The city lay asleep. In the twisty streets, small yellow flames flickered here and there before shrines to the Virgin Mary. But in the shell of Il Campo the moon shone clear and bold.
Thiswas the real Prova! The four young men and the barbaresco, watching in the deep moon shadow, nearly forgot themselves in awed excitement. They were fully awake now. They wanted to shout and cheer at the smooth-flying gallop. Around the treacherous curves Gaudenzia went flying as if she were suspended on pulleys. Only an occasional spark from her hoofs showed she was earthbound.
In less than an hour they were all back in bed again. For Giorgio and Gaudenzia, sleep was sweet after the moonlight gallop.
July first, the day before the Palio, turned hot, with a brassy sun. The morning Prova took place at the hour of nine. General Barbarulli was on hand to observe, and afterward he stopped Giorgio on the way to the stable. He looked at Gaudenzia, but not at her head. He seemed to see only the heel that had been hurt last year.
"She goes sound?" He clipped out the questions. "She goes true? Her legs, are they cool after the running?"
"Si, si, General."
"The Provas are nearly over, son. Already there have been four. If all goes well in the last two, you will be fantino for the Contrada of the Wave, and tomorrow your name will be inscribed in the archives, officially."
Giorgio managed an anxious nod. He waited for the General's next words.
"Thus far she has not won a single Prova." Something in the man's voice told Giorgio that he was in no way displeased.
"Tonight," he went on, "is the banquet before the Palio. As you know, it is the great meeting of our people. You must come and you will be seated between Captain Tortorelli and myself. Your bodyguards will bring you at the hour of eight. From you only a short speech will be expected."
"A speech! Me? A speech!" Giorgio grabbed a handful of Gaudenzia's mane as if he might topple off. The bodyguards came up then to accompany him to the stable. His lips moved drily. "A speech I must make," he mumbled in deep misery.
All that afternoon Giorgio struggled with pencil and paper. As the result of his labors he produced only three small sentences. These he copied neatly on a clean sheet and folded it into the breast pocket of his good suit.
Promptly at the stated hour Pinotto, Carlo, Enzio, and Nello led him toward the church of the Wave. He felt like a prisoner on his way to execution, as they wound in single file through the narrow streets, through the arch of San Guiseppe, then through the doors of the church itself, and down the wide, winding staircase into another world deep under the sanctuary.
Giorgio stood gaping at the splendor. The banquet hall was high-vaulted and vast. Already many people were seated in their places at the rows of tables, but some were still standing in clusters, deep in conversation. With the entrance of the burly guards towering over the slight figure of Giorgio, all faces turned in his direction.
"Look! Our fantino! He comes!"
General Barbarulli signaled the bodyguards to come to the speakers' platform. For one frozen moment Giorgio saw the scene and remembered. Yes! There was the long table on the raised flooring, and the snow-pure cloth spread over it, and the serious-faced men seated on one side only. It was like the painting of the Last Supper, the one hanging above his mother's and father's bed. Overawed, he wanted to bolt, wanted to hide behind his bodyguards, but they were gone! They had stepped down from the platform and melted into the crowd.
The General and Captain Tortorelli welcomed Giorgio with cordial handshakes. Nervously, he felt for his speech in the place where his pocket should be, but his hand felt cotton, not wool, and he looked down and saw he had no pocket! He remembered now he was wearing the uniform of the Wave, the white-and-blue fantino uniform which the contrada had sent over. His speech was still in his room, in the pocket of his good suit hanging on the peg!
The Captain shook his hand a second time. "Do not worry," he said encouragingly. "All good fantinos are nervous. Those who joke have a gross heart." Then he introduced Giorgio to the vicar, the chancellor, the captain's assistant, the steward, and all the councilors.
When the food was served, Giorgio ate, though he hardly knew what he ate. His ears heard the stirring battle songs of defiance, of threats, but all the while his mind was trying to recall those three little sentences he had painstakingly written down. They were gone from him. Gone as completely as if some other hand had formed them.
"We are all united in the warm atmosphere of this dinner. In joy and friendship...."
"Oh, Mamma mia!" breathed Giorgio, dropping his fork with a clatter. "The speeches, they begin!"
"We of the Wave," the General was intoning, "regard this, our banquet hall, as our other home, our other hearth-place of Love and Brotherhood. Many of our families have separated for the Palio, each member having gone back to the contrada where he was born. In their place, many of us are hosts to some kinsman or friend. So first we greet and welcome those who are our guests."
Of one accord thecontradaioliapplauded.
The General smiled affably. "The Palio lifts us out of the everyday life," he continued. "We are caught up in the golden net of hope, of ambition, of glory. In four hundred years the magnificent colors of the Wave—blue for the billows and white for the foam—have won thirty-nine victories! Will Gaudenzia and Giorgio make it forty?"
"Si! Si! Si!" Wild cries bounced from wall to wall.
