The Wager Read Free Page B

as to have no damage from the wave? But wait, his sheep flocks habitually covered the lower part of the hillside between the castle and the beach. A thousandfold. No one had more sheep than Don Giovanni. He didn’t use them for wool; Sicilian wool could never match the quality of imported wools. But they were important for cheese and meat. A solid source ofincome. He couldn’t remember seeing any of them since the night he’d watched the woman walk into the sea.
    He turned back and crossed the countryside to survey his lands. He walked up and down, back and forth, for hours. Bloated carcasses littered the hill. Not a single living ewe, a single living ram. Not one had had the sense to run to higher land.
    Disease followed death, any fool knew that. All those carcasses needed to be gathered and burned. The sooner, the better.
    Don Giovanni went back to the castle and stopped at the entrance. He rang the bell to call his servants.
    He paced the front patio, making plans. Now and then he glanced out over the hillside, over the town. But the view upset him too much.
    He rang the bell again.
    What was keeping them? Surely the boy had delivered his message. Surely Lino had obeyed. Or someone else. There must have been someone who returned to work.
    He rang again and again.
    He went inside. A chill met him; the hearth fire had gone out. He walked the castle halls, entered every room, even the servants’ quarters. With each room, his steps got faster, so that by the end he was running flat out. The place was empty. And not just empty, it was stripped. The draperies, the rugs, the furniture, gone. Everything had been taken in the hours that he’d been out on the hill.
    â€œThieves!” shouted Don Giovanni. He burst from the frontdoor and ran along the footpath, heart and feet thumping hard. He knew where Lino’s family lived, didn’t he? He’d heard once.
    But when he got to the house, he didn’t recognize anyone there. “Where’s Lino?” he asked.
    A woman made tsking noises at him, but a man pointed him along the road.
    He knocked on a door. Lino opened it.
    The stench came strong as a punch. Don Giovanni fell back a few steps. “Come,” he said. “I need you.”
    Lino pointed. In a corner of the room a woman sat on the floor with a child limp across her legs. Her hands braided the dead girl’s hair. Even with her face turned away, Don Giovanni could feel the madness in her eyes.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said in a hushed voice. “Is that your wife and daughter?”
    â€œMy sister and niece.”
    â€œI’m so sorry.” Don Giovanni’s mind reeled in the face of such wrenching grief. What was he doing here? What could anyone do? God’s will.
    Nothing to be done.
    Damnable, defeated thinking. There was always something to do, something to make right. He put his hands on his forehead to steady his brain. “Come with me, Lino. The sheep need to be burned. We have to catch thieves.” He knew he sounded incoherent, Lino’s face told him that, but an explanation would take too long. “Hurry!”
    Lino shook his head.
    Don Giovanni put his hands on the man’s shoulders and squeezed. “Working helps. And you need to make a living.”
    â€œI can’t make a living from you, sire.”
    â€œOf course you can. You’re my personal servant.”
    Lino shook his head. “You have nothing to pay me with, sire.”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous. I’m wealthy.”
    â€œWe all know the truth.” Lino shut the door in Don Giovanni’s face.
    What could Lino have meant? What truth?
    Don Giovanni went through parts of town he’d never been in, searching faces. Betta. He could ask where she lived, but there had to be many women named Betta. And everyone was busy. The frenetic activity of the day before, the digging through wreckage, the search for loved ones, all of that was over. Sorrows