The next weeks that should have been all gay and rejoicing for a hero of the Piazza turned dark with worry. It concerned Gaudenzia, and yet it didn't concern her. The August Palio was less than six weeks away, but already Giorgio felt troubled by a thing he did not understand. Suppose another fantino should ride her then, and he would have to fight against her!
He tried to argue with himself. "Look here, Giorgio, in your pocket you have some money. In the streets children salute you with flags. In the Palazzo Pubblico men treat you man-sized. And every day you receive poems, presents, and pictures. Yet you are not happy."
Deliberately he turned all his attention on the mare. He would keep her stall cleaner than a kitchen, and her mantle spotless. And if he worked on a new training program for her, he might be too busy to worry.
This time he did not bother with a calendar. He had only to ease her off from the pinnacle of July second, then build her right back up again.
The Chief-of-the-Guards was too happy to notice how silent Giorgio had grown. He lived in a state of blissful pride, for Gaudenzia seemed in no way weakened by racing on the treacherous course.
"If anything, she is now more strong," he said time and again. "Legs firm and trim. No puffy swellings around the joints. No cuts from overreaching or crossfiring. And no bruising or splitting of her hoofs. As for the corners of her mouth, they are soft like a young filly's. Who could recognize her as the sad bag-of-bones we rescued from the sausage maker. Eh, son?"
The Chief was aware that other contradas would now want the famous Vittorino to ride for them, but his contrada, Nicchio, had asked first. He refused to think that in the next battle the boy might have to ride another horse and so fight against Gaudenzia. Surely, whoever drew Gaudenzia would buy Giorgio from the Nicchio.
Giorgio, however, did not have this assurance. And whenever he tried to voice his fears, the Chief seemed so happy that the words died unspoken.
But if the boy had grown broody and silent, Gaudenzia was just the opposite. She felt intensely alive. Let out of her stable, she tried to rake the sky for sheer joy in living. She felt good! Never was she alone, not even on rainy days; her fantino was groom and companion, too, steadfast as the earth. And so she thrived.
From fast work she went to slower and longer work. She walked and trotted one week, two weeks. Then gradually Giorgio intensified her training. More trotting and galloping, less walking. More grain, less hay.
"For you, your life will always be mountains and valleys," he told her one morning as they jogged along a country byway. "Always between Palios comes the easing off, the nice rest. Then you must start all over again and make the steep climb to new peaks."
A fluffy seed blew into her nose. She blew it out again with a loud snort.
"Yes, you can snort away your little troubles. But me?" Sighing, he ran his eye along the distance, along the tufted terraces of olive gardens, and he followed the aerial maneuvers of a pair of swallows snapping insects on the wing. By keeping his mind busy he hoped to wear blinders to what was bothering him. But it was no use. The worry kept eating at his heart. Maybe he would feel better if he put it into words, instead of letting it run around in his head like a mouse in a mill.
"Listen, Gaudenzia," he spoke into the fine pricked ears, "for one little month you are Queen of the Palio. But you won your crown without...."
His talk sounded silly against the shimmer of distance. He clucked to the mare. A faster pace might make the words come faster, easier.
He tried again to make his voice strong, to empty his thoughts. "Gaudenzia! You won the July Palio without real battle, without the nerbo, without the secret arrangements." The words flowed faster. "Now you are marked. You are the one to beat. You and I—in the next Palio we could be separated. The contrada which draws you could already have engaged some other fantino." He burst out shouting: "What if you have to be beaten and slashed back? By me!"
The sweat broke cold on his face. He pulled the mare to a halt, and she stood trembling at his tone as if already she were beaten over the head with his nerbo. Thinking of her nervous tic, he quickly dismounted and quieted her.
July passed. Giorgio had no peace. His dream of the Palio had become sullied. He called on the Chief-of-the-Guards in his own home. He called on General Barbarulli. He sought out Signor Ramalli. With each he tried to unburden his worry, but the talk was roundabout and never came near the sore spot.
In desperation, one day, he put Gaudenzia in the care of a barbaresco and went home to Monticello. He planned to arrive in the late afternoon, when he knew his mother would be cooking supper. She would be standing in the pool of light from the single bulb over the stove, and her back would be toward him, and the room would be steamy warm, and in the semi-darkness it would be easy to speak right out.
It happened exactly like that. Giorgio was there in the kitchen, leaning against the wall where the patched green umbrella hung, and both cats were sidling up against his legs as if they remembered him from yesterday, and he was saying, "Mamma, now that I am grown, the Palio is a thing I do not understand."
