The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (14 page)

“I will try my best if such is needed by Papa . . . and by you,
illustrissimo
Duca.” I had never addressed a duke before, but that seemed to be the way to do it.

“Even though you don’t know what a
barratiero
is?”

“As Publius tells us, ‘No one knows what he can do until he tries,’” I replied.

That made him laugh out loud and agree at once that I must be the
barratiero
, which I discovered meant the croupier. Then he put the three dice into the cup and instructed me how to run the game, not a complicated task but one that demanded good nerves and perfect control, as I was to find out. After a few practice rolls of the three dice, the Duke instructed me to begin. “And remember,” he admonished me, “a vast fortune rides on your throw.”

I placed the three dice in the cup and began to shake it. “Place your bets, gentlemen,” I chanted in a shaky voice. “What numbers will you have?”

“Seven,” Papa announced firmly.

“Nine!” the Duke snapped back. “Roll out the dice, girl.”

With a trembling hand I shook the cup and threw the dice onto the green cloth. Out they rolled: a four, a second four, and a one.

“Zara!” The Duke’s shout reverberated through the echoing audience hall.

Papa’s shoulders sagged slightly. Beyond that I saw no sign that he was distressed or even disappointed. But the Duke gave free rein to his delight, clapping his hands and crowing over my father as if he had bested him in the most grueling joust.

“Too bad, Daniele. Too bad for the Jews. But you cannot deny I won fairly with your own daughter as the
barratiero
.”

“Indeed I cannot, sir,” Papa answered calmly. “The ducats are yours. You won them fairly.”

“And the
grido
stands,” the Duke reminded him, rubbing salt into the wound. “Now what say you to a drink of wine to celebrate my victory?”

“I would be honored, sir,” Papa replied.

“And while we drink I will send a page to show the little ones my menagerie,” said the Duke, once again the soul of kindness.

A snap of his fingers brought a pretty page, and before we knew it we were whisked up to the
piano nobile
on a staircase so grand — Jehiel counted forty-seven steps in all — that we had to stop for breath on the colonnaded landing. Still winded, we were hustled through a series of painted rooms, all with windows of glass, stuccowork fireplaces, and frescoed ceilings. This efflorescence of
lusso
brought a glow of excitement and pleasure to my little brother’s face. His feet fairly danced along as we descended into the open fields behind the villa. But I had lost my spirit back in the Duke’s
sala
. My mind kept returning to the fateful game of Zara and to what lay in store for Papa, an expectation so grim that I hardly noticed the exotics in the Este menagerie — a tame wolf walking free, a panther in a cage, a giraffe.

It took a physical blow to jar me out of my preoccupation with Papa’s fate, a sudden thwack to the kidney that knocked the breath out of me and sent me sprawling onto the grass. At first I thought I had been attacked by some wild thing. But when the page boy held up the cause of my discomfort, I managed a weak smile. What had laid me low was nothing but a small hard globe of skin — a tennis ball.

“The young princess has a strong stroke but a poor aim,” the page remarked, indicating a green meadow beyond the menagerie where stood three young people with tennis rackets, two girls and a boy, lit by the sun. The boy interested me not at all — I cared only for princesses in towers — but I was fascinated by the smaller girl, the dark one, who had a quite un-princesslike petulance about her. By contrast the taller one shone in the sun like a true princess on account of the shower of red-gold hair that cascaded down her back, and her gracious smile.

Jehiel and I must have presented a strange sight to them: two small figures all in black from head to toe. But their ordinariness was even more incongruous to me. I could not accept what my eyes had told me: that, up close, princesses and princes were children just like ourselves.

“What did you think they would be?” Zaira asked when I confided this to her later. “Do you think they rise full-grown from the sea on the half shell like gods and goddesses?”

I admitted to some such expectation.

“Princes are not gods,” Zaira stated firmly. “Nor even kings. Their children are born of as much travail as the children of lesser persons. And I daresay they bring their parents as much heartache and disappointment.”

“No!” I protested. The notion of trouble in this paradise was not acceptable to me.

