by Adam Schell
Giuseppe marched his prisoners forward. The sound of the donkey’s hooves clattering and the slapping of Davido’s bare feet against the piazza’s cobblestones played eerily against the flabbergasted silence. No one moved, no one spoke, no one even dared swallow the food in their mouth. To Augusto Po, Vincenzo and a few others, the sight was unsettling, but they convinced themselves that the Ebreo deserved such abuse. To Mucca, the Cheese Maker (with his broken, swollen and purple nose), Signore Coglione and many others, the sight was alarming and awful, but to Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, the sight of the naked and beaten Davido and his bound lover was entirely devastating.
“Look here!” Giuseppe proclaimed as he prodded Davido. “Behold his naked guilt. I have caught the rat red-handed.”
“Lies!” screamed Mari. “All lies.”
“Do you see,” Giuseppe retorted, “do you see how he’s bedeviled her?” Giuseppe positioned Davido in the center of the piazza. The statue of the Drunken Saint lay ten paces to his left, Mari upon the donkey was just behind him and the gathering of food stands and villagers were before him. Giuseppe scanned the crowd. Vincenzo and Augusto Po were there, along with twenty or so men who made their living working at the mill—that was good. Benito and the Good Padre were not there, and that was even better, leading Giuseppe to think that Benito and the Fungi di Santo-tainted wine had done the trick.
“You lie!” shouted Mari, her hands and feet struggling madly to free herself. “You are a filthy liar!”
“It is you who is filthy,” shot back Giuseppe. “Did I just not find him in your bedchamber, your naked body strewn upon his?”
Mari looked to the crowd desperately. “He lies. I swear it. He has beaten and kidnapped the boy. Ripped him from his farm.”
“Ha,” scoffed Giuseppe, secretly pleased. “A likely story. I stole the boy and his donkey too.” He had purposefully left Mari’s mouth ungagged, assuming that her vociferous protests would only further incriminate her. “It is you who is bewitched and full of lies. The only place I ripped him was from ‘tween your thighs.”
Mari opened her mouth to respond, but the sound of a donkey’s hooves and a wagon’s wheels clattering against cobblestones stole her words. Heads turned and jaws dropped for a second time as the old Ebreo pulled up on the reins and brought the donkey to a stay, just ten feet from his naked grandson. Nonno had seen much in his long life, but nothing he’d seen prepared him for the prospect of his grandson standing bound and bloodied, in the midst of a crowded piazza, surrounded by gentiles, with a loaded crossbow pointed at his back and naked as the day he was born.
Like mice smelling cheese, heads began to peer out from windows and balconies and alleys and stores as more villagers were keen to see what the ruckus was about. Davido, however, could not stand to look up. He knew from the crowd’s collective gasp that it could be none other than Nonno.
“Please,” said Nonno as he rose to step from his wagon, “he is a stupid boy, I know, but he—”
“Stay where you are, old man!” Giuseppe cut him off.
“He made a different sauce.” Nonno looked desperately at several faces in the crowd. “He may be guilty of love, but he made a different pot of sauce. He didn’t serve you the sauce that—”
“No!” Giuseppe raised his voice to thwart that of Nonno’s. “Just to me, he did.”
Nonno turned to face Giuseppe. “You, sir,” Nonno said wryly, “seemed to deserve it.”
“Shut up, old man, or I will put a bolt through his brain. This grandson of yours, the villain, the ruin of my daughter.”
Mari looked to Nonno and then to the crowd. “What the man says is true! Davido served you all from a fresh sauce. It was I and only I who served Giuseppe.”
“Shut up!” Giuseppe barked over his shoulder while keeping his eye and the crossbow focused on Davido’s back. He glanced upon a few faces in the crowd and could see their mental wheels spinning in a direction he did not like. “Do you see how my daughter disgraces me, disrespects me?”
“I am not your daughter!”
“You certainly are not!” Giuseppe yelled back at her. “For no flesh of mine would grow to be such a puttana!” “Do not call her that!”
“What?” said Giuseppe, raising his crossbow and refocusing his attention upon Davido. “You dare speak? He who’s turned my daughter to a harlot?”
