It brought a faint titter from the other fantinos before Captain Tortorelli broke in: "I hereby declare ..." he paused to clear his throat. "I declare," he repeated, "Giorgio Terni, fantino for the Onda."
Never to Giorgio had a man's gruff voice or the scratchy squeak of a pen sounded so sweet. When it was all over, he went out into the vastness of the Piazza. The pigeons were putting on an aerial spectacle, spiralling into the deep sky. Giorgio felt his spirits rise with them.
The Chief-of-the-Guards came up alongside. "I can see from your face," he smiled, "that all is now official."
Giorgio nodded.
"So you and your guards come rest at my house," the Chief said. "For you my wife makes her special zucchini omelette. It sits light in your stomach, and so you sit light on my Gaudenzia! You have now until four o'clock to eat and rest and sip the sweet wine of anticipation."
Giorgio had not visited the eagle's-nest-of-a-house for a whole month, not since the night of his arrival with Gaudenzia. Then, there had been a yellow moon-path on the hillside. Now a watery sun was breaking through the clouds, drawing moisture up in a thick curtain of mist. Only a month, he thought, but leading up to it a whole calendar of months from October to June. And before that, years of training for Signor Ramalli; and before that, Bianca, the Blind One; and before that, way in the beginning, a dusty little Umbrella Man sitting crosslegged by the fountain, reciting the deep mystery of the Palio.
"Come inside! Come inside!" the Chief-of-the-Guards laughed. "Stop gawping. Grapevines and olive groves you have seen before. Now we eat."
Giorgio was glad that no one expected him to eat much, or to talk at all. After the meal Pinotto, Carlo, Enzio, and Nello took their siestas in chairs and on the sofa. But Giorgio and the Chief paced—from balcony to dining room to kitchen and back again.
The afternoon wore slowly on. From the distance came the murmur of Tuscans and tourists pouring through the city's gates. The swelling noise rolled into the house through doors and windows.
An hour is very long on Palio day, and Giorgio was never good at waiting. The tick and the tock of the clock on the wall dawdled in maddening slowness, the hands barely moving. Every few minutes he went to the door to check the position of the sun, as if he could not trust the clock. When at last the bodyguards stirred to life, relief flooded through him. The waiting was over! It was time to dress for the pageant.