La Brigantessa

by Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli

  He deposits his packsack on the bed nearest the window and opening the shutters, looks out onto a tangled garden. A stretch of prickly pear bushes thrives among the wild macchia vegetation beyond. The setting sun is leaning into the wooded flanks of the distant Aspromonte range, casting its bronze glow along and down its granite ridges. Alfonso turns from the window, leaving the shutters open to let in a breeze. As the door opens and Valerio enters, having tended to Spirito and Borbone before leading them to the locanda’s stable, the noises emanating from the tavern cut into the silence, and his senses are suddenly aroused by smells of meat frying.

  He motions to Valerio to set down his packsack on the bed closest to the door and to accompany him to the tavern. He is surprised when the boy’s eyes widen and his cheeks flush deeply. His mouth opens and he sputters for a moment, until he is finally able to voice the words. “I’m s-sorry, Signor Alfonso. I don’t have…I mean, I have brought some cheese and bread….”

  Alfonso holds up a hand. “Now, now, young man, surely you must be tired of cheese and bread. Come, it’s on me. You’ve done quite an adequate job leading us through this wretched countryside. A hearty meal is the least I can offer you to show my gratitude that I’m still alive and not in a heap at the bottom of a ravine, or worst still, impaled by a wild boar.” He chuckles at the disbelief stamped on Valerio’s face. “Not used to this kind of treatment, are you? Andiamo! If the food tastes as good as it smells, I’ll buy us both a second serving!” He slaps Valerio on the back and ushers him out the door and down the hall until they come to a narrow stairway leading down to the tavern on the main floor.

  The smells have intensified, and the satisfied looks of the patrons eating from steaming plates heaped with dark meat and a chunky sauce pleases Alfonso, who chooses a corner table. He pushes a still hesitant Valerio over to a chair and then sits down and loosens his vest. A woman with tired eyes and a gaunt face approaches their table, and he immediately orders a bottle of wine and two plates of the stew the others are having. She nods, and turns quickly away, but not before he notices how her eyes sweep over the fine cloth of his tailored jacket and trousers, and the gleaming details of his boots.

  He watches her as she leaves, her long-sleeved grey tunic tied at the waist by a twisted cord of some sort and draped over a linen skirt that reaches to her boots. A few moments later, she re-enters with a covered tureen and two plates, and is followed by a boy of roughly fourteen, who is holding a jug and two terracotta goblets. The boy murmurs something to Alfonso, his eyes lowered deferentially, but Alfonso fails to understand the dialect. He sees Valerio nodding, though, and shrugs, his eyes now shifting to the woman. He watches as she sets down the tureen without a word, lifts the lid, and ladles a generous portion of the stew onto a plate, sets it before Alfonso, then puts a smaller portion on Valerio’s plate.

  “Fill it,” Alfonso snaps, unable to conceal his irritation. “He’s a young man, not a child. And bring us some bread.” She casts a sideways glance at him as she is leaving, starting when he adds, “Now!” He turns to Valerio, who is perspiring, although Alfonso suspects it is more from embarrassment than from the steam rising from his plate. As the boy fills their goblets with a murky red wine that looks as dark as the meat sauce, he says, “Ask the boy what kind of meat this is.”

  “Oh, I can tell you, Signor Alfonso. It is cinghiale, fried with onions and garlic, and with a sauce of tomatoes and eggplant.”

  “Wild boar?” Alfonso chuckles. “Well, I suppose it’s better that I’m eating it instead of it eating me.” He puts a forkful of the meat into his mouth and nods appreciatively. He notices that Valerio hasn’t begun to eat; he is waiting for Alfonso to give him a signal, no doubt. He laughs. “Are you waiting for me to feed you?” He takes a drink from the goblet, grimaces, and spears another piece of meat, watching Valerio with amusement. “Mangia. This will put hair on your manhood.”

  Valerio chokes on his first mouthful, and blushes deeply as the woman, who has returned with a bread basket and has heard Alfonso’s remark, lowers her gaze and purses her thin lips. Alfonso takes a hunk of bread, slides the bottle of wine over to the woman, and growls, “Take back this bloody piss and bring me the best wine you have. The best, you hear?”