Giorgio listened in an agony of suspense. He could feel his chest going in and out against the place where his pocket and his speech should have been. "Please, O Mother of Perpetual Help, let him talk on and on! Let him forget I am here. Or maybe you could make an earthquake ... or an eruption like Vesuvius...."
But the only eruption was a burst of applause as the General sat down and Captain Tortorelli arose.
Giorgio closed his eyes.
Captain Tortorelli half-closed his eyes, too, buthewas in ecstasy. "How beautiful is the Piazza of Siena with ten fantinos in battle!" His voice resounded through the great hall. "Some call them ten assassins. Yes, the eyes of an assassin are dangerous, but in the danger they are fiercely beautiful."
Giorgio began to shake all over. The Captain was making a half turn toward him, was facing him now, speaking to him, and the force of his breath caused the hairs on Giorgio's head to quiver. "Fateis Queen of the Palio!" the voice rolled on. "We can prepare for victory, morally and materially, but never certainly. Only Fate and the fantino can decide between victory and defeat.
"Some tasks," he concluded, "need a big man. Others, a small one. Some fantinos are big and strong, but some are bird-light and think more of their mount than of their own safety. Giorgio Terni, you are such a one." He raised his glass in a toast to the boy at his side. "Our fate is in your hands."
"Bravo! Bravissimo!" the councilmen and contradaioli cheered. Then all about there was a great gaping silence—full of eyes, full of question marks. What would the boy say? What promises would he make?
"Speak! Speak!" the people shouted in encouragement.
Giorgio rose to his feet. In the dead silence he nodded to the Captain, and then to the audience. He opened his mouth, but no sound came. He glanced imploringly into the sea of faces, but no one could prompt him. His eyes swept the room, took in the marble angels on either side of the stage. Their cornucopias were sending forth pink and red carnations, but not help. And no help came from the painted dolphin on the wall, its mouth dripping red beads of blood as if it had been caught by some fisherman's hook. And as he stood helpless the silence grew deeper, until it was a roaring in his ears. In desperation he looked upward to the vaulted ceiling, and followed the arches that came together in a central point. It was like the chalice of an Easter lily; no, it was more like the inside of an umbrella.
Anumbrella!Suddenly the face of the Umbrella Man loomed in front of him, and in spite of his terror he felt strength welling up in him. Now hewantedto talk.
"Signori of the Wave!" he began in a voice that had an odd kind of dignity in it. "Gaudenzia and I, we were both reared in the Maremma, and we fit well to each other. Tomorrow we go into battle together. Fear does not choke our courage. For us it is not victory or defeat. We think only the one thought—"
"Vic-to-ry! Vic-to-ry! Viva Giorgio!"
The crowd had finished his speech for him.
Late on the night of the banquet, while Giorgio lay sleeping, the captains of the contradas were meeting in secret. Some were strengthening old alliances, and some were negotiating new ones. If one contrada, for example, had drawn a poor horse, it would swear to help its ally by every strategy of war.
The results of these meetings were of little concern to Giorgio, for no one, he had been told, would exact any promises from him. And so, exhausted from his speech, he had crawled into bed, and before his bodyguards had stopped joking and smoking he was asleep.
But it was not a peaceful sleep; it was shot through with a frightful dream. In writing down the name "Giorgio Terni" in the archives, the clerk broke his pen on the letter G, and the point flew up, stabbing the man in the throat. Immediately, terrifying things happened. The statue of the she-wolf atop the Palazzo came alive, came howling and hurtling down the column and put a horrible end to the clerk. Then she fell upon Giorgio, slashing him with her fangs and claws until he was unfit to race.
To the shock of crashing thunder Giorgio awoke. He jumped up, leaped over the sprawling figures of his guards, and ran to the window. He stood there, shivering, watching the storm rage. He had a strange sense that the fire-ball lightning was full of shooting stars, and they seemed to be spelling out the word—"O-f-f-i-c-i-a-l!" He stood there a long time, letting the wind and the rain wash away his dream. At last, chilled to the bone, he went back to bed. Sleep was slow in coming, and brief. At six in the morning the church bells startled him into consciousness. The first summons to the Palio!
His bodyguards, yawning and stretching, looked out in surprise at the rain-soaked land.
"How is it?" Giorgio exclaimed. "If I only turn the door-knob to my room or make tiny tiptoe steps, you hear! But crashing thunder?No!"
The guards laughed. As they dressed, they watched Giorgio fumble with the ties on his fantino uniform. "Could our boy be nervous?" they teased. "And him a veteran of two Palios!"
The bells were still playing when, minutes later, they climbed the steps of Siena's great cathedral. In the shadowy interior, with the candles winking and the faint light coming through the stained-glass windows, Giorgio and the other fantinos knelt at the altar. He glanced at Ivan-the-Terrible on his left, who was riding for the Ram, and at Veleno on his right, fantino for the Giraffe. They were like friendly schoolfellows. Could they, by evening, become enemy warriors? Would the three of them now kneeling prayerfully and peacefully side by side soon be striking each other with their nerbos?