His mother was making pizzas, shaping each pie carefully. She stood there in her black dress and did not turn around. And yet Giorgio felt her motherliness spread over him like wings over a young bird.
"Giorgio," she began, then corrected herself. "My boy is now Vittorino. He has the wished-for name, and in his keeping he has the wished-for mare. Yet he does not understand the workings of the Palio, and so he is unhappy."
"That is the way of it, Mamma."
"You are not alone in this, Vittorino. Many things of historyIdo not understand. Nor does your Babbo. But the part that torments you, maybe it is a thing to pull out of the dark and into the light. Maybe then...."
She stopped short, choosing silence for urging the boy on.
Giorgio blurted out: "Mamma! It is the secret arrangements between the contradas. The Palio is a religious festival. Is it right, do you think, to hold your horse back, to make her lose? What if"—the words came tight and strained—"what if for Gaudenzia another fantino should be chosen? And I should have to strike her?"
The shaping of the pies went on in silence.
"I had to ask it! Everyone in Onda is happy. And the Chief is happy. And Gaudenzia is happy. But I, I am sad! Some nights, for hours I do not sleep. How can I be a fantino so soon again if in my heart there is a heaviness? How can I?"
The mother sighed deeply. Why is it, she thought, that always children have questions like knots which they throw into the lap of the mother? Little children, little knots; big children, big knots. Always it is so. She thought a long time and the room grew so still that the whir of a hummingbird at a flower in the window sounded big and loud.
"I think there is someone," she said at last, "who could ease your burden."
Giorgio was hearing with every fiber. "Tell me! Who is it?"
The mother seemed to be talking to herself, convincing herself. "Yes! He would be the one; he is wise in the mysteries that trouble the heart."
"Who, Mamma?"
"He is a thoughtful, listening man."
"But whoishe?"
"He knows especially boys; he believes they deserve to be heard."
"Butwho?" It was a cry for help.
"His name," the mother said with a little glow of wonder, "his name is Monsignor Tardini."
"Monsignor Tardini!"
"Si."
"Why, he is a great man at the Vatican. He stands next to the Pope himself!"
The mother went to the cupboard and took out plates and cups to set the table. "Soon now the pizzas will be done," she said, "and Babbo and the children will come from the farm, and we eat."
"But why does the Monsignore understand especially boys?"
"Because, in a pine grove on the skirts of Rome, there sits a beautiful villa for orphans. It is called Villa Nazareth, and Monsignor Tardini, he is the guiding spirit. Even the grown boys, after they go out into the world, bring their troubles to him."
"But, Mamma, how do you know all this?"
"I know because young Arturo, a boy from the Maremma, is there.Hesays so."
"You mean I should go all the way to Rome? To the Vatican?"
The mother nodded. "You should go, even if it costs dear. In the sugar bowl there is money. Yours and Gaudenzia's," she smiled, "from the victory of Onda." She stopped to pinch off a few faded flowers from the pots in the window. Then she went back to the stove. "There comes a time," she said, turning to look right at Giorgio, "when to make a pilgrimage is necessary for peace of the mind."
A far look crept into the boy's eyes. Suddenly he burned with the urge to go to Rome.
Two days later, back in Siena, Giorgio dressed at dawn and went to say good-bye to Gaudenzia. She gazed steadfastly at him as if he had made the morning sunbeams slant westward for the day, as if he had made the grain she ate, and the air she breathed. "Do not have fear," he told her. "I returnpresto, pronto, subito. I return this night."
Already he felt better. The mere prospect that today he could unburden his worries was like strength in his blood. He filled Gaudenzia's hayrack and water pail. He stripped her stall of bedding and swept the floor. He brought in sheaves of bright straw and shook them and padded them and banked them around the walls.
A friendly groom came in as he was putting the fork away. The man was big and brawny with sad, red-rimmed eyes like a hound dog's. He clapped Giorgio on the back.
"Ah, Roma! Bella, bella Roma!" he sighed, rolling his eyes heavenward and kissing his fingertips. "My favorite of cities! You will see the catacombs and the Colosseum and the Castle of San Angelo. But why," he puzzled, "do you gonowwhen the manifestation of the Palio already makes the air crackle?"
"I cannot explain. I must hurry. Soon my train leaves. Please, Signore, kindly do me the favor to look in on Gaudenzia twice before nightfall."
