Dying For Siena (15 page)

Like a painting,
she thought, dazzled. Framed by the walls of the alleyway, the cobblestones and the cobalt blue sky overhead.

She moved slowly forward and the vista opened up more magically with each step. The square was bathed in intense light, the contrast with the dark alleyway making the colors even more vivid.

The square was shell-shaped, the exact shape it would have if God were to hold it in his cupped hands. It was made of rose-red brick, as were the buildings ringing it.

Circling the
piazza
was a ring of tawny earth, like a ring of gold. People were walking along it. Every once in a while, someone would stoop and gather a handful, as of gold dust.

It seemed impossible that such a large space could be so seamlessly
beautiful, that there could be a place in the world where nothing was ugly or unsightly.

After a moment or two, Faith realized she’d stopped breathing. She sucked in warm, golden air and let it slowly out. Her breath hitched.

“Yeah.”

Faith turned. Impossibly, she’d even forgotten Nick’s presence beside her. “It’s, it’s…” She shook her head sharply, as if to loosen words up, but none came.

“Yeah.” The corner of Nick’s mouth went up in a half smile. His eyes lifted over her head to the square beyond. “I’ve seen it every year of my life and it still makes an impact. It’s in every Sienese’s blood. It’s the center of the city and the center of their lives. Come on in.”

She didn’t need his hand at her back to move forward. The square beckoned like Oz.

Nick would have smiled at Faith’s amazement if he hadn’t felt so bad.

He’d been showing the
Piazza del Campo
off all his life and it always gave him a lift, particularly the view from the alleyway they were on, the
Chiasso del Bargello
. The view of the
piazza
had to be seen to be believed. For most Americans, it was right off the radar.

He was grateful Faith’s astonishment had made her forget she was mad at him. He hated seeing that get-out-of-my-sight expression on her face. It was only now that things had changed that he realized how much he craved her looking at him with her usual…what?
Approval? Admiration? Something else?
he wondered uneasily.

Not that he wanted her in love with him, of course. She was just one of the guys…Lou’s friend. But she was funny, smart and easy to be with. They joked a lot and she was great company. He wanted things back the way they were. Damn it, he wanted
her
back the way she was.

Well, he was the one who had made this mess, so he was the one who was going to have to clean it up. Starting now.

The cobblestones were a little uneven and Faith wasn’t able to watch her feet because what she was seeing was so fascinating. She kept swiveling her head around on that long, slim neck of hers and stumbling over her own feet.

Nick gently took her upper arm and steered her down into the square and onto the
terra
, the tufa dirt that comprised the track for the
Palio
. When the horses weren’t running trial heats, the track was filled with people and tables and chairs from the bars and restaurants ringing the
piazza.

Her mouth was open and her eyes were slightly glazed and she didn’t even notice he was holding on to her.

“This is neutral territory,” he said, and she shifted those large brandy-colored eyes to look at him. “This square belongs to all of Siena, but the rest…” He grinned. “The rest of Siena belongs to its
contradas
.”

Faith frowned. “
Contradas
?”

“Yup. Neighborhoods, though there’s nothing neighborly about the way they feel about each other. Seventeen of them and each one is as individual as a fingerprint. Ornery, too. You see those flags waving from the flag-holders?”

She nodded.

“Each
contrada
has its own symbol. A couple of hundred years back, they’d have killed for those symbols. And they’ll still shed blood over them come
Palio
time. The
contradas
include the She-Wolf, the Giraffe, the Owl, the Dragon. The Rossis belong to the Snail.”

Faith thought of the Rossis, sleek, sinuous and gorgeous. “Should’ve been the Panthers,” she murmured.

“God forbid,” Nick shuddered. “They’re north of us. And we hate them, of course, and they hate us. But we particularly hate the Turtles. We’d rather lose the race than see the Turtles win. We’ve been rivals for seven hundred years.”

