Gaudenzia, Pride of the Palio Read online

  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 said sixty thousand 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.

  Chapter XI

  THE GHOST IN THE WAREHOUSE

  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. Then presto, 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 hubbub 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 a
nd 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.

  Chapter XII

  REJECTED

  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 choose me?”

  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’s hands. 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 real
ly 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.