Sins of the House of Borgia (4 page)

“How could you even say such a thing?” My voice surprised me, so calm and steady despite the anger beginning to seethe inside me. I sounded like my mother. My father’s eyes told me he had noticed it too.

“Now before you fly into a temper, listen to me, daughter. You are fifteen years old. If we were still in Toledo, you would likely be married by now. But we aren’t, we are here and our people are scattered. I have to consider your future. There is no one else to do it.”

“Señora Abravanel will find me a husband, Papa,” I interrupted, though I, too, was not saying what I really meant. “She is a good matchmaker. You let her choose for Eli, why not me?”

“Eli will not marry for years. Josepha is still a child. And a son…well, it’s different. If you go with Donna Lucrezia, she will be able to find you a husband among the nobility, a man of standing and good fortune who will keep you…safe,” he finished lamely. “Duke Ercole apparently approves the idea that his daughter-in-law should have a reformed Jewess among her ladies to whom she can give religious guidance and instruction. He is a very pious man.”

Now I laughed, though my laughter was harsh and humourless. “Me? Receive religious instruction from Lucrezia Borgia? Have you any idea how absurd that sounds?”

“She takes communion every day, I’m told, since the death of the Duke of Bisceglie, and has taught their son his catechism herself.”

I was breaking myself against a wall. “My mother died because she was Jewish. How do you think such talk would make her feel?” I held my breath. I waited for the roof to cave in. I could not look at my father, but I heard the wincing intake of breath, as though he had cut his finger or stubbed his toe.

“Do you think it has been easy for me, all these years,” he asked quietly, “watching you grow up, becoming more and more like her? Because you are, you know, despite your fair hair and blue eyes. The way you looked at the
padron real
when you came in. Just like her. And if you’re thinking Mariam has been at it with her dustcloths again, she hasn’t. I brushed against it when I came to my desk. You say your mother died because she was Jewish. If that’s true, do you think she’d want the same to happen to you? Because we’re never safe, you know, among Christians. They believe we gave up their messiah for crucifixion. Having done that, we’re no longer necessary to their salvation so they feel at liberty to take their revenge. The pope is nearly seventy. Who’s to say his successor will be as amenable as he is? Who’s to say there might not be another expulsion? Believe me, Esther, your mother would support me in this. Use your advantage; get away from us while you can.”

A war raged inside me. On the one hand, my father was asking me to betray my culture, my upbringing, the people I had known all my life. On the other, though I was conscientious in observing our rites and rituals, I had never paused to consider whether I actually had faith in the beliefs which lay behind them. They were marks on the calendar, historical remembrances, occasions for feast or fast, parties or vigils. It would not be that difficult to exchange one set for another, especially as many, like Christmas and Easter, fell close to our own festivals. My mother’s passion and my father’s pragmatism were doing battle for my soul.

“You may take the rest of the day to think, if you wish,” my father conceded with a tight smile.

“I will do as you ask, Papa.” I was suddenly certain, almost as though someone had whispered it in my ear, that I was not destined to die on a beach somewhere, barefoot and fever blind with a ragged child squatting beside me in the sand. I stood and awaited his permission to leave.

“I did send for you, you know,” he said, kneading his forehead with his fingers, “but by the time I learned the ship carrying my letter had been wrecked off Corsica it was too late. You had already left. I have tried to tell her but I don’t know if she hears me.”

“I expect the Christians would say she does.” I stooped to kiss his cheek and tasted salt. Closing the door softly behind me, I left him to his tears.

C
HAPTER 2

On the ship from Ostia, at first I did not mind being kept below decks in chains, because there was no choice. I was too tired for choice; I wanted nothing but to be relieved of the responsibility of thinking. I was, I suppose, content, though I do not know because I have never understood what contentment is, except an absence—of joy, or sorrow, or ambition, or imagination.