Her face shut down, smooth as a doll’s. “My parents are from Belfast. We took a visit back to the old country when I was fifteen.” She shrugged tensely. “They have hatreds that last for hundreds of years, too.”

“Naw, it’s not like that here. Sure, the rivalry gets a little…heated at times—”
And the blood could flow,
Nick thought with an inward smile, and often did. But it usually got mopped up quickly and forgiven over a glass of wine. “Once the
Palio’s
over, there’s this huge victory dinner in the streets of the winning
contrada
and life goes right back to normal. Speaking of dinner, here we are.”

They’d circled the square and plunged into another narrow street that angled upwards this time.

Ten yards up the steep incline, a large, gray, stone archway set into the wall led into a square courtyard with geraniums banked in terra-cotta pots around the perimeter. Tables were set out in the courtyard. It was early for the Sienese and nearly all the tables were still free. In an hour’s time, the place would be jumping.

“Niccolò!
Mascalzone!
” a burly man shouted and rushed toward them. He pounded Nick on the back. “Good to see you, you rascal, you! Still killing them on the ice?”

“Tullio.” Some of the pleasure Nick felt at seeing his old friend faded. He pounded back, because it was expected, and tried not to think about never being on the ice again.

“You’re here a few days early. You going to help your cousins Michelangelo and Dante whip Turtle butt?” Tullio leaned close and Nick got a tantalizing whiff of garlic, truffles and Brunello. “We’re going to show those fucking Turtles what’s what, aren’t we?”

Technically, Tullio was a Dragon and a potential rival, but the Dragons were the sworn enemies of the Turtles, too, and on the theory that your enemy’s enemy was your friend, the Dragon and the Snail were allies. Sort of. This year.

“I don’t think Michelangelo needs my help,” Nick said. “And Dante’s staying out of it, of course.” Mike was the
capitano del popolo,
the leader, of the Snail
contrada
. For the purposes of the
Palio
, the
capitani del popolo
were the commanders in chief.

Tullio knew perfectly well that a police
commissario
shouldn’t be involved in the mostly illegal wheeling and dealing that went into trying to secure a victory for your
contrada
.

Tullio also knew that Dante was happily involved up to his neck. Their eyes met and slid away in perfect understanding.

“And who is this lovely young lady?” Tullio boomed as he turned to Faith. “
Bella ragazza.
Much too good for you, Nick.” Tullio frowned, taking in Faith’s pallor and the bruised-looking skin under her eyes.

He stretched out a beefy arm to indicate the way and bustled behind them. He sat them, with enormous fuss and bother, in a small out-of-the-way table where they would still have privacy even when other diners started trooping in.

Then he and Nick started haggling over the meal, serious as judges.

It was only when Nick was assured that the
panzanella
was made with the freshest of spring onions, the crispiest of cucumbers, the greenest of tomatoes—
nostrane
, the lumpy but savory local variety—and the purest of virgin olive oil, made only from trees on the south side of Monte Cercina (“Every year, I set ten bottles of it aside for my grandmother,” Tullio swore); that Faith’s fish antipasto was made with seafood
so fresh it was
practically still swimming (“My brother-in-law drives to the Pisa fish market at four in the morning and brings them back alive.”); that the
vitello tonnato
was made according to Artusi’s nineteenth-century canon (“Baby veal boiled gently for hours until it melts in the mouth.”); the mayonnaise made by hand by his sainted mother a quarter of an hour ago and the salad plucked from his own garden that very morning, did Nick sit back, satisfied.

“Now,” Tullio said with a gleam in his eye. “The wine.”

Nick and Tullio put their heads together again. In the end, Tullio disappeared and came back with a wisp of cobweb clinging to his cheek and a bottle of 1992
Poggio Antico
white from his own special reserve. He poured a golden finger into the crystal glass and waited with a smug smile.

Nick sipped and closed his eyes as every cell in his battered body signaled acute pleasure. Tullio poured half a glass for Faith and she, too, closed her eyes in pleasure after the first sip.