“Why no?” Zaira challenged me. “All parents love their children, expect much of them, and are doomed to be disappointed in them, royal or not. In fact children are valued by dukes much in the same way as they are by us Jews. Boys come first with them as with us. For it is the sons who carry on the family business, just as the sons of the
banchieri
do. And if you think the boys in Jewish families are spoiled,” she went on, warming to her subject, “you should see the fuss they make in these castles when an heir is born. That boy Alfonso that you saw today was welcomed into the world as if his arrival were the coming of the Messiah.”

“What about the princesses we saw?”

“The older one got quite a celebration, I hear,” she replied. “Her name is Isabella and she is the firstborn. But when her sister, Beatrice, was born — that’s the little dark one who hit you with the tennis ball — not a bell was rung. Furthermore, her mother, the Duchessa Leonora, took the children away to visit her father, the King of Napoli, when the little one was still a babe and left her there for seven years.”

“Seven years!” That was a much longer exile than the one meted out to my baby brother, Gershom, removed to the care of a wet nurse but whom La Nonna promised back to us at the end of our year of mourning.

“So you see it isn’t all sweetmeats and satins for these royals,” Zaira pointed out.

But I did not believe her for one minute. Nor do I to this day. For I observe that the great ones of the world, for all that they endure certain miseries, are better clad, better fed, live longer, stay healthier, and in the main have a much happier time in life than do the common people. They say justice is more evenly dispensed in the next world. We shall see.

We found the Duke and Papa as we had left them, sipping wine, laughing and chatting. No question about it, my father possessed in abundance that
virtu
so prized in aristocratic circles: I saw not a shred of evidence of his terrible loss at the gaming table. At his prompting we thanked the Duke for his hospitality and prepared to take our leave. But before we had reached the portal of the
sala
, the Duke beckoned us back with an imperious gesture.

“Daniele, halt a moment.” His voice rang out. “I have a proposal for you.”

What now?

“It grieves me to see you return to your people with such a sad message. I am inclined to give you a second chance. What say you to one more round of Zara?”

“By all means,” Papa agreed, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Double or nothing.” The Duke’s words floated from his lips with the lightness of a feather.

“Double or nothing, sir?”

“If you win this time, I rescind the
grido
,” the Duke explained.

“And if I lose?” Papa inquired mildly.

“Why, then you pay me two thousand golden ducats.”

“It’s a bet!” Papa’s voice seemed to jump out of his throat of its own accord.

“You have a gallant heart for a Jew, Daniele.” The Duke nodded his approval.

“Thank you, Excellency.” Papa bowed.

Once again I was handed the three dice and the silver cup. This time my voice trembled when I called for the bets. And my hand shook as if palsied. And I could barely hear the numbers that they called for — the same seven and nine.

At the Duke’s nod, I rolled out the dice.

Four dots. Then three dots. Then . . .

In my fear I must have thrown the cubes too fast. The last die went off the table and onto the floor.

“A seven! A seven!” Jehiel shouted. “Papa wins!”

“Not so fast, my boy.” The Duke held up his hand in an imperious gesture. “This throw does not signify. For all three dice are not upon the table. We must play the turn again.”

We turned to Papa for confirmation.

He bit his lip — just once. Then quietly he said, “So be it.”

The Duke turned to me, a man of bronze. “This time take care, girl. You may have cost your people dear by your carelessness.”

“It was but an accident such as I have witnessed many times in the gaming booths,” Papa contradicted him, heedless of protocol. Then to me: “Pick up the dice, Grazia.”

I did so.

“Now announce the play,” he ordered.

“Place your bets,” I intoned.

Again Papa picked seven and the Duke nine.

Again I released the dice onto the cloth at the Duke’s signal. But with perfect control this time.

The dice rolled out smoothly onto the cloth.

Two dots.

Three dots.

Two dots.

A total of seven, my father’s number.

Across the table, he leaned forward and, in a husky whisper, pronounced the magic word: “Zara!”

With poorly disguised ill humor the Duke ordered the two small chests to be returned to Papa. But my father demurred.

