Luckily, Romeo did not know his odds. He also did not know that he emerged on the road ahead of the field due to very unusual circumstances. Somewhere along the way, an anonymous bystander had let loose a hamper of geese right in front of the Palio riders, and in the confusion, rotten eggs had been very accurately launched at a particular horseman-belonging to a particular tower-house-in retaliation for a similar incident the year before. Such pranks were part of the Palio, but only rarely did they have any profound influence on the race.
There were those who saw the Virgin Mary’s hand in it alclass="underline" the geese, the delay, and Romeo’s magical flight over seven fences. But to the fourteen riders, who had dutifully followed the road, Romeo’s sudden appearance ahead of them could be nothing but the work of the devil. And so they pursued him with hateful vehemence as the road gradually narrowed to funnel them all through the arch of Porta Camollia.
Only the boys who had climbed up onto the brickwork of the city gate had been able to see the latter part of Romeo’s daring ride with their own eyes, and whatever their previous allegiances, whatever the loves and hates of their kin crowding below, those boys could not help but cheer on the reckless challenger as he shot through the gate beneath them, eminently vulnerable without his body armor and helmet, and immediately followed by a band of frenzied foes.
MANY A PALIO HAD been decided at Porta Camollia; the rider who had the good fortune to be first through the city gate stood a decent chance of maintaining the lead through the narrow city streets and ending up the winner in Piazza del Duomo. The greatest challenge from now on was the tower-houses lining the road on both sides; despite the law stipulating that if objects had been deliberately thrown from a tower, then that tower must be torn down, flowerpots and bricks kept falling-miraculously or devilishly, depending on your allegiance-onto rivals passing in the street below. Despite the law, such acts were rarely punished, for to gather a sober and unanimous account of events leading to accidents along the Palio racetrack was something very few city officials had ever bothered to attempt.
As he rode under the fateful gate and entered Siena in the lead position, Romeo was only too aware of disobeying his father. Comandante Marescotti had instructed him to avoid being in the lead, precisely because of the danger of projectiles thrown from the towers. Even with a helmet on his head, a man could easily be knocked from his horse by a well-aimed terra-cotta pot; with no helmet on, he was sure to be dead before he even hit the ground.
But Romeo could not let the others pass him. He had struggled so hard to catch up and pass the field that the idea of falling back to the fourth position-even in the interest of strategy and self-preservation-was as repulsive as giving in completely and letting the others finish the race without him.
And so he spurred on the horse and thundered into town, trusting in the Virgin to carve his way with her heavenly staff and deliver him from any evil falling from aloft.
He saw no faces, no limbs, no bodies; Romeo’s path was lined with walls studded with screaming mouths and wide-open eyes, mouths that made no sound, and eyes that saw nothing but black and white, rival and ally, and which would never be able to recount the facts of the race, for in a maddened crowd there are none. All is emotion, all is hope, and the wishes of the crowd will always trump the truth of one.
The first projectile hit him just as he entered the neighborhood of Magione. He never saw what it was, just felt a sudden, burning pain in his shoulder as the object merely grazed him and fell to the ground somewhere in his wake.
The next one-a terra-cotta pot-hit his thigh with a numbing thud, and for a brief instant he thought the impact might have crushed the bone. But when he touched a hand to his leg, he felt nothing, not even pain. Not that it mattered whether the bone was broken or not, as long as he was still in the saddle and his foot still firmly in the stirrup.
The third object to hit him was smaller, and that was fortunate, for it hit him right on the forehead and nearly knocked him out. It took Romeo a few gasps to shake the darkness and regain control of the horse, and meanwhile, all around him, the wall of screaming mouths was laughing at his confusion. Only now did he fully understand what his father had known all along: If he stayed in the lead through the neighborhoods controlled by the Salimbenis, he would never finish the race.
Once the decision was made, it was not hard to fall back from the lead position; the challenge was to avoid being passed by more than three other riders. They all glared at him as they passed him-the son of Tolomei, the son of Salimbeni, and someone else who did not matter-and Romeo glared right back at them, hating them for thinking he was giving up, and hating himself for resorting to tricks.
Taking up the pursuit, he stayed as close to the three as he could, keeping his head down and trusting that no tower-dwelling Salimbeni supporter would risk hurting the son of their patron. His calculation proved right. The sight of the Salimbeni banner with the three diamonds made everyone hesitate one moment too long in throwing their bricks and pots, and as the four riders galloped through the neighborhood of San Donato, Romeo was not struck by a single object.
Riding by Palazzo Salimbeni at last, he knew the time had come for him to do the impossible: pass his three rivals, one by one, before the track turned sharply up Via del Capitano and into Piazza del Duomo. This was truly the moment when divine intervention would show itself; were he to succeed and win the race from his current position, it could only be a result of heavenly favor.
Spurring on the horse, Romeo managed to catch up with the son of Tolomei and the son of Salimbeni-side by side as if they had been allies forever-but just as he was about to pass them, Nino Salimbeni drew back his arm like a scorpion its tail, and sunk a shiny dagger into the flesh of Tebaldo Tolomei, right above the harness where the tender neck was visible between the body armor and the helmet.
It happened so quickly that no one else could possibly have seen exactly who attacked and how. There was a flash of gold, a brief struggle. Then seventeen-year-old Tebaldo Tolomei tumbled from the horse, limply, in the middle of Piazza Tolomei, to be pulled aside by his father’s screaming clients, while the assassin continued at full speed without even looking back.
The only one to react to the atrocity was the third rider, who-fearing for his own life now that he seemed the only serious contender left-began swinging his banner at the murderer, trying to knock him out of the saddle.
Giving Cesare full rein, Romeo tried to pass the two wrestling riders, but was thwarted when Nino Salimbeni broadsided him in an attempt at avoiding the third rider’s banner. Hanging by little more than a stirrup, Romeo saw Palazzo Marescotti fly by and knew that the most lethal corner of the Palio was coming up ahead. If he was not back in the saddle when the road turned, his Palio-and maybe his life-would come to a very ignoble end.
IN PIAZZA DEL DUOMO, Friar Lorenzo regretted-for the twentieth time that morning-not staying in his lonely cell with his prayer book. Rather, he had allowed himself to be swept outside and away by the madness of the Palio. Here he was, trapped in the crowd and barely able to see the finish line, never mind that demonic cloth flying from a tall pole, that silken noose around the neck of innocence: the cencio.
Next to him was the podium holding the heads of the noble families, not to be confused with the podium of the government, which held fewer luxuries, and fewer ancestors, but-for all the self-effacing rhetoric-an equal amount of ambition. Both Tolomei and Salimbeni were visible on the former, opting to watch their sons triumph from the comfort of cushioned seats rather than suffering the dust of the starting line at Fontebecci only to toss their paternal advice at an ungrateful youngster who would never heed it anyway.