by Debbie Rix
When he met Maria and Roshinara in China, he was bewitched by Maria’s pale aquiline eyes, as if they were possessed of some kind of supernatural power. He was so taken with the beauty of mother and daughter that he asked dei Conti for permission to paint them, seated beneath a blossom tree, with their dark hair trailing down their backs and both wearing a shade of blue that perfectly matched their eyes. He had shown the painting to the Emperor, who had been equally fascinated. A talented artist himself, the Emperor had also expressed a desire to paint the mother and daughter, and so Roshinara and young Maria sat patiently for him too, throughout one warm spring, allowing him to record their beauty forever. It occurred to dei Conti that the Emperor might be minded to take his beautiful daughter for one of his own concubines, but fortunately the Emperor had only recently acquired a new consort, and his Empress was already jealous and proving difficult. Another young girl in the household, especially one with turquoise eyes, would be nothing more than trouble.
Shortly afterwards, the family left the Emperor’s court and made their way overland and thence by sea to the island of Sumatra, where they were to rendezvous with the Admiral and say their farewells.
After dinner in his impressive private cabin on board the lead vessel of his fleet, the Admiral clapped his hands and a stream of servants brought in a selection of precious items, which were then set out in front of the dining guests and displayed ceremoniously on tables. There was a golden casket; a pair of paintings featuring little monkeys at play, painted by the Emperor himself; a dark red writing desk – a popular colour in the Emperor’s court; and lastly, a blue and white vase, decorated with a dragon which chased around its centre.
‘My friend,’ the Admiral said with due reverence to his dining companion. ‘My Emperor would be honoured if you would take these items back to Italy with you. They are a gift for the Doge from my Emperor. He sends his good wishes to his trading partner and wishes him long life. The vase, or jar, in particular will bring good luck; it is decorated with the most powerful of all symbols – the dragon.’
He clapped his hands once again and a young man entered the cabin holding the painting of Roshinara and Maria that the Emperor had painted before they left. ‘He would like you to take this picture too; it is not a gift for the Doge you understand, but a personal gift to you.’
Dei Conti bowed deeply. ‘You must tell your Emperor that I am deeply honoured that he has seen fit to bestow this beautiful painting on me and my family. As for the other items, I shall guard them with my life and they will be presented to the Doge as soon as I arrive in Venice.’
When the diners finished their meal, the gifts were carefully packed, wrapped in paper, and then again in silken cloth, placed in sturdy wooden chests, and winched from the Admiral’s vast ship onto dei Conti’s smaller vessel.
The pieces had travelled by sea and overland with the family since that time. In the eight years that it took them to return from Sumatra to Italy, via India and Arabia, they had hardly left dei Conti’s sight. But trouble struck as they attempted to enter Egypt. Niccolò’s plan was that they would sail up the Red Sea and make land there. They would then take their goods overland, following the path of the Nile, to Cairo and thence to Alexandria, where they would join with other merchants and passengers on a boat that could sail them through the Mediterranean and back to Venice. But at the border with Egypt, all sorts of difficulties erupted. It was forbidden for any European to trade with Persia or India at that time, and Niccolò had long ago adopted a disguise when travelling – passing himself off as a merchant from Persia. He had learnt the language many years before, when he first studied in Persia; it was almost a second language to him and he was confident in it. His Indian wife lent some veracity to this deception and they were used to playing the part of Persian merchant and wife. But at the border, the guards suspected something was not right and began to open and inspect the various crates and trunks that Niccolò had so carefully protected on their long journey. His goods were seized and the family thrown into gaol. Terrified, Niccolò nevertheless remonstrated with the guards to, at least, release his beloved wife and family. They languished for over a week in the filthy gaol, with its appalling food and surrounded by people with all manner of illness and suffering.
