When I asked her name nobody knew how to answer. That old woman had not a name anymore. Her face was marked by deep furrows that mixed up between themselves, the hair was thinned out and of an intense white, the lips looked like a cut into a tree’s bark but the very dark eyes shined lightened by a fire that burned from the inside. Her body was tiny and bent and during all the time I spent, enchanted, to listen her calm and deep voice, I saw that her hands were ceaselessly plaiting silken threads.

It was winter 1273; my family had sent me to study law in Padua but my delight for old stories had lead me till the doors of Vicenza in the house of an old woman that was said to have known at least four of the generation of Bassano’s lords.

A certain number of people believed that she was a witch and they tried to forbid the children to go to listen her stories, but her way of telling was so exciting and mysterious that young people and also many adults could not help themselves from listening at her as enchanted.

This was one of the reasons why she had often been submitted to the Inquisition enquiries that, astonishingly, never decided to indict her. My curiosity of young student had been so teased by friends and schoolmates that, during a beautiful December morning, I decided to leave to go to meet her. The sun was high in the sky, the winter air was cold and dry and that very day the fog had not put its cotton blanket on the snow-white fields yet. My horse carried on slowly and I tried to imagine how the meeting would have been, what I could have said, which questions I would have asked…

I arrived in Vicenza in the hour of the vespers and I went towards one of my old schoolmate’s house that, after his father’s sudden death, had to take his place into the family business. With a letter I had informed him in advance about my arrival and when I arrived to his house he was waiting for me. We spent the evening and the following day remembering the old times and when it came the time to go to listen the old woman he went together with me.

Every day, more or less at the same hour, the old woman used to tell a story and many people crowded her little house. When we arrived there were already a lot of people that chatted in front of her door waiting to get in. In the courtyard the children were playing with the snow running and shouting but when a tiny black-dressed shape appeared on the doorstep opening the door, they abruptly stopped and entered fast to go to sit near the fire.

The adults usually took there presents and, my friend and me, we had something as well: a chestnuts basket. Like the others I put the basket on the table and I went in a half-light corner of the room even if it was not too far from the fire.

The old woman sat on a little chair with all the children around, she greeted someone and then turned her eyes to me. I thought that she had mixed me up with somebody else and I pretended not to notice it.
- I was waiting for you, she said. I did not know what to answer.
Again I thought she was making a mistake.
- I am speaking with you, with you Pietro Gerardo!
When I heard my name I shivered. How could she know who I was? How could she know my name if she had never seen me and nobody of the people there knew me but my friend?

- I was waiting for you. You will be the one that gathers my stories, you will be the one instructed to tell the sorrow’s yells of this land and when your work will be over I will finally be able to rest in peace. Come, sit here near me and listen.

All the people there looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and fear, the children moved a bit to make room for me and I went to sit where the old woman had told me.

“A lot of time ago, started then the old woman, a lot of time a go, a man, already at the end of his days, cried. Yes, on his death bed he cried. It was not the fear of the near meeting with the One that judges everybody, his conscience was not upset by what he had done during his very long life… something else pierced his soul.

His heart pulsated so strongly that it seemed into the head not in the chest, the soul was tear out by an horrifying premonition, it seemed to him to have the throat into an hanging knot; he was not able to speak not to move and his eyelid were wetted by tears that he could not stop.

That old wrinkled and ill man saw all what he had fought for and all what he had believed in ending dreadfully destroyed by the hands of those that he himself had gave birth to. When he opened his eyes he saw his wife. He tried a smile that seemed a grimace and then, finally, was able to speak.

