The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (94 page)

After a full night of this, Isabella emerges from her private cabin, worn and haggard in the yellow light, in search of her secretary, who had elected to ride out the storm on deck.

“There is no one else I can say this to, Grazia.” The lady’s hand trembles as she touches Grazia’s shoulder. “I am past my endurance. I cannot bear one moment more of this cruel sea. I have taken a potion which will give me the relief of sleep. When I awake we will be at Civitavecchia. From there I mean to continue the journey by land.”

“I’m sure we will all be glad to quit the sea,” replies Grazia.

“But I do not mean you to come with me, Grazia,” the lady explains. “I am relying on you to shepherd my treasures safely back to Mantova by ship. I cannot abandon all my goods.”

“But you can abandon
me
?” Grazia cannot conceal her distress.

“Not abandon. I am entrusting you with the things most dear to me in the world, excepting of course my children — the medals which I value so highly, my antique marbles, and the divine Raffaello’s tapestries which we hold in trust for his Holiness. You are young, Grazia. You can withstand the rigors of the sea. And you are clever and brave. Of whom else in my entourage can I say those things?”

“Madonna . . .” Grazia reaches impetuously for the lady’s hand and grasps it in her own. “I would do anything for you. But please do not ask me to leave your side.”

“I had no idea you were so affected. You hide your fear well, Grazia.” The lady nods her approval.

“Your example has given me the will to overcome my fright,” Grazia answers truthfully. “No, madonna, it is not fear that binds me to you. If that were so, I would try to overcome it for your sake. But I gave my solemn word to Lord Pirro that, come what may, I would not leave your side until we were safe. And much as I love you, madonna, I love my honor even more.”

This sentiment should have the power to move Isabella, but she does not yield. Instead she fondles the hairs that bristle out on her chin and, after a long pause, presents one of her characteristically self-serving arguments.

“I fear I fail to grasp the cause of your dilemma, Grazia. Have I not brought you out of Roma and into the safe waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea?”

“But our journey is not yet over, madonna. We must still undertake the voyage to Genova and, after that, there remains the trek across Lombardia,” Grazia points out.

“You have the mind of a lawyer, Grazia,” is the petulant reply. “But common sense tells me that if what you promised was not to leave my side until you were safely out of Roma, your promise has been fulfilled. Therefore your honor will not be sullied if you undertake to repay me by minding my treasures.” Isabella nods, pleased with her own logic. “You look puzzled, Grazia. Am I not clear?”

Only too clear.

“Why so glum?” Capitulation is not enough for the lady. She demands surrender with a smile. “With a good wind behind you, you will be in Genova in four days and in Mantova in time to greet me when I arrive saddle-sore and bone-bruised from traversing the mountains. It is not as if I am condemning you to the stocks, Grazia. The captain assures me this is a freak storm. From now on, you will have easy passage. And I have booked my private cabin for you and the boy. There are people who would consider a private cabin on one of Andrea Doria’s ships a privilege. And all I am asking in return is that you keep a good eye on these precious children of mine.” She waves her hand carelessly at the baskets and barrels and
cassones
piled high on the deck beside them.

Such a reasonable request. Such a fair exchange. Impossible to refuse.

The stop at Civitavecchia is brief, the farewell rushed. Unencumbered now by her baggage train, Isabella skips off the ship lighter in spirit as well as lading, with barely more than a wave for Grazia.

But for Danilo, perched high on top of the highest
cassone
to view the scene, she does have a moment.

“It pleases me that you are so attentive to my goods, young Danilo,” she shouts up to him. “See you guard them with your life, for they are dearer to me than my own.”

With that she is off to barter for horses and mules and the equipage to carry her large party through the Tuscan valleys, and thence across the Apennines to the waterways of the Po and finally home to Mantova. She bears with her the one treasure she would not entrust even to Grazia’s trustworthy care: the red hat. That, she is determined to carry triumphantly into Mantova not only as a gift for her son Ercole but as a token of her victory over all the vicissitudes Fortuna has caused her to endure.