Both fantinos were moving their lips. Giorgio wondered if they were praying to be accepted by their contradas, or praying to win. He looked up at the painting above the altar and read the inscription beneath the Virgin's feet. "O Holy Mother, be thou the fount of peace for Siena, and be thou life for Duccio because he has painted you."
It was hard not to pray for yourself. If Duccio, the great painter, could pray thus....
"O Holy Mother," Giorgio whispered, "be thou life for Gaudenzia." He did not realize it was the mare he was praying for, and not himself, so closely were they tuned.
Nine o'clock came. Time for the last Prova, the final rehearsal before the Palio. The day was windless, the sky gray and cloudy, the track still slippery from last night's rain. Giorgio resolved to take no chances. From the start to the finish he held Gaudenzia almost to a parade canter; he must save every tendon and muscle of her legs. She finished in last place.
As he returned to his room, he wondered if he had done the right thing. Had he been over cautious? Would the Onda approve? Or would they think him lily-livered, not knowing how to ride?
Torn by gnawing anxiety he washed and combed while the guards stood by waiting. In unaccustomed soberness they placed over his arm the blue-and-white jacket of Onda, the very one he would wear in today's Palio, and in his hand the steel helmet. Then as a body they marched him to the Palazzo Pubblico, not into the vast courtyard where the horses are gathered before the race, but into the formal and forbidding Hall of the Magistrates. Here they vanished, and Captain Tortorelli arose out of the gloom and indicated a chair for Giorgio beside him. Other fantinos were already there, seated about a long table, jackets over their arms, helmets in hand. And beside each was his captain.
The city officials now entered the solemnity of the room. The Mayor, in gray-suited dignity, sat down at the head of the table, the starter on his right, then the veterinarian and the Deputy of the Festival. A lean-faced clerk with a pen behind his ear took his place on the Mayor's left. He unrolled a great sheet of paper and laid it out before him. The sheet was empty, except for a margin of tiny colored emblems of all the contradas, and beside them, hair-thin lines waiting to be filled in.
With a dry cough the clerk took the pen from behind his ear and held it poised in midair like a hummingbird before it daggers into a flower.
Giorgio's heart quailed. He tried to stop the racing jumble of his thoughts: last year's death of Turbolento, last night's dream. The hoarfrost voice of the scribe cut off his thinking. Slowly the man called the roll. Each fantino stood up as his contrada was called. Carefully he held up his jacket with both hands so the emblem would plainly show, and waited for his captain to confirm him. This done, the clerk recorded the fantino's name in the big registry, writing with long, even strokes and a flourish of his pen at the end.
When it was Giorgio's turn, his foot caught in the rung of his chair, and it seemed an eternity before he could wrench free. To make matters worse, his hands were shaking so violently that when he held up his jacket the dolphin seemed mockingly alive, undulating through the blue waves of the Onda.
It brought a faint titter from the other fantinos before Captain Tortorelli broke in: "I hereby declare ..." he paused to clear his throat. "I declare," he repeated, "Giorgio Terni, fantino for the Onda."
Never to Giorgio had a man's gruff voice or the scratchy squeak of a pen sounded so sweet. When it was all over, he went out into the vastness of the Piazza. The pigeons were putting on an aerial spectacle, spiralling into the deep sky. Giorgio felt his spirits rise with them.
The Chief-of-the-Guards came up alongside. "I can see from your face," he smiled, "that all is now official."
Giorgio nodded.
"So you and your guards come rest at my house," the Chief said. "For you my wife makes her special zucchini omelette. It sits light in your stomach, and so you sit light on my Gaudenzia! You have now until four o'clock to eat and rest and sip the sweet wine of anticipation."
Giorgio had not visited the eagle's-nest-of-a-house for a whole month, not since the night of his arrival with Gaudenzia. Then, there had been a yellow moon-path on the hillside. Now a watery sun was breaking through the clouds, drawing moisture up in a thick curtain of mist. Only a month, he thought, but leading up to it a whole calendar of months from October to June. And before that, years of training for Signor Ramalli; and before that, Bianca, the Blind One; and before that, way in the beginning, a dusty little Umbrella Man sitting crosslegged by the fountain, reciting the deep mystery of the Palio.
"Come inside! Come inside!" the Chief-of-the-Guards laughed. "Stop gawping. Grapevines and olive groves you have seen before. Now we eat."
Giorgio was glad that no one expected him to eat much, or to talk at all. After the meal Pinotto, Carlo, Enzio, and Nello took their siestas in chairs and on the sofa. But Giorgio and the Chief paced—from balcony to dining room to kitchen and back again.
The afternoon wore slowly on. From the distance came the murmur of Tuscans and tourists pouring through the city's gates. The swelling noise rolled into the house through doors and windows.
An hour is very long on Palio day, and Giorgio was never good at waiting. The tick and the tock of the clock on the wall dawdled in maddening slowness, the hands barely moving. Every few minutes he went to the door to check the position of the sun, as if he could not trust the clock. When at last the bodyguards stirred to life, relief flooded through him. The waiting was over! It was time to dress for the pageant.