On the eighth day, Niccolò demanded to be seen. He offered goods as part-payment to get the family out of trouble. Some of his precious cargo of spices was taken. But still they would not allow the family to leave. Finally, he was presented with an ultimatum: convert to Islam, and you will be allowed to go. It was not a difficult decision for him to make. By the following evening he and his family were safely out of gaol and they had been reunited with most of their possessions. Spices and some lengths of cloth were missing, but the vast collection of porcelain that he hoped to trade back in Venice and, most importantly, the items he had been presented with by the Admiral, were secure.
The family, along with their retinue of servants, followed the path of the Nile all the way to Cairo. But on the outskirts of that city, little Dario became ill. Roshinara was desperate that they rest for a few days and take care of the child.
‘Niccolò, we cannot look after Dario whilst we are travelling; he is sick and is struggling to breathe; he needs to rest; please let us stop somewhere and care for him.’
Niccolò was concerned that he would be unable to keep their goods secure in Cairo. Warehouses were hard to come by and he had no agent in that city to manage the situation. And so he made a decision, later regretted, to send a young apprentice on ahead to Alexandria with their goods, accompanied by most of his household. The young man was instructed to make for the port of Alexandria and meet with Niccolò’s agent who would then stow his precious cargo in a warehouse at the port under the watchful eyes of paid guards. Niccolò watched the caravan of goods and men snaking out into the dark night with a sense of foreboding.
The family took rooms on the outskirts of the city. Roshinara cared for Dario with the help of the two servants who remained with them – a Sumatran couple that had been with Niccolò for many years. The man, Chahaya, and his wife, Kade, were not quite as old as Niccolò, but had been with the family for so long, travelling wherever they went, that they were almost like alternative parents to the children. The two older children stayed together in another room. Little Magdalena spent much of her time curled up at the end of her little brother’s bed. Niccolò had business in Cairo, and whilst Dario appeared to be suffering from no more than a slight illness, he busied himself meeting old acquaintances and making arrangements for the next leg of their journey on to Alexandria.
On the second morning, Dario appeared to rally and Niccolò began to believe that they could perhaps set off the following day and, with luck, catch up with their caravan of goods. But later that night the child began to vomit violently. As the night wore on, he struggled for breath and soon was coughing up blood. His fever raged and in spite of Roshinara’s best efforts to lower it, nothing would bring it down. The next morning he was no better – coughing blood, vomiting. It was almost impossible to get any water into the child, for as soon as he drank he either brought it back up or it raced through his body, causing him to curl up with pain.
Towards the middle of that second afternoon, when the heat of the day was almost at its zenith, and the room in which Dario lay was like a furnace, the poor child’s lungs finally collapsed and he stopped breathing.
Roshinara was in despair, begging her husband to help the child. But there was nothing Niccolò could do. He knew what had taken his child. He had seen the symptoms many times. It was a form of the plague – and he knew too, that his wife, servants and daughter were all now at risk from the same disease. Those who nursed the sick were almost certain to catch the illness.
Within hours, his fears were realised, as both Roshinara and little Magdalena, and then Chahaya and Kade, all began to vomit, while struggling for breath, and bringing up blood. Magdalena, who was only ten years old, went first. She barely lasted
a full day before the illness took her.
Niccolò refused to allow his other two children anywhere near the sick members of the family.
‘You are not to come in’, he said to Maria and Daniele. ‘I will cope with it. And if it takes me too, you are to go on to Alexandria, meet the shipment and go to Venice as planned; do you understand, Maria?’
‘Yes, Papa, of course. But I must nurse Mamma.’
‘No! I will not lose you too.’
Once, when Niccolò had been living in Damascus, he had observed that the nurses who survived the epidemic kept their headscarves wrapped around their faces. They believed the illness was carried on the air, and so Niccolò unwrapped his turban and wound the length of cloth tightly around his face while caring for his patients. His two beloved servants only lasted another few hours. They were both dead by nightfall. But Roshinara fought the illness hard. She drifted in and out of consciousness, and in her lucid moments she wept for her lost children and gripped Niccolò’s hand. ‘God help our other children. Niccolò; do not let them in here… You must keep them safe.’
