Gaudenzia, Pride of the Palio

by Marguerite Henry

  Chapter XX

  A SIMPLE PLAN

  June! The hallway into summer. The season for strong happenings, the season for living. Giorgio’s mind was on tip-toe. Looking at his calendar one morning he thought, in a flash, of the ski slide on Mount Amiata, saw the skiers toiling up and up for one breathless whoosh into space. Now he knew how they felt. For months he and Gaudenzia had been toiling up and up for the wild two minutes of glory that was the Palio.

  The days of June neither dragged nor flew. They were as alike as echoes. Walk Gaudenzia one kilometer, jog her three, gallop her three and a half. Bandage her hind legs, bandage her forelegs. Grain her, a handful more each day. Cut down her hay. And always, the inner command pounding through him: Don’t let her reach the peak until July. Climb, climb, climb. Bring her right up to it.

  In the last week of June, the long-awaited message from the Chief-of-the-Guards reached Giorgio. “Come to Siena! At once!” was all it said.

  By cockcrow on the morning after, boy and mare were on their way, trotting along gay-spirited, as if the wheatfields spattered with wild red poppies, and the hills high-rising to the sky, and all the creatures in it were theirs. Gaudenzia wanted to race every moving thing—a rabbit skirting the edge of the road, a hound streaking for a bird—the bird, too. Her friskiness, her eagerness to go filled him with a pride so strong he had to whistle to let the steam of his happiness escape. Nine months ago, with a bandage on her heel, she had slow-footed her way over this same road. Now, like Mercury with wings, she was returning.

  A solitary shepherd, hungry for human company, ran out on the road and invited Giorgio to share the meal he was preparing over an open fire. He pointed his crook at Gaudenzia.

  “Magnifico!” he exclaimed, with a smile so wide it showed the dark hole where two of his teeth were missing.

  “Magnifica!” Giorgio laughingly corrected him. “She is a mare!” He joined the herdsman in a meal of goat cheese and grilled eel. And while the mare grazed, her eyes ranging with the cloud of sheep, the lonely herder questioned Giorgio about his plans. Then he poured out his own heart. He too had a dream. He would teach a young boy to herd, teach him just where to noon the sheep, and which ones to watch in a storm. Then he would be free for a little while, and he would walk to Siena, and there, before he died, he would witness with his own eyes the manifestation of the Palio!

  It was all Giorgio could do to break away from the man and his dream. With their final handshake the herder for the first time became mute. Wistfully, he watched Giorgio mount Gaudenzia and rein her out onto the road. When at last he found his voice, he cupped his hands and called out after them: “Magnifica!”

  In Siena, too, the mare created admiration, but it was thinned with doubts and forebodings. Entering the city through the Arch of Porta Romana in the early evening, Giorgio could feel at once the general air of agitation. The usual flow of promenaders had given way to excited knots of men choking the traffic. Bruco! Oca! Onda! Tartuca! The names of the contradas punctuated the talk. And town eyes were staring his way.

  “What a beautiful beast goes there!” a voice said. And the same voice asked, “Boy, where did you get her? What are you going to do with her?”

  Giorgio turned and saw a grizzle-headed old man, the center of a group. “It’s a long story, Signore,” he answered. “She used to be Farfalla, but now she—”

  The man did not let him finish. “Eh?” he exclaimed. “Can this be Farfalla returned from the dead?”

  And another said, “A fine parade horse she would make. But for the race?” The shoulders owning the voice shrugged.

  And then Giorgio overheard, “Would you wish to draw her for your contrada?”

  A whole chorus answered, “No! No!” It was as if her tortured limping in last year’s Palio was a memory too fresh to be wiped out.

  Giorgio himself flinched at the recollection. He touched his heels to Gaudenzia and hurried her through the crowd. “How they feel about you, I do not care,” he told himself. “It is better so. Popular horses are nearly killed by too many sweets, too much petting and pulling of tail-hairs for souvenir. I believe, and the Chief believes!”

  He found the Chief striding across Il Campo, heading for his home. They saw each other at the same moment.

