A Trial in Venice

by Roberta Rich

  The egg-and-dart moulding on the friezes transfixed him. He would rather gawp at mouldings and wall reliefs done in marmorino or scagliola than stare at anything else in the world, including Cesca. What an exasperating man—and what a victory it would have been had she managed to captivate him.

  A few paces from Palladio, and wearing the compulsory red hat, was Asher, the Jew moneylender—standing up very straight, neck craned, to better watch the proceedings. Little wonder he was observing Foscari so intently. When Cesca had arrived at Foscari’s palazzo in Venice last week and seen the gilded chairs, the embossed leather hangings in the reception room, the sterling silver, the glassware, the gold forks, the chandelier and damask curtains surrounding the bed, she had done a quick calculation. Foscari must have borrowed at least fifty ducats. There was only one place in Venice to borrow money. A few discreet questions to the black-bearded men under the ghetto’s sotoportego and they nodded at Asher.

  A group of Franciscan monks, their black hoods raised, making them look like a flock of vultures, hovered around Foscari, demanding to examine his papers.

  The judge motioned them away. His back was so straight that Cesca thought he looked as though he had a poker up his arse.

  Hannah stood between two soldiers in the same dress she always wore, now tattered. Her pregnancy stretched it too tightly, destroying all modesty, outlining her navel for all the world to see. It was embarrassingly clear she was close to her confinement.

  Hannah kept glancing around the vast room, dark eyes frantically darting this way and that, searching for Matteo. Well, she could search all she wished. The boy would remain behind the pillar, invisible to everyone on the floor below. Cesca would hear what Hannah had to say for herself. Then, she would decide when the moment was right.

  CHAPTER 28

  Doge’s Palace,

  Law Courts,

  Venice

  “THE JEWESS IS CHARGED with two crimes, my lord,” said the clerk. He took a piece of parchment and studied it with the aid of a magnifying glass. “The abbess of the Oespedale della Pietà in the sestiere of Castello alleges that Hannah Levi kidnapped a Christian boy from his natural parents and raised him for many years as a Jew. Subsequently the child was rescued and placed in the care of the abbess by one Francesca Trevare. The aforementioned Jewess then attempted to steal this unfortunate child from the convent. The abbess believes Hannah Levi to be a procuress of Christian children for use in various rituals practised by the Hebrews.”

  At least there was no mention of Niccolò di Padovani. Was that something to be grateful for? Perhaps not. Did it matter if she was hanged for a sheep or hanged for a lamb?

  Judge Abarbanel stared down his long Venetian nose at Hannah. He turned to Foscari. “You rest your case on a witness who is accused, and most probably guilty, of serious allegations. Are you trying to make a mockery of this court or are you a simpleton?”

  Foscari began to stammer, “Y-Your Grace. This is Hannah Levi. She is the Jewish midwife who has testimony vital to my case. May I remind your lordship, you ordered her—”

  “But, sir, you should have had the decency to tell me she was a criminal.”

  “At the time of the last hearing she had not been arrested. She was living as a free citizen in Constantinople. I sent for her.”

  The judge said, “In support of your case you present me with some hapless prisoner you have given a few scudi to deliver a well-rehearsed speech? How dare you, sir?”

  Hannah took a deep breath, grateful she was supported on either side by the two soldiers. Her head was spinning. “I can explain.” To her embarrassment, her voice came out in a high squeak. She would have traded a great deal for a drink of water.

  May it please God, I cannot give birth on a straw mattress. I cannot place my baby in a convent, to be banished from the outside world to the misery of the orphanage like other unwanted babies. My child cannot die of disease and neglect before I have even put him to breast.

  Judge Abarbanel scrutinized her then glanced away. In the judge’s eyes she wanted to find kindness and patience and a desire to discover the truth, but she found only coldness. Hannah saw herself as he must see her: uncomfortable with the weight of the baby, clothed in a worn blue dress with puckered seams.