Davido shifted to face Giuseppe, mortally embarrassed that his naked buttocks now faced Nonno and much of the crowd. At least his hands were bound before him, providing a slight bit of coverage to his genitals. He had no doubt he would be dead soon, and he hoped that that certainty would take his attention off his own pain and pathetic nakedness. Alas, such was not the case, and as he spoke up to defend Mari, resolved to what he must do, he was acutely aware of it all: the splitting ache in his head, the throbbing arrow-pierced holes in his neck and back, the shame that he had brought upon Mari, the devastation to Nonno. “Do not call her that,” Davido repeated firmly.
“You, villain,” roared Giuseppe as he stormed forward, “are in no place to make demands.” Giuseppe spun the butt-end of his crossbow around and jammed it into Davido’s gut.
Mari screamed; Nonno yelled; Signore Coglione moaned; Cosimo, Mucca and a hundred others gasped. Davido dropped to his knees, the wind knocked from his body.
Now Giuseppe raised the crossbow and held it directly between Davido’s eyes. “Admit your guilt, villain, and I may spare your life.”
“My life,” said Davido, gasping for breath, “what do I care for my life? But leave her be. She is innocent.”
“Innocent?” mocked Giuseppe. “Would an innocent serve a sauce so crude? Would the innocent be found laying in the nude?”
“It is all my doing,” said Davido. “She is blameless.” “Not true,” said Mari pleadingly. “My love, why do you say such things?”
“You know not what you say, girl!” Davido shouted. He was desperate and panting; saliva and blood dripped down his face. “Do not blame her. Her heart and mind are not complete, for I have swayed them with devilry and deceit. I have used Ebreo potions. I have bewitched her with Love Apples and ancient spells. I have used the blackest magic, the darkest Ebreo art to lower her virtue and steal her heart. Punish me. It is I who you must kill, for she did not act from her free will.”
Giuseppe had not expected the Ebreo to say such a thing. He’d imagined the puny boy would plead for his life, and he had no immediate response.
“Not true,” said Mari, breaking the brief silence. “He did nothing of the sort. He lies to protect me. He lies because he is brave and good.”
Davido glanced pleadingly at Mari. Why, his eyes seemed to ask, will you not let me run this ruse and spare you this misery?
“Oh, shut up!” Giuseppe snapped. “Look how the illicit lovers protect each other. But it matters not. The crime, the guilt, is all the same.”
“Then punish me,” Davido spoke up, “kill me, for it is I who’s most to blame.”
“If the law permitted me to kill you,” said Giuseppe, “I would for the indignity you’ve brought upon my name. But I will exercise no more revenge or might than that which is my legal and paternal right.” Giuseppe retreated a few steps back from Davido. “Now get up, get off your knees. Go to your grandfather. Get thee from this village. Pack up all that belongs to you and be off your land by sunset tomorrow. For you and all your kin will pay the price for this great sin. As fatherly judgment and papal law permit, she’s to a nunnery and your land to forfeit.”
Every stomach and heart in the crowd twisted and fluttered with fear, none more so than Nonno’s. Nonno felt so suddenly old—old and scared beyond reason—and he knew not what to do. He opened his mouth to speak, to say something on his grandson’s behalf, but another sound came first—the sound of laughter.
“Is that what this is all about?” Davido said between laughs, albeit a gasping, swollen-lipped and slightly delirious laugh.
“My land?”
“S
hut up, boy,” growled Giuseppe.
“A thief.” Davido’s laughter grew. “A lowly thief. This is not about immorality and abuse of chastity—”
“I said, shut up, boy!” Giuseppe now aimed the crossbow at Davido’s throat.
“—or a vengeance-minded father driven by grief. This is about land, and you’re a thief.”
Giuseppe tightened his finger on the trigger. “I said, shut up, boy, or you’ll be dead.”
Naked, beaten, bloodied and upon his knees, Davido lifted his head to face Giuseppe. “Oh, the thief does murder too?”
“As you have ruined my daughter!” Giuseppe roared.
“Mari,” Davido looked directly into Giuseppe’s eyes, “is not your daughter.”
Mari felt her heart swell.
“Get up.” Giuseppe motioned with the crossbow for Davido to stand. “As fatherly judgment and papal law permit, she’s to a nunnery and your land to forfeit.”
But Davido did not rise. He remained on his knees, glaring into Giuseppe’s eyes, unmoved by the crossbow’s bolt trained upon his throat. “No. Better you slaughter me like the thief and butcher you are.”
“By the devil, I’ll do it!” Giuseppe said furiously. “As fatherly judgment and papal law permit, she’s to a nunnery and your land to forfeit.”
The crowd fell deathly quiet. Giuseppe braced the crossbow against his shoulder. His left eye closed to better focus his right. His finger tightened.