The seven o'clock train chugged out of the station at the exact stroke of seven. Giorgio, his hair combed so carefully the teeth marks showed, sat in a second-class compartment filled with soldiers sleeping. They paid him less attention than if he had been a fly. He was glad. He could read again the exciting note in his pocket.
"The Right Reverend Monsignor Tardini," it said, "will see you at the Vatican at twelve-thirty on Thursday next." And it was signed, "Angelina Ciambellotti, leader of work with children, Siena."
Having nothing to do, he read the few words again and admired the signature of this woman he hardly knew. The pen strokes were strong and sure. Did she ever worry about things, he wondered; or was her path laid out straight as a piece of string? Maybe working for orphans as she and the Monsignore did was like holding a compass in the hand; always you knew the way. He folded the letter and put it back in his pocket, alongside the light race shoe of Gaudenzia which he was taking as a gift for the Monsignore. His fingers closed about it for comfort.
The soldiers were still sleeping, grunting and twitching as if they fought imaginary battles. Giorgio wished he could sleep, too, but he had never before been to Rome and he might miss the junction at Chiusi where he had to change to an express. When he finally reached it he was in a panic for fear he would get on the wrong train. He asked a dozen people to make sure.
"You have much time," they laughed. "Why not have a coffee?"
Remembering now that he had forgotten to eat breakfast, he gulped a tiny cup of coffee and bought a sugared roll. When at last the express to Rome roared into the station, he crowded in with the others and found a seat beside a gangling American student.
The rest of the trip was a succession of dark tunnels and hairpin curves, of haystacks and strawstacks, and boys herding sheep, and oxen pulling plows between rows of grain.
Calmer now, Giorgio leaned back against the high cane seat. The train went no farther than Rome, so he closed his eyes and let the flowing countryside and the warm August air lull him to sleep.
It was the young American who, tugging at Giorgio's sleeve, woke him up. "All roads lead to Rome!" he said in Italian with a strong American accent. "We are here!"
Giorgio thanked him and burst out of the train. He hadn't meant to sleep. Suppose he had overslept and missed his appointment with the Monsignore! He ran through the station, skirting a big bed of pansies, darting his way through the surge of people, past the food and drink vendors, past porters trundling mountains of baggage. Out in the street he stopped a policeman.
"The Vatican!" he gasped. "Monsignor Tardini, he awaits me!"
The policeman smiled, then laughed. "Is iturgente?"
"Si, si!Urgente!"
The white-gloved hand made a wide circle in the air. "My boy," he bowed, "to go by carriage is best. Then the sights you see, and quickly you get there, too."
Nearby, the driver of a carriage, a sparrowy man with a tall hat, dropped his newspaper and was at Giorgio's side in an instant. "For one thousand lire I take you to the Vatican," he offered.
"One thousand lire!"
Suddenly the driver saw in the young boy a pilgrim come to the Holy City, a boy all alone with trouble. A strange resemblance to his own grandson made him say, "Jump up! You sit here beside me. We fly together." He waved Giorgio onto the high front seat, slapped the lines over the rump of a bony mare, cracked his whip, and the cart took off with Giorgio sitting alongside the grinning driver.
Up and down the streets of the great city the gaunt creature clattered at a lively pace. The time clock in her head told her it was almost time for the nosebag. The sooner she delivered her passenger, the sooner she could plunge her muzzle into a bagful of cut-up greens. Onlookers laughed and cheered them on as if they were in a race. Nearing St. Peter's Square, the driver tried to pull her down to a sedate walk, but she was no respecter of religion. And so, lathered and blowing, she swung at break-neck speed through the gates of the Holy City.
The wide piazza of St. Peter's with its obelisk and gushing fountains was alive with movement—nuns sailing in their starchy wimples, priests billowing in black robes, sailors and soldiers and pilgrims from everywhere clicking cameras, feeding the pigeons, gazing up at the great dome of the church.
The driver pulled up in front of the basilica. He shook hands with Giorgio as with an old friend. "Boy," he directed, "that way you go! No, not up the center to the church. To the right wing! Up the steps and through the bronze portal. To you I wish best luck; and now,arrivederci, my son."
Inside the grilled door two Swiss Guards, resplendent in striped livery, blocked Giorgio's entrance with their halberds.
"I—I—" Giorgio stuttered miserably. He was no longer Vittorino, the brave fantino who had won the July Palio. He was only Giorgio, shrinking in size, getting littler and littler until once again he was the runt of Monticello. Suddenly he thought of the letter in his pocket and presented it to the imposing guard, wrong side up.
