The Sunday train inched its way along toward the Maremma. Instead ofAcceleratoit should be called the tortoise, Giorgio thought. He paced up and down the aisle. He leaned out the window, waving at peasants working in the fields even on a Sunday. He ate his lunch—thick slices of ham with white bread, and an orange. He took off his jacket and shadowboxed with a fat little boy.
At Sant' Angelo he changed to an autobus and finally, toward noon, arrived at the crossroads of Casalino.
It was one of those freakish days in late spring when the air seems to belong to July. The sun brassy hot, the wind at a standstill. No one was anywhere in sight except a carter, a big loutish fellow with an ear trumpet hanging on a string around his neck.
"Hey, boy," the man called out. "For two hundred lire I carry you ... wherever."
Giorgio felt of the two hundred lire in his pocket. Did the man sitting in that rickety old cart have X-ray eyes to make up for his bad ears?
"No, no, thank you," Giorgio replied. "Only a few kilometers I must walk." He started to explain where he was going, and perhaps if the driver seemed friendly he might even confide that the two hundred lire had been saved for a special sugar bowl in a special cupboard in a special house in Monticello. But he stopped short as his eye fell upon the mare hitched to the cart. She had something of the look of his Imperiale, only finer-boned and more Arab. She was a gray, flecked with brown, but too thin by far and her coat dry and harsh.
He wondered if it was the way she jibbed her head and nervously pawed the earth, or just the general look of her that put him in mind of Imperiale. Or was it the wide-set eyes, so dark and smoldering?
"Excuse," he said, stepping up close to the man and mouthing his words slowly, "but the mare—is she by Sans Souci?"
"Eh?" The driver adjusted his ear trumpet, cocking his head in puzzlement. "Eh?"
"I say, is she by Sans Souci?"
"Si, si. She for sale."
"I don't want to buy her. I only ask...."
"Nobody want to buy her. She spring like cat, kick like kangaroo, chip wood like woodpecker." He started to goad her with the whip; then, as her ears laced back, he changed his mind. He turned to the boy abruptly. "Who are you?" he asked.
"I am Giorgio Terni."
The slit mouth widened in a grin. "O—o—oh, you're Tullio Terni's boy, the little runt of Monticello. For you I cut my price; for one hundred lire I carry you to door of house."
Giorgio smiled his thanks and turned away. He set off down the road, twice looking over his shoulder at the fine Arab head with the small ears pricked against the sky. He thought he heard a nervous whinny, but it might have been the breeze in the poplars.
He strode to Monticello as if there were springs inside him. Along the way people welcomed him, called him by name. "Hi, Giorgio, how is it being a city fellow?"
But the real welcome came within the encompassing walls of home. To his family he was already a hero. They fluttered about him, taking off his jacket, pouring him coffee, peppering him with questions.
"How do they treat you? Do you get nice white bread with your meals, and is the spaghetti cooked done? Do you get used to those noisy streets?" This was Mamma talking.
"Do you like Anna more than me?" This was Teria.
"Did you bring me something? A calf vest, maybe? Is the bump still on Signor Ramalli's forehead?" This was Emilio.
And at long last, from Babbo, the question Giorgio wanted first: "How do you get along with the training of the horses? Tell us all about."
"We—ll—ll," Giorgio answered importantly, "I have four horses in my stable. I get along pretty well. Of course, there are some difficulties. First I have Ambra. She is fine, but has strong dislike for bridling. Then I have Lubiana, who is fine too, but sometimes stubborn like mule. And Dorina, she is awkward in changing gaits."
He saved the best until last. "And I have Imperiale. He is Arab, and he flies!" He turned his chair to face his father. "Now it is I who ask. Babbo! I saw today at Casalino a mare, gray and lightly specked with brown. She is poor and thin, and she pulls a miserable cart with traces and harness held together by rope. But she looks to be one of San Souci's get."
"She is!" exclaimed the father.
Giorgio's heart was a hammer. He could hardly wait to tell Signor Ramalli that now he was a real horseman. His questions came fast.
"How old is she?
"From where does she come?
"Why is she not racing instead of pulling the cart?
"Has she colts?"
The father scraped his chair away from the table. He reached for the stool in front of the cupboard and propped his stockinged feet on it. He loosened his belt and gave a happy grunt. It was good to have man-talk in the house again!
"That poor mare," he began, folding his hands across his stomach, "is sold for convenience from one to the other. She has the nervous tic, so that forever she is biting—on wood, on anything. And her throat...."
"I know, Babbo. It makes the throat swell."
The father nodded, proud of his son's knowledge. "Men beat her, thinking it will stop the biting, but it only gets worse. Now she is good just for carting things from here to there."