“The gift was a sincere token of gratitude from the community of Jews,
illustrissimo
,” he informed the Duke in honeyed tones. “I am certain they would wish you to keep it.”

The Duke smiled a half smile. “A fine gesture, Daniele,” he said. “Worthy of an honorable and ancient people. Tell them for me that I love my Jews as I love myself and that they have nothing to fear in Ferrara while I rule here.”

“They will be gratified to hear it, sir,” Papa replied. And with that final bit of rampant hypocrisy we took our leave.

Deceit is bred in princes. It is as much a part of their nature as breathing. I whose work it is to inscribe and archive Madonna Isabella’s confidential correspondence, relearn this lesson each time my services are solicited to express her thoughts to her son Federico or convey his to her. The correspondence between this mother and son constitutes a veritable lexicon of double-dealing, evasion, and betrayal.

It is difficult to understand these people. So much of life is a game to them. Madama assures me that the discord between the Pope and the Emperor is only a family squabble between a loving father and his loving son. Remember, she counsels me, that the Holy Father is Christ’s vicar on earth and that Charles V, even though he be Emperor of all the German lands and King of Spain as well, remains a devout son of the church. He has only unleashed Frundsberg to warn the Pope against an alliance with the French.

But try as I may, I cannot see this Charles V as a loving son to anyone. To me he seems obsessed by Francis of France and has shown himself quite prepared to beat the Pope into submission in order to secure him as an ally against France. To send a hardened campaigner like Frundsberg across the Alps — a military exploit not even attempted since the days of Hannibal — counts for more than a mere warning, I think. But what do I know of the minds of these high Christians who say one thing and do another and then refer to their religion as the justification?

I think you are more at home with them than I. As I see you making the rounds at Madama’s soirees, bowing and bantering with such elan, I wonder if I have done right to bring you into this world. Ought I to follow Judah’s pleading and send you off to Turkey where you will learn high principles and exemplary behavior at his knee? Do I, by keeping you here with me, risk turning you into one of them, into another Federico Gonzaga?

FROM DANILO’S ARCHIVE

TO MARCHESANA ISABELLA D’ESTE DA GONZAGA, PALAZZO COLONNA, ROMA

Most Illustrious Lady and Dearest Mother:

Frundsberg has done the impossible. He arrived at Brescia with his landsknechts two days ago. If Fortuna smiles on us he will choose to approach Milano by the northern route. If not, he will be in my territory within two days.

You advise me to remain above the quarrel between the Pope and the Emperor. But neutrality is easier to preach than to practice, Mother. I would gladly adulterate my urine with pig’s blood in order to substantiate a claim of illness and thus avoid the demand for my services. But unfortunately my honorable father’s success with that stratagem has, by now, been widely circulated. I fear that even a dull German would recognize the ploy. And I would become the laughing stock of the peninsula.

But never fear, I will find a way out of this dilemma. I am not my father’s son for nothing.

Your son, Federico. (Written in cipher in his own hand)

Mantova, November 21, 1526.

TO MARCHESANA ISABELLA D’ESTE DA GONZAGA, PALAZZO COLONNA, ROMA

Salute me, Mother!

I have walked into the lion’s den. I have put my head into the lion’s mouth. Fortune favors the bold. The lion did not eat me. Our neutrality is preserved.

It was but a day’s journey to the Imperial encampment south of the Po. I traveled with only a few men, none of them armed, and carried in my wagons gifts of oil, wine, cheese and gunpowder, modest gifts befitting a pauper prince. Frundsberg was grateful for the food but seemed most impressed by the gunpowder.

At his request I granted him permission to pass unmolested through the Mantovan territory and declared myself willing to share what little stocks we have. But I warned him that we have suffered two crop failures in the past two years and that our own people are going hungry.

In these delicate negotiations I did my best to emulate my honored father. I pronounced myself desolated by my inability to respond more generously. I lamented the dilapidated state of our palaces, the infertility of our fields, and the barrenness of our flocks. I confessed that all of our plate and most of our treasures were in pawn with the Jews.