As Giorgio pulled on the blue-and-white striped stockings, the blue buskins, the quilted velvet tunic with its plaited sleeves, and the flowing wig, a curious thing happened to him. He was no longer Giorgio Terni, the peasant boy of Monticello; he was a warrior, risen full-clad from some ancient grave, ready and eager for battle.
When he arrived at the church of the Onda he saw that a change had come over Gaudenzia, too. She appeared more dazzlingly white, taller, and more elegant. She wore a spennacchiera of plumes in her headstall, and she too was adorned in medieval splendor—a blue velvet bodycloth with the dolphin embroidered almost life size in gold.
Before the arch of San Guiseppe the people stood aside. There was no talk or whispering of any kind. Solemnly they made a corridor for her and Giorgio to enter together. The mare must be blessed within the church, for is not the Palio a religious celebration in honor of the Visitation of the Virgin? Is not the blessing of the horse an age-old custom? Then, open wide the doors! Throw out the carpet. Let her enter!
In the perfect stillness, Gaudenzia's hoofbeats are the measured beat of time. Slowly she and Giorgio proceed up the aisle while the congregation breathes a collective sigh at her beauty.
Book in hand, the priest greets them at the altar. "Almighty and everlasting God," his resonant words roll out, "let this animal, Gaudenzia, receive Thy blessing, whereby it may be preserved in body, and freed from every harm by the intercession of the blessed Saint Anthony, through Christ our Lord. Amen."
Whispered "Amens" ripple through the crowd like muffled drums as the priest sprinkles holy water on Gaudenzia's head. The ceremony is over! And all at once the silence explodes in a deafening burst of joy. The clamoring rises to delirium.
Out in the street again, a tumultuous wave of humanity surrounds Gaudenzia. People from all walks of life want to touch her, or even the embroidery of her bodycloth. A man still wearing his shepherd's smock wedges himself in close to Giorgio. His face breaks into a grin, showing the dark hole where two of his teeth are missing. He points his shepherd's crook at Gaudenzia. "Magnifica!" he laughs in rapture.
And the crowd takes up the cry. "Magnifica!"
Underneath his flowing wig, perspiration is streaking down Giorgio's temples, and at the nape of his neck it trickles down and wets the ruching of his collar. The great historical pageant is about to begin, and he will be in it, and Gaudenzia will be in it. But she will walk riderless, and he will ride a mighty warhorse clad in armor of steel.
Already his contrada is forming into a tight military company—the drummer first, the two flag-bearers next with their enormous blue-and-white flags, and then Captain Tortorelli in coat-of-mail with unsheathed sword, and a major page and four minor pages. And then he, Giorgio, will come on his warhorse, and last of all Gaudenzia, led by her groom.
Giorgio's whole body is on tiptoe, on the brink of a great happening. He can feel himself growing pale, the skin of his face drawing tight over his cheekbones. A dark-bearded groom is offering his hand as a mounting block, to help him climb aboard the huge warhorse.
Giorgio stiffens. If he can mount Gaudenzia bareback, he can certainly put a foot into a stirrup and swing up without help. But the real stiffening is a feeling he has, not exactly of jealousy, but of concern that someone else is handling Gaudenzia. Will the man know how to soothe, and be firm too, amidst the jostling of people and the throb of drums, and the great race only a whisper of time away?
A nudge from the groom brings Giorgio up sharply. He waves the man aside, puts the ball of his foot on the stirrup, swings into the saddle. He feels awkward with a saddle between him and the horse—like the times he straddled a chair when he was young, and made believe it was a horse.
The groom thrusts a great iron lance into Giorgio's hand. "Hold it firm!" he warns, as he anchors it in the socket of the stirrup.
"Attenzione!" The Captain booms his command. And now the whole military company moves forward, the drum beating out in somber vehemence. On both sides hundreds of people are moving with them in swirling waves, upstream toward the highest hill of Siena. Where the streets narrow, the people flatten themselves against the buildings, then come forward again, like waters rushing, receding, rushing.
Giorgio sways along on his mount like a sailor on a flat-bottom boat. The paddling gait of the warhorse is never in step with the beat of the drum; it gives him a seasick feeling. Or is the churning in his stomach a mixture of fear and joy? He glances back at Gaudenzia. She is jibbing her head, actually lifting the groom off his feet as if he were a puppet on a string. She too wants the race to start, and even now wants Giorgio's hand on her leadstrap. He feels better then, in a shamefaced way, and the seasickness leaves him.
His contrada is atop the hill now, moving past the ancient hospital where nuns and patients are craning out the windows. Before the great black-and-white Cathedral the company halts, and the flag-players fling themselves into action, paying homage to the Archbishop in a window on high. Bending, swaying, leaping over their banners, they toss their flags skyward, making the blue waves on the white silk ripple and roar like the waves of the sea.
