The Daughter of Siena Read Free Page B

eyes boring into his broad back, staring so hard at the blue-and-burgundy silks that they blurred.
    There was the customary confusion at the start of the race. As the horses circled and reared, the mossiere or starter judge called false start after false start. Then finally, in a moment of almost unbearable tension, the horses lined up and stilled as if bade by an invisible command. The yells and screams of the crowd abated for one eerie, silent second, and the unaccustomed tongue of the great bell Sunto sounded in the Torre del Mangia above Pia’s head. Silent from one Palio to the next, the bell’s song bawled out above the city, to tell that the hour had come. All heads turned and all gazes swivelled up – for it was said that the bandierino weathervane on the Mangia Tower would turn in that last breath of wind to the quarter of the city that was to be favoured with victory. The bronze arrow quivered toward the duomo in the Eagle contrada , and the cheers from that ward almost drowned the last chimes of the bell. Pia swallowed, sickened at the omen. But the time for reflection was up. At the stroke of seven, Sunto stopped ringing and the little mortaretto firecracker cannon sounded at the starting rope; ten horses leaped forth from the entrone , and they were off.
    It was impossible for anyone who had not been here, thought Pia, to know that blood-curdling roar of the crowd, to feel the thunder of the hooves shiver your very ribs, to smell the sweat and the straw in your nose and
taste the tufa dust in your mouth. The horses went by in a whirlwind, their flanks gleaming and polished with sweat, their mouths flecked with foam, past the palazzo , thundering up the curve to the Bocca del Casato. She could see the Tower colours – her champion was ahead, nudging shoulder to shoulder with Vicenzo.
    By the second lap Vicenzo had pulled clear by three, four horses and was past the deadly San Martino corner – a treacherous slope truncated by the sharp stone buttress of a sturdy palazzo – but there Vicenzo’s horse was barged by the horse of the Panther party, while the Panther jockey’s whip dealt Vicenzo a stinging swipe across the face. Taking advantage of this, the unknown horseman swept into the lead, while the heir to the Eagles was flung back in his saddle as his horse faltered and checked. Then, as if time had slowed, Vicenzo cart-wheeled over the reins, crashed into the San Martino corner and fell in a heap. At the collective gasp of the crowd, the unknown horseman glanced back over his shoulder and, without a moment’s pause, threw his legs over his horse’s neck and vaulted off, landing on the dust and straw.
    Pia leaned forward, her heart in her throat. For a horrible instant she thought that she had made this happen. She had wished that Vicenzo would be killed, but had not imagined it would look like this. From where she was sitting it looked as if Vicenzo had turned blackamoor on one whole side of his body – yet the dust of the track was white. Her own thudding pulses told her in an instant that this colour was blood. To the music of the screaming
throng, the unknown horseman dodged the oncoming hooves and ran to help, picking up the crumpled man.
    Vicenzo’s head was at an angle that was never meant by nature, and his rescuer, doused in spraying blood, was desperately fumbling for the fractured artery. Locating the source of that dreadful fount of blood, he planted his hands firmly on Vicenzo’s spurting throat. Both men were covered in gore and the dust of the track darkened beneath them like their shared shadow. As Pia looked on desperately she saw Vicenzo’s bay horse Berio pass the little black-and-white bandierino flag that marked the finish line – prancing with glee at his victory, as if he knew that a horse could win the Palio scosso – without a rider.
    For the second time that day the crowd was eerily silent. By now a knot of people in the Eagle colours had gathered around the fallen rider