‘Ah yes. We surmised they may well be central to this, as the governors of the city, the sword carriers.’ Violante wrote it all down. ‘What else do we know of the Goose
contrada
?’
‘They are dyers by trade,’ put in Riccardo. ‘They dye the very Palio banner that the victor will win. They can change white to black.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed the duchess. ‘They built the
bottini
, the secret waterways below the city, to carry away the corrosive dye.’
Riccardo was reminded abruptly of the last and only time he had been down in the
bottini
, carrying the carcass that began all this. Before he could speak, the door opened to reveal a maid with the gruel. Zebra fell to it hungrily.
‘And there was another name,’ said Riccardo once the door had closed, ‘Gabriele. He tried to persuade Faustino to kill me. And when Salvatore and Faustino started to squabble, Salvatore said; “No, no, Gabi, don’t try to stop me.”’
Zebra didn’t wait to empty his mouth. ‘Gabriele Zondadari, captain of the Wave – the Onda
contrada
.’
Violante frowned. ‘Why them?’
All eyes turned to her.
‘Well – why? They are a poor, insignificant
contrada
.’
‘Sea coast,’ said Riccardo. ‘They defend the coast beyond the Maremma. They control what comes in and out of the city – including the horses.’
There was a loaded silence, broken by the duchess.
‘Well, then. To recapitulate: Aquila, Civetta, Oca, Bruco, Onda. The Tower, through you, Signor Bruni, is their ally too, whether they know it or not. I suspect that the Panther
contrada
was set to be one of the Nine before the events of the Palio, and your actions that day, Signor Bruni, gave them a substitute. They also seek the alliance with Giraffa. And the mysterious Romulus. And we missed one out.’
‘Who?’
She was not likely to forget. ‘Unicorn. Leocorno.’
‘Romulus and the Unicorn were named as the key to all,’ recalled Riccardo, ‘but were not represented there.’
‘Perhaps they will speak at the next colloquy,’ mused the duchess, ‘and we will discover their purpose then.’
‘Provided we may attend,’ put in Riccardo. ‘We must discover, first, where it is to be held.’
When Pia was summoned to see Faustino Caprimulgo, she felt much more afraid than she had – could it be only a week ago? – when Salvatore had called her down on her name-day. The breadth of Nicoletta’s smiles augmented her fear. The maid was always happiest when some misfortune
befell her mistress. When she’d first seen Pia’s hair she had positively beamed.
A certain fatigue now accompanied the fear. Four days had passed since her marriage, and although she bloodied her sheets every night, she could not rely on this ruse for much longer. In truth, she no longer believed that her deception alone kept Nello from claiming her. In her wildest imaginings she dreamed he might be physically incapable, but then dismissed this, remembering the fate of the little Benedetti heiress. It must be something else. As she followed Nicoletta’s bulk down the stairs, she wondered, wearily, what else could happen to her.
When she entered her father-in-law’s salon she was pleasantly surprised. In her imagination she had transmuted him into a beast. But the man who greeted her sat at a desk, his white hair clean and cropped, his suit of clothes neat and brushed, his hose white and his buckles shining. He even smiled and rose from his chair as she entered. She looked about her. The room was pleasant: the leather smell of the desk-roll, the quills and inks ranked in shining pots upon it, the papers and scrolls neatly stacked, a wooden globe standing on the blotter to remind of a world outside Siena. She considered the wooden world for a moment. She had never seen any of those countries, not even the painted blue sea in which they floated. In the sunlight coming through the windows, her own peninsula and Europe were in the light. In the dark shadow, the Africas and Indies and the rest.
She could almost be in the
studiolo
of a civilized man. The sole anomaly was the great wooden shelves empty
of books. She missed her own books only a little less than she missed her mother’s gowns, for even Salvatore had known that a gentleman kept a library. It was this that gave Faustino away. He was no gentleman, and when she looked above the smile to the hooked, beak-like nose and the cold amber eyes, she knew him for what he was: a savage, who had beaten a man to death in his cellars. A wild man, little better than those who lived in the shadowed half of the globe, the half she could not see.
