I sit on a window ledge, high up in the tower. Behind me is the room I’m to spend the next three nights in. A beautiful circular room, its medieval stone walls hung with faded tapestries between dark-hued paintings of luscious fruit and the wives of wealthy merchants. The oak floor gleams with age and polish, and the huge bed invites snuggling with a book and tea. Yes, three nights will go quickly here.
But it’s what’s outside that really draws me. Below me in the near distance, red terracotta roofs huddle around a tall campanile as if to shore up the old ways.
I walked through the cramped alleys of the village from the bus stop at the bottom of the hill, disturbing no one at their riposo, even the cats too sleepy to raise a whisker at my approach. I admired the bright pots of geraniums which transformed cracked, shabby walls into works of art, and which told me the inhabitants care. I was comfortable there in the noon heat, noting a trattoria with paint-peeling tables and chairs cooling beneath massed wisteria. My evening meal sorted.
Nothing disturbs the peace, the birds silenced by the midday heat, too early for cicadas.
But there is a sound.
I lean forward, steadying myself against the window arch. A steady clip clop of a horse’s hooves on the rocky path leading to my tower. Ah.
A fellow traveller on my bus, with eyes that held my soul. He had watched me alight, nodded, smiled. I smiled back.
Now here we are.
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Ooh!! How exciting for her! Romance on the run (trot, gallop)!
LOL