The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (7 page)

It was a thought, much less a hope, that Danilo had not allowed himself. Under the Sultan’s eye in his School for Pages, a limitless future awaited those who could earn it. Judged strictly on the basis of their ability, students who survived a severe weeding-out process would end up finally in the highest class, the Fourth
Oda,
whose members served the Sultan personally: dressing and barbering him, guarding him, and sleeping in his private quarters. They were also put in the way of his notice, his favor, and, not the least consideration for Danilo, his horses and his stables.

But Mehmet had it all wrong.

“Believe it or not, Mehmet,” Danilo explained, “it’s even more hopeless for me than for you. You may be held back this year, but you will eventually have your chance. Whereas I will never be chosen for the Palace School because I am a Jew. Despite the Sultan’s favors to my race, no Jew has ever gained acceptance to his school.”

“But think of this, Danilo: the personal intervention of the Sultan surmounts all barriers.”

When Danilo looked askance at this smart response, Mehmet added, “Remember, the Sultan’s physician has the Sultan’s ear. Talk to your father. But be quick. I hear most of the places in the First
Oda
have already been filled.”

With that slight encouragement, Prince Mehmet brought a ray of light to the dismal landscape of Danilo’s hopes. Perhaps he did have a slim chance. According to Ottoman law, the Sultan’s will did prevail over custom. His father did have the Sultan’s ear. And the Sultan did have the power to secure a place for him in the School for Pages. . . if he would.

But Judah del Medigo had other plans for his son. He had already approached a Sephardic family in Balat with whom Danilo could complete the preparation for his bar mitzvah
while his father was off on campaign. During the winter when there was no military action, Danilo would remain at home in the Doctor’s House being tutored by his father in mathematics, astronomy, Latin, and Greek. This would prepare him for a European university, preferably his father’s alma mater
,
the renowned university at Padua.

For Danilo, his father’s plan had serious drawbacks. No horses in Balat, no playing fields, no gerit
contests; at best, the odd game of tennis on the Princes’ Islands where a few well-to-do Jews kept European-style villas. He had already abandoned all hope of seeing his princess again. Must he lose everything?

The quarrel that erupted over this issue burst upon both father and son like a summer storm — one minute, blue sky; the next, icy sheets of venom and forked lightning. They quarreled awkwardly, not being used to quarreling — long silences punctuated by spurts of angry dialogue.

“I never should have allowed you to become involved in the life of the palace,” Judah sighed. “It has given you a false idea of who you are.”

“And who would that be, sir?”

“You are a fourteen-year-old boy brought up in the Jewish faith, consecrated to the Jewish God.”

“But you don’t understand, Papa. I am not you. I have goals.”

“Goals! What goals? To gallop around on the back of a horse like a ruffian until you fall and break your neck? Or to serve the Sultan as a
sipahi
and get yourself killed in a
jihad? You are not one of them. We Jews are not fighters.”

“Joshua was. And David.”

“Spare me the Torah lesson. You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“Yes, sir, I do. You mean that you want to make me into an image of yourself, a man of the book, wrapped up in books, away from the world.”

“And is that so terrible?”

“No, sir. For you it is the ideal life. But I am not you. I am not . . .” The boy hesitated.

“You are not Jewish?”

The boy took a deep breath, then spat it out. “I have the blood of a warrior in my veins.”

There it was. Out of the box. The forbidden subject.

Silence.

“I apologize, Papa. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Why not? It is true. I am not your blood father. We know that. But since you were born to my beloved Grazia, I have always thought of you as my son. Your mother’s son, of course. But my son, too.”

“And that is how I think of you, Papa, as the father who has cared for me all my life. And whom I love. But, sir, does that mean I must deny my blood heritage? I am your son, but I am also the son of Lord Pirro Gonzaga, even though he does not acknowledge me.” The boy bit his lip. Could that be a hint of moisture at the corner of his eye?

Inured as he was to human suffering, the doctor could not bear the palpable signs of his own son’s misery. He held out his arms. “Oh, my dear boy, my son.” He gathered the boy up in a long embrace, and there they stood in the middle of the room, clinging to each other.

At length, Judah cleared his throat and spoke. “Of course, I cannot force you to go against your nature. Blood or no blood, a parent should not impose that burden on a child. I admit to you that I am mystified by your passion for this wild jousting sport that I find suicidal. It is not a trait I hoped to find in my son.”

“But, sir, I am also my mother’s son, my mother who told me stories of racing against her brothers in the Mantovan hills, about the touch of her pony’s soft nose on her cheek, the pleasure of brushing his coat until it shone like satin.”

“Your mother was a scholar and a scribe who —”

“Who gave up much that she loved for you, sir,” the boy interrupted. “I never saw her gallop a horse or risk a jump. I only heard her talk about it, longingly, and now you are asking me to make the same sacrifice.”

“No, not true. I want to prepare you for the life of a civilized man.”

“And do not the Islamic sciences that I will study at the Palace School accomplish that, sir? You yourself admit that you learned the most part of your doctoring from studying Arabic medicine.”

“Greek medicine, yes,” Judah corrected him.

“But who preserved the Greek texts, Father? The Islamic caliphate. I will get a good education in the Palace School, sir. You know that. Better than from some callow tutor to the sons of a rich merchant in Balat.”

This was an argument that Judah could not refute. He retreated into silence, then summoned a servant.

“Tea?” he asked as if entertaining a stranger.

The boy nodded. A brazier was brought and a chaste silver teapot. They drank in silence.

