The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (26 page)

While Dorotea sniffed, I pursued my cause. “Might we have our horses back, do you think, Papa?” I asked.

“Out of the question,” Dorotea answered for him.

“Then perhaps I could ride one of our regular horses,” I suggested. “As you point out, stepmother, I am a woman now, so I ought to be able to control the likes of Tamarindo.”

The very mention of the name excited Asher’s concern — honest enough, however misguided. “Oh, do not ride that beast, I beg you, cousin,” he cried. “He is a terror, even to Sandro.”

“I have little doubt Grazia could handle the bay, my son,” Papa replied with, I think, a touch of pride. “The true questions are: Can Sandro be spared to care for the animal? And who is free to accompany Grazia on these daily rides?”

“The groom has his hands full as it is,” Dorotea answered. And, as usual, Papa deferred to her judgment. But I did manage to establish my intention of getting to know Tamarindo — “as if he were a human being,” scoffed Ricca — and of taking over the task of grooming him, which she pronounced disgusting. To her, it was. But for me, that stall was redolent with memories, and Tamarindo a perfect confidant. Having no words, he mostly listened and occasionally neighed sympathetically. We had some fine conversations.

“Did you notice the way Lord Pirro sits his mount, Tamarindo? Is he not made in the mold of Apollo?”

A loud whinny from my horsey friend.

“And his eyes. Are they not a blue to rival the vault of heaven?”

Two neighs.

“And am I not the most fortunate of girls to find such a gallant cavalier?”

A resounding affirmative stamp of the hoof.

Nights, I gathered up poor, patient Fingebat into my bed and pressed on him the same questions I had asked Tamarindo that day. And he, equally well suited to the role of confidant, never failed to respond with an appropriately affirmative yelp. So the week passed.

By the following Wednesday, my daily presence in the stable was so much a part of the life of the household that I was able to make my way to the horse stalls unremarked. The cook even gave me a sweet bun on my way out “to share with Tamarindo.” Sandro the stable hand was another matter. A hulking, slow-moving brute of a fellow, he was further cursed with a defect of vision. His eyes, one blue, one brown, were completely crossed. When he “looked you in the eye,” so to speak, his left eye looked to the right, and his right eye to the left. Such people are often made sport of in the street. And indeed, they do present a comic spectacle. But they are also inscrutable, for one cannot tell whether one is being observed or not.

That was my difficulty with this slave Sandro. The ill-made creature had been a wedding gift to Dorotea from La Nonna — and a very generous gift it had seemed, since male slaves were, at that time, going for ten ducats or more. But his handicap, added to the slowness of his brain, made him unfit for service in the house. Thus he became a stable hand by default. From my first afternoon in the stable, I felt his eyes on me as I worked over the horse. Yet, when I turned to catch him out at spying, I could not know for certain if it was at me he was staring so fixedly or some object on the other side of the yard.

Wednesday dawned a crisp, brilliant February day, not the best day to sneak about undetected. For that, fog is one’s best ally. But I knew Lord Pirro would find a way to come to me.

And sure enough, when I came into the stall that afternoon with my horse-grooming tools, there stood my cavalier leaning against the wall, still as a statue. Silently he indicated the broad ledge above our heads where the hay was stored. It was a perfect hiding place. Making a stirrup of his cupped hands, he offered me a boost up. I hesitated. The shelf was at least six hands above my head. Did I have the strength to catapult myself so high?

With great firmness, he placed my two hands on his shoulders and my right foot in his cupped hands.

“
Uno, due, tre
. . .” he muttered. And, whoosh, I was up in the loft spitting straws out of my mouth. A second later, his face popped up over the ledge. But when I rushed to embrace him, he held me off, muttering, “We must talk,” through a stern mouth.

“Of what?” I demanded, peevish at being denied.

“Of love,” he answered, grim as death.

As yet I did not intuit the direction he wished the conversation to take and I persisted in my petulance. “Why talk of love when we can do it?” I demanded.

“Because, hussy, if we continue to do it and get caught at it, we may both burn. For sure, you will.”

I must admit this thought sobered me down. “What then do you have to say to me of love, my love?” I inquired, more humble now.