- I remember, he said with that warm and charming voice that had always distinguished him, I remember when I arrived in this country in which the air is sweet and perfumed… I was together with my lord, I fought for him and I was very proud of it. He was fair and strong as an Emperor should be. His mother, princess Teofano, had given him an excellent byzantine education but his way of being had been largely influenced by the very learned Gerberto d’Aurillac… Water! Bring me water! I feel my throat burning!
Symbolically taking the name of the one that co-operated with the Emperor Constantinum, Gerberto became pope with the name of Silvestrus II. But my lord, the great Ottone III, had enemies that waned to destroy him; he had to withdraw from Rome, he saw his dream of building a universal empire crack down and he cracked with it. I did not want to go back to Germany. From my lord I had obtained the title of Count and some lands in Italy …
I felt in love with those lands located in between the rivers Piave and Brenta that I had been granted. I have a lot of friends in Padua but my heart tightens when I think about theirs sons enemies of mines; I feel that the lands I love will be destroyed, my name swore, the flesh of my own flesh tear apart by dogs and my memory cursed! Again Troy will collapse on its knee for the gorgeous’ Helen’s fault! I would like not to know, not to feel, not to ever had come to Italy, I wish – he shouted furiously glancing with hate to what was now the once fertile womb of his wife – I wish I had never lived into your cursed womb! The astrologers had predicted him a descent carrier of disgraces and a seed that would have devastated his lands…

His mind confused by years and sorrow did not recognize any more the present, the past had been his life and the future would have been so terrible that death seemed to him as a relief. He drank. But the bitter of his visions mixed with the water they brought him.

Ezzelino the German’s heart stopped to beat but in his eyes, for a long time, somebody believed to see copious tears flowing down. His son, Ezzelino the Stutterer, so called for a pronunciation defect, held his father hands and, before going away; he was giving the arrangements for the funeral when his attention was nearly immediately drawn by the cries coming from his wife Auria room.

Sometimes coincidences seem to be so incredibly unreal to believe that they are simply born from men’s imagination, but that night of delirium and sorrow really seemed to brand forever the coming events.

The old Ezzelino the German’s hallucinations were so strong that could be breathed together with the heavy and dark air of the castle, they were so upsetting to insert a cruel hate in the brain of those that would have been contaminated.

Two souls seemed to touch each other that night; the grieve and troubled first one was going out from an old and wore out body, the second one, while entering the limbs of a baby, was maybe touched by the first soul and by this one marked forever.

The sky was closing like lead on the house of the old dying man and only when he exhaled his last breath, the weep of a baby sounded as an icy cry in the cold and desert rooms of the castle d’Onara. Ezzelino the Stutterer, maybe to honour his father that died that very day or maybe pushed by the fate’s hand, wanted for his only son the name of Ezzelino.

The child’s mother, for some strange reason, had tried, without succeeding, in dissuading her husband from giving this name to the baby proposing instead her father’s name, Riccardi da Baone. But a woman painful from giving birth and cruelly tormented by a terrible premonition could not much against a wretched destiny”.

The old woman stopped talking because of a strong cough attack. Someone brought her a bit of water and the cough calmed down a bit. Few minutes passed by before she newly started the telling but nobody dared to breath or move while waiting.

“Years passed by, she started again, years passed by and the sinister sky of that terrible night seemed to disappear forever till when a nothing in a day of joy made Lady Auria’s soul jump again.

It was the day of the marriage of Cunissa da Romano, daughter of Ezzelino the Stutterer that owned, apart from the Onara domain, the richer and more important feudal lands of Romano from which himself and his heirs got the name. Cunissa was a nice and mild young lady that had always dreamt of a marriage for love but, as often happens in these noble families, his father decided for her.

She was given as bride to the very rich Tiso da Camposanpiero, a very well known and respected noble both in the lands of Padua and Verona where he owned important territories.

The Stutterer had tired to marry his own daughter to a man that was, though very rich, not to old and when Cunissa saw him for the first time, maybe being afraid of finding herself in front of a man of her father’s age, she seemed satisfied of seeing a young kind lord few years older than herself. The union was an happy one and from it two children were born: Gerardo and Tiso Novello da Camposanpiero.

