Page 10 of Duke for the Summer

Nate:Sorry, I’m fine. really busy getting in and they had a big party last night. I’m ok and I’m going to the castle today.

Antonio was driving, with Jacopo riding shotgun. Nate had woken in the early morning to the sound of the espresso machine, and had been fed several pastries that he didn’t need before he and his luggage were loaded into the truck. The night before was a bleary slideshow of faces and lights, names he didn’t remember–besides Gracie, who he had been sad to learn wasn’t coming along today.

It was probably about 2am on the West Coast, but Thea still texted back almost immediately.

Thea:Oh ok cool i get it. big important duke party with your duke friends. YA DOUCHE

Nate:ughhhhh i’m sorry. You know i can’t stand the group chat. I’ll let everyone know im ok I GUESS

Thea:please? dave is like seconds away from launching some covert ops mission

ooh and send pics!!

and I BOUGHTTTTT MYYYYY TICKETSSS

ITALY FUCKKKKK YEAHHHH

I’m gonna be all up in your dukedom in six weeeeekkkkkkkssss

Tell all the juicy joes to prepare themselves bc i’m single as fuck and MY BODY IS READYYY

Omg thea, Nate typed, looking at the way Jacopo’s hair curled against the headrest in front of him, the tight set of his shoulders.

Thea sent back a kissy-face emoji, followed by a horse and an Italian flag.

Nate hardly knew what he was writing as he dutifully typed a message to the family chat. He turned off his notifications before anyone could reply. They were coming into town.

The colorful little buildings were a blur as Nate stepped out of the truck, the piazza with its ruddy cobbles and the little storefronts. The midafternoon sun was brutal, pounding down onto the back of his neck, and he’d packed about a gallon of sunscreen but forgotten to put any on that morning. Jacopo was explaining something about how the community well was still in use, how Carmosino was basically just a series of iron-rich hills covering an aquifer and how the local water was some of the purest in the nation. Nate murmured some kind of response, observing the clusters of pigeons around the square, the white splatters and scattered feathers they’d left all over the stone.

God, he needed to get his thoughts together. He needed to exercise; his body was full of nervous energy and his brain was fizzling and after all the pasta and goat meat, he’d be the duke of backrolls soon if he didn’t start taking care of himself. Nate barely registered going to the corner store, grabbing Italian deodorant and other toiletries, snacks, and prosecco because fuck it, and then they were back out in the square and–

And, oh. That was the castle.

He let out an embarrassing little noise, grabbing Jacopo’s wrist.

“Yes. It is the castle.” Jacopo made a dismissive gesture.

Rearing up behind the tans and yellows and pinks of the village, the castle,hiscastle, was a tall, blocky structure of creamy brickwork, little windows cut into its facade. Nate counted three round towers, roofed by brick-red shingles. As they approached, walking up the hill from the village, more of it came into detail: the ornate stonework around the windows, the traces of paint that lingered on the brick walls. It was newer than Nate had expected, and friendlier-looking, too, its architecture robust and welcoming, its lines rounded and soft. There was a crumbling wall around the castle grounds, choked with dry grass, a cat sleeping on it, and Jacopo explained that the wall had been put there by the Romans, and yeah, of course, that tracked, the Romans, no big deal–and the courtyard was full of dry grass too, more cats napping in the sun, stretched out on tiles that bore some fading design.

This wasn’t real, right? This was all some big prank that had been played on him, the castle was CGI and Jacopo was a paid actor and even the cats were in on it, and–

Nate felt a full-body shiver as he saw that over the ornate wooden door was a mosaic depicting the same ducal crest that had been on Jacopo’s original emails. A stylized bird, a red banner, a lapis-blue sea in the background.

Antonio said something, clapping Jacopo and then Nate on the shoulder. Nate was vaguely aware of the now-warm bottles of the prosecco in the bag he was still holding, clinking together against his thigh.

“He says he’ll come back tomorrow,” Jacopo explained. “I need you to sign some paperwork, first of all. Antonio will take it to the mainland to get notarized.” He looked at Nate curiously.“Are you alright? You haven’t spoken. And you look–” he gestured to his own face. “The sunburn. It’s very much already.”

“No, I’m okay. I’m excited. Overwhelmed, I guess.”It’s very much already. Everything was very much, already. Nate could feel his molars vibrating in his gums, and he wanted to sprint around the courtyard, or do push-ups, or scream off the ramparts Leonardo DiCaprio-style.

“Yes,” Jacopo said. “Tonight you need to rest.”

There were awkward goodbye hugs, and Jacopo took a key ring out of his shoulder bag, and the door was creaking open and they were in the cool, silent vestibule of the castle, the smell of dust and mildew and sun-warmed marble filtering into him. His mouth dropped open at the sight of the frescoes on the walls, chunks of them missing where the plaster had sloughed away: peacocks and owls, forested glades, symmetrical patterns. But there was no time to sit and gawk, and Jacopo hustled him along before he could even pull out his phone to take a picture.

They went up a narrow marble staircase, hollows worn into the steps from centuries’ worth of feet, and into some kind of solar or bedroom that had been turned into an administrative space, an ancient laptop wheezing away on the desk along with a dusty modem and a printer that was so old it should have been outlawed. Nate signed the papers, not sure if he was signing away his soul or just signing up for ownership of the castle, and not sure if he cared. Then Jacopo showed him his bedroom, or royal chamber, a giant room, the walls riotous with frescoes, the ceiling covered in capering animals and frenetic patterns. Maximalism at its best, the furniture was also ridiculously ornate, baroque styles in mainly rust-red and burnished gold. Nate’s eyes kept being drawn involuntarily to the bed, with its painted headboard and gold canopy. There was a faint smell of must clinging to everything, and the blankets, though lushly embroidered, looked starched into oblivion, scratchy. Andempty, too. The bed would be huge for one person.

“I’ll leave you alone,” Jacopo said. “You ought to have a nap. I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

Nate’s brain was exhausted, but his body felt like a convoy of bees. He swallowed, sitting down on the bed. His little wheeled suitcase looked ridiculously out-of-place in the room.

---