"If no one has knocked off his spennacchiera."
The children's eyes popped. "His what?"
Uncle Marco pushed back his hat and held three fingers upright against his forehead. "This is my spen-nac-chie-ra," and he spun out the syllables until they seemed to have springs in them. "You see, my friends, it is like colored plumes in the headband of each horse. It is the badge of his contrada."
With his free hand he now picked up an umbrella rib. "This is my nerbo," he explained. "It is fierce whip of ox hide, used always by fantinos since olden years." In make-believe anger he used it to whack his fingers away from his forehead.
Emilio and the younger children all made imaginary plumes of their fingers and some tried to knock off their neighbor's until the audience was in a shrieking uproar.
While Uncle Marco waited for quiet, he went to work on the green umbrella, snipped out the offending rib, and with the long, curved needle sewed a new one in place.
Giorgio watched with unseeing eyes. He was still far away in Siena. When the noise died down he said, "Uncle Marco, the contrada that wins, what does it win?"
"What does it win! Why, it wins the Palio, the silken banner!"
"Only a banner?"
The needle went in and out, fast and faster, and the man's face darkened in displeasure. "Only a banner! How can you say it? The picture of the Madonna is hand-painted on it! Why, the winning of the banner is like...." He rummaged around in his mind for something big enough ... "is like finding the Holy Grail."