  “Giorgio!” the big man shouted, and his arms flung wide apart, as though he would clasp the boy and the mare both. “How are you? How is it with our cavallina? Tell me all about her! Don’t keep me one minute more in this anxious waiting.”

  Giorgio suddenly felt shy. He answered with two little words. “All fine.”

  “That I can see!” the Chief laughed. “The mare, she is rekindled!” He stepped now in front of Gaudenzia, pulled off his white gloves, and with both hands felt of her chest and forearms. “Not even sweating,” he nodded in approval. “Come, let us walk to the stable, and while walking you will tell me how she goes in her work. Then, after she is bedded down, you will come to my home where we can engage in serious talk.”

  The stable was midway of a narrow downhill alley with walls high-rising on either side. Giorgio’s spirits plummeted at its darkness. It did have a window, but it was covered by a curtain of gunny sacking. There were two stalls divided by heavy planking. The one nearer the door was occupied by a bay gelding, and the other, deeply strawed, awaited Gaudenzia.

  “To find stable room is very difficult,” the Chief was explaining. “But Morello here is a good horse and the two will become friends and help each other to forget the Maremma. He, too, comes from your wilderness.”

  Across the partition Gaudenzia and Morello began at once to get acquainted—first in screams, then nips, and at last in low whinnies.

  “How quick they make friends!” the Chief grinned. “Now then, the hay is piled here, the grain is in the sack yonder, and the medicines in the cabinet. Now you can take over.”

  Giorgio noted the racks already filled, the water buckets brimming. He would come back later to grain and groom Gaudenzia and to remove the gunny-sack curtain.

  He followed the Chief to his home, which perched on a ledge of rock like an eagle’s nest. The view was miniature compared to the world of the Maremma. Below was a tiny dim valley, and climbing the opposite hillside were busy little farm plots. But the same deep sky was overhead and the same stars beginning to punch holes in the blue.

  The Chief’s wife and daughter greeted Giorgio with politeness and relief. “The supper is ready,” the Signora said with a hot-stove smile. “I would not want the chicken to cook a moment longer.”

  The meal was a feast such as Giorgio had not tasted since his days at the Ramallis’. First there was a piping hot broth of chicken with tiny pearls of dough swimming along the bottom. Then came a beautiful plate of antipasto—black olives, and mushrooms in oil, and little white onions, and small green peppers, and anchovies curved into tight nests, with a caper on each. Giorgio was encouraged to take something of everything. And still he had room for a drumstick and breast of chicken, and a baked tomato stuffed with ground beef.

  All of this he sluiced down with a red Chianti wine which he thriftily diluted with water as though he were at home.

  The Chief helped himself to the food sparingly, and in silence. He seemed preoccupied, brooding. But Giorgio ate heartily. The Signora beamed at him. “For a small man, as you are,” she said, appreciatively, “you have un bel appetito.”

  Giorgio felt his face flush and his ears redden at the half-and-half compliment.

  With the dessert of fruit and cheeses on the table, the wife and daughter disappeared into the kitchen. The silence grew heavy. The Chief pushed back his plate without touching the food. At last the moment for talk had arrived.

  But the words did not come. He ran his finger around the inside of his collar and cleared his throat. He got up and stood at the open door, looking out upon the night. He came back and sat down again. Then, gripping the edge of the table, he blurted out, “My boy, the Palio is not going to be as we dreamed it.”


  Giorgio swallowed whole the apricot in his mouth. It was as though an icy hand had gripped his throat.

  “You see, the people want beautiful horses such as Gaudenzia, but the judges, no!”

  Giorgio’s voice sank back so deep inside him it was scarcely audible. “But why?”

  The Chief took a breath. For the boy’s sake he wanted to sound matter-of-fact, to ease him gently into disappointment. “The news of Gaudenzia’s win at Casole d’Elsa has spread to Siena. All at once she is known as the get of Sans Souci, a full-blood Arab. And the full-bloods are not wanted.”

  “But, Signore, she is only half-bred. Her dam was a farm horse.”

  “I know, I know,” the Chief answered in irritation. “But because she is now too beautiful, too well-trained, the rejection may come.”

  Giorgio waited in numbness.