“It is not his land to give away.” A voice, not Davido’s, broke the silence.
Giuseppe and his crossbow turned. All heads followed suit.
“You,” said Giuseppe incredulously.
“Yes, I, Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany,” said Cosimo in his most regal and powerful voice as he stepped forward from the crowd. “And as your sovereign, I do hereby prohibit this forfeiture from taking place. Besides, you vile, ignorant moron, all law, papal law, is subordinate to will and judgment of the Meducci. All land of Tuscany is my land. I dole it out only by the goodness of my heart. And I pardon any and all wrongdoing here and order that you cease this inquisition at once.”
“You,” Giuseppe chortled menacingly. “The Duke of Tuscany, the vagrant wretch who works my land for free? The itinerant fugitive who survives only by the good graces of Benito? Oh, this is too much.”
The crowd, however, did not laugh. No question, the idea that the odd, sweetly natured character who had wandered into town a few weeks earlier was the Duke of Tuscany was indeed laughable, but the crazy fool had put himself in harm’s way and no one saw fit to join Giuseppe in laughter.
Neither did Cosimo laugh. He narrowed his eyes, lifted his chin and gazed upon Giuseppe with an aristocratic sort of contempt. “You dare deride the Duke of Tuscany, you petty, pathetic, arrogant beast? I will have you stripped and flogged and pitched into the dankest, darkest dungeon of my choosing. I will destroy you and usurp all that you own and give it to whom it pleases me. I will make of this day a great feast. Children will play games that scoff and scorn your memory. Adults will gather to drink and eat and celebrate the vanquishing of the loathsome, bullying little tyrant who once tried to get in the way of a love so true.”
The crowd was stone-silent, their guts gripped with tension. No one had ever spoken to Giuseppe in such a fashion, and the style with which it was done had more than one villager believing that the bizarre interloper might just be the Duke of Tuscany.
“Now put down your weapon,” continued Cosimo, “and leave forever this place. You are banished, exiled, hereby forbidden from ever setting foot in this village again. You will find no home or peace in my Tuscany. You will walk south. I catch the Roman in your tongue. You will return to that turgid place from which you came. This is my command and I pity the fate that will befall you should you dare be here tomorrow when I return with my guard.”
Giuseppe felt himself bristle with rage and fear. He had never told anyone that he was from Rome, and the fact that his long-buried accent had been so easily recognized troubled him even more than what the deranged interloper had said. Could it be? he thought to himself. Impossible.
Shoulders back, chest forward, the way a king carries himself, Cosimo strode over to Davido and stood before him, his back to Giuseppe. Taking off his stableman’s waistcoat, he set it over Davido’s shoulders.
“You dare turn your back on me?” Giuseppe yelled.
Cosimo did not reply nor did he turn around. Instead, he put his hands on Davido’s shoulders and helped lift him to his feet.
“You dare turn your back on me?” Giuseppe barked again.
Cosimo ignored Giuseppe as he looked Davido in the eye. “I knew your sister,” he said softly for only Davido to hear, “and I shall not let the same fate befall you.”
No sooner had these unimaginable words landed upon Davido’s ears than he heard the snap of the crossbow and the horrendous sound of an arrow pierce and burst through skin and muscle. Right before Davido’s eyes, the duke’s expression exploded with pain as the hands upon Davido’s shoulders gripped him in anguish.
There was a scream from the crowd. The duke fell forward onto Davido’s naked chest, his hands gripping desperately against Davido’s shoulders as he slowly crumpled to his knees. Looking down, Davido saw the arrow lodged into the duke’s right buttock and blood pouring from the area, drenching his pants leg and turning it crimson.
Giuseppe dropped his crossbow, strode over to the kneeling duke and, with appalling insouciance, stomped him with the sole of his boot between the shoulder blades. The blow smashed the duke into Davido, knocking him backward and the duke face-first to the ground.
“Now,” said Giuseppe as he quickly knelt down and removed his gleaming, ivory-handled dagger from inside his boot, “enough games.” Giuseppe then grabbed Davido by the hair, bent his head back and placed the dagger to his throat. “You will be gone, or you will be dead, and your land is forfeit!”
