Lucy Gordon - Rinaldo’s Inherited Bride

One of the hands, who had no family, drove Teresa, Celia and Franca in Rinaldo’s old vehicle, while the brothers and Alex went in her shiny hired car.

As they were leaving the house Alex handed her keys to Rinaldo. ‘I’m sure you’d rather have these.’

‘Be careful Alex,’ he said. ‘Someone will mistake you for a traditional female, asking a man to drive your car.’

‘Nobody who knows me would ever make that mistake,’ she said firmly. ‘But I can’t get used to the steering wheel being on the left when I’m used to the right.’

‘Ah, yes, the English drive on the wrong side of the road,’ he murmured.

She ignored this flagrant provocation, and said, ‘It’s probably safer if you drive.’

‘I don’t believe I heard you say that.’

‘Oh, get in and drive,’ she said in exasperation.

He grinned and did so. Gino swiftly urged Alex into the back seat, and so the three of them made their way into the city.

The two men were also dressed ‘for best’ in snowy white shirts with ruffled fronts. Gino was by nature a stylish dresser, but, except for the funerals Alex had not seen Rinaldo in anything but shabby working clothes.

Though alike in features the brothers were different in the impression they made, Gino the more conventionally attractive, Rinaldo the more virile and uncompromising.

It was as well, she thought, that she was ‘spoken for’, or these two might have seriously disturbed her equilibrium.

As it was, she was looking forward to spending time at the festival in the company of her two handsome escorts.

It was late afternoon and things were already happening. Alex found it was nothing like the pallid festivities she’d seen at home.

Figures pranced around the streets. They were all outrageously clad, some from history, some from mythology. Saints mingled with demons, sorcerers and clowns.

Several times Alex was seized around the waist and whirled into an impromptu dance, from which Gino had to rescue her.

Rinaldo left them almost as soon as they arrived, but after a while they came across him, deep on conversation with a grave-looking man.

‘Bank manager,’ Gino muttered.

‘In the middle of a festival?’ Alex demanded.

‘You’d think he could take five minutes off, wouldn’t you?’

‘Perhaps he’s arranging a mortgage on the rest of the property so that he can buy me out quickly.’

‘What?’ Gino was aghast.

‘Well, it would solve a lot of problems,’ she said, trying to sound cheerful.

‘No it wouldn’t. You’d go away. I don’t want you to go. You don’t want to go, do you?’

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

The Loggia of the Boar was filled with stalls selling all manner of foods. Gino bought cakes and wine and they wandered around, hand in hand, like children.

As the natural light faded the coloured lights became brighter. Tables were set out in the streets and a band began to play.

They strolled about until they found Rinaldo, clearly having finished with the bank manager, sitting alone at a table in the Piazza della Signoria, brooding over a solitary glass of wine.

‘Hello brother,’ Gino cried. ‘Are you having a good time? You don’t look it.’

‘We don’t all have to go crazy to enjoy ourselves,’ Rinaldo observed, unruffled, as they joined him at the table. ‘The procession should be starting about now.’

Even as he spoke trumpets sounded in the distance, and a cheer went up from the crowd as the first floats appeared. Alex watched eagerly.

Although it was a religious festival not all the floats had that theme. Some were so bawdy as to be almost obscene, some were cruel.

Alex stared as one went by depicting a huge figure with a goat’s head and flashing eyes. She knew enough symbolism to recognise that the goat represented not only the devil but also human sexuality at its most rampant and uncontrolled.

Yet in the saint’s parade he did not seem out of place. Everything here had a red-blooded gusto that thrilled her.

‘Some of those floats are amazing,’ she mused. ‘That one with the baker and the loaf of bread, is it really as rude as it looks?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Gino said with relish. ‘The ruder the better. That’s how we like it. That’s really why we celebrate St Romauld at all, because he’s a great excuse for rudeness.’

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ Alex said.

‘He’s not one of the better known saints,’ Rinaldo agreed, ‘but he has the advantage of having been thoroughly licentious before he became saintly. He lived about a thousand years ago, and to start with he did a lot of drinking and wenching. Then he reformed and became a monk, founding a monastery not far from here.’

‘But he was constantly plagued by temptation.’ Gino took up the tale. ‘Naturally he resisted it, but it means that his parade can be very colourful. For every one float depicting him as a saint there are about ten showing worldly indulgence. Which is about right,’ he added judiciously.

Looking at the floats Alex saw that this was true. The world and the devil were depicted with great imagination, again and again.

‘But isn’t it supposed to be a religious festival?’ she laughed.

‘Of course,’ Gino said. ‘People go to church and say sorry afterwards. But the pleasures of the flesh must come first, and you must really exert yourself to enjoy them, because otherwise the repentance wouldn’t be real, and that would be sacrilege.’

Alex poked him in the ribs. ‘That sounds a very convenient philosophy.’

‘Poppa taught it to me. He said it was ancient tradition, but I think he invented it.’

Rinaldo nodded. ‘That wouldn’t surprise me.’

Suddenly Alex burst out laughing. ‘What on earth is that meant to be?’ she asked, pointing at a float that had just come into view.

Seated on it was a very beautiful young woman, with flower-wreathed golden hair that streamed down over her throne. Behind that throne stood a man dressed in gorgeous armour, clearly a victorious warrior.

There were two other men, crouching at the woman’s feet. One of them clutched a piglet that squealed and made constant efforts to escape.

As the float rumbled by the piglet managed to free itself, dashed to the edge of the float and took a flying leap. Alex bounded forward just in time to catch it.

‘Come on,’ she laughed. ‘The road’s hard. You don’t want to land on it.’

She handed it back to the men on the float who cheered her, crying, ‘Grazie, Circe!’

‘What did he mean?’ she asked, returning to her seat.

‘He called you Circe,’ Rinaldo told her. ‘That woman on the float is meant to be Circe the witch-goddess. She lured men into her cave and turned them into swine.’

‘Hence the piglet?’ she guessed.

‘Yes, he must have been the best they could manage.’

‘She wasn’t just a witch,’ Gino objected. ‘She was a healer too. The legend says she was an expert in herbs and potions, and a woman of wisdom. The man standing behind her was the hero Odysseus, who overcame her with love.’

‘Did he?’ Rinaldo demanded. ‘He thought he had, but she was an enchantress who could blind men to everything else. He was on an important journey, but he forgot it and stayed with her for a year. So who overcame who?’

‘You don’t like her, do you?’ Alex challenged him, laughing. ‘Fancy a woman getting him to put her first! Shocking! Rinaldo, this is festival. Lighten up for pity’s sake.’

Suddenly there was a cry of, ‘Gino, hey Gino!’ and three scantily clad young women descended on them, laughing, kissing him, then carrying him off by main force.

He looked back at the other two, giving a shrug of comical, helpless dismay.