The Three Acts
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 come _presto_, _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."