‘I promise, Roshinara; they will go on, whatever happens to us, back to Venice.’
Roshinara slept fitfully through that night. Her coughing became worse, and she struggled for breath. Niccolò tried to make her comfortable, soaking a rag in water and squeezing it into her mouth. She too began to vomit uncontrollably, until there was nothing left but water and bile. She curled up in agony as the illness scorched its way through her bowels. Blood projected from her mouth with the bile, as her lungs collapsed. And finally, late on the third night, while holding her husband’s hand, he felt her energy simply evaporate; her grip loosened and he was left clutching her small lifeless hand in his.
The fear of the plague was such that anyone who had been taken by the illness had to be buried as soon as possible. Respectful always of other religions, aware that his servants were both devout Muslims and that his own wife had been born into the Islamic faith, Niccolò bathed the bodies of his beloved wife and children, along with Chahaya and Kade, before wrapping them in cloth, as is the Islamic custom. Then he carried their bodies out into the night and loaded them onto a cart. He drove out into the desert and buried them by the light of the moon. He prayed most earnestly for their eternal souls, initially falling back into the Catholic practices of his youth and mouthing the Requiescat over the grave of his wife and beloved children. He said the Muslim prayer for souls – the Janazah prayer – over the graves of Kade and Chahaya. He did not mark his family’s grave with a cross, not wishing it to be desecrated later, but simply brushed the sand over the place where they lay. As he climbed into the cart, ready to drive back to Cairo, he thought better of it, and found a few stones and laid them in a pile over the area; one for each person who rested beneath.
Desperate and exhausted, he returned to Cairo, and retreated to the room where his wife’s body had lain just a few hours before. There he slept the dark, deep sleep of those for whom unconsciousness can provide the only respite for despair.
He was woken by a soft hand brushing his cheek. The room was suffused with a golden glow, as the sun cast sharp shards of early morning light through the unshuttered window. For a moment, as he lay between sleep and wakefulness, the traumas of the previous days were obliterated.
‘Roshinara,’ he murmured, taking the hand and kissing it.
‘Papa,’ whispered Maria.
He opened his eyes, blinking against the bright light, and looked around him. The beds where his wife and children had lain just a few hours earlier were now just a pile of crumpled, soiled linen.
‘Papa, where is Mamma? Oh, please tell me she has not gone.’
The memory of the previous night flooded back, accompanied by deep despair. He looked up at his daughter’s sweet, frightened face.
‘I’m afraid she has, cara. God took her in the night. She is sleeping now with the babies.’
‘You should have woken me.’
‘No,’ he said, sadly. ‘It was better this way. You will remember her as she was in life… The plague is a vicious and unforgiving master. I could not risk you coming near.’
‘And Magdalena and Chahaya and Kade…?’
‘All gone…’ He turned his face away from her, towards the wall, anxious that she should not see his tears.
‘But you were with them all the time… What about you? What if it takes you too?’ She began to cry, and reached out for her father, desperate for him to hold her.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said, sitting up; he was determined to be strong for her. ‘I was careful; the nurses in Damascus showed me what to do many years ago. You must not breathe the same air. I wish with all my heart that I had realised what was wrong with Dario sooner, perhaps I could have saved Magdalena and your mother as well as Chahaya and Kade. But they are all gone… Due to my stupidity. I will never forgive myself.’
His determination to contain his emotions evaporated suddenly. He buried his head in his hands and wept.
His daughter attempted to comfort him. ‘It is not your fault, Papa; they must have become ill when we were in gaol.’ She reached out once again and tried to wrap him in her arms.
‘No!’ he said, recoiling from her. ‘You must not come close to me. Not till we are sure that I do not carry the illness. I will keep apart from you all. Now you must wake Daniele and tell him what has happened. We must get on to Alexandria as quickly as possible; go now.’