Teria interrupted to place before Giorgio a slice of ham and an onion, and the mother brought out a whole loaf of white bread, newly baked and still warm.
"Do you want the crust, Giorgio, or just a thin slice?"
"The crust as always, Mamma, if you please."
"Emilio!" commanded the father. "Your brother cannot eat without a good glass of wine."
Fearful of missing a word, Emilio flew to the grotto of a cellar behind the front steps and returned breathless with a dusty old flask.
Giorgio was busy scooping out a little hollow in the crust with the point of his knife.
"What you doing, Giorgio?" asked the father. "You not eating the ham?"
"No, thank you," he said, noticing how little was left. "I am just hungry to taste again our onions cut up in the crust with vinegar and salt, and maybe some capers, if we have...."
The capers appeared as if by magic from Teria's hand.
Between bites, Giorgio interrupted the silence which surrounded him. "But why," he asked of Babbo, "do they sell that mare from one to the other? Is it the nervous tic?"
The father pursed his lips, thinking.
"That can be controlled," Giorgio added quickly. "The great Sans Souci had it, and my Imperiale has it, too. Is it only because of that?"
"No." The father paused.
"What, then?"
"Well, you can't believe it, but ill luck trails her like smoke from fire. Already she has four colts of no account."
"Four!"
The father nodded. "The first time she got twins, but they died before lifting their heads above the straw."
"And then?"
"Next time her colt is crippled in foaling and has to be put down."
Giorgio stopped eating and sat silent. After a moment he said, "And the fourth colt? Dead, too?"
"No. Not him. He will make big stout plow horse when he is grown. He is no more like Farfalla than bull is like deer."
The mother, who had been listening all this while, now plucked at Giorgio's sleeve. "Farfalla is the one...." she whispered softly. "She is the one born in Magliano Toscano on the day Bianca...."
Giorgio felt the hairs on his skin prickle. So this Arab mare, fastened with ropes to the traces of a shabby cart, was Bianca's successor! He nodded and smiled wistfully in remembrance.
The next morning Giorgio was back at work in Siena, happier and more content there. And for the first time he felt encouraged that Dorina and Imperiale might be ready for the July Palio. As he schooled the well-bred gelding, teaching him to make smaller and ever smaller turns, his mind flew back to the cart horse of Casalino. Clear as a vignette he saw her jibbing her head against the sky.
"It would be a miracle from God," he thought to himself, "to harness that wildness, to calm the frightened soul."
It was on the day Giorgio returned to Siena that Farfalla was sold again. A buyer of ox skins, Signor Busisi by name, was making one of his regular trips to the Maremma. He was a big-framed, bushy-browed man with a shock of white hair. As he drove along in his shiny new Fiat, he was sorting skins in his mind—all sizes, all qualities. He was not even thinking about horses. And he was trying very hard not to notice his nagging indigestion.
Signor Busisi was from Siena, and therefore he was first of all a strong contrada man with a passion for the Palio. Besides, he was a canny judge of horseflesh. In years past his horses had won no less than five Palio banners, a record few owners could match! And when he had no entry for the Palio, he sat as a judge of the trials, helping to choose the ten horses that would run, out of the twenty or more presented. His fellow judges held him in great respect, often waiting for him to nod the decisive "yes" or "no."
Of course, being an honest man and a realistic one, Signor Busisi admitted to himself that over the years he had purchased some weedy horses with faults too numerous and embarrassing to think about. And so he did not think about them. Besides, he was getting on in years, trying to ignore the pains around his heart and the frequent attacks of indigestion. "I've got a lot of age on me," he told himself. "No time for regrets; for me the spring flowers will bloom only a few times more. Better it is to lookahead." And so in the years remaining he was determined to live each day as if it were the last to shine upon him.
On this morning of April the Maremma country was the color of clear emeralds, the birds singing, and nothing between earth and sky except, coming over the hill ahead, a tall, airy-striding cart horse.
The Signore slowed down and pulled off to the edge of the road. He got out and unbuckled his belt a notch. The pangs of indigestion were sharpening. Perhaps walking around a bit, exchanging the time of day with a country carter, might ease the pain.
Before he greeted the man, he unconsciously took stock of the mare. To himself he said, "She must be well over sixteen hands high. Good legs and feet. Fine bone beneath the rough coat. Barrel too thin, head and throttle excellent. Eyes dominant."
The carter meanwhile was sizing up the automobile and the owner. "Is new—the car. Is old—the man. And rich. I wonder, will he permit that I haul goods for him from here to there?"
"Buon giorno," Signor Busisi said in a loud voice, noticing the ear trumpet.
