The Medici Return (Cotton Malone #19)

Chapter 39

CHAPTER 39

J ASON STOOD PROPPED AGAINST THE FENCE AND WATCHED AS C OTTON Malone rounded the dirt track one more time atop the horse.

Camilla Baines stood beside him.

Late afternoon had arrived and the sun was heading down, painting the stable and the track in a golden tan. He was trying to stay composed, but his emotions swayed toward panic. His entire life and career were on the line, everything he ever worked for, ever wanted, at dire risk. Like on a roller coaster that he had no way of stopping. You just kept racing ahead, one drop, one curve after the next.

“He rides that horse with confidence,” she said.

He agreed.

Malone had hopped right onto the back of the stallion and grabbed the reins. The first lap around the track had been a slow trot, Malone apparently testing the animal, getting comfortable riding bareback. The next was a full trot. Now he was up to a solid run.

“I have never ridden a horse before,” he said. “I grew up in a large German city. Our visits to the countryside were confined to a hike, swim, or fishing. No horses.”

“He seems to be trying to get a feel for the animal,” she said.

“Is that difficult?”

She shrugged. “Not with a horse. They can sense the rider. Know when he or she is confident or scared. Horses like confident. It reduces the amount of thinking they have to do.”

Malone rounded the far turn and the horse sped up.

They thundered past for another lap.

“Cardinal Richter,” she said, “may I offer some personal advice?”

“I can use all of that I can get.”

“In the Palio deceit and deception are part of the experience. They are expected, the idea being to make it hard for your enemies to win. No one is immune. No one is a saint. Neither is anyone the devil. We are all simply trying to uphold the tradition of the race.”

“Yet you want to win.”

“Of course. But the luck of the draw with the horse sets your course. We try to have ten solid contenders, but that is not always possible. And once you have a horse that is surely not going to win, everything changes.”

“You have a loser?”

“Our groom says we do, and he is the expert.”

Malone was now moving the horse at a full run, his body angled down, head high.

“He knows to balance his weight on the horse,” she said. “He’s remembering what to do.”

He was waiting for the advice, so he asked, “You think I am in trouble, don’t you?”

“I think, like us, you have a horse who cannot win. Which means you have to make sure your enemy does not win. Priests? Cardinals? Bishops? Those I know about. Many are worthy of the Palio.”

He smiled. “Such a diplomatic way to insult them.”

Malone made the last turn. The horse’s hooves pounded the ground as they raced by.

“I meant no insult,” she said. “Just a fact.”

“Sadly, it is true.”

“I have read about the trial going on inside the Vatican. Now you are being implicated in that corruption?”

“I am. But it is a lie.”

“Still a problem, though.”

On that she was right. Truth seemed to matter not anymore. Only perception. The bullet points at the beginning, as opposed to reading the whole article. Nobody read the whole article anymore. He was being systematically framed. Set up to be brought down. As an example? Maybe. To send a message to the other cardinals? Surely. Nothing was more dangerous than a cardinal who wanted to be pope. Especially a cardinal with the power of the Secretariat of State and the Entity behind him. They needed to get inside that monastery and see if anything meaningful was there. Long shot? Perhaps. After all, five hundred years had passed.

But they had to find out.

Malone slowed the horse and brought them both around to the fence.

“Can you do it?” Camilla asked.

Malone nodded. “Good thing, though, I don’t have to win.”

“You rode hard,” Richter said. “It will be different tomorrow with the crowd and the other horses.”

“Just make sure the Porcupine horse does not win,” she said. “That’s all I ask.”

But Jason wondered. Was it?

Cardinal Stamm was right.

Everything about Camilla Baines signaled one thing and one thing only.

Trouble.

C OTTON GENTLY STROKED THE HORSE’S NECK.

This was not the mount he would ride in the race. That animal was with the contrada’s groom back in Siena, who’d kept a constant vigil, day and night, ever since the horse had been selected three days ago. The idea was that the animal remain inviolate, protected, not subject to any mischief or mayhem. Each contrada had its own veterinarian too. Everything was kept close and in house. The horse he’d just tried, he’d been told, had run in two previous Palios. So it was an excellent trainer.

Camilla had explained that horses were specifically bred for the Palio. No thoroughbreds. Too feisty. Only mixed breeds, trained on tracks similar to Siena’s campo, chosen for their ability not to be spooked by the crowds and thus incur fewer injuries. The only rule? Breeders must reside in Sienese territory or have a substantial attachment to the Palio.

Whatever that meant.

He’d never ridden a horse that fast before, especially bareback. It was like the ones on the merry-go-round when he was a kid. Hard. Slippery. In constant motion. His parents had been there then, holding on to him. No such luck now. Definitely a unique experience. Going thirty miles an hour, gripping a bridle, with only your legs holding on. Luckily, a horse knew what to do. All a good rider did was give the animal the freedom it needed to do its thing. Could he ride in the race and all of the chaos associated with it? Horses constantly bumping into one another. Jockeys hitting the ground. Some being trampled. Horses collapsing in hard falls. Some seriously injured.

Survival of the fittest.

But if he was nothing else, he was fit.

“Does it matter how I do it?” he asked Camilla.

“Not in the least. Just make sure the jockey goes down, and also make sure the riderless horse does not make it to the finish line first.”

He caught Richter’s gaze and read the cardinal’s thoughts. And he agreed. This was insanity. Definitely not what he’d signed on for.

Thirty years ago, when he was a teenager in middle Georgia, before the navy, he believed that the world would treat him fairly if he removed his cap in church, always spoke the truth, and said sir or ma’am to everyone. Boy he was wrong. Fairness had to be earned. Which generally involved paying a price of some kind. Here, though, there was something about the abstract challenge he faced that was buoying. How many times in his life would an opportunity like this come by? Not many. So no matter how foolish it might be, he was going to do it.

“You ready?” Richter asked.

“As I’ll ever be.”