“This is the Empress,” he announced. “She stands for fruitfulness and fertility. But she demands powerful purification.” He paused, breathing deeply as if preparing to deliver himself of some awesome truth. “Fortuna smiles on you, sister. I have recently made a similar reading of the cards for the wife of my Duke, the lady Lucrezia Borgia. Like you, she longs for issue in her new marriage. Like you, she has offended Venus and remains barren. With the help of a chemist, I mixed a potion for her of secret ingredients handed down from the ancients. I will bring home a vial of it for you to take. Once you have purified yourself Venus will be propitiated. Both you and the lady Lucrezia will produce healthy sons.”
Of course it was out of the question for me to take up his offer. Even had I wished to test the efficacy of the remedy, for the wife of a celebrated physician and observing Jewish scholar to accede to the power of magic even by swallowing a potion was unthinkable. That I could even have considered it proved to me that the time had come for me to go home. My life with Judah may have been joyless. But life in this house was mad.
One thing remained for me to do. I must see my grandmother for the last time. Much as I detested her, she was my father’s mother and I knew he would have wished me to maintain filial decorum toward her, as he always had.
I presented myself at the door to her room just before dinner and announced to Dorotea that I wished to see La Nonna.
“She is resting and cannot be disturbed,” was the answer I got. “Perhaps this afternoon.”
Of course that afternoon I was told that the old woman was too agitated to see anyone. At dusk, the doctor was with her, and by nightfall, a sleeping potion had been administered. In between my attempts to storm the citadel I packed my baskets and washed my head in preparation for my departure. Now that I had made up my mind, I could not wait to shed the heavy conspiratorial air of the place. But I was determined not to leave without first seeing my grandmother.
Next morning I confided my plan to Asher. Not only did he prove sympathetic, he offered to come with me. “It is my duty to visit my grandmother as well as yours, Grazia,” he informed me in that endearingly serious manner of his. “I might have remained remiss had it not been for this suggestion of yours.” Then he added, shyly, “You are always in the forefront when it comes to courage and probity.” Interesting that each of us thought the same of the other.
Even with Asher doing knightly service at my side, it was no easy thing to gain access to La Nonna. Dorotea and Ricca formed a solid phalanx across the portal. But Asher possessed a formidable battering machine: Grandfather’s will had named him custodian of all bequests. Always alert to the main chance, his mother and sister both knew that their future depended on his goodwill.
From within we heard the unmistakable rasp of La Nonna’s voice shouting. “Grazia! Grandson! Come to me! Respect! Respect!”
“You see, she’s deranged,” Ricca announced. “Nothing she says makes sense.”
“Do I not hear my grandson? Is it Asher?” the voice rasped out from behind the curtained portal.
“Yes, Nonna,” he shouted back, loud enough to be well heard through the thick curtain. And to his sister: “Step aside, Ricca. Else I shall be forced to lay hands on you.”
The threat worked. We walked past the gorgon and into the dimly lit room.
It was a proper witch’s cave. A single candle burned beside the bed. A pot of some noxious stuff boiled over a small brazier that had been brought in for the purpose. And huddled up in one corner of the bed lay the old lady, her pockmarked cheeks glowing red and a bluish stain outlining her loose lips.
I tapped her lightly on the arm. “Nonna,” I whispered, “it is I, Grazia, come to see you.”
The little eyes opened to a squint. “Grazia . . .” She held a hand out to be kissed. “What has taken you so long? I have been asking for you.”
“You were too fatigued to see people, Nonna,” Asher explained.
“Fatigued?” Her voice dripped with the accustomed sarcasm. “I am not fatigued, foolish boy. I am dying. Can you not see it?”
With a sudden and unexpected show of strength she reached up, grabbed his head with both her hands, and forced it down to a level with her own, as if to show him the face of death.
“You must not speak of dying, Nonna . . .” Asher murmured.
