The Shame of Motley
by
Raphael Sabatini
Part 1 out of 5
This etext was produced by John Stuart Middleton
The Shame of Motley
Being the Memoir of Certain Transactions in the Life of Lazzaro
Biancomonte, of Biancomonte, sometime Fool of the Court of Pesaro.
by Rafael Sabatini
CONTENTS
PART I
FLOWER OF THE QUINCE
CHAPTER
I. THE CARDINAL OF VALENCIA
II. THE LIVERIES OF SANTAFIOR
III. MADONNA PAOLA
IV. THE COZENING OF RAMIRO
V. MADONNA'S INGRATITUDE
VI. FOOL'S LUCK
VII. THE SUMMONS FROM ROME
VIII. "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN"
IX. THE FOOL-AT-ARMS
X. THE FALL OF PESARO
PART II
THE OGRE OF CESENA
XI. MADONNA'S SUMMONS
XII. THE GOVERNOR OF CESENA
XIII. POISON
XIV. REQUIESCAT!
XV. AN ILL ENCOUNTER
XVI. IN THE CITADEL OF CESENA
XVII. THE SENESCHAL
XVIII. THE LETTER
XIX. DOOMED
XX. THE SUNSET
XXI. AVE CAESAR!
PART I
FLOWER OF THE QUINCE
CHAPTER I
THE CARDINAL OF VALENCIA
For three days I had been cooling my heels about the Vatican, vexed by
suspense. It fretted me that I should have been so lightly dealt with
after I had discharged the mission that had brought me all the way from
Pesaro, and I wondered how long it might be ere his Most Illustrious
Excellency the Cardinal of Valencia might see fit to offer me the
honourable employment with which Madonna Lucrezia had promised me that he
would reward the service I had rendered the House of Borgia by my
journey.
Three days were sped, yet nought had happened to signify that things
would shape the course by me so ardently desired; that the means would
be afforded me of mending my miserable ways, and repairing the wreck my
life had suffered on the shoals of Fate. True, I had been housed and
fed, and the comforts of indolence had been mine; but, for the rest, I
was still clothed in the livery of folly which I had worn on my arrival,
and, wherever I might roam, there followed ever at my heels a crowd of
underlings, seeking to have their tedium lightened by jests and capers,
and voting me--when their hopes proved barren--the sorriest Fool that had
ever worn the motley.
On that third day I speak of, my patience tried to its last strand, I had
beaten a lacquey with my hands, and fled from the cursed gibes his
fellows aimed at me, out into the misty gardens and the chill January
air, whose sting I could, perhaps, the better disregard by virtue of the
heat of indignation that consumed me. Was it ever to be so with me?
Could nothing lift the curse of folly from me, that I must ever be a
Fool, and worse, the sport of other fools?
It was there on one of the terraces crowning the splendid heights above
immortal Rome that Messer Gianluca found me. He greeted me courteously;
I answered with a snarl, deeming him come to pursue the plaguing from
which I had fled.
"His Most Illustrious Excellency the Cardinal of Valencia is asking for
you, Messer Boccadoro," he announced. And so despairing had been my mood
of ever hearing such a summons that, for a moment, I accounted it some
fresh jest of theirs. But the gravity of his fat countenance reassured
me.
"Let us go, then," I answered with alacrity, and so confident was I that
the interview to which he bade me was the first step along the road to
better fortune, that I permitted myself a momentary return to the Fool's
estate from which I thought myself on the point of being for ever freed.
"I shall use the interview to induce his Excellency to submit a tenth
beatitude to the approval of our Holy Father: Blessed are the bearers of
good tidings. Come on, Messer the seneschal."
I led the way, in my impatience forgetful of his great paunch and little
legs, so that he was sorely tried to keep pace with me. Yet who would
not have been in haste, urged by such a spur as had I? Here, then, was
the end of my shameful travesty. To-morrow a soldier's harness should
replace the motley of a jester; the name by which I should be known again
to men would be that of Lazzaro Biancomonte, and no longer Boccadoro--the
Fool of the golden mouth.