Under full sail in a calm sea, the
Hesperion
is a different vessel than the hulk that creaked and groaned its way from Ostia to Civitavecchia. It has been transformed by the calm water into a great cradle that rocks its occupants gently as it skims along the Etruscan coast. Tucked away on the lee side of the four-master, Grazia gazes up at her son, who has adopted a post atop Isabella’s
cassones
as his station. There he sits, guardian of the lady’s treasure, serenading his mother in wonderfully dulcet tones:

Oh beauteous rose of Judea, oh my sweet soul,
Do not leave me to die . . .

Where did he learn this song?

She beckons him down. “I have not heard that tune since I was a girl,” she tells him.

“Lord Pirro taught it to me while we were riding to the Tuscan front,” he answers. “He wrote it for a girl he loved and lost when he was young.”

Grazia turns aside to hide a sudden rush of color to her cheeks. She needn’t have bothered. Her son is too intent on his knightly tale to notice that his mother is blushing for no reason.

“He called her his wild rose,” he goes on, “because she had the same purity, the same pungency, and the same sharp thorns.”

“He said that bit about the thorns?” she asks.

“He meant it in the nicest way, Mama,” he hastens to explain. “The prickers were what made her irresistible.”

“Doesn’t sound like a very nice girl to me,” she teases him, smiling.

“Then I’ve told it all wrong.” He frowns with concentration and finally finds the words he has been looking for. “It is the contrast between the delicate flower and the piercing thorn that creates the excitement.”

“Are those your words or Lord Pirro’s, Danilo?”

“Oh, Mama.” Now it is his turn to smile. “I could never think such a thought myself. I believe it was his way of warning me about love — that it can be oh so sweet and still make you bleed.”

“That’s what the poets tell us,” she remarks thoughtfully. “But I never thought Lord Pirro cared overmuch for poetry.”

“Then you don’t know him as well as I do,” he answers, once again rising to the defense of his mentor. “We talked about many other things besides battles while we were riding, Mama. He told me how it was for him when he was young, how he lost the love of his life because he was confused between love and duty. How he learned too late that fealty to his lady is a man’s first obligation, even ahead of his oath to his liege lord.”

“You did indeed talk of other things besides battles,” Grazia observes. Then, half to herself: “I wonder why he told you all this . . .”

“Because he doesn’t want me to make the same mistake he made when he was young. I will always remember the advice he gave me.”

“What was that?” she asks softly.

“A woman who loves you with all her heart is a treasure beyond glory and fortune. A man can count himself lucky to know one such love in a whole lifetime. He says he wasted years learning that lesson.”

How can the boy know how she has longed to hear those words? Or that they are twice as precious coming from him, a boy without guile who has no idea that he is his father’s messenger?

She feels a strong urge to spill out the whole story there and then, on the deck of the
Hesperion
, and not wait for him to read it at the appointed time. Her son’s trusting eyes have put her to shame.

She leans down closer to him. “Danilo . . .”

Before she can continue, a short, sharp crack rends the air. Then another, a gunshot straight across the bow. Next, a series of bloodcurdling whoops.

Danilo thrusts his mother into the wheelhouse for safety. Then, before she can stop him, he has clambered up to his post atop Madonna Isabella’s
cassones
to protect her treasures, with his life if need be.

The pirates who attacked the
Hesperion
struck viciously and without warning. Almost before the captain sounded the alarm, they had come along the port side and descended, fifty strong, each man armed with a long curved weapon like a scythe and a dagger in his mouth.

There was no time to prepare a defense. The Corsican marauders had the captain at knifepoint in three minutes and the crew in irons a quarter of an hour later.

What to do with Grazia posed the marauders no problem. Even Corsicans do not shackle respectable ladies belowdecks with common sailors. But they felt no such constraints when it came to the boy perched up on the pile of
cassones
.

Twice the pirates called him down. Twice his mother ordered him to obey their command. Twice he refused to descend. Instead, he reached for a small dagger he had concealed in the folds of his sash at the beginning of the journey.

“Do not harm him, he is only a boy,” his mother begged.

For answer, the leader, a black-bearded giant decked out like a Janissary, shouted up in a rough Corsican accent, “Boy or man, jump down, or I will shoot you like a dog!”