  There was a voice from the balcony. Heart sinking, Hannah recognized it as the abbess’s. The nun lumbered to her feet and began making her way toward the judge, clutching at the balustrade as she hobbled down the stairs, her club foot splayed to the side.

  The judge said, “Have a seat, Abbess. I shall hear from you in a moment.”

  She sat down in the front row, looking none too pleased at having to wait.

  “The abbess has accused me of abducting the di Padovani heir and raising him as a Jew,” Hannah said. “I hope, Your Grace, that when I explain the circumstances, you will realize I acted honourably.”

  “So you admit to the crime?”

  “I saved the child’s life.”

  “You must speak up, madam,” said the judge. “My hearing is not what it used to be.”

  Hannah repeated what she had said.

  The judge motioned to the soldiers. “Put her in the witness box.”

  He waited while Hannah climbed the three stairs leading to the box. Her legs trembled so violently she might have been climbing the steps of a gallows.

  “You are a Jewess?” the judge asked.

  Hannah nodded, her throat still so dry that she could hardly get out the words “I am.” From this vantage point she might be able to see Matteo in the crowd—her vision was acute. But the room was vast. She squinted to squeeze a tear into one eye to clarify her sight. She saw no red-haired boy in the balcony.

  “Do you promise to tell the truth?” the judge asked.

  “Yes.”

  “This oath is binding on your conscience?”

  No, it is not. Asher is right. I have no use for the laws of the gentiles, or for judges and lawyers or fresco-ceilinged courtrooms. I will say whatever is necessary to win my freedom and my son.

  “It is,” she said.

  “The Marquis—” the judge coughed out the word as though it was a fish bone lodged in his throat “—Foscari wishes me to appoint him guardian of the di Padovani estate. Before I can do so, I need the child to be properly identified. I am prepared to overlook the fact that you are a Jewess, but I cannot overlook the fact that you are charged with two grave offences. If I find you not guilty, I shall hear your testimony. If I find you guilty, I must return you at once to Pozzi Prison.” Judge Abarbanel picked up his quill pen and turned to a fresh page in his ledger. “Now, signora, what do you have to say for yourself?”

  Hannah, in the high-sided witness box, its gate latched, soldiers on either side blocking her escape, felt as she had as a young girl when one of her brothers stuffed her in a blanket chest so small that even though she was only four and tiny for her age, she’d had to wrap her arms around her legs and bend her neck to breaking. Elbows jammed into corners, she’d breathed in her own peaty smell of fear.

  “Five years ago,” said Hannah, “the Conte di Padovani came to my house in the middle of the night and begged me to attend to his wife, who had been in travail for three days without result.”

  “You must have known it is against the law for a Jewish midwife to deliver a Christian baby.”

  “I did it out of pity, Your Grace. The Conte was desperate.”

  And I was desperate, as well—for money to ransom Isaac.

  “The Contessa nearly died. The baby was blue—I had difficulty getting him to breathe. Nothing at his birth happened as it should. I was—”

  The judge’s face flushed. “I need not trouble you with the details of the birth, signora.“ He fingered the heavy gold chain around his neck. “Please continue with what is relevant.”

  In the front row Palladio half rose to his feet as though to speak. Then, thinking better of it, he sat down again.

  “Foscari has presented me with a boy he cl
aims is the heir,” the judge said. “But the residuary legatees, the monks of the Monasterio San Francisco de Rosas, who have a competing claim on the estate, contend Matteo di Padovani died years ago of the plague. Their advocates tell me they will call upon a family servant, Giovanna, to swear she last saw the boy stricken with buboes and lesions, more dead than alive in the arms of a Jewish midwife who, I presume, was you.”

  “It was, Your Grace.”

  “Surely you do not expect me to believe the infant recovered from the plague?”

  A child’s cry of merriment filled the air. There was no mistaking that voice. Matteo, still dressed in the breeches and dirty linen shirt he had worn in the convent, grinned, flailing his arms like a miniature windmill as he waved from the balcony. Hannah gave a tiny wave and pressed her finger to her lips to admonish him to be still. Please, dear God, for once in his life make him obey.

