by Gian Bordin
They nodded, all still a bit worried.
"Ah, I almost forgot. The Contessa has requested that we perform tomorrow. Lord d’Appiano and her entire retinue and I guess many other nobles will be there to watch us."
"Oh, I’ll die," whispered Veronica, while Jacomo exclaimed: "How exciting! I’ll have to think of some special lazzi."
"What you do is just fine," replied Alda. "It’s better to stick to what you know. Experiment another time, when the audience is less important."
"Yes, Jacomo. Alda is right," added Chiara.
He looked disappointed, but nodded.
* * *
They set up their stage in front of Palazzo Del Monte. Piazza Grande was overflowing with people all the way up the steps to the cathedral. Chiara searched through the crowded windows of the palace. Several nobles were on the steps of its entrance. She spotted the countess in the middle window of the first storey, the girl Heloïse at her left, Lord d’Appiano at her right. Chiara pointed the window out to Veronica.
"When you make your collection, go first to that window and smile your finest smile. Do it for me."
The show started with the usual arlecchino lazzi the crowd expected of any traveling group — always the same, but always different. They helped getting the people into the right mood. This time, he ran into the circle, stumbled, picked himself up by his pants, removed the imaginary obstacle, licking it — Jacomo had the longest tongue Chiara had ever seen — used both hands to lift his right foot stuck to the ground and rolled backward when he got it loose. When the crowd laughed, he looked around startled which earned him more laughter. Chiara cartwheeled in from the other side and let herself be chased by his amorous overtures, and she suspected that he was quite serious about some. He suddenly got distracted by a fly buzzing around him, while Chiara helped Pepe set up the wooden board. The latter practiced a few throws on the empty board, making a perfect cross. Then he took Chiara by the arm and pulled her to the board. Alda started drumming. The arlecchino abandoned his obstacle chase of the fly and dragged Chiara away with silent pleas not to do her act. He went down on his knees, reaching up with pleading hands, toppled forward on his face and found another distraction on the ground. Pepe again took Chiara back to her place and the whole scene repeated itself, until Chiara shook her head emphatically, sending arlecchino away, and he began weeping over her imaginary grave, while she dropped to her knees in pious prayer, beseeching the heavens to spare her, all done in silent pantomime.
At that point, an eerie silence took hold in the square, suddenly broken by Alda’s drumming which gradually increased to a frantic crescendo when Chiara took her place in front of the board. As abruptly as the drumming had started, it stopped, emphasizing the ensuing silence even more strongly. Pepe held up a handful of knives and turned in a circle, showing them to the spectators. His broad shoulders cut an impressive figure. He had his back to Chiara, when he rapidly turned around and almost at the same time launched his first knife. Many spectators screamed. One by one, with increasing speed, the knives embedded themselves around Chiara. After the last knife, the crowd exploded in cheers and clapping, both in recognition of Pepe’s skills and relieved that his target remained unhurt.
Chiara took a step forward, turned around, and began counting the knives stretching one finger at a time, making mistakes and having to restart several times. She ran across the stage to Pepe, while Jacomo stumbled forward, jubilant, presenting her a cheek, and then slunk back to the imaginary grave, sulking when instead she kissed Pepe on both cheeks to the renewed laughter and applause of the crowd.
Next she skipped like a young girl to the board and removed six knives. She threw three one by one to Pepe who was about ten paces away. Alda again started drumming. Facing each other, each juggled the three knives for a while and then one by one the knives started flying between them with two forming a high arc above the other four. After about a minute or two, they stopped and bowed deeply toward the windows of Palazzo Del Monte. The applause went on and on.
Veronica with her most charming smile went under the window of the countess who handed a heavy purse to Heloïse. The girl beamed, hopping in excitement, and dropped it to Veronica below. The latter bowed deeply to the renewed applause of the people.
As always, the two skits they performed were an anticlimax, although appreciated by the crowd. At the end, the whole troupe again bowed deeply to the nobles in Palazzo Del Monte.
Their total purse for the day added up to close to twenty florins, three quarters of which in gold coins. Jacomo and Veronica’s eyes almost popped from their face when they saw it.
* * *
At dawn next day, Chiara rode up to Palazzo Benincasa, on her trusted mare and a second good riding horse, she and Pepe had bought the day before. It was a crisp morning. She wore a cloak over her boy’s outfit. A leather bag with women’s clothing, a solid cloth bag with food for the trip, another containing a mixture of grains for the horses, and a quiver of six arrows were attached to her saddle, while she carried the longbow on her back. In her belt stuck several throwing knives. Her hair fell loosely to her shoulders.
A middle-aged guardsman in light steel armor was waiting near the entrance. She greeted him.
"Good morning, boy," he replied, "have you been sent by Lady Chiara?"
"Messer Mercurio, this is Lady Chiara," a voice full of mirth rang from a window above.
He looked disconcerted at Chiara, then bowed deeply and said: "Lady, please accept my humble apologies."
"Good morning, Lady Maria," cried Chiara. "I hope I am not the cause for you rising so early."
"Oh yes, you are. I wanted to wish you a good journey. You were superb yesterday. We talked about nothing else for the rest of the day."
