The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi

by Jacqueline Park

  With a brief thank-you to the gods, Danilo disengaged it from its perch and carried it to the wall.

  As might be expected, the soldiery assigned to the kiosk that overlooked the hillside had been given the afternoon off to attend the parade. But Danilo was taking no chances. His ears pricked for the sound of a patrol, he mounted the creaking ladder step by careful step, then with an athlete’s grace leapt to a safe landing on the soft grass that lined the inner edge of the Third Court. As he made his way across the garden to his father’s house, he could not help but smile at the memory of certain boyhood pranks he had pulled off with the help of the very ladder that eased his way today.

  It took a moment for his father’s servant to answer the bell. And, when the lad did open the door, he did not greet his master’s son with the usual bow and short prayer for his happiness and everlasting good health. Instead, he grabbed Danilo by the shoulder and all but hauled him into the vestibule.

  “You are late. Very late. The doctor is worried. Very worried.” The servant shook his head disapprovingly. This unnerved the boy so thoroughly that, when he did come face to face with his father, he was totally unprepared to deal with the opening parental scolding.

  “Where have you been? Were you in the First Court to greet me? No. Were you at my door to welcome me? No. One would think that after a three-month absence . . .”

  Now, for the first time, the doctor actually looked at his son, saw the condition he was in, uncombed and unkempt, with leaves and twigs tangled in the silk threads of his caftan.

  “Your boots are filthy. What have you been up to?”

  “It’s my horse, Bucephalus.” Danilo’s rehearsed excuses forgotten, the words tumbled out of the boy’s mouth in a rush. “I sent for the horse doctor, but he was too busy with the Sultan’s parade horses. So I had to stay with Bucephalus myself. He is very sick, Papa. All blown up. And he moans in pain. Now he sleeps, but I think he’s going to die.”

  Not a word of apology or regret. But the anguish on the boy’s ravaged face wiped out all his transgressions. The only thing Judah could see was his son’s misery.

  “Sit down here beside me. Calm yourself. Let us see if there is anything we can do for the poor animal.” His temper quelled, the doctor fell into the familiar role of the wise physician addressing the fearful family of a sick patient. “This Bucephalus of yours is a well-bred beast. That means he will fight for his life with all his heart. Oftentimes, that will to survive is better than any medicine. Now tell me, how was the horse when you left him?”

  Somewhat comforted, the boy was able to answer coherently. “At first he bucked and kicked, and I thought he would break a leg. But I got him up and walking, and that seemed to quiet him.”

  Judah nodded approvingly. “If it is colic — and it sounds like colic to me — you have stumbled onto the best remedy.”

  “But now he lies there not moving. And his breathing is shallow. And he does not open his eyes for me.”

  “Is he still swelling?”

  “I couldn’t tell. Oh, Papa, if you could see him. I think the life is draining out of him.”

  “Then we must think of how we can restore him.” Judah held out his arm. “Help me to the cabinet. I seem to remember a poultice. Or was it an emetic?”

  Although the book cabinet stood no more than twenty steps from the bed, Judah was forced to lean heavily on his son as he shuffled across the room. Now Danilo was able to see the change in his father over the past months: the pallor, the tremor, the feebleness.

  “Are you all right, Papa?”

  “Just all right, my boy. Although I had to be carried across from Üsküdar in a litter.” He did not add, If you had been there to greet me, you would have known that.

  “Oh, Papa, I am so sorry. You never wrote that you were ill.”

  “It is only a fever. It will pass now that I am home.” He did not add, with you to take care of me.

  “What can I do for you, Papa?” Danilo asked, contrite.

  This heartfelt offer was quite enough to erase the last traces of Judah’s pique. “Right now, you can help me find the finest treatise in the world on the diseases of horses. It should be in a box on the third shelf in a blue linen wrapper.”

  After one or two false starts, Danilo located the manuscript, unwrapped it, and revealed its contents: a stack of vellum scrolls, each tied with a different-colored ribbon. And, to be sure, there it was, neatly tied with a yellow ribbon, an ancient manuscript that the doctor had carried with him halfway across the world. Like a magician, he whipped out a sheet of the vellum and waved it before his son’s curious eyes.

