The Wager (6 page)

DON GIOVANNI WAS UNABLE TO SEE HIS OWN BODY IN THE
thick mountain fog. A hint of horror crept across his skin; Messina hardly ever had fog. He dressed quickly, chewed several small crustaceans that crackled in his teeth, and hiked out to the road. It was barely dawn.

As he walked, he went over everything he knew about Saint Agata. The way to dispel foolishness was to beat it down with reason. Curses were pagan foolishness. Once when he was little, a nursemaid had strung garlic around his neck to protect against the evil eye. His mother had ripped it off with a laugh and roasted the garlic as a spread for flat bread.

Saint Agata was born in Catania, right? Or was it Palermo? Either way, she was buried in Catania. Almost a thousand years ago. She was rich. Gorgeous. A Christian at a time when pagan
Romans ruled Sicily. She was to be executed for her faith, but a magistrate tried to force her to his bed in exchange for not arresting her. She refused, was thrown in prison, beaten. Her beautiful breasts were amputated. She was rolled on burning coals. But before she died, an earthquake struck and killed her tormentors.

The magistrate managed to get away, though.

A martyred virgin. Saint Agnes of Rome had a similar fate, but she was beheaded, instead. Saint Apollonia of Alexandria had her teeth bashed in before she was burned alive. The list went on and on.

But none of this had anything to do with Don Giovanni. That maidservant couldn't have been Saint Agata in disguise. She carried an ordinary platter of ordinary food, not a silver one holding severed breasts. She wore brown cotton, not white linen. And, most of all, Saint Agata would never bother Don Giovanni, for he had never mistreated a maiden. He took only what was freely offered, and then with appreciation and gratitude.

No virgin saint had any business cursing him, even if he did believe in curses, which he didn't. All the wretched things that had befallen him had simply happened. Randomly. Rotten luck.

The fog burned off, allowing a view of the hills. The road wound through wide swaths of burned ground, where only the occasional stunted broom grew. Etna's wrath.

Just when Don Giovanni thought the world had turned barren, a stretch of rich dirt covered with yellow aconite blooms regaled his senses. Yellow again. Mere coincidence.

A cart passed. Two men on the driver's bench, and three boys in the cart, all pulled by one little donkey. Amazing. Five more children ran beside the cart. Who got to ride? Who had to run? Who meted out the justice?

Don Giovanni watched them roll out of sight. They waved once they were past, without looking back, like the man in the last cart. An hour's walk later Don Giovanni saw the children sitting in a circle in front of a small stone house with a steep wooden roof. In the middle of the circle was a tall, crude basket. They were working on something, but he couldn't see what.

They didn't wave this time, though he was sure they knew he watched. Mountain people were funny that way. They distrusted strangers. Not just Jews and Muslims—anyone not Greek. Charms hung around their necks.

A woman came out of the house. She swept ashes off the step, then went back inside. Mount Etna was easy to see from here. It spewed smoke, its constant state. A stretch of black forest—sticks, really—went off into the distance. The Mountain breathed dark clouds above it. The fetid smell touched everything.

Don Giovanni walked until the sun waned, and beyond. He made out red threads around one of the craters—small lava flows. With dusk he saw sparks.

It was much colder now, and still there were pockets of wildflowers: daisies, marigolds, sweet alyssum, pink-tipped asters, dandelions, crimson sorrel, violets. Mint and thyme and
wild onion scented the air. How could they all grow when the earth was so cold?

Now and then he saw an isolated scattering of black pumice, as though the sky had rained rocks.

Don Giovanni's feet had hurt before, but now they were going numb. Still he tramped on.

It was the middle of the night when he reached the city walls. The gate creaked open with a heave of his shoulder. The town spread like a black-on-black painting. Nothing but looming shapes.

He turned up the first alley off the main road. An outside staircase on the corner building offered shelter underneath. He tucked his hands in his armpits, curled on his side into a tight ball, and willed himself not to flinch at the bark of the frantic dog that ran up and down beside him. The dog was tall and so thin, his ribs showed. But he was clearly frightened. So long as his barks didn't turn to growls, Don Giovanni would be all right. He slept.

A groan in his ear woke him. Don Giovanni opened one eye. A body pressed against him from behind. Warm. Part of it rested on his head. Bones weighed on his upper cheek. Another groan. And a bad smell.

He didn't dare move, but he opened his other eye now.

On the main road a goatherd drove his flock past. He wore trousers and a sheepskin coat. The animals moved in a cloud of
hot breath. They'd be going out the town gate, to graze on dried tufts and those tricky wildflowers. Minutes later another flock passed. Then a third.

A boy in a dark blue cape that came down below his knees walked up the alley past Don Giovanni's staircase. He led four nannies on loose ropes. Their heavy udders swung blue-white in the cold. Neither boy nor goats looked at Don Giovanni.

The groan in Don Giovanni's ear turned to a whimper. The body behind him moved against his shoulders, pressing harder. Whiskers scratched his cheeks. Whiskers?

The goat boy stopped by the house door. He clanged on the iron wedge in his left hand.

A woman came out with a jug. The boy tucked the ends of his cape into his trousers. He squatted and milked a nanny right into the jug spout. The edgy smell brought tears of hunger to Don Giovanni's eyes. As the woman turned to go in, the boy pointed at Don Giovanni and left.

The woman put down the jug and picked up a rock by the side of the doorway. The way she did it, so fast, maybe she kept it there just for that. She held it in both hands and walked toward him. “Are you fairy or beggar?”

“Woof.”

The weight lifted off Don Giovanni's cheek. The barker from the night before stepped over him and crouched at the woman's feet. He whined.