They left their lodgings as the sun rose over the city. The sound of the Muezzins calling the faithful to prayer filled the air.
‘Papa, please. You must take us to their grave before we leave,’ begged Maria.
Reluctantly, Niccolò retraced his steps and the family said prayers for their mother and young brother and sister. Maria, who had taken a few rose petals from the garden of their lodgings, sprinkled them over the stones. Then, with the sun beating down, they set off for Alexandria; Niccolò up ahead leading the way, his scarf still tightly wrapped round his mouth, the children following on behind. As they journeyed on towards the Mediterranean, dei Conti cursed his bad luck. Somewhere in his distraught, exhausted mind, he began to believe that he should never have allowed the dragon vase to be sent on to Alexandria with his other goods. It was a talisman of good fortune and he had recklessly sent it away at the time he needed it most. Perhaps if he had kept it close he might not have lost his beloved Roshinara and children.
The journey took fifteen days. By night the family camped out in the desert, the children huddled together for warmth in the cold desert nights; Niccolò slept fitfully alone, desperate not to pass on any illness to his remaining children. But by the time they were approaching Alexandria, he began to believe that he had, perhaps, been spared. He removed his scarf and allowed the children to hug him once more.
Once reunited with his possessions, he hardly let them out of his sight. The ship they were due to board was already loaded with a vast cargo to be taken back to Venice. It was one of three thousand merchant ships sailing regularly between Venice and Alexandria. The captain Marco was a man of great experience. He warmly welcomed the family on board, and their goods were stowed in the great bowels of the ship. But the barrel containing the precious vase was not kept with the other porcelain in the hold. Instead, dei Conti had it placed in his own cabin. A tiny space, with scarcely enough room for the bare necessities of life, it made getting into his bed difficult, but he was determined that he would keep the vase close in order to protect his family from further disaster.
Their journey through the Mediterranean was uncomfortable. Rats scuttled between the decks. Fleas and lice were commonplace. The sleeping quarters were cramped and insanitary. There was a stench below decks that pervaded the whole ship, and the passengers spent much of their time up on deck, in all weathers. Food was sparse and repetitive – salted fish, a small ration of water each day, and dry biscuits. They docked in Crete for fresh supplies and watched with delight as fruit and olives we
re brought on board.
Niccolò, as an experienced traveller, knew that the major threat to a ship such as theirs was not insanitary conditions or bad food but pirates. The eastern Mediterranean was under constant threat from bands of pirates seizing ships for their valuable cargo and passengers. If the ship were taken, the older passengers would almost certainly be killed. But young girls like Maria were more likely to be taken into slavery and face a desperate future serving the needs of a pirate captain, or even to be sold off to the highest bidder. Their ship, however, was part of the Venetian government’s fleet, and as such was safely escorted through the eastern Mediterranean by a military escort. The journey passed, miraculously, without any confrontation, and by the time they reached the tip of Italy, Marco informed them that the risk of capture was over. In spite of the devastating events in Egypt and the hardships they had encountered along the way, the dei Conti family found some kind of peace on this final leg of their journey. The weather, for the most part, was kind to them and when they were not eating together, Niccolò spent much of his time writing, while the children sat up on deck watching the horizon, chatting to the other passengers, or singing songs they had learned on their travels.
Up on deck, Maria wrapped her shawl around her shoulders. The breeze was refreshing, but the previous night’s illness had made her chilly and a little weak. Daniele, her younger brother, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her cheek, before taking his place beside her.
‘I heard you last night. You are unwell.’ The anxiety in his voice was palpable.
‘It was nothing darling – just sea sickness.’ She looked deeply into his dark brown eyes. ‘Honestly.’
‘It’s just that it reminded me… You know? Hearing you like that… Of Mamma and…’ he broke off.
‘I know, but it was just seasickness. Not the same thing as the others had… Really.’ She took his hand in hers and kissed it. ‘Look out there – keep your eyes on the horizon. We will soon see the home of our beloved father.’
