The Wager (19 page)

“You mean his hands?” asked the artist.

“Yes.” Zizu studied the drawing. “You did them good. Good hands.”

Don Giovanni remembered standing in his castle window thinking of birds—of how birds indoors were bad luck. But these birds were outside. They'd been in the courtyard, after all. These birds were free. “Zizu's right,” said Don Giovanni. “Wonderful birds.”

“So you're pleased?”

He was. “How much do you want for this?”

“It's an initial sketch. The portrait will be better.”

“I don't want a portrait. I want this.”

“All right then, it's yours.”

“How much?”

“Nothing.”

“A gift?”

“Something so simple isn't worthy of the title of gift.”

“I deem it worthy.”

The boy smiled. “All right, then I bestow upon you this magnificent gift, sire.” He bowed, and so deeply Don Giovanni thought his nose might graze the floor.

THE NEXT MORNING DON GIOVANNI WALKED THROUGH HIS
villa, every single room. The boy artist was nowhere to be found. Well, of course. His job was finished. Don Giovanni had stupidly told him the drawing was enough, so he hadn't returned. All right, then he'd have to find another job for him. The ceilings could be redone again. All of them.

He called in Ribi and told him to fetch the boy. But Ribi had no idea where to find him. In the past the boy artist had come to Don Giovanni's villa on his own, in response to the criers' calls announcing the need for artists.

So Don Giovanni had criers sent out again; artists swarmed his villa again. But not the artist Don Giovanni was seeking.

Not his friend. That's what the boy was. A human friend. Found and lost in a single day. And Don Giovanni hadn't even
asked his name. How stupid and thoughtless could he have been?

The interrogations began. Ribi called in everyone he had hired in the week before All Saints' and All Souls' Day. Don Giovanni questioned each thoroughly. Most didn't remember the quiet artist. Those who did had no idea who he was, where he came from. Not even the other artists knew his identity.

How could finding one willow switch of a boy be that hard? After all Don Giovanni had been through, this particular challenge should have been nothing.

He had Zizu organize a troop of beggar boys to fan out across all of Palermo to find the boy. When that failed, he paid Don Cardiddu to send out messengers all over northwestern Sicily. They'd find the boy. They'd bring him back to Don Giovanni like a gift—a Christmas gift by now.

Christmas passed. The New Year came. No luck.

Don Giovanni stopped the search. He closed himself in the Wave Room and took out the sketch he conversed with every morning. “It's worse now, isn't it?”

“Far worse,” the sketch answered. “The boy crystallized the pain.”

“I am alone.”

“You don't have to be. The lines are long. Ever since you funded that public park. Open the doors and in they come.”

“Being with them is the most isolating of all.”

“I know.”

“But it gives structure to the day.”

“I know.”

“So I have to tell Don Cardiddu I'll open the doors.”

The sketch didn't answer.

The next day Don Giovanni carefully, oh so carefully, settled himself into the cushions in the Wave Room. Wine dulled pain so well—the breakfast of choice was once more his. He'd given it up during his search for the boy artist because he wanted a clear head. Now the last thing he wanted was a clear head.

This room was a fine place to wait.

But he didn't have to wait long. A servant came in and held palm fronds in front of Don Giovanni, to screen him from view. Another servant led in the first guest.

Guest? More like supplicant. From then on they came in a steady succession and sat on a bench by the window, so that the breeze blew from them toward Don Giovanni and not vice versa. Sitting, they were on eye level with him, but they typically kept their eyes on the floor, like one averts the gaze from the blinding sun. They didn't try to catch a glimpse of him behind the palm frond.

Could an ugly sight actually hurt the eyes?

But it was boring to pose such questions. It was boring to feel sorry for himself.

He remembered the devil talking of boredom. In fact, the devil had offered the wager to assuage his boredom with the ordinary open swap. Boredom could lead to evil.

It was better to think instead of what he could still do with his day. He was a benefactor; and that was far from boring. There were judgments to be made. Giving had its dangers. It could ruin motivation and lead to slovenliness and pointlessness. It could give one man an unfair advantage, causing harm to others. Remarkably, denial was as much a responsibility as assent.

That's why Don Giovanni didn't get really drunk until evening.

Time slugged along. Somewhere in there, his twenty-second birthday passed. He refused to think about it. Who cared that he'd been born?

Public parks sprang up throughout the region as men who wanted to build new villas decided a park on their grounds was worth the relief from building costs. Public baths became ubiquitous. Innkeepers financed expansions of their businesses by agreeing to build rooms on the bottom floors where the indigent could stay—with free meals. Practically overnight, beggars disappeared from the streets of Palermo. Freed slaves did much of the new building going on, but for wages now.

And through all this, snow showers gave way to spring rains then heat waves then just plain broiling sun.

The hotter it got, the more the fungus and insects thrived and multiplied on Don Giovanni's body. He hated them. Zizu made him a salve from a plant that grew white flowers. It helped with the itching and the occasional sting, but it didn't kill them.
Just as well, Don Giovanni told himself, for he had now taken to talking to them. The sketch was still his morning greeting; he could no longer imagine starting the day without it. But he didn't carry it around with him for fear of damaging or even losing it. Bugs, however, bugs were constant companions.

He slept on piles of rose petals now. That was Zizu's idea. The boy thought the sweet scent would benefit all. He was a heartfelt child. But wrong. Sweet rot was just as revolting to humans as sour rot. Still, an unexpected advantage came from the flower petals. When Don Giovanni's smock and trouser legs rode up, a velvety bandage would stick to a festering boil. Sometimes he was lucky and the petal protected the wound long enough for a scab to form. When it fell off, he was minus one source of misery.

