Maria was already up and busy in the kitchen. When she heard him at the door she whirled around, carving knife in her hand. Then she saw him and her face flooded with relief. She dropped the knife and ran to him, throwing her arms around his body and hugging him to her so hard that he was afraid she would hurt her own soft flesh in doing it.
Gently he disengaged himself and stepped back.
She looked him up and down. “Food, then clean clothes. You’re filthy!” She turned away and began to get out the bread, oil, cheese, and wine, frantic to do anything useful. He saw over her shoulder how little there was in the cupboards.
“When are they coming?” she asked finally when she set a generous plate of food-too generous-on the table in front of him.
“Share it with me?” he asked.
“I’ve already eaten,” she answered.
He knew it was a lie. She never ate before her family did. “Then eat some more,” he insisted. “It will make me feel at home, not like a stranger. It may be the last meal we can eat like this, together.” He smiled, tears prickling his eyes for all that would be lost.
She obeyed, taking bread and a little well-watered red wine. “They’ll be here today?” she asked. “Aren’t we going to fight, Giuliano?”
“Probably tomorrow,” he answered. “And I don’t know if we’re going to fight or not. The whole island is angry, but it’s just under the surface, and I can’t read it well enough.”
“It’s Easter Monday tomorrow,” she said very quietly. “The day our Lord rose from the dead. Can we fight on Easter Day?”
“You fight on any day, to save the people you love,” he replied.
“Maybe they won’t fight?” she said hopefully.
“Maybe.” But he had seen them and knew otherwise.
Easter Monday was beautiful. The justiciar, John of Saint Remy, celebrated the feast in the palace of the Norman knights as if he and his men were unaware of the tension and hatred churning around them in the people they oppressed. But then, they had refused to learn the Sicilian customs or even their language.
Giuliano stood in the streets and gazed at the Sicilians pouring into the open, filling the alleys and squares with music, dancing. The women’s skirts and bright scarves were like flowers in the wind. Was all this energy the joy at the risen Lord, the belief in life everlasting, or just the breaking of unbearable tension as they waited for horsemen to arrive and take from them the last vestige of what they possessed, not only food but dignity and hope?
Half a dozen young men passed him, arms around girls with swaying skirts, laughing. One of the girls held out a hand to him, smiling.
He hesitated. It was churlish not to join them, and it set him apart when he hungered with something close to despair to belong, at least emotionally. He was part of their battle, and he would be part of their victory or loss.
He stood up and ran the few paces after them, taking the girl’s hand. They reached an open square where music was playing and began to dance. He danced with them until he was exhausted and out of breath.
A young man offered him wine, and he took it. It was rough and a little sharp to the taste, but he drank it with pleasure, passing the bottle back with a smile. The girls began to sing, and everyone else took up the chorus. Giuliano did not know the words, but it did not matter, he caught the tunes quickly. No one else seemed to care. The wine passed from hand to hand, and he drank probably more than he should have.
The jokes were funny and silly, but everyone laughed too easily and too loud. Now and again he caught someone’s eye, a young man with curly hair, a girl with a blue scarf, and saw for an instant the grief they also knew was coming.
Then someone started a song or told another joke, and they all laughed, arms around one another, holding too tight.
He thanked them when he left to go.
He was tired and hope was fading, raw on the edge of despair, when he set out with Giuseppe, Maria, and their children to attend the Vespers service at the Church of the Holy Spirit, half a mile or so to the southeast beyond the old city wall. It was an austere building, and its spare beauty exactly suited his mood.
The square was crowded with people, as if half the countryside had chosen to come here for this most holy celebration. They milled around, excitement charging the air as if there were a storm to come, in spite of the calm spring evening.
Giuliano looked up at the columns and tower.
A dozen yards away a man began to sing, and quickly others joined in. It was beautiful, totally appropriate as they waited for the Vespers bell to ring and the service to begin, yet to Giuliano it seemed jarringly normal, when nothing else was.
Abruptly the singing stopped.
Giuliano swung around and saw horsemen in the street to the north that opened into the square, then to the east as well, leading from the city walls. There must have been a score of them or more, a foraging party come to take what they could. They looked happy and a little drunk.
The pounding of his heart almost choked him.
Gradually the singing stopped as the Frenchmen came forward, apparently intending to join in. They began singing loudly in French.
The man beside Giuliano swore. In the crowd people moved closer to one another, men reaching a hand to clasp a child or a wife. There was a low rumble of anger.
The Frenchmen were laughing, calling out to the pretty women as one or another caught their eye.
Giuliano felt his muscles ache and his nails bite into the palms of his hands.
One of the Frenchmen called out to a small boy and beckoned him over. The child hesitated, backing a little behind his mother’s skirts. She moved a little farther in front of the boy. One Frenchman shouted something, another laughed.
Giuliano heard a cry and saw an officer. He held a young woman by the waist and drew her away from the crowd into the mouth of a quiet alley. Suddenly his hands were all over her body and she was struggling to avoid him, turning her head this way and that as he tried to kiss her.
Giuliano pushed his way forward past an old woman and several children, but he was too late. The young woman’s husband had already pulled his dagger. The French officer lay sprawled on the stones, his chest scarlet and blood pooling on the stones beneath him.
Someone gasped and stifled a scream.
All around the square, Giuliano saw Frenchmen draw their swords to avenge their comrade. Within seconds the Sicilians had their knives drawn also, and the fighting escalated. There were curses, shouting, the sun bright on steel, and blood on the stones.
Above them all, the bells of the Church of the Holy Spirit began ringing the call to Vespers, and those were echoed by the bells of every other church in the city.
Giuliano was surrounded. Where were Giuseppe and Maria? He saw Tino, one of their children, looking dazed, his face white. He lunged forward and seized the boy’s hand. “Stay by me,” he ordered. “Where’s your mother?”