The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (31 page)

The next day a small
cassone
appeared beside my bed. When I looked inside, there lay my chemise freshly laundered and smelling deliciously of comfrey. Cateruccia had not forgotten the housewifely lessons she learned in my mother’s house.

On Friday morning, Cateruccia lumbered up the stairs hauling a bucket of water on her head and carrying a flacon of liquid in the pocket of her apron.

“From the
illustrissima
Marchesana Isabella,” she mumbled when she handed the bottle to me. “A hairwash.”

The stuff inside the bottle, I discovered when I pulled out the cork and sniffed it, smelled unmistakably of chamomile; but there were other scents lingering around the edges of the herb that I could not so readily identify. Vinegar? Lettuce? The chemist who mixed the potion had disguised his formula well. But however confusing the chemistry, the message in the bottle was quite clear. For one woman to share her beauty potions with another could only be interpreted as a gesture of friendship.

The night before the fete, I made my first voluntary prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Sweet Jesus,” I prayed, “let me be a success tomorrow at Marmirolo and find favor in Madonna Isabella’s sight as I have in Yours. Please let my hair fall into soft curls and not stick up in spikes. And please make me graceful in the dance and witty in the talk. Amen.”

20

A
ll my life I had heard talk of the pleasures of country living and of hunting lodges and various
delizie
where princes could shed the formality of court life and “be themselves,” as the saying goes. What I quickly learned at Marmirolo was that grand people are always grand, no matter what the surroundings.

Even at Marmirolo the Marchese and his Marchesana seated themselves on a dais above everyone else. The ladies were just as corseted and as bejeweled as ever. There were as many courses at table, servants in attendance, and perfumed courtiers as in town. Everyone vied to sit closest to the Marchese, who, in the country as in town, clearly preferred the company of the pack of dogs with whom he carried on a continuous, barking sort of conversation and was permitted to be as rude and boorish as he chose, whereas for the rest of us, a rigid protocol reigned over all activities, even the games.

No sooner had we dismounted than we were ushered into the
sala grande
, where Messer Equicola, Madonna Isabella’s Master of Revels, was in the process of expounding every detail of the rules of games to the players. We came in as he was winding down, to everyone’s evident relief.

“Let me once again remind the gathering that a game suitable for noble company is neither cards nor dice nor athletics. It is discourse based upon some ingenious proposition that calls upon the quick exercise of wit and erudition.” I repeated these words to myself in an effort to fix them in my mind.

“Remember,” he went on, “no one can refuse to take part in the game if he is present and invited to do so. Nor should anyone play in a careless manner. Show interest in the game. Above all, everything that is said or done should tend toward joy and laughter and pleasure — but no buffoonery, mind.”

“Hear that,” the Marchese shouted over to Matello the dwarf, who stood in a corner sulking as he always did when he was not the center of attention. “We’ll have none of your crude farting today.”

Whereupon Matello let out a most odoriferous explosion of gas in a series of high toots. Not to be outdone, his companion, Crazy Catherine, rushed into the center of the floor and spewed out a river of pee to everyone’s amusement save that of Messer Equicola, upstaged as he always was by the little people.

But he managed to get back the attention of the gathering by tapping several of them lightly on their heads with his
mestola
. That ladle signifies the office of Master of Revels, and Equicola wielded it majestically.

“Remember now, if a player has to do a thing that consists of acts, gestures, or signs, he should strive to do it gracefully — no jerking or twitching even in the Game of the Deformed.” What on earth was that game? I wondered. “And be careful not to repeat the same proverb or device, even if it is apropos. For repetition makes tedium.”

To this statement the Marchese interposed a loud grunt of assent which Equicola acknowledged with a graceful bow.

“Most important” — he cleared his throat to emphasize the importance of what he was about to tell us — “if you are questioned on the subject of love, your replies should show a certain loftiness. In your answers, be jealous of the honor of woman and admiring of her virtue and greatness. Couch your replies rather in the style of Petrarch than in the styles of Ovid or Catullus. Now, let us begin.”

“Sooner begun, sooner ended,” the Marchese mumbled.

The game that Equicola had selected was, he declared, brand-new and never before played in the whole of Italy. He called it the Game of Ships and swore he had made it up himself. In this game a lady is caught in a storm with two suitors chosen from among the company by the Master of Revels. She is forced to throw one of them overboard in order to save the vessel. When questioned by the Master, the player must give her reasons for the choice.

That was as far as we got. With a growl that came from somewhere deep in his bowels, Marchese Francesco heaved himself forward in his chair and ordered a change in the program. “This Game of Ships is too long to play before we eat,” he announced. “I am hungry now. The game be damned. It’s time to sup.” And every toady there cheered him.

During the fish course, Lord Pirro brought over to meet me two ladies of the court, who seemed vastly unimpressed by the honor. Then, between the fish and the pie Madonna Isabella called out my name and bade me sit at her side for a while, a signal honor. My mastery of the classics had captured her interest, she said. Did I know Greek as well as Latin? And what about Hebrew?

At that moment I thanked God for those long afternoons at Papa’s side in the Bologna
banco
, for I could reply in all candor that I did indeed know a little Greek and more than a little Hebrew. No knowledge is ever wasted.

Without doubt I had caught the light of the princess’s eye. For a few moments, I even became the repository of her confidence. She confessed to me with disarming candor how bitterly she regretted being forced to abandon her own studies in the crush of court business. She had plans to commission certain works of scholarship, she told me, in emulation of her adored papa (yes, she used that familiar term in my presence that day!). Perhaps I might be the one to help her begin this enterprise, she suggested. She did not say yes or no, only maybe.