She stepped forward, chin high and defensive. Her newly sharpened instincts told her that he needed something. Her cooperation. And, ground down by fear, she knew that she would grant what he asked. Her courage rubbed away to reveal the transference of colours: she was yellow on the inside, as yellow as Faustino’s eyes, as yellow as the Eagles’ banner. A coward.
And yet when he asked the question she could not have been more surprised. ‘My dear. Would you like to learn to ride?’
Her mouth must have dropped open, her eyes must have widened. It was the bastard son of the question she had been asked days before, by the horseman, at dinner.
He turned, hands behind his back, to the window, where the towers of the city pierced the lowering sun. ‘It is an accomplishment suitable for a married woman. And it must be dull for one so young to be here alone.’
Pia discounted at least half of this. Why would Faustino care about her state of mind? She watched him carefully as he turned back to her, and she knew he had reached the meat of the matter.
‘I had a notion that young Signor Bruni could teach you. When we broke that jest at dinner, it led me to thinking, and I have thought on it much since. I think it would divert you, and it would help you to understand your husband’s great passion.’
Pia dropped her eyes and curtseyed. ‘As you wish.’
Faustino pressed his long hands together. ‘Good. Good. I will make the arrangements.’ Now his eyes smiled along with his thin mouth. ‘One more thing, though – you will find a new dress in your garderobe.’ He was carefully offhand. ‘Put it on, would you? You will dine with Nello and me tonight.’ He bestowed this rare privilege lightly.
‘Of course.’
‘Good girl, good girl. Nicoletta will see to your … hair and jewels.’ Even he had the grace to drop his eyes from her strangely shorn head. ‘Nicoletta!’ he bawled, opening the door. He moved surprisingly quickly.
Pia was struck by a sudden notion. She had to act fast, before the maid came. ‘Sir, speaking of clothing … My mother had a garde-corps for riding, in her garderobe at my father’s house. If you would be good enough to have it fetched, it would do very well for me to wear at my instruction.’
‘Eh? What’s that?’ Faustino seemed amazed that she would open her mouth and address him. ‘Oh, yes, yes, of course. I will see it done. ’Tis a good notion.’
It was agreed in an offhand fashion, but Pia had the idea that Faustino’s promises were worth more than her father’s. In thinking him a savage she had done him a disservice. A fierce native intelligence overlaid the brutality,
and he had a completeness, a detail to his thinking. This boon he’d asked of her must be part of a bigger, infinitely complex plan, and he would be able to keep all these spheres suspended in the air, like the coloured balls of the juggler who had followed her to her wedding. And now, she too had another sphere to cast into the air. She made her tone as offhand as his and spoke quickly as she heard her maid’s heavy tread approaching from the floor above.
‘And your servants may as well fetch her other dresses too, with your permission, of course. She had several good gowns that would not shame your house, and I could wear them, to save your further generosity.’
He nodded, his amber eyes flaring with pleasure at the bride he had bought for his son, crediting her with courage, pleased with her parsimony. Then, just as Nicoletta came heaving into the room, his eyes flickered to something outside the window.
Following his gaze, Pia saw a large fellow in the greasy leathers of a horse dealer, leading two horses into the courtyard below. One horse was white, the other black, an embodiment of the city in horseflesh.
‘Ah, Boli is here, good. Excuse me, my dear.’
The interview was over.
As she followed Nicoletta back up the stair, Pia’s smile was almost as wide as her maid’s. She was beginning to learn how the game was played.
Riccardo worked quietly and conscientiously alongside his father all day, waiting for the horse that Faustino was
to give him. Nothing happened. The bees buzzed lazily around the flowers that broke through the cobbles’ cracks.
At siesta Domenico went indoors, to shelter from the shimmering heat. Riccardo lay in the straw of the stable, but he could not rest. He tried to persuade himself that Faustino had changed his mind, that he had misunderstood the Aquila captain. Even if he was to be given a gift of horseflesh, it would have to be a nag, a mule so poor that it could not threaten Nello’s win.