Thus much had Madonna Lucrezia's promises led me to expect, and it was
with a soul full of joyous expectation that I entered the great man's
closet.
He received me in a manner calculated to set me at my ease, and yet there
was about him a something that overawed me. Cesare Borgia, Cardinal of
Valencia, was then in his twenty-third year, for all that there hung
about him the semblance of a greater age, just as his cardinalitial robes
lent him the appearance of a height far above the middle stature that was
his own. His face was pale and framed in a silky auburn beard; his nose
was aquiline and strong; his eyes the keenest that I have ever seen; his
forehead lofty and intelligent. He seemed pervaded by an air of feverish
restlessness, something surpassing the vivida vis animi, something that
marked him to discerning eyes for a man of incessant action of body and
of mind.
"My sister tells me," he said in greeting, "that you are willing to take
service under me, Messer Biancomonte."
"Such was the hope that guided me to Rome, Most Excellent," I answered
him.
Surprise flashed into his eyes, and was gone as quickly as it had come.
His thin lips parted in a smile, whose meaning was inscrutable.
"As some reward for the safe delivery of the letter you brought me from
her?" he questioned mildly.
"Precisely, Illustrious," I answered in all frankness.
His open hand smote the table of wood-mosaics at which he sat.
"Praised be Heaven!" he cried. "You seem to promise that I shall have in
you a follower who deals in truth."
"Could your Excellency, to whom my real name is known, expect ought else
of one who bears it--however unworthily?"
There was amusement in his glance.
"Can you still swagger it, after having worn that livery for three
years?" he asked, and his lean forefinger pointed at my hideous motley of
red and black and yellow.
I flushed and hung my head, and--as if to mock that very expression of my
shame--the bells on my cap gave forth a silvery tinkle at the movement.
"Excellency, spare me," I murmured. "Did you know all my miserable story
you would be merciful. Did you know with what joy I turned my back on
the Court of Pesaro--"
"Aye," he broke in mockingly, "when Giovanni Sforza threatened to have
you hanged for the overboldness of your tongue. Not until then did it
occur to you to turn from the shameful life in which the best years of
your manhood were being wasted. There! Just now I commended your
truthfulness; but the truth that dwells in you is no more, it seems,
than the truth we may look for in the mouth of Folly. At heart, I fear,
you are a hypocrite, Messer Biancomonte; the worst form of hypocrite--a
hypocrite to your own self."
"Did your Excellency know all!" I cried.
"I know enough," he answered, with stern sorrow; "enough to make me
marvel that the son of Ettore Biancomonte of Biancomonte should play
the Fool to Costanzo Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Oh you will tell me that
you went there for revenge, to seek to right the wrong his father did
your father."
"It was, it was!" I cried, with heated vehemence. "Be flames everlasting
the dwelling of my soul if any other motive drove me to this shameful
trade."
There was a pause. His beautiful eyes flamed with a sudden light as
they rested on me. Then the lids drooped demurely, and he drew a deep
breath. But when he spoke there was scorn in his voice.
"And, no doubt, it was that same motive kept you there, at peace for
three whole years, in slothful ease, the motleyed Fool, jesting and
capering for his enemy's delectation--you, a man with the knightly memory
of your foully-wronged parent to cry hourly shame upon you. No doubt you
lacked the opportunity to bring the tyrant to account. Or was it that
you were content to let him make a mock of you so long as he housed and
fed you and clothed you in your garish livery of shame?
"Spare me, Excellency," I cried again. "Of your charity let my past be
done with. When he drove me forth with threats of hanging, from which
your gracious sister saved me, I turned my steps to Rome at her bidding
to--"
"To find honourable employment at my hands," he interrupted quietly.
Then suddenly rising, and speaking in a voice of thunder--"And what,
then, of your revenge?" he cried.