The day of her marriage, while she was crossing the cathedral’s door leaving behind her all the monsters created by the devil and shaped as reprimand into the stone, Cunissa was nearly happy, with a beautiful dress and supported by her father’s arm she went through that door that would have forever and indissolubly tied her womb to the bloody destiny of her own family.

All the nobles of those lands were in front of her, unaware guests of the tragedy that would have devastated them when the sign performed himself. Cunissa had not yet covered the first half of the church that the necklace wrapped around her hair broke letting every pearl drop.

Her eyes fulfilled with tears, lady Auria felt faint and with her mind she went back to the night when Ezzelino was born, she felt again the giving birth pains, but it was just for few moments, her son supported her and when she regained Cunissa was already at the altar.

After some years Ezzelino, Cunissa’s brother, decided to marry as well and he chose as his wife Agnese, Azzo d’Este sister that owned a lot of lands in the territory of Padua. But Agnese was weak and after one year of marriage, while she was giving birth her first son, she died taking the baby with her.

Ezzelino decided then to marry again to have heirs but the wife that his father had chosen for him, one of the sisters of Deslemanino dei Deslemanini of Padua, for nearly one month avoided his bed producing the most bizarre excuses and when Ezzelino, forced her to lay with him, he noticed that she was not virgin any more and he sent her away”.

Someone put a bit of wood into the fire, the embers softly burst under the weight of the new burning trunks and the old woman was, for a moment, distracted. One of the children pulling her apron asked her to go on with the story and so she started to tell again.

“After few years in Albano, Manfredo da Baone, lady Auria’s father’s cousin, considered one of the richest man in the Marca Trevigiana, died. Manfredo left as his only heir his daughter Cecilia that was just sixteen years old but well known for her incredible beauty.

It was said that her skin was white and smooth as ivory, perfumed as a jasmine flower and so bright to make the pearl that she used to let drop on her front as to challenge its clarity disappear. Her eyes, surrounded by very long eyelash, were so big and green to let even the most expert swimmer drown, her ruby red lips seemed painted by the brush of the best among the painters and her blond plaited hair softly touched her shoulders as warm sun rays.

Her guardian was called Spinabello, a Manfredo’s faithful man that had promised to his lord to take care of the gorgeous Cecilia and to find her a husband worthy of her name and richness. Spinabello thought to offer her hand to Gerardo da Camposanpiero that, apart from being rich and noble, was young and of a never seen beauty.

Cecilia had seen him to the eastern mess and Spinabello knew that she liked him. So Spinabello decided to go to the young man’s father, Tiso da Camposanpiero, to speak about a possible marriage with his pupil. When Spinabello arrived to the castle he was welcomed with honours and, after a rich banquet, he was invited by Tiso to walk with him in the garden.

It was a beautiful sunny day and after chatting about the beauty of the hundred-year-old trees and of the animals that Tiso boasted in his garden, they finally stopped and they sat under the shadow of a huge weeping willow where Spinabello offered the marriage in between Cecilia and Gerardo. Tiso hoped in hearing that offer! His wife Cunissa had imagined it as soon as she had seen Spinabello crossing the castle door and now Tiso finally verified it.

Cecilia was very rich and it was not the first time that he was listening praising her beauty and he knew that his son Gerardo was really keen on her. But he decided to take time… never he did worst mistake.

- My son, he said calmly, in now in Friuli for some affairs of the family in those lands, he will be back in eight days and till then I will not be able to know what he thinks about this marriage. I hope you will be willing to wait till that moment.

Spinabello was satisfied and went away.
Tiso spent some few more moments in the garden and then he went back to the castle, asked for his horse and gallopping he went towards the castle da Romano to ask for advice to his father in law, Ezzelino the Stutterer.
He arrived at the castle that very evening and he was invited for dinner. During the banquet Tiso found a way to reveal to his father in law sitting near him about the marriage.