  “Eccola! The very thing. Hippocrates’ The Diseases of Horses. Perhaps the father of all medicine will give us a few tips. What do you think?”

  Danilo was too astonished to speak.

  “Perhaps you wish to know how I came by such a valuable piece of property.”

  The boy nodded.

  “It was a gift to me from the Marchese of Mantova, whom I served before you were born. A perfect ignoramus, that one. He had bought it before he discovered that he couldn’t read it. Didn’t realize until he’d paid a fortune for it that it was written in Greek. And his hired Greek proved a very unreliable translator. So he came after me to enter his service. I do believe he hired me as his body physician hoping I would explicate the fine points of veterinary medicine for him. A physician and veterinarian, two for the price of one, you see. He was as much of a bargain hunter as his wife. Well, I translated the treatise for him all right — not too challenging a job — and I did doctor him. But I ended up also doctoring his horses.”

  As he spoke Judah carefully piled up the vellum sheets.

  “Would you believe that rascal, Francesco Gonzaga, gave me this manuscript as a gift when I finished the translation? Handed it to me like a used dishrag — said he had no more use for it now that he had a copy he could read.” He shook his head in wonderment. “What ignorance.” Another shake of the head and he began to page through the leaves of vellum, translating as he went. “Here we are. Colic. Called bloat when it affects ruminants. This is not a disease but a collection of symptoms: rapid standing pulse, fever, sweat, extreme pain, thrashing, kicking . . .”

  Danilo recognized the symptoms at once.

  “All that happened to Bucephalus. I was afraid it was colic.”

  “How did you know?” his father asked.

  “I guess I must have heard about it in the stables. I’m always looking out for Bucephalus. To keep him healthy. He’s high-strung. High bred. You know.”

  “Actually, I don’t know. In fact, you probably know more about horses than I do, things you’ve picked up in the stables.” He smiled at his son approvingly. “You’ve already done the diagnosis. Let us get on with the treatment.” He thrust the sheaf of papers into his son’s hands. “I’m finding it a bit difficult to decipher this. Why don’t you take a turn.”

  Obediently, Danilo took the pages in hand and began to translate from the Greek.

  “‘Treatments for colic. There is no cure for colic. The outcome is with the gods. Therefore prayer is the best remedy. Some animals recover. Some expire. No matter the outcome, the disease runs its course within a single revolution of the sun.’” Danilo stopped to consider this. “Does that mean there’s nothing we can do but pray, Papa?”

  “Read on,” his father replied in a firm, reassuring voice. “Perhaps we can learn from Hippocrates how to increase the odds in Bucephalus’s favor.”

  The boy continued. “‘A salt wash of the stomach can sometimes be efficacious in aiding the animal to pass gas. Also, a poultice applied to the belly. Otherwise, pray.’” At this, the boy’s composure dissolved away, and try as he might, he could not stop his tears. “I don’t want him to die, Papa. I love him so much.”

  Much as Judah wanted to gather his son up in his arms and dry his tears,
the habits of a lifetime were too strong in him. Instead, he pushed on in his reassuring but distant physician’s manner.

  “We can still do our best to save him,” the doctor said. “I will mix a poultice for you to take along and instruct you how to wash out his stomach. I have done it myself. Again, thanks to that barbarian, Francesco Gonzaga. He always called me in when one of his Arab stallions got sick. I think he felt he was doing me an honor by allowing me to treat them. Actually, I became quite fond of them. Your mother teased me about it mercilessly.”

  “But I thought you hated horses.”

  “Me? I hate no living thing. Certainly not horses. What I hate is the thought that you might break your neck on one.”

  “Then why are you helping me to cure Bucephalus?”

  Judah stopped to consider the question. The boy waited. Then, after a few moments, Judah spoke.

  “Perhaps I’d rather see you break your neck than break your heart,” he said. “Now let us get on with the task.”