Don Giovanni sat up. He picked crust from his cheek.
Half-frozen dog drool. He clawed dog fur out of his thin beard. He smoothed his hair with both hands. He rubbed his teeth. Looking civilized had become elusive. Would a mirror shock him?

He wanted to stretch and straighten his smock and trousers, but he was afraid his height might spook the woman. Anyone who talked about fairies had to be skittish.

“Answer.”

The dog sniffed at the milk jug. The woman kicked him away. With a yelp, the beast retreated across the alley.

“Answer,” she hissed, coming toward him again.

When Don Giovanni was a child, his mother scolded him whenever he'd mimic a servant's talk. She said language was the clothing of the soul. How he dressed his ideas and aspirations played a role in how well they'd be received by others. And how well they were received by others played a role in how rich he could become. But oh, if only he could say just a few words exactly like this woman, coarse words to make her see him as a friend.

He shook his head.

“Don't you talk?”

He shrugged.

“Stand up.”

Don Giovanni crawled from under the stairs and stood.

“Don't move.” The woman held the rock at the ready. Skittish she wasn't. She turned her head and looked at him out
of the corner of her eye. “If you tried to ride a grasshopper, you'd crush him.” She raised one eyebrow slyly. “But then, not all fairies are small. You could belong to one of them new sects that mix with humans.” She lowered her chin and looked up at him oddly. “You enchanted that mangy dog, after all. You could be a fairy.” She thrust her chin forward fast. “Are you?”

Don Giovanni shook his head vehemently.

“I didn't think so, actually. You don't give off a glow, no matter how I look at you. A beggar, then?”

Don Giovanni shook his head.

She pursed her lips. “I could be kind to a beggar.”

He hated that label. He shut his eyes. They burned under his trembling eyelids. The woman had goat milk.

He opened his eyes. His hands hung heavy at his sides, not turned palms up in the beggar's stance. His lips silent, not asking. But his eyes, oh, he couldn't keep his eyes from pleading. To silence them, he had only to close them again. He hated himself for not closing them.

“You're not bad-looking. And you're wiry. Strong.” The woman blinked. “Wait.” She went inside with the jug. She came out moments later and handed him a bowl of stale bread floating in steaming goat milk.

No spoon. How awful to use his fingers in front of a stranger. But she kept watching. At last he couldn't bear it anymore. He pushed the bread chunks under until they were
soaked through and through, and he ate. Then he licked his fingers. He couldn't stop himself. He licked the bowl.

She took it back. “Wait here.” Again she went into the house and returned quickly. This time she held shoes in one hand and a cape draped across her arm. The other hand was behind her back.

The shoes were of some sort of skin. They tied around Don Giovanni's feet snugly. The cape was coarse wool, dyed deep blue, like the one the goat boy wore. He put it on.

The woman considered him a moment. She took her other hand from behind her back and held out a large cloth bag.

Don Giovanni reached for it.

She pulled back. “Do well and there'll be more tasks.”

That's what he'd hoped. He wanted to work, not beg.

“Fill this with snow. Bring it back by evening meal.”

Snow? There was no snow other than on Etna.

She tapped her foot. “The work's hard, but it's all you'll get. Plenty of others want the easier jobs.” She shook the bag. “And don't even think of running off with those clothes. Everyone in this part of town knows my master. And if you go into the German Lombard quarter, you'll get driven out. They hate beggars. And if you brave the Greek quarter, someone will steal that cape. Trousers and smock, too. No, you have no hope except here, in the Latin quarter. So you can't hide.” She swung the bag. “Besides, my master would take it out on me if you made off
with these. A pretty-faced lad like you wouldn't want to make a lass suffer, right?” Her face was sincere. She was taking a chance on him. A woman of faith.

He took the bag.

“Skim off the ashes before you scoop the snow.” She went to the doorway, then turned. “Well, don't just stand there. You know where the Mountain is. Get moving.”

So each day for the next month, Don Giovanni filled a bag with snow. The family he worked for supplied the rich of Randazzo with an evening dessert of sugared snow.

It was a strange town. Black even in full sun. The streets were paved with lava. Lava highlighted arches over doorways. All of Randazzo was a shrine to the volcano.

Everyone said the ground under Randazzo was blessed. Etna erupted often, destroying whole towns in a matter of hours. Neighboring villages came and went. In contrast, lava never entered Randazzo. Only ashes fell here; everyone swept their steps in the morning. Everyone wore hats and shook them off before entering buildings. They brushed off their cloaks. They stamped their boots. But those ashes were never from burned Randazzo homes. The town was blessed.

Don Giovanni didn't enter into talk about blessings. He listened carefully, though, whenever he was privy to talk—which wasn't often. After all, the lonely trek to find snow filled most of his day. Still, gradually he learned to mimic the tongue of the poorer people in the Latin quarter.

Soon he dared to open his mouth to ask for work from others. It was only fair; he'd served that one family for a month—so he'd earned those shoes and cape. More than earned them, actually. Don Giovanni had learned that few were willing to ascend the Mountain now because it wasn't frozen hard enough to offer sure footing anymore. The maidservant had taken advantage of his ignorance.

He took a perverse pride in knowing he'd braved such danger, and the spectacular view from the upper slopes struck awe into his heart every time. But the cold burned his hands. The sulfur in the air closest to the craters burned his eyes. The isolation burned his spirit.

As the weather warmed, work got easy to find. He ran errands, transported things around town, mucked out stables—anything in exchange for meals and a place to sleep.

The ground floors of the buildings were stables. Servants slept with donkeys, horses, goats. One flight up were stores and homes. Don Giovanni lay in a stall at night listening to rich people walk around overhead, living the life he was born to have.

He worked for anybody—in any quarter. But people could be nasty. They'd pick about the way he stacked the wood or the shape of a hole he'd dug. Anything to say he didn't deserve as much as they'd promised.