  He brings a piece of meat to his mouth, sucking the sauce from the bone. He calls out to the retreating grey skirt, “And bring us more meat!”

  BY THE TIME STEFANO RETURNS TO THE HIDEOUT after hearing Tomaso’s reciprocated bird call, it is almost midnight. He has no intention of retiring to his hut, though, until Tomaso fills him in on the events of the day. Once the brothers have tended to Stefano’s mule and have retreated to their lean-to, Stefano saunters to the gathering place. Tomaso is standing, waiting for him.

  Stefano sprawls out on a mossy bank while Tomaso sits on one of the stumps. Stefano listens avidly as Tomaso begins his account.

  Shortly after Stefano left with the brothers, Don Simone and the girl ate some bread, onions, and olives provided by Gaetano. The priest then opened his breviary and read a few passages. The girl stayed for the first passage, then excused herself and still limping slightly, made for the hut, where she spent the better part of the afternoon. The priest seemed saddened by her departure but cheered up when Tomaso stayed on to listen. Gaetano returned late in the morning, with a plump string of fowl and two rabbits. He arranged himself at the far limits of the clearing, so he could also listen to Don Simone and proceed to pluck and skin his catch without offending the priest’s sensibilities. The priest appeared delighted at the brigands’ display of faith, and even more so when the men recited a decade of the rosary with him. All three retreated to their respective resting spots while the sun was at its highest, the only movement coming from the girl, who left Stefano’s hut momentarily in the mid-afternoon for the privacy of the woods. The priest, hands still clasping his wooden rosary, retreated to his pallet and fell into a slumber that lasted into the evening.

  At dusk, Gaetano set about preparing the animals on a spit over a bed of hot coals, careful not to send plumes of smoke into the sky. When the food was ready, he signalled to Tomaso to have the priest and the girl gather around the fire for the rationing, saving a portion for Stefano and the brothers.

  After the meal, which the girl barely touched, she returned immediately to the hut, and the priest took out his beads and his breviary once again. He voiced his praise to God for the bounty he had just enjoyed, thanks to the generosity of the band members, and for the opportunity to share His word with an audience, albeit a small one. The priest engaged Tomaso and Gaetano in another decade of the rosary, and then got up and walked about as contentedly as a small child stooping to gather acorns under the forest canopy, before returning to his shelter for the night.

  Stefano nods without a word and Tomaso leaves to assume his watch further down the mountain. Stefano pulls out a cheroot and gazes alternately at the sky and his hut. He breathes in the night air and smiles with satisfaction at the outcome of today’s mission. He and the brothers accompanied their “visitor”—an engineer by the name of Rosario Talese—to the edge of the village of Canolò, where he was to spend a fortnight with the mayor. During their trek, Stefano listened to his incessant nattering with amusement, attentive to how his information might better serve him, although, from the expression on the faces of the brothers, it was clear that they would have liked to employ one of their many ways to stifle the man’s nervous chatter.

  Talese and the mayor were to discuss some engineering modifications to the main road. It posed an ever-present danger as it snaked through a perilous stretch of jagged clay hills that occasionally shifted, sending loose wedges of white stone hurtling down the sides.

  The villagers were still dealing with the after-effects of the earthquake of 1783, which had altered the landscape by swallowing half the village, and slamming mountain against mountain, building against building. Even all these years later, the Passo dei Mercan
ti leading from Canolò through the mountains into the western part of Calabria was still hazardous, having recently sent a chunk of clay hurtling into the path of a team of horses transporting the carriage of a visiting landowner from Reggio. The resulting death of one horse and the driver, and the near death of the landowner, precipitated the latter, after recovering from his multiple bruises, to recruit the best engineer from Naples to examine the stretch and prepare a plan to restore it in order to ensure the safety of The Merchant’s Pass to travellers and villagers alike.

  Stefano exhales a long wisp of smoke, sending it upward. He cocks an ear at a slight rustling, and realizes it is caused by Don Simone, shifting on his pallet at the edge of the clearing beyond the arc of pines. He breathes in the night air, enjoying the peacefulness and the sounds that always soothe him after a long day: the faint gurgle of a distant stream, the rustling of the dormouse through the bracken, and the haunting call of a distant wolf.