The carter bowed until his chin touched his grease-stained shirt.
"Your mare," the Signore began, "how is she called?"
"Si, si. She for sale."
"Not so quick, my good man," the Signore bellowed. "I only ask how you call her."
The carter was unabashed. He grinned, showing yellow, horselike teeth. "She has the name Farfalla. She is daughter from Maremma mare and Sans Souci."
"Incredible!" the Signore exclaimed. "That accounts for the quality look."
"Eh?" the driver asked, holding up his trumpet.
"Incredible!"
The grin widened. "How long you stay in Maremma?"
"Today only."
The carter scratched his nose thoughtfully. Money jingling in his pocket and wine on the table would be better than a no-good mare. "Signore," he said in a nasal, wheedling voice, "you like buy my mare?"
Signor Busisi made no answer. At close range he saw that she was no longer young. "What age has she?" he asked.
"Eh?"
"How many years has she?"
"Oh, she very young. She has only four years," the man boasted, smiling at his deception.
Signor Busisi ignored the answer. There was that certain something about her—perhaps it was the arch of the neck and the high-flowing tail, perhaps it was the enormousness of the eyes. But somehow, in spite of her rough coat and her shoes too big and the ramshackle cart, in spite of everything, she had dignity and nobility. The Signore felt that the carter and he, himself, suffered by comparison.
All at once his indigestion was gone! Excitement caught hold of him. He did not want another horse for his own; he felt himself too old. But he was not too old to place her, to give her a chance. She could be good, even great. "Who knows without the trial?" he asked himself.
Sensing a quick sale, the carter was like a tiger cat sniffing its prey. And agile as the cat he leaped from the cart—eyes greedy, hands ready. He held out the reins.
"Not yet! Not yet!" Signor Busisi protested. "I make only the offer."
"And I only look at her shoes," the carter lied. "A stone maybe is caught. I take best care of Farfalla. Always I stop to clean out her feet."
"I am certain you do."
"What you say you give me?"
"I did not say. But I do now. I will give sixty thousand lire."
The carter sneered. "Six thousand lire!" he shouted angrily. "More money I could get for one old, deaf, mangy donkey with red blotches and no hair." He spat on the ground with as much venom as if he had hit the man with his spittle.
Signor Busisi remained unruffled, waiting for a noisy motorcycle to go by. "I saidsixtythousand lire," he repeated, more loudly this time.
The change in the carter was electric. He bowed low, kissing the Signore's hand.
Quick as a flash the mare took advantage of her owner's bent position. She drew back her lips, and with her big teeth pinched hard through the seat of his trousers.
"Ee-ee-ee-ow!" he screeched, trying in vain to break the viselike grip. It was only by the intervention of the laughing Signor Busisi that she let go.
Rubbing his bruised flesh, the carter promptly agreed that for the sum of sixty thousand lire he would deliver the mare to Siena in a day or two.
Signor Busisi suddenly felt young and strong again. Trying to suppress his laughter, he jackknifed his big frame into his car, swung into the road and roared on to Casalino, thinking, planning, dreaming. Somehow he would do it again—bring the right man and the right horse together. It was a never-failing source of wonderment to him how it came about. That black gelding he had sold to a man of the clergy, and the trick sorrel to a clown in the circus....
His thoughts broke off. He was nearing the warehouse where the ox skins would be already dried and dressed, awaiting his selection. He must put the mare out of his mind; and he did. For the time being.
Eager to make the sale, the carter of Casalino delivered the mare to Siena within the week. And while he went to a restaurant and ordered himself a heaping plate of veal scallopini in anticipation of the sixty thousand lire, Signor Busisi went to the bank to draw out the money.
On his way up the few stairs to the grilled portal, the Signore found himself side by side with a slight young man. He turned to see who it might be, and his face lighted. "Doctor Celli!" he exclaimed in pleased recognition. He hooked his arm through the young man's, swung him around, and led him back down the steps to the courtyard.
"Doctor Celli!" he beamed, unable to conceal his delight. "Think of my bumping into Fate twice in one week! May I delay you a moment? No?"
The gray eyes in the sun-browned face smiled. "Naturally, Signor Busisi. For you, my work can always wait."
"I had not thought to find you so soon."
"To find me?"
"Yes, you. This life is a big puzzle, Celli, jumbled with odd-shaped pieces. Thenpresto, the pieces, they fit!"
"Am I one of the odd pieces?" the doctor laughed.
"Let us say you were."
"And the other?"
"The other piece is...." the Signore ran his fingers through his shaggy white hair. Then he straightened to his full height and spoke in staccato excitement. "The other piece is an Arabian mare. She is called by the name Farfalla, and she moves as easily as an oiled machine. I found her in the Maremma. Quite by happenstance." The words now came more slowly. "Doctor Celli, you are the one to prescribe for her. She has the nervous tic."
