Return to Umbria by David Wagner (13 ebook reader txt) 📗

us some good views, and we can’t get enough of them. But mostly we can see another part of the town. No telling what interesting building we might come upon.”

The small side streets were narrow, as expected, to the point of being wide enough only for foot traffic. They were also so steep at points that steps appeared in the pavement and metal handrails had been attached to the stone buildings on each side. Even with those walking aids, these would not be streets to be traveled on a snowy winter day. Winter would also wipe out the flowers in the window boxes, their colors made more brilliant in contrast with the street’s canvas of gray stone. The alley emptied onto a level street that ran along the side of Todi’s hill, a pleasant change after the steep descent. The hill on the left side of the street dropped off steeply, giving the houses on the right a perfect view of the valley below. A hundred meters ahead they found a long, rectangular pool under a portico supported by seven columns. Betta pulled out her trusty red book, did some searching, and found that the Fonte Scarnabecco, a public well, dated to 1241. Each capital at the top of its seven thin columns was different from the next, but the book wasn’t able to tell them why.

“You were right, Rick. This is lovely, and if we hadn’t come this way we would have missed it.”

At the next corner they made a right turn and started climbing up another narrow street. They crossed under arches which appeared to have no purpose other than to brace the upper floors of the two buildings. The buildings were all residential, with wood doors at street level and small windows that offered only a view of another stone building across the pavement. It was a good way to get to know the neighbors, if nothing else. The street bent left and right before emptying on what the map indicated as the main street leading from the Porta Romana up to the main square. The main gates of Todi, like so many towns in Italy, were named for the destination reached by passing through them. Rick assumed there was a Porta Perugina at the north end of the walls, and a Porta Orvietana on the west. Where else would anyone be going to or coming from? Though as narrow as the one they’d just been on, this street was populated by a few shops as well as residences. The closer they climbed to the center of town the more commercial it became. Rick stopped Betta and pointed at a sign hanging above a doorway.

“There’s the other shop of the guy I told you about, the one who taught the victim pottery techniques when she was a student.”

“Studio Crivelli,” Betta read. “There doesn’t seem to be much to it. Let’s go in, I’m curious to see his work.”

“You go ahead. Crivelli goes back and forth between his two shops, and could be here today. I don’t want to run into him again. But I’ll be interested to hear what you think of his ceramics’ designs.”

It didn’t take her long. Rick was standing a few doors up gazing through the window of a salumaio, realizing he was starting to get hungry. His eyes rested on a platter with thick slices of porchetta, stuffed suckling pig with rosemary and other herbs. It was a favorite of his in Rome, going back to roadside stands on Sunday trips to the countryside when he was a kid. Of course in Todi they would claim theirs to be the best in Italy.

Betta’s voice jolted him out of his culinary musings.

“Your man Crivelli has found a style he likes and sticks with it. It must work, the girl there says he exports it all over the world. She gave me a card with his website so I can order.”

“He wasn’t there?”

“No. Unless he was in the back somewhere, creating art.”

“My guess is that he has other people actually getting their fingers in the clay.”

After passing a small square with a fountain decorating its back wall, the street leveled out and they passed the obligatory statue of Garibaldi, staring down at Todi from a tall pedestal. Dressed in his signature hat and cape, the Liberator folded his hands on top of his sword, unsheathed as if to signal he was ready to fight again for a united Italy should he be needed. They continued on and found themselves back in the main square, at the opposite end from the cathedral, the completion of a large loop. The question at that point was a simple one: go to the museum or go to lunch. Neither Rick nor Betta found it difficult to answer.

The restaurant they chose from the guidebook sat among the fields in the valley below the town. Enough Fall had arrived in this part of Umbria to allow the trattoria to have a few dry branches burning in a brick fireplace in the corner. The odor of the fire wafted lightly through the dining room, matching the rustic décor of wood and brick. They were early, just one other table was occupied by three men in leather jackets. A waiter gestured to the new arrivals, indicating that anywhere they wished to sit was fine with him. Betta chose a table close to the fire.

“This looks perfect,” she said, rubbing her hands together as if it had been below zero outside. The waiter brought menus and turned over the glasses that had been sitting at each place. Rick ordered mineral water and a half liter of the house red, and the waiter scurried off.

“I’ve been turning over in my mind what Gina told me up in the piazza.”

“I suspected that, Rick. Your head seemed to be elsewhere since you talked to her. Tell me again what she said, I doubt if I got it all.”

“Well, to begin with, she thinks Francine will be getting