This was the very courthouse where Raymond Q. Colgiavanni found himself faced with fifteen accounts of racketeering and two accounts of first degree murder (the FBI had him on tape, screaming, 'I want his brain mashed and squashed and fuckin' runny, and I want you to bring some of it to me in a glass jar so I know you fuckers did it right!'). Mr. Colgiavanni, who was an unusually wellspoken man for his extraction, acquired for himself an excellent defense lawyer by the name of Craig DelVecchio, none other than the greedy grandson of the famous prosecutor for whom the courthouse was named. Mr. Criag Ryan DelVeccio, who made his fortune with this case, was - despite the staggering strength of the evidence piled against his client, which included the aforementioned glass jar and its contents - able to secure a retrial, and thus more of the thug's fortune for himself. The good men and women of Providence, he had argued before a judge - whom he knew had once received bribes from Mr. Colgiavanni - were too skewed a group from which to easily draw twelve, unbiased jurors. The judge hastily agreed.
Unfortunately, the second set of good men and women saw the same way as those of the first, and Mr. Colgiavanni, by the same court, was for a second time found guilty on all accounts as charged. Mr. Colgiavanni was so enraged by the outcome of the trial that, while the judge was still reading dryly through the list of charges, pronoucing after each the verdict of guilty, he threw down the jar of olives from which he had been munching, stood up, and jabbed a weighty finger at his lawyer. 'Sonofabitch!' he shouted in his thick, gruff accent. 'I'll kill you myself!' The judge, alarmed, stopped what he was saying, and everyone looked just in time to see the don lauch his corpulent self at Mr. DelVecchio. But Mr. DelVecchio was a much younger man, and the don hadn't really been engaged in any strenuous exercise since he was thirty. Although taken by surprise, Mr. DelVecchio was effortlessly able to move out of the way, and the don fell solidly against the short, wooden gate behind him. All at once everyone in the courtroom was standing on his feet and in motion. Reporters, violently shoving each other in a frantic effort to get closer, were holding their cameras high above their heads and delightedly snapping pictures. Uselessly, the judge wacked his gavel from his high place looking down and, despite the fact that no one could hear him, called for order.
Several of the don's henchmen were by Mr. Colgiavanni's side in an instant. 'Hey, boss -' said one, but he stopped himself, taken aback, when he saw the alarmingly purplish hue of Mr. Colgiavanni's face, and the futile manner in which his mouth was opening and closing. The eyes bulged from his head, his left arm flailed about his chest. The four henchmen stood in a tight semicircle around him, as if in protection, and watched silently as desperately the don tried to speak. But Mr. Colgiavanni only succeeded in spitting. The dark faces suspended above him were all expressionless as they looked on, staring coldly while other people screamed at them urgently. The don reached out with the one arm he could control, fingers twitching, but none of his men offered to help him into a sitting position, or to stand up. They left him flopping about on the floor like a fish drowning in air, and wondered about the succession. When the police were finally able to get to him, Mr. Colgiavanni was dead of a stroke at age fifty-two.
Ironically, the courthouse in which don Colgiavanni perished had been designed and built by his granduncle, Guiseppe, a bright and determined architect educated in Rome two decades after the unification of his country. Before him the Colgiavanni clan had long lived in a small village in southern Italy, south of Naples, called Itri, where they grew olives. For as long as anyone could remember the Colgiavanni fortunes had waxed and waned with their olives. So it came as no surprise that after having abandoned them to come to America this once great and numerous family quickly dwindled to an inexorable nothing. In the end the Colgiavanni's produced few male heirs, and those like Raymond who survived disease and misfortune were utterly stupid. But, as I said before, the Colgiavanni's were once a proud, thriving family with a healthy gene pool. One of their ancestors, the great Paolo Guiseppe Marcus Colgiavanni, whose grandfather had not been so fortunate with his trees, is still much talked about in certain cafes in Knightsville.
As they say, late one night in early spring in the middle of the seventeeth century young Paolo stole away from his father's small but sturdy farm and found his way to Florence, where he fell in love with a beautiful young noblewoman. Their affair was fated to be effulgent but brief. The young lady's father had squandered most of the family fortune on gambling and women, and so had engaged his daughter to be married to a prosperous, sixty-year-old silk merchant from France, very generous with his money, whose efforts to gain a title seemed to be nearing fruition. Of course, the young lady didn't want to marry the man, and one night while reclining with young Paolo under the comforting canopy of a willow tree in one of her father's gardens she cried to him that the thought of lying with the wrinkled Frenchman was repulsive. Perhaps it was the combination of the wine and the smooth, pungent smell of the leaves in his nose, but Paolo was feeling slightly unreal and tingly all over. Placing a hand lightly on her shoulder, he asked what she thought about lying with him.
Apparently, the idea appealed to her, because in a matter of moments her dress was hiked up to her waist and Paolo was inside of her. He had never made love to a woman before, but he knew enough to know that she was not a virgin, and that maybe the girl's father hadn't betrothed her to another nobleman because another nobleman wouldn't take her. But she was beautiful and agreeable and Paolo thought he was in love, and didn't mind copulating copiously beneathe the willow trees behind the opulent mansion in which her father dwelled, or in the riding carriages in the stables when the servants were away (and sometimes when they weren't). After a time, the young lady decided to stop wearing underwear; it thrilled her to feel the fresh air bare against her sex, especially in the presence of other people. Certainly, young Paolo was pleased, but as time went on he desired more and more to have the dress from her body entirely. He often tried goading her into removing it, but she was for some reason very modest, and was not willing. After several weeks he came to believe that he would never see her ample breasts. But never is a long time, and it never comes.
One night late in the stables - it had been an unusually warm day for middle spring - he did get her out of that ridiculously burly dress. The two young lovers were in her father's riding carriage, the one with the red velvet interior that he used to travel to town in, which, to protect it from the rain, was always parked at the rear of the stable. It was Paolo's favorite place to make love, because it was the most comfortable, and it pleased him to be behaving unchristianly in the midst of so much splendor. Oftentimes in his wild thrusting, his eyes fastened tenaciously together, Paolo imagined that he was defiling something precious, and was thrilled because of it. This is not to say that he felt the young maiden was that something. In his heart he actually believed the lust he savored each day for her was love. But there was a deep strain of youthful rebellion in Paolo. The young lad was taken by a firm conviction that he was destined for emminence. When he was smaller, and the world not yet large enough to be so complicated, the simple, fairy tale explanations of Father Nicolo had sufficed, but once Paolo grew old enough to question it became quite a different matter. 'Father,' he asked once, sitting in the dark, shadowy corner of the churchouse in Itri where he was rigorously instructed in the ways of the Galileans. A thick, dusty beam of light cut through air dim and dank with littanies and stale, Latin words. 'The Church says that a ghost impregnated the woman Mary, and the child was the son of God?' I know, it sounds ridiculous, but these were different times.
| * | * | * | * | * |
Father Nicolo was a middle aged man born to a woman of Itri just before the year Philip of Spain died. He had been fathered by a dark skinned Spaniard, a deserter from Philip's armies who had came through Rome and into the benevolent obscurity of southern Italy in the guise of a deaf-mute, traveling with his master. His companion was a Venetian spice dealer who had prematurely discovered opium. From what I gather, one of the Venetian's suppliers had been a short, brown man from Calcutta. Once every couple of years the energetic merchant had braved English ships and pirates to fetch a vast shipload of the Indian's curry. The Venetian was a much better sailor than he was a merchant, and the only reason he made any money in the first place was not because he could secure himself a good price at which to buy his goods but because he always returned to port on time. He derived a great deal of pleasure in hooking around Africa, and outmaneuvering the pirates. But the English ships were quite a different story, and there were many times when he had to hide for the day in some small, Indian inlet. The merchant had a good instinct for when not to push his luck.
His third time in Calcutta the tiny Indian merchant took the shiny Venetian to a small, underground room somewhere in the rough maze of the city where a smiling man brought a pipe to his lips. The misfit merchant was caught by the immensity of the paradise in which he found himself enthralled, listfully floating in time and beautiful women pampering his body. He liked it so much that despite the fact it was forbidden on pain of death he tried to bring enough opium back to Venice to last the next year. But it could never have been enough.
After a time, the merchant found that it was much more rewarding to sit in his foyer and smoke opium than arrange buyers for his spices. Whatever wealth he had begun to muster was squandered within a short time, and one unfortunate night in late winter at the end of his career the merchant was forced to flee Venice for his life. It seems he lost a fortune he did not have at dice to a high noble in favor at the Palace. The nobleman seemed to take his money seriously, and during his escape the merchant was forced to cut up one of the nobleman's soldiers. He used a tiny, expertly hidden dagger, slick with rare poison, with which he was quick as a whip. Of course, he would have prefered to have sailed from the city in his merchant ship, but the nobleman had already requisitioned it in the harbour. The Venetian snuck out of town with nothing but the clothes on his back, and a few gold coins that were taken from him before morning.
The man who relieved the Venetian of his gold was Father Nicolo's father, the deserting Spaniard. The trip through the mountains had been arduous, and he was thin, as if the mountain air and the strenuous walking had eroded his flesh. Apparently, the Venetian was amused by this foreigner, who, not being able to speak the language, relied entirely upon threatening gestures and looks to communicate his intentions. He was aware that it might not be very difficult to overcome the weak-looking Spaniard, but it was also obvious he was comfortable wielding a sword, and in his eyes was the zealous desperation of a starving man. The Venetian discovered that his short, frail opponent had some knowledge of German, and after a few minutes of broken conversation had taken a liking to him and his vagabond ways. Naturally, the Spaniard was suspicious of the Venetian, doubly so because he was a Venetian, but in his own time (and after his belly was full) came to enjoy the Italian's brazen tastes for the vulgar. Together, they traveled south, with no apparent destination in mind, stealing the food and clothing they required along the way. Paolo, many years after both men had died, vaguely followed the same rivers and paths on his way north, but that, of course, is a different matter entirely.