“Why not?” Her voice came through at least twice as strong as his. “I am dying and I must get my house in order. My house. You are soft, boy.” She glared at poor Asher accusingly as she let him go. “No match for your sister. She should have been the boy.”
“Cruelty and a hard heart and cunning do not make a man, Nonna,” I cut in. “Asher is honest, loyal, and clever.”
“Still talking back, are you, Grazia?” she snapped.
“Still speaking out for justice and the truth,” I replied.
“Haven’t lost your spirit?” she inquired, almost civilly.
“Hasn’t lost her spirit,” Asher replied on my behalf.
Oddly enough, this mutual defense seemed to please her. For she smiled a lopsided grimace and inquired, “What have we here? An alliance?”
“A friendship,” I replied.
“You will need more than friendship to best your enemies in this house. Fine man or not, this boy is no match for his damnable mother and sister. They are fiends from hell.”
She paused a moment, as if waiting for one of us to deny her. But neither of us did. So she went on, talking quite lucidly, you understand, and in a strong, steady voice. “That whelp Ricca sucked around my vain old husband whispering all manner of flattery into those old ears while she pretended to clean them, and touching him, touching him, washing his head and paring his nails. He took these attentions as devotion. But all along she was conspiring to supplant me. Listen to me, grandson.” A pudgy hand shot out from under the coverlet and waggled under Asher’s nose. “Watch out for your sister. She is a witch. She will spirit everything away from you.”
“She may try, Grandmother, but she will not succeed,” he answered.
“Promise me,” she demanded.
“I promise.”
“Not that way. On your knees. Swear on your father’s grave. Down. Get down.”
A long look passed between us. Her mood was turning dangerously febrile. This was no time to deny her. He sank to his knees at the bedside and swore.
Now it was my turn. But first she dispatched Asher to watch at the portal and keep Dorotea and Ricca out.
As soon as he was beyond earshot she beckoned me down to her as she had him. “There are things you cannot tell a brother about his sister,” she whispered. “Things too horrible . . .”
Things I do not want to hear, I thought. “You must rest now, Nonna,” I began. “I can return later —”
“Now. You must hear it now.” She grasped me firmly by the hand. “You are a good girl, Grazia. I was mistaken in you. I should not have beaten you.” Could I be witnessing a softening of that hard old heart? “I should have beaten her instead,” she went on. So much for the change of heart. “She was the imp all along. The devil was in her, not in you. If only I had beaten it out of her then, when she was soft and pliant. My poor Ricca. I let the devil take her.”
“Ricca is not such a witch as all that,” I replied, hoping to calm her. Instead, my defense of Ricca only exacerbated her excitement.
“Come here. Put your ear next to my mouth.” She pulled me down with amazing strength. “Listen to me,” she whispered. “She fornicates with the devil every night. Here. In my room. She puts out a mat for him. She calls to him. She teases him into her insides. He groans with fatigue but she goads him on and on and on. I hear this!”
Then, as if this outburst had taken all the strength she had, she fell back, eyes closed, and let loose my hand, and I thought that was the end of it. But no. After a moment she rose up and, with a great heave,
threw herself out of the bed. “Cover me with something,” she demanded. “They will soon return. I feel it.”
Her will was still irresistible to me. I pulled the coverlet off the bed and wrapped it around her bloated, naked body.
“Now, take my arm,” she instructed.
With each step we took across the room, I felt the weight of her swollen body threatening to pull me down. Yet I held firm and so did she. And thus, step by painful step, we reached the washstand that stood in the far corner of the room.
“Pick up the ewer,” she ordered. “Turn it over.”
There, pasted against the bottom, lay a carved brass key.
“Get the key off,” she ordered, leaning heavily on the edge of the little wooden stand. But try as I might, I could not pry the thing loose.
“Give it to me.” She grabbed the ewer out of my hand and dashed it against the stand, spewing broken shards in all directions.
