by Stacy Gregg
“Even if it is true,” Marco told me, “this is war, and Carlo knew the risks. You are lucky that they did not kill you too, Loretta. You must stop blaming yourself. Carlo would have wanted you to be happy.”
“But that’s just the thing!” I cried. “He didn’t want me to be happy! He said I shouldn’t marry you! That was what we fought about that night, and now he is gone and I will never have the chance to say I am sorry!”
Marco seized upon my words. “Why would you be sorry? Are you saying that you no longer want to marry me?”
I could not meet his eyes. “Carlo said it would never work for a Wolf to marry a Porcupine.”’
“But we are not wolves and porcupines!” Marco shook his head in exasperation. “We are people, Loretta. You love me, don’t you?”
“I do,” I said.
“Then nothing else should matter,” Marco said.
I thought about this. “I cannot tell Mama and Papa, not yet,” I said. “They are still grieving over Carlo. I must give them time. Please, Marco?”
Marco sighed. “All right. We will wait.”
In truth it was not fear of my parents’ disapproval or the contrada that held me back from marrying Marco. It was the belief that I held deep inside myself that Carlo’s death had been my fault and I did not deserve to be happy.
When the war ended a few months later there were huge celebrations in the piazza, but I could not join in. I was glad that Hitler and the Nazis had been defeated, but none of it would bring my brother back.
The news of the Palio of Peace caused much excitement after five years with no terra in the piazza. The whole city was wild with excitement and everywhere you looked there were banners flying and people chanting and marching as the preparations for the race got underway.
When the night trials were held, Marco, who had always been the best rider in his contrada, won with ease on Clara.
The other contradas had all appointed their fantinos too – all except for the Lupa.
I had not spoken to the Prior since the day that Carlo had died. He thought it best if we were not seen together, it was too dangerous for both of us if the Blackshirts had realised we were connected. We would catch each other’s eye sometimes in church, but nothing more.
It was the eve of the Palio of Peace and the Lupa still did not have a horse or a rider to compete. I had decided that I didn’t want to know who they would choose, and so I stayed well clear of the night trials, remaining at home with Stella, grooming her and spending my days and nights in her stall. That was where I was when Mama came to find me.
“The Prior and the Capitano are here,” she said. “They are in the house waiting to speak with you.”
I followed Mama inside and found both men waiting for me.
“Loretta,” the Prior said, “there has been a meeting of the council of the contrada to discuss the Palio.”
I was prepared for this. I knew they would come and say that they wanted Stella to run. After all, there was no other horse in the contrada who was faster than her.
“I am sorry,” I said. “I am loyal to my contrada but Stella is my brother’s horse and this was to be his race. I could not bear to watch anyone else ride her in the piazza.”
I could feel my heart pounding. To speak out like this and refuse to give them my horse was such defiance, but I did not care. I knew that Carlo had not wanted a stranger to ride Stella in his place.
“Loretta,” the Prior said. “You misunderstand the purpose of our visit. We are not here to ask you to give us the mare. We are here to ask if you will ride.”
That night I went into Carlo’s bedroom. It hadn’t been touched since he died, and I felt like I was intruding to be there without him. I got a chair and climbed up to the top shelf of his wardrobe and took down the box that contained his racing silks. I laid them out on the bed and then, with the reverence of a priest donning his robes, I dressed myself and looked in the mirror. I had hoped to look the part, but instead I looked ridiculous. The silk pyjamas of the fantino were meant to be worn loose, but on my slender frame they sagged and bagged as if I were a child playing dressing-up. I could not do this!
“They are a little big on you.”
It was Mama. She was standing in the doorway.
“No matter,” she said briskly, stepping over to grab at the sleeve, holding it tight and analysing the situation. “I can alter them. Let me get my pins and I will make a few adjustments. It won’t take me long …”
“Mama, no …” I tried to object but she silenced me.
“Loretta, it is a good thing that you do this, I feel it in my heart. Your brother loved you more than anyone in the world. You are the only one he would ever have wanted to ride his horse, and if he were here right now he would say to do this for him, for his memory.”
“But you don’t realise what happened in the woods that night …” I began.
Mama enveloped me in her arms and hugged me tight. “Loretta. We cannot change what happened that night. But you can still do justice to the memory of your brother. Ride Stella in the Palio. Bring home victory for your contrada and make Carlo proud.”
I had agreed to race, but it was too late for me to ride the night trials. The race itself would be the very first time that Stella entered the piazza.
I would have liked to have prepared her better, but how do you prepare any horse for the spectacle that is the Palio?
On the morning of the race, thousands upon thousands of people were crushed together behind the barriers in the centre of the piazza. In the grandstands people were pressed into every nook and cranny. They hung off the balconies and clambered up awnings. Their cries of jubilation often turned into shouts of anger and fights kept breaking out as the contradas shoved up against one another, jostling for position around the square.
I gripped Stella’s reins, using all my strength to hold her as she fretted and stamped at the sight of it all. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had reared or refused to move when confronted with such a sight, but it was a mark of the mare’s trust in me that she trembled a little as I asked her to walk into the piazza, but did not shy away.
