling in the contours of the cheek with a perfectly blended bowl of flesh-toned paint one of the young students had mixed for him.
    Raphael looked back and forth from the model to the sketch, and noticed it then—the bright red slash across Giulio’s smooth, beardless cheek. The area was raised and gone purple, and the small place where the flesh had been broken was at its center.
    “
Caro?
What happened?” Raphael said softly as he worked on.
    Giulio did not answer at first but continued to work intensely, daubing at the image with the tip of his charcoal pencil stub. “It is only a scratch,” he finally acknowledged, still not turning away from the sketch. “Do not be concerned. It is nowhere near the eyes I need to work.”
    The comment, and the sentiment behind it, were jarring to Raphael. These were men with whom he worked and worried—with whom he broke bread and drank wine. They became a family. Giulio Romano was no exception.
    “Leave this,” he instructed, taking the chalk from Giulio’s hand and laying it gently on the cluttered table between them. “You may rest,” Raphael called to the model, who very swiftly rose from the hard stool, covered his own tautly muscular body with a muslin drape, and walked barefoot to the fire across the room to warm himself.
    “What has happened? Who has done this to you?” he asked gently. “Was it your father again?”
    “It is truly nothing,
mastro mio.
Only a scratch. You must not concern yourself with such trifles.”
    “You are my friend, Giulio, my good friend.
You
concern me. And your mind and hand are every bit as gifted as mine. I have only had more practice and time.”
    As Raphael spoke gently, Giulio seemed to soften. “It was a street fight only. Truly it was. After I had drunk far too much good trebbiano last night, I was unwise with my words, and this ugly plum on my face will remind me of that for a good while to come.”
    Raphael wanted to believe him. The panel and its oil paints, the communion of the hand and brush, created a unique kind of brotherhood into which few were admitted. But there was something else that had bound them like family. A conversation, a confidence shared on a different occasion, months ago, when Giulio had seemed more trusting.
My father, he sometimes takes out the strains of his day, the disappointments of his life, on me. He hates that I wish to be an artist. He believes I should desire a future more certain for myself. He wishes a life for me . . . things, I have never wished for