Returning to my chair, I passed the two chilly ladies-in-waiting, who now seemed eager to engage me in conversation. Amazing what a touch of preferment can do to enhance one’s charms.

The dinner ended with the passing of gorgeous platters of
confetti
, each sweet perched on a gold or silver leaf, each fashioned to resemble a different fruit and colored to its image — the grapes purple, the cherries scarlet, the lemons yellow. If the common people knew how these people eat, there would be an uprising.

After supper we danced under the stars with five musicians making music on a balcony hidden from view by billowing satin drapes. After offering his arm to Madama for the opening pavane, Lord Pirro gave every dance to me, twirling me around and around until the tapestries that covered the walls, the candles flickering in their sconces, the rouged cheeks of the ladies flashing by, the gorgeous fabrics of their costumes, the fast beat of the
frottole
, the crash of the tambourines, the musky perfume of civet (with which everyone there had doused himself except me), my lover’s murmurs in my ear, his hot breath on my neck — all of this blended into a single sensation: rapture. Whirling around the floor in my lover’s arms, lifted above all earthly concerns — the
casa dei catecumeni
, my family, Cateruccia, even God, forgotten — I was the happiest girl in the world.

Rapture by its own definition is finite. Inevitably it ends and the quotidian life recommences. The Game of Ships remained unplayed. Madama was, then as now, a pit bull when it came to having her way. At her insistence the game had to be played and played by all, “. . . for it will bring bad luck upon the entire company if any one of us breaks the circle before all disperse,” she informed the gathering. So the musicians were dismissed; the dancing ended and the choosing began.

Of the dozen or so ladies present three others, including the Marchesana, drew the Marchese as one of their suitors. All three were given their chance to choose ahead of me and all three chose to keep the Marchese and to throw his opponent overboard. Madonna Isabella gave as her reason that she had pledged her life to her honored husband before God. “And were I to betray him in front of Messer Equicola” — his rival in the game — “and this gathering,” she added prettily, “I should not only dishonor myself here on earth but would surely suffer for all eternity in that fifth circle of Hell that Dante reserves for those who bear false witness.”

Next to be called, Madonna Maria Pia, also chose Marchese Francesco in preference to his rival, a certain Fabiano. “For although Messer Fabiano is a man of virtue, Marchese Francesco is of noble ancestry and thus more worth saving in the eyes of both God and man,” she reasoned. She was rewarded by an approving grunt from the Marchese.

The third lady who drew the Marchese and also chose to save him, this time at the expense of Fra Pietro, did so on the pretext that the man of God had already performed his portion of God’s work on earth whereas the Marchese, still in the vigor of his youth, was needed down here to defend God with his sword. By now, the Marchese had lost himself in a tease with two of his dogs and had not even a grunt to spare for the lady.

Then came my turn.

“Signorina
ebrea
, here are your suitors: Marchese Francesco and Lord Pirro. What say you? Who lives and who dies?” he demanded.

I hesitated, for I could not find it in my heart to consign my beloved to a watery grave.

“What of Lord Pirro? Is he to be kept by your side safe in the ship or fed to the fishes? You know the rules. You must choose. I ask you for the last time, who lives and who dies?”

“Lord Pirro.” I could hardly summon up the voice to reply.

“Fed to the fishes or kept?”

“Kept,” I whispered.

Too late, I understood from the shocked faces around me that I had made a devastatingly wrong choice. But now I could not take it back.

“And the Marchese?” the questioner pressed.

“He dies,” I mumbled.

A disapproving murmur ran through the company. The only person in the room who appeared not to be affected was the Marchese Francesco himself. He simply sat upon his golden chair and picked his teeth.

I told myself that he was too worldly to take a silly game seriously. I reassured myself that if I came up with a flattering reason for making fish food out of him I could recoup my loss of favor. But deep inside, a wiser voice told me that princes do not appreciate being condemned to death, even in jest.

“And what do you give as the reason for your choice, signorina
ebrea
?” The Master tapped me lightly with his
mestola
.

I took a deep breath and plunged into an effulgence of flattery. “His Celsitude is much too far above me ever to be my cavalier. He is far too noble. Far too good. Too good even for this world. He is one of those whom, the poet tells us, the gods have picked out as their favorites. I take my reason from the poet.” Then, placing my palms together in a worshipful attitude, I intoned the words of Plautus: “
Quem di diligunt, adolescens moritur
.”

“What’s she saying?” The Marchese suddenly came to life.

“She quotes the Latin poet Plautus, honorable husband,” Madonna informed him.

“And what does this poet have to say about me?” he growled.

“He says, ‘Those whom the gods favor die in youth,’” she translated with deadly accuracy. “I recognize the passage,” she added. “It is from
Bacchides
, a piece often performed at our court in Ferrara, for the Roman poet is favored by my honored father, the Duke.”

Marchese Francesco mulled this for several moments, masticating it with his mind as if to extract the full flavor. Then, he called up an enormous gob of spittle from deep in his chest and spat it across the room with terrific force. “That is what I think of your honored father’s favorite poet, honored wife.”

With that he strode out of the room. At his heels, the dogs, who had somehow caught the scent of his fury, set up a fearful clamor, circling him round and round as he made his way across the room and taking the opportunity to nip at my ankles as they passed.