"I—I—" Giorgio stuttered miserably. He was no longer Vittorino, the brave fantino who had won the July Palio. He was only Giorgio, shrinking in size, getting littler and littler until once again he was the runt of Monticello. Suddenly he thought of the letter in his pocket and presented it to the imposing guard, wrong side up.
Unsmiling, the man turned it around, read the single sentence carefully, and with a formal nod motioned him inside the Papal palace.
Afterward Giorgio never remembered how many footmen in gray and how many officials in black and how many Palatine guards read the letter and said, "Come this way," or "Go that way." Nor did he remember how many frescoed passages he walked, nor how many glass-enclosed elevators he rode, nor how many grand staircases and minor staircases he climbed. He moved as one in a dream, through marble halls, and around and around, and up and up and up, until he found himself in a magnificent courtyard open to the sky. He crossed its immensity, feeling antlike beside the gigantic statues of the apostles towering above him. Then he was ushered into an empty chamber that seemed a trinket in size, yet was more beautiful than any he had ever known.
"You may be seated," the guide said, and disappeared.
Perching gingerly on the edge of a settee, Giorgio felt less secure than if he were riding bareback on a runaway horse. He mopped his brow and folded his handkerchief. He looked about him. The room was all red and gold. The gold chairs were covered in a rosy red, like the colors worn by the Ram in the Palio. And the walls were the same rosy red.
Everything was quiet. Occasional wisps of conversation drifted in, but these only emphasized the stillness. For a moment he wanted to bolt. He knew now how Gaudenzia felt when left all alone, with no familiar hands or voice.
And just when the silence grew terrifying, a young clerk beckoned him across the hall and into a room with half-closed shutters. It was pleasantly dark and cool. "The Monsignore will see you now," the young man said.
And there, coming to meet Giorgio, was Monsignor Domenico Tardini, Pro-secretary of State for Extraordinary Affairs.
Giorgio looked up at him, tongue-tied. The face was all faces in one—kindly and penetrating, old and very young, smiling and stern—and the eyes, dark and deep-set behind the thick glasses, were both fiery and serene.
Seeing the worry in Giorgio's face, the Monsignore waved him kindly to a row of chairs against the wall, and he himself pulled one out and sat facing the boy.