Giorgio's stomach rose and fell. I will have to tell Babbo "no," he thought. On the calendar I have already fixed the plans for Gaudenzia. She is in training for battle; we cannot stop now.
"Babbo," he said, "every morning I take Gaudenzia to the road that winds round the hills. We walk, and we jog, and then we begin the gallops and...." He broke off as a sudden thought struck him. Instead of working Gaudenzia in the morning, he would plant the trees, and take her out at night. Was not the Palio held at sundown? Why not accustom her to the late hour?
He smiled. "But from now on I train her by night. Yes, Babbo, I will go with you. We will plant the trees together."
Later that day the father proudly told the townfolk, "That Giorgio of mine, he makes of Gaudenzia no morning glory! Horses has time-clocks in their heads. The morning bloomers wilt by noon. Oh, that boy, he thinks like the four-footed!"
As the days grew shorter, the workouts grew longer, more intense. Long walks with little jogs gave way to long jogs with little walks. By starlight, by moonlight, the white mare rounded the curves of Mount Amiata like some floating phantom of the night. She was never extended, never pushed. Without anyone's telling him how or why, Giorgio knew he had to build up her confidence in herself. Always he stopped short of what she could do. There was plenty of time to reach the peak. The real mountain, he knew, was not Amiata.
October, November, and December were torn off the calendar. In January there were many days of mist and drizzle when Giorgio still had to work, planting trees. Then no one passed the stable for hours at a time, and Gaudenzia's nervous twitching came on again and she took to crib-biting. One dismal evening when he came to bridle her, she stood grunting as she clamped her teeth on her manger, sucking air into her stomach. Giorgio tried fastening his belt around her neck, loose enough so that she could munch grain, but tight enough to prevent her opening her jaws for swallowing air. It worked! After this, on rainy days, he made her wear the belt, and all went well. And so, regardless of weather, they left the stable each evening at the same hour, clattering down the stony lanes of Monticello, and out upon the lonely road cleft in the hill.
Nothing was too good for Gaudenzia. He gave her rub-downs, first with straw, then with burlap bags. He borrowed the flour sifter from home, and each measure of grain he sifted free of bugs and dust, saving the dead beetles for the kittens. He begged old sheeting from his mother and spent precious lire buying cotton and alcohol with which to bandage her forelegs.
"You cannot even imagine," he told Gaudenzia, "how firm we make your legs." Sometimes she threatened to bite him as he worked, but she never did. More often she lipped the back of his sweater, in the way a dam gently nibbles along the neck of her colt.
Giorgio lived all day—digging and planting—for the night. He might have been sticking faggots in the earth for all he knew. His mind was everywhere else: on the calendar in the stable, taking the curves of the mountain, putting on his helmet for the race. Trumpets and drums beat like blood in his ears. Unconsciously he began whistling the "March of the Palio." It made Babbo and all the other men work better, happier.
The months of winter passed, not in days and weeks, but in developing Gaudenzia's wind and stamina. When Giorgio came home each night, mud-spattered and hungry, his mother reheated the soup and stood by as he drank it. One night when his hair was wet with snow, and his jacket sagging and sopping, she cried, "Giorgio, Giorgio, Giorgio, why can't you let up?"