The Wager

by Donna Jo Napoli

  But the city below was ravaged. And all but the highest farmlands were ruined. Doors, roofs, furniture, boats, livestock, and bodies dangled from treetops, where the raging water had deposited them as it retreated.

  How long had he been doing nothing? Long enough to be sure that the sea wouldn’t come back—like some hellish ball of flames. It was already nothing more than a sloshing tide, trickling away. The surface of the water in the harbor bounced gently. No boats in sight. The entire fishing fleet had disappeared. Gone with the sea.

  He raced outside and down the footpath to the nearest gate of the city. He stopped at the first wrecked house and helped the family lug stones and wood. They worked at a furious pace; fingers and knuckles bled as they dug into the ragged rubble. Eyes and ears strained for signs of life. They cradled the dying. They wept over the dead.

  The rain stopped and the sun came out like a mis-timed blessing. Light reflected off puddles, intensifying the ironic sense of glory.

  Don Giovanni lined up bodies for burial. He wasn’t sure he knew any of the dead, stuck there in the hardening mud. Was this the man who brought firewood last week? Perhaps if the fellow hadn’t been so crushed, Don Giovanni might have had a better chance at recognizing him.

  When all were accounted for, he went on to the next home, and the home after that.

  All the while church bells rang. Priests led processions in and out of the streets, holding sacred saints’ relics and praying for the living and the dead.

  It was late afternoon, and Don Giovanni was staring in dismay at the shattered leg of the man he had just rescued, when a young woman passed. She moved so quickly, all he saw was a high cheekbone, but ah, what a cheekbone. Her apron strings flew behind. Her winter shawl wrapped around her at least twice, but, still, he felt sure her body was lithe. And he caught a momentary glimpse of the back of an ankle—a slim, furtive animal his hands itched to hold.

  Blood caked on Don Giovanni’s clothes. A sleeve was ripped. Sweat stuck the silk of his shirt to his chest and back. His hands were raw from lifting rock. He reeked of blood, sweat, vomit. But he was still the handsomest youth of Messina. He dared anyone to challenge that. One look at his face was enough for any woman. And, despite all that had happened, his temples throbbed with desire.

  So he followed her.

  She raced along the footpath into the heart of town, skirting around rubble. Her hair hung loose, black, and wavy, and thick with clumps of something. Seaweed?

  Don Giovanni ran now.

  But each time the girl turned a corner, by the time he got there she was already turning another. No matter how much he sped up, she stayed the same distance ahead. Maddening. He was exhausted as it was—no sleep all night and then all that work, all the suffering he’d witnessed. Plus he’d missed his midday meal—and that was the most hearty meal of the day. He was in no mood for her shenanigans. He shouted to her to wait.

  “Don’t shout, you ass.”

  Don Giovanni stopped. An old crone stood in the doorway arch to a home that had crumbled behind her.

  “Has the devil got you? That girl’s busy. Every decent person’s busy. But even if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t stop for the likes of you.” She held her kerchief tight under her chin with one hand, and with the other she pointed a mud-caked finger at him. “Where’d you steal those clothes? Are there more, thief?”

  “I’m Don Giovanni, old fool.”

  “Oh, Don Giovanni,” she said in mock humility. “A visit from Don Giovanni. I’m not worthy of this honor.”

  “Your sarcasm is outrageous.” Despite his indignant words, he realized the woman’s impression made sense. If the girl had seen him, which he wasn’t even sure of, she must have taken him for a ruffian in gentleman’s clothes. He should go home and wash himself, rest his weary body. Every drop of energy drained away just like that. His spirit wept from exhaustion.

  Don Giovanni walked back to his castle, eyes on the ground so he wouldn’t see the faces of those who called for help. He was too tired to be of use.

  It was evening when he got home. The servants were nowhere around. Well, that was all right. They should have asked permission, it was true. But he would have given it. They were caring for their kinsfolk, no doubt.

  He walked through the large hall where the party had taken place. No one had cleaned up.

  When he was a child, his maidservant taught him strict rules about touching food. He always used the very tips of his fingers. And he dipped them afterward in a bowl of water that she would hold. Scented water: lemon in summer, clove in winter. He never licked his fingers. But in this moment he didn’t even know where a clean bowl could be found. He stood by the table and ate, then licked his fingers clean. It felt oddly daring.

