The Girl Who Rode the Wind

by Stacy Gregg

“Pretty old, all right.”

  We continued talking like that about nothing much. I described the villa to him, told him about the fresh bread at the markets and the sunny weather. I didn’t say anything about being chased by the Prior or about meeting Frannie. If Dad knew I was going riding on some stranger’s racehorse he would have had said no way.

  I had packed my jodhpurs when I left New York. Not really because I’d been expecting that I would get to ride, but because they were my comfy pants. Back home I wore them around the house all the time, which made Donna go on about how I needed a wardrobe makeover. Like she would know fashion, with her tiny shorts and high heels.

  I dressed in my jods now, with sneakers and a light cotton blouse. I tied a sweatshirt that said New York State around my waist because there was a chill to the air and I thought I might get cold walking to the castle.

  As it was, I never undid the sweatshirt. By the time I got to the castle gates the sun had broken the horizon and was beginning to seep over the fields, warming them with a soft tangerine glow. Through the door-within-a-door I entered the courtyard, footsteps echoing on the cobbles, and walked up the stairs. I rang the front door buzzer and waited, but no one answered. I rang again. Perhaps Frannie was already at the stables and I was too late …

  “Coming! Coming! Wait!” I heard a voice and the patter of someone scurrying barefoot across the floor, and then the door swung open and there was Violetta in her dressing gown, hair tied up in a messy topknot.

  “Lola!” She looked worried. “Is everything OK? What’s wrong?”

  “Umm.” I was confused. “I’m fine. Is Frannie down at the stables?”

  “Francesco?” Violetta rubbed her eyes, she seemed baffled by the question. “No, he is in bed, asleep.”

  “Oh.” I was taken aback. I realised now that she had been in bed too. I had woken her up.

  “Frannie told me to come early to ride the horses …”

  “But this is not early. It is the middle of the night!” Violetta exclaimed.

  “I … I’m so sorry …” I stammered. “I thought … I should go …”

  “No,” Violetta said, regaining her good humour. “Come in, please. I will wake Frannie.”

  I stood in the middle of the living room feeling wildly uncomfortable. A few moments later Violetta came back. “He is getting dressed,” she said. “He will not be long. Meanwhile, let me give you that tour I promised.”

  Violetta’s tour started the same way Frannie and I had gone yesterday, through the kitchen and dining room, but instead of going downstairs towards the stables, we stayed on the same level and headed towards the turret at the rear of the castle. I was beginning to understand the layout now. The castle was like a house with a hole in the middle. All the rooms were built around the outside of the great courtyard, with the main living space wrapping all the way around on the second floor and then four staircases at each corner of the castle, each one leading up to a turret. The turrets at the back of the castle were only small, like the sort where princesses in fairy tales are trapped waiting for their princes. But the front two turrets were larger and they contained bedrooms and bathrooms – the “family rooms” as Violetta called them.

  Violetta was quite serious when she said she was giving me a tour. She spoke about the castle like one of those professional museum guides as we went from room to room. “Built in 1302, it has featured in many paintings over the years. It was an important fortress during the Siena War in 1555…”

  I was half-listening. History didn’t interest me much when it was all about years and wars. The walls of the castle were all raw brick, some of them hung with tapestries and art. I followed Violetta, smiling and nodding politely. We had almost completed the circuit and we were walking down the long corridor that led us back to the front of the castle when I saw the painting. It was draped on either side with red velvet curtains, like those famous paintings in art galleries. The curtains were tied back with gold rope with tassels on the ends. The painting was as tall as me and twice as wide, so that when you stood in front of it you felt as if you could climb into the picture and join the couple who were standing there. I recognised them immediately, the girl on the balcony with the boy gazing up at her. His hand on his heart, her arm outstretched to him, imploring him to scale the walls to reach her.

  “You know this picture?” Violetta asked.

  I nodded. “It’s Romeo and Juliet, right?”

  She smiled. “The two star-crossed lovers of Shakespeare. But this work was painted a hundred years before he wrote his play. Look more closely and tell me what else you see.”

