Sins of the House of Borgia Read Online Free PDF Page A

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