Florence suddenly appeared in the Arno valley, resplendent under golden June light. Ulysses stopped the car and got out. He raised his hat and saluted the city as Darnley had done before. Claude took flight, and the blue of his feathers against the terra-cotta rooftops was an electrifying sight. They’d traveled more than a thousand miles, had eaten twenty plates of spaghetti, nine stews, seventeen baguettes, a crop of apricots and a wheel of cheese. They had drunk forty coffees and eight bottles of wine and seven beers and two brandies. Nights in a bed: One. The first. They had seen wild boar
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