Page 48 of The Medici Return

CHAPTER 32

SIENA, ITALY

COTTON SIZED UPCAMILLABAINES.

She was maybe mid-sixties, with a narrow waist and an elaborate styling of reddish-gold hair that made her small and delicate features look even smaller. Her dark eyes shone with eager expectancy, and her demeanor was one of calm. She stood with both arms propped against a wooden fence that encircled a long riding track. A rider and horse were navigating the dirt at full speed, making a turn at the far end. She’d briefly greeted them, then turned her attention back to the track. He and Richter joined her at the fence.

“This is my farm,” she said to them in English. “A hundred years ago it was an orphanage. This track was once a lake. Now it makes for a good place to train horses.”

He agreed. The site was spectacular. And private too, as only tall forest lay beyond the meadows they’d passed earlier. Chain saws roared like lions in the distance.

“The Palio runs tomorrow,” she said, “and there are decisions to be made. Have either one of you ever seen the race?”

“I have not had the pleasure,” Richter said.

“And you, Signore Malone?”

“I have. One time.”

“Then you understand its beauty, the poetry, its majesty.”

“I understand it’s a free-for-all, a drama full of duplicity, where deceit is not only part of the race but expected.”

She smiled. “You do know the Palio.”

Across the track the horse and rider kept barreling along at full gallop, making the turn, preparing for the final straightaway. The jockey was leaned forward, riding bareback.

“That can’t be your horse for the race out there,” he said to her.

He knew that today the cavalcade would be happening inside Siena, where thecontradaswould be out in full force with their medieval displays. Part of that involved revealing their respective horse and jockey.

“You are correct,” she said. “That is neither our horse nor our jockey. Rules require otherwise.”

As much as the Palio seemed a race without rules, there were in fact many that governed its existence. One hundred and five to be exact, if he recalled correctly.

“Three days ago,” she said, “during theenthronethe vets presented this year’s array of horses. They then ran around the piazza three times, just like in the race, to show their suitability, then thecapitanichose the ten best from the group. Lots were drawn and eachcontradawas assigned a horse at random. Sometimes you get a good ride. A strong mount. And there is joy. Sometimes, though, you find a hack, abrenna, and there is sadness.”

“What did Golden Oak draw?” he asked her.

Horse and rider raced by at full speed, hooves pounding, and kept going, leaving a swirl of dust in their wake.

“I am afraid we have abrenna,” she said.

Which meant Golden Oak had little chance to win.

“We also have an even worse problem,” she said. “Our jockey is a dishonest man.”

Traditionally, the jockeys were not locals. Instead, they were mercenaries who trained all year for the chance to ride. Hired from far away, usually Sardinia, their allegiance was only to how much money they could make, regardless of its source. And theywere well paid, sometimes in the millions of euros, which could tax thecontradas’financial resources.

But winning was everything.

“There is an old saying,” she said. “For the piazza three things are needed. Heart, guts, and a killer instinct.But another saying tempers that.Without poverty, there was no incentive.Shifting alliances make the Palio special. Betrayal is common and guile is prized. Many times it is not about winning, but rather preventing someone else from winning. Yet the deceit is still annoying.”

The horse and rider were making the far turn again.

Now at a light gallop.

“The Palio is not about how fast a horse runs,” she said. “More on how smart one runs. The horse is, in many ways, more important than the jockey. In the Palio it is the first horse across the finish line that wins, rider atop or not. For us, we informed our jockey what we wanted him to do. He told us he could do it.”

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