And at last, at last, he is riding into the square! His eyes blink at the awesomeness. The facades of the palaces are alive with thousands upon thousands of heads. And within the railing of the shell is a heaving sea of heads, like flowers in a pot too small—rootbound and gone riotous in bloom. And all those heads have bodies and souls, and they have come to see him and to witness battle and bravery and bloodshed; and he, Giorgio Terni, must fight off nine warriors before his white mare can capture the golden banner.
He has to do it because it is like keeping a promise to himself and to those thousands of people. There are so many he dizzies trying to separate them. And all those eyes are asking for the most beautiful Palio in history, and Gaudenzia will give it to them!
The bigness of it all makes him afraid, and then he sees the small boys who have been waiting in the sun since noon, sitting there on the white posts that fence the shell. One looks up, focusing right at Giorgio with his shiny, worshipful eyes, and Giorgio knows he wants to win for him, and he wants to win for all the little colonnini, and for Emilio back home in Monticello, and for little boys everywhere.
At thought of home a smile crosses his face, and even through the bonging of the bell and the dinning of drums he can hear his mother say: "Giorgio Terni! Tell me! Tell me! What contrada comes first? And who next? And what happens then?"
He longs for a camera, but it would be no use. He has only two hands, and one is frozen to the lance and the other guiding the reins on a warhorse big as a battleship.
All right! He will be eyes and ears for everyone at home. His gaze moving, he peers around, taking pictures in his mind, explaining.
"Mammina! Babbo! Teria! Emilio! I have a lofty perch on my warhorse. I see across heads.... I see the whole procession. The members of the parade are not the people of today, but what they look like—the people of long ago.
"First come the red mace-bearers stumping along tall and straight, like their maces. They make way for the black-and-white flag of Siena.