So he carefully covered the remaining ones with velvet petals. As summer progressed, the roses faded. His servants went out into the woods to collect wildflowers for his bed. Not all of those flowers worked like roses. But when autumn came to the pine groves, the men found dainty blossoms that ranged from pink to deep wine color with thick, glossy petals—those worked almost as well as roses. By October, all his pustules were gone, except the ones under his hair.

October. From the very first of the month, everyone talked about the coming festivities again. Everyone knew All Saints' and All Souls' Day was important to Don Giovanni. The whole of Palermo got involved in the preparations.

It was the second week of October when a very different sort of man visited Don Giovanni. He brushed aside the servants and strode into the room in expensive, stylish clothes, with a wide-rimmed black hat that resembled a clergyman's. He practically clicked together the heels of his black boots as he stood in front of the bench, rather than sitting like the others. “Could I speak with you in private, sire?”

The very request made Don Giovanni's skin tighten in excitement. “Yes.”

The servant who held the palms that screened him from sight questioned with his eyes. Then he bowed in obedience and left.

Don Giovanni was alone with a stranger. And the stranger didn't blanch. Instead, he looked down on him steadily, even as he bowed, touching the edge of his hat in a gesture of respect.

“I am a messenger. I bring a request from King William.”

Don Giovanni had to catch his breath. He remembered talking to the boy artist, haughtily saying he merited conversation with the king. It was a bitter joke then; no king would stoop so low. But now here was a messenger. It thrilled him. He had met the young king only four years before—but it might as well have been a lifetime ago. William had been timid, though a likeable enough boy, and generous with his harem. “How can I serve my king?”

“As you know, King William is of age.”

There had been a gigantic party. Nobles came from as far
away as England to celebrate the eighteenth birthday of the king. Don Giovanni had managed to glean only the vaguest bits of information about it. And that had been quite a while ago now, so how could a brain fogged by wine be expected to hold on to such things for so long? One detail he did remember, though: he had not been invited. “Yes?”

“It's time for him to establish himself.”

“He's king. What more establishing does he need?”

The messenger smiled. “Rightly said. But he was only thirteen when his father died. That leaves a boy vulnerable and, to some extent, weak.”

Don Giovanni had been only thirteen when both his parents died. “He has a mother,” he said coolly.

“The dear Queen Margaret.” The messenger's tone said it all.

And Don Giovanni knew the story, at least up to the moment when the wave hit Messina, the moment when he left polite society. After her husband's death, Queen Margaret had ruled at first through Peter, a Saracen eunuch freed by King William I. But so many barons pitted themselves against Peter, he ran off to Morocco. Her cousin Stephen ran things for a couple of years then, but he stole money away to France and when people heard about that, there were riots in the streets. Messina certainly had its share of them. Stephen fled to Jerusalem. Then the Englishman Walter had come on the scene, somehow getting the queen to rely on him. The last Don Giovanni knew, this
Walter had riled the Palermo mob into forcing the canons to elect him archbishop. That was right before the wave.

Since then, whatever had happened to the royal family was a mystery to Don Giovanni. But he sensed that if he let this messenger realize the extent of his ignorance, he'd reduce his ability to negotiate whatever was to come. So he sighed, knowingly.

“Queen Margaret did her best,” said the messenger tiredly, as though agreeing with Don Giovanni's sigh. “But a tutor can have more influence over a youth than is healthy. Especially a zealously pious tutor like Archbishop Walter. To become a man, sometimes a youth needs to throw off the shackles of his tutor.”

Don Giovanni thought of old Don Alfinu; no one could be more self-righteously pious than him. “I understand what it means to throw off those kinds of shackles.” He stood. “Would you like a glass of wine? It's from the best cellar in Erice.” Had he spoken too spontaneously? He looked quickly at the side table. Fortunately, Ribi had placed a fresh glass beside the jug. Don Giovanni motioned with one hand. “Please help yourself.”

The messenger went straight to the table and poured a full glass. He knew how to act friendly to a drunk, at least.

“What is King William's plan?” asked Don Giovanni.

“He wants to build a cathedral.”

Don Giovanni laughed. “That hardly seems a way to demonstrate independence from the archbishop.”

“Oh, but it is. A very clever way.” The messenger sipped his
wine. He nodded in appreciation. “He's going to build the most magnificent cathedral ever. It will have two massive bell towers. The famous bronze sculptor Bonanno of Pisa will make doors with bas-reliefs from the Old and New Testaments. There will be a wide central nave with two smaller naves flanking. And granite columns, eighteen of them, supporting pointed arches.” One hand drew the arches in the air as he spoke. “In the Arab style. The roof will be carved meticulously and painted lushly. The floor will be white marble from Taormina. Mosaics will run from floor to ceiling.” He shook his head. “Can you think of a better way to show the archbishop that you're in control, even on his turf?”

Put that way, it was smart. Don Giovanni hadn't caught that in the boy he'd met years ago. But then, boys changed. Don Giovanni had.

“Such a cathedral will take years to build.”

The messenger finished his wine and put the glass back on the side table. “Decades.”

“And lots of gold,” said Don Giovanni.

“Exactly. King William wants to start the work when he turns twenty-one, in 1174, only a year and a half from now. He needs to raise funds.”

“Where will the cathedral be?” asked Don Giovanni.

“In Monreale.”

Don Giovanni had been to Monreale. It was on a hillside to the southwest of Palermo, and it looked down on the most stunning bay. “That's a little Arab town. Why place a cathedral there?”