The two misfits stole themselves an old cart which the Spaniard pulled, and told all who asked that they were on their way south to purchase a vast supply of fleshy, young olives, so it was only natural that they found it amusing when they passed through Itri. The road took them quite suddenly through the center of a cluster of poorly constructed huts, and on the outskirts a few, better maintained dwellings. The two travelers looked around at all the men and women and children toiling wearily in the fields, but no one looked back at them. There were also people in the village proper, but here, too, no one appeared to care that strangers had appeared. Near the center of the village were the huge, wooden containers where the women crushed grapes with their feet. Of course, it wasn't the harvest season, and the containers were empty. There was an old well near a slow moving rill to one side of the community, and rows upon rows of olive trees as far as the eye could see. In fact, it was all the olive trees that had caught the two men's attention, long before they had come within sight of Itri - that and the horrible condition they were in. Most seemed sick; some weren't even sprouting buds.
The two men intended to rest for a time in the sullen village. The Venetian had caught a cold shortly after leaving Naples, probably due to the fact that his mischievous traveling companion had thrown him into a public fountain. The two men had been drunk, and the Spaniard had thought it would be funny to see his friend so unexpectedly swimming. Soon after, a light cough tickled the back of the Venetian's throat, which quickly became raw and hurt every time he swallowed, but the rustic merchant ignored the ailment and refused to take shelter when it rained. Over the week his cough worsened, and his instincts smarted that he was pushing his luck. Itri looked quiet and peaceful enough, and besides, everywhere they were surrounded by olives. But they had never expected such rudeness. The villagers refused to speak with them, nor look them in the eye; rashly, as if they had been inutterably bereaved, they prefered to turn their backs on the executioner. They were a dirty bunch, with scraggly, dour faces and a suspicious sway to their arms. Perhaps they believed the two men were bandits (they were) scoping potential prey. But Itri would never have been the prey of robbers as well to do as the Spaniard and his Venetian friend.
Of course, the villagers were uneasy for reasons neither of them could have immediately guessed. You see, Itri believed itself cursed; its olive trees were dying. Their infection had been brought to the village by its last visitor, a sole monk from Perugia bearing urgent news to Rome. He came one night asking for a hot meal and a bed, a young man with righteousness written on his forehead. In thanks he bestowed upon Antonio an olive seedling, as was his habit, in honor of the men who had piously revered the blood of their Saviour. As the gods would have it, the village of Itri was unfortunate enough to have received a seedling that was diseased, but no one knew it and the monk departed with good blessings, and was quickly forgotten. Two years later, most of the olive trees around the village were sickly. Of course, the monk's seedling had recovered from its infection. It grew nicely where the villagers had planted it, exuberant.
In those days among such coarse people any misfortune or boon was construed a willful act of their god. For reasons I could never entirely understand the Galilean fiend is a rather sadistic little Zed. As it was, no one would associate with the Itrites for fear of him. For reasons even more esoteric, the Galileans have always freely submitted to this shameful abuse. The villagers of Itri believed it was apt that no one would bring them food even though they were starving, and suffered contentedly, with even an unswerving sense of righteousness. The priests of the other villages were indignant when they strictly forbade their subjects any contact with the unclean tribe, 'lest you bring unto us the desolation God has decreed for them!'
The men and women of Itri believed that their god had cursed them because they had no priest. There was a church, a small, sad looking building at one corner of the community, but it had been without any officiator since the last died several years earlier of syphillus. Everyone was aware that it had been syphillus, but it was never mentioned for what it was, nor did anyone consider for a minute that the curse might have been the result of the immoral habits of the village priest. It was certainly the fact that he had not been replaced that they now suffered. And what a just curse it was. Perhaps the surrounding villagers were expected to tear down the huts after the Itrites had all wasted away, to burn the bodies while chanting in Latin and then salt the fields?
But the traveling men knew none of this, and the villagers resented them their gay laughter. 'What do you mean you have no inn?' the Venetian demanded of a slouching peasant woman. A dirty young girl, perhaps seven or eight years old, crouched at the woman's side, clutching a thin leg. The woman looked away, abashed, but the soft, dull eyes of the little girl regarded the Spaniard curiously. The Venetian exchanged looks with his companion, who had reverted to his usual role of deaf-mute. 'Look at me when I speak to you, peasant. My servant and I require a bed for the night, and a hot meal.'
'Well, you won't have them here.' The man who had spoken stood arms crossed uncompromisingly behind the two men and their cart. Eyebrows raised, the Venetian turned on the balls of his feet, the blue robe faded with travel rippling slowly in the air around his thick flesh. The sword he wore at his waist (it was the Spaniard's) slapped dully against his flank. The woman and her young daughter backed quickly away to the relative safety of a dim doorway. Several more women and their children were approaching slowly now, slinking between the brown homes as if uncertain whether or not the two men were monsters, or the spawn of their devil. More of the men were coming in from the fields, too, but they walked as if encased in stone, as if this long-awaited encounter were going to be the last in a long ordeal, and they all knew it.
'What manner of Christian are you,' demanded the Venetian, leaning confidently against his heels, 'who refuses hospitality to hungry travelers weary from long days on the road?'
'You don't understand.' The man who spoke was of medium height, with thick, curly hair and one, bushy eyebrow that extended from temple to temple. The head atop his neck was small, and the features there bunched together. His nose was crooked from an old wound that had not healed properly. Like most of the men he was shirtless. 'You can't.'
'What do you mean we can't? Where's the next village?'
'It isn't far, but they won't take you, either.'
Several more men had arrived now, and from different directions. One by one they came to a stop, faceless and bleak, on the outskirts of the circle that had developed around the two foreigners and the one man of theirs who addressed them. They stood in silent approval before their women and children, feet slightly apart, and waited.
'Why?' The Venetian scowled maliciously, and put his hand near the hilt of his sword.
'Because they watch the roads through here.'
'Peasant,' the Venetian merchant began threateningly, the hand by his swordhilt flexing dangerously, 'if you -'
'The village is cursed.' At those words, a soft moan - a great, painful sigh - slithered from the throats of the fifty or sixty gaunt souls that had gathered around. The Spaniard looked around at the villagers, slightly surprised, wondering what exactly would provoke these people to have sounded like that. He imagined that the Venetian was threatening them. He could see that the villagers were afraid - perhaps not necessarily of himself and his companion, but afraid nonetheless - and that his fellow, the opium-addicted merchant, was being haughty. But he couldn't fathom the object of their fear.
The Venetian laughed. It was the only sound in the ensueing silence. 'I am Sergio Continelli,' he said after a moment, 'son of Mario Continelli. In a few months I will become bishop of Pisa. Your curses mean nothing to me.'
'And your sword?' The villager sounded dubious.
Taking a step towards the bushy peasant, his hand still poised menacingly over the hilt of his weapon, the Venetian continued. 'I and my faithful servant have been charged by the Cardinal Riccio to recover a most holy and powerful relic, from the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour, that was recently recovered in Messina. It is my intention - it is my duty - to claim this relic for the Church, and bear it back to Rome.'
Several excitedly subdued voices bubbled through the village. 'A relic?' cried one enthusiastically.
'As for myself, I am still a private citizen until the day I am ordained, and as all men must do on these roads I defend myself.'
'What of the protection God provides for his own?' This voice, too, was not that of the bushy eyed man. That one stood staunch like a maypole, looking hard into the Venetian's coloured face. That one remained critically silent.
'The sword is God's protection enough.' The Venetian smiled. He returned his attention to the bushy eyed man. 'Now will you,' he asked importantly, trying to impress what he was saying with the sudden look in his eyes, 'risk bringing the wrath of God upon your heads?'
'Dear sir, the wrath of God is already upon our heads.' The bushy eyed man stood his ground a moment longer, arms folded squarely across his chest and looking deeply into the troubling eyes of the garish merchant from Venice. Then, quite suddenly - as if he had come to a decision - he turned to his compatriots, a few of whom stepped forward to meet him. Together, huddled like small children engaged in a ceremony of sacrilege, arms and hands lightly brushing each other's shoulders, they whispered tightly. The rest of the men, women, and children of Itri stood in a loose ring around the two foreigners, some staring at their men conversing and the others eyeing with a certain amount of distrust the tall Venetian with his tanned, travel-worn face and the long, curving sword that slapped at his side. No one seemed to be paying any attention to the small Spaniard, whose sword it was that the Venetian had usurped, who had pulled the empty cart all the way from Rome. Of course, the Spaniard was ignorant of the language, and was merely happy to be certain of a meal each day and a place to sleep in a strange land.
It is almost certain that the villagers would never have allowed these two men to stay a single night among them were it not for the Venetian's story. They did not exactly trust him, nor his northern, ringing manner of speech. The Venetian was obnoxious, and they suspected he was not entirely honest. But one of the whispering men - not the bushy eyed man - believed that perhaps the arrival of the Venetian, soon to be bishop and seeker of a holy relic, was a Sign from the Galilean god. He reasoned that if they fed and housed the holy man and his docile companion, and the two were to succeed with their mission, it might be seen as recompense enough, and the curse lifted. But the bushy eyed man was not convinced; that one, obdurate until the end - he remained skeptical.
His name was Antonio Colgiavanni, Paolo's grandfather and mayor of Itri. It was his olive trees that were dying, and it was his responsibility to heal them. Antonio of Itri was a devout man, as all men in his family had been, staunch in his beliefs. But he was fair, and tried never to favor anyone - family or not - in any judgement ever made. Antonio was a firm man, a believer, because he had to be. Antonio's olive trees were the life and breath of Itri, and because of that Antonio was Itri. Antonio was Itri incarnated, walking about the face of the planet and weeping for his trees. His people crouched at his back, waiting patiently for him to lead them to a prosperity such as their ancestors had known. They believed in him, and trusted whatever he said. Antonio knew this, and boldly accepted the immensity of it, but during these times of ordeal he could not escape the smoldering sense of responsibility he had for them all, and their children. This is why he could not turn away the Venetian and his mute companion, even though the twisting in his gut told him that no good would come of it. In a certain manner of speaking it was because of this decision that the olive trees did heal. His sons were to watch Itri grow prosperous again. But Antonio's good instincts were also correct; there was to be unspeakable outrage as well.