"It has been frustrated," I answered lamely. "Sufficient do I account
the ruin that already I have wrought in my life by the pursuit of that
phantom. I was trained to arms, my lord. Let me discard for good these
tawdry rags, and strap a soldier's harness to my back."
"How came you to journey hither thus?" he asked, suddenly turning the
subject.
"It was Madonna Lucrezia's wish. She held that my errand would be safer
so, for a Fool may travel unmolested."
He nodded that he understood, and paced the chamber with bowed head. For
a spell there was silence, broken only by the soft fall of his slippered
feet and the swish of his silken purple. At last he paused before me and
looked up into my face--for I was a good head taller than he was. His
fingers combed his auburn beard, and his beautiful eyes were full on
mine.
"That was a wise precaution of my sister's," he approved. "I will take a
lesson from her in the matter. I have employment for you, Messer
Biancomonte."
I bowed my head in token of my gratitude.
"You shall find me diligent and faithful, my lord," I promised him.
"I know it," he sniffed, "else should I not employ you."
He turned from me, and stepped back to his table. He took up a package,
fingered it a moment, then dropped it again, and shot me one of his quiet
glances.
"That is my answer to Madonna Lucrezia's letter," he said slowly, his
voice as smooth as silk, "and I desire that you shall carry it to Pesaro
for me, and deliver it safely and secretly into her hands."
I could do no more than stare at him. It seemed as if my mind were
stricken numb.
"Well?" he asked at last; and in his voice there was now a suggestion of
steel beneath the silk. "Do you hesitate?"
"And if I do," I answered, suddenly finding my voice, "I do no more than
might a bolder man. How can I, who am banned by punishment of death,
contrive to penetrate again into the Court of Pesaro and reach the Lady
Lucrezia?"
"That is a matter that I shall leave to the shrewd wit which all Italy
says is the heritage of Boccadoro, the Prince of Fools. Does the task
daunt you?" His glance and voice were alike harsh.
In very truth it did, and I told him so, but in the terms which the
shrewd wit he said was mine dictated.
"I hesitate, my lord, indeed; but more because I fear the frustration of
your own ends--whatever they may be--than because I dread to earn a
broken neck by again adventuring into Pesaro. Would not some other
messenger--unknown at the Court of Giovanni Sforza--be in better case to
acquit himself of such a task?
"Yes, if I had one I could trust," he answered frankly.
"I will be open with you, Biancomonte. There are such grave matters at
issue, there are such secrets confided to that paper, that I would not
for a kingdom, not for our Holy Father's triple crown, that they should
fall into alien hands."
He approached me again, and his slender hand, upon which the sacred
amethyst was glowing, fell lightly on my shoulder. He lowered his voice
"You are the man, the one man in Italy, whose interests are bound up with
mine in this; therefore are you the one man to whom I can entrust that
package."
"I?" I gasped in amazement--as well I might, for what interests had
Boccadoro, the Fool, in common with Cesare Borgia, Cardinal of Valencia?
"You," he answered vehemently, "you, Lazzaro Biancomonte of Biancomonte,
whose father Costanzo of Pesaro stripped of his domains. The matters in
those papers mean the ruin of the Lord of Pesaro. We are all but ripe to
strike at him from Rome and when we strike he shall be so disfigured by
the blow that all Italy shall hold its sides to laugh at the sorry figure
he will cut. I would not say so much to any other living man but you and
if I tell it you it is because I need your aid."
"The lion and mouse," I murmured.
"Why yes, if you will."
"And this man is the husband of your sister!" I exclaimed, almost
involuntarily.
"Does that imply a doubt of what I have said?" he flashed, his head
thrown back, his brows drawn suddenly together.
"No, no," I hastened to assure him. He smiled softly.
"Maddonna Lucrezia knows all--or nearly all. Of what else she may need to
learn, that letter will inform her. It is the last thread, the last knot
needed, before we can complete the net in which we are to hold that
tyrant? Now, will you bear the letter?"