  What else? I stared hard at the painting. And then I saw the colours flash – the black and white harlequin print sleeves and the brilliant orange bodice of Juliet’s gown. And glowing on her milky white outstretched hand, an ornate gold ring with green emerald eyes, in the shape of a wolf’s head.

  “She’s a Lupa,” I said.

  “Quite right.” Violetta was impressed. “And look at the boy. He wears black and blue, burgundy and white. The colours of the Istrice – the Porcupine contrada.”

  She lifted up her hand to the painting as if she longed to touch it, but she held back. “The painting is called Mariotto and Gianozza. It is based on the story of a boy and a girl who are madly in love, but cannot be together because they are from different contradas. In the end, they both die of their love for each other. It is a very sad story, very similar to the one that Shakespeare would write over a century later. Shakespeare set his play in Verona, but historians say that the true birthplace of the story of Romeo and Juliet was right here in Siena.”

  I gazed at the painting. “It’s beautiful. Have your family owned it a long time?”

  “No.” Violetta shook her head. “My father bought it at an auction. He had to sell many of his best Palio horses to afford it, and I never understood quite why it meant so much to him to have it. I mean, I love it too, but for him it is more than that. Sometimes, late at night I will find him here, just staring at it, as if he is a million miles away.”

  She smiled at me. “Come on, Frannie will be dressed by now. Let’s have some breakfast.”

  Breakfast was a cappuccino and a platter of tiny hot panini, little bread rolls, with fresh jam. There was yoghurt too, with hazelnuts and a bowl of fresh raspberries to spoon on top.

  Frannie arrived from his bedroom upstairs in one of the turrets as Violetta was laying breakfast out on the table. He looked half-asleep, with his long dark hair still tousled and the buttons of his shirt done up in the wrong holes.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him. “Back home we ride the first horses at four-thirty. I thought when you said early you meant, you know, early.”

  “It’s my fault,” Frannie said, fixing the shirt buttons. “I didn’t say a time. Anyway, it’s good to get up with the sunrise for once.”

  Violetta laughed at this. “That’s not what you said when I came to wake you up!”

  Frannie groaned. “I’m not a morning person, OK?”

  “Well,” Violetta said. “It’s now almost six. The others will be here in an hour.”

  She had put one of the bread rolls and a pot of coffee on a tray. “I’d better take your grandfather his breakfast.”

  “OK.” Frannie pushed his chair back and stood up. “Lola and I will go ahead and get the horses ready.”

  “Can I be the one to groom Nico?” I couldn’t hold back any longer from asking. In bed last night I’d been unable to sleep for thinking about him. I lay there and marvelled at the fine smoothness of his coat, and the long, slender legs and the power of his haunches and muscular, arched neck. All traits of the Arabian – proof that long ago his forebears had galloped the desert sands.

  Those Arabians, chosen for their stamina and heart, had been crossbred with the leggy, elegant Italian Thoroughbred. Their bloodlines intermingled over centuries of breeding to create Nico. But it was not blood alone that made him special. Nico possessed a brilliance that belonged
to him alone. It was there when I looked into his liquid brown eyes that first time. Straight away then I knew that here was a horse who would dig deep at the crucial moment and try for you until his heart broke in two. We had only been together briefly, but already I was so sure that I was right about this horse. I knew Nico was a champion.

  “Sure,” Frannie said as he led me down the stairs to the stables. “You can take care of Nico.”

  We came out through the stairwell into the light of the stableyard and there was Nico. Frannie had moved him back to his favourite old stall right in the middle of the row and he had his head over the door waiting for us. Immediately he took up nickering like he had last time, and at the sight of me alongside Frannie I swear his eyes brightened. He gave his mane a vigorous shake and let out a full-throated whinny.

  Wow, I thought. Even more handsome than I remembered.

  “You’d better go to him before he takes matters into his own hands and opens the loose box door again,” Frannie said.

  “Where’s his halter?” I asked.

  “There’s one in the stall, but you won’t need it,” Frannie said. “He’ll stand still for you while you brush him.”