“First, that I have come to cherish you. Second, that I have confided this passion to my kinswoman Madonna Isabella.”

Whatever I expected, it certainly was not such a declaration.

“I told her that you are dearer to me than my life,” he went on, “and that, although you were willing to risk all for me, I could no longer expose you to such danger as we have been courting.”

“You knew that I loved you?” I asked naively.

“Of course,” he answered, with that serene confidence that marks men of his rank. “Why else do women take great risks except for love?”

I could not deny it. Nor did I wish to play coy. For he had confessed his love in such an open way that I could not do less.

“You read me right. I do love you,” I answered, as candid in my confession as he had been in his. “But was it wise to admit the Marchesana to our secret? What if she should tell the procurator, or her confessor — those priests are a menace to us Jews, you know.”

“It was a calculated risk,” he answered. “My kinswoman is young like us and a great believer in romance. I doubt she would ever betray us. And I hoped she might be persuaded to help us.”

“Was she persuaded?” I asked.

“She offered to take us under her protection.”

“Would that keep us safe?”

“Oh yes, her power is absolute in Mantova, second only to her husband’s.”

“Then it is settled. We can meet and go about as —”

“Not quite so easily, my Grazia. She will take us under her protection and in due course she will give us permission to marry, on one condition.”

I knew before he spoke what the words would be. “She wants me to become a
conversa
. . .”

He nodded. “That is her condition.”

“Oh no, I could not. I could never . . .” was my first reaction. “I am a Jewess, my lord. How could I suddenly change?”

“You would have to take instruction. Madonna Isabella has spoken to her confessor — mentioning no names — who is in charge of the
casa dei catecumeni
. He is willing to take you in and teach you himself.”

“The
casa dei catecumeni
in the Via dei Grechi?”

The so-called House of Converts was well known to every Jew in Mantova. A small, dark place adjoining a Dominican convent, it sometimes served as a refuge for renegade Jews, frequently criminal types who preferred to convert rather than face the justice of the
Wad Kellilah
.

“But bigamists and cheaters and wife-beaters go there,” I told him. “Those
conversos
are an unsavory lot, my lord.”

“It will only be for a short while until you learn the catechism and a few other things. Then, Madonna Isabella has offered to stand sponsor for your baptism. And once you are baptized, we will join ourselves in a Christian marriage.” He took my hand and looked deep into my eyes. “I understand what a sacrifice this will be for you . . .” He was talking as if my mind was already made up. “But a Christian marriage is the only course open to me if I am to remain an honorable man. Otherwise we will both end up dishonored — and you, I fear, more harmed than I.”

“But I would never see my family again. My brothers . . . my father . . .”

He placed his fingers gently over my lips. “Say no more. Think. Consider. Madama has given me a letter for you. Read it. Perhaps it will provide counsel. We have a week. Madama has told me that either I must bring you into the
casa dei catecumeni
or give you up by
carnevale
. If you decide against me, I have agreed never to see you again.”

I gasped.

“It is for your protection more than my own, my love. I have seen a woman burned, Grazia. I have seen her flesh sizzle on the faggots. I cannot face that prospect for you. Now you know all. Let us make love.”

Was ever there born a creature more perverse than woman? The moment the invitation formed on his lips, my passion fled. The great ardor in me gave way to timidity — even fright. Of its own volition, my mouth closed tightly against his insistent tongue and I slowly withdrew my body from his embrace.

A coarser or more brutish man would have had his way in spite of my opposition. Such men — stuffed with pride and
virtu
— take any sign of resistance as caprice, perhaps because it has no equivalence in their experience. But Lord Pirro is a peerless lover who understands the natural perversity of women. He simply left me to myself. And before long, I found myself edging through the straw back into the curve of his arm. Still he made no move toward me. Ever so cautiously, I placed one of my legs over his thigh. I could feel his muscles hard against mine through the silken
calze
he wore. Then very slowly he began to stroke my hair, my cheek, my shoulder. Everywhere he caressed me tingled as if touched by a magician’s wand.

Patiently and tenderly, he led me through the age-old dance of love, serenaded by cicadas, with the swish of the horses’ tails for an accompaniment.