“It’s going to be OK,” I told her. “I will be with you all the way.”
As we walked out onto the track, the other fantinos did not meet my eye. The Palio, as you know Piccolina, is not a typical horse race. It is important to try and have allies, because you will undoubtedly have enemies who will gang up against you and block you or barge you off-course. Unfortunately for me, I was riding for the Lupa, and our contrada did not make friends easily. All the same, I knew that I had one other fantino that I could count on – and that was Marco.
“When we are on the racetrack I will be riding to win for the Istrice. It is my noble duty to do my best. But if a chance comes to protect you from harm, or to help you, I will take it.”
These were Marco’s words to me and my pact to him had been the same. Other fantinos might be willing to sacrifice the race if it meant stopping their enemy from winning, but for me and Marco, there was no honour in this. He would be trying to win, just like me, and I expected nothing less.
The noise of the crowd was deafening. I could hear the battle cries of the contradas, chanting for their riders.
I … I … I … ISTRICE!
Lu … Lu … Lu … LUPA!
I looked out at the sea of people and saw the colours of the Contrada of the Wolf, flying on banners around the square. My brother had been here before me, in a moment just like this. He had sat astride Serafina and looked up at the crowds and known that the weight of the whole contrada lay on his young shoulders. Now, it was my turn. Could I be as good as Carlo and prove myself worthy?
At the start rope, Marco and I were forced to split up. He had drawn a position in the middle of the field and already I could see the other fantinos forcing him back, kicking and elbowing him off his line. The Lupa had drawn better. I was on the inside of the track and as I lined up at the rope, Stella gave a snort of anticipation. I hadn’t
been able to ride my mare in the piazza, but I had trained her for this moment for hour upon hour at home, with Marco helping me on the ground holding the rope as we taught Stella to leap forward at the very moment it fell.
“Just like at home,” I whispered to Stella. “Ready, wait for it …”
When the rope was suddenly dropped in front of us, Stella leapt like a gazelle. She responded just as I had schooled her to do, moving into a gallop at such speed that within just a few strides she was right at the front, immediately taking the lead.
Marco had started well too, and he was right up at the front of the field. As we came into the first turn I could hear the roar of the crowds all around me, cheering me on. Scavezzecolla! Scavezzecolla!
The first corner is the worst on the course, a hairpin bend, and as we took it I felt Stella wobble a little and we brushed against another rider coming through on the outside of me. I was such an innocent that I actually turned around and apologised! Little did I realise that for the next three laps of the track I would be barged and shoved, even whipped and kicked, by the other riders as they forced their way past me and tried to drive me off the track and into the padded walls of the piazza.
By the end of the first lap, I’d been overtaken by four horses and pushed back to mid-field. This was what I wanted as I did not want to hold the lead the whole way. I tucked Stella in behind the horse on the rails in fifth place and I stayed there, letting my mare match the pace, keeping up with the leaders without letting Stella tire herself. The time would come to make my move, but it was not yet. When I held Stella back, almost letting her slip to the rear of the pack for the first two laps of the track, I could hear the cries of dismay from the Lupa fans in the grandstands. They were furious with me and if my strategy did not pay off then I would pay the price for losing.
On the sidelines I knew the Capitano would be cursing my name, but I knew what I was doing. Stella had the power of a sprinter in those final lengths and I was saving her strength. As long as I could get her clear of the pack with our sights on the finish line in the last lap, then she would not fail me.
We were almost seven horses back, bunched in on the inside of the track when we reached the first bend of the last lap. The horses who’d been the early leaders were flagging, and as I rode Stella into the corner I saw a gap near the rail and I went for it.
I used only my voice to urge her on, shouting against the noise and the wind.
“Stella! This is it! Show them what you can do!”
I knew that my mare was fast, but even I did not expect the acceleration that came when she found her stride that day. We swept through the riders in front of us as if they were standing still, and by the time we reached the next bend only three horses remained out in front, lying between us and victory.
Marco was one of those ahead of us, his horse powering on, in a strong position. I saw him pass another rider to move up to second place. But I was gaining on them, and the Lupa supporters in the stands were going crazy with excitement as they watched us make our move.
Stella’s strides swallowed up the ground, edging us closer and closer to the frontrunners until I was neck and neck with Marco. In front of us was the rider in the colours of the Contrada of the Goose. His horse, a bay with four white socks, was running for all he was worth, but Marco and I were both closing the gap. By the final corner, with the finish line so close, it looked like there would be three of us in it all the way to the wire.
As we took the corner, I was so focused on the track ahead I did not see the fist coming, and I was not prepared for the jolt of the punch as it connected with my ribs.
The Goose fantino had struck me! Not by mistake. He had done it intentionally, a gut-punch that was aimed to knock me clear off my horse. I slipped, sliding sickeningly on Stella’s back, and at that moment I felt my clever, clever mare swerve in unison to keep her weight underneath me. Somehow I managed to right myself and get back into stride. I was still onboard. To the left of me there was an angry cry from Marco. He’d seen the Goose hit me and he was so furious he barged him! The Goose was catapulted from his mount’s back and crashed headlong into the feather mattress of the wall!
