The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi

Also by Jacqueline Park

The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi: Book One

Copyright © 2014 Jacqueline Park

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This edition published in 2014 by
House of Anansi Press Inc.
110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801
Toronto, ON, M5V 2K4
Tel. 416-363-4343
Fax 416-363-1017
www.houseofanansi.com

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Park, Jacqueline, author

The legacy of Grazia dei Rossi. Book 2 / by Jacqueline Park.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77089-892-9 (pbk.). — ISBN 978-1-77089-893-6 (html)

I. Title.

PS8581.A7557L43 2014 C813’.54 C2014-902726-5

C2014-902727-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014938783

Book design: Alysia Shewchuk

The inscription on page 259 is from “I am the Sultan of Love” by Suleiman the Magnificent, translated by Talât Sait Halman, http://raindropturkevi.org/jackson/50-literature-sman-the-magnificent

The inscription on Rumi’s Tomb on page 268, “Come, come, whoever you are,”
was translated for the author at the site when she visited the tomb.

The poetry excerpt on page 271 is from “My worst habit” by Rumi, translated by Coleman Banks with John Moyne,
The Essential Rumi
, New York: HarperCollins, 1996: 52.

The excerpts on pages 350 and 351 are from
The Odyssey
by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998: 367, 368.

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

For Heather Reisman

CONTENTS

Istanbul

The Road to Baghdad

Homecoming

Coda

Preview of the Final Novel in the Grazia dei Rossi Trilogy

Glossary

Author’s Note

About the Autho

THE ROAD TO BAGHDAD

1

RANSOM

After a long and successful career in the service of the great and powerful, Judah del Medigo was not surprised when out of the blue a courier arrived in Rome ordering him to report immediately to his new master, Suleiman the Magnificent, at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.

Sudden arbitrary orders were the price the doctor knew he would have to pay when he signed on as the Sultan’s new Chief Body Physician. Just as he knew that doctors do not say no to sultans. So the doctor reluctantly kissed his wife and son goodbye and boarded the first ship bound for the eastern Mediterranean, leaving his family behind in Rome to pack up and follow him.

When news reached him at the Ottoman court that the city of Rome had been sacked and burned soon after he left, del Medigo was not unduly alarmed. He felt sure — with good cause — that his wife and son would escape the sack unscathed. He had left them in the fortified Colonna Palace in Rome under the protection of his wife’s patroness, Isabella D’Este, the Marchesana of Mantova, and he knew Isabella to be a woman of infinite resources and a practiced survivor.

Not until the doctor had heard nothing of his family for some weeks did he begin to worry. Even then, he mentioned his concern only casually to the Venetian
bailo
when they met at the Ottoman court. He knew that the Venetians made it their business to pick up odds and ends of information, and sure enough, that very evening the
bailo
presented himself at the Doctor’s House with a rolled-up dispatch from one of his informants.

Wordless, the Venetian pressed his spy’s report into the doctor’s hands, gently patted him on the shoulder, turned on his heel, and left without a word. When the doctor unrolled the document and read it, he understood why.

Madonna Isabella D’Este reached home safely,
he read
. Sadly, members of her household were captured by Mediterranean pirates off the Isola D’Elba
.
Their ship, the
Hesperion
, put up a brave defense, but its crew and passengers were lost at sea.
Then, being Venetians, they added,
Most of the lady Isabella’s valuable treasures were also lost.

The blow hit the doctor with the force of a pole axe. He had never doubted that the indomitable Marchesana Isabella would protect his dear ones. Isabella was an Este by birth and, say what you will about the Estes, they take care of their own. Now suddenly the Marchesana was apparently safe in her palace in Mantova, but her confidential secretary, the doctor’s wife, Grazia dei Rossi, and their son, Danilo, had been lost at sea.