A call came from inside the restaurant. “
Vengo!
” Tullio bellowed, and hurried off.

“Sorry to take the ordering out of your hands, Faith,” Nick said as he topped their glasses. “But I thought it might be easier that way. Tullio takes pleasure in setting a fine table. I wouldn’t cheat him out of fussing over the food. It’s the way things are done here, and this way he got to describe every dish.”

“In detail, it sounded like.”

“The finest detail,” Nick agreed. “Including where everything came from.”

“Well, I certainly couldn’t have done the ordering, not like that. Did you order fish for me?”

“That’s right. You often order fish back home so I thought you might like it. Tullio makes a great seafood antipasto.” Nick frowned. “How’d you know I ordered fish?”

“Well, I bought a little teach-yourself-Italian manual at the airport before leaving and studied it on the plane. And I did Latin in high school and I know French.
Poisson
,
pesce
. It’s not that hard a leap. And Tullio’s fish imitation was perfect, wriggling fins and all.” She imitated Tullio’s extravagant imitation of a fish.

“So putting all those things together, and with the body language…” She shrugged. “You’d have to be blind and deaf not to follow. Though I’m not too sure what Tullio was doing there toward the end.”

“End?”

“When he made those noises and pawed the ground? Are we having steak?”

“Oh.” Nick smiled. “The mozzarella for the
Caprese
salad. He wanted to assure me that the mozzarella was so fresh it practically mooed.”

Faith laughed and Nick relaxed. It was good to see Faith laughing again. She had a skewed sense of humor that delighted him. Often, he found himself barking with laughter a minute or two after a murmured comment she made sank in. His dates usually laughed about five minutes after, when they got it, which wasn’t often.

Tullio would take at least a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes to serve them. Faith was smiling. He’d never get a better shot at it.

He leaned forward and covered her hand with his, scowling when she slid it neatly back out from under his. “Listen, Faith, I think we need to talk about what happened. You know, the other night. I’m afraid I wasn’t really—”

“Why are you limping?” she interrupted.

It took him a moment to change gears. “Limping?”

“Yeah. What gives?”

He didn’t want to go there. Someday soon it would be public knowledge that he’d retired due to injuries, but not yet. It was childish, but somehow until it was official, it didn’t have to be true. He shrugged. “Problem with the meniscus.”

“Uh-uh.” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re hiding something, Nick. What is it?”

“I’m not hiding anything. I’m trying to apologize here, but I guess I’m not making much headway.”

“Okay,” she said crisply. “Apology accepted. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Horrifyingly, though she looked like the same sweet, gentle Faith as always, her voice had Lou-like overtones.

Before he could even think about it, his mouth opened. “The knee’s nothing. It’ll heal in a couple of weeks. It’s my head that’s the problem.”

“Your head’s always been the problem. What’s so different about it now?”

He looked away. Diners were starting to trickle in. Darkness was fast approaching and Tullio came out to start lighting the candles on the table.

“Nick?”

He swallowed. “I, um, I…” The hot ball of grief tangled in his chest, stopping him from getting the words out. He pushed them out in a rush. “I had a concussion, a bad one. It’s all right now, but I can’t afford to ever have another one. I’d be running the risk of a coma or even death. The head doctor said I can’t play hockey.” His eyes lifted to hers. “Ever again.”

Faith’s mouth opened and her eyes rounded. “Oh, my God.” She shook her head. “Oh, Nick, that must be terrible for—”

“I don’t want your sympathy,” Nick said fiercely, clamping down on his teeth so hard his jaw muscles worked.

She recoiled and her chin went up.

“Well, good, I’m glad, because you certainly don’t have my sympathy,” she snapped. “You’ve still got your health, you’re incredibly good-looking, you have tons of money, and you have a wonderful family who loves you. I see no reason at all to feel sorry for you. I wouldn’t dream of wasting my sympathy on you.”