The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi

by Jacqueline Park

  “Anything,” I answered.

  “My wife. I know how you feel about her. But I must ask you. Will you watch over her and my little boys. Will you, Grazia?”

  “I promise to love your sons and care for them as if they were my own children,” I answered without hesitation. “As for Ricca, I cannot say that I will love her as a sister, for she will never be a sister of mine. But I will respect her as your wife and the mother of your children. More I cannot promise, Jehiel.”

  “More I cannot ask,” he answered. Then he finally leaned down and kissed me firmly on the mouth, as if to seal our bargain. “Now I must be off.” He straightened up. “But first I have something for you.” He reached into his pocket and took out a small filigree case.

  “This is an amulet to bring you good fortune.” He placed the little case in my hand. “Is something wrong, Grazia?”

  Three days after jehiel’s flight from Mantova we received a coded message from Roma announcing his safe arrival and we all rejoiced, even Judah. Our jubilation was short-lived. The next day the dispatch rider from Ferrara brought us news that the dei Rossi banco and all its assets had been confiscated by the Ferrarese bargello and that my cousin Asher was a prisoner in the dungeon of the castello, accused of conspiracy to commit treason.

  Judah announced at once that he was going to Ferrara to seek Asher’s release.

  “Then I shall go too,” I announced.

  “I will go alone,” Judah replied in a firm voice which brooked no argument. “There are scholars close to the Duke who know me, one old Greek in particular who might be persuaded to speak for us.”

  “What use is reason with a man like Alfonso d’Este?” I argued. “He is whimsical and cruel just like his sister.”

  “Can you suggest a better alternative, then?”

  “Bribery?” I suggested.

  “The Duke already has confiscated the banco and the warehouses. What have we left to bargain with?”

  “I have some gems,” I replied. “Entrusted to me by La Nonna. Perhaps for just such a purpose. Will you take them with you?”

  Judah nodded his assent. “And husband,” I added, “do not hesitate to give every last one for my cousin’s life.”

  “I will do everything within my power to rescue our beloved Asher,” he replied. “But you, in return, must make a pledge to me.”

  “And that is?”

  “Not to give way to premature grief,” he answered. “It is an offense to God to mourn the living. Remember that God is just and keep believing that, no matter how dark the future looks. Your faith and virtue will be rewarded.”

  And our sins too, I thought to myself with an aching heart. For I could not help but feel that the taking of Asher was God’s price for Jehiel’s apostasy and my own.

  Six anxious days went by without a word from Ferrara. On the seventh day, Judah arrived home leading a ragged column that included my brother Gershom; Penina, cradling a sleeping Sarabella; two nurses, each with one of Jehiel’s twins on her arm; and Ricca, carrying her older boy, his jacket wet with the tears that gushed from his mother’s eyes in a never-ending stream.

  The moment they came to a stop Ricca shoved her older boy into my arms. “Here. Take my poor orphan, Grazia,” she instructed me. Whereupon the child, terror-stricken already by the fright of the journey, took one look at my astonished face and began to squall loud enough to wake a deaf beggar in the Piazza San Pietro.

  Of course his cry was all that was needed to signal to his brothers. Until that moment they had appeared quite the serene little pair. Now, having gotten their go-ahead from him, they joined in the caterwaul. This in turn set off Sarabella, no mean wailer. And of course shutters flew open all up and down the street to give the neighbors a good view of the dei Rossi circus. The only thing to be said for this absurd scene was that it silenced Ricca for a short time. But the moment the infants had been quieted and put down for the night, she took center stage and commenced a peroration worthy of Antigone or some other great wronged heroine.

  “Woe is me! Woe is me! Everything gone. My beautiful house. My fine silver service. My beautiful rock crystal vessel with the ormolu mounting.” And on and on until every last item had been individually mourned. After that, without taking a breath, she went on to part two of the lamentation: “What will happen to me now, tied to a renegade, deserted, my poor children unprotected? How could he leave me here buried, neither wife nor widow? I cannot mourn, nor can I marry.” Not a single word of concern for her brother, incarcerated in the Este dungeon, nor of the death sentence under which her husband now lived. Nothing but her lack of money and a man.

