The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (64 page)

Instead, the spy catcher continued the conversation in a casual tone without laying a finger on him.

“I never thought you were a spy. But I did think you might have come here to the
strazzaria
stalls to sell your caftan. If so, I will gladly pay twice what they offer you.”

“Sell my caftan?”

Mistaking Danilo’s hesitation for a bargaining ploy, the Spaniard leaned forward to make his bid.

“I want it for my mother — my aunt actually, but she is like a mother to me. She is a beautiful widow, a veritable fountain of generosity, very clever, and she loves exotic costumes. She was a daughter of the del Luna family, but you may have heard of her as Grazia Nasi.”

Even buried far away in Topkapi Palace, Danilo had heard tell of the legendary Portuguese widow, Beatrice del Luna.

“I have heard of her,” he replied, not at all certain of the reason for the celebrity of the name. Then it came to him. “She is a
Marano
,” he blurted out, for which he was rewarded with a deep scowl.

“Do you know the meaning of the Portuguese word
Marano
?”

When Danilo shook his head no, his companion continued in a newly stern tone.

“I will tell you.
Marano
is Portuguese for pig. So, yes, we are
Maranos
,
but we prefer the term New Christians.” And then, with a friendly smile to show he bore no ill will for Danilo’s semantic insult, he held out his hand. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Samuel Mendes, nephew to Grazia Nasi and son of the body physician to the king of Portugal before the expulsion of the Jews from that benighted land.”

“You are from Portugal, then?”

“Yes, I am. But I now work in my family’s bank in Antwerp.”

His family’s bank. Danilo made the connection instantly. The Mendes family was known throughout the Jewish world as the most prominent of the Levantine bankers who somehow managed to survive and prosper in the poisonous atmosphere of Mediterranean financial practices.

Danilo held out his hand. “I am Davide dei Rossi, the son of a Jewish merchant of Mantova,” he lied. Then, almost instantly he added, “That is not true. I am traveling under false papers. My real name is Danilo del Medigo. My mother was Grazia dei Rossi, the scribe, and my father is Judah del Medigo, body physician to the Ottoman Sultan.”

“So you, too, are the son of a physician. Amazing! Do you believe in chance?”

“It is not exactly a belief,” Danilo answered. “But in a tight corner I have found myself praying to the goddess Fortuna.”

“Which makes us a pair of pagans.” The Spaniard grinned with delight. “How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Me too. It must be part of a plan that we should meet here. Same age, each of us a doctor’s son . . .”

“Except” — Danilo felt compelled to set the record straight — “Judah del Medigo is only my legal father. My blood father is a Christian.”

“But your mother is Jewish?”

“My mother is dead.”

“Like mine. One more thing we have in common. But your mother was Jewish?”

“Oh, yes, born to a family of Jewish
banchieri
from Ferrara.”

“According to the rabbis that makes you a Jew. At the very least, half a Jew. Like me. I am a Christian by day and a Jew by night. Maybe if we put our two halves together” — he grinned his infectious grin — “we could amount to one whole Jew. So now that we are brothers, how much do you want for the caftan?”

“Nothing. I couldn’t take money from my brother,” Danilo replied without thinking.

“And I couldn’t possibly accept such a valuable gift from my brother,” countered Mendes. “We have a predicament here. Think, Samuel, think.” He drew back and tapped at his forehead with his forefinger. Silence. And finally, “You look like you could use a new set of clothes.”

How could the stranger have known this?

“Actually,” Danilo reported, “that is what brought me to this
strazzaria
. The captain of the ship that carried me to Venice warned me that my harem pants and caftan would attract notice and could easily result in a trip across the Bridge of Sighs to a place where no man in his right mind wants to be.”

A nod of agreement. And finally, “Good advice.” Another silence. “Here is my proposal: I will save your life by buying you a complete new set of clothes, and you will make my aunt the happiest woman in the world by giving her your caftan.”

The ease of the transaction made it appear to be fated. Either that or cursed.

“You want this caftan for your aunt, Grazia Nasi, who is like a mother to you,” Danilo repeated, playing for time.