  The potion was mixed in short order, and Danilo was issued a package to take back to the stables consisting of a large bag of salt, a funnel, and careful instructions on how to wash out a horse’s stomach. Eager as he was to begin treating his horse, he did stay to see his father back to bed before he left and took an extra minute to wrap him up in two blankets.

  Then, resolutely dry-eyed, he leaned over, grasped his father’s hand tightly, and in a voice quivering with feeling vowed: “I will never forget what you did for me this day, Papa.”

  “Someday you will do something for me.”

  “Anything, Papa.”

  This was Judah’s chance and he took it. “Anything?” he asked, knowing where he was going and all the while thinking, I am leading him into a trap. How can I do this?

  “Anything,” the boy answered.

  And Judah knew that, in his son’s mouth, the offer, once made, would never be rescinded. “Then promise me that, when you finish this term at the School for Pages, you will move out of the dormitory and stay at home with me. I am no longer required in the field. I will serve the Sultan here in Topkapi. I want my son beside me.”

  It was a deal made by the devil and Judah knew it. He had caught the boy at his most vulnerable moment, when the life of the creature he held most dear (yes, admit it, most dear) was hanging by a thread. He had exploited the boy’s misery to extract a promise; at best, shoddy and dishonorable behavior. But Judah had recognized a chance to wean his son away from the seductions of the Ottoman court and could not resist using whatever means came to hand.

  Danilo, of course, could see none of this. He took his leave of Judah, buoyed by the hope that his father’s remedy would save Bucephalus’s life, perhaps even helped him to carry his master to glory the next day in the gerit.

  “Light the brazier and heat up a pail of water. Not too hot, not too cold, and be quick about it,” he ordered Abdul back at the stable. “I am going to save Bucephalus’s life and you are going to help me.”

  He sat down in the straw beside the animal and began to rub the distended belly in a slow circular movement as his father had told him to do. The poultice would be applied after the stomach was washed.

  By the time the water was heated, Bucephalus was half awake and able to respond when Danilo stuck a hand down his throat.

  “Let the horse get used to having something soft in his throat before you try the funnel,” Judah had advised. “And be sure to have the stable boy hold his back legs.”

  Abdul was so instructed. But the precaution proved unnecessary. Danilo had placed so many tasty morsels on the animal’s tongue over the years that when he thrust his bare fist into Bucephalus’s mouth, the horse offered no resistance.

  But the hardest part was still to come. After Danilo had poured the bag of salt into the warm water and stirred it, he reached out to place the funnel in the horse’s mouth. Gentle as a lover, he eased the neck of the funnel down the animal’s throat, signaling to Abdul to tighten his hold on the animal’s hind legs. This was no tasty morsel. This was a sharp, inflexible piece of metal. But again, the horse surprised them by offering no resistance.

  “He trusts you, master, not to hurt him,” Abdul offered.

  Now for the actual procedure. Danilo filled the cup hanging from the side of the bucket and began to pour the salt water slowly into the funnel, all the while maintaining a steady flow of endearments into the velvety ear. And after an interminable time, the bucket was empty and the job done.

  “Good boy, Bucephalus. Brave boy.”

  “What now?” Abdul inquired.

  “We pray,” Danilo replied. “I will ask my god to make Bucephalus strong once again so that he can carry me tomorrow in the gerit.”

  And so they prayed, each in his own language, each to his own god, in compliance with the advice offered by Hippocrates, the pagan father of medicine.

  The muezzin’s final call to prayer came and went, and the animal remained semi-comatose, breathing shallowly. But still breathing. And before the midnight hour, the horse suddenly shuddered, shook himself, struggled to his feet, and emitted a deafening blast of gas. Then another. The odor that filled the stall drove the minders out into the night air.

  “It’s the gas coming out,” Danilo shouted happily to Abdul, who was, by now, green with nausea. And together, holding their noses, they went back to the stall and watched while slowly, as if someone had stuck a pin in it, the horse’s bloated belly began to deflate before their eyes.