  It seemed like a shame to put a halter on a face as beautiful as Nico’s. I was mesmerised by the exquisiteness of him. The way that white star on his forehead extended into a slender blaze that trickled down the centre of his face and tapered off at the muzzle. How his ears, which were small and dainty, curved inwards in an arc so that the points of them almost touched. That must have been an Arabian thing because I’d never seen a Thoroughbred with ears like that. I loved his dished face and wide nostrils – that was something Nonna always said to look for. “A big nostril is good! They can’t breathe through their mouths like we do when we run, Lola. When they gallop the nostrils widen like trumpets to get as much air as they can.”

  Nonna didn’t just show me how to look a horse in the eye to see greatness. She also taught me practical stuff like the nostrils. She had the most critical eye in the world when it came to examining a horse’s conformation. Every time a new Thoroughbred came onto our yard she would give it the once-over and say to me, “Tell me what’s wrong with this one, Lola.”

  Sometimes I’d find an obvious flaw, like a ewe neck or parrot mouth, and then Nonna would take over and she’d show me how to hunt out every hidden weakness. Sickle hocks and upright pasterns, a splint or long cannon bones, a high wither or a roach back. With each horse I learnt to seek out the fault that might hold them back from being a winner or cause them to break down mid-race.

  Yesterday I had been blinded by the glory of Nico, but today as I let myself into his stall, I tried to put my emotions aside and be bloodless in my appraisal. I checked him thoroughly for all the signs of a horse that is built to run, looking at the broadness of his chest, the thickness of his bone, the angle of the shoulder and the way the neck was set onto it. I went through every detail like Nonna had shown me, but I couldn’t find anything wrong. In every sense this horse was perfect.

  The hooves were the last thing I checked. I picked them up one at a time to examine the soles. “Good boy, Nico,” I murmured. “Give me your hind leg now …” I bent down by his hindquarters, grasping the left leg and raising it to my knee. I was crouched over like that when I heard someone say, “You must be Lola.”

  I put Nico’s hoof down and stood up.

  The old man leaning over the stable door had the lean body of a jockey, and even with his wrinkles and grey hair he instantly reminded me of Frannie. They shared the same dark eyes and widow’s peak hairline.

  “I am Signor Fratelli. Nice to meet you.”

  He stuck his hand over the stable door for me to shake.

  “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  “Frannie says you are from America?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “New York.”

  “And why are you here?”

  “Umm.” I was taken aback. “Frannie said if I wanted, I could ride …”

  “No, no,” Signor Fratelli shook his head. “Not here at the stables. I ask why are you in Siena?”

  “Oh!” I got what he meant. “I came with my grandmother. She grew up here. We’re on holiday.”

  “And what is the name of your grandmother?” he asked.

  “Loretta Campione,” I said. “Well, that’s her married name. But when she lived here it would have been Loretta Alessi, I guess.”

  I saw a strange look pass across his face. Or was I imagining it? Anyway he didn’t say anything else about it.

  “You know how to ride, Lola?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “We have racehorses back home.”

  Signor Fratelli nodded his head at Nico.

  “You like this horse?” he asked.

  “He’s amazing,” I said.

  “He is the best horse in our stable,” Signor Fratelli said. “You have a good eye, I think.”

  Then he handed me the bridle from the hook outside the stall.

  “You will ride him today.”

  “OK,” I said. “Thank you.”

  My heart was hammering at my chest. Signor Fratelli gave another grunt to confirm that all was good and then began to shuffle off.

  “Excuse me, Signor Fratelli, sir?”

  “Yes, Lola?”

  “Where is his saddle?”

  Signor Fratelli shook his head. “No saddles, you ride bareback. He is a Palio horse, that is the way we do it here. You can do that, yes?”

  “Yes, Signor Fratelli.” I felt foolish all of a sudden, like I’d just asked for training wheels for my racing bike.

