YOUR EXCELLENCE MONSIGNOR TARDINI. I LOST BUT GAUDENZIA WON. BY HERSELF. SHE PAID NO ATTENTION TO ARRANGEMENTS. CAN YOU ATTEND HER VICTORY DINNER FOR ONDA NEXT MONTH? SHE WILL EAT AT HEAD TABLE WITH OFFICIALS AND ME. IF YOU HAVE FORGOT ME I AM GIORGIO TERNI ALSO VITTORINO.
The sleepy-eyed clerk squinted out from behind the window of his cage and accepted the message with a loud yawn. As he read it, he snapped sharply awake. "To Monsignor Tardini!" he gasped. "Is it urgente? And have you the money?"
Giorgio felt in his pocket. "Si, si!" he laughed. "At once it must go."
It was a nice twist of fate that the victory dinner for Gaudenzia's win for the Onda was held in September after her riderless victory for the Giraffa. It made the Onda dinner more important and exciting. Giorgio as her fantino in the first race received a command invitation from General Barbarulli.
And so, on the twenty-sixth day of September, at eight o'clock in the evening, he set out full of eagerness, and in his good suit, for the Contrada of the Onda. On all sides he was met and joined by happy contradaioli going his way.
As he climbed the steep, cobbly streets, an old saying of his father's jumped into his mind. "An end is just a beginning. The dog chases his tail, and that is the way of life; the end and the beginning, they meet!" His mother always laughed then and said the same thing, but not using dogs' tails. "Sunsets are very beautiful sight," she would say, "because they make not an end, but a promise."
The promise was so beautiful it made Giorgio frightened and tremulous with joy at the same time. "It will be that way with Gaudenzia," he thought. "She is only beginning to use her powers, her blood by Sans Souci." He strode faster, passing some of the people who had before passed him. Everywhere people were pouring out of doorways, going to pay homage to a cart horse of great valor. Tonight he was one of them ... a Sienese. He loved every ancient stone of the city. Nowhere else had he ever felt history as something holy, eternally engraved in stones and in mind and soul.
The Chief-of-the-Guards caught up with him, put a protecting arm around his shoulder. "I bring you two messages," he said in a voice strangely husky. "Affairs of state prevent Monsignor Tardini from attending." He paused and tightened his lips to master his feelings. "And the other news is...."
"Yes?" Giorgio felt a cold clutch of fear.
"Your Umbrella Man...."