- I am afraid, he said, I have to ask you for advice on a proposal that I received this afternoon. It is a proposal of marriage for Gerardo. As you well know Manfredo da Baone is dead and his daughter Cecilia reached the age for marrying… So Spinabello came to ask me if it was possible a marriage between her and my son Gerardo.
- What does Gerardo think about it?, asked affable the Stutterer.
- Well, I know he once saw the girl in the church and he has been fascinated by her beauty, but he does not know anything about this proposal yet because he is in Friuli and he will be back in eight days. Spinabello gave me time till then.

Ezzelino the Stutterer did not answer immediately but his eyes had the astute and malicious look of an old fox and after few moments he started to speak.
- Tiso, my dear son, this is a very important decision; it is true that the girl is extremely rich but before it is necessary to ask Gerardo what he thinks about it. I believe it is right to think well about it, when your son is back from Friuli we will ask him and we will see his reaction. But now let us stop with this and let us toast to the beautiful youth of our sons!

The banquet went on till late in the night and since it would have been dangerous go back in the darkness without been accompanied after an evening in which they had drunk and eaten too much the Stutterer attentively asked Tiso to stay that night and made prepare for him the rooms that were once lived in by Cunissa.

The night passed by calmly and the next morning Tiso left very early to go to visit an old friend that had become priest and withdrawn in an old country church. Ezzelino the Stutterer, from the window in his room, saw his son in law taking the horse and going away and as soon as he became a little far dot in the morning fog he called one of his faithful men and ordered him to bring a message to Spinabello.

Again, from his window, he observed his messenger leaving and when he was as well disappeared into the morning fog it seemed to him to have heard his own father’s sobs; he thought that probably it was the noises of the wind passing through the tower’s windows, he thought it was just his imagination. But then, he was told that everybody in the castle had heard someone crying.

The messenger arrived at Spinabello’s and told him the message. It was a marriage proposal; Ezzelino the Stutterer asked Cecilia’s hand for his own son Ezzelino that, even if he was much older than the bride, he could offer her a rich life fulfilled with love because from the day he had seen her in the church he was deeply in love with her.

The old Ezzelino had, of course, exaggerated and had stolen the feelings of his nephew to gift them to his son that was informed of the proposal just the following day. But Spinabello believed him. He asked eight days to think about it and thinking to obtain a better marriage for Cecilia he gave him hope.

Meanwhile the Stutterer had sent two of his most terrible soldiers in Friuli to invent some obstacle for Gerardo that, according with his plans, had to come back at least two or three days later than it was supposed to be. It was never known what exactly happened but Gerardo arrived home too late: Cecilia had already been promised to another man.

The knights’ armours shined under the low sun of twilight, the sound of war of the weapons that day seemed a sing of joy and the swords resting into their decorated sheath were docile war tools. The horses were wearing the tournament colours and they walked as dancing a slow dance of joy and when they stopped in front of the precious goods they had to bring to their lord, they seemed ready for the battle.

Cecilia appeared in all her beauty in the light of the dying and insolent sun that dared to kiss her mouth and face. She entered the carriage together with two of her most dearer ladies while many others followed her in a parade till her new house.

When she arrived in Bassano it was already evening and she reached her groom through a torch avenue till into the castle. Cecilia’s face was hidden behind a graciously embroidered veil and the yellow brocade of her dress gave to her body something of supernatural and frail so that someone dared to say that this lady was born from a dream.

The marriage day all the nobles of those lands had been invited to participate to the party; of course, there were as well Tiso da Camposanpiero with his family that from the very first moment they entered the church swore that never an insult like that would have been forgiven; Ezzelino the Stutterer, not without malice and cruelty, had ordered Cunissa to be near him to force Tiso himself to hide his acrimony and to sit near his father in law.