The young man burst into fresh laughter. "Do you forget, Signore, I am a doctor of accounting, not of medicine?"
"I know, I know; but a doctor of this or that is smart enough to work magic in other fields. Besides, you are a horseman. You have a villa and hunting reserves, and as I recall, there is on your farm a good road, long and straight, fit for gallops. And," he paused a moment in his eagerness, "in less than three months, the Palio!"
The two men in the courtyard stood facing a statue, very tall, of Bandini, a celebrated economist, but neither one saw it. Nor were they conscious of the people going in and out of the bank. They were both seeing the same vision: Piazza del Campo in battle array—flags flying, lances gleaming, knights and nobles marching, horses dancing at the ropes, fantinos tense and ready. In their veins all of the ancient feelings boiled up again.
For a long moment the silence seemed unbreakable. Then at last Signor Busisi exploded. "You, Celli! You belong to the Contrada of the Unicorn. No?"
"Si, si."
"Your contrada is small and has won few Palios. No?"
Again the young man agreed.
"How sad for you, but...." the Signore waved his arms to heaven, "think how sweet your frenzy if a horse owned by you should win, even for another contrada!"
"A thousand times I thank you, Signor Busisi, but I never buy the cat in the bag."
"But, Celli! You do not have to buy the cat in the bag. This Farfalla by Sans Souci is here, right here in Siena! You have only to look!"
Respecting Signor Busisi as he did, Doctor Celli went early the next morning to see Farfalla. She was stabled temporarily in an old, dank warehouse used for storing ox hides. As he left the sunlight and crossed the doorsill, he stood blinking among the flies and the smells of dried blood and brine. A chill went through him. Out of the shadowy darkness the figure of the mare loomed like a gray ghost. Suddenly she scented the stranger and reared into the air, as if she would pitch him heels over head if he tried to mount. Then she retreated into a corner, her ears laid flat, her nostrils snorting, her lips drawn back.
It was several moments before Doctor Celli's eyes became accustomed to the dark. Then he took note of the fresh teeth marks on the wooden crib. "This cribbing is a thing she will not outgrow," he warned himself. "Yet nervous horses are like nervous people; they work in bursts of energy. For a race, this is good."
Back and forth he argued with himself. "She is too old to buy! Already she looks to be a six- or seven-year-old!"
And he answered himself. "But some horses come late to their full glory." He remembered the mighty Lipizzans of Vienna whose training did not begin until they were six. Perhaps she, too, would be a late bloomer. And if she was daughter to the noble Sans Souci, and if Signor Busisi liked her, that was enough.
He heard a cough behind him, and turned to find the Signore standing silently in the doorway.
"Restive, she is," the Signore said, "and pitifully underfed. But the Arabian blood is unmistakable; no?"
Already Doctor Celli had taken the hurdles in his mind. "Signor Busisi," he said, "from the fresh teeth marks it is plain that she is a nervous cribber. You already have told me this. Yet in spite of it, her possibilities intrigue me."
"Ah," the Signore replied, a wistful note in his voice, "is it not something beautiful to offer her the chance of fulfillment in this life?"
Within the span of the next ten minutes the walls of the warehouse echoed with excited voices. The haggling over the price began in a series of crescendos—up down, up down, up down.
The louder the talk, the quieter Farfalla became. The hub-bub seemed to be the very balm she needed, and Signor Busisi was quick to point it out. "Notice, Celli," he laughed, "the mare is now tranquil."
At last the two men were shaking hands to seal their agreement, both looking tremendously pleased.
The Signore took a deep breath, feeling his tired old heart skip a beat. "The pieces of the puzzle, they fit nice and precise," he sighed. "For sheer happiness my heart is bursting." And he smiled, as if he had given to the mare and the man their destiny.
As smoke lifts in an uprising wind, so ill fortune lifted for Farfalla. She began a new life. From the dingy, malodorous warehouse she was suddenly living on a wind-brushed hilltop beyond the city walls. It was from gloom to Paradise!
She had a nice box stall with sparrows for company, and outside her door she could hear pigs rooting and geese making friendly clacking noises. From her stable a grass-grown lane wound down and leveled off, straight as a string. The stretch of straightness began at a small bridge and flowed quietly through woods and farmland.
Each day was like the one before, and they were all good. Mornings when the mist lay wet and shining upon the land, she was saddled and bridled, and away she trotted without the nuisance of a cart joggling along behind. No rumbly noises at all. And no collar across her shoulders, nor leathers holding her back. Only a light hand on the reins and the light weight of Doctor Celli in the saddle. Occasionally a span of oxen would loom into sight and plod by, but to Farfalla they were placid old friends, remembered from the Maremma.