On the wide steps of the Cathedral a great throng watches steadfast, clapping in admiration. They stand with heads uncovered to the hot July sun. Some have missed the intimate blessing within the church of their own contrada, and have come to witness this final benediction for all.
Giorgio has passed this way before, once on the warhorse of the Shell, once for the Panthers. But those other times were blurred. Then the final benediction had not seemed a direct communion from the white hand of the Archbishop way up there in the dark of the window. It had not been direct to him, but a kind of general blessing for all the contradas as they went by.
But now, on this day of July the second, 1954, Giorgio needs benediction as truly as if Time had spun back, and the year were 1260, and he was going into the Battle of Montaperti—or whatever the name of that great battle was. Now he needs the strength that the white hand up in the window can give him.
He stretches his neck, looking up, and he thinks of himself as a parched bird, head back, beak open, begging a drop of water.
There! The hand is moving. Two fingers. No, three. They are making the sign of the cross. The benediction is communion direct to him, to Giorgio Terni, and it is coming right from God, with only the Archbishop in between. Suddenly he is ready, calm and ready for battle, and he nods a little to the figure up there in the window to let him know he has received the message. His hand tightens on the lance. He sways along on his broad-backed charger and leaves the Cathedral Square; he and his whole company—the flag twirlers, and the Captain, and Gaudenzia, and all the others—and they wind down from the hill, and down, and down into the core of the city, a tight military company.
As they approach the entrance to the Piazza, the bell in the Mangia Tower begins tolling a sonorousbong, bong, bong, and the spine-tingling reverberations blot out all other sounds.
Before and behind are other companies. The contrada of Lupa is entering Il Campo, and Onda will be next. Yes, he will be next. And he will be really seeing the historical parade for the first time. Those other times he had moved like one in sleep. But this is real. Now he knows that the pageant is more than a parade; it is a bright fuse burning itself around the shell of Il Campo until it blazes into the fire of the Palio.
And at last, at last, he is riding into the square! His eyes blink at the awesomeness. The facades of the palaces are alive with thousands upon thousands of heads. And within the railing of the shell is a heaving sea of heads, like flowers in a pot too small—rootbound and gone riotous in bloom. And all those heads have bodies and souls, and they have come to see him and to witness battle and bravery and bloodshed; and he, Giorgio Terni, must fight off nine warriors before his white mare can capture the golden banner.
Hehasto do it because it is like keeping a promise to himself and to those thousands of people. There are so many he dizzies trying to separate them. And all those eyes are asking for the most beautiful Palio in history, and Gaudenzia will give it to them!
The bigness of it all makes him afraid, and then he sees the small boys who have been waiting in the sun since noon, sitting there on the white posts that fence the shell. One looks up, focusing right at Giorgio with his shiny, worshipful eyes, and Giorgio knows he wants to win for him, and he wants to win for all the littlecolonnini, and for Emilio back home in Monticello, and for little boys everywhere.
At thought of home a smile crosses his face, and even through the bonging of the bell and the dinning of drums he can hear his mother say: "Giorgio Terni! Tell me! Tell me! What contrada comes first? And who next? And what happens then?"
He longs for a camera, but it would be no use. He has only two hands, and one is frozen to the lance and the other guiding the reins on a warhorse big as a battleship.
All right! He will be eyes and ears for everyone at home. His gaze moving, he peers around, taking pictures in his mind, explaining.
"Mammina! Babbo! Teria! Emilio! I have a lofty perch on my warhorse. I see across heads.... I see the whole procession. The members of the parade are not the people of today, but what they look like—the people of long ago.
"First come the red mace-bearers stumping along tall and straight, like their maces. They make way for the black-and-white flag of Siena.
"Emilio, you should know this flag! It stands for Romulus, who founded Rome, and for Remus, who founded Siena. Like us they were brothers, only they were suckled not by a mamma, but by a she-wolf. One day those brothers build fires, and the one fire makes white smoke and the other black, and so the flag is for them ... black and white.
"Teria! You would like better the plumed knights and nobles in their velvet costumes, and the musicians blowing on their silver trumpets.
"And Babbo! The magistrates of the guildsyouwould like—the silk workers, and wool workers, and stone and gold workers, and builders, and painters, and blacksmiths, and apothecaries."
Giorgio's eyes sharpen, dart ahead with the unbroken cavalcade as it winds triumphantly around the Piazza. How can he remember it all? How can he possibly make his family see those flag-players tossing their great flags into the air, making them soar in a hundred ways? "Oh, Mamma mia, look. Look, right now! Our boys from the Onda are doing the jump of the snowflake. Look how they leap high in the air, making the great banners unfurl,horizontal!
"Oh, I give up! Some day you must come. Those boys—they send their souls up with their flags into the sky. Yougotto see it. Yourself!"
Giorgio stops a moment, tired, bewildered. His brain goes blank with taking pictures, as if he has run out of film. He squirms in his saddle, forces himself on.