Unsmiling, the man turned it around, read the single sentence carefully, and with a formal nod motioned him inside the Papal palace.
Afterward Giorgio never remembered how many footmen in gray and how many officials in black and how many Palatine guards read the letter and said, "Come this way," or "Go that way." Nor did he remember how many frescoed passages he walked, nor how many glass-enclosed elevators he rode, nor how many grand staircases and minor staircases he climbed. He moved as one in a dream, through marble halls, and around and around, and up and up and up, until he found himself in a magnificent courtyard open to the sky. He crossed its immensity, feeling antlike beside the gigantic statues of the apostles towering above him. Then he was ushered into an empty chamber that seemed a trinket in size, yet was more beautiful than any he had ever known.
"You may be seated," the guide said, and disappeared.
Perching gingerly on the edge of a settee, Giorgio felt less secure than if he were riding bareback on a runaway horse. He mopped his brow and folded his handkerchief. He looked about him. The room was all red and gold. The gold chairs were covered in a rosy red, like the colors worn by the Ram in the Palio. And the walls were the same rosy red.
Everything was quiet. Occasional wisps of conversation drifted in, but these only emphasized the stillness. For a moment he wanted to bolt. He knew now how Gaudenzia felt when left all alone, with no familiar hands or voice.
And just when the silence grew terrifying, a young clerk beckoned him across the hall and into a room with half-closed shutters. It was pleasantly dark and cool. "The Monsignore will see you now," the young man said.
And there, coming to meet Giorgio, was Monsignor Domenico Tardini, Pro-secretary of State for Extraordinary Affairs.
Giorgio looked up at him, tongue-tied. The face was all faces in one—kindly and penetrating, old and very young, smiling and stern—and the eyes, dark and deep-set behind the thick glasses, were both fiery and serene.
Seeing the worry in Giorgio's face, the Monsignore waved him kindly to a row of chairs against the wall, and he himself pulled one out and sat facing the boy.
"I congratulate you," he began with a gentle smile. "Signora Ciambellotti has informed me about you. It is a happy occasion to salute a new star of the Palio."
Giorgio could not answer; he only gulped.
The Monsignore went on, talking more to himself than to the boy. "Vittorino," he spoke the name slowly, elegantly, precisely. "'Victory of the Small One,' it means. I have many boys at Villa Nazareth who look upon you as their hero. To ride in the Palio is to them like riding through the gates of heaven.
"Now," he said, running his hands through his short-cropped hair, "I am truly glad you came. You see, today there are affairs of state which prevent me from going out to visit those boys. But you have come to see me in their stead. Even in their sheltered life they have many problems. Do you, too, have a problem?"
"Monsignore?"
"Yes, my son."
Giorgio plunged one hand into his pocket and his fingers clutched the thin horseshoe. "Do you have enough time for me? With affairs of state and all?"
"As much as you need. You see," he smiled, "I am in charge of extraordinary affairs, and this just might be an extraordinary affair."
"It is!" Giorgio sat up straighter, and suddenly the flood-gates opened. "Monsignore! In the Palio of August the Contrada of Nicchio might not draw Gaudenzia."
"And why is it you wish Nicchio to draw her?"
"Because they asked me last year to ride for them."
"Then why did you ride for Onda in July?"
"Because then Nicchio was one of the seven contradas that did not run."
"Ah, yes. Of course. So it is one chance in ten that your mare should be assigned to Nicchio?"
The boy nodded. And again his questions flew like arrows to a target. "Monsignore! the Palio is a religious festival. Why then is it right for the captains to make the secret agreements? Why is it right for the fantinos to help other horses win and hold back their own? Why is it?"
The voices out in the halls faded away. The room seemed to contract. There were just the two of them—the man thinking, and the boy with the eager hope in him, sitting ... watching ... waiting out his answer.
"It is an honest question, Vittorino"—the words came slowly—"and only half the answer do I know."
"Yes?"
"Suppose we turn back some pages into history. Suppose we remember that before the year 1721 all seventeen contradas were allowed to race. Is not that true?"
"Si, si."
"The course is very narrow, is it not, Giorgio?"
"Si."
"When all seventeen raced, how was the departure from the starting rope?"
"Monsignore! How could they all get away at once?"
"They couldn't! Some fell and were trampled. So now the contradas draw lots for the honor of competing, and only ten horses run. Is not that better for the horse?"
"Oh, si."