  It was not until this geyser of ill will ceased to erupt that I was able to talk to Judah alone and get a report on his mission to Ferrara. The news turned out to be even worse than I had feared. Quite simply, the Estes were not approachable on the subject of the dei Rossi family. Judah had not even gotten close enough to the Duke to offer him the sack of jewels.

  “Feeling in Ferrara is running high against Jehiel,” he told me. “Not only at the court but among the people as well. Everywhere I went I heard men cursing Vitale the Jew-Witch, as they call him.”

  “And Asher?”

  “He is in the custody of the inquisitor. They question him every day. My friend at court tells me they are convinced he knows Jehiel’s whereabouts.”

  “But that is not true!” I cried.

  “You and I know that. But the inquisitor does not. There are witnesses against Asher.”

  “What witnesses? Who could hate him enough to lie about him? He never did a moment’s harm to anyone.”

  “They’ve got some blind old stableman who babbles any slander that comes into his head about your family.”

  “Old Nachum?”

  “I believe that is the name. And there’s another one. That rascal Giorgio who used to be your grandmother’s steward.”

  It seemed poetically just that these two who had been favored for their evil ways should end by turning their malice on the masters who had trained them to it. But why must Asher suffer for the sins of others, he the most honorable, the most innocent?

  “Were you able to see him?” I asked.

  “I could not, but Dorotea is allowed in. She takes food to him every day.”

  “How is he?”

  He did not answer.

  “Tell me, husband, I must know.”

  “There are some things better not known.”

  “In your philosophy, not mine,” I retorted. “I want to know.”

  “Very well,” he sighed. “His heart is not strong. They put him to the torture every day. If the inquisitor does not give him relief soon, then God surely will. That is the judgment of my friend, the Greek physician who attends him. Meanwhile we must put our faith in God’s mercy.”

  But I had not his serene faith in God’s beneficence. Asher was still alive. There was still time to act. And one last resort remained to me.

  The next morning I wrote a note to Madonna Isabella requesting an audience. She had wanted me to humble myself. Very well, I would. I would have bowed down before the devil to save my cousin.

  A reply came from the Reggio within the hour. The illustrissima would be pleased to grant me an audience that afternoon. The language penned by Madama’s secretary was cold and formal. But the readiness of the reply bespoke a warmth that gave me hope.

  I was not delayed in the anteroom, nor was I required to make my petition in the presence of the full court. The moment Madama caught sight of me she beckoned me forward and extended her hand to be kissed in a most cordial manner. Then she dismissed her entourage saying, “This lady, Madonna Grazia Ebrea, is an old friend whom we have not seen in many years. We will speak to her in private.”

  As you know, the meaning of the word “privacy” is not quite the same in courts as in everyday life. When the cour
t withdrew, we were still left in the company of some half-dozen of Madama’s maidens and two footmen. Nevertheless the easy familiarity of her manner suggested that she would not rub my nose in my capitulation now that she had me back in her orbit.

  “Grazia . . .” She held out her arms, the fingers bejeweled as ever but more pudgy than I remembered. “Come near and tell us of your literary work. We have heard it praised extravagantly.”

  “The illustrissima is too kind,” I replied.

  “How can I be, not having seen the pages? I can only repeat what I hear. Maestro Judah speaks highly of this scholarly work of yours.”

  “He is my husband, ma’am. How could he speak otherwise?”

  “Oh, he could. And would. I have known your honorable husband longer than you have and I know him incapable of uttering a falsehood even if he wished to do so. Now tell me what this work is to be called.”

  Of course the last thing I wanted to talk of was my damned book. But if I was to do my cousin Asher any good, I must not only endure the prattle but pretend to enjoy it.