The Venetian and the Spaniard were housed separately. Antonio felt it was his responsibility, as patron of the town, to take into his home the lanky, wily man from the north with the flippant tongue. Antonio's house was the nicest, and the largest. It was also the only one with a verranda. It was his duty that compelled him, but reluctantly, for he suspected that he would not enjoy the Venetian's company. Of course, he was right about that, too. All afternoon and evening, the Venetian talked about himself. He was not in the least interested in Itri, nor its olive trees, nor the Colgiavanni heirlooms of which the family was so proud (and which the merchant surely saw as mere trinkets), nor, in fact, anything that Antonio had to say at all. Sipping warm apperatifs in the late afternoon sun, Antonio and his wife listened politely to the merchant, who gesticulated wildly at his hosts and recounted extravagantly exaggerated versions of his past. From the verranda his voice carried into the open fields. The men of Itri stood between the olive trees like nymphs, their tanned, sweat-stained skins glistening in the orange light of a setting sun, quiet as the moon, and listened. The looks on their faces were all suspiciously vacant, but the mouths of the women in their huts curved with a subtle, even pitying, disgust.
After an hour or so it was obvious to the patron and his wife that the Venetian was nothing more than a fantastic liar, nor very skilled at the art. As they sat listening to horribly skewed versions of the merchant's adventures in India (which included descriptions of a strange substance that, ridiculously enough, allowed one to see God), Antonio grew worried. He had known men like this in the past. Almost always they had been the least respectable of men. Antonio knew that, if he could, the stranger would walk off with all the valuables in the house. But Antonio was not concerned about his personal belongings; he had very little that was of any real value, and what he did have was hidden safely away. No, Antonio feared the worst, although he never stopped doubting that it was so. That evening, during the light supper Antonio's wife had provided for herself, her husband, their two children, and their guest, Antonio interrupted the Venetian's turbulent stream of speech. 'If I may be so bold, this relic you spoke of: what is it?'
The Venetian stopped eating and stared at his host across the table. A hand in midair tightly clutched a cold leg of chicken. The man's mouth was opened slightly, surprised, as if he had just been stabbed, revealing something partially chewed. His lips, nose, and cheeks were coloured darkly with grease. The sudden silence was shocking, if only because it was the first time since his arrival that the former spice merchant hadn't been speaking. Antonio coughed uncomfortably. It was not his style to accuse a man of deceit. 'The relic. You spoke of it this afternoon.' The Venetian continued to stare dumbly. 'The one in Messina?' After all the talk he had been forced to endure, even Antonio could not keep the exasperation out of his voice.
The Venetian smiled then, nodded his head, and resumed his chewing. 'Oh,' he said, still managing the food in his mouth. 'Why didn't you say so?' Antonio and his wife exchanged looks beneathe the Venetian's bloated face. Perhaps he wished to imply that his whole life had been spent scouring the earth for pieces of the Messiah. 'You want to know what it is?' Antonio nodded gravely. The Venetian shrugged and took another bite. Perhaps he caught a rough glimpse of one of his dirty fingers as he brought it to his mouth, because when he finally answered his host what he said was this: 'A knuckle.'
Antonio's wife was so taken aback that she dropped her fork. It fell against her plate with a dull clang before retiring to the floor. This was too much for their youngest son, who started to giggle, but he stopped when his elder brother cuffed him sharply on the side of the head. The boy looked questioningly to his father, who for the first time in his life appeared to be at a loss for words. It was his wife, finally, that spoke next. 'You mean to say that one of the Son of God's knuckles has been discovered in Messina, and Cardinal Riccio has sent you to retrieve it.' It had not been a question.
The Venetian's eyes were challenging as he replied with a curt nod of his head. 'It has cured three lepers already, good woman, and restored a man his sight.' And with that, gnawing arrogantly on the chicken bone, he continued to elaborate on what exactly it was that the glorious Knuckle of Christ had done for paupers, invalids, and the criminally insane.
Antonio would have no more. His patience had run out. Silently, coldly, he stood up and walked from the room. The Venetian didn't seem to mind much; he kept eating and drinking their wine, and Antonio's wife grimly kept pouring him more. Her two children remained at the table long after they had finished eating. They were amazed by this foreigner and his strange manners; they had never seen anything quite like it before. They sat on their stools and listened to his stories; occasionally they laughed. It was not until their mother grew exasperated enough with their houseguest that, in an effort to relieve him of his audience, she sent them to bed. After that, the Venetian continued to drink in a disquieting silence. His instincts were telling him he had begun to push his luck. Dolefully, he wondered why it was that he had not realized it sooner.
The Spaniard enjoyed a much more pleasant evening. He had been taken by a beautiful young widow and her daughter, a kind and generous pair. The two had been looked after by the other men of the village since the day the woman's husband had tripped into an irrigation ditch and broke his neck. It had been agreed among the villagers that because the woman had an extra place to sleep (her husband's; apparently, these Galileans didn't sleep in the same beds as their wives) the Spaniard should remain with her, but only if he were carefully watched by at least one other villager. He was, after all, a distant foreigner (it was obvious now that they could see his face), and a companion of the Venetian, whom they already did not like. At first the two girls and their protector were distant and distrustful, but after a time they came to realize that the dark- skinned Spaniard was a somewhat more affable fellow. He came to amuse them with the strange gestures and sounds he made to communicate, and enjoyed seeing them laugh so healthily and heartily.
After a slight supper of bread, fruit, and pastry, the four of them took a long walk through the countryside, itself clothed a wispy shade of orange in the setting sun. The land in early spring was resplendid with raw smudges of brown, and a light dusting of green. Above them the sky was clear and shrill with the brilliance of Helios. The little girl ran ahead between the olive trees with their male escort, the piercing bars of her gay laughter as they played together spilling unabashed into the open air. Occasionally, the man would throw a quick glance over his shoulder at the two who lagged behind. As the darkness deepened, fading the landscape around them first to a rich, resonant blue and then finally to an opaque, neutral greyish-black in which nothing was easily distinguishable, he began to grow uneasy at the sight. He saw a beautiful woman whose youthfulness had been riven from her long before its time, and a man who had captured her eye - a much older man, exciting and unfamilliar.
They did not speak; they could not. The young maiden believed she understood somewhat this thin, dark-skinned man from beyond the mountains. The lines of his face were all hard, very square, but there was also a gentleness there that she might never have noticed had he been able to speak to her. Of course, she knew that he was not, despite what the Venetian had told them, riven of his voice. She could not guess why it was that he was forced to travel in disguise, nor with a man as intriguing as the Venetian merchant, but whatever reason there was she was sure it had to be exciting. Perhaps the young maiden was caught by the notion that the hardened Spaniard would wisk her away from Itri, where she was doomed to die an old and unsatisfied widow. Perhaps she imagined for herself a different life, the likes of which she could never have understood, and which, gliding smoothly under the stars that evening, she did not care to. It was simply the idea that gripped her, of adventuring in the safe company of this man into the mysterious netherworld that sprawled for leagues in all directions. She had heard many tales, but in her head the rest of the world was nothing more than a comforting vision of escape.
As for the Spaniard, he was happy to have been taken by a kind and beautiful lady. It had been a long time since he had had such agreeable company. He understood that the little girl was her daughter, but the father was either missing, or on business (he couldn't imagine what), or fled. The thought of death never entered his mind. Certainly the cold-faced man who accompanied them everywhere was not her husband. The Spaniard thought perhaps he was her brother. There was no doubt, though, of what it was his presence was supposed to prevent. But the Spaniard was simply glad to be with her, and to know that she wanted him. He wanted her, too. And as they walked, the gloomy silhouettes of the dying trees around them seemed to sigh in the late evening. The Spaniard smiled somewhat sarcastically into the night. The young maiden was looking at him.
Eventually, their fairy tale evening came to an end. Their male escort grew ever more disconcerted with each glance behind him, and after a time decided that it would be best if they returned to the village and retired to bed - in separate rooms. 'Go tell mommy it's time to sleep,' he urged the little girl, who thought it was a game. She crooned with laughter and, delighted for once to be sending her mother to bed, ran towards the young maiden. 'Mommy, mommy!' the little girl cried. The widow was surprised for a brief instant, not entirely sure who was this fragile child running towards her from out of the lifeless shadows. The Spaniard had inevitably brought to mind memories of her husband's courtship, the way he used to take her for long walks between the olive trees (but they were healthy then) and, after a while, cease trying to speak to her at all. They used to look longingly into each other's eyes, yes, but even if she didn't want to admit it those meetings had been a different sort entirely. The Spaniard didn't so much resemble her husband as she wanted him to. For an instant, she was confused. 'What, darling?' she asked uncertainly, shaking her head, and stooped in the bosom of the night to take the shouting girl into her arms. 'What is it?'
| * | * | * | * | * |
The moon was up when she burst into the tiny room, rushed to the bed, and, violently, started to shake the comfortably sleeping Spaniard. He was confused in the sudden light of the open doorway. The small room in which he slept was certainly not the crisp interior of his barracks in Toledo. Blinking outrageously, he peered into the strangely familiar but shaken face of the woman who knelt by his bed, her hands urgently gripping his arm and her mouth speaking to him in a tongue he could not comprehend. It was only after a moment that he remembered where he was (thankfully, he was no longer in the army; he never liked killing people, anyway). Warmly, he smiled at the young lady and made room for her to climb into the bed with him. But she shook her head fervently and pulled on his arm. Frowning, the Spaniard sat up. It was then that he heard the eager shouting in the village around him. The voices like sharp pinpricks stabbing the night were scattered, some of them very near and some very far away, but all calling compellingly to each other. There was an edge to these voices that the Spaniard caught immediately, the familiar edge of men taken by surprise and furious because of it. He looked questioningly towards the widow, her ashen face so alluringly close to his own and begging him to put on some clothes. In an instant he decided that he trusted her.
She led him by the hand from her home and into the insidious night, her footfalls light and carefully placed. The Spaniard followed her example and, trying to peer through the blotched, inky darkness, wondered where she was leading him. They crept through the village proper like thieves, and kept to the deepest parts of the gloom. The shouting was everywhere around them now, and occasionally the murky shape of a man gliding between the huts became visible. If ever someone was too close his graceful young guide would pull the both of them into a dim doorway. There were occasional torches lit along the way, showering the village with tiny and ineffectual swaths of illumination around which they tread. Through this part of their journey her rigid hand squeezed his, as if she feared losing contact with him, and in the brief patches of light that fell lightly across the handsome features of a face lustfully poised with apprehension, the Spaniard was more attracted to her than before.