  “High-mettled Arabians have caprices, the judges say. Besides, the turns of the course are too perilous and the layer of earth over the cobblestones too thin for a full-blood with the delicate toothpick legs.”

  There was a momentary pause as the Chief’s daughter brought in two small cups of coffee.

  “You see, Giorgio, we Sienese are like moles burrowing, always digging into our past. I have heard the judges say, as if only yesterday it happened, how in the year 1500 Cesare Borgio’s big stallion reared on his hind legs and in coming back to earth hit the starting rope so hard he could not run in the Palio. And in 1885, the purebred La Gorgona cracked up in the last Prova, her legs brittle like eggshell. And you, Giorgio, you must remember Habana? You remember when she flew into the fence, and broke the boards to splinters!”

  “But Signore! It happens with the mixed blood, too. Have they forgot Turbolento?”

  “He fell, Giorgio. But the others? One might say they destroyed themselves.”

  Anger lit Giorgio’s eyes. “Signore! This you should have told me before! Why did you send for Gaudenzia and me? Why did you let me nourish all the hopes to win?”

  The Chief wiped his face tiredly. “I do not know, truly. Perhaps the hope is in me, too. Perhaps the hope is stronger than the reality. I fear, Giorgio,” he said again, “the Palio is not going to be as we dreamed it.”

  “Signore! Shake yourself!” Giorgio’s anger turned to wild appeal. His words tumbled out bravely, recklessly. “Something we can do! Something we must do! Think!” He took hold of the man’s sleeve, actually shaking him in his eagerness.

  The Chief closed his eyes thoughtfully. “What comes to mind,” he said at last, “is a very simple plan. Maybe too simple.”

  “Tell me! Tell me!”

  Something of the old vigor crept into the Chief’s voice. “Listen well, my boy. In the trials when the horses are selected, you must make Gaudenzia appear mature, sensible; an average beast.”

  Giorgio nodded, listening with every fiber.

  “And in her workouts she must appear tranquil.”

  “That is easy! Easy! What else?”

  “Wherever you make talk, you must say how her dam was a poor old farm horse and how she herself was a cart horse for many years, and her colts were nothing at all, good only for the slaughterhouse.”

  “I will!”

  “Margherita,” the Chief called to his daughter, “our coffees are now cold.” He turned back to Giorgio. “Only one thing is in our favor. You see . . .”

  There was a pause as the coffees came and he liberally spooned sugar into both cups. “Because all the contradas think her nervous, unpredictable, none will ask for agreement from you to help another horse to win.”

  Giorgio sighed in deep relief. “Of that I am glad. When I am on Gaudenzia I am simpatico only to her. But why is it no one has ever come to me to make the secret agreement?”

  The Chief could not help chuckling. “ ‘The runt of Monticello’, they say, ‘is young and green like new spear of wheat. We do not make agreements with a boy so little he has to have double lining in his helmet to keep it on.’ ”

  The man suddenly went silent. What if Giorgio were not asked to ride Gaudenzia in the Palio? He held his tongue. The boy had had enough worries for one night.

  Chapter XXI

  HALF-BRED

  Tuesday, June 29. Morning. The whole city seething in warlike impatience. Il Campo in battle array. Everything ready for the trial of the horses. The stout railing around the shell to keep the people from spilling onto curves. The tiers of seats rising in front of the palaces and cobblestones. The mattresses, upright, lining the treacherous curves. The tiers of seats rising in front of the palaces and shops. The high platforms for the judges and dignitaries. The bomb cage on stilts, looking like an oversized parrot cage, ready for the charge of gunpowder.

  And people converging from all directions, talking excitedly with their hands, their voices. Which horses will be chosen to run? Surely not the old one who has twelve years! Surely not the little one with the ewe neck? Surely not Gaudenzia with the hot blood in her veins?

  The lone hand on the clock of the Mangia Tower points to nine. Within the courtyard of the Palazzo Pubblico seventeen horses and riders are ready. Giorgio is ready. He has done everything the Chief asked. And more. He has plastered sculptor’s clay on Gaudenzia’s legs to make them look coarse, like those of any cold-blooded hack. But there is nothing he can do to coarsen her fine, intelligent head.