"Yes! All this you got to see." He tries to pick one last scene to remember, and his eyes light on the very young page boys linked shoulder-to-shoulder by green garlands. "Look, Emilio, they are no bigger than you yourself. See how they separate the ten contradas who will run from the seven who will not! And, Babbo, you would laugh how much those little boys with their loops of green look like the grapevines between our fields."
Giorgio stopped. He was out of breath. A hush had fallen over Il Campo as the parade came to an end. From the tail of his eye he saw the magnificent goldcarrocciowinding up the procession. Was this battlecar the same one as last year, and last century? He knew, of course, that it must be, but today he saw afresh the brilliant paintings on its sides, the gilded wheels, the resplendent Palio held aloft—the banner he and Gaudenzia must bring to Onda.
The hush deepened. The rolling of the drums stopped. The bonging of the bell seemed far away in the sky, but within the battlecar the silver trumpets were weaving a dialogue, the high notes calling, the low ones answering.
Giorgio straightened in his saddle. To him the high notes were not a summons, but a question—insistent, unvaried, probing over and over and over again:
"Have you fear? Have you fear?"
And the silver-blown answer piercing the air:
"Courage is the law of the Palio."
Seven o'clock. Time spinning itself out. Time throwing its shadows up and up the tower. Excitement mounting with the shadows. The knights and nobles, having completed the turn of the track, seat themselves on the benches in front of the Palazzo. The rich colors of their costumes make a dazzling design, like jewels in a crown—rubies and emeralds, sapphires and amethysts.
With the other fantinos Giorgio guides his charger into the big courtyard of the Palazzo. He takes a quick look back. The track is empty now except for the flag twirlers of all the contradas. His eyes are glued to them. They look like gnomes playing with sheets of fire, flinging their furled staffs thirty feet into the air until each one bursts in a blaze of crackling color.
Before he has looked enough, the groom prods him along. "Come! Do you forget the race?"
Within the high-vaulted court all is disciplined order. Ten pages are leading the war chargers away. Ten grooms are tying their race horses to iron rings around the walls. Ten fantinos, with the help of their costume boys, are changing clothes—from suede buskins to rubber-soled shoes, from velvet tunics to cotton jackets, from plumed headgear to steel helmets. Giorgio runs his finger inside the rim of his helmet. Yes! It has been padded to fit. He sees that his hands are trembling. He wipes their dampness on a rag which the groom tosses him. He casts sidelong glances at the other fantinos. Ivan-the-Terrible glares at him, carrying on the feud from last year.
The starter picks up his megaphone, barks out rules and warnings: "Attenzione!It is permissible to ward off your enemy with the nerbo, but never grasp the bridle of an enemy horse. The eyes of the world are upon you. Represent well the spirit of Siena, and of your contrada. Be brave!"
Only a few minutes to go. The barbaresco of Onda carries out his final duties—checks the bridle of Gaudenzia, her cheek-strap, her chinstrap, her reins; last of all her spennacchiera ... is it anchored solidly in case her fantino should fall? He dips his hands in a basin of water and solemnly, as if he were performing a sacred rite, uses the flat of his hands to wet the mare's withers, her back, her barrel, her flanks.
"Giorgio—" His voice sounds winded, like a run-out dog. He tries again. "Giorgio, I have made her coat damp. It will help you stick on. Now, run the best race of your life." He unties her from the iron ring. "Here, she is yours. I have done all I can.Now rules Fate, the Queen of the Palio."
Giorgio takes the reins and studies the mare from pricked ears to tail. Her neck is frosted with foam, her nostrils distended, her eyes darkly intent. He does not answer the groom. He has just himself to answer. "No! No!Not Fate!"
Only a few seconds to go.
A squad of guards marches in, surrounds the starter to escort him to his box beneath the judges' scaffold. The man walks out slowly, his face showing worry; he knows full well that if he releases the starting rope an instant too late, ten horses may fall, and his own life be threatened by angry throngs.
The Chief-of-the-Town-Guards takes his post at the entrance of the Palazzo. In one hand he holds a white flag, in the other, ten nerbos. He looks out into the square, watches the starter mount his box, watches the ragno, the little spider-man, climb up to his cage, ready to touch off the gunpowder. He turns his head back to the courtyard. The horses and fantinos are ready.
Now! He lifts the white flag, waving it on high to alert the ragno. Bang! The air quivers as the bomb bursts in a deafening percussion. It is the signal for the fantinos to ride out. The roaring in the amphitheater stops as if cut off by a sharp knife. The silence is full of mystery, almost of pain. Then sixty thousand throats cry out:
"A cavallo! A cavallo!To horse! To horse!"
As each jockey in turn rides out, the Chief presents him with the nerbo. Instinctively, the horses who have been in a Palio before shy in fright.
Giorgio's breath catches in his throat. His right hand, still tingling from gripping the lance, now accepts the nerbo from the firm hands of the Chief. "Will I have to use it?" he asks himself.
Out from the maw of the courtyard the cavalcade moves forward toward the starting rope. Through his legs and thighs he can feel the mare's heart pounding against him. He hears the starter call out the horses in order. He prays for first position—or last.