Skillfully, purposely, they slipped like dopplegangers from the distressed village and into open farmland bathed in moonlight, milky looking and chocolatey rich and ready to receive them. The Spaniard spared a glance behind and saw the Colgiavanni home, with its prized verranda, standing with its arms crossed at the more modest dwellings at its feet. Lamplight roared from every window; it looked very hot to be standing near its stone walls. The padded, comforting thumping of their feet urgently striking the soft earth was not the only sound in his ears as he looked back. There was also the echoes of fire, if not the giddy impression of it. He could almost smell the heat and the cleansing. Old things were being destroyed; new things were about to take their place. There were also many men's distantly angry voices, jabbing at each other, parleying, melding easily (even though they didn't know it) with the promise of conflagration. They seemed to be originating mainly around the widow's house, but the Spaniard couldn't be sure. The running forms he saw were all carrying evil-looking torches.
Together, they ran between the death-sodden, wispy bark of the olive trees, which were organized into straight, endless rows like stone sentinels. A full moon was low in the sky to their left, slipped perfectly between the thin, jabbing fingers of the trees, blinking at them as they ran, and smiling. It almost angered the Spaniard that they could not outrun the mocking disk hung like a painting from the stars, themselves so bright and insistent. There were no other people near the fugitive and his guide now, so they took no pains to hide the heaviness of their breaths or the loudness of their footfalls in the rich soil. And growing dimmer and dimmer in the sky with each passing step there glowed behind them, like an avatar searching from the air, the angry residue of the Colgiavanni residence.
Eventually, she had to stop for a rest. Her breaths explosive, she sank against the slim body of a decaying olive tree, barely able to even speak. The Spaniard, hands impatiently at his sides, looked off into the distance. That was when he saw, across the open field that yawned ahead of them, the slump figure of a man tied to a tree. It was a goodly distance away, but the Spaniard's eyes were sharp, even in the mirky shadows before sunrise. This was a large man who wore robes, the slashed pieces of which fluttered silently in the cool, night breezes. There was no doubt, standing there between the olive trees with the young maiden coughing lightly near his feet, as to who the man was. Nor did it come as a surprise. Without a word to the young woman who had saved his life, the Spaniard broke into a pessimistic jog.
The moon gawked directly over the head of the Venetian, bathing him in a ghostly glow that left his backside in deep, impenetrable shadow. It appeared to the Spaniard as he approached that the darkened pattern on her face was smiling, as if enjoying herself - or perhaps sadly, as if in resigned melancholy. She hung over the body of the merchant, bathed the ends of his hair a lanky colour of white, like milk, as if she were spitting on him. The Spaniard drew closer. Behind him the young maiden was calling to him, but only as loud as she dared, and that was not very loud at all. He did not listen. A few moments later the Spaniard had reached the other side of the tree, and turned to face the man who had given up the ghost leaning against it.
The Venetian's hands had been bound behind him around the thickness of the tree, so that now in death they would hold him upright until the villagers decided to cut him loose. His robes were torn and slashed, and the blood was everywhere. At first the Spaniard could not tell where the death wound had come from. The merchant's head was lolled to one side, the eyes open and unseeing and the tissue there rotting already, and his legs were no longer supporting him. Perhaps it was because the slumped head was concealing the wide gash in his neck that the Spaniard had not noticed it right away, but at last the deep, black set of lines in the steady moonlight underneathe the merchant's chin caught his eye. There was little expression on his face as he reached out a hand. It was then that the young maiden reached his side. She looked upon the corpse and the Spaniard's small hand as it exposed the chin, saw the rough, gaping slashes that crisscrossed the flesh of the neck, and did not say a word. Silently, they looked on. There was no way she could have explained, and he knew that. Briefly, he wondered how it was that the luck of the slippery merchant from Venice had failed him. Staring into features gone soft in the absolution of death, the Spaniard felt vaguely sorry that the man had met his end this way. He had somewhat liked him.
On the ground were two blades. One was a small, nondescript dagger slick with blood not yet dried. The Spaniard thought immediately of the poisoned blade that had saved the man's life in Venice. He had never seen it before. It was a sharp knife he knew, but judging from the slashes on the merchant's neck the villagers had been careless when they were using it. Beside it was the Spaniard's sword. As he reached to retrieve it, the Spaniard wondered what had, in the end, finally snuffed the life of the merchant - the poison of the man's own blade or the lack of blood. The last thing he did was remove from the merchant's pocket the packet of papers the two of them had pilfered along the way from Venice. He didn't know what he was going to do with them, or what they said. But it didn't matter much, not really.
The young maiden took his hand as they walked. There was shouting behind them in the distance from the direction of Itri proper, but it was faint and very far away, and touched neither of them. Their escape had been made, the worst behind them, and none too difficult. But the first few minutes as they walked off into the night together were quiet ones. She could not bring herself to leave him yet. And the Spaniard, he was in a somber mood. The death of his companion had been disquieting; he didn't know what he was going to do in a strange country, far from any borders or his homeland. Eventually they rested again, and not from any fatigue, either. They made love, of course, under the utter blackness of the sky as the moon dipped below the horizon and the world waited impatiently for the coming of the sun. It was silent copulation, strange and forced, and angry. The young maiden was crying when she walked back into Itri - alone. She told them that, in fear for his life, the Spaniard had kidnapped her. They believed her. Several months later she had to append her story; he had raped her, too, she said.
| * | * | * | * | * |
Father Nicolo was born the following winter, and in the spring most of the olive trees bloomed in health. This, too, was taken as a Sign, and the villagers decided that the infant would be their priest. So it was that Father Nicolo was raised with the strange but warm notion that he was a gift to Itri from their god; everyone told him so. He walked with the slow, sage-like steps of a holy man. In his head he thoroughly believed he served a purpose on this earth, and even though he was not particularly wise he was a determined, self absorbed man. Lesser men have achieved greatness. At the young age of sixteen, Father Nicolo reconsecrated the church of Itri and officiated there for the first time in a generation the Galilean rites, which they call Mass. The church of Itri was reconsecrated not only because it had fallen into such a neglected state, but also because it was unclean; a man had died there. And this was not just any man; this was a Colgiavanni, and the leading one at that. Antonio Colgiavanni died in that church the same night as the infamous merchant's neck was slit and his blood left to pour over himself. There was among the congregants who partook of the body of their saviour much weeping, and rejoicing, and praising. Many men from neighboring villages attended, and gifts were exchanged. It was, all in all, a great holiday, and it is a fact that nine months later the population of the village swelled as it had not done in living memory.
After leaving his house in disgust, pious Antonio had gone to the abandoned church for cousel with his god. It was his habit to pray there before the two, tall statues standing guard behind the rotting altar. His wife complained to him that the rancid air was not good for his lungs, but pious Antonio would not be daunted. Kneeling before the two great, stone statues of the goddess Mary and her child, he lost himself in his prayers. He was praying for Itri, for all of Itri's families, for his own family and for the olives. He was praying for himself, actually, for peace of mind, and was so caught up in it that he never heard the Venetian stumble inebriated inside the building.
The Venetian had drunk a lot of wine. For some reason after leaving (Antonio's wife had thrown him out) he found his way there. I cannot pretend to understand what his intentions were. Regardless, he was so far out of his mind that he must not have heard Antonio's mumbling in the dimness by the statues. But he did see the statues, and they impressed him. The height of a small man, they were well carved and lifelike. Slightly awed, perhaps his old merchant instincts of old took over for a shaky moment. Or perhaps he believed in his drunken stupor that the goddess Mary had herself choosen to appear before him, because it is said that the stray beams of moonlight that crept between the thick boards of the shutters were drawn to her body, so that she might have appeared to be glowing whitely as she reached out toward him in gentle supplication. It was an offer perhaps he could not have refused, this idea of perfect and complete forgiveness, and for nothing but the desire.
I, myself, cannot say how it happened that Antonio died, just that he did. There was a loud crash from inside the church, loud enough to awaken those sleeping nearby. When the doors to their charnel house had been thrown open and illumination shown within, the first thing the villagers saw was that there was only one statue standing behind the altar. The other, of Mary and her comfortingly forgiving arms, was broken over the crumpled body of their venerated leader, and standing over him was the Venetian, his face white as a ghost and terribly afraid, because even a drunk man could very well have figured out what was going to happen next.
| * | * | * | * | * |
'Well, something like that,' said Father Nicolo patiently to young Paolo. 'The Holy Ghost set the Seed in Mary's stomach. She gave birth to the baby Jesus.'
Paolo was still confused and thought, perhaps, he shouldn't be. 'But -'
At times, Father Nicolo's firm beliefs blinded him to the existence of doubt. He couldn't understand why Paolo was confused, either. 'But what?' It sounded as if he had bitten his tongue.
Paolo pursed his lips, hesitating only a moment, before pushing on. 'Well, there is only one God, but he's got a son, and the son -' the young lad frowned '- well, he's not human is he? And he's not a god, either. So then -?' But he couldn't answer his own question. Puzzled, he looked to Father Nicolo for guidance.
Father Nicolo shook his head irritably and stood up. The poor man: he felt as though he were being assaulted. Standing proud over his student, he appeared immensely thin and tall. He seemed to be standing perfectly straight, all the way to the ceiling, and his eyes were vastly black and severe even at what would have been so great a distance. 'You're a very naughty boy, Paolo,' the man said to him. 'Men much wiser than you have spent hundreds of years looking into these matters. Will the wisdom of a child nine years old outshine them?' A face lean in its tallness glowered at the boy all the way on the ground.
'I was just asking a question -' Paolo began to protest, but Father Nicolo slapped him sharply across the face. Paolo bit his tongue. 'Don't interrupt me when I'm talking to you.' He could taste the faint but sweet taste of blood in his mouth. 'Now you asked me a question so I'll answer it. They're all the same - don't you see - God, Jesus, this Holy Ghost. They all existed together since the begining of Time or we're worshipping the Devil. Haven't you been listening?'
'But I've been reading Ammianus -'
Father Nicolo hit him again. 'Pagan worm!' he hissed. 'Where have you been getting your hands on such filth? I'll have a word with your mother -'
But Paolo's head was swimming, and he was angry. Father Nicolo in an instant seemed no longer so tall, nor so imposing, and his words and the tone they arrived in were growing unbearable. The father seemed quite vindictive, in fact, and so the fierceness that comes with blind faith was lost on the young boy. He decided he did not like Father Nicolo, nor his Jesus, and so standing up he shoved the aging priest out of the way and ran for the escape of the real world. Father Nicolo stumbled backwards and reached out in a desperate bid for balance. His hand found one of the stone breasts of the remaining young Mary, and, indeed, he was able to stand straight by it. He was about to shout furiously after young Paolo (a holy man of his age did not run after little children) when he noticed what so tightly he was gripping, and sharply at that. His mouth opened. Almost ashamed he let go. Gingerly, as if they had been burned, he brought the guilty fingers to his mouth and sucked on them.
