The Wager Read Online Free Page A

castles, they’ve been hard to come by. It will go high. We’ll be even.”
    Everything gone. That’s why his friends hadn’t offered to help. They knew. His problem was so enormous, none could begin to help. “And what becomes of me?”
    â€œYou should have worried about that before. With that wave, your last hope at solvency washed away. You can go down to the kitchen now, and beg the cook for old bread and a bowl of sauce. And don’t get fresh with her. A randy poor man has even less charm than a randy rich one.
    â€œLet’s hope you do a better job at a beggar’s life than you did at a don’s.”

Thienes
    THOUGH THE MOONLIGHT WAS EXCEPTIONALLY STRONG, DON Giovanni wouldn’t rely on his eyes alone. They had to be wrong. He felt in every cupboard, every drawer.
    Now he stood in the kitchen. The shelves were bare. He swept his hands along them a second time. Nothing.
    This couldn’t be.
    Don Alfinu had no heart.
    He slid to the floor and slept sitting. Or tried to. The noises of the night kept sneaking up and grabbing him by the throat. From outside the window thumps and a squeak cut off midway. An owl had caught a hare. Or perhaps it was a fox. From the pantry came scurrying, chirping, chirring. Dormice? A small plop, then the crack of an insect crushed in a gecko’s jaw. The random groan of wood.
    As dawn came, he gave up. He stretched his chill-stiffened limbs. In the haze he saw them hanging from a hook outside the door down to the empty wine cellar: three goatskin bags, overlooked or judged useless. When Don Giovanni went partridge hunting, Lino would fill a bag with watered red wine. Nothing refreshed better in midmorning.
    Don Giovanni went to the well in the courtyard and pulled up a bucket. He filled the bags and slung them over his shoulder. He walked through the castle one last time. The ring of his footsteps in the empty rooms was almost eerie. Spots he’d played in as a boy felt unfamiliar. It was the starkness that did it. No texture. Texture was such a big part of recognition—life had lost texture.
    He found a wool cap, dropped in haste. Nothing else. He’d never known servants to be so thorough.
    He put on the cap and stared up at the painted dining hall ceiling. The light through the windows wasn’t strong enough yet to illuminate that high up. He could barely make out the colors, much less the figures. Well, it didn’t matter, for he knew every detail by heart. Women half clad offering food to eager men, with musicians in the background. It wasn’t the figures that he’d seen there as a boy. After his parents died, Don Alfinu had had the ceiling repainted with war scenes and angels. But when Don Giovanni had taken over the castle again, he paid the finest artists to bring the ceiling back to the spirit his parents had intended. Actually, to a spirit even more sensual than the original. Homage to the good things in life, the things he was born and bred to enjoy.
    He gritted his teeth. Nothing made sense. What was he to do next?
    Slap
.
    Footsteps in the entrance hall. Bare ones. And without a voice announcing them. The nerve.
    Don Giovanni strode across the room. “Who’s there?”
    No answer.
    He ran to the entrance hall.
    Two men stood by the open door, ready to flee. Peasants, by their clothes.
    â€œWhat do you mean, coming in unbidden like this?”
    â€œYour Excellency,” said the younger man with a slight bow, but not backing up. “We heard it was abandoned.”
    â€œAbandoned,” echoed the other. His eyes were taking in the bare walls and floors. He craned his neck like a vulture to see into the room behind Don Giovanni.
    Don Giovanni moved to the side to break his line of sight. “You heard wrong.”
    â€œNo horses in the pasture.” The man shrugged. “Nor the stable.”
    No horses. The breath went out of him as fast as if he’d been punched in the gut. Don