Siciliana Read online

  Embroidered beneath the horrific symbol in a strong Roman-style script were two words.

  Viticultura Vespiri.

  The cowled knight pondered the bannera as it blew stiffly in the wind.

  The winemaker’s vineyard, he told himself.

  Suddenly, the knight was overwhelmed with a wave of exhaustion. He felt his knees give out and collapsed face-first into the dirt.

  Then everything went black.

  Chapter 3

  Viticultura Vespiri

  Mount Etna, Sicily

  August 23, 1269

  Don Vittorio Vespiri lurched up in bed, letting out a gasp of anguish as he awoke from his nightmare. Drenched in sweat, he felt his head still spinning as he tried to focus his blurry vision.

  The room was dark except for the red light of dawn trickling in through the curtains. Panting, he felt the brisk air rush in and out of his lungs as he tried to control his breathing. He had to control it.

  “Patri? Are you okay?”

  Don Vespiri turned at the sound of the faint voice and saw her, illuminated by the red light pouring through the window.

  His young daughter, Aetna. Her thick raven-black hair fell to her shoulders, framing a distinctive crescent-shaped scar on her right cheek. Nearly a year earlier, she and Cicero were climbing the surrounding slopes when a volcanic crater erupted beneath them. A molten rock fragment flung through the air and grazed Aetna’s face, searing her olive skin. Forever branded by the lava.

  Don Vespiri felt himself fixed in her strong gaze. The dark cloud hanging over him had begun to evaporate with the morning mist, leaving nothing but the damp smells of the room, his wooden tools, his musty clothing.

  “Santuzza,” he muttered to Aetna. The Sicilian expression for little, holy knight was a term of endearment he had called her since birth.

  Aetna just stood there, though, as stubbornly as the volcano she was named for.

  “You had another dream again, didn’t you?” she asked. Her piercing green eyes were filled with concern. And willfulness. “About the Angevins?”

  “Go wake your brother,” Don Vespiri said, trying to sound stern.

  Aetna hesitated for a moment, then spun on her small heel and headed back through the doorway. She was as self-willed as her mother.

  Rubbing his eyes with his knuckles, Don Vespiri stood up and walked barefoot across his bedroom, a familiar sigh escaping his lips.

  Pull yourself together, Vittorio.

  The twenty-seven-year-old winemaker wandered wearily over to his bedroom window. Outside, a morning mist drifted quietly over acres of nerello mascalese grapevines laid out in harmonic rows, their leaves dark green, their velvet fruit ripe and voluptuous.

  Pale sunrays broke through the fog and slowly crowned over the slopes of the volcano, Mount Etna, painting the tops of the vines with a fiery red-orange glow. A gust of cold wind sent ripples across the top of the grapevines. Don Vespiri felt as if he were gazing upon the waves of the Mediterranean Sea itself, stretching far into the horizon.

  Turning away from his bedroom window, the winemaker slid into his tunic and work boots. He grabbed a small torch hanging off the wall and slipped quietly outside.

  Finally, he felt his blood begin to flow.

  Chapter 4

  Sauntering through the lush vineyard fields alone, Don Vespiri passed row upon row of grapevines glistening with dew. His torch spilled orange light across his face as he made his way toward a cavernous opening tucked into a steep slope of the volcano. He approached a set of narrow steps carved painstakingly into an ancient lava flow that led underground.

  A wine cave.

  Don Vespiri followed the steps downward and made his way through an arched passageway that opened into a vast barrel chamber. Rows of aged oak barrels were stacked atop one another in alternating patterns down the length of the cave walls. The air was thicker here. The aroma of fermenting grapes hung in the darkness, lingering in the winemaker’s nostrils.

  Don Vespiri half smiled as he approached his workbench, placing his torch gently into an iron sconce. The flickering flame cast dancing shadows across the cavern as he pulled a clean white tunic down from a hook on the wall, draping it over his torso like a magician’s robe. He lifted a golden pendant off the table and hung it around his neck. Its shape was that of the Gorgoneion Trinacria—the face of Medusa surrounded by three human legs bent at the knees.