  “Matteo never suffered from the plague.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “I went to his family’s palazzo. Giovanna refused to take Matteo. She slammed the door in my face.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “She believed the child suffered from the plague.”

  “And why did she think that?” the judge asked, with growing impatience. “Must I drag every word out of you?”

  “Because…” Hannah hesitated. What explanation could she offer? The soldiers of the Prosecuti had been pursuing her. “I painted the baby and myself with buboes and lesions in the manner of a plague victim in order to…”

  Matteo sat on the edge of the balustrade, legs dangling twenty feet to the floor below. Cesca stood behind him.

  “Continue.”

  Lucca, breaking his grip on Foscari’s hand, climbed the stairs to the witness box. Hannah reached forward and lifted him over the gate. Lucca must have sensed her misery, because he put an arm around her neck. One of the soldiers tried to wrest him away from her, but Hannah held him fast.

  The judge said, “You may remain there, young man, if you are quiet.”

  “In order to…” An idea was forming. “I am sure Your Grace remembers how devastating the plague was that year. How a third of the population of the city perished overnight. How the canals were filled with bodies, the barges laden with corpses. How mothers were deserting their children, husbands their wives, priests their parishes. Like everyone else, I was frightened.”

  “Signora,” the judge said, “I remember it all too well.”

  “Looters were roaming the streets, robbing everyone they came across, breaking into houses. Lawlessness prevailed. Gangs of ruffians violated unaccompanied women.”

  “Please get to the point.”

  “I wanted to escape on the next ship, leave Venice altogether. I was terrified to be abroad at night, but I had passage to Constantinople the following morning at dawn. I needed to return Matteo before I set sail. I thought the best way to move about the city unmolested was in disguise. I painted myself and Matteo as plague victims so we could pass through the street safely.”

  The judge’s quill scratched as he made note of her words.

  “My ruse worked only too well.” Hannah paused to let him finish writing. “Giovanna was terrified at the sight of us. Before she closed the door, she told me the Conte and Contessa had died of the plague, along with the Conte’s brothers.” She held up her hands. “You see, Your Grace, I had no choice but to take Matteo with me.”

  “Surely there were other relatives. Another uncle? Cousins? Aunts?”

  “No one I knew of,” Hannah said. In truth, she had had no time to consider alternatives. After her murder of Niccolò, she had lost no time in departing Venice.

  “Signora, I am tempted to believe this fanciful tale of yours. You have a plain way of speaking and a frank manner. But there is one thing I do not understand.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did you have the baby in the first place?”

  Hannah had anticipated this question, but her imagination had not yet provided her with a plausible answer. She tried to think but could not concentrate with Matteo fidgeting with increasing liveliness on the balustrade above. Finally, she said, “I was suckling him. Matteo’s own wet nurse was feverish with mastitis. Treatment of the yellow discharge from the nipples is painful, requiring a lancet to be inserted in—”

  “You may spare me further details of this unfortunate woman.”

  “I sailed with Matteo to Malta, where my husband, Isaac, was being held as a slave. I ransomed him and then together we sailed to Constantinople. We have lived there ever since. My husband and I have loved Matteo as we would have loved our own son.” She need not bore the judge with the horrors of the voyage, the hard work of setting up the silk business in Constantinople, the challenge of an impossible language and unfamiliar customs.

  On the balcony, Cesca was gesturing to her, releasing her hands from around Matteo then replacing them. The judge was asking her something, but Hannah, distracted by Cesca, could not make sense of his words. Foscari came forward to stand next to her.

  “The judge asked you to confirm for the record that this child—” he touched Lucca’s shoulder “—is Matteo di Padovani.”

  Hannah brushed his words aside. She wanted to shout: there is a child on the balcony about to drop to the floor and split open his head.

  The judge rapped a gavel on his writing table. “Please direct your attention to me. My query is a simple one. Confirm whether the boy in your lap is the child you delivered of the Contessa and the child you have raised since infancy.”

