by Stacy Gregg
I had been in the lead when I threw myself like a lunatic at the Assassin. If I had only ignored his futile, hateful attack on Nico then I would have made it there ahead of him. Instead, in a moment of madness trying to protect Nico, I had taken the entire Wolf contrada down with me. I had thrown myself from the winning horse with just metres of the race left to run, just a few short strides from the finish line.
The hospital of Saint Maria is an ancient stone building surrounded by green gardens. Inside, the rooms are modern, though, clean and bright, and the nurses in their crisp white uniforms are lovely the way they fuss over you and smile when you say “grazie”.
I visited Frannie there every day until they discharged him. I felt so guilty, even though he insisted it wasn’t my fault. “I’m the one who should be apologising to you. I rode straight over the top of you. It’s lucky I didn’t kill you.”
When I threw myself from Nico’s back Frannie was right behind us. His horse vaulted over me and caught a leg as he landed and Frannie was somersaulted into the path of his own mount.
“I felt this hoof in my ribs and I knew straight away it was bad,” Frannie said.
They took him off in the ambulance and by the time I reached the hospital Frannie was coming around from surgery and the doctors were telling Violetta that he would be fine. They had taken out his spleen and then stitched him up again, leaving a big scar on his left side.
“It turns out you don’t need a spleen,” Umberto said. “Who knew?”
This was the next day, when we all visited Frannie together. Antonia and Leonardo arrived with Umberto and I made room for them on the bed. All four of us squished in around Frannie, eating his hospital food, which he claimed he didn’t want, and playing cards on the tray they’d set up in front of him.
“Next time we sit around comparing scars, you will definitely win,” Antonia told Frannie, pulling a face at the oozing drains coming out of his belly. He had taken the bandage off to show us how gross it was, even though he wasn’t supposed to.
We talked about the race, of course. At the time it had been hard to take it all in, but now we sat and pieced the whole thing together, working on it like it was a giant puzzle, arguing about some parts and laughing at others, and shouting our versions over the top of each other.
“It was very frustrating to watch from the sidelines,” Antonia said. “Knowing there was nothing I could do.”
“It was just as frustrating to ride in it!” Umberto gave a wry laugh. He was still mortified to have come dead last on Benita. “I rode her as hard as I could, but she simply had nothing to give,” he told us.
I told the others how Leonardo had put himself on the line for me, but in his usual fashion he played it down.
“That is what we do for friends.” He shrugged it off.
“Yeah, well without you I would’ve been here in a hospital bed,” I said.
“At least then I would’ve had company,” Frannie had piped up.
Even now, it was hard for me to believe I had escaped the Palio without injury. When I fell from Nico, right there before the finish line, I felt the hooves sweep so close to my head they gave my hair a new parting!
I was still lying in the dirt when the crowd stormed the track and when I saw the hordes of people running towards me, I curled up again, convinced they were coming to beat me, like they’d done to Marco. I braced myself for the kicks and punches. Then I felt the hands clutching at me, and lifting me into the air.
They carried me, flinging me around in mid-air above their heads as they surged beneath me like the sea, singing and weeping and bellowing my name. Not my real name, my Palio name.
Tempesta! Tempesta! Bravest of all Seventeen! Winner of the Palio!
I didn’t understand what was going on. I had lost, hadn’t I? So why were they cheering for me and crying, tears of joy running down their faces?
“Lola!” The Prior was shouting to me from the crowd below. “Lola! You did it! You won!”
I was bewildered. It was only later when the Prior and Nonna could explain it properly to me that I understood. I had fallen before I crossed the line. But Nico – my brilliant horse – had finished the race without me. He got across the line a whole length ahead of anyone else and that is how we won the Palio.
That evening, in the great hall of the contrada, the people of the Wolf held a banquet. The Palio banner, which we had won, was now hung in its rightful place above the altar, and Nico stood beneath it as the guest of honour at the head of the table. No one thought it was at all unusual to have a horse at dinner. I sat at the victory table next to Nico and Nonna sat next to me. The Prior and the Capitano sat side-by-side chatting away like best friends. Now that the contrada had won, the Capitano seemed to be well-liked by everyone once more and no one said a word about the fact that he had tried to sell us down the river. I thought that was a little weird, but Nonna just shrugged it off. “The fantino gets the blame when we lose, but the Capitano claims all the glory when we win. That’s the way of the Palio.”
At the end of the evening everyone wanted to touch Nico, and he stood so quietly and patiently as they all laid hands on him, as if he knew he was some sort of royalty now. They thought he was enjoying the attention but I could see the tension in him. He wanted it all to be over. He was desperate to be home in the stables of the Castle of the Four Towers with the other horses for company once more.
“Can I take him tonight?” I asked the Prior as the last of the guests began to depart.
The Prior smiled at me. “Of course, Tempesta.”
The Prior followed us out into the courtyard where I had first encountered him with scissors in hand, tending his roses. “Daughter of the She-Wolf,” he said, “I have something for you to take back to America with you.”
He passed me a paper bag.
“Can I open it?”
“Please,” the Prior said.