“Go, Loretta!” Marco shouted to me. “It’s just you and me! There is no one else now!”
We were both riding hard, pumping arms and legs for all we were worth, our horses giving their all as we approached the finish.
As we came to the line, I did not dare to even cast a glance at Marco. The race was too close and even the tilt of my head might have been enough to throw us off and hold us back in the vital rush to the line. All I could do was ride on and exhort Stella to go as fast as she could, and hope that my faith in my horse was proved right.
When we flew across the finish line the cries of the contradas were deafening in my ears, but I still did not know if they were shouts of joy or anguish, until the crowds had raced out onto the track and they were swarming around Stella and hugging her and I had been ripped off her back and I was thrown about like a plaything, over the heads and shoulders of the people as they cried out my name. Scavezzecolla! Brava, Scavezzecolla!
I had won.
I know I should have been delighted, but at that moment, swamped in the heaving mass of humanity, my only emotion was raw fear. The crowd fell upon us, threatening to crush us in their frenzy and my poor, brave black mare, exhausted by the race, found herself surrounded by a mob clawing at her and shouting in her face. I could see the terror in her eyes as they rolled back in her head, making the whites clearly visible.
“Stella!” I was screaming out, hoping that she might hear my familiar voice above the roar of the crowd. My horse raised her head in my direction and cried back to me, a clarion call, a high-pitched whinny that rocked through the piazza.
“Let her go!” I was shouting at the crowds. “She has won for you and now you do this to her? Let her go!”
In all this chaos I had lost Marco. And then across the piazza I saw him being dragged from his horse. Not in order to crest the wave of victory as I had been doing, but to be thrown brutally to the ground. In the Palio it is considered the greatest shame of all to come second and the men of the Porcupine contrada showed no mercy. They gathered around Marco’s prone form and rained blows upon him. They kicked him and punched him and swore at him.
I screamed at them to stop, but they were like animals. No one would help him. My own contrada considered my sobs an embarrassment. Why should I care about the suffering of a Porcupine? They were our bitter rivals and Marco’s beating was a symbol of my victory.
And so I could do nothing as the boy that I loved was beaten half to death by his own people, in the same piazza where they hanged my brother.
After the horrors of war, when so many had died in the fight for freedom, to see our celebration of peace degenerate into pointless brutality over something as stupid as a horse race, I was sickened and heartbroken beyond belief.
So many times I had tried to be true to my contrada, despite their ridiculous rules. For the sake of the Lupa I had kept my friendship and then later my love for Marco a secret. I had hidden my feelings because he was Porcupine and I was Wolf. Now I realised that the secrets and lies had to end. The truth would set me free.
That night, I sat Mama and Papa down at the table.
“I have something to tell you both,” I said.
“Marco and I are in love. We are going to marry.”
Mama began to sob. She could not look at me. She put her hands over her ears like a small child and shook her head.
“I cannot listen to this!” she shouted. “To hear that my own daughter has been allowing herself to become entangled with some filthy Istrice!”
“But I love him!” I choked back my own tears, appealing to Papa. “Please, all I want is your blessing to be with him.”
Papa looked very stern. “This boy has already brought shame to his own contrada today. He is worthless and he will ruin you, Loretta. No Lupa boy will want to marry you if h
e knows you have been romantically involved with an Istrice! You must break it off with him immediately and we will never speak of it again.”
“And what if I refuse?” I asked defiantly.
“Then,” Mama spoke up, “you will no longer be our daughter.”
There are moments in our lives that change who we are forever, and no matter how hard we try, we cannot return to the way things were before. I had confronted my parents and now I knew the truth. If I stayed here, I would never know happiness or peace.
“We have to leave,” I told Marco that night. “We cannot be together if we stay here.”
Marco’s beating had left him with broken ribs. I had bandaged them, and tended to the bruises on his torso and arms, and the cuts and lacerations on his cheek. The kicks and punches were not random. They had taken it in turns, Marco explained. It was all very systematic. Each man in the Istrice contrada would step forward to take his best shot, a kick or a punch. They lined up for their go while the others cheered and bellowed. Traitor they called him as he lay whimpering on the ground. They said he was a dirty cheat who had thrown the race on purpose by pulling his horse up and letting me win.
It wasn’t true, of course. Marco had lost the race, as jockeys do, simply because his horse was not as fast as mine. All the same, they beat him to a pulp.
Marco was so battered and bruised, he did not look like himself! One of his eyes had turned black and completely closed over. His lips were so swollen he could barely drink. I gave him a sip of water, and propped him up on the pillows that I had brought to the stables.
“Loretta, you are over-reacting,” Marco said.
“Have you looked in a mirror?” I asked him in astonishment.
“It was nothing personal,” Marco winced. It clearly hurt him to speak. “This is the tradition. I lost the race, I let down my contrada …”
“Marco.” I shook my head. “They have done this to you! You raced your heart out for them and they repaid you like this! And what about my parents? They have told me that they will never allow us to be together. What choice do we have?”