The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi by Jacqueline Park Read Free Book Online Page A

together against the railing. “And then,” he repeated, “we will sing our praise of the Lord.”
    And so we did. We sang the Kiddush and the Hallel and then we moved on to the old Passover question-and-answer songs, Had Gadya and Ehad Mi Yodea . We sang them in Hebrew; then we sang them in the Italian vernacular, one voice rising above all — the deep, strident basso of Monna Matilda, resonant with ardor, every note off pitch.
    We sang ourselves hoarse.
    In the end, we sang ourselves to sleep.
    I woke up when someone shouted, “Land ahoy!” We were approaching the town of Borgoforte, where the Mincio meets the Po. Half asleep, I heard Mama whispering urgently in Papa’s ear that we must dock at once. Her pains had begun. There could be no waiting for Governolo. The barque lurched sharply as it heeled over in midstream, and when I looked up, we were in a small side canal lit by torches that bathed the quay ahead in a greenish-yellow light. Behind me, Mama rose unsteadily to her feet, as if she could not even wait for the craft to be properly moored.
    Our captain hurled the landing rope onto the dock and shouted to the mate to jump up and fasten it. But before the fellow could obey, a giant figure emerged out of the yellow light bellowing at the sailor to keep his hands off the bollard if he valued his life. “I am Pietro, the dockmaster,” he roared. “Who the hell are you?”
    To protect himself from the bully’s wrath, Old Charon, as I had taken to calling our captain in my mind, immediately disowned us and all our works. He was simply a sailor for hire, he whined, and the Jew in the back of the boat had ordered him to put in at Borgoforte, for what purpose he did not know.
    “Where is this Jew? Why does he not show himself?” the bullying dockmaster demanded. “Is he afraid to reveal the horn that grows out of his head?”
    My father stood up, removed his berretta , and bowed low. “I am the Jew, dockmaster,” he announced. “Daniele dei Rossi traveling under safe-conduct from the Marchese of Mantova with a wife about to give birth any moment.”
    “Not here she don’t,” was the reply. “We will welcome no Jews in our town on the eve of Easter day.”
    And nothing would budge the brute. He waved aside the Marchese Francesco’s safe-conduct pass contemptuously. “Try the dockmaster at Governolo called Pepino,” he advised Papa with a twisted grin. “They say he is not unwilling to soil his hands with Jewish gold. But here at Borgoforte we fear God and love Christ.”
    Wait. I hear footsteps . . .
    Dio, I am summoned. Forgive the hasty departure, my son. I am not my own person in this palace.
    What keeps Madama awake this late? I wonder. Have the Imperial troops launched an offensive against France? Has the King of France caught Madame d’Etampes in flagrante delicto? Or does Madama simply feel the need to hear the poetry of the ancients issuing from my golden throat? I leave you to wonder while I answer the summons.
    Later. Before I sleep, a quick report on the urgent matter that interrupted my ricordanza . A midnight courier had arrived with a letter from Madama’s son, the Marchese Federico. A new threat of trouble in Mantova which had to be addressed at once, even if at once occurred in the middle of the night. Madonna Isabella and her son may be at odds over the matter of his mistress but she still stands guard over him like a tigress protecting her cub. And a good thing for him. Month by month, the battle lines become sharper and tighter between Francis, the King of France, and Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor. The issue: which of these titans will achieve domination over the Pope and, by extension, over all Christendom? In this struggle little Mantova, pledged at one and the same time to both the French king and the Emperor, finds itself not only powerless but pulled tighter and tighter in opposite directions. When a man is stretched long enough on such a rack, he dies. Is it the same with a