to stand on his own.
Giuseppe lifted the olive and grape vine wreath from the Drunken Saint statue and raised it to the crowd’s attention. “Behold,” he said with a great air of formality, “Il Vincitore!”
Davido looked about in disbelief as the entire crowd encircling him dropped to one knee as if the Duke of Tuscany himself had just arrived.
“Let me be the first,” said Giuseppe as he held the wreath over Davido’s head, “to state here admittedly the wrong I’ve done this brave boy of Italy. For never was a braver race ever run and never by a braver knight was it ever won. So let all here recognize and accept without complaint: the hero, the victor, champion of our beloved sain—”
“Look!” shouted a shocked Bertolli, as he pointed to the donkey that just moments ago had carried its rider to victory. The poor beast was in the throes of death, foaming at the mouth, twitching his lips and flailing his tongue in an entirely unnatural manner. Heads turned. The noise was horrible and sublime at the same time. There was a pounding of hoof, a wheezing inhale of a hee and then a short and desperate burst of haw. But the haw was not complete—the sound suddenly drained of life—as the donkey collapsed to the ground.
“Ay!” Davido cried out as he leapt out from under the wreath and toward the noise. “Signore Meducci! Signore Meducci e morto!”
The animalistic wail, the pained look upon the boy’s face, the sound of dead weight dropping to the ground sent a ripple of confusion through the tightly packed crowd. “The duke?” said a skeptical voice in the crowd. “The duke is dead?”
“Who is dead?” said Mucca as a chorus of “Ehs?” and “huhs?” and “whats?” and “whos?” fluttered through the crowd. Instantly, there was a great reorienting of the mass to see what had happened.
Vaffanculo, thought Giuseppe as the crowd’s attention entirely shifted focus.
Luigi Campoverde heard the cry of Signore Meducci echo through his drunk and drugged mind. He felt his heart sink, My boss is dead? Could it be? I was just looking at him! Poor Gian, he thought, I have failed my prince. What am I to tell the boy? Surely I’ll be out of a job now.
Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, also drunk and drugged, felt his heart sink: I am dead! Instinctively, he moved his hands over his back and kidneys to feel for the knife wound—the assassin’s knife always comes from behind! It was not the first time Cosimo had heard the phrase Signore Meducci is dead. He heard it when his father died, and when uncles and cousins had been murdered or passed away. He always imagined it would be the last thing he would ever hear. Who would have thought that death would be so painless?
Only Nonno immediately understood the true meaning of what was said, and his heart sank too.
“Oh, no,” sighed Davido as he dropped to his knees beside his fallen donkey, “oh, no.” The boy’s grandfather shuffled over and dropped to his knees beside his grandson. They placed their hands upon the head and neck of the donkey, stroked his hair and together began to sob.
The crowd fell silent. These were superstitious folk, and death, especially the death of the victorious donkey, seemed a bad omen. It was a sad sight too. The beast, old and gnarled and dangling of cazzone, had raced hard and well and carried the boy to victory. And while the crowd may have had reservations about the rider, they were not at all conflicted in their admiration of the old donkey. They were also drunk, drugged and Italian and therefore predisposed to effusive displays of emotion.
Giuseppe looked about the crowd. It was eerily silent but for the muffled sobs of the two Ebrei. He noticed eyes welling with tears, and not just his stepdaughter’s, but nearly the entire crowd. My God, he thought, this drug I’ve rendered is true.
It was difficult to know for sure, perhaps it was Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci, or maybe his chef, or possibly Mari who first joined Davido in sobbing, but once the crowd heard the Good Padre’s cries, a wave of emotion spread until the entire piazza became a great sea of tears. They sobbed, at first, for reasons separate from them, but the sobbing began to open that wellspring of sadness that all humans hide within their heart. For who has not suffered?
Mari found herself sobbing because her