  “It is called simply The Book of Heroines, ma’am,” I replied. “It deals with the lives of heroic women.”

  “You mean virtuous women?”

  “No, ma’am,” I answered. “I mean women who abound with that quality of virtu that men strive for so mightily.”

  “You speak of courage, then?”

  “Courage, yes. And constancy. And boldness.”

  “And have you found many of these women to extol?”

  “The problem I have faced is not so much who to put in as who to leave out,” I answered. “The world abounds with women of spirit: the Amazons, the Sibyls, the goddesses of the ancient world . . .”

  “You mean to include goddesses?”

  “I take my position with Maestro Boccaccio, madonna. As he explains it, these goddesses and seers were women like ourselves. But because of their surpassing beauty or intelligence or courage, ignorant folk tended to impute supernatural powers to them. Abetted by the poets, of course.”

  “And you intend not to fall into that error?” she inquired with only slight sarcastic edge.

  “I am using Maestro Boccaccio’s method as my guide,” I replied. “But in some respects I have followed my own inclinations. For instance, since he has already covered the great women of the ancient world, I will include only the ones I cannot bear to leave out, such as Dido.”

  “Ah yes, Dido,” she sighed. And then proceeded to quote from Virgil’s version of the story Dido’s final curse on Aeneas:

  If there is any power for righteousness in Heaven,

  you will drink to the dregs the cup of punishment . . .

  and, as you suffer, cry “Dido” again and again.

  Though far, yet I shall be near, haunting you

  with flames of blackest pitch. And when death’s chill

  has parted my body from its breath, wherever you go,

  my specter will be there.

  “I was in love with Virgil’s Dido when I was a girl,” I told her. “But lately I have come to prefer Boccaccio’s version of her story.”

  “And to what do you attribute that lapse of taste?” she inquired with some asperity.

  “Lapse of taste it may be, madonna,” I agreed sweetly, “but I find I can no longer accept a love slave for my heroine. Virgil’s Dido is a woman so enamored of a man that when she is spurned by him she chooses to immolate herself rather than live with the loss. That woman is a man’s creation,” I asserted.

  “And is the divine Dante, who chose to view Dido in a similar light to Virgil and condemned her to the second circle of Hell for her lustfulness — is he also a mere man in your eyes?”

  “A sublime poet but withal, yes, a man,” I asserted boldly. “After all, the poet chooses his angle of vision. Dante and Virgil chose a Dido spurred on to her frightful death by lasciviousness. Boccaccio chose a queen who went to her death rather than betray her true husband. I throw in my lot with Maestro Boccaccio.”

  “And against Dante and Virgil together,” she reminded me. “Such an audacious author will need the protection of a powerful patron when the Dante-worshippers unleash their arrows at her.”

  That this advice concealed a tentative offer of sponsorship I could not doubt. Now the question was: What price did she set upon her endorsement? And her next question clearly indicated the direction of her interest.

  “Tell me, Grazia,” she drawled, stifling a yawn to indicate her indifference to the subject. “By what process have you selected your heroines?”

  “I mean to include many more modern women than Maestro Boccaccio did in his time,” I answered. “With only a sprinkling of the ancients, as I say, to establish the model.”

  “And these modern women, who are they? Who, in your judgment, exemplify heroism in our time?”

  “Caterina Sforza, the Virago of Forli, is one,” I replied.

  “Poor woman.” She managed to work up the appropriate expression of compassion. “I fear she is no longer the heroine she once was. Her encounter with Cesare Borgia apparently took the starch out of her. I hear her looks are quite ruined since he ravaged her.”

  “But not her great heart, illustrissima,” I answered. “The woman who so courageously defended Forli against two rapacious popes cannot be ignored when one totes up a list of heroines.”

  “I suppose not,” she answered, somewhat petulantly. “But surely all your heroines need not ride around brandishing swords and wearing breastplates in order to prove their virtu.”