"And the people do not wager any money on the race. That is good, no?"
Giorgio nodded, wishing the Monsignore would get to the core.
"And now mattresses are placed upright about the dangerous curves to protect horses and fantinos both. Is that not better than in days of old when heads of man and beast cracked against the walls?"
"Si!"
"And the contrada that wins makes nothing, but spends much. Is not that so?"
"It is."
"And at their banquets the rich and the poor, the rulers and the workers sit at table in happy contact, and no one feels diminished or humiliated. Is it not good?"
"It is."
"But if a contrada draws a poor horse, then it can try to help a friendly contrada? Is that so?"
Giorgio winced. "That is the part! That is it! What if I have to hinder Gaudenzia? She will not understand. A whole year now she trusts in me. On her open cuts I put salt and alum. Under her belly she lets me walk to sew her blanket in place. It is me who nursed and trained her."
The Monsignore knew he had touched the sore spot. He tried to put himself in the boy's place. "Can you get along without being a fantino? Can you live without taking part in this Palio, and the next, and...."
"No, no, Monsignore," Giorgio interrupted. "Ever since I was a little boy, there is no other world for me."
"Then, my son, what your captain tells you to do, that you must do. The Palio is war. Contradas form alliances as countries do, to help each other fight a common enemy."
Giorgio sat silent at the desolating words.
"But of course"—the Monsignore took off his spectacles, and now he spoke eagerly, earnestly—"the unforeseen can happen! Have you forgotten," he asked, "the grand element of uncertainty? The horse knows nothing of the clouds of intrigue gathering while he eats happily his grain. He knows only that he is the servant of man, who sometimes betrays him."
The Monsignore had not finished. His gaze went past the boy's head, through the walls and beyond. "Perhaps that is why the humble St. Francis of Assisi wished to be Protector to Animals."
His eyes then came back to Giorgio and flashed warmly. "As fantino, you must know that the probability of winning the Palio is based on the speed of the horse, the skill of the fantino, and the diplomacy of the captain. But it cannot be said that even with all these favorable, the victory is secure. Man tries to fix and arrange, but ah, the horse ... he knows only the one law, and that is to win. It is the most beautiful and bittersweet lesson of the Palio."
A young clerk came into the room and placed a sheaf of papers on the desk. Giorgio sensed that affairs of state were piling up.
"It is not a whole answer, my son," the Monsignore concluded, "but it is the best I can do."
Giorgio stood up to go. Already he began to breathe more easily, as if something of the great man's spirit had passed over into him. "Thank you," he said quietly. Then he pressed the horseshoe into the blue-veined hands, kissed them both and fled from the room.
That evening when Giorgio returned to Siena, the undercurrent of the August Palio was running strong. The first act, the drawing of lots of the contradas, had already taken place, and the flags of the ten who would run were flying from the Palazzo Pubblico. As Giorgio stood in the Piazza looking, the torment in him began again. If only by some miracle the flag with the sea-shell were missing, then whichever contrada drew Gaudenzia would surely ask him to race her. But of course, the flag was there, as he knew it had to be, and he was bound irretrievably to Nicchio, the Shell.
Feeling trapped and helpless, he hurried at once to the stable to see how Gaudenzia had fared. She was always a surprise to him each time he saw her, always belonging to him more closely—the pricked ears listening, the dark eyes asking, the nostrils fluttering in a welcome that said more than any words.
"See!" he said quite out of breath, "I comepresto,pronto,subito. For you, too, was this day endless like eternity?" He let the mare lip his shirtsleeve, not minding the warm wetness nor the greenish tint from the hay she'd been munching. "I got to tell you," he said soberly, "there is now only one chance in ten you will have me for fantino in the August Palio. If Nicchio does not draw you...." He turned away and grabbed a pitch-fork with both hands. The mare was already bedded for the night, but with slow, forceful motions he shook up and freshened the straw. Then he waited until she buckled her knees and lay down in contentment before he left her and went to his own bed.
The days until the Palio were cut to a pattern and moved on schedule. Seven days before, the workmen dumped cartloads of yellow-red earth and tamped it down on the track. Four days before, carpenters put up tier upon tier of seats in front of the palace buildings, and the chest-high railing to fence the spectators within the shell.
Three days before came the second big act of the Palio—the trials to determine which horses were strong and stout enough to negotiate the course. The day was clear, the air still fresh with morning. An expanding crowd was filling up the newly erected seats. There was no shrieking or yelling yet. The people were murmuring, waiting.