He and Domenico resumed their work until the starlings circled to their rest and the sky clotted with darkness. Then, only then, did the clop of hooves herald the approach of a horse, led, in a head-collar, by Zebra. As the horse approached, Riccardo met Zebra’s clear eyes and the boy gave the tiniest nod. It was from Faustino. And it was lovely.
Domenico dropped his pick on the cobbles. The horse was fantastically beautiful, so white it was hard to look at the sunlight sheen on the flanks. The beast had a long head, with a noble arched profile. His jaw was deep, his ears small, but his eyes large and expressive, his nostrils flared. The neck was sturdy, yet arched, above withers that were low, muscular and broad. The horse stood perfectly still, the tail, high and well set, twitching a little, catching Zebra at the edge of his eye, the only indication that he was not a statue.
Domenico gave a long, low whistle and approached to run his hands down the horse’s delicate legs, checking the shoes one by one.
‘Brand new,’ he said. ‘I could not have shod him better myself.’ He slapped the horse with a friendly pat on the flank, and it did not shift. ‘And what a looker.’
‘I’ve never seen a prettier white,’ said Riccardo.
‘A prettier
grey
,’ corrected his father. ‘Look closely at the feet and points. There’s some grey hair there. He was born a grey. In fact …’ He approached the horse carefully from the side and felt the left cheek gently, finding what he sought as the stallion stood still and let him. Domenico dropped his hand and backed away, astonished.
Riccardo saw the look on his face. ‘What is it?’
‘Feel his cheek,’ said his father.
Riccardo approached, talking softly, and the horse looked at him calmly from one liquid eye. Riccardo moved his fingers gently over the bunched muscle and the soft hair. His fingers traced a little scar, a line that turned a corner and became another line.
‘It’s an L.’ He looked at his father, wide-eyed.
Zebra caught the exchange. ‘What? What does that mean?’
‘He’s a Lipizzaner,’ breathed Domenico, awestruck.
Riccardo, remembering well the stories that his father used to tell him in the place of fairy tales, said, ‘He’s from the Spanish Riding School. They’re bred at a stud at Lipizza in the Hapsburg lands. A rare and incredible breed. Horse royalty. They’re born black and turn white,’ he went on, thinking suddenly of Siena’s flag. ‘And they’re all branded, with an L on the left cheek.’
‘Can I feel?’
Riccardo lifted the boy, feeling his warmth and solid weight as the little bitten fingers sought the brand. From behind them, Domenico clapped his hands with excitement.
‘
Dio
,
Dio
, I’ve never touched one before, never seen a finer horse since I shoed the Duke Cosimo’s horse in 1703. But even his was a Neapolitan, not a Lipizzaner. Jesu. That he should come to my stables! And yet his shoes are new and his coat is strapped to silk. Why have you brought him to me, Zebra? Whose is he?’
Riccardo gave Zebra a squeeze before he put him down.
It’s all right,
the quick hug meant.
You can tell him.
‘He’s Riccardo’s,’ answered the boy. ‘A gift from Faustino Caprimulgo – for the service he did to his dying son.’
Domenico’s black brows shot into his hair. He shook his head. ‘Well, son. You have a powerful friend there. Such a horse is as rare as chickens’ teeth, and not cheap either. That you should own a Lipizzaner! My son!’
It was not clear whether he was prouder of the horse or the horseman, and he clapped each on the shoulder in turn, chuckling to himself.
Riccardo watched the noble creature standing stock-still and could not help but be affected by his father’s spirits. But he felt slightly sick too, knowing now, with the coming of this gift, that he had some place in a grand design. He was confused, however. This prince among horses did not look like an
asino
– he looked like a runner. The stallion had a wide, deep chest, broad croup and muscular shoulder. The legs were well muscled
and strong, with broad joints and well-defined tendons. The feet were small, but tough, the newly shod hooves sparking on the cobbles. Riccardo could not fathom what Faustino meant by giving him a horse of such quality, but in spite of all that he could not help a childish bubble of joy swelling in his chest. He had never owned his own mount before and this beast, as beautiful as the moon, was
his
. He began, despite himself, to smile.