“She is the widow of my uncle Francesco Mendes, and I am proud to be in her service,” came the answer.

“In the Mendes bank?”

“Officially, yes. Also, from time to time I serve in her less Christian ventures. But, believe me, my friend, your caftan will find a good home in both worlds. So let us get you dressed. Is there anything here that has taken your fancy? A jerkin? A cloak? A hat? What about this?”

He reached up and with a flourish unfurled a short coat of red velvet lined at the neck with a blood-red binding. “Neat but not gaudy.” Whereupon, assuming the stance of a bullfighter, he snapped out the garment and then leaned back to assess the effect.

“No, won’t do. Too German. We are going to be more Spanish this year. Less color, lots of black.” He reached behind him and grabbed a second flared coat, this one in padded black satin, faced at the sleeves with frilly black lace. “Try this on. I’ll hold the caftan.”

Still, something kept Danilo from giving up his precious cloak. However, young Mendes was not one to be put off easily.

“I do know what is being worn these days by fashionable young men in the highest circles. It is part of my business as a banker to know such things. I promise to select only the finest and latest styles for you,” he coaxed.

When Danilo continued to hesitate, Mendes added, “If your modesty is bothering you, you can step behind that screen and I will hand your new outfit over to you piece by piece.”

His hands still clasped around the caftan, Danilo moved toward the screen.

“You had better take your carpet bag with you. I can smell the presence of a dagger in there.”

Slowly, Danilo felt his fingers gradually loosening their grasp on the gold clasp of his caftan as he picked up his bag and stepped behind the screen.

“Might as well hand over your pants and
camicia
too.”

Now all he has to do is walk out of here with my caftan, leaving me half dressed, not even able to chase him. And who would believe my story, me, a stranger in balloon pants?
While his mind played out its litany of suspicion, Danilo found his arms reaching up to toss the caftan over the rod.
Why not?
At least he still had his purse full of coins and his dagger.

“While you are at it, give me those slippers. Nobody is wearing colored shoes these days. Believe me, it’s all the Spanish style, black, black, black.”

This time Danilo did not hesitate to grasp the slippers that had cost his princess a fortune to have dyed for him and tossed them over.

“And hand me the pants. Your captain was on target there. Anyone wearing those pants on the Rialto might as well be wearing a sign that says,
I AM AN OTTOMAN SPY
.”

Over the top of the screen went the pants. Next, a long pair of stockings came flying in from another direction, accompanied by a fashion footnote.

“Trunk hose come in all lengths, you know. They make them in only two lengths: one over the feet and up to the knee, another knee to waist. I am giving you a pair of each. Take your pick. I would recommend the one-piece. Once it is on, you don’t need garters. Let me know if you have trouble getting the hose on. I’ll come around and help. By the way, the panel in the front is called a codpiece. If it is a little loose you can always stuff it with a wad of silk.”

So it went — a leather jerkin, a peaked cap, a shirt of fine linen, scores of doublets — one of them a single doublet that was a perfect fit, flared out at the waist and trimmed at the neck with a ruff of miniver. Finally, an invitation to step out and be seen.

“Excellent! Now it is time to show you off to the Venetians,” was the verdict. “I know you must feel a little naked without your balloon pants, but you will get used to the trunk hose. Actually, you have the legs for them. Not every
bravo
does.” Danilo could not suppress the flush that came to his cheeks. “Don’t be embarrassed. Good looks never did a
brav
o any harm. By the way, how are you fixed for funds?”

Danilo was pleased to be able to reply without hesitation that, for the next few years at least, he was well fixed.

“And now that you are fit to face the world, what are your plans?” That was a more difficult question to answer.

“My father had planned for me to attend the University at Padua. But I am not a born scholar,” Danilo admitted. “So my plan is to wait and see what comes along.”

“A man after my own heart!” This cheer of approval was accompanied by a congratulatory clap on the back. “But actually, I wasn’t inquiring after your plans for the rest of your life. More like the next hour or so. You see, I have a free hour right now and I wondered which way you were headed.”