  Out in the shell, a little insect of a man, known as the Spider, climbs his ladder, touches a match to the gunpowder in the cage, and with a thundering bang the trials have begun! Four horses prance out of the palace courtyard. At the starter’s signal they take off, leaping over the rope before it touches the earth. At the very first curve one horse falls, skids across the track like a slab of ice. The crowd screams as the horse scrambles to his feet. He will be rejected. It is Fate.

  Another group is called. No falls this time, but the horses are not evenly matched. They straggle along like knots on a string.

  And still another group, while Gaudenzia waits. She listens to the hoofbeats. Flecks of foam come out on her body. Her whole being asks: Why are we not out there with the others? She whinnies out after them. Giorgio lays quieting hands on her, soothes them along her neck and withers. He is glad her mantle is gray so the sudsy foam does not show.

  At last she is called with the remaining five. Her long-reaching legs are ready. Her heart and lungs are ready. Giorgio mounts. His heart tightens in sudden doubt. Is speed her only virtue? Has she learned obedience? He wets his parched lips, prays fiercely. “O Holy One, let her be in the middle! Don’t let her run away and set the pace. Let her just be middling!”

  The starter steps on the lever. The rope, set free, snakes crazily to earth. Five horses leap over it. They’re away! Evenly! Past the scaffold of the judges, past the Fonte Gaia. One horse tries to wing out at the incoming street of San Pietro, but the others are moving in a bunch. “Oh, Mamma mia! Don’t let her win! Don’t let her!”

  She is third at the curve of San Martino, and third at the Casato. Suddenly she asks to arrow out in front, but she feels the bit pulling up into her mouth, exerting more and more pressure on her tongue. She slows. She lets Giorgio hold her. She obeys!

  Out of the first realization, like the first glint of sunlight from behind a cloud, Giorgio feels an unutterable joy. Twice around, and three times around, she lets him hold her! In third place she finishes, all her fire inheld. The trials are over!

  While the judges pondered and debated their decisions, Giorgio rode into the cool courtyard of the Palazzo. Here were only the sweating horses and the men, all of them bound together in the misery of waiting.

  The Chief-of-the-Guards, immaculate in his starched white uniform, looked in and strode over to Giorgio. There was a smile of incredulity on his face.

  “I salute you!” he said. “Gaudenzia’s disguise was bellissima! When first I saw her at the starting rope, it seemed I dreamt with open eyes. Even a sculptor, I think, could not have done a better work on living skin.”

 
He made no effort to hide his happiness, for already he knew the results of the trials. Already a deputy was fastening a disc numbered 10 to Gaudenzia’s cheek strap to show that she had been chosen.

  The Chief led Giorgio and the mare out into the Piazza, into a corral where the ten horses would be on display as at an auction. The big difference was that here a horse could not be bought; not for any price. It was assigned to a contrada as irrevocably as a child is born to certain parents. Here all was luck. A miniscule slip of paper in a tiny capsule would tell which contrada would win the best horse.

  Suspense was growing intolerable. There was wild shouting for the favorites. Voices came piercing and crashing around Giorgio.

  “We want Ravu!”

  “We want Uganda!”

  “We want Rosetta!”

  An official groom shoved Giorgio to one side, took hold of Gaudenzia. There was now no need for Giorgio. And then, in a flash, he realized there was no need for him anywhere! The awfulness struck him. For nine months he had been blindly running up a dead-end street. Feeling sick and bereft, he went back into the empty courtyard. He picked up Gaudenzia’s rub rag, hung it on a peg. He made meaningless motions of tidying up. But even here, away from the crowd, he saw the whole scene in his mind—the Mayor and the captains at the long table, the urns containing the capsules, the pages and trumpeters waiting. And then, as in a storm, when thunder rumbles and ricochets from rock to rock, the voices came booming against the Palazzo wall and into the very courtyard:

  “Number seven, Ravu, to the Ram!”

  He could hear the Rams roaring with joy for the favorite.

  “Number nine, Pinocchio, to the Giraffe!”

  Men and boys howled in derision, “Long Neck gets Long Nose! Long Neck gets Long Nose.”

  The roaring was uncontrolled; it subsided only while the capsules were being opened.