In this pleasant way the days and weeks of training for the Palio slipped by, one like the other. But along toward the end of June, with the selection of the horses only three days away, Doctor Celli was sent on a business errand to Rome. Scarcely had he left Siena when the sky clouded and the rain began. It pelted down in big drops, far apart at first, then closer and closer until they formed a thick curtain. Hour on hour the rain drummed ceaselessly against the small window of Farfalla's stable, until the noise and the eerie darkness threw her into a terror. She jerked her head up and down, more desperate with each moment, and she clamped her teeth on the uprights of her stall, biting them, peeling slivers of wood, and at the same time sucking in great mouthfuls of air.
Night and morning, the tenant farmer sloshed through the rain to look in on her. He saw to it that she had fresh water and grain and sweet meadow hay. But he cut his visits short, for she reared and snorted at the shadows made by his lantern, and her ghost-white color made his own flesh creep. He noticed her appetite was poor, but he attributed it to the foul weather and the lack of exercise. What he failed to notice was the swelling of her throat, and her belly becoming hard and distended.
When Doctor Celli returned, on the evening of the second day, he hurried at once to the stable. It was the very eve before the selection of the horses, and he wanted to be sure that Farfalla was as fit and happy as he had left her. With his hat dripping and his raincoat glossy wet, he entered her stall. To his horror he found her rolling from side to side, pawing the air in an agony of pain. He called in a veterinarian at once, but with all the aids of stomach pump and quieting medicines she still could not be readied in time for the trials.
On his way to the trials the next morning Giorgio Terni heard the news, but it carried no weight with him. He was riding Dorina to the Piazza del Campo to present her before the august body of judges. As he drew rein at a busy corner, he saw the tall figure of the Chief-of-the-Guards and heard his deep voice ring out:
"Attenzione!Make way for the horse!"
Motorcycles, cars, pedestrians, all came to a sudden halt. As the boy guided Dorina across the street, the Chief walked alongside. "Giorgio!" he said confidingly, "Ramalli's horses now have greater chance for being chosen."
"Why, Signore?"
"Because Doctor Celli's mare is withdrawn."
"So?"
The Chief nodded. "She suffers severe with the colic. Now only fourteen horses remain in the trials."
Giorgio felt honored that the Chief had stopped traffic for him and had called him by name. But the news was in no way startling, for who was Doctor Celli and how could an unknown mare affect his chances?
When the judges accepted Dorina and Imperiale, too, in the trial races, Giorgio felt an inward satisfaction, yet he was not surprised. He had known all along they would be chosen. They were ready. They were sound. They were, as the judges agreed, "neither too fine-boned for the cobblestone track, nor too clumsy for the perils of the course."
But when Dorina was assigned to the Contrada of the Panther and Imperiale to the Giraffe, it came as a shock that neither one hired him as fantino.
"Did I not train these horses? Do I not know their ways? Why," he implored Signor Ramalli, "why did they not chooseme?"
Out of kindness the man gave no real answer at all. He only shrugged and said, "Man's ways are strange, Giorgio, very strange." And to lessen the blow, he added, "Perhaps, months ago they hired their fantinos."
Little Anna, however, told the truth. On the morning of the Palio she came into the stable while Giorgio was solemnly mucking out the two empty stalls. "Poor unhappy Dorina and Imperiale," she said. "They must be homesick in the strange stables of their contradas. And maybe they will bolt when the new fantinos leap on their backs."
Giorgio flushed. Even this small girl felt pity for him, and took this way of showing it. He turned his back on her, but every fiber of him was listening.
She prattled on. "I think it most foolish of the Panthers and the Giraffes to choose riders from far away."
Giorgio wondered. Did she know the real reason? "Why did they?" he blurted.
Anna stood twisting her braids, almost afraid to say. "You promise not to tell Babbo if I tell you?"
"I promise," he quickly agreed.
"Well, then," she began importantly, "to our house came some visitors. You see, it is sad, and Babbo already is sad. So you must not sadden him more. You promise?"
"Twice now I promise."
"Well, one man says to Babbo, 'Giorgio is too young for Palio battle,' and the other says, 'Giorgio is not only young, he is puny. And his hands....'" Anna caught her lips between her teeth and hesitated.
"Go on! Go on!"
"They say, 'His hands are ...girl'shands. They cannot whack with the nerbo and hold the reins too.'"