Paolo was severely beaten for his insolence, and ever after hated Father Nicolo with a passion. But he was a small boy, and he knew the extent of his powers, so he answered (although coldly) whenever Father Nicolo bid him goodday, and tried not to fall asleep during the weekly sermon his community took so seriously. He endured his Galilean education; he tolerated it. When several years later he stole from Itri for the last time, he filtched the very set of Greek myths and histories that had earned him a mark on the cheek. They were Father Nicolo's, but Paolo didn't think the priest deserved to have them. It was the young lad's opinion that he didn't take them seriously enough.
| * | * | * | * | * |
Paolo tossed his lady's heavy dress out the window of the riding carriage and looked eagerly upon her body. He looked so eagerly upon it, in fact, that he did not notice that with the dress he had knocked a small oil lamp from the stable wall. They were the lord of the manor's lamps; he had ordered them hung there. Some of the stablemen had once complained that the lamps were unneccessary, even dangerous, and they were right. But the lord of the manor would not have it, and upon suspecting that he wasn't getting a full twenty hours per day from his men ('What do you mean, "unneccessary"?') he doubled their workload. Which is why someone was around when the fire started, and it is a good thing, too, or else this story might have been cut short.
She was naked, yes, and Paolo knelt mesmerized on the crimson cushions gazing lustfully over her while outside their carriage the hay hissed and curled and, ever faster, was consumed. The curves of her body were preciously enticing to him, softer and more alluring than anything he had ever seen or felt before. There was nothing else in the world at that moment besides the whiteness of her skin, the creamy insides of her thighs, her voluptous breasts - certainly not conflagration. They were almost more than he could bear, and as he grappled with his own clothing he imagined he was about to lie with a goddess, or as close as there could be to one. Of course he knew then that there were such things as goddesses, and gods, too. We must forgive young Paolo his naivite; he had never seen the bare flesh of a woman before.
He was almost upon her when the stablemaster - a wintry fellow whose father had been head stableman before him, and so on for as long as anyone remembered - threw open the wide, wooden doors and rushed into the flickering dimness within, his greying eyes quick and darting and desperate to peer through the haze that in the latest years had begun to form across his vision. His worst fear had come true; circling around the back, he had smelled the odious and distinct odor of smoke. Often he indulged himself in these nightly excusions, for he believed the stupidity of the lord of the manor could very well have been the death of the twenty finely groomed horses that resided there. They were like children to him. At first, prowling the night outside, he thought his brain must be playing tricks on him. But sure enough when he looked he could make out the soft wisps of stealthy greyness sneaking innocently between the wooden boards at the rear of the building.
The smoke caught in Paolo's nose as well. He had been about to remove his pantalons (he had always hated that tight fitting garmet) when, frowning, he stopped and sniffed cautiously at the air. 'What is it, darling?' his lady asked playfully of him, and reached to pull his pantalons off with her own hands, but Paolo evaded her. 'Wait,' he implored, turning his head about expectantly. 'I smell smoke.' The young maiden laughed and, sitting up, threw her arms about his waist. 'But, darling, don't you see that it's me?' But it was smoke, real smoke, and Paolo knew it. Absently, he pushed her away and turned to pull aside the velvet window cover. He stuck his head out for a look.
The world outside was very grey, very misty, and the air moved and smelled much too alive. A crisp wave of heat washed over his youthful face, and for an instant he could feel every pore stretched across his skin. Quickly, he yanked his head back inside the carriage and shot a fervent look at the young, naked woman sitting sternly up against the seat, her hands pressing firmly against the cushions. By the look on her face he knew that she had seen. 'Don't worry,' Paolo said calmly to her after several moments of estranged silence, 'but there's -'
'I know what there is!' she spat vehemently. And she could smell it, too, now. Suddenly she seemed uncomfortable. She squirmed in the seat, her hands roving the carriage floor as if in search of something. The eyes jumped. Paolo, even if there was a fire outside, still thought she was beautiful, and perhaps she was, but the young maiden more than anything at that moment felt exposed, and there was nothing with which to cover herself.
'Come on,' Paolo said then, offering his hand. With the other he reached for the door. But the young lady did not take it. Looking back he found her lying still once again in the seat, looking almost contemptuously back at him. It was a very stark, surprising look, and in it was an acrid frankness that spoke volumes. It took him off guard. For the first time since he had known her (and it had not really been a long time at all) she was blatantly unappealing. Surely it was that look, that deep, hurtful intent hidden not too well behind the whites of her eyes. She was upset; Paolo could understand that. But why did she look at him that way? Yes, she was ugly, and those eyes perhaps were not human at all but orcish, gnarly hands and drool. Paolo was finding it difficult to speak. 'If you don't want to burn to death -' he began, fumbling with the words, but she interrupted him again, insistent. 'I can't run about my father's estate without any clothes on, wicked peasant!' She rolled her eyes at him. Paolo considered that for a moment. 'Fine,' he said after a short pause, shrugging. He trained his voice to sound as if he could hardly have cared, but inside he was reeling under the punches. She thought he was stupid. 'Then stay here.' Even as he spoke, the hurt was hardening to bitterness. Bitch.
It was then that the stablemaster began to harness the carriage. Paolo and the lord of the manor's delicate daughter had been too engrossed of themselves to have heard the dry pitterpatter of the stablemaster's feet as he rushed to free the horses at their end of the stable from almost certain death. There was sweat like another coating of skin on his body, seeping into his woolen robe, filling the spaces between the long, grey hairs of his head as with soft whispers he coaxed the frightened horses towards the safety of the crisp outdoors. The fire was still small, yes, but it was large enough. He knew there was no way he could stop it himself, nor call help in time to save the lives of his precious beasts. There was no fear, only a keen sense of urgency, because one thing he knew he didn't have was time. It could scarcely have been midnight, but indeed it was the darkest hour. Those muscled, flowing beasts marched uncertainly at first from the gaping stable doors thrown wide, bared like an infected throat, and then, tossing their heads angrily about themselves, lunged through the trees toward whatever freedom they might have fancied.
The stable was a large building, and its wood was thick. It would burn slowly. The stablemaster knew he had time enough to think. He also knew that the riding carriage housed within was the favorite of the lord of the manor, and even it had been in his family for years his position as stablemaster might have been forfeited were it to fall victim to the flame. So after those five or six beasts in immediate danger had been freed, he choose the lord of the manor's finest horse - a great, white stallion - to pull the carriage to safety. The air was crowded with noise as he secured the horse to the wooden posts of the carriage. It was not normally difficult work, but even this the finest beast of the pack was unnerved by the shrill crying of the flames and the warning voices of his comrades still trapped in their cages. The horses could sense the danger now, and they were communicating it to each other. Their eyes were wide and jittery and rolled stupidly about the insides of their heads as they pawed uneasily at the ground, prancing and dancing, blowing air compellingly through their snouts. It was all the stablemaster could do to keep the stallion from bolting. 'Aye, Angel,' breathed the stablemaster into his ears. The familliar voice seemed to have a quieting effect. 'Hold steady for me.' And this he did, for as I have said already he was no ordinary animal.
| * | * | * | * | * |
'Paolo, we're being attacked!' The young maiden appeared to be convulsing. She lay upon the floor of the carriage, lumped into a tight ball of flesh as if to conceal her nakedness, arms hugging her knees. Paolo, dressed once again, sat brooding at the mahogany wall paneling. When first they felt the stablemaster mount the driver's compartment, the young maiden had attempted to snatch his tunic from him, but without success. She had fallen defeated to the floor, her forearm smarting brightly and a sulking look spreading across her face. Perhaps Paolo's anger had gotten the better of him, because he had struck her quite hard. She moaned, a long and drawn out intonation like that from the throat of an old woman, or a wounded animal before dying. 'What will father think?'
'O, shut up,' snapped Paolo. He was trying to finalize plans for escape.
The young maiden looked up, her eyes momentarily red. 'I am the daughter of a provincial baron!' she wailed at him. 'I am not some filthy carrion pauper shining shoes in the gutter for a few pennies! If I want to scream and yell on -!'
'Silence, woman,' Paolo spat at the wall, his voice dangerously low, 'or whoever's driving this thing will hear you. Then you'll really have something to yell about!'
The young maiden puckered her lips in surprise and stared brazenly at young Paolo, who continued to avoid her. There was a moment of silence between them, filled only by the giant cacophany of small sounds produced by the carriage as it rocked, and the rythmic footfalls of the stallion, and then quite suddenly the young lady opened her mouth and let forth such a holler that Paolo jumped in his seat. Before he knew what he was doing he had thrown himself upon her, had grabbed a fistful of hair atop her head and clamped her mouth shut with his hand. Squealing, she kicked and bit at him, and even managed to land a blow dangerously close to his groin. It was more difficult work than he would have thought, but after he slammed her head once or twice against the solid oak paneling of the twin seats she succumbed. He thought for a moment about holding her like this until whoever it was had gone away, but when he saw that she was quietly sobbing beneathe his fingers he realized she wasn't likely to repeat the outburst. 'I couldn't breathe,' she cried to him lightly after he had pulled away. Paolo, perhaps a bit ashamed of himself, had nothing to say. He continued to stare gloomily at the wall.
The stablemaster was a man quite hard of hearing, and his mind was occupied; as loud as it was he had not heard the young lady's shriek. But he certainly felt the carriage shaking angrily beneathe him when Paolo assaulted her. His first thought was that a racoon or some other such rodent had found its way inside (as they often did) and, panicked from the sudden movement, was desperately seeking an escape. So, as he reached the first of the trees that bordered the clearing from which all the master's favorite trails spread out, he pulled the carriage to a brisk stop and leaped from the driver's compartment. It was an impressive leap, especially for an old man, and perhaps a bit too enthusiastic. The force of the landing threw him to his knees, and the palms of his hands were rubbed raw. But he did not feel a thing - not yet, at least - cartainly not the fact that he had sprained his ankle. In a moment he was back on his feet, jogging by the carriage, his arm stretched out to let the door open on his way.