The boy raised his dagger in the air, meaning to aim it at the Corsican’s heart. The Corsican raised his arquebus to his shoulder.

“No!” Without a thought, Grazia hurled herself at the pirate.

The boy heard a roar and saw his mother clutch her breast and fall at his feet.

Her heroism, the immediate unthinking bravery of her act, must have been something the Corsicans had never seen before, for they hovered over her as she lay on the deck bleeding, and brought cloths to cool her head and sweet water to moisten her lips and pillows to prop up her head and beautiful blankets of silk to cover her. And all that day they stood vigil beside the boy, taking turns to wait on his mother as if they too were her sons.

She suffered no pain, but she weakened quickly from loss of blood and had little strength to move or talk. Then toward the end she rallied, looked up at her son and spoke his name.

“Lean closer, Danilo.” Her voice was low but firm. “It is time for us to say goodbye.”

“No!” His mind, his body, everything in him, resisted.

“Only fools and knaves deny what they know to be the truth, my son. Come now.”

This time, he did as she asked, leaned down and bent his ear to her lips.

“Listen carefully.” Her breath was labored but her voice was clear, each word distinct. “It was my choice to take the Corsican’s bullet. My doing, not yours, do you understand?”

No, he did not understand. His folly had caused this to happen. He should be the one bleeding out his life on that deck.

She paused to gather her strength, then went on. “No one chooses the moment of his death, Danilo. The lucky ones get to choose the manner of it. Try to understand this. I am blessed to die for the only cause I would have chosen, my love for you. You have made me, in the end, noble and brave. You have made me a heroine like the women I wrote about but never was . . . until now. Do not rob my end of its purpose, I beg you. Be gracious. Forgo the blame.”

He agreed — how could he refuse? — although with only a dim understanding of what a gift she had given him. In one move, she had taken away his guilt and turned it into a kindness. But all he could think of was that she was leaving him.

Stay with me, Mother, he begged her silently, bowing his head to hide the tears forming in his eyes. Don’t leave me.

“I know what you are thinking.” Her voice was weaker now. “Lift up your head and look into my eyes.”

He did as she asked, and what he saw in those eyes was a corona of devotion so radiant that he could no longer restrain himself and, as his mother spoke her last words, his tears fell unchecked.

“As long as you live I will be with you. If you are troubled or confused, call out for me. I will answer from a deep place inside of you.” Through his tears he saw forming on her face that cunning half smile that so often followed one of her sly jests. “Can you doubt that I will answer? Could I ever resist giving advice?” Then, smiling, she closed her eyes for the last time.

They wrapped her body in a silken shroud, the boy and the pirates, and consigned it to the sea, according to the custom of sailors. For the rest of the voyage, the crew allowed him to roam the ship unfettered. Perhaps as a tribute to his mother. Who knows the ways of Corsicans?

After two days of sailing, Danilo felt bold enough to ask when the ship might expect to land at Genova. Only then did he discover that the pirates had turned the
Hesperion
about the night they boarded her and were bound for Constantinople to sell off their booty at the bazaars and their prisoners at the slave market. God must have the mind of a trickster, he thought, to make me the instrument of my mother’s death and then to deliver me to the one port in all the Levant where my redemption is assured.

The pirate king, as the boy had come to think of him, came himself to attach the leg irons. He also permitted the boy to write a note to his father, Judah del Medigo, at the Sultan’s harem and undertook to have it delivered as soon as the ship docked so that he might be quickly ransomed. “I do you this courtesy out of respect for your mother,” the pirate told him. “She was a woman of valor.”

The boy did not see the fabled spires of the city as they rounded the Golden Horn. He was down in the hold with the other prisoners, waiting there until the
Hesperion
was securely moored. But he did hear the cries of the mullahs summoning the faithful to prayer. It was this strange, dissonant wail, so foreign to his ears, that told him he was in a place different from any he had ever known. During the Mediterranean crossing, things seen and heard had registered only dimly in the great void that was his loss. Now, suddenly, the cries of the mullahs awakened him and he felt the stirrings of a call to adventure which had always been a part of his nature.