Ebrei and then to the Good Padre. “My, how twelve-plus-one days did pass quite fast.”

“Indeed they did,” said the Good Padre. He had made sure this time he was a better host. He and Bertolli had waited for the Ebrei at the village gate and then personally escorted the young man, his grandfather and their wagon full of pomodori into the piazza.

“And your health?” said Bobo with a quick pat of the Good Padre’s belly. “The question of our anticipation.”

“Never better,” answered the Good Padre. “Not a stitch of constipation.”

Bobo raised his eyebrows inquisitively. “Hmm, not the runs, the shits, cramps or gas?”

“No.”

“Or desperate sprints to the outhouse with fire in the ass?”

“No.”

“Not boils, or seizures, or fits of cold sweat?”

“No.”

“Or waking at night with your gown soaking wet?”

“No.”

“No locking of jaw, aching of joint or loss of sight?”

“No.”

“No reeling, no writhing, no fits of devilish fright?”

“No.”

“You mean,” said Bobo, “after twelve-plus-one days and twelve-plus-one accursed berries, not a moment of ill health, not a pain, not a worry?”

“Exactly,” said the Good Padre. “I’m healthy as can be.” The Good Padre reached his hand into the back of the wagon and took out a tomato. “Here, after all your talk, you should be first.”

Bobo lifted his hand and exuberantly wagged his finger.

“Oh, no, no.”

“Is Bobo not a man of his word?”

“Depends which words,” answered the fool, with raised eyebrows.

Nervous as he was, Davido almost burst out laughing.

“Come now,” said the Good Padre, patting his belly affirmatively. “Do you not trust what you see before your eyes?”

“With you,” Bobo pointed from the priest to the Ebrei, “or them? The eyes tell their lies.”

“My goodness,” said the Good Padre. “What, then, does Bobo need?”

“I will tell you.” Bobo looked suspiciously from the Good Padre to Davido. “Foreign fruit, foreign face, I’d trust it more if he raced the race.”

Who is this damn fool, thought Nonno, as he moved his eyes about the crowd. There were hundreds packed into the piazza, certainly every villager and nearby farmer, far more than he saw at market last. Nonno’s vision searched until he found the familiar faces awaiting his gaze. They nodded back to him. Thank God, Rabbi Lumaca had gotten the letter he’d sent with Davido last Sunday and honored his request. They were the toughest Ebrei of Pitigliano (not that the Ebrei of Pitigliano were especially tough): butchers and blacksmiths and masons, dressed today like any other gentile peasant. Truthfully, Nonno did not think his life or his grandson’s was in jeopardy. He found Italians tended to mix wine and revelry well, growing more amorous than vicious with their drunkenness. Nevertheless, Spain had left its scars, and Nonno was too old and wise to venture naked into a lion’s den.

“Oh, by heaven!” The Good Padre threw up his hands in mock exasperation. “Join the donkey race? Only if he rides upon your back. For who could be a bigger ass?”

“Listen to your fool,” Bobo said, addressing the crowd’s laughter. “Foreign fruit, foreign face, it’d serve us all if he’d race the race.”

The crowd began to boo and jeer. Davido felt his skin bristle as the fool, again, gestured in his direction.

“Do you see, Good Padre?” Bobo gestured to the crowd. “Do you not hear? Go ahead, serve the fruit, but we’ll taste only fear. And then what good the bet, what good the bite, if we honor word but taste only fright?” Bobo turned to the crowd. “I ask you all: is this how this day among days was meant to start, by opening the mouth yet closing the heart? Is this how we would taint this day of our greatest pride? No, I say, better to open first the heart, then the mouth after the Ebreo does ride.”

“Pride?” scoffed Benito from atop his donkey. “When our fool claims pride, ’tis time to run and hide.”

The crowd broke into laughter and Benito sat upright on his donkey, sucked in his belly and puffed up his chest. He felt almost regal in his purple Cavalieri outfit with its fine silk, fancy colors and large Roman numeral twelve upon his chest. Giuseppe, however, was not so pleased. You deluded, blubbering idiot, he thought, what are you doing? Contrary to his orders, Benito was not acting nearly drunk enough and now, as he had explicitly told him not to do, Benito was running his stupid mouth.

“No, no, do not say that, friend,” said Bobo with a surprising earnestness as he stepped forward and took hold of Benito’s