Gerardo felt his own heart broke down in rage and sorrow, the woman he always had wished and dreamt of had been thrown into the arms of a man that did not love her and that would have satisfied his licentious desires laying with her into sheets that Gerardo hoped prepared for himself. Half hidden behind the nearest column to the right’s nave altar, he looked at Cecilia with the eyes of who tries to fill his own soul with that sweet bitter taste that only a betrayed lover can understand… the bride took away her veil and Gerardo lost himself into those eyes fulfilled with tears that seemed to ask for help; when Cecilia turned her unveiled face to go out of the church, to many of the people there it seemed to be watching the mirror of the Madonna that, impressing and impassive, was painted on the altarpiece behind her.

Fifteen days the party at the da Romano castle lasted and the banquet was prepared with every delicious food in every moment of the day so that everybody could share the happiness of that house.

The young bride could not refuse the marriage that Spinabello offered her, she knew she was not allowed to choose and she hoped that her guardian, in her father’s name, would have given her to a man that she could have had appreciated somehow. But she that was just sixteen, after laying for the first time with that old husband, asked to be left alone and while Ezzelino went back to party for the rest of the night, someone heard her crying till morning.

Her young woman body was so smooth and perfect that after that very first night Ezzelino was not able to be away from it, her lips were so sweet that stole away a bit of his mind very time he touched them, her breast was so well done that nobody never saw Ezzelino going into his own rooms but for changing clothes. And so, very soon, the womb of that young lady gave birth to a baby girl: Agnese, that when was just twelve years old was given as bride to count Antonio de’ Guidoti from which she generated a son called Ansedisio.

After some years spent near that gruff but attentive man, Cecilia had learnt to appreciate and maybe to love him; sometimes she thought back to her life, she saw it passing by slow and monotonous but, all things considered, even if sometimes she desired to go back to her lands, the same lands in which she had grown up when she was a little girl, she could say she was happy.

In a nice summer day, after a long horse riding together with Ezzelino, she finally decided to ask her husband the permission to go back for a while to her own lands.
- I’d like, she said, to go back to my lands, I’d like to see again the places where I was born and grown up, I’d like to show them to you, summer season is the best time to do it…
- I understand, answered Ezzelino, I love my lands as well and I can not be far away from them for a long time. You can go back in your father’s house for some days, I can not come with you because of some businesses in Verona but as I will be back I will reach you. You will leave tomorrow with thirty servants and some soldiers.

That night Cecilia, inebriated with joy for the obtained permission, loved her husband as she would not have done never again and, holding him, she felt asleep on his strong and safe, paternal, chest.

The morning was fresh and bright, all was already ready, the only thing to do was leaving. Cecilia tenderly kissed Ezzelino before getting into the carriage and when finally the horses started to move, she felt as a just freed animal, able to run or fly towards its own house.

The plentiful landscape of her husband’s lands wrapped her as an unreal fog that cottoned all the emotions and when she recognized the first stoned that marked the beginning of her territories she thought to enter into another dimension, a warm and shining one as the summer sun that was caressing her face.

Around midday she arrived in Sant’Andrea del Muson where, on a not too high hill was standing her castle that flooded with light seemed more welcoming than ever; she entered in triumph and the old Spinabello together with other servants welcomed her with honours and magnificence.

The ladies with her went to the rooms prepared for them, Cecilia went back to the room that had seen her growing up and, after resting a bit, she changed and went downstairs for lunch.

After the banquet, since the warmth of the day was less heavy and the air seemed fresher, Cecilia decided to go horse riding in her lands to show how green and rich they were to the other ladies.

The horses were ready and escorted by some of the knights of those lands they went out of the castle going towards the fields and the forests that they fulfilled with joyful laughs. Their words, their dresses and silken veils that softly moved in the wind, wrapped them into a windmill of notes and colours that, seen from far away, made them look as the nicest fairies of summer mirages.

While they were on the way back to the castle arrived Gerardo da Camposampiero that being in those lands and having known of his aunt’s presence there had thought correct to visit her. The young man seemed overheated but on the saddle of his beautiful bay, his smile and his elegant body stole away all the ladies’ attention.