  He drops the cheroot stub and stamps it out with the tip of his boot before extracting a purple bag from the inside of his cape. This had to be one of his most efficient and successful missions, thanks to a most co-operative captive and an even more efficient mayor.

  Stefano had ordered Raffaele to hide Talese in one of the caves skirting the base of Canolò, while Roberto passed Stefano’s carefully written ransom request to a terrified goatherd who happened to be getting some refreshment for himself and his herd at a mountain spring, and who promised to deliver it to the mayor personally. The goatherd, abandoning his goats to nibble on a patch of hillside overgrown with broom, scurried into the village. He alerted the mayor as to the brigands’ request, and waited while the mayor, who was on the verge of appealing to the police force to investigate the cause of the engineer’s tardiness—Talese had been expected to arrive the day before—sprang into action and amassed the funds in three hours, without even attempting to barter for a lower ransom. He needed the engineer, and nothing was going to prevent him from carrying out his election promise of repairing the mountain pass. He handed the goatherd a bag holding the requested ducats, and sent him on his way, even promising him a generous stipend if he ensured the engineer’s safe arrival in Canolò.

  Stefano watched and waited atop Mastro on a bluff high above the village, able to see both the cave where Talese and Raffaele awaited, and the transaction between the goatherd and Roberto. After the goatherd disappeared, Roberto put his time to good use, distancing one of the animals from the rest of the herd, before cornering and slaughtering it. He sliced up the meat into large pieces before tossing them into a sturdy packsack, and then flung the carcass into a nearby ravine. After splashing the blood off his hands and arms at the well, he assumed his post behind a large boulder and awaited the return of the goatherd.

  By late afternoon, the goatherd reappeared, handed the bag to Roberto, who made him promise to sit by the rock while he went to retrieve the engineer. Roberto undoubtedly would have left the man trembling with fear, leaving him with no uncertainty as to his fate if he disobeyed and strayed from the spot to alert anyone who might be passing by. In fact, Roberto later revealed that he had pulled out a goat leg from his bag and waved it at the ashen-faced goatherd to emphasize his point, before dashing away. A half-hour later, Stefano watched as Talese was thrust at the goatherd, who embraced the engineer as if he were his own long-lost son, and escorted him back to Canolò, unharmed as promised by the brigand chief.

  When the men had disappeared around a bend, Roberto gave his warning bird call and set out with Raffaele to meet up with Stefano at their pre-arranged spot. Stefano immediately delved into the bag and gave the brothers their share for their work in the mission. They pulled out their wine flasks to celebrate in the glen where their mules were tethered, and after a snack of hardened cheese and prickly pears that grew in profusion along the periphery of the glen, Stefano headed back to Monte Galante, with the brothers close behind.

  Stefano slips a hand underneath his cloak to grasp the scapular of the Madonna. Ordinarily, he would have descended the mountain to leave an offering at the Shrine of the Madonna of the Poppies in Calvino, but he is anxious to get back to his hideout. He rises and after taking a glance around, he strides to his hut, pausing at the doorway to see if his entry has caused the girl to awaken.

  She does not stir from her position on the pallet. His blanket lies partially over her fully-clothed body. Dorotea’s clothes. Or rather, her dead husband’s. They are too large for Gabriella, but they do what they are now meant to do: hide her gender and help her in her role as brigantessa. It is simply not practical to roam the countryside in a dress, not only because of the endless walking and climbing up and down mountains and hillsides, especially during the night, but also because of the nature of some of the brigands they might encounter.

  Better to look like a man in these wild Aspromonte mountains. Although, he has to admit, the law tends to demonstrate more clemency with female brigands than with males. Females are more likely to end up in prison or sent to labour camps instead of being shot instantly, hung, or decapitated like many brigands. The most fortunate of the brigands are served with a sentence of life imprisonment.

