Bronwyn Scott - Rake Most Likely to Thrill

Archer smiled. Ah, this would be easier than he could have hoped. His uncle understood. ‘It is. I am interested in the Palio. I want to be part of it.’

Giacomo beamed and laughed out loud. ‘And so you will! I am the capitano this year,’ he said proudly. Archer felt the man study him for moment, dark eyes assessing. ‘Maybe I could appoint you as one of my mangini .’ He nodded as if the decision was made. ‘Yes, you would do nicely and it would give you a chance to learn about the race.’

The mangini were supporters of the capitano , his lieutenants in seeing his commands carried out. Archer knew it was a position of honour, but it was not what he’d hoped for himself. Archer leaned forward, holding his uncle’s eyes, amber-brown like his own, in all seriousness. ‘The honour would be mine. I will serve the contrada however I may, but I had hoped to offer myself to you as a rider.’ Surely his mother had mentioned his skills in that regard if she’d mentioned him in the letters that had been exchanged over the years.

‘A fantino ?’ his uncle asked before shaking his head. ‘It is not possible. The riders are not from the contradas , or even from Siena.’ He gave another wave of his hand. ‘It makes it too difficult to arrange the partiti . It simply isn’t how it is done.’ Perhaps he saw Archer’s disappointment. He gave a gentle smile. ‘Everyone in the contrada is part of the Palio and you will be too, you will see. I will need you as a mangini , someone to help me with the Palio arrangements.’ He nodded, affirming his satisfaction over the arrangement.

It was not what Archer had wanted. He’d come all this way to ride in the Palio. He’d given up Haviland’s wedding to make the journey on time. But his uncle was done with the subject for the moment. He sat back in his seat. ‘You have your mother’s eyes, the Ricci eyes, and her chin.’ His tone softened and lowered. ‘My sister, your mother, was a beautiful woman. She stole hearts wherever she went, your father’s included, and his was not an easy one to steal. But he saw her and it was all over for him. I remember that summer as if it were yesterday; the grand English earl had come to Siena for the races to see the Italian champions, and he went home with a wife, the most beautiful woman in Tuscany.’

He gave a nostalgic sigh. ‘It was a heady summer, watching Vittoria in the throes of her courtship. It was a time full of victories and romance, and now the earl’s son has returned.’ He smiled benevolently at Archer. ‘Perhaps we will find you a wife too? Someone worthy of a Ricci, no?’

Archer tried to refuse politely. ‘My path is unclear to me. I don’t know that I’d be much of a catch at the moment.’ He didn’t need his aunt and the troops of his newly introduced female cousins matchmaking for him. Marriage was the last thing he wanted. He’d just gained his freedom, he didn’t need a wife. And yet his reckless conduct in the alley last night suggested he needed something. Had last night been about sowing wild oats, or had it been about a desire to make a connection?

His uncle drummed his fingers on the table, a knowing gleam in his eye. ‘Young men all think they know what they need. I know, I was a young man once too. That’s why young men have female relatives. Women can see what a man needs better than he can himself.’ His eyes moved to Archer’s empty plate. ‘If you’re finished eating, let us be off.

‘Have I completely overwhelmed you?’ Giacomo asked as they stepped out into the street and the sun.

Archer laughed, shading his eyes and appreciating the easy camaraderie that flowed between him and his uncle. He’d missed his friends during this last leg of the journey, even Nolan’s goading and endless wagers. It was good to be back among people he could trust. ‘You mean despite the fact that you’ve tried to get me married off in less than a day? And you’ve appointed me to be a mangini ? Overwhelmed hardly begins to describe it. I am overcome with your generosity.’

‘That doesn’t please you?’ Giacomo asked as they turned towards the contrada ’s central piazza.

‘It does please me, it’s just that I had hoped to ride,’ Archer confessed. He would be honest with his uncle. The sooner his uncle learned he was determined and wouldn’t accept no for an answer, the better. ‘Although I understand to be a mangini is a great honour,’ he added, not wanting to appear insulting.

‘Ah, I know the feeling. I would have loved to have ridden but it isn’t how it’s done for the Palio,’ his uncle commiserated. ‘The fantini don’t come from the contradas themselves. It’s no matter.’ Giacomo shrugged. ‘If Torre wins, you will still be a hero.’ He gave a mischievous wink. ‘The women will go crazy for you since you were part of the negotiation team that helped us win.’

They came out of the street into the piazza with its fountain. It was busier here, people starting to go about their daily errands. Although, Giacomo informed him, that wouldn’t last too long once the afternoon heat peaked. Everyone would retreat behind shuttered windows into cool stucco rooms for siestas. ‘My favourite part of the day with your zia .’ He gave Archer a knowing look. ‘In the evening everyone will come out again for strolling, la passegiatta , do you know it?’

He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Everyone strolls within their neighbourhood or in their allied neighbourhood.’ He pointed to a banner hanging on the wall of one of the tall buildings surrounding the piazza. It depicted an elephant in the foreground, a tall tower in the back, done in crimson. ‘That’s our symbol. We are Torre, the Tower.’

‘Does neighbourhood matter so much?’ Archer asked, thinking of Elisabeta and the neighbourhood he’d wandered into last night before finding his uncle.

Giacomo threw back his head and laughed. ‘The contrada is everything if you are Sienese. You are born into the neighbourhood. If you ask anyone who they are, they’ll tell you their neighbourhood first, city second. If you know someone’s neighbourhood, you know everything about them; who their allies are, what they do; most of us in Torre are in the wool trade. You know where they live, you know who their enemies are.’

‘Enemies? Really?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Giacomo was in earnest. They strolled the perimeter of the fountain, stopping occasionally to greet people and exchange a little news. ‘Valdimonte’s enemy is the Nicchio Contrada, Aquila’s enemy is Pantera and so on. Our enemy is Oca, which is rumoured to be striking an alliance with Pantera. Pantera won the July Palio.’

Archer did his best to follow Giacomo’s conversation. It was a lot to take in, especially in a second language. English families and English neighbourhoods were far simpler entities by contrast. He wondered which neighbourhood he’d stumbled into last night? Would that make Elisabeta an ally or an enemy? ‘Do contradas ever intermarry?’

Giacomo gave him a keen look. ‘Of course, but during the Palio, husbands and wives often separate and go home to their own neighbourhoods.’ He grinned and wagged a finger at Archer. ‘You will learn. It’s the contrada above all else. My Bettina, though, your zia , was the old priore ’s daughter so we are never separated.’ There was no mistaking the pride in Giacomo’s voice in having married a Torre woman. This was a new world indeed, his mother’s world, Archer reminded himself. She’d grown up in the contrada .

Giacomo clapped him on the back. ‘Do you have your eye on a pretty signorina already? Perhaps you refused my help because you have spied a pretty girl for yourself?’