Chapter 10 - The Master of the House
Cristiano Vicari was standing by his study window when he saw the white shape move across the lower terrace.
He didn't call Bernardo. He didn't reach for his silver stick.
He threw open the terrace doors, stepping out into the wet wind in his shirt sleeves, his eyes tracking the silvery white streak that was leaping the low stone walls of the vineyard terraces with six-foot strides, its white tail streaming like a banner against the dark trees.
The horse wasn't running away.
He was running up.
"Don Cristiano!" Bernardo shouted from the stairs below, three guards running behind him with lanterns. "The stallion got out through the feed door—"
"The cottage," Cristiano snapped.
He didn't wait for the guards. He vaulted the six stone steps of the terrace, his boots sinking two inches into the soft red mud, running up the steep vineyard path as fast as his long legs could carry him.
When he reached the stone porch of the cottage, the stallion was already there.
El Rey was standing over Mara, his four hooves braced on the narrow stone steps, his great white head lowered so that his nose was pressed against her wet shoulder, his body forming a solid wall of white muscle between her and the storm.
Mara lay on her side, her hair wild across her face, her hands locked around the stallion’s front cannon bone as another contraction tore through her body.
Cristiano dropped to his knees in the mud beside her.
"Mara," he said, his hands reaching under her shoulders, lifting her heavy, shivering frame from the stone.
She opened her eyes—dark, wild, and blurred with agony—and her fingers snapped shut around his collar with the strength of a drowning woman.
"Don't... don't let Giacomo touch him," she gasped, her teeth clicking together with the cold.
Cristiano felt a sudden, fierce knot tighten in his throat—a feeling so strange and old he didn't have a name for it.
"Giacomo isn't touching anything," he said softly.
He lifted her into his arms.
She weighed almost nothing despite the child—a small, fierce creature of bone, wool, and unyielding willpower that had survived Marco Villani, the Stelea brothers, and six hundred kilometers of cold Italian roads to end up here, on his porch, in his storm.
The stallion didn't kick when Cristiano stepped past his shoulder. He fell into step beside them, his white nose touching Cristiano’s elbow as they walked down the stone path toward the main house, his great hooves making a steady, rhythmic thump-thump-thump in the red mud.
The guards were waiting at the terrace doors with blankets, hot water, and three lanterns, but Cristiano didn't hand her to Bernardo or the kitchen girls.
He carried her up the central marble staircase—past the portraits of his great-grandfather, past the brass lamps of the second floor, straight into the master suite in the west wing that had been locked since his father’s death twelve years ago.
He laid her on the massive brass bed with its white linen sheets and down pillows.
Dr. Rossi was already there, his black bag open on the table, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
"Out, Don Cristiano," the old doctor said, pointing his finger toward the door. "This isn't a board meeting. Go wait in the hall."
Cristiano didn't move.
Mara’s fingers were still locked in his shirt collar, her knuckles white, her breath coming in ragged hitches as another wave hit her.
She looked up at him through her damp dark hair.
"Stay," she whispered.
Cristiano looked at Dr. Rossi.
"Get the basin," Cristiano said to the doctor.
Epilogue: The Name on the Register
The child was born at five minutes past five in the morning, just as the first cold blue light of dawn broke over the Apennines.
A boy.
Four kilos, with a mop of thick black hair, nostrils as wide as a little colt's, and a pair of dark grey eyes that opened three minutes after his birth and looked around the mahogany-paneled room as if he owned every inch of the furniture.
The storm had passed.
The courtyard below was quiet, save for the sound of the birds starting up in the pine trees behind the stables and the steady drop-drop-drop of melted snow from the copper eaves.
Mara lay in the center of the brass bed, clean, warm, wrapped in three layers of soft flannel, her dark hair combed back and tied with a silk ribbon. The baby was sleeping against her ribs, his small, pink fist curled tightly around the corner of her blanket.
The door opened.
Cristiano walked in. He had washed his face, changed into a fresh white shirt, and carried a thick sheet of official parchment bearing the seal of the Registry Office of the Province of Reggio Emilia.
He sat on the edge of the mattress.
He didn't speak for a long time; he just looked at the tiny, dark-haired creature sleeping against her side, his long fingers gently touching the baby's miniature nails.
"The clerk is waiting down in the office," Cristiano said softly.
Mara looked up at him. "The clerk?"
"To record the birth," Cristiano said. He laid the parchment on the blanket six inches from her hand.
Mara looked at the copperplate writing at the top of the page:
REGISTRO DELLE NASCITE — PROVINCIA DI REGGIO EMILIA CHILD: LEO CRISTIANO VICARI MOTHER: MARA SOTO VICARI
Mara’s breath stopped.
She looked from the paper to his face—his dark, quiet eyes, his sharp cheekbones, the thin mouth that was no longer set in that cold, unyielding line she had seen five weeks ago in the courtyard.
"Vicari?" she whispered.
"My father's name was Leo," Cristiano said, his hand sliding over hers, his fingers closing around her palm with that same firm, iron strength that had held her on the porch steps. "He was a difficult man who made many enemies. But he knew a good horse when he saw one, and he never let a good woman walk out of his house."
Mara felt a warm, clean tear slide down her cheek, leaving a faint track on her skin before disappearing into the white linen pillow.
"And Maria Santos?" she asked softly.
May you like
"Maria Santos is dead," Cristiano said, leaning down until his lips touched her forehead, right between her dark eyebrows. "And Mara Soto is the mistress of this house."
Outside, in the golden sunlight that was just starting to hit the red tiles of the stable roof, a white stallion lifted his head over the iron rail of his paddock, let out a long, clear whistle that echoed across the six rows of Sangiovese vines, and began to graze on the fresh green grass that was pushing up through the melting snow.