I looked into the bag. “It’s full of dirt.”
“Yes,” the Prior said. “I dug the soil myself from the garden here. One day, Tempesta, you will have children of your own. When you are in labour, put this bag of soil beneath the hospital bed. Then your children will be born above the earth of the Contrada of the Wolf and this will make them true Wolf cubs too, just like you.”
“Thank you, Prior.”
It was absolutely the weirdest gift I have ever been given.
Nonna took my dirt home to the villa while I rode Nico back to the stables. I had figured he would be exhausted after the race and was surprised to find him full of beans, jogging like a colt as we navigated the steep cobbled streets.
When we reached the driveway of the Castle of the Four Towers and he heard the other horses calling to him, their nickers carrying on the still evening air, he began to give little bucks of excitement. His cry back to them was a shrill clarion call, as if he was announcing his triumphant return. He had left the stables as just another horse, but he was returning as a hero – the winner of the Palio.
When I led him into his stall I saw that Signor Fratelli had already mixed his feed and filled the water trough, and the spennacchiera, the pretty head ornament that Nico had worn in the race, had been hung up above his door as a memento.
When I told him goodnight, Nico thrust his muzzle into my arms and snuggled into me. I looked into his soft, deep brown eyes and I saw the light reflected back at me. You couldn’t help but see it now, he glowed inside like the fourth of July.
Everything had changed for Nico. He was still a young horse. There would be many more Palios for him. I tried not to think about this as I still couldn’t face the idea that there would ever be another rider on his back.
There would be other fantinos for him, just as there would be other horses for me. I was a jockey now. No matter what my dad might say, I was determined that my future, in some way, would be on the track. Nico would not be the only horse I would ride to victory. But he had been the first and he would always be the one I would love best.
Nico wouldn’t stop nuzzling me. He seemed to sense that I was upset, he ignored the food in his bucket, clinging to me, and it was his devotion that broke my heart. I didn’t want to cry. I hated crying. I brushed the tears roughly from my cheeks, stepped into the courtyard and with shaking hands I bolted the door on his stall and reached out to give him one last stroke on his magnificent muzzle.
“Goodbye, Nico.”
I was walking across the stableyard, unable to stop the stupid tears streaming down my face, when I heard the bolt go clunk.
I turned back to see Nico barge the door open with his chest and stroll across the cobbles towards me. He gave this nicker as if to say, “Lola. Not yet, I’m not ready.”
I laughed, and raced across the courtyard to him, burying my face in his mane. “You’ll always be my horse,” I promised him, “and I’ll be your girl. But you don’t need me now. You’re a champion, Nico. I knew it from the first moment we met. And now the world knows it too.”
The castle was cloaked in darkness on the lower levels, but there was a light still burning in the southern wing so I went upstairs. The front door to the living room was wide open.
“Hello?”
No reply. I walked around to the southern corridor.
“Signor Fratelli?”
“I am here, Lola.”
I found him standing there in front of his painting, gazing at it so intently, he didn’t even turn his head to acknowledge me.
“I put Nico back in his stall,” I said.
“Good, thank you.” Signor Fratelli spoke, but his eyes did not waver to meet mine. I didn’t know whether I should stay or go.
“I went to the hospital,” I added. “I saw Frannie.”
“I know,” Signor Fratelli said. “I saw him too. Violetta is still there fussing over him, but the boy is going to be fine.”
“I was hoping I would see you at the banquet …”
“The Contrada of the Wolf would never welcome me,” Signor Fratelli replied.
“What do you mean?” I was shocked. “Of course they would! You trained Nico and he won for them.”
“It means nothing. I am still a Porcupine in their eyes. The rivalries in Siena run deep, Lola. Nothing ever changes here.”
All this time his eyes had not swayed from the painting. It looked different at night. The texture and the brushstrokes faded in the soft glow of the lamplight, making the scene become almost real, like an old photograph.
“Violetta told me that painting cost you many of your best Palio horses,” I said.
Signor Fratelli nodded. “You have heard of Mariotto and Gianozza?”
“They’re like Romeo and Juliet?”
“Yes, they were the original star-crossed lovers. Painted a hundred years before the Englishman wrote his play.”
Two lovers, torn apart by their contradas, their love doomed from the start. Just like Signor Fratelli and Nonna. I understood now why the painting meant so much to him, and why he kept his gaze always on Gianozza. The wistful, lovestruck girl on the balcony, with her arm outstretched, imploring him to come to her.
Signor Fratelli raised his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “If only I had been brave enough to go with her all those years ago.” He paused. “I should have tried to find her. Should have told her the truth that I had discovered about Carlo. All those years that she suffered because of me …”
“No,” I said softly. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know where she was. You didn’t even know if she was still alive.”
Signor Fratelli hung his head. “Do you think she will ever truly forgive me, Lola?”
I took his hand in mine. “I think you know the answer,” I said, “but you also know I’m not the one you need to ask.”
In case you haven’t read Romeo and Juliet yet, here’s a spoiler alert. They all die and it’s a pretty depressing ending if you ask me.