Suddenly, the rhythm was broken by a faint movement of the air, not menacing but an interruption nonetheless. I saw the ladder describe an arc above me before I heard it land against the attic shelf. Then I saw Sandro’s hand — unmistakably his, for no one in our household had a paw that brown and that huge — flailing about in the darkness, searching for something to grab onto. Then a heavy grunt. Then the face with its crossed eyes.

Lord Pirro had fallen into a crouch behind me, so what Sandro saw when he pulled himself up to eye level was Madonnina Grazia sitting in the shadows on a pile of straw, looking, I hoped, furious at being intruded upon.

After blinking for some time, the brute was able to focus his wandering eyes on me.

“Sandro, what in the name of God and his saints are you doing up here?” I was easily as alarmed as he but determined not to show it.

“A n-n-noise . . . I her-her-heard . . .”

He heaved his huge body up onto the ledge.

“Go back!” I ordered.

But he made no move to obey. He simply crouched there, blinking.

“Down!” I pointed in the direction of the ground. Behind me, a hidden presence reached for my hand.

“Down, Sandro! Go!” As I gave the order I felt a handle being placed in my fist, a pitchfork from the feel of it.

“If you do not turn and go back down that ladder . . .”

The brute sucked in a great bellyful of air and lunged. And, gathering all my strength, I raised the heavy pitchfork and plunged it straight into his head.

The blow must have stunned him. He whirled half a turn, then stood with his back to me, swaying and moaning.

“I’ll finish him off.” Behind me, a hand took the weapon out of mine and lunged. Over and over I saw the tines of the fork raised in the air and plunged into the giant’s backside. The pain must have been excruciating, for it seemed to knock his eyes back into his head. I saw a pair of white eyeballs, then a glimpse of a torn
camicia
streaked with blood, then heard a deafening shriek as the slave hurled himself off the open shelf and onto the stable floor. There followed a series of groans that finally subsided into whimpers. And at last, silence.

Beside me, Lord Pirro stood tense and wary, straining for some sound to indicate that the giant’s screams had aroused the household. But no indication was forthcoming. Only the buzzing of the flies and the swishing of the horses’ tails.

Motioning to me to stay still, he laid the pitchfork down, walked softly to the edge of the loft, and looked down.

“He’s gone,” he whispered.

“Gone?”

“Come and see for yourself. The ground is bare.”

I approached and peered over the edge cautiously. Nothing but a stray bucket and a pile of horse manure.

“I must go down and see what’s become of the villain,” he announced.

“No, no. I shall go. I must,” I insisted, albeit weakly. “For if I am found, I can fabricate some pretext. But if you are discovered, we are both undone.”

“I doubt you can get down the ladder without taking a tumble. Look at you. You are trembling like an aspen leaf.”

“I
am
frightened,” I admitted. “But you mistake yourself, sir, if you think me a coward. I will descend the ladder and find the brute.”

“And if you find him dead — with a broken neck?”

“Why, then I shall faint,” I replied, “and you must risk all and come down and carry me back up.”

Down I went, quivering, as he said, like an aspen leaf in fear of what I would find. But to my astonishment, there was no sign of Sandro in the yard nor in any corner of any of the stalls. The brute had disappeared. This I reported to my lord when I once again ascended the ladder.

“Then we are in luck. But we must not press it,” he said. “I shall be off. And you, to your room to read Madonna Isabella’s letter. Watch me leave you for the last time. When next I depart this paradise of straw, I will carry you with me.”

So saying, he grasped two heavy iron rings lying flat on the ground and, uttering a fierce grunt, pulled them up in one tremendous heave, creating a hole in the floor of the loft that gave directly down into the
vicolo
below. As I watched, he jumped down into the lane with perfect grace, untethered his horse, and rode off, jaunty as ever, his honorary Este colors streaming out behind him in the wintry wind.

The Sandro affair ended most mysteriously. That monster was never seen again in the environs of Mantova. Although my father put out notices of a runaway slave, he never did turn up at any of the slave markets on the peninsula. Nor was his bloated body ever washed up on the shores of the Mincio, as I dreamed it would be. He simply vanished. And truthfully, I did not dwell overmuch on his disappearance. What took over my mind from that day on was Madonna Isabella’s offer with its nonnegotiable terms.