I met Donna Lucrezia only once before my baptism, when my father took me to the great Orsini palace at the foot of Saint Peter’s steps where she lived with her aunt, Adriana da Mila Orsini and Giulia Farnese, who was Donna Adriana’s daughter-in-law but also the pope’s favourite. I was secretly disappointed La Bella Giulia was not present at our meeting, for I was as curious to see her as I was to meet Donna Lucrezia. They said she was as beautiful as Helen of Troy.

We were received in the piano nobile, a room so vast that even a fire big enough to roast an ox, burning in a fireplace of Carrara marble, failed to penetrate its icy elegance. I watched my breath cloud in front of my face as a liveried slave noiselessly closed the double doors behind us and Adriana da Mila beckoned us forward.

She and Donna Lucrezia were seated either side of the fire in upholstered chairs. Donna Lucrezia’s baby son, Rodrigo of Bisceglie, who was then just over a year old, sat between them on a fur rug, playing with a set of wooden dolls dressed as janissaries; the turban of one was unravelling and the baby was chewing its loose end. A black slave girl stood behind Donna Lucrezia’s chair, so still I wondered if she was a statue. Her cheeks were marked with pounce work circles, though she was richly dressed in a proper gown of mulberry silk.

“Perhaps you would not mind waiting there, Ser Sarfati,” said Donna Adriana, waving a jewelled, liver-spotted hand at a bench set about halfway down the length of the room, “while we talk to your daughter.” My father bowed, gave me a little push in the small of my back, and seated himself on the bench. Its leather upholstery creaked; my new kidskin shoes, wet from the puddles in the palace courtyard, squelched softly as I approached the fireplace. I was so nervous I was beginning to sweat despite the cold, and kept my arms pressed tight to my sides and my teeth clenched to stop them chattering. You were so stiff you looked like a puppet, Donna Lucrezia would recall, years later, with a catch of laughter in her voice.

Her expression that morning was stern and rather tired, her high-bridged nose and large, grey eyes red-rimmed as though she had a cold or had been crying. The hand she extended towards me was plump and languid. I took it briefly in mine and bowed, as my father had told me was the custom among well-bred Christians. Her skin was so soft I could hardly feel it, and her extraordinarily white knuckles were dimpled, like a child’s. I then turned to curtsey to Donna Adriana, who inclined her coiffure in my direction with a soft clicking of pearls.

“Well,” said Donna Lucrezia, “but you really are fair, aren’t you. Tell me, is it entirely natural?”

“Yes, madonna.”

She sighed, touching a hand to her own hair, which was caught up in a green silk net scattered with tiny rubies. “Mine used to be that colour. Then it fell out in handfuls when I had Rodrigo, and grew back a shade darker. I have to spend hours with it spread out in the sun now. I have a splendid contraption like a sunhat without a crown, made of copper to speed up the bleaching process. Caterina Sforza gave me a recipe for a concoction of saffron, cinnabar, and sulphur she swears by, when she was Duke Valentino’s…guest last year, but it makes the head stink foul, as you can imagine. You may sit. Catherinella, a stool.”

I realised the slave was not an ornament as she turned to pick up a low firestool and placed it just behind me. The lining of my nose began to tingle. I fancied I could hear Mariam’s insistent whisper: “Sneeze, child, to ward off the devil.” I cannot sneeze in front of these ladies, I told myself. Better the devil than to be rejected by Donna Lucrezia and have to face my father’s disappointment. With a discreet sniff, I sat, folding my hands in my lap, fixing my gaze on them to avoid staring at the two women in their silks and furs and glittering jewels.

“Tell me how your instruction progresses,” Donna Lucrezia resumed. “I find it particularly gratifying when one of your race comes to Christ, for after all, He was a Jew.”

“I hope I am a good student, madonna. I have learned the Apostles’ Creed and the sacraments, and of course my…the Jews also have the commandments of Moses.”

“And can you recite Our Lord’s Prayer?”

“Yes, madonna.
Pater noster qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum
…”

“Excellent. You have some Latin.”

“And also a little Greek, madonna.”

“And Spanish, I suppose?”

“I’m sorry, madonna. I was six years old when we left Spain. I no longer remember the language.” Though sometimes, still, I dream in it, in the Castilian of a six-year-old child, doubly distant from who I am today.