"Thank you, my Lady." She turned to the guardsman. "Messer Mercurio, no apology is needed, but where is your second horse?"
"Second horse? I don’t need a second horse. This is a sturdy beast."
"You will need a second horse to change regularly, or else I will leave you behind before the sun has reached its apex. I want to be in Grosseto by tomorrow night."
"My Lady, it will take us at least three days and that is cutting it fine."
"I assure you, Messere, that by tomorrow night I will ride through the gates of Grosseto. I also suggest that you leave your armor and lance here so that you do not tax your horses unnecessarily."
"Leave my armor and my lance? I would feel naked without them. How can I protect you if I’m vulnerable myself?"
"You will be little protection to me if I have to leave you behind."
She heard Lady Maria’s laughter.
"I warned you, Messer Mercurio. You are not dealing with one of my court ladies. I think you better do as Lady Chiara suggests."
"Messer Mercurio, let’s get you a spare horse. The stable boy can bring your armor and lance back to your quarters. Good-bye, Lady Maria."
"God be with you, my child."
Chiara did not wait for the guard’s answer and started riding out of the piazza to the stables below.
They took to the road at a swift pace, cantering whenever the terrain permitted it without danger to the horses or tiring them unduly. At the first steep uphill grade, Chiara dismounted and led her two horses on foot.
"Lady Chiara, it is safe to ride uphill, even this steep."
"I know, Messere, but I do not want to tire the horse unnecessarily and a bit of fast walking is good for body and mind."
He dismounted, grumbling to himself. At the top of the incline, they changed mounts and cantered downhill. Whenever he began slowing down, she forged ahead, forcing him to catch up. Past noon they crossed the Asso River at the foot of Mont Elcino. Chiara suggested that they take a short meal break and let the horses graze.
"Messer Mercurio, how are we doing?" she questioned as she spread out a selection of sausages, cheeses, and dark bread.
"Do you intend to keep up this pace?"
"Yes, at least today. We may
have to take it a bit easier tomorrow if we don’t want to kill the horses."
"Then we should be in Grosseto by tomorrow," he admitted with visible reluctance. "We usually stay the night in Mont Elcino." He pointed to the hilltop town.
"Do we have to go up there? It seems a waste of time. Can’t we bypass it?"
"Unfortunately, we have to go almost to the top."
She noticed that he had dropped the previous formality and she was glad. When she slipped the longbow again over her torso before remounting, he looked at her skeptically and asked: "Do you always carry a bow and arrows?"
"Yes."
"They are not much use nowadays. They cannot penetrate modern armor or even the new type of chain mail."
"They may not be of much use in battle between soldiers, but they are ideal against bandits. You can let loose several in quick succession, not like with the crossbow where you only get one shot."
"But most bandits now also carry chain mail."
"Then you aim at unprotected parts, such as the face, the neck, the lower buttocks or thighs, or the flanks of their horses."
"But that needs top accuracy. I know few men who could do that."
"Maybe women have a steadier hand, Messer Mercurio," she laughed.
* * *
Late afternoon they reached San Angelo in Colle.
"How far is the next town, Messer Mercurio?"
"Cinigiano? … At this pace close to four hours."
"So we may have to camp in the open tonight."
"There is a somewhat shady inn just across the ford of the Orcia. That’s halfway to Cinigiano."
"Then we should make it there before it gets dark. Would you like to take another break and eat something before we continue?"
He nodded and dismounted stiffly. He’s not used to hard riding anymore, she mused. Her acrobatics had toned her muscles, and she felt no more than a slight fatigue.
Just beyond San Angelo the road followed a tortuous path hugging the forested hillside. They dismounted for another steep incline, when they were suddenly confronted by four men.
One of them shouted: "Your money and valuables and we’ll spare your lives, resist and you’re dead."
He had hardly finished the sentence when a knife struck his face and he dropped his sword with a yell. A second later the fellow next to him collapsed to the ground with a groan. The other two now turned and ran, disappearing in the trees. Mercurio had just managed to pull his sword. Chiara could not quite suppress a smile when she saw the dumbfounded expression on his face.
The first man started running away too, the knife still stuck in his face.
"My knife! Stop, or you’ll have an arrow in your back," cried Chiara, while swinging the bow over her head and inserting an arrow. The man cast a look over his shoulder and came to an sudden halt. She walked up to him. He winced as she pulled the knife out and wiped the blade on his tunic. He was bleeding profusely, but she guessed that he would survive. He pressed both hands to his wounds and looked at her fearfully.
Mercurio was bending over the other one.
"Is he dead?" asked Chiara, hoping that it would not be so.
"No, I think you only knocked him out. The hilt must have hit him… When he wakes we will take both back to San Angelo."
Chiara looked around for the second knife and found it a few steps away. She stuck both again under her belt, saying at the same time: "I’m not going to waste precious time on those two. We’ll leave them to fend for themselves. Just relieve them of their weapons."
Mercurio only shook his head and said: "As you wish."
She picked up the sword of the first man. Its cheap blade was nicked at several places. She stuck it into the ground and bent it until it snapped. Then she threw the hilt with its stump into the undergrowth. Mercurio did the same to the other blade, still shaking his head while he did.