  In the stall I buckled up Nico’s bridle. I was wrong. That face looked even prettier with the dark brown leather defining it. When I led him out into the yard Signor Fratelli was there with Frannie and three others. Two boys and a girl. The girl had honey-blonde hair, I figured she was only around fifteen or sixteen but she was quite tall. The boys were shorter than her, and they seemed to be about the same age as Johnny and Vincent. They had jet-black curls and blue eyes and looked so alike I guessed they must be twins.

  “Lola,” Frannie said, “This is Antonia, Umberto and Leonardo.

  “Ciao, Lola!” Antonia said without much conviction.

  “Ciao,” Umberto deadpanned.

  Leonardo didn’t even bother with a hello. He just hung his head and acted like I wasn’t even there.

  “Hi.” I summoned up a smile. I was wondering why all of them were here and where were the fantinos?

  “Shall we go then?” Antonia asked, looking at her watch as if time was being wasted.

  “You’re riding with us?” I asked.

  Frannie laughed. “Yes. Antonia, Umberto and Leonardo are the jockeys who work our horses.”

  “You race in the Palio?”

  “I don’t.” Antonia frowned. “I just exercise the horses. Racing is not my thing. But these two …” She gestured at the twins. “They are hopefuls.”

  “We are in training,” Umberto clarified. “We ride for Signor Fratelli and for a few of the other stables in Siena.”

  “The good ones only,” Leonardo said, “with the fast horses. We like to win.”

  “Frannie says you race horses back home in America?” Antonia said this as if she clearly didn’t believe a word of it. “They let kids ride there?”

  “My dad is a trainer and I ride sometimes. Not in actual races …”

  Antonia turned her back on me mid-sentence and vaulted up lightly onto the back of her bay mare as deftly as a circus gymnast.

  “So you can ride?” she said. “Well, let’s hope you can keep up then.”

  I saw her cast a sideways glance at Umberto who smirked at this. Leonardo had vaulted up onto his horse, and now Umberto mounted too.

  “You want a leg-up?” Frannie was at my side. He cupped his hands and took my knee and thrust me up in the air and onto Nico.

  Then he vaulted up onto his horse just like the others had done.

  Antoni
a had been gabbling away to the others in Italian, but as soon as Frannie was onboard she stopped talking and took up the slack in her reins. “Everyone OK then?”

  Before I could reply she had urged her horse forward into a trot and then straight into a canter, clattering across the cobblestones of the stableyard. Leonardo gave a whoop and fell in behind her and Umberto and Frannie both kicked their horses on too. I only just had time to clutch at my own reins before Nico, terrified at being left behind, surged forward like a racehorse breaking from the gate.

  Had Antonia gone before I was ready on purpose to unseat me? She was already out through the archway of the castle wall. Here the cobblestones ended and the dirt road began, soft sandy loam almost like a racetrack. Antonia let her mare find her footing and then clucked her on into a fast gallop. I’d seen jockeys breeze their horses this fast back home at Aqueduct, but that was on the flat terrain of a racetrack. Antonia was riding downhill on a sharply twisting road that snaked back and forth in loops down the slopes of the olive grove, descending into the valley of giant oak trees below.

  I had no choice but to keep pace with her and the others, even though I felt myself slipping forward, having to grip for all I was worth with my thighs to keep my balance and stay on bareback. With each turn I felt gravity threatening to swoop Nico out from underneath me.

  I could have fallen off on the first turn for all Antonia would have known. She never once looked back to see if I was OK. She set a blistering pace galloping down along the twisting pathway into the valley. When we reached the oak grove we were riding on flat ground once more and I could stop worrying so much about staying onboard and begin to focus on the pack ahead of me. Antonia was still in the lead and the others had fallen into formation behind her, the twins riding side-by-side, followed by Frannie and then me.

  Beneath me, Nico was galloping hard, his breath coming in excited snorts. So far he had run purely of his own accord, mostly driven by the urge that horses have to remain at all costs with the herd. But I hadn’t asked him for anything yet. And now, as the path flattened out ahead of us and Antonia’s bay mare begin to flag a little, Leonardo and Umberto split apart and slowed their horses and I saw the gap open up.