“I was born here, but we have always spoken our own language among ourselves. My family is of the Valencian nobility.”

A note of reproof in her voice made me feel the need to justify myself. “My father thought it important for us to practice our Italian, to blend into our new surroundings. And I do not think we would understand one another in Spanish anyway, madonna, for my family is from Toledo, so you are Catalan and we Castilian.”

“Is that so? I am afraid I am not very clear on the geography of the Spains, especially as they now seem to be everywhere, since the discoveries of Ser Colon.” Her tone was chilly. Donna Adriana’s pearls clicked. A slight creaking of the leather bench where my father sat told me I had overstepped the bounds of propriety, but though the thought made my heart beat faster, in my mind I did not care. I was there because my father wanted it, not for myself.

“You know the Romans call us
marrano
whenever we do something which displeases them? That is ironic, is it not, that we, the family of the Holy Father, should be branded secret Jews? Perhaps we might speak to one another in Hebrew, eh girl?”

There seemed to be no reply I could make that would not be offensive either to Donna Lucrezia’s family or my own. Then, suddenly, she smiled. Her smile transformed her; it seemed to light her from the inside rather than hang on her face like a picture put up to hide a crack in the wall. It made you believe in the goodness of her heart.

“Tell me,” she said. “Do you know Petrarch?”

From bad to worse. I did know Petrarch, a little, from the much-thumbed copies of some of his verses handed round in secret among the girls at Santa Clara, but with my father sitting behind me, I was wary of admitting it. On the other hand, if I failed to give the lady an honest reply, she would never consider me suitable for her household, and I would disappoint all my father’s plans for me.

“And Dante, of course.” That was a relief. Dante was far more worthy, if not to be recommended too soon before bed. I opened my mouth to reiterate one of my teachers’ comments on the religious symbolism of the poet’s love for Beatrice, but before I could speak, she continued, “
‘Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate
,’” with a tight little laugh which drew me to glance at her face. She intercepted my look as she raised her eyes to her aunt, who gave a little cough which sounded more like a warning than an obstruction of the throat. I felt my cheeks burn. My father’s disapproval seemed to bore into my back. On no account, he had told me, must you look so great a lady as Donna Lucrezia in the eye; it will be accounted the height of rudeness.

But as soon as Donna Lucrezia’s gaze met mine, I knew my impropriety did not matter. A spark kindled in her grey eyes. She smiled. She liked me. I had given her no particular reason to, but she had obviously seen something in me, some like-mindedness to which she could respond.

Just then, the baby, bored by his dolls, started to grizzle. The slave, Catherinella, stepped forward, but Donna Lucrezia waved her away and took the child into her lap, where he grabbed happily at her necklace, gnawing on an emerald pendant the size of a duck egg.

“He has some teeth coming, at the back,” Donna Lucrezia told me.

“Madonna,” I said, emboldened by what I had seen in her eyes. Another cough from Donna Adriana. A sharp intake of breath from my father. I ploughed on. “May I ask you a question?”

“Shall we let this bold young woman ask us a question?” she asked her son. “Why not? Rodrigo says you may, Signorina Esther.”

“What are the duties of a lady-in-waiting, madonna?”

“Why, child, she waits, like any other woman. For a husband, for childbirth, for…”

“You will attend Donna Lucrezia at her will, girl, that is all,” interrupted Donna Adriana.

Believing our interview to be over, I waited to be dismissed, but before any more could be said, the double doors to the room were flung open, ushering in a blast of even colder air which set the flames dancing in the hearth. A messenger wearing a livery quartered in crimson velvet and gold satin strode down the length of the piano nobile as though he owned it. He bowed to the ladies, then handed Donna Lucrezia a parchment, folded and sealed. Her pale face flushed a delicate pink as she tore open the seal and read her letter.

“It is an invitation to dine this afternoon,” she said to her aunt, though her flushed cheeks and shining eyes made it seem like something more. “Of course, we accept,” she told the messenger, who bowed again, and retreated. On his back, as he turned, I saw the letters C E S A R emblazoned in gold thread.

