The tanner’s yard. She could slip through the fissure in the wall. No one would see her if she kept to the alleyways and entered the Morpurgo mansion through the servants’ entrance. She’d go and return the same way. No one would know. And when Christophe returned, she would leave Ancona. They would have other chances for children.
“Well, Sergeant,” Desi demanded again, “is it true? Are you leaving?”
Christophe bit his lip. He’d been ordered not to report the French withdrawal, but desperate times, he knew, called for desperate measures. Defusing the situation was more important than a possible court-martial. “The French are leaving Italy soon,” Christophe replied, as both David and the priest translated. As he spoke, both sides broke out into cheers. Christophe knew it would be useless to ask them to keep the news secret. It would spread through Ancona like wildfire.
Desi shook his head, clearly unconvinced. “Very convenient lies you’re telling me.”
Morpurgo spoke up. “It’s true. Bonaparte may be signing the treaty with the Austrians at this very moment. The French troops will be leaving—in mere days, at most.”
Desi glanced at the men. “What do you say, fellows? Why strip our cathedral of its bell if the invaders are leaving?”
A familiar twinge of fear coursed through Roberto as they approached the ghetto. He curled his fingers, opening and closing them around his stiletto hilt.
“They’re waiting at the ghetto entrance,” someone whispered frantically. “The French are ready for us!”
The cardinal turned a sickly shade of green. “How many?”
“Dozens!”
Roberto swallowed hard, trying to think what Emilio would have said to rouse the men. In a gritty voice, he cried, “Never mind! We’ll cut through the French like a knife through butter! Show them what true Italian fighters can do. And then”—his throat was dry, but he forced himself to say it—“we’ll kill every Jew in Ancona!”
“Hush, Roberto,” the cardinal growled. “Be still. So many soldiers? I didn’t expect . . .”
Roberto closed his eyes. Why had he come back from Greece at the cardinal’s bidding? The islands had been warm, the sea calm, the people friendly. He’d been safe there. “Let’s go!” he cried, loudly enough to banish his fear. The men echoed him with a wordless roar.
Daniel saw them coming, moving up the street in a disorganized pack. Not a trained soldier in the bunch. He stayed by the captain’s side, prepared for battle. With silent intent, the captain held his men back, waiting for the Italians to make their first move.
As Daniel waited, he remembered the stories his cousin Ethan told about riots in his little village in Alsace soon after the Bastille. No one had protected the Jews then. Nor during the riot that had taken place not so long ago on these very streets—a massacre the Jews had been powerless to stop.
His lip curled. They were defenseless no longer.
The captain stepped forward, gesturing for Daniel to follow. “Halt!” he called. “What is your business here? Why are you carrying illegal arms?”
Daniel began to translate: “Fermi! Perché state—”
A sharp cry from the Italian brigands cut him off mid-sentence. “Return to your homes,” the captain commanded. “No one is allowed in the Jewish Quarter today.”
As Daniel translated, a sudden shot from the unruly mob made him rear back. A second musket ball whizzed by his ear.
“Arrgh!” The soldier three paces behind him fell to his knees, clutching his shoulder, blood gushing to the cobblestones below.
“Attack!” a man shouted, and ran straight at Daniel. Roberto.
Mirelle pushed and pushed, wedged tightly between the two walls of the fissure. Come on, she urged herself. With a gasp, she squeezed through.
She heard gunshots, shouts, and groans coming from the main street. For a moment, she considered turning around. But then she thought of Christophe. She couldn’t have her future husband think her a coward. Heart thumping, she ran in the shadow of the back alleys, heading toward the safety of the Morpurgo mansion.
Francesca heard the skirmish approaching. Pulse racing, she groped down the dark narrow stairs to the main floor. She pulled back a red velvet curtain and clutched both hands to her mouth, horrified. Men lay in the streets—some screaming in agony, others fearfully still, eyes wide even in death. Blood from both sides mixed as it flowed in a crimson river to the gutter. As she watched, a French soldier stabbed a man she knew from the market, plunging a bayonet in his stomach. Tonio sank to his knees, mouth foaming as he retched in pain, and tumbled headfirst into a heap. Whimpering, Francesca watched the soldier take his red-stained weapon and thrust it again in Tonio’s back. She gasped, a sharp, sympathetic pain radiating through her. The soldier yanked the bayonet out, twisting viciously, and ran to aid one of his fellows, who was hard-pressed fighting another Italian, a stranger.