  As he glanced up, his eyes caught on a mirrored silver plate that rested against the wall; in it, his own ghostly reflection stared back at him. Don Vespiri was a classically handsome man with curly dark hair, an aquiline nose, and olive Mediterranean skin hinting at an ancestral intermingling of the blood of various conquerors over the centuries. Greek, Roman, Arabic, Norman, all boiling together to form something strange and precarious: the true Sicilian. The Don at the beginning of his name was an honorific meaning Sir. Derived from the Latin Dominus, or Lord, it was a title bestowed only upon a master Sicilian knight. It was considered a term of rispettu—respect.

  Don Vespiri was widely known among his peers to be a man who treated his fellow Sicilian with a keen sense of decency. One who would not stand idly by when others were greeted with insult or injury.

  Last month, outside of Palermo Cathedral, he had broken up a stiletto duel simply by imposing his defenseless torso between the two quarreling men. He stepped between the razor-sharp blade tips the two angry Sicilians had aimed at one other. Both men stood in a firm guardian position—right foot forward, left foot back, a slightly crouched stance, dagger pointed outward. Even the faintest slash across the arm could cut a gash so deep, it meant certain death by blood loss or infection, as some blades were even dipped in diseased goat’s blood before a duel.

  “My friends,” Don Vespiri had interjected, carefully raising his palms toward the blade tips.

  The two men kept their eyes trained on one another, each ready to strike. A patrol of Angevin soldiers observed the gathering from the street, sharing a bottle of cheap wine among themselves as they laughed and jeered.

  “This Mamluk insulted my sister,” the first man said, eyes glaring with fire. “He dishonored my family’s name and must pay with his life.”

  The second man growled, baring his teeth. “Your sister is a whore, and her bastard child is not my son,” he said.

  “Come on, then, you pig!” the first man shouted, beckoning him forward. “It’s a good day to die!”

  Don Vespiri took a deep breath, slowly placing his palms on top of each blade and pushing them downward. “We are not each other’s enemy. We cannot be.”

  A man in the crowd stepped forward. “Don Vespiri, the deadliest cavaleri in all Sicily, telling others not to shed blood!”

  There was a burst of uncomfortable laughter.

  “My friends, I beg of you.” Don Vespiri shook his head, thrusting a finger toward the horizon. “Re Carlu sits on a throne in Napoli, ruling our island from afar and subjecting us to his vile, drunken army.”

  Don Vespiri turned to face the gathering throng of spectators. “How many times have the Angevins stolen precious heirlooms from your homes, and livestock from your farms? How many times have they violated the innocence of your wives and daughters in the streets for all to see, while you were helpless to stop them?”

  The two quarrelling men dropped their eyes.

  “Re Carlu is our enemy,” Don Vespiri said. “The Angevins are our enemy. Kings may be the judges of Sicily. But we are the judges of kings.”

  A man piped up. “The archbishop of Palermo will save us!” he said, pointing to the edifice of Palermo Cathedral looming over them. “He will lead us to salvation!”

  In that instant, Don Vespiri felt the blood rush to his face. “The archbishop cares for no one but himself. Do not be fooled. He plays to the vices of our Angevin molesters for his own selfish gain. He serves only one ma
ster. Himself. And he seeks nothing more than to expand his own power. He is not cosca. He is not family. And I am ashamed to call him a Sicilian.”

  Don Vespiri hissed the shh sound in ashamed like a seething snake.

  The two dueling men looked upon him with wide eyes. They had never heard another Sicilian speak with such ruthless courage and solidarity. By that time, the two men had lowered their blades, captivated by Don Vespiri’s natural command and comfortable confidence. The dons of antiquity called it occhinero—literally meaning the black of the eyes. The name evolved into a term embodying the fierce quality of looking danger and adversity in the face . . . eyeballs to eyeballs.

  Shaking the memory from his head, Don Vespiri grabbed his stiletto hanging from the wall, admiring it carefully in his palms. The blade was long and slender, with two snakes coiling around its crossbar. His eyes traced the length of the blade. If only the world knew how much blood had been drawn by its razor-sharp tip. Now, it drew only the red fluids of his own grapevines.