Since he had no plans and no idea of how to make any, Danilo fell back on the truth. “To be honest, I hadn’t made any plans beyond the Rialto. But the captain of my ship advised me to look in at the ghetto.”

“It’s a good place to start.” Mendes nodded his approval. “Also, you have arrived at a perfect time. Tomorrow is Passover, and it is written in the Haggadah
that your fellow Jews have to offer you a place at the Seder table on the eve of Passover if they want to or not.”

After so many months at sea when the days simply melted into weeks and then months, Danilo had lost track of calendar time. Not until this moment did he realize that he had arrived in Italy on the eve of the Feast of Deliverance, which made it seem to him what the soothsayers call a fortunate day. To complete the circle, Mendes added that he happened to be going in the direction of the ghetto
himself.

“So let us take a stroll together through the parish of San Girolamo,” he offered.

And out they stepped onto the streets of Cannaregio, two fashionably dressed young blades passing the time, seeing the sights and telling each other the stories of their lives as friends tend to do at the beginning of a friendship.

“So tell me, what was it like to fight in the best army in the world?” Mendes inquired.

“Not much to tell. I was wild to go. My blood father was a fighter — a true knight.”

“I don’t understand. I thought your father was a doctor like mine.”

“Judah del Medigo was my mother’s husband. He raised me as his son. But I take after my blood father — or so I thought before the Baghdad campaign changed my mind.”

“How odd.” Mendes shook his head in puzzlement. “I have known men to become disenchanted with war after a defeat, but if Venetian accounts are to be trusted, the Iraq war was a great military victory for the Ottomans. Our reports led us to believe that the Sultan won back all the lands his father had lost to the Persian king, including Baghdad. Is that not so?”

“We conquered Tahmasp without a single shot being fired, if you call that a great military victory,” Danilo replied. “The worst danger we encountered was from an avalanche, and my most heroic act was to save the Sultan not from a dagger or a lance but from a crazed pig. And for that brave deed my reward was to be sent home by a jealous vizier like a wayward child. Don’t talk to me about the nobility of war.”

Not until the words were out of his mouth did he realize how harsh his tone had become, and in an effort to make amends he offered a further explanation.

“I used to dream of being a knight,
sans peur et sans reproche
, like my blood father. When the chance came, I begged to go on the Baghdad campaign with the Sultan. I had always thought of war as a noble calling, a contest of courage, valor, and skill like the
gerit
contest, but I was wrong. What Mesopotamia taught me is that war is all about strategy, deceit, and weather. But mostly it is about keeping records. My Sultan is the greatest fighter in the world, but what occupied most of his attention on campaign was keeping track of his thousands of men and weapons and animals. What I did not understand until I saw the war unfold before my eyes was the constant threat, not from enemy sharpshooters but from starvation. The pack animals, the riding animals, even the herd animals brought along to be slaughtered must eat, along with the men. So a general is constantly on the lookout for pasturage to keep his army moving. In a word, fodder is a more important part of the arsenal than gunpowder, and most of the time a great general is acting as a combination of Chief Shepherd and Chief Clerk. That is what I learned about war from the Baghdad campaign.”

Mendes rubbed his fist against his cheek thoughtfully. “I see . . .”

“No, you don’t,” Danilo shot back. “Believe what you like. I was in the middle of it for over a year, living in the tent of the greatest general in the world. I have seen the face of war. Have you?”

“Actually,” his companion answered, taking no offence, “I am in a war right now as we speak. It is a secret war, rife with deception and lies, but it is war in a righteous cause.”

“Against whom?”

“Against the pope in Rome and his Inquisition that is pledged to kill or baptize all the Jews in the world.”

“And you think you can stop him?”

“We have a secret weapon.”

Coming from another source, Danilo might have taken the phrase as a bit of bravado. But his bones told him that his new friend was no braggart.

“May I ask what it is?” he asked.

“Money,” the Spaniard shot back, as quick as a bullet. “Money has an eloquence of its own. That is an aspect of war that you seem not to have noticed.”

“If not, I do so now,” Danilo responded cheerfully to the rebuke. “But I still do not understand. How can you be at war with the pope and be a professing Christian at the same time?”