  “Not at all. I merely mention the lady of Forli because her exploits are so astonishing.”

  “Sì, sì, sì.” She tapped her finger against her palm impatiently. “But who else?”

  “A young woman I knew in Firenze who is the inspiration for this book. A Jewess of no particular talent or notoriety who gave her life for the love of a child.”

  “Another dead one,” she pointed out. “Who else?”

  “I have considered your illustrious sister of beloved memory, Duchess Beatrice of Milano.”

  “Quite so.” She nodded.

  “Considering that she had not yet reached the age of twenty-two when childbed fever took her, her accomplishments are all the more admirable. I believe that she was barely seventeen when her illustrious husband sent her to represent him before the Venetian Senate.”

  “Eight days short of eighteen,” she corrected me.

  “And the court over which she presided . . .” I continued.

  “Shone with a light that illuminated all of Italy,” she finished the sentence for me. “Ah me, if we who love so much to spend money had but half of the wealth that my honorable brother-in-law lavished on my honorable sister.” She sighed deeply, moved by her own valiant efforts to achieve her sister’s illustriousness with so much less in the way of resources. Then, because she has never been a woman to waste time or emotion on regret, she went back to her subject with renewed vigor.

  “But Grazia, my honorable sister is, alas, dead like so many of your candidates. Even Caterina Sforza of Forli is more dead than alive right now. Who do you have that is alive and breathing?”

  “A young scholar in Firenze whom I met but once and who has immured herself in a convent for life in order to pursue scholarship. Her father has completely disowned her because she refuses to marry.”

  “A decision I find quite incomprehensible,” she rejoined. “For surely we women are meant to be married. Why else has God arranged the race in two sexes?”

  Dio mio. Would I now be obliged to enter into a prolonged disputa on the subject of scholarly abstinence? But no. In one of those whimsical reversals that characterize her nature, she left off sparring with me, leaned forward in a most confidential manner. “I saw an old friend of yours last week in Bozzuolo.”

  I was damned if I would rise to
the bait.

  “He was very eager for news of you. Don’t you want to know who it is, Grazia?” I knew perfectly well, but I refused to be trapped in her snare. Whereupon she shrugged and in an abrupt change of subject asked, “What news do you have from Ferrara? I understand that your brother Maestro Vitale has landed himself in serious trouble with my brother the Duke.” At last.

  “But it is not Maestro Vitale who has reaped the punishment,” I hastened to explain. “The one being tortured in the dungeon is my cousin Asher, who is totally blameless in the affair.”

  “And this cousin is very dear to you?”

  “As dear as my brothers,” I answered. “Oh, madama, could you, would you intercede for him?”

  “I could and I would, Grazia,” she replied. “But that leaves unanswered the important question: Will my intercession do your cousin any good? My brother is bitterly disappointed by the death of his heir and full of vengeance against your family.”

  “But the soothsaying was my brother Jehiel’s doing, not Asher’s.”

  “When it comes to satisfying a vendetta, one member of the family is as good as another,” she remarked. “Were the little children of the Ordelaffi family responsible for the assassination of Girolamo Riario? Your heroine Caterina Sforza knew them to be blameless. Yet she slaughtered them all, babes and women alike, in vengeance for her husband’s death. That is the way of a vendetta.”

  Of course she was correct. That is the way of vengeance. But just this once I prayed, just this time, let it be different.

  “By the way, Grazia . . .” I was jarred out of my supplication by the hard drawl of our earlier conversation. “About your Book of Heroines and who is to be in it . . . I would be disappointed to learn that you did not consider me fit company for the spinster scholar of Firenze and the rest. But I wish you to understand that my offer to petition my brother on your cousin’s behalf in no way represents a bid for membership in your sisterhood. I make the offer as a disinterested act of sympathy for one who, like me, is bound by indissoluble bonds of love for her family. I do not need to be bribed to be kind.”