  Hannah felt an urgent little kick as her infant moved within her. She opened and closed her lips. No words came out.

  Lucca shifted on her lap, staring at his new calfskin shoes that no doubt pained him. He looked up and stroked her face. She hugged him. In the back of the courtroom stood Asher, his black eyes fixed on her.

  The judge said in an exasperated voice, “Is this the child you delivered? The child you raised in Constantinople? Once and for all, is this the di Padovani heir?”

  Words formed in her mind but would not issue forth: no, Matteo is on the balcony, about to topple to his death.

  Before she could say this to the judge, Foscari said, “My lord, if I may have a minute to remind this witness of her duty to the court?”

  “You may.”

  Foscari leaned an elbow on the witness box. He was so close she could smell the fish gall glue holding his nose in place, and see herself in the nose’s polished silver surface. The face reflected back at her—skin as white as paste, cheekbones jutting, eyes red from weeping—could not be hers.

  Something bright blue fell from far above and snagged on a chandelier, where it swayed, until it drifted free and landed a few paces from her chair. It was Matteo’s felt hat, one she had sewn for him. From far above came the glint of red hair. The brown nightingale alighted on the railing near Matteo’s hand. Cesca smiled, as Matteo jiggled, waving down at Hannah with Lucca on her lap. Why did not anyone notice? But every eye in the courtroom was trained on her. Matteo continued to jiggle in Cesca’s arms, calling joyfully, “Ama! Ama!”

  Foscari crooked a finger to indicate Hannah must bend her head to hear him.

  “I await your answer,” said the judge.

  CHAPTER 29

  Doge’s Palace,

  Law Courts,

  Venice

  FOSCARI WHISPERED, “If I wave my handkerchief in the sign of the cross, Cesca will, with one push, send Matteo to his death.” He took his handkerchief from his pocket and played with it, letting it drift through his fingers. Two flashes of white silk—one vertical, one horizontal—and there would be the whoosh of an object falling, a child’s scream—then a thud like a melon hitting the floor.

  What shall it be? Shall I give him a shove or will you obey?

  Judge Abarbanel, eyebrows raised, quill pen poised, said, “Signora, do you swear on the life of your unborn child that the boy you hold in your lap is Matteo di Padovani?”r />
  Hannah’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She opened her lips to speak, but still her voice would not serve her. Lucca buried his face in her shoulder and snuggled into her as though he had been doing so for years, his breath collecting where her collarbone met her throat. What a convincing tableau of son and mother they made. How ready the judge was to believe the little boy she held was Matteo. She did not even have to speak. A nod would suffice.

  Had Hannah risked everything, only to watch Matteo shatter on the terrazzo floor? Even if she tossed Lucca from her lap, raced across the room and bounded up the stairs two together, by the time her ungainly body reached the balcony she would be snatching at empty air. She sat frozen, gripping Lucca so tightly he cried out. From the balustrade Matteo sang “Here I am” in his high, childlike voice, thrusting his feet in front of him and clapping his palms. “ ‘High as a steeple, high as a crow, high as a thrush. I think no bird as mighty as me!’ ” He flapped his arms and wriggled his bottom in rhythm to his song.

  Cesca stepped back, hairpins in her mouth, hands at her sides. The nightingale, trilling merrily, flew close to Matteo, who reached for it, calling out, “Ama! Ama! Watch me catch the bird. Pretty bird, pretty bird, come to me. Teach me to fly like you.”

  May Matteo sprout wings; may he drift to the ground feather-light, gentle as a turtle dove, Hannah prayed. If God obliged, she would fall to her knees, would kiss the cross around the judge’s neck.

  Hannah must lie just one more time, just about this one small matter. Still, she felt her face grow hot as she opened her mouth to speak. Asher was wrong. Bearing false witness, even in the courts of the gentiles, was a shameful act. But what choice had she? Would not any mother do as much to save her child?