Cecilia went near his horse, she smiled at him and she galloped with him till the castle. She invited him to stay for dinner and she let him sit near her. She was happy that evening, her favourite friends were around and in her own house, near her sat that man that never so much before made her heart jump; she trembled in front of the emotions that she felt every time he looked at her, she would have adored to be held by those young and strong arms, she would have desired to breath him and lose herself into his lips’ joy. But her thoughts were secret thoughts, maybe that man was so nice and kind just because of his uncle Ezzelino…

Immediately after dinner, being tired for that long day, nearly all the ladies went into their rooms to rest. Gerardo asked then the lady of the house to be allowed to be alone with her to speak her privately. Cecilia blushed and, even if she said she was very tired, she let him accompany her to her rooms and let him in for some minutes. As soon as they were alone, Gerardo locked the door and started speaking.
- My lady, I am in love with you since the very first moment I saw you… more than five years are passed till then when I hoped to marry you, when I hoped to make you happy as you have never been together with that old man that is your husband and unluckily my uncle. I dreamt entire nights to be allowed to hold you and kiss your ivory skin…
- Stop it, please! I don not want to hear anything else, exclaimed Cecilia, I am a married woman and you can not, you must not prove my virtue; my husband is a good and kind man and I do not want…
- You have been deceived by the Stutterer as I was, you know you have been entrapped near a man that, even if you respect, you do not love… Your eyes can not lie, your words are just vain attempts to keep me far away! I was not in these lands, I galloped till here as soon as I knew that you were here alone, I am here to revenge the felony they did to us when they forced you to marry a man that you did not want. Lay with me tonight! Do not push me to do it with violence, against your will… I however will tell everybody that I raped you, this will be my revenge, I will not ruin your name but mine!

Cecilia was crying quietly, she was not able to say a word and she listened at that voice that she deeply loved as if in her life she had not desired anything else than hear those terrible things, she looked at Gerardo’s face and she saw it beautiful and gentle as that first time in the church… why did the fate gave her to another man?! Why did nobody ask her if she was really happy? How could she really love Ezzelino if her heart was lost for someone else? She could not look at Gerardo’s eyes, she did not want to run into his arms and let him kiss her, she did not know if she could finally understand what love means.

She asked him to forgive her, she asked him to go away promising that no one would have never known about that meeting. But she felt Gerardo’s love and sorrow, she felt her own heart getting mad, she nearly fainted. She felt her forces going away but she did not fall, the arms of the man she had always loved held her and gave her strength.

- I love you, Cecilia said softly, I have always loved you…
Their souls nearly touched, revenge and sorrow vanished from their hearts letting them free to love each other at least that night; their first kiss was so intense that they both cried.

They spent the night together, embracing each other with a delightfulness and a pain that would have bound them to each other forever. They knew what love meant just into each other arms, never again they would have shown their hearts to someone else.

The following morning they spent a long time crying embraced wrapped up into the dawn’s light, Gerardo knew he had to do the duty that his father and his family imposed him, but his heart loved his revenge tool, he knew that his act would have destroyed her and he did not want to.

- Cecilia, my love, he said softly, we will not say anything. I do not want my revenge any more, your kisses are my pay-back.
- No. You will finish what you started! exclaimed Cecilia among tears of rage and rancour, They robbed me your love for all those years, I have been encaged into an old man arms, it is not for your family any more, you have to do it for the two of us, for the time and love they stole away. If you are not going to call the servant I will do it myself.

Slowly Gerardo got up from the bed, he wore something and with the face to his love he went towards the door. He opened without saying a word, he spent some few moments as hanging in between the room and the door and then, suddenly, he shouted the name of a servant.