  In that moment, he heard a faint rustling stir from under his workbench. Don Vespiri held his breath, feeling a chill as he placed his hand around the hilt of his blade.

  A feral dog, he thought. A common menace he’d been dealing with since the beginning of time, it seemed.

  Don Vespiri slowly tightened his grip. He had to be quick, for a bite from a sick dog was a certain death sentence. The infection could kill a man by slowly driving him mad, ultimately closing up his throat and drowning him in his own spit, if the violent muscle spasms didn’t suffocate him first.

  Steadying his blade in an attack guard, he quickly lifted the tablecloth, when a grinning face framed in raven-black hair suddenly emerged.

  Chapter 5

  “Aetna!” Don Vespiri exclaimed, stumbling backward. Laughing, Aetna crawled out from underneath the table.

  “Santuzza,” he said, trying to slow his breathing. “You shouldn’t scare Patri while he’s working.”

  Aetna was still cackling as she climbed up onto his oaken stool, flashing her big eyes.

  But then he smiled. It felt good, he realized, sharing this moment with her.

  Aetna jumped to her feet, waving a small wooden sword. “I am Orlando, Sicily’s perfect knight!”

  Don Vespiri picked Aetna up and placed her firmly on the chair. “You know what made Orlando a great cavaleri, don’t you?”

  “His blade!” she exclaimed, hoisting her sword into the air.

  Don Vespiri shook his head. He then pressed his finger into Aetna’s forehead. “It was this,” he said. “His mind was as sharp as any blade.”

  “Sharp, how?” Aetna said, rubbing the spot where her patri’s finger jabbed her head.

  “Sharp with ideas,” he said. “Ideas that might inspire any woman, man, or an entire people to rule a country of their own.” Don Vespiri paused for a moment, choosing his next words carefully. “Ideas of rebellamentu.”

  “Rebellion?” she said. “Against who?”

  “Not against who. Against what.”

  “Against what, Patri?”

  “Greed, oppression, the abuse of power,” Don Vespiri explained. “Bad ideas that weak, lazy, selfish men use to expand their stations in life.”

  “How do we stop them?”

  Don Vespiri smiled, leaning in to address his daughter. “By protecting the helpless,” he said. “Defending those less fortunate than you so that they may become the best version of themselves. Sicily can only stand tall when all of her families and orphans stand together. These are the ideas of a great Sicilian cavaleri like Orlando.”

  With that, Don Vespiri gripped the golden pendant in his palm and extended it toward Aetna.

  Aetna’s eyes fell to the pendant, enthralled.

  “It’s called the Gorgoneion Trinacria,” Don Vespiri said.

  “What is it?” Aetna asked, pondering Medusa’s shrieking face and slithering hair frozen perpetually in time.

  “A symbol of protection,” Don Vespiri said. “Guarding all who display it from harm and evil influences.”

  Aetna reached out for the pendant and held it in her hands. The Gorgoneion Trinacria gleamed in the firelight, reflecting shards of golden rays into her green eyes.

  Don Vespiri pressed his finger into the pendant. “Medusa was once a bright, happy Sicilian woman. Her beauty was so magnificent, in fact, that it caught the eye of Poseidon, the dastardly god of the sea. Though Medusa wanted nothing to do with him and resisted all of his advances. Until one day, she was praying alone in the temple of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, when Poseidon cornered Medusa and forced himself upon her.”

  Aetna felt a sudden chill. She glanced up. “Did she fight back?”

  “She fought like the strong woman she was. But it was too late. The goddess Athena became furious with Poseidon and the terrible acts that took place in her temple. In an attempt to protect poor Medusa, Athena transformed her hair into slithering snakes and gave her the deadly power to turn to stone any man who gazed upon her.”

  Aetna’s eyes flashed with surprise.