When the stablemaster stopped the carriage, the young maiden had started to quiver, and her eyes had taken to shifting nervously from Paolo's calm, deceitfully innocent features to the only protection she had from the prying eyes of the man outside. The stablemaster's heavy feet impacting on the hard earth sticattoed through the fairly piercing cries of the horses in their cages. The young maiden couldn't control herself any more. The thing she feared most was the opening of that door. In an instant she had caught Paolo in a tight embrace, had gripped him, startled, around the waist and hugged him to her. Her eyes were clasped tightly together in a desperate prayer, her head buried obstinately in his shoulder. The poor boy, he didn't know what to do. How women confused him! But before he had any time to react he was already feeling the coolness of the night's breeze against his robust back. The momentary look of surprise was still splayed across his features when the stablemaster looked in. But what he saw - the daughter of the lord of the manor naked and distraught, hugging a man fully clothed - was a shock so great that, for a moment, he forgot the horses. But it was only a glimpse, for the young maiden let escape a ferocious cry, and in an act perhaps more of reflex than resentment sent Paolo tumbling from the carriage.
'He tried to rape me!' It was the first words that came out of her mouth. She couldn't think what else to say. And it sounded like it. The stablemaster, both outraged and uncertain, looked between them both. 'Oh my God, he raped me!' she shrieked at the man again, spurred on by his hesitation. She brought her hands to her face. 'Oh, my God, oh my god!' From the ground Paolo looked at the grey haired man and blinked. In his head there was only confusion. It was impossible that she could conspire against him so.
'Slowly, my lady,' the stablemaster said to her calmly. The flat palms of his weathered hands pushed toward her. 'You're not speaking clearly.' But out of the corner of his eye he remembered the burning stable. The voices of his precious beasts called to him still. Once again his thoughts turned to them, and the calamity that was virtually at hand. Edgily, he shifted his weight between his feet.
The young maiden mistook the look on his face. 'He raped me!' she squealed at the collection of growths and wrinkles that had exposed her. Her eyes raged now with embarrassment and pride that had been sorely damaged. Certainly she never imagined herself so vulnerable in front of a servant of her father's.
'I did not,' Paolo insisted, although meekly, for it is one thing to be right and quite another to insist it with one's buttocks implanted so firmly at the feet of one's judge.
'Liar!' cried the young maiden. The tears stood out in her eyes. Turning to the stablemaster, she reached out a bare arm. 'Give me your robe,' she demanded.
'What?' the stablemaster gasped, taken aback. Thoughts of horses receded. One of his hands buried itself quickly in a woolen pocket. The furry brow jounced.
'I said, give me your cloak.' The young lady moaned at them both.
The stablemaster's mouth opened, then closed. He threw a beleaguered glance toward the horses. His mouth opened again. 'But - but I need it. And the -'
'Take the damned thing off, excrement of worms, before I have you off to debtor's prison, or to a school for village priests!'
Then Paolo was standing up. 'Go fetch the horses.' He spoke gravely, his back firm and straight and the eyes glitteringly calm. For there was something of his grandfather in him, although this one was possessed of far greater luck. 'Go on,' he urged, nodding his head. The stablemaster tenaciously held the young man's glowering eyes. He would not look at the exposed maiden too ashamed of her skin to exit the carriage. Then he was trotting off, and the lady shouting haughty curses after him. 'Come back here, you sniveling dog!' she cried, her voice breaking traumatically. She felt she was being abandoned. 'Don't you hear me? My father! My father, remember him? Oo, by sunrise he'll have your balls dangling from his keyring -!' But Paolo at once turned to face her, and when she saw how he regarded her she quit bellowing. One of her fingers twitched.
'Now, harlot, do you hear me?' said he. 'No, hold your peace. You've done enough spewing, and I've no desire to listen to drivel. It's I, the peasant boy, who know almost every curve of that devilish body of yours. It is I, the fool, with brains enough to remain in possession of his clothing.' As he spoke he took a menacing step toward her, and lifted an arm. Gingerly she cried out, and scrambled back against the cushioned seat, like a spider, flashing him along the way a tiny glimpse of breast and the inside of a thigh. 'What were you going to do with me, you deviant little wench?' he growled. 'Throw me to the mercy of your father? "He raped me!" '
'He'd have - !'
'You'd like to screw him, your father, wouldn't you?'
The young maiden gasped, then tightly shut her mouth. She pursed her lips and glared at him defiantly. In her head she doubted he had the mettle to kill her, or harm her, and she knew that if anything Paolo was not safe here.
Paolo, for his part, was an actor in a far greater world. Decisively he had moved before the open door to the carriage, his head thrust challengingly ahead of him. 'Just remember,' he whispered, flashing her an evil smile with the light of a half-moon glinting in his moist eyes, 'I know how to make you scream.' And with that, he delivered a powerful kick to the rump of the stallion. Crying out in anger, the horse reared. Paolo leaped back and fell to the ground. The carriage tilted, throwing the hairless maiden against the back wall. Frightfully, she screamed. And then the stallion was bolting for the trees at a terrific speed, his great muscles thrusting beneath a tight sheet of skin, and carrying her off behind him.
At that moment a slow stream of the beasts burst from the dying wood of the stable, all crying to each other wistfully, and tore after the stallion and the jouncing carriage attached to it, the hysterical cries of the young lady fading into the night, and then swallowed by the darkness of the trees altogether. As the last of the horses disappeared the rear of the stable gave way, and with a splintering cry collapsed in upon itself. Flames suddenly leaped from the top, licking greedily at the sky, and brilliant little embers swirled lazily in the air, jerked about by the breeze, dropping listlessly to the earth.
Paolo lay on the ground staring maliciously at the growing bonfire, too grim to be thankful that he had not been trampled. He was in an entirely evil state of mind. It was dark, with just enough moonlight to see by. As he sat regarding the hungry fire, consuming, consuming, it occured to him that the blackness suited him.
He had been betrayed. Never again would he be so naive. There was a slow swelling of anger in his brain, filling a reservoir somewhere inside (he could feel it) that, when the time came, would feed him sinewy chunks of rage. The calmness was alive; it buzzed inside, seething, and he knew also that it was drawing off the rage. It filled him with certainty. The fire reflected ghoulishly in his pupils, and the knowledge thrilled him. Unblinking, he swallowed up the image of conflagration. So it was no wonder that thoughts of destruction were so present in his mind, vicious thoughts, black thoughts, such as he had not felt since the day Father Nicolo struck him.
It was then that he saw the stablemaster limp from the flickering mouth of the stable doors. The old man's steps were slow and ragged, for he was exhausted. The smoke had saturated his lungs. More of the structure broke away behind him, and the wood - as he mumbled feistily to himself - shrieked ferociously in protest. And the flames just leaped higher. But it was also obvious to Paolo that the man was having difficulty seeing. He wandered uncertainly for a few moments, trying to peer through the darkness, probably searching for the great stallion and the young lady of the manor who would be detestably furious with him, and also her attacker. When he could not find them he was overcome with despair, for he feared for the safety of the young lady. Even if she was a spoiled twit she was his master's daughter, and he knew that no person should suffer to be raped. By chance in his wandering he came not ten feet from the young man. Perhaps if he hadn't been rubbing his eyes so much the stablemaster would have seen him, or if his nose had not been clogged with the pungent residue of smoke the lad might have been smelled. But he did not, so when Paolo stood up and looked into his eyes the stablemaster took a quick step back and gasped. In the blackness it had seemed to him as if a demon had sprung from the earth, the sweltering fires of hell echoing in its tumultuous eyes.
'You are a brave man.' Paolo's voice was low, husky. The obstinance in his eyes was dull and captivating.
The stablemaster shook his head and resumed himself. 'Perhaps not so brave, lad, as you would have me.' The stablemaster was more lordly in appearance than Paolo had first guessed, and his beard was long. He smelled like burnt hair. There was a certain slowness to the way he blinked, like an owl, that made Paolo anxious. 'The lord's wench will sup on my innards.'
Paolo frowned. 'That man is married?'
One of the stablemaster's eyebrows lifted. The eye beneathe seemed about ready to fall out. 'I meant his daughter. No, the man isn't married.'
'Maria is not legitimate?' At once a low, terrible joy touched Paolo's intestines.
The stablemaster smiled wryly. 'Her mother was quite mad.'
'And a fine tramp, I'll wager,' Paolo said firmly, touching his head. 'With no less than twenty children, and a different father for each.'
The stablemaster smiled again. 'As I understand it, she was married to a blacksmith.'
Paolo stopped himself, more greatly disappointed than he had previously felt joy, and then suddenly the eyes were narrowing. He took a vigorous step toward the stablemaster, who, wincing on his injured limb, responded with an even greater stride in the same direction. 'What good man,' he coherced, virtually hissing, 'keeps a wife who beds with strange men while he's at work earning the food that lights her loins?'
The stablemaster stubbornly held the two lusciously sly eyes set in Paolo's dark face, and, creaking, the old man straightened himself. He allowed to pass an irritated moment before he spoke again. 'I am the stablemaster of a manor of at least one hundred servants, boy. We see and hear much.'
A sneer coursed through Paolo's lips. 'Rumor. Petty jealousy. I was something of a noble where I come from, too.'
The stablemaster laughed. 'A noble? You? I should think that you're nothing more than a runaway too stubborn or ashamed to learn his father's trade.'
Paolo blinked.
The stablemaster leaned forward a tad, and when he spoke next he jabbed a bony finger at the young lad's chest. 'But I hardly see that it matters. If you are in fact the boy all the cooks and the gardeners are talking about, I'd say you've already got the best of her. And if I gather things right, a bit more than you were asking for, too. Wasn't a very nice thing you did.'
'I didn't mean it like that,' Paolo began, but the stablemaster, shaking his head, cut him off.
'You boys never do, running around with the bottle to your lips and your penises to the wind, and don't shake you're head because I know; I was one once, too, even if it was so long ago I can't hardly remember the year. You don't realize how foolishly you're acting until it's over, and the only thing you have to remember it by is shame and perhaps some funny lumps where there weren't any before.'