“The key. Pick it up. Quick,” she ordered. Then, heedless of the sharp shards underfoot, she led me over to a small cask secreted in a niche in the wall. By the time we reached the chest, blood was dripping from the soles of her bare feet. But when I bent down to see to her wounds, she smacked me smartly on the head and rasped, “Open the cask. Quickly.”
“But your feet . . .”
“Later.” She was breathing heavily now, almost gasping. “Open it,” she repeated.
My fingers trembled as I twisted the key in the lock. Turn. Turn. Click. The lock was undone.
“Good. Bring it to the bed. Quickly.”
I placed the cask in her lap. Her swollen fingers closed around it like fat worms and slowly lifted the lid. What a sight greeted my eyes. Gems of all shapes and colors. Golden chains and barrettes and earrings. A king’s ransom in jewels. “Hold up your gonna — make a little well in it,” she rasped.
Out in the corridor, there arose a swelling of angry voices. Above the din, I recognized the familiar voice of Dorotea. “You dare to forbid me, your own mother?”
“Hold firm,” the old lady ordered me. “Spread out your gonna.” Then, all in a rush, she dumped the entire contents of the cask into my lap. “Go now. Leave this place. Tell no one. Guard the jewels. They are the dei Rossi treasure. Go.”
For a moment I hesitated. Then, because my heart prompted me to it, I turned back and laid my cheek against the flushed, mottled one on the pillow. “Goodbye, Grandmother,” I murmured. “May God keep you.”
“Grazia . . .”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
“Pray for me.”
I prayed for her that night, and when I was done I took my first sip of Jehiel’s potion.
My grandmother died two days later. By then, I was on the road to Mantova, the jewels fastened around my waist, Jehiel’s potion in my belly.
42
The year 1500 produced a crop of children wherever I looked. On the eve of carnevale, the bells rang out all over Mantova to announce the birth of a Gonzaga heir. Having produced two girls, Madonna Isabella finally got her heart’s desire, an heir named Federico. Just before Passover, news came from Ferrara that Ricca and Jehiel had been blessed with twins (not even one child for me but two for them!). A few weeks later Penina bore a daughter, a true comfort to her widowed mother, named Sarabella after La Nonna (now there is true generosity of spirit for you).
But I no longer greeted these evidences of other women’s fertility with a rush of black envy. For now I too felt life stirring in my belly.
The moment I felt life I rushed a letter off to Jehiel. No mention of miracles or divine intercession, of course. Nor did he in reply refer directly to his magic potion. He did inform me, however, that his princess/client — as he referred to Madonna Lucrezia Borgia — had also been touched by God’s bounty, and added, “No matter if I am chosen or not, I will always feel a godfather to these two babes.” I certainly intended to name him godfather to our babe, no matter how Judah might object. But I doubted he would be accorded that honor by the parents of the Este heir.
Summer came early that year and by June it seemed that everything was fecund and growing — the trees and flowers outside my door, the babe in my womb, and the manuscript in my studiolo. The writing of my Book of Heroines moved swiftly, as if buoyed by Zephyr’s breezes, with little effort on my part. By the end of summer my heroines were prepared to meet the world. But now I began to find little reasons why the manuscript was not ready to be seen. Something held me back, something far deeper and stronger than the natural reticence of authors. I knew I had offended God when I swallowed the devil’s potion, and I feared exposing anything I loved to His wrath.
The first confirmation of my fears came from Ferrara. In the seventh month of her pregnancy — and mine — Lucrezia Borgia produced a stillborn infant and lay in a delirium in the Este palace at Ferrara with little hope for her survival. In my mind, she and I were bound in our pregnancies by my brother’s potion. We had both solicited Venus’s favors and had seemingly been blessed by her. But now my fellow suppliant lay feverish in Ferrara with only a dead infant to show for her traffic with the cursed magic. My pregnancy, which for seven months had provided me a refuge, now became a prison of uncertainty and I prayed to know my fate.