Blood climbed hot in Giorgio's cheeks. "Girl's hands!" Was that it? He would show the Giraffe! He would show the Panther! He would show all the contradas! Because his hands were small, did this make them weak? Because he had less beard than other fantinos, did this make him green in the handling of horses? No! A thousand times no! Some boys are old before their time. "I was born old," he thought. He could never remember when he had not worked, nor when in the sweat of his work he had not dreamed of doing great things, of proving himself big for his size.
The day that was to have been all shining glory turned to ashes. In dull numbness Giorgio lived out the Palio of July second. As the sound of shields rattling and drums beating and battle cries came to him, he bridled Lubiana and rode far outside the city walls. She was not good enough for the Palio; neither was he. He rode for hours. He could almost have reached Monticello, but purposely he went the opposite way. How could he face the unasked questions of Mamma and Babbo? How could he face Emilio wearing a spennacchiera in his thatch of hair, daring his little friends to knock it off?
It was long past dark when he returned to the city. From within the walls he heard music coming toward him. The Wolves were chanting their victory song, loud in celebration.
Unable to bear the haunting sadness, he led Lubiana through the narrow side streets to her stable. Then, exhausted, he tip-toed to his room and fell across the bed. He lay there staring into the darkness, the din of the drums beating through his tired brain.
From that day on, Giorgio worked his string of horses with renewed dedication. It was the only way to hide his hurt. Men and children came in twos and threes to watch, then in knots of ten or more. He was hardly aware of them. He did not look to see if they were peasants or landowners, strangers or Sienese.
One early morning when he was working Imperiale, a new exercise boy came to Giorgio's favorite road to school his mare. He was really not a boy at all, but a small-headed, long-bodied weasel of a man, and he rode a tight rein.
Giorgio made a quick appraisal of the mare, and something within him snapped. His heart seemed to stop in its beating, then began to race wildly. The creature was an Arabian, her mantle a gleaming gray, flecked with brown. And her head was delicately shaped, with the muzzle small, and the eyes enormous and wide-set. There was no mistaking the eyes. He did not even need to think. She was, she had to be—Farfalla!
Unconsciously he slowed the pace of his mount. He thought: "She is like a piece of sculpture. Some day I will make a statue of her. And I will give it to our museum at school and there she will stand among my childish works."
All this he thought before he deigned to look at the groom who had bitted Farfalla too tightly. Should he tell the clumsy fellow you handle an Arabian differently from all others? That you ride with almost a slack rein? And the whip, does he not know it only makes creatures like her more nervous, sometimes even vicious? Where has she been since that Sunday morning at Casalino? Who owns her now? Is he kind or cruel?
Giorgio rode Imperiale alongside Farfalla, changing his pace to match hers. Then he rattled off his questions. Each one was met with glum and stolid silence.
At last the man nosed the air. "I got no time to talk to a boy with the slough of the Maremma all over him!" And he dragged out the word "boy" to put Giorgio in his place, and also to get rid of him. Then, digging his spurs into the mare's sides, he made a rude sign with his thumb, and galloped off.
Day after day the two schooled their mounts along the same road. Always the wizened groom kept his distance. It was almost as if he might be tainted by associating with someone from the Maremma. There were other roads about Siena, equally good, but the man and the boy seemed drawn to this one by some urge beyond their control, some sinister force egging them on to match their mounts and their wits.
One day the schooling gave way to a fist fight.
"Boy, go find yourself another road!" the man commanded.
And Giorgio leaned forward. "Why shouldIgo?"
"Because you're a milksop; too sissy to fight!"
This was the spark that touched it off. Giorgio leaped from his mount, tied him to a sapling, caught the man's foot, swung him off Farfalla, and began punching with both fists.
The wiry groom ducked the blows, tossed Giorgio into the dirt, and would have trampled him mercilessly had not Farfalla taken this moment to fly past, her heels narrowly scraping the man's head. It was all the advantage Giorgio needed. He caught the groom off guard, sprang to his feet, and grasping the man's arms, he pinned them tight to his sides. The groom lowered his head, butting it against Giorgio's, and at the same time twisted his shoulders, trying to wrench free. But Giorgio held fast, his arms locked tight around the lean body.
"Look!" the groom cried in mock alarm. "Farfalla escapes!"
Giorgio turned. The two animals were quietly eating the leaves of the sapling. After one well-planted blow, he freed the man in great disgust. "Get on your horse!" he cried, and watched the bowed legs scuttle off to mount Farfalla.
In this way the suspenseful days of July passed and the August Palio drew near. A week before, Imperiale developed a swelling on his left foreleg, had to be blistered, and was withdrawn from the race. But Dorina again passed the trials, and this time was assigned to the Contrada of the Porcupine. And again, no one from any contrada approached Giorgio to say, "Giorgio Terni, we earnestly desire you to be our fantino." And he could not use the reply he had rehearsed awake and asleep: "Signore, I am honored deeply to ride in the Palio for your contrada."