All his rancour was disappeared in that shout, that night’s love had threaded into his heart as a sharp sliver and he felt his soul as dried up. When the servant arrived Gerardo was very pale, he looked at him and said:
- Take this wedding ring, run to the da Romano castle and shout at Ezzelino the Stutterer that tonight, into his son´s own bed, Gerardo of Camposampiero had his revenge.

The servant went away and Gerardo closed the door behind him. He let himself fall on the bed and he once again tasted Cecilia´s love then, exhausted and overcame by the sorrow he desired to die in Cecilia´s arms. But the sun was already high, he could not stay; one last kiss and he left”.

One of the ladies there started crying and the old woman interrupted her speech. That woman had to be wealthy, as one could guess from her dress and the two ladies that followed her, suddenly her face had became red and she could not stop her tears even if now she was not sighing any more. One of the ladies with her whispered something in her ear and, with a forced smile, she finally succeeded in calming down, in saying everyone to forgive her for the interruption and assuring that this would not have happened again, then she asked the old woman to go on.

“My dear child, started the old woman, do not cry, do not waste your precious tears for whom does not earn it. Love, and do it with no restraints, revenge is even worst if regrets are there…

So, where was I? Oh yes, now I remember.
When the servant that had been sent to the da Romano castle arrived, he found Ezzelino the Stutterer, his son that was not in Verona yet and a lot of important guests at a banquet. He said he was coming from the castle of Sant ´Andrea del Muson and asked to be allowed to speak privately with the Stutterer and his son.

- I do not have anything to hide to my guests, tell us your message, said happily the Stutterer.
- I am sorry sir, but I think it will be best speaking about it privately…
- Speak or I will have your head cut! said laughing the Stutterer together with the laughs of all the other guests.
- All right then, I have been sent by your nephew Gerardo da Camposampiero, sir…
- And what was Gerardo doing in Sant´Andrea del Muson? asked Ezzelino laughing as well.
- He was getting his revenge among your sheets, sir. This is the ring that he sends you to prove it.

Nobody was laughing anymore. Abruptly the banquet cheerful air became heavy and not breathable anymore; the silence that for few moments surrounded everything seemed surreal. Ezzelino was standing with his wife´s ring in his hand without being able to say a word. Then, suddenly, his father thundered against the Camposampiero family asking for revenge. The guest were silent and then, slowly, they left that house.

The Stutterer was red with anger, looking at him carefully one could have thought he was frothing at the mouth; he swore against the Camposampiero´s family and against his own´s daughter´s womb that generated that disgrace, then in a moment of mind clearness he decided how to react.

He called for a messenger and sent him quickly to Padua to ask all the citizens to help him to get his revenge, afterwards he stared at his son that for all that time did not move and while he was going out of the room he said to him:
- You know what you have to do.
Ezzelino smiled with a grimace but he did not move. Once alone he started crying. He did not know if that pain was coming from the injure or from the knowing that he had just lost Cecilia, but he could not stop those warm and salty tears wetting his face.

After few minutes he got up, he put on the ring and, recalling all his strength, he went slowly towards the castle stables. As he entered the stable he felt a strange pain that seemed coming from the sorrowful and strong emotions of that evening that mixed into his soul and were made bigger by all the wine he had drunk during the banquet. His legs lost their force and he had to sit on a three legs chair without being able to move till morning. He stayed like that many hours but he could not give to his body and troubled mind some rest.

When the sun was already high in the sky, he succeeded in getting up and, followed by his faithful hunting dog that since three years ago gifted him with his strength and braveness, he jumped on his fastest bay and started a breath-taking run toward Sant´Andrea del Muson.

Ezzelino rode his horse in a half-conscience state that made his reflexes slower but that seemed to give vigour to his strength again; all his body was shivering because of a strange electric impulse that made every of his muscles and nerves trembling…

The breath-taking run, the summer warmth, the anger and the sorrow made Ezzelino thoughts dive into a dreamy fog far away from the troubles of that unlucky day; his unconscious erased what had happened, he reasoned, he thought he was lucid and maybe he was.