At the express wish of the Chief-of-the-Guards, Giorgio rode Gaudenzia in the trials. Again he held her in, and again she obeyed, acting almost sedate in her performance. Some of the new horses shied at the ropes, were afraid to enter between them, and some lurched and sprawled at the hairpin curves. And so the heats, in batteries of five, had to be run again and again until the judges were ready to make their decisions. Then behind closed doors the secret voting took place while the fantinos waited tensely in the court of the Palazzo and the crowd in the Piazza began chanting for the favorites:
"Give us U-gan-da!"
"Give us Gau-den-zia!"
"Give us Pin-noc-chio!"
At last a deputy stepped importantly into the courtyard with a page at heel like a well-trained dog. At a command from the deputy, the page took numbered discs from a box and fastened one on the cheekstrap of each of the ten horses chosen. At the moment he fastened the number 6 on Gaudenzia's bridle, a horseboy took hold of her reins. He almost had to pry Giorgio's hands loose. "Let go!" he said in annoyance. "Let go!"
Giorgio, with the other fantinos, was ordered into the Piazza. They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the long table with the two urns on it. Three times he had witnessed this third act before the Palio—the assignment of the horses. Three times he had watched twin pageboys draw the wooden capsules from the urns. Three times he had watched the Mayor's hands tremble and the captains' faces pale.
And three times he had stood in this same strip of shade made by the Mangia Tower, with the ten grooms in front of him, waiting to lead away their charges in joy or sorrow, and behind him the anxious contradaioli, repeating the phrase he had grown to hate: "Fate is Queen of the Palio."
Like the Mayor himself, Giorgio was beginning to tremble. Not just his hands; he was shaking all over. Perspiration trickled freely down his back as the capsules were opened and the pairing began.
"Uganda to the Snail!"
The clamor was loud in Giorgio's ears, growing with each announcement.
"Dorina to the Panther!" Poor Dorina, he thought, always running, never winning.
"Gaudenzia to the Giraffe!"
"Rosella to Nicchio, the Shell!"
Giorgio had heard all he needed to hear. The capsules had sealed his doom. A horrified gasp broke from his throat. It was the same sound he had made when he hit the cobblestones with Turbolento.
The ritual of the assignment went on. But for Giorgio it was over. It was done.
He watched Rosella and Gaudenzia going off with their grooms, each surrounded by joyful contradaioli. The spectators, too, were melting away—going home, going into cafés, returning to work. The captains and the Mayor vanished into the communal hall. Only Giorgio and the pigeons were left. And in a silent semi-circle behind him three tall youths from Nicchio had taken up their positions as his bodyguards. He turned to them. In a daze he shook their hands, and in a daze smiled crookedly at their small talk. The pigeons, in their pigeon-toed gait, waddled around them. He envied the birds, earthbound one moment, soaring into sky the next. He reached into his pocket and scattered a few kernels of oats, and watched the airborne ones come in for a landing. One perched on his shoulder, eyeing him with a shiny shoe-button eye.
"Our fantino, he thinks he is St. Francis!" a guard laughed, not unkindly.
Giorgio remembered the time Emilio had said almost the same words, and suddenly he longed to be at home in the two little rooms in Monticello. Forlornly, he followed the guards to his new sleeping room in the quarters of Nicchio. He had half a mind to steal out tonight and go back to the Maremma, but if he did, it would be only his body that left.
The Captain of Nicchio, Signor de Santi, came later in the afternoon to see him. For a moment Giorgio felt a spear of hope. Perhaps Giraffa and Nicchio had exchanged fantinos, and the Captain had come with the news.
It was a cruel hope, dashed almost as it was born. Sensing the boy's unhappiness, the Captain said, "Son, you are a fantino, not a mere horseboy. On this mount, or that, you must win. Rosella is a big, rangy mare and she, too, has good possibilities."
Giorgio made no answer. Empty of feeling, he managed to live out the afternoon. Toward evening the Chief-of-the-Guards came to him. "It will be some comfort," he said, "for you to ride Gaudenzia tonight in the first Prova. Of course, you understand," he added, "it will be in this one only."
But it was no comfort at all. It was like digging at a wound so that it could bleed anew. He let Gaudenzia win the first Prova, lengths ahead of the others. No one had challenged her.
On the morning of the second day he rode the rangy Rosella. Captain de Santi gave his orders beforehand. "Make the getaway clear from the ropes, and the gallop light. In all the Provas, her strength and vigor must be preserved."
