The Wager by Donna Jo Napoli Page B

a coin from it and leaned against the wall to wait.
    The milk boy came up the alley, leading his four nannies.
    â€œHere.” Don Giovanni held out a coin.
    The boy blinked. A wary look crossed his face, but he didn’t back up. “What for?”
    â€œMilk. For me and him.” Don Giovanni motioned with his thumb at the dog, who had retreated to the far side of the alley again when the goats came into sight.
    â€œMilk doesn’t cost that much,” said the boy.
    An honest boy. Someone who wasn’t greedy. Don Giovanni wanted to kiss his feet. “If you give us our fill of milk every morning, I’ll give you a coin once a week.”
    The boy looked around. “Where’s your jug?”
    â€œSquirt it into our mouths.”
    The boy took the coin and it disappeared somewhere inside his cape. He put down the bell he carried. “Who should I do first?”
    â€œCani.” Don Giovanni called, “Here, Cani, come on.” He slapped his thigh. “Come on.”
    Cani hurried over.
    The boy took a goat teat and squirted Cani in the face.
    Cani shook his head in surprise, but that dog caught on fast. He opened his mouth and licked at the stream of milk as it came through the air.
    Don Giovanni got on his knees. The boy squirted him now.
    Good milk coated his innards as it went down, taking away the pain. “Enough.” Don Giovanni closed his eyes and stayed like that. Within seconds Cani was licking the milk that had squirted onto Don Giovanni’s face and beard. And licking the bloody wound, too.
    â€œI’ll bring you a bowl tomorrow.”
    Don Giovanni opened his eyes wide at the unexpected words of kindness. “Thank you.”
    But the boy had already gone ahead to the house door. He clanged his iron wedge.
    Don Giovanni limped quickly to the corner and turned down the next alley before the door opened. He looked behind. Cani was at his heels.
    This was a good start. Something he could build on.
    They got into a routine, Don Giovanni and Cani. The milk boy filled their bowl twice in the morning—one bowlful each—for a coin a week. The maidservant who swept out the kitchen at a house on the next street over gave them a loaf of bread every dawn for a coin a week. They split it, half and half.
    Their midday meal was in a tavern in the German Lombard section of town. The owner was a vintner of considerable reputation and the more prosperous people went there to drink, gamble, sing, visit prostitutes. Don Giovanni had never entered the establishment during his beggar period, so no one knew him. Anonymity felt safer.
    He couldn’t understand most of what the German tavern-keeper said, but it didn’t matter. He put his coin on the table and the tavernkeeper put in its place a plate of hot food. Usually stew of mutton or goat, but sometimes chicken or boar or venison. And always lots of greens.
    The whole thing was spiced with cinnamon or ginger or pepper. Lightly. Delicately, in fact. The cook knew his trade. And the wine was a pleasure, made from the huge grapes that grew on Etna. People said they were the largest in the world.
    Don Giovanni responded appropriately with his most polite habits. He cut the meat off the bone into small pieces anddelivered them to his mouth either on the point of his knife or in the spoon. He never rushed. He took his time chewing, savoring the cook’s mastery, sipping the wine, letting it roll slowly across his tongue.
    Cani stayed under the table busy with the gristle and knuckle and bones. But when there was venison, well, that was different. Cani loved venison. Don Giovanni would buy a second plate and put it on the floor for the dog, even though he knew that producing two coins was risky. A single coin, well, a beggar might luck upon that by catching the eye of a particularly generous person or finding some small job. Even on a daily basis. But two, that raised suspicions.
    Don Giovanni indulged himself in that