His mind and body are far apart. No longer does he want to be a Sienese. He is an intruder, belonging neither to the present nor to the past, but suspended in time. Staring hopelessly, he watches the figures of the pageant move around the Piazza like wooden people on wooden horses on a merry-go-round. He sees the mare Gaudenzia, proud-headed. She is the only white one, the only Arabian. He feels a moment of pride.
Then the flags cut her off from sight and the numbness clutches him again, and the merry-go-round figures go on and on until his head dizzies with looking. At sight of the four great oxen pulling the gilded battle car, he sighs in welcome relief. The merry-go-round is at last coming to a stop.
The sun, too, is completing its orbit, shedding a soft light over Il Campo. The multitude waits. Inside the courtyard Giorgio wants an end to things. It seems a hundred hours, a hundred days, a hundred years since the fateful orders were imposed. All right, then, let's go. Change costumes! Put on the little jacket, the coarse pants. Eye your opponents. Swing up, bareback. Take the hard nerbo in your hard hand. Line up! Remember, it's war! Contrada against contrada! Not rider, not mount, not flesh and blood, but symbols.... Eagle against Owl, Dragon against Panther, Snail against Wave, Giraffe against me.
All right, then. Touch off the gunpowder! Let the flame belch! Let the deafening percussion jar the ancient stones loose. Let the starter spring the rope.
It is happening! Now!
Ten horses bursting into life, breaking from the ropes. Together! Ten horses like a sudden blast of wind. But look! The swirling gust is breaking apart, three horses striking through—two browns, one white. The browns are the Snail and the Wave, the white is Gaudenzia. Under a hail of blows the three in the lead round the easy curve beyond the Fonte Gaia, begin their drive to the death-jaws of San Martino.
Sixty thousand throats shriek in horror. The Snail and the Wave are heading crazedly for a crash. They collide! Two fantinos are spewed into the air, go rolling ahead like tumbleweeds. Gaudenzia's rider pulls her back, swerves her sharp around the bodies. She's in first place!
Coming up from behind, Giorgio snakes Rosella between the riderless horses, takes the curve, catches Gaudenzia on the straightaway, passes her.
Did her nostrils pull in his scent as he went by? Did her ears pull in his voice? If not, why is she jibbing her head; why is she weaving at the lesser curve of the Casato? Tiring? She can't be! Not on the first round with the whole width of the curve to herself.
For endless seconds she is unpredictable. Then she rears up, savagely rakes the air, deliberately tosses her fantino! She's free! With a wild spurt she tries to catch Giorgio. The duel between horse and man is on!