"Number one, Lupa, the Wolf!" A thunder of applause goes up, boos and cheers mingling.
"Number two, the Tower!
"Aquila, the Eagle, number three!
"Tartuca, the Turtle, four!"
As they are called, the horses prance up, take their positions between the ropes. Eagle and Wolf are jumpy, move about, change positions. The starter sternly sends all four horses back, recalls them again one by one, then goes on:
"Number five, Drago, the Dragon!
"Number six, Civetta, the Owl!
"Montone, the Ram, seven!"
The whistles and the shouts are strong. "Up with Montone! Up with Montone! Up with Ivan!"
"Istrice, the Porcupine, eight!
"Giraffa, nine!"
The nine wait tensely for the final call. Giorgio tries to conceal his joy. He will be number ten! He knows the rules, revels in them. The number ten horse starts behind the others. With a rush she will come up to the rope and trigger the race.
The starter raises his megaphone. His voice shrills: "Number ten, Onda! Come on!"
Giorgio's heart beats with a wild gladness. Now it is! The time for action! He lifts Gaudenzia's head; she leaps forward. The rope drops at the split instant she touches it. It rolls free, coiling up on itself, almost onto her pasterns. As it falls to the track, ten horses are off like gunshot, Gaudenzia in the lead!
With Montone hot on her heels, she travels fast in spite of the sticky track. Landmarks spin by—the Fonte Gaia, the casino of the nobles, the palaces of Saracini and Sansedoni. Giorgio sucks in all the air his lungs can hold. Ahead lies the sharp right-angle turn of San Martino, the waiting ambulance in plain sight.
From bleachers, from balconies, from all over the Piazza Gaudenzia's enemies are shrieking for blood. In full stride she goes up the incline. A moment of terror! She stumbles, breaks gait. Ivan, for Montone, tries to crowd her into the posts. But Giorgio grasps her mane, squeezes his right leg into her flanks. Squeezes tighter. It works! She recovers; she's safe!
"Bravo.... Bravissimo!" The crowd is crazed with emotion.
Only the red jacket of Montone is anywhere near as Gaudenzia flies along the straightaway to the narrows of the Casato, and uphill for the strangles of that curve. Using her tail as a rudder, she veers around the curve, gallops down the stretch to pass the starter's box, still holding the lead.
The blood sings in Giorgio's ears. He clucks to Gaudenzia for the second lap, forgets he has a nerbo. The piston legs of Montone pound on relentlessly, press forward, gain on her at the fountain, gain going around San Martino. Almost to the Casato again, Giorgio tenses, deliberately cuts in front of Ivan. He has to, to get to the rail, to shorten the distance! This is battle! All in a split second Ivan's horse is forced to prop, to brake. In turn Lupa is blocked; she swerves, careens, hurtles to the ground, dragging the oncoming Giraffa and Tartuca with her. The track is a mad scramble of horses and riders! Gaudenzia for Onda is still streaking on.
"Forza! Forza!" the voices shriek. "Give it to us, Giorgio! Give us the Palio!"
And around for the third time she battles Montone, who is making one last desperate effort to catch up. But he is no match for Gaudenzia. Not weaving, not wobbling, moving at a terrific pace, she goes the whole lap. As she flashes by the flag of arrival, Giorgio wildly waves his nerbo in victory. He has not used it before!
With roars of triumph, the Onda victors spill out upon the track, hug their hero, lift him up, carry him on their shoulders. Angry losers close in, to pinch and pull and buffet him. A corps of howling, happy men of Onda try to force them back, but it is the Chief-of-the-Guards who succeeds. He makes himself a one-man shield and his voice bellows like a bull. "Lift him high!Higher!" he commands. "Before they murder him!" Then, eyes brimming in pride, he salutes Giorgio on both cheeks, and kisses his white mare full on the mouth.
The cart horse of Casalino has won the 536th running of the Palio.
It was a moment that moved the Sienese to weeping. Giorgio had never been so confused in his life; nor so happy. Here were life and glory, past and present, all in one! Up in the judges' box Captain Tortorelli was lifting the golden Palio from its socket, reaching over the railing, placing the staff in the outstretched hands of a knight from the Onda. The crowd surged toward the victory banner, then back to Giorgio as the living symbol of it. They smothered him with embraces—young men, old men, young girls, old women—frenziedly showering him with their joy. Around the square they carried him aloft on strong shoulders, first to the church to show the Palio to the image of the Virgin, then on through the streets of Siena, cheering, shouting, laughing, singing.
The little narrow alleys were packed so tight they could scarce contain the winding human river. From balconies women and children tossed red carnations to Giorgio. Catching them he thought, "These would be nice to decorate Gaudenzia's bridle. I hope she is safe from the crowd." He tried to get a glimpse of her, but she was lost in the maelstrom.