When the day of August the sixteenth came and the bell in the Mangia Tower began tolling, Giorgio forgot he was man-grown. With all his clothes on, even his high-laced country boots, he went to bed like a child and pulled the covers up over his head. But still he could hear the bell, sonorous and deep; could see the pageant unfold in his mind, telling the beads of history. The solemn tolling went on and on. And when he could stand the reverberations no longer, they suddenly stopped. The dead quiet that followed was even harder to bear. It meant the race was on! Giorgio saw it in all its wild and glorious beauty, heard the onlookers cheering, then roaring loud and louder until the noise filled his room. Drenched in sweat, he burrowed deeper into the covers. He wished he could suffocate and die. Unless he could be part of the Palio, he would rather be dead.
At last exhaustion took over and he fell into a jerking sleep. It was Signora Ramalli and Anna who wakened him, turning on the electric bulb. He flew out of bed, embarrassed to play the role of a sulky child.
"Giorgio," the Signora spoke in a mothering voice, "we come with the special things you like—macaroni and coffee for strength, and a good mocha torte to sweeten your bitterness." She set the tray on his table and pulled out his chair. Then she and Anna sat down on the chest to watch him eat.
Giorgio smiled his thanks. He picked up his fork and tried the macaroni, but it stuck in his throat. He tried the frosting of the torte, and to his relief it melted on his tongue.
"Better you were not there," Anna said. "Our Dorina was nearly last. Niduzza won for the Goose. But I thought a white mare, Farfalla, had won, so close were their heads."
Giorgio's spirits lifted. The cart horse of Casalino had nearly won!
"Babbo says the reason Dorina failed is not because there is weakness in her."
"Nor in her training," Signor Ramalli added, coming into the room. He sat on the edge of Giorgio's bed and sighed heavily. "By now you must know, son, that the agreements of the contradas beforehand play a vital role."
Giorgio put down his fork, listening.
"It will be enough for me to say that even the most unseasoned horse could win. Take any of the losers. Take Farfalla. In today's battle she may have been deliberately held back at the last moment. You must know," he repeated with all the force he could summon, "that sometimes there are secret arrangements between the captains of the contradas. The fantino is given orders. Hehasto lose, even when his heart cries out to win. There is no choice."
Time in Siena is reckoned by the Palio. Trips, even important ones, are postponed until after a Palio, or made hurriedly before. In the family Bible, births and deaths are often recorded by it; this person was born on the eve of the Palio of July, 1939; that one died during the August Palio of 1880.
Giorgio, too, began counting time by the Palio. In between, he felt himself in a vacuum. There seemed no real stuff and substance to living. He remembered an incident when he was a small boy. He was watching a veterinarian standing over a sick horse, and the man had said, "This beast I do not pronounce dead; it exists in a state of suspended animation." Then with a long needle the doctor injected medicine into the horse's heart, and it began to breathe, and to live again. The Palio was a stimulant, just like that. Even the hopes dashed and the despair were easier to endure than the dull ticking of time between.
Signor Ramalli kept Giorgio on for the winter, but often on Sundays he was allowed to go to Monticello. At home one evening, with the cat purring on his shoulder and Emilio and Teria looking on, he started work on his statue of Farfalla. It was strange how he remembered everything about her, even to the length of her mane and tail. As he worked, he found himself putting a shapeless lump on her back. He pinched and pressed, adding clay here, taking it off there, until the lump began to take form.
"What!" Emilio exclaimed, his eyes round in curiosity. "What are you making there! A fantino? Is it you?"
Studying it, the mother said, "Why tear out your heart in an aching for the Palio? Some of us are meant to dress the table for the others to eat. They are blessed, too."
Giorgio managed a smile, but the longing for the Palio persisted. In the slow months that followed, he sometimes wished he had never listened to the Umbrella Man. But deep inside he knew he did not mean it; he was glad he had the next Palio to think of. The next one would be different. He would be in it, and the horse he rode would be an Arabian, almost white. And all the rest of his life the Palios would come, year after year, one wild race for glory after another.
The next Palio was different indeed. The contest really began on the road where the weasely groom and Giorgio waged their continual warfare. Grimy and sweating, Giorgio was trying one day to teach a mare to lead with either her right foreleg or her left when going into a canter. Unless she could take a curve on the correct lead, her legs might cross and she could fall, endangering herself and everyone on the course.
