Read Online The Madonna of the Almonds by Marina Fiorato - Free Book Online Page A

money. He has not yet decided where he stands with me. Like most Christians he thinks that business is a dirty word. So I suspect you have come on your own account.’
    Simonetta was disconcerted at being seen through so soon. She could see there was little point in trifling with the Jew. ‘I have come to ask for help,’ she said simply.
    ‘Then you have wasted your time. And mine.’ Manodorata took up his quill again, and motioned for his maidservant to show his visitor out. Simonetta stood up and, as the quill began to scratch, spoke urgently. ‘Please. I may lose my house.’
    ‘I can see you are not accustomed to pleading. The trick is to appeal to something that I actually care about. Try again.’
    ‘I lost my husband.’
    ‘Better, but not good enough.’
    Simonetta hung her head and exhaled a deep breath as if it were her last. She spoke in a low tone, almost to herself. ‘Then it is decided. I am done for. The Spanish may as well have killed me too.’
    The quill stopped. ‘The Spanish?’
    ‘Yes. At Pavia.’
    ‘The Spanish took your husband?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Manodorata pointed the quill at the chair. ‘Sit down.’
    Simonetta sat, her heart thudding with hope.
    ‘You see, Signora di Saronno, you have caught the trick of it. Your plight does not touch me but you have said something to pique my interest. You see, we have something in common. I too hate the Spanish. And I like to think that I am qualified to speak on the matter – that my opinion does not arise from hearsay or conjecture.’ He looked at her with his light grey eyes and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he divined exactly what she had been told about him.
    She found her voice. ‘You know that nation well?’
    ‘I should. You see, I am a Spaniard.’
    Simonetta’s head span. ‘In truth?’
    ‘Yes. I was not always known as Manodorata. I was born Zaccheus Abravanel, in Castile. But despite this, I still hate them. For they took something from me too that I loved. In my case, my hand.’
    He held aloft the hand that had been hidden under the desk, and Simonetta could not but stare. It was indeed a golden hand. It gleamed in the light from the ornamental windows. She looked at it curiously. Seeing her interest he held it out to her. It was solid, the fingers defined by ingenious moulding. There were even nails to the fingers andlines crossing the palm as he turned his hand. On the palm too, in the very centre where one might press a coin, was the same star that she had seen on the door.
    ‘What do you think of it?’
    ‘’Tis wonderfully well wrought.’
    ‘It is. Perhaps more so than your own, for I see that you have three fingers all of a length, a mistake a craftsman would not make. This hand was made not by God but by some of my Florentine brethren. It has served me well. And it is the only story they tell of me that is true.’
    Simonetta felt a blush spread over her cheek.
    ‘What else did they say? That I devour babes?’
    She looked down.
    ‘The rest is easily explained to the rational mind. I may resemble a bear, because I wear a fur at all times as I am used to warmer climes. I have no taste for human flesh. I have a wife and two sons whom I love dearly. You may have noticed them playing.’
    ‘Your wife?’
    ‘Rebecca. And my sons Evangelista and Giovan Pietro. You are surprised?’
    ‘Only at them playing so together. In great…Christian families, nursemaids tend the children at all times. I barely knew my mother.’ She surprised herself with such an admission.
    ‘Then perhaps such families are not so great. I hear that even the Christian king Francis, who was taken prisonerat Pavia, has offered his two sons as hostages in his stead.’ A fastidious sniff was enough to deprecate the conduct of a king. ‘As for my wealth, I have amassed it through fair means, merely by being able to understand the principles of banking and the precepts of Arabic mathematics. Which brings me back to your