All of a sudden his thoughts stopped to fix the horse hair moved by the wind, he started thinking that if he had been able to become his own horse he would have brought Cecilia in a far place, he would have run days to look for that glade she dreamt of, he would have showed her all the marvellous places she just knew the names of, he would have lost his breath for her, for her smile, for one of he simple loving caresses.

Ezzelino was his horse, he felt he was himself to gallop and the sweat of both of them was so mixed up that seemed just one. He observed his hoofs and he saw that they were now slowly becoming paws with nails and hairs, he was not a powerful horse anymore but a dog, a ginger dog…

He became that dog running near by the horse, he saw the ground with his eyes and he sniffed amplified for one hundred, for one thousand all the wood smells. He thought about his wife, he would have barked furiously to protect her saving for her all the lickings, all the breath-tacking runs on the grass and the winter nights sitting together in front of the fire…

A very strong light made him close his eyes. Suddenly he was out of the wood and in front of him there was a huge plane grown up with wheat. The golden spikes reminded him the thin hair he loved to dive in, he forced the horse in the middle of that field and he felt Cecilia skin´s parfum.

Leaving the field at his back he then went towards the poplars street that leaded to the river; there was a lot of mud and it was strange in that season… in his delirium he thought the mud was a kind of boiling broth that, according to that sudden hallucination, the Camposampiero had prepared for him.

He was not even arrived at the river that he saw a carriage, some soldiers and some servants slowly moving toward him. He roughly stopped the horse and remained firm observing. The dreary and waving moving of that parade that proceeded phlegmatic in the summer warmth made him come back to himself and, being back-light, the carriage and its accompanying men shape seemed to him so dark and sad that he thought he was meeting a funeral procession.

When that procession was nearer he recognized his own coat of arms on the carriage sides and he understood that inside it he would have found his wife going back to a house from which she would have had necessarily chased away. He was like frozen on his horse and the soldiers thought to see a statue but when they went nearer they recognized their lord.

The carriage stopped and Cecilia went out. Ezzelino got down the horse and started walking slowly toward his wife that was staring at him through the violet veil that covered her face. All was motionless and silent; birds did not sing anymore, the animals of the wood were mute, the men and women of the procession nearly stopped breathing, even the wind was not blowing anymore.

Everything was waiting still. Ezzelino, with a firm and resolved gesture that was at the same time incredibly gentle, displaced the veil from his wife´s face; he wanted to look into her eyes. Cecilia did not move and stood his look.

They stayed few moments one in front of the other, Cecilia seemed different, her features were hardened by pain, the red and soft lips that she used to have were transformed into a bruise mark and her eyes were of the colour of tears. Ezzelino softly touched one of her cheeks, she did not shift apart, she stand still but she seemed made of snow.

They did not say a word but they understood each other. Slowly Cecilia went back into the carriage and the procession moved again. Ezzelino followed it few meters away. When they arrived to the castle she went into her rooms and she started to pack her things; the following day she would have been taken back to Sant´Andrea del Muson.

Not a word, not a tear; just sorrow and bitterness waiting for a fratricide war. That beautiful Helen was leaving, she was running away from a house that had captured her thanks to a deceit and she was going away forever from a man that, even if she did not love him, she had somehow learnt to appreciate.

That very night the castle walls groaned under the weight of the deaths sighs that knew which miserable destiny was waiting for their peerage; that night somebody thought to hear perturbing and desperate mourns echoing in the countryside nearby.

The following morning some soldiers were ready to take Cecilia back to her father´s house and when she met the Strutterer´s servant just coming back from Padua, from his face she understood how much pain her denied love would have brought to those lands. But the horse was already inside Troy´s walls and nobody could have avoided the attack”.

The old lady stopped again. She fastened into the dark shawl that was partly covering her head as well and asked for the fire to be perked up; immediately two young men threw on the coals some pieces of wood.