Farfalla, with her groom sitting smug and superior, was executing a series of perfect half-turns down the center of the road. Every time their paths crossed, the man sniped at Giorgio with a sharp insult. "Hey, you! To teach a donkey, is necessary the teacher is less donkey than the donkey. Ha! Ha!"
Giorgio usually ignored the quips and jibes, but this one cut deep because it was overheard by two important-looking men beckoning him to the side of the road. One, a dignified man with balding head, introduced himself as Signor de Santi, an attorney, and captain of the Contrada Nicchio, the Shell.
The other, towering and magnificent in his blue uniform, was Giorgio's friend, the Chief-of-the-Guards. In an easy, knowing way the Chief took hold of the mare's bridle and looked up at the boy's dirt-streaked face. He smiled as if he had heard the taunt but ignored it. "Giorgio!" he exclaimed, "we come with a message for you."
He turned to the Captain, who now cleared his throat as if he were about to address a jury. "We of the Shell," he intoned, "have sought a fantino raised in our own contrada, but," he cleared his throat again, "such a one cannot be found. Here am I, therefore, wandering over the countryside, seeking."
Giorgio was struck dumb by the importance of the two men, and embarrassed by his own appearance. Hastily, he wiped his face on his sleeve and with his fingers combed his hair.
The Captain boomed on. "Seeing you with your stained shirt and disordered hair makes me think of the words of Angelo Mentoni, who said, 'In order to make a fantino for the Palio, three requisites are needed—age, liver, and misery.' Age you have not; of your liver I know not; but misery you have—in a manner only too evident!"
Giorgio blushed, then began to shake all over in anticipation. Trees went spinning before his eyes, the sky tilted, and the men's faces swam before him as if they were under water. He knew that out of respect he should dismount, but in his dizzy excitement he might fall sprawling at their feet.
"I am of the opinion," the Captain continued, "that you are a boy of good future and will fight earnestly to win. Unfortunately, we are not a contrada of great wealth. However, in the event of victory you will be rewarded in proportion to our limited means." He coughed apologetically. "You must realize, boy, that on our part this is a dangerous risk. Your ... ah ... smallness, while an advantage when riding in the provincial races, is no advantage at all on a cobblestone course where riders sit bareback."
Giorgio wanted to shout: "Capitano! Chief-of-the-Guards! I will take the risk. I will ride for no pay at all! I will pay you if I can! I will save my fare to Monticello!" Then suddenly came the remembrance of home—of the sausage hanging from the ceiling and the pieces of bread rubbed against it for flavor, and he gulped. He tried to say, "Signor de Santi, I am honored deeply to ride in the Palio for your contrada," but the words stuck in his throat.
The Captain took the silence for consent. "Good!" he said, "you shall be the fantino of the Shell for the Palio of July the second. You shall present yourself at my study on the morning when the horses are assigned." He reached up, grasping Giorgio's hand, wringing it until it hurt. Then the Chief did the same, and their eyes met in the complete understanding of one horseman for another.
For the first time in his life Giorgio galloped all the way back. He brought his mount in blowing and lathered, a thing he had never done before. Quickly he sloshed water over her. He scraped off the excess. He put a blanket on her. He walked her cool. Then he tried to walk himself cool, up and down the Via Fontebranda, but his feet barely touched the cobblestones. He could not walk; he paced, he ran, he galloped. He felt like some god of long ago, like Mercury skimming the clouds.
That evening when Signor Ramalli heard Giorgio's news, his face lighted in pleasure. "If this honor had come to my own flesh and blood," he said, "I could not be more glad. It is honor indeed that the Captain comes to you so long before the assignment of the horses. He must consider you able to handle any mount."
Later, in the stillness of night, Giorgio wrote to his father and mother. "Mamma and Babbo," he carefully formed the letters, "to you I will dedicate my first Palio. And to Farfalla."
Not for one instant did he doubt that Farfalla would be chosen to run. Nor that in the drawing when the horses are assigned to the various contradas, the Contrada of Nicchio, the Shell, would win her. "Ithasto be," he told himself.
A month later, at the trials, Giorgio watched without breathing as Farfalla nearly took a spill at the starting rope but caught stride and finished fourth. In Giorgio's mind his arch enemy, the groom who rode her, was entirely to blame for the bad start. But even so, she was among the ten chosen.
Giorgio sighed in relief. This, he felt, was the first step toward his goal, and certain proof that he would ride her in the Palio. Was she not Bianca's successor? Were not their life threads destined to come together?
After the trials the very air of the Piazza seemed charged with intolerable suspense. The drawing was at hand. The hour was ten-thirty, the sun striking hot on the cobblestones. Still rankling over the clumsiness of Farfalla's groom, Giorgio joined the throng gathering in front of the Palazzo Pubblico.