Trembling, Francesca looked through the haze of dust and gunpowder for friends and neighbors. Hunched over a stone step was the barkeep, Mattia, clutching his stomach and shrieking pitifully for his mama. Nicolò, a fellow farmer, fought hand to hand with a soldier. Francesca gasped as he pierced the soldier’s neck with a stiletto. The Frenchman fended Nicolò off, slashing at his arm with a sword. Nicolò cried out, wrenched his dagger from the man’s neck, and plunged it into his left eye. As the soldier reeled back, howling, Francesca gagged and turned away.
Her attention was seized by the sight of Cardinal Ranuzzi hiding behind a stone wall. Coward, she thought, lips curling in disdain.
Then, glancing back at the main street, a shock jolted her.
Roberto and Daniel stood at the center of the mob—Roberto with his dagger trembling in his grasp and Daniel with his bayonet. They circled one another, feinting, eyes fixed. Both trying to find a vulnerable spot, waiting for a weakness.
Her hand flew to her heart.
“Let’s go straight to the ghetto,” Ezekiel said as he climbed back into the carriage. “I need to make sure Speranza is all right.”
David nodded.
Christophe groaned inwardly. Captain Bossard wouldn’t be pleased, but how could he refuse Morpurgo now?
Roberto was breathing hard. His stint in French prison, the days of wandering through Greece and scrounging for food, were taking their toll. Sweat dripped in his eyes, stinging, making him blink uncontrollably. Unable to stop himself, he swiped at his forehead with his knuckles—and the Jew soldier’s bayonet sliced into his dagger arm.
His stiletto fell with a clatter on the cobbles. The pain throbbed up his arm. He fought the urge to collapse. Grunting, bent nearly level to the ground, he loped away.
They heard the screams and smelled the gunpowder long before reaching the ghetto. Christophe shouted for the driver to stop the carriage several yards away. The soldiers on the box slid down and ran to support their fellows.
“Stay inside!” Christophe ordered the two brothers as he scrambled out, grabbing his weapon. “I’ll get you when it’s safe.”
He hurried, tripping over bodies, and arrived to the melee just in time to see Daniel chasing Roberto around a corner toward the alleyway. He started to follow, only to be stopped by a crazed Italian who faced him down with bared teeth, swinging an axe. Christophe aimed his musket and fired straight at the man’s head. Bits of bone and blood flew into the air.
Mirelle crept around the back of the ghetto buildings, heart thumping. The odor of gunpowder and blood caught in the wind, and the vile smell almost overpowered her. Once she reached the safety of the Morpurgo villa, she’d wait out the fighting there. Then she would return to the municipality, and together she and Christophe would decide what they would do next.
But, oh God, what if Christophe dies in the fighting? What will happen to me then?
No, Christophe will survive. He must. He promised he would.
She turned a corner. Almost there now. Almost safe. She breathed easier as the Morpurgo mansion loomed before her.
A man came hurtli
ng around the corner and Mirelle screamed.
He was cradling an arm, dripping blood. When he saw her, he drew back, then seemed to propel himself forward. The breath fled from her chest.
“Why are you here?” he gasped, moving unsteadily toward her. “Are you a fool, outside right now?”
Mirelle trembled. “Don’t touch me!” she shouted, backing against the stone wall of the Morpurgo rose garden. Rough rocks scraped through her dress. “Leave me alone!”
“How can I?” the man demanded, sounding anguished. “I’m sorry, but . . .” He drew himself up. “You’re a Jew,” he declared loudly. “One of them. Nothing more than a leech, a rat, a . . . a—”
“Look at me!” Mirelle cried. “I’m not any of those things!”