My ending is better. I don’t know if you would call it happy, I guess that’s up to you.
I had arranged a meeting between Nonna and Signor Fratelli. By then Frannie had come home from the hospital and while me and him and Violetta went together to the stables to feed the horses, Signor Fratelli suggested to my nonna that they continue on into the olive grove beyond and take a tour of the gardens. From the stables we could look down and see the two of them strolling side-by-side, through the sculpted maze of hedges that led down to the orangery.
“It feels like spying,” Frannie said.
“Shhh,” I told him. “I’m trying to lip read.”
I watched as they sat down on a bench under a hazelnut tree. For a long time they talked, and then I saw Nonna reach out and take the signor’s hand. He held it in his own, and they spoke some more. Then I saw my nonna say something else and Signor Fratelli looked delighted as he raised her hand, bringing it very gently to his lips to give it a kiss.
When they had finished their walk, we got a taxi home and I asked Nonna what she’d discussed with Signor Fratelli. She went quiet and said, “A great many things.” Which made me even more nervous than I was before.
That evening I made us dinner. It was spinach gnocchi, one of the recipes that Nonna had taught me. As I cooked, I fretted over my suspicions as to what the signor might have said.
I put the gnocchi on the table and Nonna took a bite and said, “This is as good as mine, Piccolina! You’ve become quite the cook. You don’t need me in the kitchen any more.”
I felt my stomach lurch. Didn’t need her any more? What did that mean?
Nonna took another mouthful and chewed thoughtfully and then in the pregnant silence she said.
“Don’t worry, Piccolina. I told him I couldn’t marry him.”
“What?”
“I know what you are thinking and, yes, he asked me,” Nonna said. “But I told him no.”
A rush of guilt overwhelmed me. “Nonna!” I said. “No! I’m ruining everything by being selfish that’s all! You should stay here, I mean if that’s what you want …”
“Oh, Piccolina!” Nonna took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Sweet child, it isn’t because of you that I said no. It’s me. I cannot stay here now, any more than I could have back then. Marco knows that deep down, just as I know he cannot leave. But that is OK this time. We both understand each other a little better, I think. I have forgiven him for everything that happened back then. I have forgiven everyone, Piccolina. My parents for keeping me apart from Marco, the contrada for their ridiculous traditions …”
She smiled. “Most important of all, Piccolina, I have forgiven myself. All these years, I truly thought that Carlo had died because of what I had done. I felt so guilty I didn’t think I deserved to grieve for him. Now I know the truth, it is like a weight has been lifted from me. Finally I can put the past where it belongs. I can mourn my brother at last.”
The next day, Signor Fratelli and Frannie came to our door. It was the last time I would see Frannie for almost five months – he had promised to come and visit us in New York. “It will be Christmas like in the movies,” he told me. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that those New York movies don’t look much like my life in Ozone Park.
Antonia, Umberto and Leonardo were keen to come too. “We can all ride trackwork together with saddles like American jockeys,” Frannie said.
“And show off your scars in the bodega,” I told him. I had already phoned home and told my dad about Frannie, and about my own plans to ride trackwork and go to med school at the same time. “There is no way in hell you are riding track, Lola,” he’d said. Which was a better response than I expected. Once Nonna got to work on him, I was pretty certain he would agree.
We had packed up the house by the time Frannie and Signor Fratelli arrived. Nonna shut Donatello’s visor and gave him a kiss goodbye and she turned the iron key in the lock one last time and put it back beneath the geranium pot. Then the four of us walked together, not in the usual direction towards town, but up into the hills beyond the villa. Here, there was a tiny ch
urch and a graveyard right next to it, with ornate headstones, on a hillside overgrown with wildflowers.
I know it sounds strange, but it would be a lovely place to be buried. The view of Siena is beautiful, you can see for miles over oak forests and olive groves and there are loads of my ancestors there. My nonna’s mama and papa are both there. We cleaned up their gravestones together, scrubbing the moss from them, even though I thought the moss actually looked quite poetic. On their headstones we put flowers and said a prayer.
Carlo’s headstone is right beside theirs. There is the stone with his name and above it stands an angel, very serene and beautiful, with her head bowed and wings outstretched. I gave Nonna some time alone there to talk with her brother. And then when it was my turn, I knelt down and I took the gold medal, the one they presented me with when I won the Palio, and I hung it around the angel’s neck.
“It should have been yours,” I whispered to Carlo. “You never got the chance to win it again, but I want you to have it.”
I like to think about him wearing it up there in heaven, walking through the piazza and charming the girls, being given free olives and cheese by the ladies on the stalls, because he is Carlo Alessi, the greatest fantino in all of Italy, and he has brought glory once more to the Contrada of the Wolf.
The ancient Palio was run across the bare brick of the piazza with no dirt track or mattresses along the walls to protect riders or their horses when they crashed and fell.
Four hundred years later there have been a few modernisations, but the rivalry between the seventeen contradas remains as passionate today as it was back then.
The blood feud between Siena’s contradas inspired the tale of Mariotto and Gianozza, the star-crossed lovers whose story would eventually become famous as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.