Splat! Davido heard the screams and felt the blood burst and splatter upon his face, filling his open mouth and blinding his eyes. Though it seemed that everyone in the piazza cried out in unison, he clearly heard the two voices that mattered to him most—Nonno and Mari. I am dead, he thought as Giuseppe’s firm grip upon his hair slackened. Shame of all shames, I am dead. So much I wanted to do …
But in an instant Davido recognized that the taste in his mouth was not blood, but tomato. Opening his eyes, Davido saw Giuseppe, a mere eighteen inches before him; the tyrant looked stunned with the remnants of a tomato pasted across the right side of his face. Giuseppe shook his head to regain his wits, apparently equally stunned by the blow and the notion that someone had the gall to attack him. Slowly, he turned his head in the direction from which the blow came. There, seeming more giant than ever, Giuseppe saw who dare oppose him. It was the Good Padre.
“Benito,” Davido could have sworn he heard Giuseppe mumble, “you failed me.”
Giuseppe now squared his shoulders in the Good Padre’s direction and the crowd fell absolutely silent, petrified with fear. True, the Good Padre was enormous, but Giuseppe had a knife and seemed far more the killer between the two. He took a step forward when suddenly a heartrending moan filled the air and a feebly thrown tomato bounced off Giuseppe’s shoulder. The blow, though harmless, stopped Giuseppe in his tracks.
“You?” Giuseppe said with a wicked crinkle to his lips as he beheld his wife, Mari’s mother, standing on the side of the wagon opposite the Good Padre and already reaching to grab another tomato.
The delay proved just enough. Splat! As if fired by cannon, another tomato blasted into the side of Giuseppe’s head. Davido heard the crowd gasp; a cripple and a priest were leading the charge. Again, the Good Padre reached into Nonno’s wagon, lifted a tomato from it and hurled it. This time the tomato struck Giuseppe in his raised dagger hand and knocked the blade into his face, opening a small cut upon his cheek and sending the dagger clanging to the ground.
Mari, Mucca, the Chees
e Maker, Signore Coglione, Bertolli and dozens of villagers let loose with a great roar. The crowd converged upon the wagon, hands extended so to grab a tomato and follow the Good Padre’s lead. Tomato after tomato began to bombard Giuseppe, blows paltry and punishing alike. Davido caught the expression on his grandfather’s face—the single most incredible look he had ever seen! To call it delight or bewilderment would have ignored its spiritual component: the epiphany on Nonno’s countenance that he would live to see the day that a crowd of simple rhymers came to the defense of his grandson. Davido then looked to Mari; she too seemed equally enthralled that her mother, her beaten and broken mother, could rise to such heights of courage.
The entire crowd now hollered a great battle cry as they continued their assault upon Giuseppe. Bertolli, Mucca, Signore Coglione and a half-hundred others near the wagon threw tomatoes. Those about the market grabbed and launched what was closest at hand. The Cheese Maker lifted a firm smoked mozzarella from his stand and with devastating accuracy did to Giuseppe’s face what yesterday had been done to his. Even amongst the din, Davido heard the crack of Giuseppe’s nose and saw it collapse to the side. He watched in disbelief as dozens of tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs and onions and hunks of cheese and whatever else one had at hand pummeled Giuseppe. The revolt was contagious, and perhaps by virtue of village sentiment or some shred of personal decency, even Augusto Po and Vincenzo entered into the fray, bombarding Giuseppe with the hard-boiled eggs on the stand before them.
Strangely, Giuseppe did not try to cover or protect himself. He simply stood there hollering as things both hard and soft exploded into him; hollering, as if he could not fathom that a man as great as he could be undone in such a ridiculous fashion. Giuseppe was stout and took quite a pounding until a viciously thrown hunk of pecorino cheese came crashing into his left ribs. The blow knocked the wind out of him, perhaps even cracking a rib, and comically altered Giuseppe’s defiant holler into a dismal moan.
At last, Giuseppe keeled over, staggering like a drunken fool whose body was torn between a desire to walk and an urge to vomit. His feet slipped and shuffled on the puddle of food-slop surrounding him. To no avail, his discombobulated hands attempted to swat the tomatoes and eggs and onions flying toward him as if they were gnats swarming around his head. It appeared to Davido, who was closest by, that Giuseppe was mouthing the words basta, basta, but that he had not even the breath to say, “enough, enough.” Finally, Giuseppe could take no more and he dropped to his knees as if his legs were made of water. Another tomato or two bounced off Giuseppe’s head and shoulder, but it was clear the villain was finished and the crowd’s attack petered out. He was a bloody and beaten mess, his nose and ribs broken.