“You’re a Jew, aren’t you?” the man said through gritted teeth. “All Jews are the same.” He raised a hand to strike her.
His fist came down on her like an iron bar; she doubled over in agony.
“Stop! Please stop!” she cried. The world spun, and she fell against the wall. Pain ripped through her. Christophe, she thought wildly, and then—Daniel, where are you?
Francesca couldn’t watch the carnage any longer. She pulled open the synagogue door and crept from the building. All around her, men slashed at one another. She put hands over her ears to block the screams of the wounded and dying.
Barbara, she thought. Mario. Keep me safe, Mary. Holy Michael, Archangel, defend us in battle . . .
And then she stopped praying, because she didn’t know whom she wanted the Archangel Michael to defend.
She found herself lost in a warren of shadowy alleyways. Just go home.
Then, turning a corner, she gasped, and her hand flew up to stifle the cry that leapt to her throat. Roberto! He was raining blows upon a young woman, his face twisted almost unrecognizably.
Francesca wanted to run, but the sight of the child beneath the man’s brutal fists stopped her cold.
“Please!” the girl called out in anguish. “Help me!”
“Roberto!” someone screamed.
Roberto recognized the voice. Francesca? He pushed the Jewess against the building, slamming her head against the wall in a fury, and turned.
“Why the devil are you here?” he growled. “Go home!”
Beside him, the Jewess was moaning, slumped, hands cradling her head. Roberto raised another fist to strike. But Francesca caught him by the arm and pulled him away.
“Are you all right?” she asked the woman, leaning down.
“What are you doing?” Roberto raged. “What would Emilio say to you? She’s a godforsaken Jewess! Emilio would have killed her, wouldn’t he? If I still had my dagger . . .”
Francesca turned on him, eyes blazing. “The devil has taken your soul,” she cried. “You will burn in hell forever! How can you do this to a defenseless girl?”
Roberto felt his fists clench again. Someone must pay for what they did to Emilio. The Jews, the French, they’re the ones who belong in hell. Not me.
“Get away!” He grabbed Francesca’s hair and yanked hard, ignoring her cry of pain.
And then, out of nowhere, he heard the pop of a musket, a rush of air. He looked down. A searing sensation burned its way through his chest and the world began to whirl. The ground rose to meet him. His legs and arms gave way, and he landed, face first, on the pavement, gasping like a landed fish.
Someone must pay, he thought dimly, clawing at the dirt.
Then everything turned black.
“Mirelle!” Daniel ran to her, ignoring Francesca, who stooped, sobbing, over the prone body. He didn’t understand why Mirelle was there, battered, crying against the wall.
He cradled her in his arms and she moaned in pain.
Panic rose in him. His mind was a fog. He looked about wildly, hoping someone would help them. “What hurts?” he asked.
“My head, oh, my head,” she moaned, her words strangely garbled.
“Mirelle!” Christophe appeared above them and nearly tore the girl from Daniel’s arms.
Daniel let her slip into Christophe’s embrace.
“My darling! Are you all right?”
Mirelle murmured an unintelligible response. Francesca turned on Daniel, eyes wide with shock. “You killed him!” she shouted.
Daniel looked at her, unable to speak.
She remained crouched next to the prone body. “You killed him,” she wailed.
He knelt next to her, striving for calm. But how she could mourn a man who would beat a woman just for being a Jew, bewildered him. “Signora . . .”
“Roberto, oh, poor, gentle Roberto,” she said, and collapsed, sobbing, against the dead man’s chest.
“Daniel!” Christophe sounded frantic.
Daniel looked over Francesca’s dark head. Mirelle lay limp in Christophe’s arms, her breathing dangerously shallow.
61
OCTOBER 20
Dressed in black, Francesca knelt beside her husband’s burial mound, her daughter and son beside her. She was teaching Barbara Saint Gertrude’s prayer for souls in purgatory: . . . for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.
Barbara struggled to memorize the prayer. She had not slept well since the day her father was killed, twitching with nightmares every night. Even awake she couldn’t remain still, rocking back and forth on her knees.