  He stripped off his dirty clothes and kicked them into a pile. They were beyond help. He’d tell Betta to burn them. There was no one to bring him water for a scrubbing. But there were pitchers of wine on the table. He bathed in marsala, and slept in the haze of intoxication.

  In the morning, he rang the bell for his personal manservant, Lino. No one came. He’d been abandoned. Who was going to take care of him?

  That’s exactly what he had wondered when he’d been told his parents were dead. But now the question was laughable. He had turned nineteen in December. He took care of himself when it came to everything important. As for the details of daily living, well, he could do without Lino for a day.

  He dressed, ran a brush through his thick, curly hair, and went out to the table in the grand hall. He ate standing. Some foods had already turned rancid.

  He started down the path toward the city, and came across a boy. “You’re Lino’s nephew, aren’t you?”

  The boy stared up at him blankly.

  “Tell him to come back to work. And tell him to tell Betta to get all the servants to come back, too.” His words sounded ridiculous, even to himself. He hadn’t really thought them through. What if the servants’ quarters had been ruined? “All that aren’t needed elsewhere, that is.” But even that addition rang shrill with absurdity. Every able hand was needed everywhere.

  The boy stood there.

  Was he trying to shame Don Giovanni? The insolent little snot-nose. “Well, go on,” he said gruffly.

  The boy ran off.

  Don Giovanni continued along the path, through the city gate. He was sickened by the destruction. How on earth had he been so lucky 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 of income. 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.

  “Thieves!” shouted Don Giovanni. He burst from the front door 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.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in a hushed voice. “Is that your wife and daughter?”

  “My sister and niece.”

  “I’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.”

  “I can’t make a living from you, sire.”

  “Of course you can. You’re my personal servant.”

  Lino shook his head. “You have nothing to pay me with, sire.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m wealthy.”

  “We 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 and losses consumed people now. Wailing rose on all sides. He couldn’t ask anything; he didn’t want to intrude on strangers.

  His friends. They’d help, of course. He was already on the road to one’s home; it didn’t make sense to go back in the opposite direction to the castle for a horse. Besides, the brisk night air revived him. So he walked.

  But that brief distance turned long, after all. He followed country roads, from noble to noble the whole evening. The story was always the same: everyone had suffered losses. Workers disappeared or injured. Flocks of sheep washed away. Crops destroyed by the saltwater. No one could help him—not now.

  Their indifference shocked him. If the tables were turned, he would never have treated any of them so callously. What was going on?

  Don Giovanni had no choice but to throw himself on the mercy of Don Alfinu. He was weary when he reached the old man’s castle.

  The servant Masu led him to Don Alfinu, who was just finishing his meal: a bowl of vermicelli with oil and garlic—a popular new dish—and a plate of raw sardine fillets under vinegar. The old man ate lightly, because he suffered from indigestion in the night. Don Giovanni remembered his belches and farts.

  “Good evening, sire,” said Don Giovanni, trying to keep his eyes off the food, which made his stomach clench. “I trust the wave left you without harm.”

  “Dispense with the formalities. You’ve come with something to say—you’ve said it to everyone else already. Don’t think I don’t know. But I get to speak first. Do you realize how much money I’ve lent you in the past year?”

  Don Giovanni stared at the old man’s mouth. A fleck of silver stuck to his bottom lip. Sardine skin. It looked delicious. How could he be this hungry? He licked his own lip. “None, sire.”

  “You brainless sot. I told you to keep a ledger.”

  “And I intend to. Soon.”

  Don Alfinu brought his open hand down on the table with a wham. “It’s too late now. How many spectacles did you think you could host? You’re not the king, you know. You’re not a duke or even a prince. I told you to rein yourself in. I told you. But you went your own way, buying gifts for loose women, throwing party after party.”

  Did he really have to listen to this rant? Don Giovanni was tempted to leave. But he didn’t know where to go. He spread his hands in reason. “Why count coins when there’s an infinite number?”

  “Blockhead! You spent them all. Your servants rely on me for pay while you throw money to the winds.”

  His servants had gone to Don Alfinu behind his back? “They should have told me. Lino, Betta, they should have.”

  “No one could tell you anything. You never listen. I figured I could get it back from your sheep if I had to. And now . . .”He flung his hands up. “The whole blasted lot of them dead. And I’m the one holding the bag.”

  Don Giovanni’s head felt like a huge lump of clay on the weak stalk of his neck. He grasped the edge of the table for support. “I’ll call in my loans. Everyone owes me money.”