Time passed for Giorgio. The minutes and the hours flowed on, sunup to sundown, one Prova after another, and the pinch of pain spread until it was a dull, dull aching.
In the Prova Generale, on the afternoon of the third day, tension tightened among the fantinos. Each wanted to show his skill, to make certain of being selected for the Palio itself. In July, Giorgio had been tortured by the fear that his name would not be made official in the archives. Now it did not matter. Again he brought Rosella in safely, as his captain had ordered.
That evening, escorted by his bodyguard, he attended the great banquet in the hall of Nicchio. Wearing the little jacket and the striped trousers of the race, he sat at the head table, next to Captain de Santi. There was joy and hospitality all about him ... people eating their fill of chicken cacciatore and drinking the red wine from the grapes of Tuscany. He tried to be one of them, but he was silent as a nut in a shell, and the good food knotted in his throat. In his mind he saw Monsignor Tardini in the cool, shuttered room of the Vatican, and he saw the Umbrella Man sitting cross-legged at the fountain, and he saw Gaudenzia without wanting to see her.
When it came his turn to stand up and face the members of Nicchio, he did not fumble in his mind or in his pocketless jacket for any prepared speech. He just got up and stood quiet a while. Then, remembering his talk with the Monsignore, he said: "To Nicchio I will be loyal." It was as if another's voice were speaking for him as he went on, "And the orders of my Captain I will obey."
The hours of night flowed over Giorgio's sleeping room. He and his guards were trying to settle down, but each heart was groping alone in the dark, wondering which contrada would win tomorrow's Palio.
Giorgio knew that somewhere in remote and quiet places throughout the city the captains were meeting in secret, making their agreements, planning their strategy. Overnight the whole aspect of the Palio could change. And tomorrow, he thought with a surge of hope, Captain de Santi will come to me and say: "We of Nicchio generally live in a state of neutrality. But last night we formed an alliance with Giraffa. Therefore, your precise order in today's joust is to hinder the others and help our ally to win. Since they have drawn Gaudenzia, you are fortunate, thus, to fight for your mare. No?"
Or, better still, the Captain might say: "Vittorino! In the dark watches of the night we changed our tactics. Our Rosella, it appears, could finish maybe second or third, but not first. Therefore, we release you to ride Gaudenzia for Giraffa, and we will engage a new fantino."
In Giorgio's mind the Captain's speech grew long and lofty. "You see, son," (he could even hear the tone of voice) "Giraffa has in the past done us favors. We therefore hold in high esteem their sacred friendship. It will be a beautiful sacrifice we make."
Hugging these hopes to him, he slept away what was left of the night.
August 16, 1954. The day is new. Sky murky. Sun trying to tear the clouds apart. Church bells tolling. Giorgio cannot run away now; does not want to run away. There is still the hope. He prays with the other fantinos, feels with them the pressure and the tension mounting. He rides in theProvaccia, the last rehearsal. Bodily he is on Rosella; heart and soul he rides Gaudenzia. Last night's hopes will come true;mustcome true! Perhaps at the last moment in the Hall of the Magistrate it will happen. Captain de Santi will lean over and whisper into his ear. He can do it easily. The hall is vast; two people can feel alone.
But when the time came, there was no whispering; only the bold pronouncement that Giorgio Terni, known asVittorino, was official fantino for Nicchio.
At half past two in the afternoon the embers of his hope flickered again as the Captain strode into Giorgio's room.
"Vittorino!" the name slow-spoken as in the dream, and the syllables far apart, like drops of rain when the storm begins.
Now it comes. Now he will say: "You, Vittorino, must give help to Gaudenzia. The others you will block. With the nerbo you will fight them fiercely, hinder them." The boy holds his breath. He takes a step closer. He does not want even the guards to overhear. He cants his head like a dog, begging, awaiting directions ... listening ... eyes beseeching.
The Captain clips out his orders,wantingthe guards to hear: "Break first from the rope! The hot bludgeons of the nerbo we wish you both to escape."
There is still the hope; it is not yet dead.
"And during the last meters of the race"—the voice is grim—"you will nerbo every opponent who threatens our victory.Everyopponent who threatens...."
A wild sickness churns in the boy. He wants to escape and run and run and run, but where to go? Fate has trapped him. Fate, the Queen of the Palio.
