As they sat there, waving at their cheering supporters with measured condescension, they were not deaf to the fact that, this year, the tone of the masses had changed. The Palio had always been a cacophony of voices with everyone singing the songs of their own contrada and their own heroes-including the houses of Tolomei and Salimbeni, if they had a rider in the race-but this year it seemed many more people were joining in the songs of Aquila, the Marescotti eagle.
Sitting there, listening to it all, Tolomei looked worried. Only now, Friar Lorenzo ventured to guess, did the great man wonder whether it had been such a good idea to bring along with him the true prize of the Palio: his niece Giulietta.
The young woman was hardly recognizable as she sat there between father and husband-to-be, her regal attire at odds with her wan cheeks. She had turned her head once, to look right at Friar Lorenzo, as if she had known all along that he was standing there, observing her. The look on her face sent a stab of compassion through his heart, immediately followed by a stab of fury that he was unable to save her.
Was this why God had delivered her from the slaughter that befell her family-only to thrust her into the arms of the very villain who had shed their blood? It was a cruel, cruel fate, and Friar Lorenzo found himself suddenly wishing that neither she, nor he, had survived that evil day.
IF GIULIETTA HAD KNOWN her friend’s thoughts as she sat there on the podium, displayed for everyone to pity, she would have agreed that marriage to Salimbeni was a fate worse than death. But it was too early to give in to despair; the Palio was not yet over, Romeo was-as far as she knew-still alive, and Heaven might still be on their side.
If the Virgin Mary had truly been offended by Romeo’s behavior in the cathedral the night before, she would surely have struck him dead on the spot; the fact that he had been allowed to live, and return home unharmed, must mean that Heaven wanted him to ride in the Palio. But then… the design of Heaven was one thing, and quite another was the will of the man sitting next to her, Salimbeni.
A distant rumble of oncoming horses made the crowd around the podium contract in expectation and erupt in frenzied cheers, calling out the names of their favorites and rivals as if shouting could somehow direct fate. Everywhere around her, people stretched to see which of the fifteen Palio riders would be first into the piazza, but Giulietta could not look. Closing her eyes to the turmoil, she pressed her folded hands to her lips and dared to speak the one word that would make everything right, “Aquila!”
One breathless moment later, that word was repeated everywhere around her by thousands of voices: Aquila! Aquila! Aquila! It was cried, it was chuckled, it was sneered… and Giulietta opened her eyes excitedly to see Romeo sweeping through the piazza-his horse skidding on the uneven track and foaming with exhaustion-heading straight for the angel wagon with the cencio. His face was torn with rage, and she was shocked to see him smeared in blood, but he still had the eagle banner in his hand, and he was first. First.
Not pausing to cheer, Romeo rode right up to the angel wagon, pushed aside the chubby choirboys dressed with wings and suspended with ropes, grabbed the pole with the cencio, and planted his own banner instead. Holding his prize high in unrestrained triumph, he turned to face his closest rival, Nino Salimbeni, and to relish the other’s rage.
Nobody cared about the riders coming in third, fourth, and fifth; almost as one, the crowd’s heads were turning to see what Salimbeni was going to do about Romeo and this unexpected turn of events. By now, there was not a man or woman in Siena who was ignorant of Romeo’s defying Salimbeni, and his pledge to the Virgin Mary-that if he won the Palio, he would not turn the cencio into clothes, but drape it over his wedding bed-and there were few hearts that did not harbor some sympathy for the young lover.
Seeing that Romeo had secured the cencio, Tolomei got up abruptly, swaying in the crosswinds of fortune. All around him, the people of Siena were wailing and pleading, begging him to change his heart. Yet next to him sat a man who would surely squash that heart if he did.
“Messer Tolomei!” bellowed Romeo, holding the cencio high as the horse reared up beneath him, “Heaven has spoken in my favor! Do you dare ignore the wishes of the Virgin Mary? Will you sacrifice this city to her wrath? Does the pleasure of that man”-he pointed boldly at Salimbeni-“mean more to you than the safety of us all?”
A roar of outrage went through the crowd at the idea, and the guards surrounding the podium positioned themselves to draw and defend. There were those among the townspeople who defied the guards and boldly reached for Giulietta, urging her to jump from the podium and let them deliver her to Romeo. But Salimbeni put a stop to their attempts by standing up and placing a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Very well, boy!” he yelled to Romeo, counting on his many friends and supporters to cheer him on and turn the tide. “You won the race! Now go home and turn that cencio into a nice dress for yourself, and maybe I’ll let you be my bridesmaid when-”
But the crowd had heard enough and would not let him finish. “Shame on the Salimbenis,” cried someone, “for violating the will of Heaven!” And the rest responded immediately, screaming out their indignation against the noble gentlemen and preparing to turn rage into riot. Old Palio rivalries were now quite forgotten, and the few imbeciles still singing were quickly shut up by their peers.
The people of Siena knew that if they all united against the few, they might be able to storm the podium and steal away the lady who so obviously belonged to another. It would not be the first time they had rebelled against Salimbeni, and they knew that if only they kept pushing, they would soon have the mighty men hiding within their tall towers, all stairs and ladders pulled up and out of reach.
To Giulietta, who sat on the podium like an inexperienced sailor on a stormy sea, it was frightening and intoxicating to feel the power of the elements raging about her. There they were, thousands of strangers, whose names she did not know, but who were ready to brave the halberds of the guards to bring her justice. If only they kept pushing, the podium would soon keel over, and all the noble gentlemen would be busy saving themselves and their fine robes from the rabble.
In such a pandemonium, Giulietta figured, she and Romeo might be able to disappear, and the Virgin Mary would surely keep the riot going long enough for them to escape the city together.
But it was not to be. Before the mob had gathered momentum, a new group of people came bursting into the piazza, to scream terrible news at Messer Tolomei. “Tebaldo!” they cried, pulling at their hair in despair, “it is Tebaldo! Oh, the poor boy!” And when they finally reached the podium and found Tolomei on his knees, begging them to tell him what had happened to his son, they replied in tears, waving a bloody dagger in the air, “He is dead! Murdered! Stabbed to death during the Palio!”
As soon as he understood the message, Tolomei fell over in convulsions, and the whole podium erupted in fear. Shocked by the sight of her uncle like this, looking as if he was possessed by a demon, Giulietta at first recoiled, then forced herself to kneel down and attend to him as best she could, shielding him from the scuffle of feet and legs until Monna Antonia and the servants were able to get through. “Uncle Tolomei,” she urged him, not knowing what else to say, “calm yourself!”
The only man to stand straight through it all was Salimbeni, who demanded to see the murder weapon and instantly held it up for everyone to behold. “Look!” he roared. “There you have your hero! This is the dagger that killed Tebaldo Tolomei during our holy race! See?” He pointed at its shaft. “It has the Marescotti eagle engraved! What do you make of that?”