but to inform the duke-in-hiding that his son, Prince Gian, missed his father dearly and feared that he was dead. But then the race started and Luigi Campoverde, snobbish, guarded, paranoid and peculiar as he may be, became totally engrossed in the action just like the Duke of Tuscany and all the lowly rimatori in the piazza.

What’s this? thought Luigi Campoverde, as his head and shoulders felt suddenly wet. There was wine everywhere. No sooner had the starting rope dropped and before a single donkey had taken a step, the entire sky turned crimson with red wine as each and every villager threw the contents of their goblets in the direction of the Cavalieri—no matter how far they were from the action. One could get drunk by drinking the sky, thought Luigi, as red wine continued to rain down. The donkeys and riders, dripping of wine, set off down the track and Luigi found himself startled again, this time by the sloppiness of the race’s start. Hardly ten strides into the race, the Cavalieri began to beat and pummel one another with their left hands. The action was more comical than brutal as uncoordinated blows missed their marks, slipping off noses and cheeks, heads and shoulders.

Wine bottles passed through the crowd so that no one need be empty of goblet for drinking or for tossing, and Luigi quickly refilled his travel goblet. Drunk and most unlike himself, he burrowed deeper into the crowd, managing to squirm his way closer to the action.

Unintentionally, Luigi found himself just a few feet behind the young Ebreo‘s grandfather, who, along with the other Nobiluomi del Vino, manned the Jeroboame wine bottle set upon the long table aside the track. He was surprised to see that while ten of the Cavalieri were nearly halfway through their first lap, the other three riders had barely stepped from the starting line. Why, he thought, would anyone choose such lazy donkeys for so important a contest? The crowd, especially those from opposing quadrants, found the three donkeys’ indifference rather hilarious and mercilessly heckled and drenched the desperate riders in wine and insults. Upon the track the other ten riders were rounding the bend on their first lap and it wasn’t looking so good for the Ebreo boy—Luigi didn’t expect it would go well for him.

Seated upon his trotting donkey, Vincenzo the pork merchant reached across his own body and secured a firm grip on the Ebreo boy’s collar and was now attempting to drag him off his donkey. The poor boy had a look upon his face of utter bewilderment; still, his legs and left arm clenched firmly around his donkey. “Look at that!” Luigi pointed and shouted to no one in particular as the Ebreo‘s donkey suddenly dropped his cazzone.

“Ay!” The crowd gasped in amazement at the simultaneously pathetic and awesome sight of the old donkey’s colossal cazzone dangling and bouncing between his gnarled knees. (Marveling at the size of a donkey’s cazzone was something of a village pastime.)

You idiot, thought Luigi, as he watched Vincenzo vainly look to the crowd, they’re not cheering for you! It was just enough of a pause to allow the Ebreo boy to reach out and cuff his left hand around the heel of Vincenzo’s boot. “Ay!” the crowd erupted in near-unison as the Ebreo boy quickly sat up, swinging his left arm and Vincenzo’s right foot in a wide and skyward motion. From the look upon his face, Vincenzo’s mind seemed unable to fully grasp what was happening to his body as his own foot suddenly swung above his head. And, just as predicted, in a spectacular backflip that tossed his feet over his head, rolled him backward off the ass of his donkey and pitched him face-first upon the hay-and dirt-strewn track, Vincenzo fell off his donkey, a mere seven strides short of one lap.

“Bravo!” the crowd exploded in a spontaneous show of emotion based not on any affinity for the Ebreo, but on the sheer uniqueness of the move. None of the villagers had ever seen a donkey-heel-flip before. Luigi noticed a look of delight upon the old Ebreo‘s face and was utterly surprised to discover he was clasping the old man’s hand in an act of shared drunken joy.

The hand-holding didn’t last long, as a jostling in the crowd knocked Luigi to his right. Instinctively, Luigi looked to his left and witnessed a mad scramble by the crowd to grab what had just been Vincenzo’s wine bottle.