“Why is Papa a sinner in our home?” Barbara demanded. “Why do you think he’s in purgatory? Surely he’s gone to Heaven, Mama.”
Surely he’s gone to hell, Francesca thought. But she couldn’t tell her daughter that.
“We can’t be certain,” she said. “But the Lord Jesus and especially Our Lady will hear your petition, child.”
After Barbara finally mastered the prayer, she recited it once more, and the little family rose from their knees. As they left the cemetery, Francesca was startled to see Daniel waiting at the gate.
“Go home,” Francesca told her daughter, not wishing her to hear whatever Daniel wanted to say to her. Had he come to gloat over killing Roberto?
Stiff shouldered and red faced, Barbara pushed by Daniel and ran down the hill.
“I’ve come to say good-bye,” he told her, watching the girl’s retreating back. “We’re ordered back to Paris and leave in a few days.”
Francesca stared at the ground, shifting the toddler from the crook of one arm to another.
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me, signora, but I couldn’t leave without bidding you farewell.”
She looked up at that, studying his solemn face, wondering what he was thinking.
“We were praying for Emilio’s soul,” she finally said. Anything to break the tense silence between them. “The girl’s mourning her father. It helps her to think her father might be blessed with eternal life.”
Daniel opened his mouth as though to respond, then closed it again. After a moment, he said, “What will you do? Will you stay in Ancona?”
“Where else would I go?”
“Your husband’s cousin, the blacksmith, requested a passport to Corsica. Funny that, eh? Bonaparte’s home island. But I hear they’re more Italian than French there, even if their famous son is France’s great hero.” He looked into her eyes. “I could arrange for you to accompany him, start a new life. What’s left for you here?”
Francesca smiled wanly. “There’s Our Lady in the Cathedral. I’ll stay close to her. She’ll help me raise my children and find solace.”
“And you still believe in the miracle of the painting?”
“The miracles have stopped ever since I helped you find the painting. The Madonna no longer blesses us with smiles and tears.” Her lips curled involuntarily. “You might let your general know he no longer has anything to fear from her.”
Daniel again seemed to want to say something but stopped himself.
Francesca sighed. She knew he didn’t believe, would never bel
ieve.
Harsh though it might be, that lack of belief condemned him to the fires of damnation. Would he and Emilio and Roberto meet in hell, carry on their enmity through eternity? The thought was sobering. “The portrait is still dear to me,” she added. “It’s home. Miracle or no miracle.”
“I’m glad for you.” Daniel picked up her worn hand and kissed it. “I wish you nothing but happiness, signora. You deserve it.”
Francesca watched as he walked away. When he disappeared from sight, she hefted Mario on her hip and started down the other side of the hill.
Daniel headed back into town, toward the army barracks. As he passed by the marketplace, he heard a voice call him from behind. Turning, he saw a sweetly smiling Dolce, accompanied by a maid.
“Nina, you can return home now,” Dolce said, as she extended a hand toward him. “Daniel will accompany me.”
Daniel bowed stiffly. “Unfortunately, duty calls.”
Dolce shook her head. “Nonsense. You’re leaving in the next few days, are you not? Were you not planning to come by the house to bid me farewell?”
“I’m afraid . . .”
Dolce placed her long fingers on his arm, and it was all he could do not to snatch it away. She peered almost uncertainly at him. “Afraid? Surely, I’ve given you enough encouragement, sir. Don’t you have a question to ask me?”
Daniel’s face burned. “Very well,” he finally managed. “How is Mirelle?”
“Mirelle?” Dolce fired back. “Mirelle, Mirelle, always Mirelle. What magic does she practice, bewitching all of you?” She paused, and when she spoke again, she’d brought her tone back to its usual caressing cadence. “Especially you, Daniel, when you even yet might possess yourself of a far richer prize.”
It was time to put an end to this farce. “Far too rich a prize for me, signorina. And, I think if you’d take the time to consider, far too poor a reward for you.”
Beyond the Ghetto Gates Page 36