fleeting, my heart did know new reason for its beating. Transforming songbirds’ call and all my eyes do see into the voice, the lips, the scar upon the knee. So that all I think, all I hear, all I see, speaks to me of one thing: Mari, Mari, Mari.”

In Which We Learn

the History & Artistry of the

Sicilian Dieci Dita Marionette

Sitting there on one of the tavern’s bar stools, finishing off his mutton shank and fourth goblet of wine, Luigi Campoverde, chef for Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany, suddenly realized that he hadn’t been this drunk since his teenage years at the monastery when his Sicilian mentor traded a three-hundred-year-old illuminated Bible for a double-magnum of sparkling wine from Piedmont. Luigi had not thought he was especially inebriated tonight, but as he turned in his seat and looked over the lively tavern, for an instant, through the crowd, he could have sworn he saw his boss.

Drunk or not, Luigi turned back to face the bar, knowing that some curiosities in life are better left unsatisfied. Perhaps, thought Luigi, I have the sitting drunkenness, or, more accurately, the standing drunkenness, where one does not realize the extent of his intoxication until he stands up and finds his knees weak, his head cloudy and the tavern casting about like a ship in rough seas. What else could explain the sight of Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany, sipping ale at a crowded village tavern and sitting shoulder to shoulder with the barnyard rhymer who accompanied yesterday’s pompous truffle broker?

Luigi had not planned on getting so pie-eyed when he first sat down at the tavern some two hours ago. He’d meant only to have a piece of cheese, a few olives and a glass of wine before the rump-numbing mule ride back to the villa. Truth was, Luigi was anxious to return to the villa. He was too suspicious and paranoid a fellow to much enjoy being away from his kitchen. The Meduccis had many enemies and Luigi would be damned if a poison was going to pass before his nose and into his kitchen. It was well known that a chef of a poisoned lord was certain to follow his master to the grave— culpable or not. The problem was, the wine, cheese and olives were so delicious that Luigi needed a second order to confirm his palate’s first impression.

Two rounds of wine, cheese and olives would have been enough for Luigi, but when the spindly fool from the market sat down on the stool beside him and had a fragrant and succulent-looking mutton shank placed before him, well, Luigi wasn’t going anywhere. Although now, with the shank eaten and his spine prickling with fear that his boss—should it really be him—may come to wonder why the lady duke’s brocade was around the neck of the tavern keep, Luigi knew it would be wise to take his leave. The idea of leaving, though, was a sad thought and Luigi gestured to the tavern keep for one more refill of his wine goblet. The wine was good and free, and Luigi did, after all, hate the idea of missing the puppet show.

Despite nearly twenty years of marriage and successfully fathering three daughters, Signore Coglione, the tavern keep, was suspected by most villagers to be something of a finocchio. His ancestors, who’d arrived in the village some three centuries ago and opened the tavern-brothel, were from Greece, and everyone knew that Greeks were ancestrally predisposed to man-love. This cultural stigma was furthered by an unfortunate childhood run-in with an ill-tempered goose and the resulting permanent nickname of Signore Solo Coglione. Not to mention, Signore Coglione’s penchant for fancy tunics and flowery vests did not make him appear especially manly in anyone’s eyes. Certainly, the colorful brocade he now wore around his neck would do little to masculinize his image. Nevertheless, eating, drinking and whoring were such cherished pastimes of the men of the village that none dared offend Signore Coglione. Thus, the suspicion that he was a finocchio was rarely mentioned.

Good-natured as he was and queer as he seemed, Signore Coglione was no pushover. He had a Greek’s shrewdness and a way with money, and did not make a habit of giving things away for free; but it was such a lovely brocade and the stranger at the bar swore that it was from the Orient and had once been worn by the lady