Up and down the wavy streets of Onda the growing throng marched, four abreast, six abreast, eight abreast. Young people from friendly contradas joined them. Together they invaded enemy quarters, singing their victory song, drums throbbing, hearts throbbing, flags fluttering. In enemy territory the shouts of joy were speared by catcalls. Street fighting flared up in dark doorways; old people wept tears of bitterness. But the drums never ceased, nor the singing.
A wave of pleasant tiredness washed over Giorgio. He was a piece of drift, tossed hither and yon by the seething mob as it spilled out from the canyon of walls, and overflowed into the tiny green of Lizza Park. Then all the way back down into the city again, and into the streets of the Onda.
The contrada had become a whirlpool, drawing into it friends and strangers alike. Candles twinkled like a constellation of stars. Meat, bread, watermelons, and wine appeared by magic. Bands played in the streets. Dancers swooped Giorgio into their arms. Men and women both twirled him about like a pinwheel. He ate. He drank the ceremonial wine. All night long the celebration went on, with Gaudenzia making grand appearances, her plumes nodding, her hoofs painted with gold.
At last, when the candles were guttering and the morning stars beginning to wink out, Giorgio's bodyguards rescued him and took him to his room to sleep.
Safe in his cool bed, Giorgio wanted nothing but to lie quiet in the gray darkness and live it all over again. With his eyes closed, he saw the figure of Gaudenzia rise up before him. "Look at you!" he spoke to her. "In your yesterdays you were just a poor work horse, pulling the rickety cart. Today you are ... you are...." He tried to fight off sleep, to savor the deliciousness of victory, but his very bones seemed to melt into the mattress, and the shutters of his mind closed.
At eight o'clock on the morning of July third, General Barbarulli was already in the heart of the city, waiting for the news-stand to open up for business. The morning papers had just arrived, and the ancient vendor, an Ondaese, was flinging the rope-bound stacks up on the counter as if he were still giving vent to his joy. When the ropes were cut and everything was in order, he leaned toward the General, honored to have him as the first customer. "Which paper is it you would like?"
"Three of each," was the smiling reply. "One set is for the museum of Onda, one is for myself, and one for our fantino."
The transaction completed, the General stepped around the corner and went inside the post office to be less conspicuous in his enjoyment of the accounts of yesterday's victory. He stood in the light of the stained glass window and opened up the first paper. As he read, he had to hold it quite high to let his tears of happy pride fall unseen. He read all three journals, then left hurriedly to share the glowing reports with his fantino.
Giorgio was so deep in sleep that it took insistent knocking on his door to arouse him. The bodyguards, exhausted from the celebration, still lay bundled in their sheets, snoring softly. Giorgio quickly pulled on his shirt and trousers and stepped out into the hallway.
"My boy," the General smiled broadly, "you have a new name!" Tapping Giorgio lightly on the shoulder with the newspapers, he spoke in staccato excitement. "Read! Read, now! These stories you will want to send home to Monticello." He spread out the front pages of each paper on the hall table and stood waiting to see the effect they would have.
Giorgio read slowly, struggling over some of the longer words. "The fantino of the Onda," the first article said, "who last year found difficulty in securing a mount, this year has won everlasting recognition from the people of the Onda, who carried him aloft in triumph. The Palio, in the midst of a sea of flags, has already made its entrance into the museum of the contrada. The little hero of the Piazza...." He blushed, embarrassed to go on.
"Read more—read more," the General urged. "The Palio has christened you! You have a new name. Look! See for yourself."
Giorgio read faster now, skimming as best he could. What was wrong with the name he had? What was wrong with Giorgio Terni? The second paper said nothing about a name. He turned to the third and read, "Young Giorgio Terni, peasant boy from the Maremma, is now crowned with a new name. Sienese everywhere speak of him asVittorino, the little victor of the Piazza."
Giorgio's heart quickened. Maybe some people would call "Vittorino" a nickname, he thought, but to me it seems a very nice title.
"The battle was not as fierce as expected," the article went on. "The fantinos did not use their nerbos, for Gaudenzia was first from beginning to end. The masterful performance of horse and rider together has given the youngest fantino in the Palio his new name. Henceforth he will be known as Vittorino."
"Vit-to-ri-no!" the boy tasted it on his tongue.
General Barbarulli beamed. "It pleases you? No?"
"Si, si! It is better thanProfessoreorDottoreor even ..." the boy reddened.
"Better even thanGenerale?" the General's eyes twinkled. "I agree! It is a beautiful laurel, invisible, to wear with honor and pride. And now we have many weeks for rejoicing." He sighed happily as he folded his own newspapers. "Then in September, when nights are cool, we will hold our Victory Dinner right in the middle of Via Giovanni Du Pré. A thousand places will be set under the stars, and Gaudenzia will be the guest of honor. At the head table she will be served! And you, Vittorino, can feast your eyes and your stomach without even making a speech. It will be your and Gaudenzia's grand triumph. Now, then, I have much to see about and must be on my way."
He shook hands briskly, turned on his heel, and went lightly down the stairs.