Gaspare clung like a monkey to the lean black back, with nothing to restrain Festilligambe but a tattered rope bridle. But the young man’s cross-continental ride on a dragon had burned away all the nervousness he had once felt around horses. They passed the central square—a little plot of green, cleverly irrigated and tended with immense labor—and found the avenue that was edged in fragrant orange trees without trouble. This way was wide and fairly empty. The few people they did pass were dressed well in Saracen style. They failed to notice (or pretended to fail to notice) the sight of a horse chasing a little brown bird along the avenue. Gaspare, not knowing which of these strollers might have had a hand in Raphael’s imprisonment, cursed the overfed lot of them equally. He sought the house with the white wall and carved wooden gate. Odd. ALL the houses had white walls and all the white walls had wooden gates. They were almost all carved, too, with inscriptions in Arabic, meaningless to a young man not even literate in his own language.
