Page 31 of Duke for the Summer

The afternoon light had turned the hillsides a deep, brick red and the air was heady with the smell of eucalyptus as they headed out of town, the farmhouses growing sparser and sparser until there was nothing but dry grass and clusters of trees, the occasional goat standing sentry, a splash of white against thelandscape. Nate’s arms were locked around Jacopo’s middle, his cheek pressed up against his back, and it seemed like he could stay here forever, absorbing the heat from Jacopo’s body and breathing him in as the road wound away beneath them and the Mediterranean stretched out to the horizon, calm and luminous as stained glass.

Jacopo took them past the ruins of the amphitheater at the island’s southern tip. The sun lingered at the bottom of the arena like butter in a bowl, the columns casting long shadows across the road. Nate felt a little flutter in his stomach, thinking about all the people who had sat in those stands, all the passion and fear and violence in such a beautiful place, and he squeezed Jacopo tighter. They were turning off the main ring road that circled the island, and the foliage was denser here, the land changing from rolling fields to scrub brush and tangled stands of oak and olive trees.

It was quiet here, and though the sun had not yet begun to set, the trees had created their own greenish twilight, specks of dust dancing through the air. Soon the path became too overgrown for the vespa, and Jacopo parked, leaning it up against a tree.

“We’ll have to walk from here,” he said, pausing to light a cigarette, the flame shining bright in the gloom.

Nate checked his phone. No new texts from Thea besides the selfie she had sent with what was a very young and admittedly very hot–and hopefully also veryrespectful–fisherman. “How did you even find this place?” he asked.

“Everyone knows about it,” Jacopo said, taking his hand. The smell of tobacco mixed with the pungent scent of the eucalyptus was making Nate feel almost giddy, and his heart pounded as Jacopo pulled him deeper into the trees. “Very few people know quite where it is, or bother to come out here. But my uncle told me that he had stumbled upon it while looking formushrooms, so I wanted to find it myself.”

“Do you think we’ll see the ghost?”

“I don’t know. But there’s something special that I want to show you.”

The ground was sandy volcanic soil, the same iron-rich earth that made up the hillsides, but Nate began to notice signs that a road had been here once; stone cobbles protruding from the dirt, their surfaces worn by footsteps and time. The isolated patches eventually joined together to make a street, and Nate saw the remnants of buildings jutting out amongst the trees, the right-angles of human construction undeniable even under layers of lichen and vines. A crumbling set of stairs led down into what had been the village square, tiles in the earth still retaining a whisper of the designs that had been painted there. At the center of the square, a well, overgrown with moss but still, he saw when he peered down into it, half-full of dark, iron-smelling water.

“It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” Jacopo asked, at his shoulder. “Whatever system of pipes they had, to bring water up from the aquifer. It still works.”

Nate ran his hand over a carving on one of the decorative columns flanking the well. A serpent, or some other fierce creature. “God,” he breathed. “I can see why you kept this to yourself.” Feeling a little shy, he looked up into Jacopo’s face. His eyes were fathomless in the fading light, and there were little specks of copper in them that Nate hadn’t noticed before. “Do you want to make a wish?” There were a few euros in his pocket, and he pulled one out, offering it to Jacopo, but he waved it away.

“No, you should do it.”

So Nate flipped the coin over the edge, watching it flash once, a gold disc in the darkness, before vanishing out of sight to plink softly somewhere at the bottom. The wish that he wantedto make would just be stupid, so he revised it, tried to think up something vague enough that fate couldn’t twist around.I wish to be happy. I wish to figure things out. He squeezed Jacopo’s hand.

“There’s more to see,” Jacopo said. “Come with me.”

At the edge of the town were the remains of a villa, its portico still standing. Traces of paint clung to the columns, and Nate wondered aloud about what pigments they had used. Rust red, robin’s egg blue. Beyond the entrance lay an open-air garden, its fountains cluttered with vines, and the remains of a vast complex of rooms. Even centuries after its prime, there was an air of luxury to the place, and Nate imagined what it would have been like to live here, to walk over the sun-warmed tiles in sandaled feet, to drink wine in the shade of fig trees and palms.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” Jacopo said, leading him into one of the rooms that opened off the garden. Its roof had fallen in long ago, but the walls were still standing. There was a fresco painted on them, immaculately detailed and still clear: revelers at a feast.

“Oh my God,” Nate whispered, careful not to breathe on it. “This could have been painted yesterday. The colors are so bright.”

“I thought you would like it.”

“I love it. People would pay to see this, Jacopo. If I open the castle up to tourists…” he trailed off. It made him a little sad to think of thousands of camera flashes, damaging the paint. Of thousands of other wishes in the well.

“It won’t be the same with many people here,” Jacopo said, as if reading his mind.

“No. Let’s enjoy it while we have it to ourselves.” He sat down, bracing himself against one of the unpainted walls. His knee was still a little stiff, and the walk up the hill hadn’t made it any better.

Jacopo made a concerned noise. “Are you alright? I didn’t think–”

“It’s fine. I probably shouldn’t have been on top so much last night, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Jacopo smiled, a little sheepishly. “We’ll have to–how do you call it? Find a better position.”

He sat too, and pulled a couple of Ichnusa beers and a packet of tomato-flavored chips out of his messenger bag, along with Nate’s sketchbook, which Nate had agreed to bring but hadn’t really intended to use. “Did you want this?”

Suddenly self-conscious, Nate reached for a beer. “I mean, what are you going to do if I’m drawing?”

“I don’t mind to sit here.”

“It feels weird.” Reluctantly, Nate picked up the book. Its paperboard cover still bore dust, all the way from Eugene. “Will you talk to me?”

“What should I talk about?”

“Tell me about yourself.”

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