She took the bridles of her two horses and continued up the path, leaving the two bandits behind. The summit was only a short way off and soon they were riding downhill, cantering again when the road flattened. Darkness fell as they crossed the Orcia and saw a stone enclosure. The heavy wooden gate was already shut, but when they knocked, an old man opened it after a short wait. As Mercurio had warned, the inn, a single large room with a dirt-packed floor and a lean-to kitchen, smelled and looked dirty. After unsaddling the horses in the adjoining stable, Chiara asked the innkeeper to feed them hay and the grains she had taken along, but decided to supervise the old stable hand so he would not cheat. There were only a couple of other guests, two scruffy men in their twenties or thirties, who had already bedded down on a bit of old straw in the corner nearer to the door. She noticed that both watched their every move and occasionally murmured to each other.
Before she even put down her stuff into the dark far corner, she asked the innkeeper for clean fresh straw. When the helper simply wanted to spread it out, she offered him a denaro to remove the old straw first and sweep the floor. Anything to prevent being bitten by fleas.
Mercurio was rather taciturn while they ate the greasy meat soup the innkeeper offered them for dinner. Only when she filled his cup a second time with the unexpectedly good red wine did he look up and asked: "Lady Chiara, are you always that merciless?"
"I don’t understand."
"What I saw today — merciless with others, not to speak of merciless with yourself."
"I never ask of others anything that I can’t do myself or wouldn’t trust that I could do. Does that answer your question?"
"Yes and no. Lady Chiara, would you find me insolent if I asked you how old you are?"
"No. I’m eighteen, and Messer Mercurio, please drop the lady. I hardly behave like one. It would please me if you called me simply Chiara."
His face showed surprise and he nodded. "I must say, I have never met anyone like you. You violate every single preconception I have about women of noble birth. To be frank, I think you behave more like a man."
Chiara smiled. "Maybe I should have been born a boy. But, Messer Mercurio, this is a man’s world and to have my freedom, to be in control of my life, I may often have to think and behave like a man."
He nodded again. "I served under your father when I started out as a young soldier. He was a strict man but fair, demanding of himself and of others. He never tolerated slack performance. I guess he brought up his children the same way."
Chiara laughed. "You served under my father? So you may see him again when we are in Grosseto. But to answer you, he spoiled me rotten. Four years ago I was an innocent girl like young Heloïse. Even two years ago I thought and behaved like a young noble maiden. It took but one year of harsh reality to change all that."
He remained quiet for a while.
"Lady Maria warned me that you were different from other young women, although I could not think what this could mean other than that you might be headstrong. But if she really knew how different you are, why did she ask me to accompany you? It isn’t easy for me to admit that I failed to protect you from the robbers. I still don’t fully grasp how you did it. It was over before I could even draw my sword."
"I’m glad to have your company. I enjoy it, and we both know why Lady Maria sent you along. It was for her own peace of mind, and that’s fine with me. As to what happened this afternoon, your very presence helped. I guess my training as an acrobat has taught me to react instantly, and my father always said, surprise is nine tenth of the victory."
"There has never been a truer statement than that."
Chiara rose. "I don’t know about you, Messer Mercurio, but I’m tired and will take the rest I deserve."
He nodded. "Chiara, I hate to admit this, but you showed me today that I’m no longer a young man. I’m not tired. I’m totally beat and stiff all over."
"I like you, Messer Mercurio," she responded with a chuckle. "But I can assure you that you will lose the stiffness tomorrow when we ride again, and it is hardly to your discredit if you admit that you are tired."
"Yo
ung lady, do you know that when Lord d’Appiano learns that it took us barely two days for a trip that normally takes four, he will insist that we always do that for him from now on?"
Chuckling, she patted his shoulder. "Sleep well, Messer Mercurio."
She spread out one of the horse blanket on the straw near the wall and lay down, using a bundle of some of her belongings as a head cushion. The air was stuffy and warm, even close to the floor, too warm for a cover. After draining the last of the wine, Mercurio joined her, leaving a polite distance between them. She could tell that he fell asleep almost instantly, his low, but persistent snoring keeping her awake, before tiredness finally conquered her.
An hour or two later she woke, refusing to open her eyes, her body protesting, demanding more sleep. Mercurio was still snoring softly. She became aware of the smell of fresh air. The door to the outside is open… Why? she wondered, and then sensed somebody close by. She opened her eyes a slit. In the faint glow from the ambers of the fire, she saw a man kneeling next to her head. Both his hands were carefully feeling the inside of her bundle. Slowly, her right moved to the knife in her belt. Just as he withdrew her money bag, she pulled the blade out in a flash and in the same movement planted it almost to its hilt in his thigh. He howled, rising, dropping the bag, and staggered back, clutching his thigh. She too jumped up, a knife in each hand.
She saw movement at the door and heard the shout: "Porca miseria, via!"
The wounded man ran limping to the door, while Mercurio pulled his sword from its sheath, and then ran after him. Before following outside, the soldier quickly checked that nobody was set to ambush him. He had barely stepped through the door, when she heard the clatter of hooves on the gravel of the courtyard.