  “And from that day forth, Medusa lived the life of a misunderstood monster,” Don Vespiri continued. “Upon Medusa’s death, the goddess Athena honored her by displaying her head on the aegis of her own shield—a warning to evil men that they act with respect and goodwill, or else be turned to stone.” Don Vespiri paused, seeing the intrigue build in his daughter’s eyes. “Medusa was a tragic victim . . . a misunderstood monster . . . and now”—he tapped his fingertip gently against Medusa’s face on the pendant—“she is our Great Protector.”

  Aetna stared at the pendant. The image was unsettling and profoundly strange. Her initial awe gave way to a sudden upwelling of sorrow. “I feel sad for Medusa.”

  Don Vespiri’s eyes fell upon Aetna, watching her face as he beheld her mind working behind her eyes. Processing. Forming an idea. “How so?”

  “She was punished for being who she was,” Aetna said. “For being a girl . . . like me.”

  Don Vespiri frowned. “And now she protects us so that you may one day grow up to be a strong woman.”

  Aetna’s attention suddenly shifted. She noticed the three human legs spiraling outward from behind Medusa’s head. “What are these strange-looking legs for?”

  Don Vespiri smiled, leaning in closer. “That’s the best part. These legs represent the three corners of Sicily, our home.” He traced each bent leg with the tip of his finger. “More important, they serve to teach us a powerful lesson. No matter where we are thrown, a Sicilian will always land standing.”

  Aetna gazed down assuredly at the pendant. “I will be a great protector one day.”

  Don Vespiri smiled. “That’s my santuzza,” he said, leaning in and planting his lips on her forehead. With that, Aetna hopped off the bench and dashed up the stairs to the surface above.

  As Don Vespiri watched his daughter leave, he felt a sudden surge of uneasiness. The same feeling that tortured him in his dreams, hanging over him, blocking his light like a solar eclipse.

  Who will protect the families of Sicily against the Angevin threat?

  Don Vespiri glanced down to his stiletto holstered on his hip. The blade was the embodiment of Sicilian courage. Where corrupt men in power failed to uphold justice, a cavaleri with a sharpened stiletto had to administer his own. Swiftly. Viciously. Effectively.

  In that instant, Don Vespiri snapped out his blade with deadly speed and lifted it to his face, seeing his own reflection staring back at him. A master of occhinero. A man who looked danger in the black of the eyes. Like all cavaleri who came before him, he had learned to find courage in the assured voices of his own mind. Today, however, those voices were as dead quiet as the empty wine cave around him.

  Chapter 6

  Viticultura Vespiri was an expansive vineyard estate nestled against the southeastern Ilice Crater on the
active volcano Mount Etna. Along Etna’s lower slopes, row upon row of grapevines and almond trees blossomed from the black soot. This ugly soil was among the richest earth in the Regno, holding the roots of Sicily’s ancient vines in a lover’s embrace. Mount Etna was at the same time a menace to those nestling into her slopes. Glowing orange fissures and hot-steam vents regularly burst from the flanks of the mountain. During these frequent eruptions, lava flowed relentlessly from her core, weaving webs of fire that could be seen through the hot summer nights, destroying everything in its path.

  Vineyard overseer Paola Sinibaldo knelt down and brushed the cindery volcanic dust from a handful of violet-blue grapes as she inspected the satin fruit closely between her fingertips. The grapes were plump and strong, blooming year after year without a care for the troubles the world brought down around them. Every harvest then became an act of defiance against the waves of conquerors that slammed against Sicily’s shores.

  At twenty-four years old, Paola had supervised the vineyard grounds for her entire young-adult life. She assumed the hectic role shortly after her older sister died giving birth to her niece, Aetna. It was the least Paola could do to help in the face of her family’s loss.

  Paola stood up, shielding her round, olive face from the glaring sun as she gazed out over the expansive property. The Vespiri farmhouse, a humble structure made of gray volcanic stone, sat atop a small hill overlooking the entire estate. Flying above the main entrance to the property was the vineyard’s bannera, or flag. The words Viticultura Vespiri were sewn across the top in strong Roman-style script. Embroidered just below in the center of the bannera was the shrieking face of the Gorgoneion Trinacria.