Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance by Sara Poole Page B

children, Vittoro did as he was bid. The pickpocket looked carefully at the coin, then held out his hand. When it was placed in his palm, he weighed it with equal caution before he finally nodded.
    “
Bene.
I will help you.”
    The crowd, apparently satisfied, moved on. Vittoro released the boy who remained where he was, looking at us both.
    “What is it you seek?” he asked.
    I drew out the paper the Cardinal had given me and showed it to the boy, assuming that I would have to read it for him, but Benjamin surprised me. He took a quick look and nodded.
    “I know the place. Come on.”
    We followed him down one crowded street, around a corner into a narrow lane, and out again onto another street. Deeper and deeper we went into the maze of the ghetto until I began to wonder if we were being taken in circles. Along the way, we saw streets of another sort, where the tidal overflow from the river did not impinge, nor did the teeming masses. Behind high, featureless walls constructed to give no hint of what they concealed, Jewish merchants who did business from L’Angleterre and the far-off lands of the Rus to the souks of Morocco and Istanbul lived in what was whispered to be unbridled luxury. Though they might have greater comforts than others of their tribe, they were no more free to live outside the ghetto than was any other unconverted Jew. The only route to such freedom lay in the denial of their faith. More than a few Jews had taken that path and become
conversi,
but not without great peril. They were the first to be proclaimed heretics and the first to burn.
    At last, we came to a crooked lane all but hidden in shadow. A straggling line of people waited in front of what appeared to be an apothecary’s shop. Several held sick children in their arms. Others supported friends or family members who were unable themselves to stand.
    “Cover your face,” Vittoro ordered as he quickly pulled up a length of his shirt and did the same.
    I obeyed. My eyes darted back and forth, narrowing as I took inthe misery on every side. In quick succession, I saw suppurating sores, unhealed wounds, breathing that racked skeletal bodies, and people so close to death as to be insensible. With difficulty, we reached the apothecary’s door just as a middle-aged woman opened it.
    “Binyamin,” the woman exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
    The boy, who had not bothered to cover his face, eyed the woman confidently. “Benjamin, Signora Montefiore.
Per favore,
my name is Benjamin.”
    “Such foolishness. You have no business here. It is not safe.”
    “I do have business, signora. I have brought these two to meet you.” He stepped aside and with a flourish, indicated the two of us.
    Seeing us, the woman frowned. Her gaze settled on me as, without thinking, I lowered my shawl from in front of my face. After studying me for a moment, the woman asked softly, “What brings you here, lady?”
    Remembering the name on the paper the Cardinal had given me, I replied, “I seek Signore Montefiore, your husband, perhaps?”
    A faint smile touched the woman’s exhausted face beneath the cloud of silver hair emerging from a roughly tied kerchief. “Then you seek in vain. My husband died ten years ago. I am Sofia Montefiore. I think it is I you want to see.”
    She stepped aside for us to enter.
    Once in the apothecary shop, I looked around quickly. What I saw confirmed what I already suspected: The shop was functioning as a hospital for the very sick. Almost every inch of the floor was taken up with patients lying on litters or on the floor itself. Most were wrapped in threadbare blankets. Others, those in the throes of fever, had thrown off their blankets. A handful of men and women went among them, offering what comfort they could.
    Vittoro tugged hard on my arm. “We must leave.
Now
.”
    Tempted though I was to agree with him, I shook my head. “Not yet. I must find out why the Cardinal sent me here.”
    To Sofia Montefiore, I said,