“They are digging,” he said.
“No!” whispered the other.
“For the past four months, yes. I have seen it.”
The second picked up his cup, drained it. “They are fools.”
“Fools, yes. But they are digging nonetheless.”
“Bruno, you’re –”
“A liar. Yes, I know. I am. But I tell you, I have seen it.”
“Where do they dig?”
“I cannot tell you that. It is a secret.”
“A secret? A thousand men moving all that dirt and rock!” he shouted.
“Yes, a secret, even here,” he said quietly, reaching up, grabbing the man by the front of his shirt and pulling him back down into his seat.
“They cannot possibly hide it. All that dirt!”
“You think they plan to do this without a plan for the dirt? Lucca will have more hills to hide its ugly women! The dirt is the least of their problems! They need men. Men to dig and men to haul and men to hold the water back until the idiots in Pisa look out their windows and see nothing but mud!”
“You’re shouting,” the other said. “I thought it was a secret.”
“Oh, it is,” he said, tapping the side of his nose.
“Everyone in the bar heard your shouting.”
“Bah,” he said. “That’s bar shouting. Two drunken fools at a table talking as other drunken fools drink or play darts or eat questionable sausage or run off suddenly to puke. Bar shouting.”
“Yours too. But let us test a few of them. You! Old man!”
The old man sitting at the table next to them – the old man who had up until that point quietly sipped his wine and whittled on a bit of a stick – smiled blindly in their direction.
“You, old man. You have heard our conversation?”
“I heard about digging,” he said slowly. “And dirt that’s moving. And water that’s holding back. And about the idiots in Pisa. I have a grandson in Pisa.”
“You’ve heard of Luchesi?”
The old man coughed up some wine, dribbling some down his chin.
“You know Luchesi?” he repeated.
The old man nodded. “The one who –“
“—cuts off –”
“Yes. I know him.”
“He wants this digging kept a secret.”
The chattering in the bar – lowered with each sentence and outburst of the two men at the table so they could hear the secrets – died, but for one word, a name, whispered and written on bits of paper passed back and forth and in the spilled wine on the further tables.
“You know of any digging?”
“No,” the old man said.
“Not even for the idiots in Pisa to crap in?”
“No, nothing,” he said.
“No hole for that grandson of yours?”
“No, please.”
He reached across the table and patted his companion on the shoulder. “See?” he said to the other.
“It’s a secret.”
“Ah, but threats? The name of Luchesi? Now you go into the realm of rumors.”
“Rumors,” he said. “As long as the name of Luchesi is in those rumors, I do not fear them. Pisa can send spies. They can send diggers for all I care. You think we’ve not let the idiot diggers from Pisa go back home? And paid?”
“But –”
“But always with the name of Luchesi. And you know what happens if you say the name Luchesi too often.”
“Yes,” he said. “He appears.”
“And not in the best of moods.”
A waiter walked to the table and deposited another bottle of wine. He slipped the waiter a coin with a nod.
“And all they know is, we dig. And they do not dig channels. They dig wells. They dig pits. They dig graves – some of those are filled in, yes – or they dig cesspits. No big channels. No hole within sight of another. They are not stupid, those planning the dig. One knows the hole one digs. Nothing more. And they feed them the dirt for breakfast.”
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