Would I bear it? Dear God! To achieve the end in view I would have
spent my remaining days in motley, making sport for grooms and kitchen
wenches. Some such answer did I make him, and he smiled his
satisfaction.
"You shall journey as you are," he bade me. "I am guided by my sister,
assured that the coat of a Fool is stouter protection than the best
hauberk ever tempered. When you have done your errand come you back to
me, and you shall have employment better suited to one who bears the name
of Biancomonte."
"You may depend upon me in this, my lord," I promised gravely. "I shall
not fail you."
"It is well" said he; and those wondrous eyes of his rested again upon my
face. "How soon can you set out?"
"At once, my lord. Does not the by-word say that a fool makes little
preparation for a journey?"
He nodded, and moved to a coffer, a beautiful piece of Venetian work in
ultramarine and gold. From this he took a heavy bag.
"There," said he, "you will find the best of all travelling companions."
I thanked him, and set the bag on the crook of my left arm, and by its
weight I knew how true he was to the notorious splendour of his race.
"And this," said he, "is a talisman that may serve to help you out of any
evil plight, and open many a door that you may find locked." And he
handed me a signet ring on which was graven the steer that is the emblem
of the House of Borgia.
He raised aloft the hand on which was glistening the sacred amethyst--two
fingers crooked and two erect. Wondering what this should mean, I stared
inquiry.
"Kneel," he bade me. And realising what he would be about, I sank on to
my knees whilst he murmured the Apostolic benediction over my bowed head.
The rushes of the floor were the only witnesses of the smile that crept
to my lips at this sudden assumption of his churchly office by that most
worldly prince.
CHAPTER II
THE LIVERIES OF SANTAFIOR
Such preparations as I had to make were soon complete.
Although it was agreed that I was to travel in the motley, yet, in my
lately-born shame of that apparel, I decided that I would conceal it as
best might be, revealing it only should the need arise. Moreover, it was
incumbent that I should afford myself more protection against the
inclement January night than that of my foliated cape, my crested cap and
silken hose. So, a black cloak, heavy and ample, a broad-brimmed hat,
and a pair of riding boots of untanned leather were my further equipment.
In the lining of one of those boots I concealed the Lord Cesare's
package; his money--some twenty ducats--I carried in a belt about my
waist, and his ring I set boldly on my finger.
Few moments did it need me to make ready, yet fewer, it seems, would the
Borgia impatience have had me employ; for scarce was I booted when
someone knocked at my door. I opened, and there entered a very mountain
of a man, whose corselet flashed back the yellow light of my tapers, as
might have done a mirror, and whose harsh voice barked out to ask if I
was ready.
I had had some former acquaintance with this fellow, having first met him
during the previous year, on the occasion of the Court of Pesaro's
sojourn at Rome. His name was Ramiro del' Orca, and throughout the Papal
army it stood synonymous for masterfulness and grim brutality. He was,
as I have said, an enormous man, of prodigious bodily strength, heavy,
yet of good proportions. Of his face one gathered the impression of a
blazing furnace. His cheeks and nose were of a vivid red, and still more
fiery was the hair, now hidden 'neath his morion, and the beard that
tapered to a dagger's point. His very eyes kept tune with the red
harmony of his ferocious countenance, for the whites were ever bloodshot
as a drunkard's--which, with no want of truth, men said he was.
"Come," grunted that fiery, self-sufficient vassal, "be stirring, sir
Fool. I have orders to see you to the gates. There is a horse ready
saddled for you. It is the Lord Cardinal's parting gift. Resolve me
now, which will be the greater ass--the one that rides, or the one that
is ridden?"
"O monstrous riddle!" I exclaimed, as I took up my cloak and hat. "Who
am I that I should solve it?"
"It baffles you, sir Fool?" quoth he.