  17

  THE EVE OF THE GERIT

  In the city the celebration of Suleiman’s victory continued undiminished throughout the night. On both the Asian and European sides of the capital, Koranic prohibitions against alcohol were quietly ignored; women walked freely in the streets (albeit discreetly covered); and the young men of the School for Pages, set free from their supervised life for a brief respite, roamed the streets at will and returned to their dormitories at their own pleasure. It was carnival time in Istanbul. For the next four days, the Sultan would continue to show himself periodically outside his palace, applauding the games at the hippodrome, tossing coins to the crowd, and presiding over the prodigious offerings of sweets and sherbets distributed night and day in the streets. This was a striking contrast to the calm and quiet that prevailed behind the gates of Topkapi Palace.

  The cleanup of the palace began the very moment the Sultan passed through the Gate of Serenity into his selamlik. By the time the muezzin called the faithful to the final prayer of the day, the palace grounds had been cleared of all detritus, both material and human. In the First and Second Courts, no evidence remained of the exploits performed there by the cavalry troops only a few hours before. Damaged patches of lawn were restored, the paved paths were swept clean, and the venerable cypress trees ruled once more. The vast crowd that assembled on the lawns to salute their Padishah were replaced by the mild-eyed gazelles that normally grazed on the lush lawns. With a thousand gardeners standing by, things happened fast.

  For Princess Saida, the events of the evening began to unfold rapidly once the Lady Hürrem had recovered from her faint. This the lady did immediately after the Sultan’s imposing figure disappeared into the selamlik. Thereupon Saida found herself being hurried down the winding stairway of the Diwan Tower, out of the building, past the guard, and into the arms of her own maid, Marisah, one of a small party of attendants who materialized at the foot of the staircase as if by magic when the ladies descended. There they stood at attention: a handful of Hürrem’s personal servants — Saida’s maid courteously included — plus a powerful triumvirate of black eunuchs imported to warn off any casual servants of the selamlik who might inadvertently glance in the direction of the harem women as they passed.

  When they left the Diwan Tower, Hürrem seemed to know exactly where to go. It was she who led the way through the Gates of Felicity. And, once inside the Third Court, sh
e demanded a bath, as if certain that there would be a hamam awaiting their pleasure. Obviously Hürrem had been here before. Probably many times.

  Saida, who rarely visited her father’s palace, would happily have loitered in the garden-like Second Court — the tame animals especially appealed to her — but Hürrem would have none of it. And the Second Kadin was definitely in charge here. It was not one of the eunuchs but she who led the way through the Gate of Felicity, past the Throne Room and the Doctor’s House, to a small but very pretty wooden kiosk against the back wall of the Third Court.

  Once inside the little building, the Second Kadin immediately threw aside her headgear and cloak and advised Saida that they needed to bathe at once.

  “It has been a very dirty day,” she explained. “I feel the dust clogging my pores and so must you.”

  No mention of her imminent reunion with the Sultan. No sign of apprehension. Apparently her confiding moment had passed. But the lady could not hide little signs of nervousness like an intermittent twitch in her right eye and a slight trembling of her hands when she reached out for a water jug in the hamam.

  Then, within minutes — or so it seemed to Saida — Hürrem had bathed and dressed and was off without even the courtesy of a “good night.” It was not until the door had closed behind her that peace descended on the little kiosk. Only then did Saida realize how much tension the woman carried with her.

  Could it be that, under her assured manner, the Second Kadin did, in truth, harbor doubts of her Sultan’s faithfulness? Did she actually fear that his long absences might change his feelings for her? That another woman — a Hungarian or an Austrian prisoner, perhaps — might have taken his fancy? Was she haunted by the specter of her body ending up in a sack of stones at the bottom of the Bosphorus, as had the bodies of not a few concubines before her?

  Saida suddenly recalled Hürrem’s odd confidence earlier in the day. “Whereas you are a princess, I am but a poor slave. I know what it is like to be bought and sold like a piece of meat. Would you like to know?”