The boy cleared his throat, then spoke, unable to meet his father’s eyes. “If I am selected for the Palace School and you force me to live with some family in Balat instead, I will take the first opportunity to run away.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No, sir. A warning.”

“What about your Jewish studies?”

“I will continue to read with the Ahrida congregation in Balat on Fridays and Saturdays as I always have. And I will be ready for my bar mitzvah
when you return from campaign.”

“And on the other five days, how will you pray? What will you eat? Pig?”

This was foolishness. Both knew well that pork was forbidden to Muslims as well as Jews. But Danilo refused the bait and took the high ground.

“I will live proudly as a Jew, sir,” the boy replied. “You have my word on it.”

Judah lowered his eyes, cowed by the shining sincerity of the response. He had cut the ground from under himself with bullying and bombast.

“Of course you will not eat pig. No respectable Muslim school would serve you pig. No more quarreling.” He extended his hand, looking for a truce. “Since the Sultan’s School for Pages seems to be your heart’s desire, I will speak to him. With your fine record in the Harem School, I have no doubt you will get your wish.”

“Thank you, Papa.”

The rift was healed. The doctor had capitulated. But he had not given up the fight. It seemed to him that he was battling for nothing less than his son’s very soul. And that this was only a skirmish in what promised to be a long war.

Danilo had no such cosmic view. For him the Palace School simply represented the best that life had to offer him at the time. He had no doubt that someday in the distant future, he would set off to follow in the doctor’s footsteps to the university at Padua. But at that moment, his life’s ambition was to ride a horse of his own into the oval at the hippodrome, his
gerit
poised for the joust, and end up being crowned with an olive wreath as the crowd roared.

5

BE CAREFUL WHAT
YOU WISH FOR

With its promise of the best horses, the best teachers, a fine wardrobe, generous pocket money, and a guarantee that he would be judged only on his own merits, the chance to gain a place in the Sultan’s School for Pages instantly became the focus of Danilo’s life. As his father had foreseen, the excellent record of his two years in the Harem School spared him the preliminary screening process and he was immediately placed in a select group, out of which a fortune-favored twenty would be chosen for admission to the First
Oda
at the Sultan’s school in Topkapi Palace. The less fortunate applicants would receive their training at one of the other two pages’ schools — one situated in the Sultan’s summer palace at Edirne, the other in the Grand Vizier’s palace on the hippodrome.

As was customary with the Ottomans, the sole criterion in making assignments was merit, except, of course, for the princes of the royal family, whose places were automatically reserved. Each year examinations for the twenty cherished places were held in the Harem School during its annual recess. The tests covered a wide range of subjects — horsemanship, personal cleanliness, Turkish history, arithmetic, and most important the three languages required of every Ottoman courtier: Persian (the language of poetry), Arabic (the language of the Koran), and Turkish (the language of everyday life).

Not many weeks before, Danilo had sat in these classrooms studying these same subjects. And he had done well. But seated in the same room facing the entrance exams, he found himself increasingly distracted by a coterie of ghosts that settled down in his company. The elusive presence of his princess, his playmates, and his teachers hovered over him. No matter what test he was trying, these mournful grey wraiths were there; twisting reminders of everything he had lost.

Day after day, the other aspiring pages strutted out of the examination rooms whooping and hollering while Danilo sank lower and lower in his own estimation. At the end of the examination week, he emerged from the ordeal stripped of his confidence and convinced that every other aspirant had done better than he had. Even his father’s reassurance that the Sultan favored his application did not lift his spirits. From his window at the back of the Doctor’s House, he could look directly across at the entrance to the Palace School, a pair of massive carved wooden doors framed by two fat porphyry columns. Would he be invited to cross that threshold?

He feared to leave the house lest a message arrive announcing his fate. Not that he had any place to go. Since he first arrived in Istanbul, the Harem School had been the center of his life — a place for learning, of course, but even more for good times and companionship where he had come to be treated as part of the royal family. For the princely boys, the harem would remain their home until they were dispersed among the pages’ schools to continue their education. But with his cohort disbanded, Danilo was left literally friendless and rootless.

As the days passed his natural zest for life began to evaporate. He took to spending his evenings on the rock ledge at Palace Point, straining for a glimpse of the Mediterranean and dreaming of Italy as he had done when he first came to live with his father. And it was there that he was sought out by a gorgeously arrayed page whose only comment on finding him was, “You’re lucky it was I who found you and not one of the guards. Do you know whose preserve you’ve invaded?” Without waiting for an answer the stranger dug into his jeweled sash and produced a small scroll, tied with a satin ribbon and sealed with the Sultan’s
tugra.
“Read this,” he ordered.

Although he spoke quietly, his manner was so assured that Danilo found himself obediently breaking the seal and reading, in beautiful calligraphic script, that he had been accepted into the First
Oda
of the Palace School for Pages. The messenger, a tall, strikingly handsome young man who appeared to be about twenty years old, told Danilo that he himself was currently a page in the Third
Oda
and a member of the Sultan’s
gerit
team.

His name was Murad and he had drawn the assignment of mentor to the new recruit.

“On your feet now. Let’s get the hell out of here before we’re both thrown in the dungeons.” As he held out a helping hand, he added, “I’ll say this for you, del Medigo, you’ve got nerve setting yourself up on the Grand Vizier’s dock.”

In addition to the document, Murad had also brought with him a complete suit of clothing and a set of verbal instructions, brief and precise. The page Danilo del Medigo was to be ready to move into his
oda
at two hours after the first prayer the next morning.

“I will be at the door to collect you. Be ready. And bring nothing with you,” he instructed.