  “After this wave, exactly who has extra money?”

  Don Giovanni swallowed hard. “I’ll pay you back.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  Surprising words from a stingy man. “Thank you, but I’ll repay you anyway.”

  “Look around.”

  Don Giovanni looked. Against the far wall was a cabinet he recognized as his mother’s. Beside it was a table that his father had used for rolling out maps to study. “You’re the thief?” he breathed, incredulous.

  Don Alfinu laughed. “Don’t be absurd.” Exactly the maidservant’s words, before this nightmare began. “Your castle is now mine. I’ll sell it. Ever since that old King Roger put a moratorium on building castles, they’ve been hard to come by. It will go high. We’ll be even.”

  Everything gone. That’s why his friends hadn’t offered to help. They knew. His problem was so enormous, none could begin to help. “And what becomes of me?”

  “You should have worried about that before. With that wave, your last hope at solvency washed away. You can go down to the kitchen now, and beg the cook for old bread and a bowl of sauce. And don’t get fresh with her. A randy poor man has even less charm than a randy rich one.

  “Let’s hope you do a better job at a beggar’s life than you did at a don’s.”

  Thienes

  THOUGH THE MOONLIGHT WAS EXCEPTIONALLY STRONG, DON Giovanni wouldn’t rely on his eyes alone. They had to be wrong. He felt in every cupboard, every drawer.

  Now he stood in the kitchen. The shelves were bare. He swept his hands along them a second time. Nothing.

  This couldn’t be.

  Don Alfinu had no heart.

  He slid to the floor and slept sitting. Or tried to. The noises of the night kept sneaking up and grabbing him by the throat. From outside the window thumps and a squeak cut off midway. An owl had caught a hare. Or perhaps it was a fox. From the pantry came scurrying, chirping, chirring. Dormice? A small plop, then the crack of an insect crushed in a gecko’s jaw. The random groan of wood.

  As dawn came, he gave up. He stretched his chill-stiffened limbs. In the haze he saw them hanging from a hook outside the door down to the empty wine cellar: three goatskin bags, overlooked or judged useless. When Don Giovanni went partridge hunting, Lino would fill a bag with watered red wine. Nothing refreshed better in midmorning.

  Don Giovanni went to the well in the courtyard and pulled up a bucket. He filled the bags and slung them over his shoulder. He walked through the castle one last time. The ring of his footsteps in the empty rooms was almost eerie. Spots he’d played in as a boy felt unfamiliar. It was the starkness that did it. No texture. Texture was such a big part of recognition—life had lost texture.


  He found a wool cap, dropped in haste. Nothing else. He’d never known servants to be so thorough.

  He put on the cap and stared up at the painted dining hall ceiling. The light through the windows wasn’t strong enough yet to illuminate that high up. He could barely make out the colors, much less the figures. Well, it didn’t matter, for he knew every detail by heart. Women half clad offering food to eager men, with musicians in the background. It wasn’t the figures that he’d seen there as a boy. After his parents died, Don Alfinu had had the ceiling repainted with war scenes and angels. But when Don Giovanni had taken over the castle again, he paid the finest artists to bring the ceiling back to the spirit his parents had intended. Actually, to a spirit even more sensual than the original. Homage to the good things in life, the things he was born and bred to enjoy.

  He gritted his teeth. Nothing made sense. What was he to do next?

  Slap.

  Footsteps in the entrance hall. Bare ones. And without a voice announcing them. The nerve.

  Don Giovanni strode across the room. “Who’s there?”

  No answer.

  He ran to the entrance hall.

  Two men stood by the open door, ready to flee. Peasants, by their clothes.

  “What do you mean, coming in unbidden like this?”

  “Your Excellency,” said the younger man with a slight bow, but not backing up. “We heard it was abandoned.”

  “Abandoned,” echoed the other. His eyes were taking in the bare walls and floors. He craned his neck like a vulture to see into the room behind Don Giovanni.

  Don Giovanni moved to the side to break his line of sight. “You heard wrong.”

  “No horses in the pasture.” The man shrugged. “Nor the stable.”

  No horses. The breath went out of him as fast as if he’d been punched in the gut. Don Giovanni hadn’t checked the stable. No horses. He had to force himself to reason. Logic told him it was just as well. If the horses had been cooped up in the stable, they’d have suffered, for he hadn’t thought to feed or water them. He hoped the donkeys were gone, too.