"In very truth it does." I ruefully wagged my head so that my bells set
up a jangle. "For the rider is a man and the ridden a horse. But," I
pursued, in that back-biting strain, which is the very essence of the
jester's wit, "were you to make a trio of us, including Messer Ramiro
del' Orca, Captain in the army of his Holiness, no doubt would then
afflict me. I should never hesitate which of the three to pronounce the
ass."
"What shall that mean?" he asked, with darkening brows.
"That its meaning proves obscure to you confirms the verdict I was
hinting at," I taunted him. "For asses are notoriously of dull
perceptions." Then stepping forward briskly: "Come, sir," I sharply
urged him, "whilst we engage upon this pretty play of wit, his
Excellency's business waits, which is an ill thing. Where is this horse
you spoke of?"
He showed me his strong, white teeth in a very evil smile.
"Were it not for that same business--" he began.
"You would do fine things, I am assured," I interrupted him.
"Would I not?" he snarled. "By the Host! I should be wringing your pert
neck, or laying bare your bones with a thong of bullock-hide, you ill
conditioned Fool!"
I looked at him with pleasant, smiling eyes.
"You confirm the opinion that is popularly held of you," said I.
"What may that be?" quoth he, his eyes very evil. "In Rome, I'm told,
they call you hangman."
He growled in his throat like an angered cur, and his hands were jerked
to the level of his breast, the fingers bending talon-wise.
"Body of God!" he muttered fiercely, "I'll teach one fool, at least--"
"Let us cease these pleasantries, I entreat you," I laughed. "Saints
defend me! If your mood incline to raillery you'll find your match in
some lad of the stables. As for me, I have not the time, had I the will,
to engage you further. Let me remind you that I would be gone."
The reminder was well-timed. He bethought him of the journey I must go,
on which he was charged to see me safely started.
"Come on, then," he growled, in a white heat of passion that was only
curbed by the consideration of that slender, pale young cardinal, his
master.
Still, some of his rage he vented in roughly taking me by the collar of
my doublet, and dragging the almost headlong from the room, and so a-down
a flight of steps out into the courtyard. Meet treatment for a Fool--a
treatment to which time might have inured me; for had I not for three
years already been exposed to rough usage of this kind at the hands of
every man above the rank of groom? And had I once rebelled in act as I
did in soul, and used the strength wherewith God endowed me to punish my
ill-users, a whip would have reminded me into what sorry slavery had I
sold myself when I put on the motley.
It had been snowing for the past hour, and the ground was white in the
courtyard when we descended.
At our appearance there was a movement of serving-men and a fall of
hoofs, muffled by the snow. Some held torches that cast a ruddy glare
upon the all-encompassing whiteness, and a groom was leading forward the
horse that was destined to bear me. I donned my broad-brimmed hat, and
wrapped my cloak about me. Some murmurs of farewell caught my ears, from
those minions with whom I had herded during my three days at the Vatican.
Then Messer del' Orca thrust me forward.
"Mount, Fool, and be off," he rasped.
I mounted, and turned to him. He was a surly dog; if ever surly dog wore
human shape, and the shape was the only human thing about Captain Ramiro.
"Brother, farewell," I simpered.
"No brother of yours, Fool," snarled he.
"True--my cousin only. The fool of art is no brother to the fool of
nature."
"A whip!" he roared to his grooms. "Fetch me a whip."
I left him calling for it, as I urged my nag across the snow and over the
narrow drawbridge. Beyond, I stayed a moment to look over my shoulder.
They stood gazing after me, a group of some half-dozen men, looking black
against the whiteness of the ground. Behind them rose the brown walls of
the rocca illumined by the flare of torches, from which the smell of
rosin reached my nostrils as I paused. I waved my hat to them in token
of farewell, and digging my spurless heels into the flanks of my horse, I
ambled down through the biting wind and drifting snow, into the town.