This time God did answer my prayers. Your sister, Fioretta, came six weeks before her time, but not without travail. Some days before her delivery she turned herself upside down in my womb, and the midwife’s attempts to reverse the position came to nothing, even with Judah to help her.
They worked over my swollen belly for hours, turning the little creature a finger’s length at a time. But each time they stopped to give me a bit of respite, the little body slid smoothly back into its preferred habit — feet facing out. They were still working at it when my pains began. After that, all their efforts were directed to extricating the little creature before she either suffocated or strangled to death within me.
Like Madonna Lucrezia, I too fell victim to feverish delirium after the birth. Like her, I languished in some limbo land of velvety blackness that descended, then lifted, then blackened again, until one morning I was able to make out a circle of heads ranged around my bed, looking down on me like a circle of Mantegna’s putti.
I held out my arms for my little Fioretta.
“She wants the child,” I heard someone say.
I saw Judah turn away from my gaze and I knew the worst. “My baby is dead,” I said. “Is it not so?”
His silence confirmed what I already knew.
The next time I saw the light, only one face was there to greet me: it was my brother Jehiel, bent over me, weeping.
I must have groaned inadvertently. For he looked down at my face and, suddenly ashamed, turned his head aside to brush away the tears with the corner of his camicia.
“What time is it?” I asked. “What day?”
“Wednesday, just after compline,” he answered.
Wednesday. I remembered feeling my first pains on the Sabbath. “Have I then been unconscious for five days?” I asked.
“More like twelve,” he answered. “But you are healing, Grazia. Judah says you will be well.”
“My baby is dead,” I told him.
“Oh, Grazia, I am so sorry. I believed that I could lift the Venus curse, but she was too strong for me.” In an effort to hide his tears he threw himself against my breast, holding on for dear life while he mumbled his bitter remorse into my ears.
How long we stayed that way I cannot say. But when we drew apart, my tears had washed away whatever bitterness I might have harbored toward my brother as the architect of my woes.
“You must not blame yourself for my travail,” I told him. “Whatever heresy I committed I did of my own free will. If God wished to punish me for it, that is between me and Him and no affair of yours.”
“You have a large spirit, Grazia.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek so
ftly. “But will you always keep your tender feelings toward me, no matter what?”
“Of course,” I answered. “You are my brother and I love you more than my own life.”
“But will you always? Say that you will, Grazia. Swear it.”
“I swear it,” I replied. The idea that I could stop loving my brother was unthinkable to me. Yet even after I had sworn, he still appeared pale and distraught.
“Is there something else, Jehiel?” I asked.
He nodded. “Many things, sister. But the chiefest of them is that I have left Ferrara forever. I came here to say goodbye. I am a man pursued. Alfonso d’Este has issued a summons for me to meet his inquisitor. I am accused of witchcraft and blasphemy — crimes of the first degree — on account of Madonna Lucrezia’s dead baby. She has denounced me. I must be gone before the Duke’s men find me here.”
“Where will you go?” I asked.
“South to Roma. After that, somewhere out of reach of Lord Alfonso. I cannot face the torturer.” He shuddered. “Perhaps I will go to Greece. I do not know. I only know that . . . I will never see you again.” He buried his head in his hands but could not stifle the sound of his sobbing.
“No, it cannot be,” I cried out. “Asher will speak to the Duke. He will make things right for you.”
“No one can ever make things right for me, Grazia,” he answered, from under the shock of hair that had fallen over his bowed head. “All there is left for me now is flight — or the fire.”
Brushing the forelock aside, I took his face in my hands and looked deep into those warm velvet eyes with the dancing yellow lights. But no lights danced there. The eyes were cloudy, like the eyes of an old man with the beginning of cataracts.
I held out my arms. “Kiss me on the lips as we used to do to horrify the rabbis. Come now. A lover’s kiss for the sister who loves you.”
I had always been able to tease him out of his moods. But not this time. This time he turned away from my embrace and went on in a deadly serious tone. “I have a request of you.”
The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi Page 47