Damiano's Lute by R. A. MacAvoy

with an animal this size,” he chided.
    Then he added, “We’ve got to get out of this town, Gaspare. They’re all mad here. You can never tell what they’re going to do next”
    â€œMad?” Gaspare rolled his gooseberry eyes. “Oh, certainly, yes. I’ve noticed it myself. Well then, we should certainly get out of here, shouldn’t we, Damiano? In fact,” and the boy pointed surreptitiously to the wall by the gate, “why don’t we just run over there and slip over that wall? I’ll help you up and you pull me up behind, heh?”
    Damiano frowned hugely and touched his still-bleeding shoulder blades. “Don’t be silly, Gaspare. We can’t take a horse over the wall. Nor a lute.
    â€œI’ll go get my lute now,” he finished, and Damiano calmly stepped across the square toward the yawning black doorway of a shop. Gaspare watched him go, and he watched the tall shape, black as vengeance, stalk behind him, black tail slashing like a blade that would love to cut. The gelding’s muzzle hung just above Damiano’s shoulder, unnoticed. Damiano seemed to be quietly talking to himself.
    It was very lonely, standing in the middle of the square, without even a vicious horse for protection. Gaspare shifted from one foot to the other and raised his chin high into the air. No one came near, for all eyes followed the wounded musician and his strange protector as he vanished into the dark shop and reappeared, bearing his sheepskin-wrapped instrument.
    Damiano was frowning. “There was a baby in there before,” he said to Gaspare, “but it’s gone, now. I certainly hope it was its mother that came back for it. So much despair around, you know.” Then he raised his left eyebrow very high, and regarded Gaspare with more rationality than he had yet shown, saying, “It is the plague that has hit here. You knew that, didn’t you?”
    Gaspare sighed hugely. “Yes, musician. I was aware of that, and that is another very good reason for… for hastening our departure, maybe?”
    Damiano swung onto the horse’s back. His mouth gaped with the pain of his flayed back. He leaned down and reached a hand toward Gaspare. “Get up in front,” he commanded the boy.
    Gaspare backed. “No, thank you. I have already ridden that horse once today.”
    â€œGet up,” said Damiano with some temper, and he snagged Gaspare’s unwilling hand. “I don’t want to lose you again, before I even have a chance to tell you about the strange thing that happened, or a chance to apologize, as I promised Raphael I would.”
    â€œApologize?” Gaspare was so astounded he allowed himself to be pulled up in front of his friend on the steaming black back. “You, apologize, after I bit you?”
    Damiano was not listening. “I think if we just ride confidently up to the gate, that huge fellow in the robe—he’s not a real monk, you know—may just open up for us. Or at least not interfere with our opening it.
    â€œWhat is important,” he added, sententiously, “is always to appear to know what you are about, and most especially when others are uncertain. That is a fourth part of magic and the half of all medicine. It is most important of all in military matters, such as…” And Damiano gave a gentle kick (a nudge, really) to the gelding’s sides.
    The beast reared, turned on its haunches, and spurted along the street directly away from the gate. Then it spun again, nearly toppling both its riders, scrabbled its hindquarters under it, and flew directly for the wooden fence.
    A woman screamed. So did Gaspare. Damiano looked merely irritated as he clutched the mane, the lute, and a hysterical passenger. “He’s going to kill me after all!” wailed Gaspare. Once more the townspeople fled.
    But Festilligambe did not hit the gate. Instead, eight feet from the oak-bound, maple