The streets were deserted and dark, save for the ray that here fell from
a window, and there stole through the chink of a door to glow upon the
snow in earnest of the snug warmth within. Silence reigned, broken only
by the moan of the wind under the eaves, for although it was no more than
approaching the second hour of night, yet who but the wight whom
necessity compelled would be abroad in such weather?
All night I rode despite that weather's foulness--a foulness that might
have given pause to one whose haste to bear a letter was less attuned to
his own supreme desires.
Betimes next morning I paused at a small locanda on the road to Magliano,
and there I broke my fast and took some rest. My horse had suffered by
the journey more than had I, and I would have taken a fresh one at
Magliano, but there was none to be had--so they told me--this side of
Narni, wherefore I was forced to set out once more upon that poor jaded
beast that had carried me all night.
It was high noon when I came, at last, to Narni, the last league of the
journey accomplished at a walk, for my nag could go no faster. Here I
paused to dine, but here, again, they told me that no horses might be
had. And so, leading by the bridle the animal I dared no longer ride,
lest I should kill it outright, I entered the territory of Urbino on
foot, and trudged wearily amain through the snow that was some inches
deep by now. In this miserable fashion I covered the seven leagues, or
so, to Spoleto, where I arrived exhausted as night was falling.
There, at the Osteria del Sole, I supped and lay. I found a company of
gentlemen in the common-room, who upon espying my motley--when I had
thrown off my sodden cloak and hat--pressed me, willy-nilly, into amusing
them. And so I spent the night at my Fool's trade, giving them
drolleries from the works of Boccacci and Sacchetti--the horn-books of
all jesters.
I obtained a fresh horse next morning, and I set out betimes, intending
to travel with a better speed. The snow was thick and soft at first, but
as I approached the hills it grew more crisp. Overhead the sky was of an
unbroken blue, and for all that the air was sharp there was warmth in the
sunshine. All day I rode hard, and never rested until towards nightfall
I found myself on the spurs of the Apennines in the neighborhood of
Gualdo, the better half of my journey well-accomplished. The weather had
changed again at sunset. It was snowing anew, and the north wind was
howling like a choir of the damned.
Before me gleamed the lights of a little wayside tavern, and since it
might suit me better to lie there than to journey on to Gualdo, I drew
rein before that humble door, and got down from my wearied horse.
Despite the early hour the door was already barred, for the bedding of
travellers formed no part of the traffic of so lowly a house as this
nameless, wayside wine-shop. Theirs was a trade that ended with the
daylight. Nevertheless I was assured they could be made to find me a rag
of straw to lie on, and so I knocked boldly with my whip.
The taverner who opened for me, and stood a moment surveying me by the
light of the torch he held aloft, was a slim, mild-mannered man, not
over-clean. Behind him surged the figure of his wife; just such a woman
as you might look to find the mate of such a man: broad and tall of frame
and most scurvily cross-grained of face. It may well be that had he
bidden me welcome, she had driven me back into the night; but since he
made some demur when I asked for lodging, and protested that in his house
was but accommodation too rude to offer my magnificence, the woman thrust
him aside, and loudly bade me enter.
I obeyed her readily, hat on head and cloak about me, lest my interests
should suffer were my trade disclosed. I bade the man see to my horse,
and then escorted by the woman, I made my way to the single room above,
which, in obedience to my demand, she made haste to set at my
convenience.
It was an evil-smelling, squalid hole; a bed of wattles in a corner, and
in the centre a greasy table with a three-legged stool and a crazy chair
beside it. The floor was black with age and filth, and broken everywhere
by rat-holes. She set her noisome, smoking oil lamp on the table, and
with some apology for the rudeness of the chamber she asked in tones
almost defiant if my excellency would be content.
"Perforce," said I ungraciously, perceiving surliness to be the key to
the respect of such a creature; "a king might thank Heaven for a kennel
on such a night as this."
She bent her back in a clumsy bow, and with a growing humility wondered
had I supped. I had not, but sooner would I have starved than have been
poisoned by such foulnesses as they might have set before me. So I
answered her that all I needed was a cup of wine.