Minutes and seconds wear themselves out. Numbly he puts on the long stockings, the high buskins, the deep blue doublet with the emblem of the white shell, the burnished sleeves of mail, the heavy helmet of mail with the chinstrap too tight. He thinks wistfully of the rabbit's fur he had once wrapped around Gaudenzia's chinstrap. How long ago that seems!
He is ready. He goes to the church of Nicchio with Rosella. He hears the priest invoke God's protection for horse and rider, hears the people shout: "Go, Rosella! Come back victorious!"
Then, mounted on his parade horse, he receives the general blessing of the Archbishop, his mind dazedly repeating the Captain's orders. He makes his way to Il Campo, awaits his turn to enter. The bell in the tower begins its tolling. His company moves forward. He enters the square, sees again the many-headed multitude in the shallow basin of the Piazza. He thinks: "So solid are they packed one could walk across their heads without having to leap."
His mind and body are far apart. No longer does he want to be a Sienese. He is an intruder, belonging neither to the present nor to the past, but suspended in time. Staring hopelessly, he watches the figures of the pageant move around the Piazza like wooden people on wooden horses on a merry-go-round. He sees the mare Gaudenzia, proud-headed. She is the only white one, the only Arabian. He feels a moment of pride.
Then the flags cut her off from sight and the numbness clutches him again, and the merry-go-round figures go on and on until his head dizzies with looking. At sight of the four great oxen pulling the gilded battle car, he sighs in welcome relief. The merry-go-round is at last coming to a stop.
The sun, too, is completing its orbit, shedding a soft light over Il Campo. The multitude waits. Inside the courtyard Giorgio wants an end to things. It seems a hundred hours, a hundred days, a hundred years since the fateful orders were imposed. All right, then, let's go. Change costumes! Put on the little jacket, the coarse pants. Eye your opponents. Swing up, bareback. Take the hard nerbo in your hard hand. Line up! Remember, it's war! Contrada against contrada! Not rider, not mount, not flesh and blood, but symbols.... Eagle against Owl, Dragon against Panther, Snail against Wave, Giraffe against me.
All right, then. Touch off the gunpowder! Let the flame belch! Let the deafening percussion jar the ancient stones loose. Let the starter spring the rope.
It is happening! Now!
Ten horses bursting into life, breaking from the ropes. Together! Ten horses like a sudden blast of wind. But look! The swirling gust is breaking apart, three horses striking through—two browns, one white. The browns are the Snail and the Wave, the white is Gaudenzia. Under a hail of blows the three in the lead round the easy curve beyond the Fonte Gaia, begin their drive to the death-jaws of San Martino.
Sixty thousand throats shriek in horror. The Snail and the Wave are heading crazedly for a crash. They collide! Two fantinos are spewed into the air, go rolling ahead like tumbleweeds. Gaudenzia's rider pulls her back, swerves her sharp around the bodies. She's in first place!
Coming up from behind, Giorgio snakes Rosella between the riderless horses, takes the curve, catches Gaudenzia on the straightaway, passes her.
Did her nostrils pull in his scent as he went by? Did her ears pull in his voice? If not, why is she jibbing her head; why is she weaving at the lesser curve of the Casato? Tiring? She can't be! Not on the first round with the whole width of the curve to herself.
For endless seconds she is unpredictable. Then she rears up, savagely rakes the air, deliberately tosses her fantino! She's free! With a wild spurt she tries to catch Giorgio. The duel between horse and man is on!
"Attento! Attento!" Nicchio fans are screaming in frenzy, imploring Giorgio: "Give it to us! Give us the Palio!"
But who knows the mind of a horse? Is some inner urge compelling Gaudenzia to spend all of her fleetness and blood? Is the thunder and ecstasy of the crowd like fierce music in her ears? Who can know?
For the entire second round she battles Giorgio for the lead, catching him on the straightaways, thundering alongside him, only to drop back when he blocks her at the curves.
"Forza, Gaudenzia!Forza!" Strangers and Sienese alike are yelling for Gaudenzia.
Only the Nicchio fans are her enemies. "Knock off her spennacchiera!" they cry to Giorgio. "Knock it off!"
Fifty meters to go! She is holding her own, pounding on, eye to eye with Rosella.
In sickening guilt Giorgio remembers his orders ... lifts his nerbo, aims at her spennacchiera. He misses! He feels the thud of his blow against her neck. She falls back a moment, but immediately comes up again. Desperately aiming higher, he strikes once more. The nerbo draws a line of blood close to her ear, but the spennacchiera holds fast. Again she falls back, and again she comes up, her strength intensified.