The Shepherdess of Siena: A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany Read Online Free PDF Page B

and father are dead.”
    The duchessa nodded. She lifted her chin slightly, sniffing the air.
    “Hmmm? But the farrier insisted you ride with me as payment for attending my mare.”
    “He is my padrino and was my father’s closest friend. He knows how much I love horses,” I said. I turned around on the bench, upholstered in dark blue velvet. I peered out the small window toward the horses.
    “You cannot see them well from here,” said the duchessa, smiling slightly. “Pity. Perhaps you would like to see my mare. Ah, but when she is well again!”
    I watched as the lady made the sign of the cross.
    “Do not worry, Duchessa. My Padrino Brunelli can cure any horse,” I said, turning to face her. “He has a way, Zio says.”
    “Magari,” said the duchessa, in the Senese fashion. God willing. Her gray eyes were sad. “There is no finer horse. She has won the Palio twice for the House of d’Elci.”
    I stared at her. “The Palio,” I whispered.
    “Yes, and she is with foal,” she said. “A very special foal.” A gleam shone briefly in her clouded eyes. “She will have the most magnificent colt ever born.”
    “I love colts,” I whispered. “How they gambol and kick in the air at nothing. I watch them as I tend my flock.”
    “The father of this colt is Tempesta,” she said. “He is the swiftest horse in all Tuscany. He was born in the wilds of the Maremma.”
    “Has he won the Palio?”
    “No,” she said. She looked out the window at the sluicing rain. “He has never been ridden. Many fine horsemenhave tried, but he has thrown them all. He cannot even be approached now, he is so wild.”
    “A dangerous horse?”
    She lifted her eyebrow. “Deadly.”
    I shivered. The vision of slashing hooves haunted me, for mypadrino had told me stories of mad horses that haunted my dreams.
    “Sit closer to the brazier, my child,” she said, drawing the fur rug over my legs. “You will catch a chill, mia cara . Feel how damp you are . ”
    I looked up at her in awe. Except for old Brunelli, no one had ever called me “mia cara.” The hot coals warmed us as we listened to the pelting rain against the wooden coach.
    “Why would you want a colt from a dangerous stallion, Duchessa?”
    “I want his bloodline. I believe his blood mixed with my mare will make the fastest colt Siena has ever seen. But the real secret is the mare. Mares have heart,” she said, pressing my hand.
    I watched a smile grow on her face. She looked twenty years younger, like a young mother herself. She patted my knee.
    “If your padrino is worthy of his reputation,” she said, “we might see the birth of that colt tonight.”

C HAPTER 7
    Siena, Pugna Hills
    J ANUARY 1573
    The mare lay on her side, her flanks black with sweat. Cesare Brunelli, still wet from riding hard and fast in the rain, rubbed the mare’s belly, squeezing her teats.
    “How long has she been in labor?” he asked the duchessa’s attendant. He looked up from the man’s polished boots, now splattered with mud.
    “Eight hours,” said the stableman. “She can barely lift her head now. It is a miracle we got her to these sheds.”
    Brunelli shook his head. “She still has a little kick to her—I can see it in her eyes.”
    “Will you bleed her?” asked the man, shifting his weight in his boots so they creaked. “I have heard that a cut to the fetlock purges the black humors—”
    Brunelli snorted. “Certainly not. This mare needs all the blood God gave her.”
    His fire-scarred hands rummaged through his leather bag and extracted a ceramic jar sealed with beeswax.
    He used the blade of his knife to break the seal.
    “You got her?” he asked Giorgio.
    “Sì, Babbo.”
    “Easy, girl,” said Brunelli. He knelt, bringing the little jar below her neck where she could not see it. Rings of white circled her eyes, where panic shone bright.
    His finger slipped between her front teeth and back tusk—knowing too little about horses, I gasped. I was sure the mare