When she had brought me that, and, at last, I was alone, I closed the
door. It had no lock, nor any sort of fastening, so I set the three
legged stool against it that it might give me warning of intrusion. Next
I threw off my cloak and hat and boots, and all dressed as I was I flung
myself upon my miserable couch. But jaded though I might be, it was not
yet my intent to sleep. Now that the half of my journey was
accomplished, I found myself beset by doubts which had not before
assailed me, touching the manner in which this mission of mine was to
be accomplished. It would prove no easy thing for me to penetrate
unnoticed into the town of Pesaro, much less into the Sforza Court, where
for three years I had pursued my Fool's trade. There was scarce a man, a
woman or a child in the entire domains of Giovanni Sforza to whom
Boccadoro, the Fool, was not known; and many a villano, who had never
noticed the features of the Lord of Pesaro, could have told you the very
colour of his jester's eyes; which, after all, is no strange thing, for--
sad reflection!--in a world in which Wisdom may be overlooked, Folly goes
never disregarded.
The garments I wore might be well enough to journey in; but if I would
gain the presence of Lucrezia Borgia I must see that I arrived in others.
And then my thoughts wandered into speculation. What might be this
momentous letter that I carried? What was this secret traffic 'twixt
Cesare Borgia and his sister? Since Cesare had said that it meant the
ruin of Giovanni Sforza--a ruin so utter, so complete and humiliating
that it must provoke the scornful mirth of all Italy--the knowledge of it
must soon be mine. Meanwhile I was an agent of that ruin. Dear God! how
that reflection warmed me! What joy I took in the thought that, though
he knew it not, nor could come to know it, I Lazzaro Biancomonte, whom he
had abused and whose spirit he had broken--was become a tool to expedite
the work of abasement and destruction that was ripening for him. And
realizing all this, that letter I vowed to Heaven I would carry,
suffering no obstacle to daunt me, suffering nothing to turn me from my
path.
And then another voice seemed to arise within me, to cry out impatiently:
"Yes, yes; but how?"
I rose, and approaching the table, I took up the jug of wine and poured
myself a draught. I drank it off, and cast the dregs at an inquisitive
rat that had thrust its head above the boards. Then I quenched the
light, and flung myself once more upon my bed, in the hope that darkness
would prove a stimulant to thought and bring me to the solution I was
seeking. It brought me sleep instead. Unconsciously I sank to it, my
riddle all unsolved.
I did not wake until the pale sun of that January morning was drawing the
pattern of my lattice on the ceiling. The stormy night had been
succeeded by a calm and sunlit day. And by its light the place wore a
more loathsome look than it had done last night, so that at the very
sight of it I leapt from my couch and grew eager to be gone. I set a
ducat on the table, and going to the door I called my hostess. The
stairs creaked presently 'neath her portentous weight, and, panting
slightly, she stood before me.
At sight of me, for I was without my cloak, and my motley was revealed in
the cold, morning light, she cried out in amazement first, and then in
rage--deeming me one of those parasites who tramp the world in the garb
of folly, seeking here a dinner, there a bed, in exchange for some scurvy
tumbling or some witless jests.
"Ossa di Cristo!" was her cry. "Have I housed a Fool?"
"If I am the first you have housed, your tumbling ruin of a tavern has
been a singularly choice resort. Woman--"
"Would you 'woman' me?" she stormed.
"Why, no," said I politely. "I was at fault. I'll keep the title for
your husband--God help him!"
She smiled grimly.
"And are these," she asked, with a ferocious sarcasm, "the jests with
which you pay the score?"
"Jests?" quoth I. "Score? Pish! More eyes, less tongue would more
befit a hostess who has never housed a fool." And with a splendid
gesture I pointed to the ducat gleaming on the table. At sight of the
gold her eyes grew big with greed.