'But I like doing it.' Paolo smiled sheepishly into the firelight. But the stablemaster thought he was being insistently childish.
'Of course you do!' the old man growled, and cuffed him lightly on the ear. Paolo winced and took a step back, a bit surprised perhaps, but also a bit awed. 'You're not listening to me! There's nothing you can do about it but cut it off, or your head, but that's never going to happen so you go and do stupid things like screwing the daugher of a rich and jealous man - under his own roof, no less - who has five score soldiers in his service and a good command of the countryside for miles in all directions.' Standing up straighter, he crossed his arms over his chest. 'What do you think about that, boy?'
'I think -'
The stablemaster reached out and cuffed him again. 'It doesn't matter, because whatever it was you were thinking it with your penis! So listen to me. Keep your dick in your pants. Don't let it out, no matter how hard it gets. Unless, of course,' he added, allowing a small smile to enter onto his lips, 'you're positively sure you won't get caught with your rear in the mud.'
Paolo had nothing to say. Not only was he angry now, but he was ashamed, too, and he wasn't even certain why. It was not a pleasant combination.
The stablemaster was laughing again. 'Don't look so glum, lad,' he said, touching him lightly on the shoulder. 'We were all young once. Most of us miss it.' The old man moved to take a step forward, as if to comfort Paolo through this cascade of emotion, but his injured foot protested bitterly. He stumbled, and would have fallen had Paolo not caught him. 'Dearest thanks, lad,' he grumbled, struggling to right himself against Paolo's chest.
'Are you going to be alright?'
'Could you help me home? I have to fetch my wife. I expect things around here to have gone quite mad by now, and I don't want her to have to face our master alone. But it's yourself you should be worried about. How are you going to get out of here?'
Paolo shrugged. 'I'll walk.'
The stablemaster shook his head. 'Think, lad. The master's soldiers will be everywhere watching for you.' Frowning, Paolo pursed his lips. 'Did you think you could just march past the guards, nod your head, and pass unmolested into the countryside?'
Paolo opened his mouth, but there was nothing to say. Again he shrugged. 'Do you know of another way out?'
'Of course I do. Now help me home, and my wife will show you where it is.'
It was dark in the woods, darker even than the night. But the trail the stablemaster chose for them was wide, and their vision not so muddled that Paolo was unable to discern the clear spaces between the low trees. They traveled slowly. The stablemaster wheezed uncomfortably, the rattling in his lungs announcing the arrival of every step. But as soon as they had slipped amid the airy bows Paolo found himself once again thinking with bitterness upon the young maiden, and was not as attentive to the old man's discomfort as perhaps he ought to have been. Images of blackness escaped to him once more. So it was no wonder his body felt disconsolingly rigid against the old man's cheek. They had struggled for some time against the trail steeped in darkness before the stablemaster lifted his head from its perch of stone and ventured to speak.
'Did you rape her?'
'What?' Paolo had been shaken from his tumultuous thoughts. He had only partly heard the words, but as soon as he addressed them he could remember what they had been. 'God, no.' He licked his lips feverishly. 'Although I wish I might have.'
'Now, lad, no need to be so bitter. You got what you deserved. Haven't you had any experience with women?'
'Of course I've had experience with women. I was the fancy of several girls back at the village, if I remember correctly. There was little Angelica, Maria -'
'Fine, fine. Of course, I was meaning romantic encounters, like the ones forbidden outside of marriage by the Church. And some that are forbidden within marriage as well.' Paolo uncomfortably turned away his head and swallowed. The stablemaster smiled. 'I thought not. Until the master's wench, eh? Of course. The first is always the hardest, at least when she's a shrew like the one you picked. Some people -'
'Please, old man,' Paolo said then, holding up a forbidding hand and refusing to meet his eyes, 'let us speak no more of that whore. I wish to put her behind me.'
'If there's any "ahead of you" to be had. She really pricked your carrot, didn't she?'
'Please!'
'She kicked you out of the carriage, eh? I saw that. What were you fighting about?'
'She didn't kick me out. I fell out.'
'No. She quite clearly threw you out. I saw it, lad!'
'You couldn't see a wart growing on the inside of an eyelid.'
'You fell, boy, and nearly kept yourself from pouting.' The stablemaster waited for a retort, but Paolo kept obstinately silent. Now his rage had been lighted. He felt it begining to spread inside, seeping, burning him, and was lecherously thrilled by the immensity of it. He felt powerful, and he felt his power only growing.
'I met my wife at market in the city,' said the stablemaster finally. He realized that perhaps he had pushed Paolo too far, and he hated the silence more than the pain in his ankle. The trees were perfectly silent, and there was no other noise except for the wind rustling the fresh leaves of the trees, as if whispering to each other, and the uneven footfalls of the two men. His voice hung in the air like cobwebs, but Paolo cut through it easily, undaunted. 'The lord of the manor's father was master then. It was his custom to send me twice a week with the head cook to the city for provisions. We had a lame, old pony to pull a small cart, but most of the stuff we required was spices and the like, so it was never too much. At market, the head cook would leave me to barter with the merchants. I think it was something he enjoyed. And there I was, a mere boy engaged wholeheartedly in that dim approach to manhood, left alone on a Saturday in the milling square of the miraculous city to watch over the pony and anything we might have bought. The city was a foreign place, and so big. Everyone was in a hurry, and gruff. There were far more voices shouting over each other than I was accustomed to. I rather liked it, I must say, but only because it was different.
'There was an actor I fancied to watch in my time. Never did I see his round face except when it was pasted over with white makeup. He used to shadow his eyes and mouth black, and his hair was kept up in a great, purple cap with a tail. The dreadfully long robe he wore was a swirl of different colours over a background of black, and he walked on very tall stilts. It was easy to find him, towering over all the people and smiling at them ludicrously. There was also a musician who accompanied him, a greying man from Hibernia with a lyre, and the actor on stilts would dance jester-like to the music while people threw coins. Sometimes to get the attention of the passerby's he'd remove the tail from his cap and rub their heads. I remember, a bald man grew so incensed once that he knocked him to the ground.
'This particular day a fat monk dropped a gold coin at a merchant's stall near where I was standing. It rolled over the cobblestones, jouncing at every crack, but strangely enough it did not fall. As if led by an invisible hand it veered toward me and struck my foot. I can still see it happening! I snatched the thing up and looked at it. How curiously beautiful it was! My first glimpse of gold, and I fell in love instantly. I didn't know how much it was worth. My fingers worked over the smoothness of the thing. Looking about, I realized no one had seen. Or so I thought. The fat man was gone. My fingers closed over the metal, and in that instant I realized the coin was mine. But where could I spend it when I did not know what it would buy? And if someone asked where I had found it? I didn't know if little boys were thrown into dungeons for such things.
'I should have been paying better attention. She crept quietly up behind me, a stocky girl somewhat younger than myself, with long, brown hair and rather large eyes. "What are you going to do with it?" she said into my ear. I started at the nearness of her voice, and, guiltily, dropped the coin. Horrified, I knelt to the ground and reached for it, but she was quicker. "Give it back," I demanded, standing up and holding out my hand. "No," she said, and smiled. "But it's mine," I said. "No, it's not," she said. "It is. Bertram gave it to me, for safe keeping." "Well, what will you give me for it?" "Nothing," I said, "Father Relli says it's not right to steal." "Well, Father Clarence told me to take what I could get."
'She was a feisty one, she was. She said she had found the coin. So we stood in that square for several long minutes, arguing about who was going to keep it. Eventually, Bertram came back from the stalls, and when she saw him Carlotta ran away. But sure enough, the next week while I was waiting for Bertram she crept up behind me again and tapped me on the shoulder. I must admit, I was hoping to see her. When first I looked there was no one, but when I turned 'round again she was standing in front of me holding out the blasted nugget of filth like a sweetmeat or some such nonsense, and as if to tease me!
'We decided (or, to be more truthful, she decided) that it wouldn't be right if we didn't seek out the fat man and return to him that cursed yellow slab of metal. At first I was loath to part with it. I told her that if I must give the thing up then I wanted the actor to have it. But she said in a womanly firm tone of voice, to which any wise man will bow, that it was not my right to give it to anyone but the man whose pocket it missed. When I realized that if we didn't find him she would keep it, I reluctantly agreed. Of course, I didn't think I'd recognize him, and even if I did I didn't have to say anything. There would be plenty of chances to snatch it from her fingers. And that's what I thought, that after some time an opportunity would present itself to steal it back, and then I would be done with the troublesome wench. Of course, five years later we were married.'
The stablemaster realized he had nothing left to say. With astonishingly open eyes he looked up at young Paolo. He didn't know exactly why he had spoken, or told such things to a stranger, and perhaps expected something for it. But Paolo seemed not to have heard. 'What?' the young lad muttered through the lanky dimness as if awaking, a part of him aware of the fact that he was being stared at. 'Nothing,' replied the stablemaster with some hint of bitterness, and looked away.
And Paolo, distant again, dragged him stolidly along. He said nothing.
| * | * | * | * | * |
The various accounts of this story (and there are many) all agree that when the pair arrived at the stablemaster's small cottage in the woods they found one of the lord of the manor's brave men assaulting his wife, but after that they diverge into a wide forest of possibility. Most of what I have told you is common to them all, but hardly any more reliable, I think. I have listened to every version that has come down to us - or, at any rate, as many as I could. As oral traditions often are each is colourful and interesting. But their vagueness bothered me, if only because the illusion of truth was shattered by the uncertainty of the story's conclusion, and so as I often do I listened, listened to the balding men with their round, wagging bellies in their cafes in Federal Hill and have tried here to piece together my own version of the truth. Which is itself merely a vision.
You will never know what they said to me. You will only hear the story from my own lips which - I freely admit - have altered and edited where they've seen fit. Because this story is not the truth, and if any of history is to be preserved it will be by the hands of Fortune alone. I've done my research, yes, for a man must actively seek Truth, but very rarely is it plain, and each of us is left to construct it from the whole of his experience. Thus a man contributes to humanity his own vision of Truth, largely ignorant of the actual manner in which it is being promulgated. But this is no history.