Donna Lucrezia rose and handed her son to Catherinella. “Take him to the nursery. I must go and dress.”

I stood also and waited to be dismissed.

“Your father will hear from us,” Donna Adriana told me.

“No, wait.” Donna Lucrezia turned to me. She looked quite feverish. “Esther, when is your baptism to be?”

“I’m not sure yet, madonna.”

“Then I will have my secretary speak to the dean at Santa Maria del Popolo to set a date. You will receive instruction from my chaplain from now on, and I will stand godmother to you. I should like you to take the name…Donata. Donata Spagnola.”

“Yes, madonna. Thank you, madonna.” I made a deep curtsey, but she waved me away. As I rejoined my beaming father and we were escorted from the room, I heard Donna Lucrezia discussing gowns with her aunt.

***

I should be ashamed to admit this, but dress, rather than the condition of my soul, was the matter which most vexed me as the date set for my baptism grew closer.

Though I had not seen her since that first meeting a month previously, Donna Lucrezia was as good as her word. Her chaplain came daily to our house, edging his way through the courtyard door on the side farthest from the
mezuzah,
crossing himself and mumbling his prayers as he did so. Little Haim and I used to run up to the loggia on the roof to spy on these furtive arrivals, and my sides would still be aching with laughter when I was summoned to meet Fra Tommaso in the small sitting room where I received my instruction. He was a timid man, more afraid of the Almighty, it seemed, than joyful in His service. But I tried to be a good student, for my father’s sake, and because I could not forget that spark of understanding in Donna Lucrezia’s eyes when she looked at me.

The day before the service was due to take place, the black slave, Catherinella, arrived at our gate, attended by a footman carrying a parcel of yellow silk fastened with ribbons. I could not wait to see what was inside. As soon as the slave had gone, I opened it, there in the vestibule, spreading the silk wrapping over the polished stone floor. I took out a beautiful missal, bound in red leather with silver corners and filigree clasps, then a white lawn baptismal gown, its wide sleeves and hem decorated with gold embroidery a foot deep, its lace collar as fine as cobwebs. To go with the gown was a cloak of white velvet, lined with the fur of winter foxes and with a clasp set with pearls at the neck. Mariam, loitering out of curiosity after she had answered the knock at the gate, gasped at the richness of the gown as I lifted it clear of its wrapping and held it up to the light of the lamps in their bronze wall sconces.

“Be careful, miss. You don’t want to get smoke on it.”

What concerned me, however, was the way the lamplight shone right through the fine lawn. Whatever Donna Lucrezia’s reputation, surely she did not expect me to stand in the church, in full view of clergy and congregation, in a gown as transparent as one of Salome’s veils?

I took the cloak and gown up to my chamber and summoned Mariam to help me, for I had no regular maid of my own. After emptying out the press in which my shifts and underclothes were stored, scattering the rug at my bedside with powdery sprigs of rosemary and lavender so poor Mariam would have to give it an extra beating, I tried on every combination of undergarments I could devise, standing in front of a lamp with my arms stretched out to either side while Mariam scrutinised me for any evidence of the body beneath the clothes. Eventually we settled on two linen shifts and a wool underskirt. I looked rather bulky, but at least I would be warm and my modesty remain unimpeached.

For a long time after Mariam had left me, I remained in my room, studying the different images of myself I could achieve by holding my hand mirror at different angles. My father was right; I had grown like my mother. It was not that I could clearly remember her face after so many years, or the mannerisms my father identified as hers, a way of tugging my hair at the temple and winding it around my finger, or standing with my hands on my hips which Donna Lucrezia would no doubt school me out of. But when I took inventory of my features, my sharp cheekbones and small, straight nose, my jaw that was slightly square and my eyes which were round, though deep set so they did not give the same impression as my brothers’, who looked like a row of staring owls when they were all together, I saw my mother. No, saw is the wrong word. It was more that I recalled her. She hovered behind the reflection in the glass, mouthing words I could not quite read because my own expression of doubt and stubbornness veiled her.