  Stefano rubs the stubble on his face as he looks down upon Gabriella. It is hard to believe that at best, life imprisonment awaits her for the crime she committed. The crime of self-defence for trying to protect her honour. He walks over to his blanket and removes his boots and cloak. She is so beautiful. Innocent. His stomach twists at the thought of the man who attempted to defile her. Bastardo! He would like nothing better than to meet him face-to-face. To slam his knee into his groin, watch him crumple, watch his swine face contort with pain. Stefano looks at Gabriella’s face, peaceful in sleep, and breathes deeply. Her hair is spread out on his blanket in rippling waves. He can’t help himself from reaching out to touch it. He is only inches away when her eyes fly open, and before his hand moves any further, she has sprung one arm out from under her blanket and is pointing something at him, her hand clenching it tightly,

  Stefano arches his eyebrows at the glint of his own knife and slowly withdraws his extended hand. “I was wondering when you were going to try to use that,” he murmurs, his eyes meeting hers unwaveringly.

  ALFONSO TAKES A TENTATIVE SIP OF THE WINE, ready to give the server—the same boy who brought the first bottle—a stinging reproach, but decides that it is tolerable, and although it hardly compares to the wines he deems tolerable back home and usually avoids, Alfonso accepts that he cannot expect any better, given his whereabouts. He flings several coins onto the table, and nods to the boy, whose furrowed eyebrows have ironed out in relief. When the boy has retreated into the kitchen, Alfonso sits back, satiated from the second serving of cinghiale stew, and swirls the dusky red wine over his palate.

  He catches Valerio’s eye and winks. “Are you sure I can’t tempt you with this…” he inclines his goblet, chuckling, “nectar of the Calabrian gods?”

  Valerio shakes his head, and then flushing, nods. “No, Signor Alfonso. I mean, yes, I’m sure. Grazie, you’ve been generous enough.”

  Alfonso shrugs. “Suit yourself.” He reaches into his jacket and pulls out his pocket watch. “I’ll be finishing my wine and retiring shortly. We should be heading out before dawn if we don’t want to roast in the heat of the day. With any luck, we might be able to garnish a clue about Signorina Gabriella.” He grimaces at a dull ache that has begun to tap along one temple. “Perhaps we should start enquiring at the Monastery of the Capuchins. The abbot may have received some news from Don Simone. As you mentioned, the good priest embarks on regular retreats in these parts, and therefore, the monastery seems to be the logical place to begin.” His eyes narrow. “I understand there’s also a convent here, but as it is located centrally, I doubt Signorina Gabriella would be refuged there.”

  He sees the boy’s eyes light up. “Oh, Signor Alfonso, perhaps they are safe within the monastery walls, and we won’t ha
ve to travel further.” A shadow of wistfulness darkens his expression. “I hope we are the first to find them. Although, if they are not there, then I shall be glad that Colonel Russo and his men will be searching for them as well; I would not like to think of the trouble that could befall them in these parts, finding themselves in the company of gypsies or brigands.” Staring past Alfonso, he shudders before crossing himself.

  Alfonso senses a figure hovering nearby, and when he diverts his gaze from Valerio, he sees the woman holding a plate with wedges of cheeses and several plump black figs. His eyebrows tilt questioningly, and she haltingly explains that the dish is complimentary, from the proprietor of the tavern, in appreciation of the Signor’s patronage. Alfonso smirks; he has been informed about the prevalent system of patronage in the south, both by his brother and some of his gambling companions. Rarely is a kind gesture made without some sort of expectation in return, if not in monetary remuneration, then in some other manner. Again, he catches the woman’s eyes flitting slyly from the gleaming buttons on his jacket to his ring as she sets down the plate. He has obviously made some sort of impression with the owner, with his fine clothing and demands for the best wine. And with her.

  Alfonso nods and the woman turns away to tend to another patron, who has taken a seat near the bar. He takes a fig, peeling back the black outer layer, and breaking it open to reveal the seedy flesh inside. He brings it to his mouth, enjoying its succulence and texture, while passing the plate to Valerio. Alternating between the cheeses and the figs, they finish off the plate. Alfonso leans back with a groan. “I’m finished. No more for me.”

  Valerio nods and sighs contentedly. “Again, thank you, Signor Alfonso. I am going to head back to the room now.”

  “Go ahead, lad. I’ll be up once I’ve paid my dues.”