Paolo might never have lived, I tell you, and even if he had he might have fled Itri and died of starvation not ten miles away, or been sold into slavery, or to a monastery. Does this concern you? It should. For you hardly even know me, and yet I presume to speak Truth to you! But Truth is found in more places than one, and does not neccessarily lie in the exactness of events as they are told. Because there is no such thing as absolute certainty beyond that which lies outside the minds of men. Which brings me to my purpose in telling this tale, which is why I call myself a prophet. I tell you: I am an agent of Truth. It is that same brand of perfect faith on which men of God once relied. Except mine is based in a concrete reality, and this is no fable. But let me stop myself here, and return to young Paolo and his grieving companion. I do not mean to lecture you.
| * | * | * | * | * |
The night came at them in misty chunks of limbo. Paolo walked soberly, his heavy feet sinking into the soft earth, each weary step pulled from his body as if it would be his last. Absently he watched them, and listened to the sucking sound each time he yanked them free. There was nothing to see ahead of them, either - nothing but a short swath of the road sticking obstinately into the fog and being swallowed, and the dull, rusty darkness that centered on the brass lantern he held before him like a grail. Next to him plodded the great white stallion that had been the favorite of the white haired master of Cavazzione, whose creature of enchantment had stolen his innocence. But they were all creatures of enchantment, and she had not stolen it so much as he had given it away. He knew that. On the broad, strong back of the stallion slumped the limp form of his companion, the stablemaster, the man's head bowed with grief. He wept openly and smartly. The tears mixed with the drops of dew that collected on his face, spilled into his beard and pressed it hard against his skull. The thin hair was matted with the drizzle and fell in swooping swaths every which way about his knobby head.
Once in a while Paolo would glance at the old man and his tears, and gnash his teeth worriedly. Thoughts of the young maiden who had stolen his innocence no longer haunted his mind. And, although he had no way of knowing it, after he found his next lover he would not really think of her except seldomly, late at night sometimes in those precious moments before falling asleep, and perhaps even fondly after a time. But trudging through the soupy night then he was more concerned about the wellbeing of his companion. He didn't know how much it might hurt a man to lose his other half. He imagined the loss might be intolerable.
As I understand it, the man's wife had succumbed to the wounds inflicted upon her outside the small cottage where she and her husband had lived. The stablemaster's strangled cry of rage was the first sound to engorge his throat for some time. Paolo did not mistake it. Dropping the stablemaster to the ground he charged the soldier, who was was so taken by his own violence that he was unprepared for sudden attackers, and knocked the burly man against a tree. There was a struggle for the man's weapon, and perhaps before he realized exactly what it was he was doing Paolo had stuck the man's belly with it. It was the first person Paolo had ever killed. Later, it would trouble him that he never felt even the slightest pang of guilt. But for all his bravery and luck the two men had arrived too late, and the woman was already dead before she realized she had been saved.
Of course, on this point most of the women in Knightsville disagree with their husbands. I mention it only because usually these small, greying women are content to chat quietly amongst themselves in a corner. They smile harmlessly at the men drinking their coffee, shouting at each other, until they have unanimously agreed it's time to go home. And then to see them, like scrawny parrots in a flock squawking and flippantly flapping their wings, eyes dancing swirling swaths of swagger and advancing! I quite naturally assumed it was an issue of some importance. You see, a story in Knighsville is not told by one person but many. It is a communal ordeal. The right to speak is a fickle one, passed around like a bar of gold everyone wants to touch. Each few minutes there arises disagreement between the men and then their voices roll thunderously over one another. The women smile. But always when they announce rather matter-of-factly that the lord's soldier beat the stablemaster's wife to death with the hilt of his sword, one of the ladies objects. The men are ready for her; she is bombarded with calls to keep quiet. They know what's coming, of course, but this exchange is a sort of ritual I think they all enjoy quite a lot. The rest of the women stand up now and advance upon the men, who remain seated in their chairs (it would be too much effort to stand), the whole lot of them talking over one another and jabbing fingers in each other's faces, somehow aware of what everyone else is saying, so that in the middle of a sentence an old woman might suddenly turn from her husband to her friend's and harangue him while he ignores her and shakes his head and continues to defend himself with meaty Sicilian phrases to whom he had been already speaking. Inevitably one of the men gets so excited that a wagging arm will knock something to the floor - a cup or a fork or a plate. This always ends the ritual, the men suddenly quiet and muttering darkly at the fool who had given them up. And the woman who will speak on behalf of the wives picks the object up from the floor and begins her speech by admonishing her husband for his clumsiness.
She will then submit before quietly cold eyes that Paolo saved the stablemaster's wife before the soldier could strike her even once. She will further deny that Paolo - who had not much experience overcoming professional soldiers twice his age - had such an easy time wrestling with him, who, she will point out, had been described as much stronger and more massive than the wiry lad. Also, she will continue, there was no one else to help him: it was just himself and the brawny man in leather armour, struggling for a sword. It is not difficult to tell what the outcome would have been, proposes the lady with a fierce look in her eye, were it not for the stablemaster's wife. At which point the men drown her out with throaty boo's, and lift their upper lips to her. She never gets to finish her tale, of course, and when after several times having witnessed this ritual I made the mistake of asking one of the ladies what they thought had happened, the men putting on their coats groaned and collapsed dramatically back into their chairs, glancing darkly this way and that, and the group of ladies like locusts brandishing small, leather pocketbooks eagerly descended upon me.
What they told me then was this:
That Paolo and the soldier struggled for a short time beneathe the trees while the elderly stablemaster, one of his ankles horribly swollen and painful, lay helpless on the ground, trying to claw his way closer. Of course, he was looking for his wife, but she was suddenly nowhere to be found, and while Paolo's agility was slowly losing out to his opponent's strength the stablemaster cried out for her. But there was no answer, just the punctual groans and cries of the two men playing their deadly game. And they say that the commotion was so great that others were drawn to the cottage, some three or four soldiers swords drawn and laughing to each other over the spectacle of Paolo trying to defend himself against their compatriot. Like the fickle people of Rome come to see their gladiators fight they jeered and stomped and laughed, jabbed the stablemaster with the points of their swords and laughed some more.
It was then that the stablemaster, head close to the ground, heard the sounds of horses approaching. At first he thought he was imagining them, for no one else seemed to have noticed, but sure enough the sticattoed pounding that flooded the earth grew more pronounced, until some of the watching soldiers stopped their cheering and glanced uncertainly into the darkness of the woods. And then from out of the trees leaped the great white stallion, the stablemaster's wife seated queenly upon his back and whooping fiercely, followed by the rest of the horses that had escaped from the stable. It was the greatest sight, perhaps, that the stablemaster had ever seen, the horses' sleek legs kicking up dust and thunder and wreaking terror like a caul upon those who only moments before had seemed so threatening. Watching his wife gallop across the small clearing in front of their house, charging the soldiers who were fleeing now, he felt suddenly invigorated, and even tried to climb to his feet despite the flaring pain in his ankle. The man with whom Paolo struggled was so taken aback by the spectacle that he dropped his guard, and it was then (say the women) that Paolo was able to snatch the sword and run him through with it.
And they made their escape. But here, too, it was only the stablemaster and Paolo who fled Cavazzione that night. For Paolo, after the soldiers had fled and the horses had passed out of sight and sound, carried the stablemaster into the cottage for safe keeping, placed him upon his bed, and went off in search of the man's wife and perhaps three horses for swift travelling. Not far away he found the woman crumpled at the base of a tree, her head caved in, and standing over her the white stallion, who snorted derisively when Paolo came near. But Paolo quickly calmed him, and examined the old woman. She was dead, yes, probably hurled at a terrific speed from the stallion into the hard trunk of a tree. Deadly calm, he placed the woman on the beast's broad back and led him to the cottage, all the while knowing that he would have to force the stablemaster to make haste despite the man's intolerable sorrow. But he didn't. The stablemaster simply blinked at him when he was told. Paolo had wrapped the woman's body in some blankets that the stablemaster just stared at, and carried her over his shoulder while they made their escape. Outside the village they stopped to bury her, and it was then (when the blankets had slipped and he caught a glimpse of her face) that the stablemaster broke down. A heavy fog had descended upon them, and rain, and they were all the more lucky for it, lest otherwise they might have been easier to locate. Behind them and ahead of them they could hear the lord of the manor's men shouting to each other in the shrouded darkness, and the occasional neighing of horses as they roamed the countryside, confusing the search parties.
Do I believe this? I don't know, and the question is not of great importance; I told you, this is no history.
'What ever happened to the gold coin?' Paolo finally asked the stablemaster as the soupy sky above them settled into a comfortable purple. The fog was still thick.
The stablemaster had been quiet for some time. All his tears were gone, and he was numb.
'Did you ever find the fat man in the marketplace?'
It didn't appear as though the stablemaster were going to answer, but after a long moment he shifted his weight on the stallion's back. 'No.' His voice was hoarse. It was barely strong enough to penetrate the fog that separated them. 'We kept it.' He smiled then, almost sarcastically. 'It was the luckiest gold coin I ever had.'
'Don't you still have it?'
The stablemaster emitted an embittered hissing sound. 'Do I still have it. What kind of stupid question is that? Of course not. It's sitting on the mantleplace in our bedroom. Some one of the lord's soldiers has it now, I suppose. Not that it matters.'
'No he doesn't.'
'What?'
'I've got it.' Paolo reached into his pocket and brought out the shiny coin. He had seen it while putting the stablemaster to his bed. He snatched it, but had been so concerned with fleeing that he had forgotten about it until just then. 'Here it is.' Smiling warmly, he reached up and offered the coin to the stablemaster.
The sky above them was lightening a bit more now. The stablemaster's face echoed hints of deep blue as his weathered hands took the coin. Paolo saw the look in his eyes and turned to the ground, proud of himself that he could have offered the stablemaster some peace of mind. So when the stablemaster hissed at him he was more than surprised, and looked up defensively. 'Little fool!' spat the stablemaster from his high place on the stallion's back. 'Why must you play games with me?' He glared forcefully down at the young lad, snarling, and for an instant Paolo was reminded of Father Nicolo. 'Goddman coin's brought me nothing but suffering!' And with that, he tossed the thing at Paolo. He missed, and the coin trailed deep into the fog and out of sight. The ground was so soaked neither of them heard it land. 'Next time keep your hands to yourself!' he shouted defiantly after it. And then the tears came again.
Paolo did not know what to say.
This site and all its contents are the result of the tumultuous workings of the mind of one Adam Wasserman.