"My master--" she began, and coming forward took the piece in her hand,
to assure herself that she was not the dupe of magic. "A fool with
gold!" she marvelled.
"Is a shame to his calling," I acknowledged. Then--"Get me a needle and
a length of thread," said I. She scuttled off to do my bidding, like
nothing so much as one of the rats that tenanted her unclean sty. She
was back in a moment, all servility, and wondering whether there was a
rent about me she might make bold to stitch. What a key to courtesy is
gold, my masters! I drove her out, and eager to conciliate me, she went
at once.
With my own hands I effected in my doublet the slight repair of which it
stood in need. Then I donned my hat, and, cloak on shoulder, made my way
below, calling for my horse as I descended.
I scorned the wine they proffered me ere I departed. That last night's
draught had quenched my thirst for ever of such grape-juice as it was
theirs to tender. I urged the taverner to hasten with my horse, and
stood waiting in the squalid common-room, my mind divided 'twixt
impatience to resume the road to Pesaro and fresh speculations upon the
means I was to adopt to enter it and yet save my neck--for this was now
become an obsessing problem.
As I stood waiting, there broke upon my ears the sound of an approaching
cavalcade: the noise of voices and the soft fall of hoofs upon the thick
snow carpet. The company halted at the door, and a loud, gruff voice was
raised to cry:
"Locandiere! Afoot, sluggard!"
I stepped to the door, with very natural curiosity, a company of four
mounted men escorting a mule-litter, the curtains of which were drawn so
that nothing might be seen of him or her that rode within. Grooms were
those four, as all the world might see at the first glance, and the livery
they wore was that of the noble House of Santafior--the holy white flower
of the quince being embroidered on the breast of their gabardines.
They bore upon them such signs of hard and hasty travelling that it was
soon guessed they had spent the night in the saddle. Their horses were in
a foam of sweat; and the men themselves were splashed with mud from foot
to cap.
Even as I was going forward to regard them the taverner appeared, leading
my horse by the bridle. Now at an inn the traveller that arrives is ever
of more importance than he that departs. At sight of those horsemen, the
taverner forgot my impatience, for he paused to bow in welcome to the one
that seemed the leader.
"Most Magnificent," said he to that liveried hind, "command me."
"We need a guide," the fellow answered with an ill grace.
"A guide, Illustrious?" quoth the host. "A guide?"
"I said a guide, fool," answered him the groom. "Heard you never of such
animals? We need a man who knows the hills, to lead us by the shortest
road to Cagli."
The taverner shook his grey head stupidly. He bowed again until I fancied
I could hear the creak of his old joints.
"Here be no guides, Magnificent," he deplored. "Perhaps at Gualdo--"
"Animal," was the retort--for true courtesy commend me to a lacquey!--"it
is not our wish to pursue the road as far as Gualdo, else had we not
stopped at this kennel of yours."
I scarce know what it can have been that moved me to act as I then did,
for, in the truth, the manner of that rascal of a groom was little
prepossessing, and his master, I doubted, could be little better that he
left the fellow to hector it thus over that wretched tavern oaf. But I
stepped forward.
"Did you say that you were journeying to Cagli?" questioned I.
He eyed me sourly, suspicion writ athwart his round, ill-favoured face,
But my motley was hidden from his sight. My cloak, my hat and boots
allowed naught of my true condition to appear, and might as well have
covered a lordling as a jester. Yet his inveterate surliness the rascal
could not wholly conquer.
"What may be the purpose of your question?" he growled.
"To serve your master, whoever he may be," I answered him serenely,
"although it is a service I do not press upon him. I, too, am journeying
to Cagli, and like yourselves, I am in haste and go the shorter way across
the hills, with which I am well acquainted. If it so please you to follow
me your need of a guide may thus be satisfied."
It was the tone to take if I would be respected. Had I proposed that we
should journey in company I should not have earned me the half of the
deference which was accorded to my haughtily granted leave that they might
follow me if they so chose.
With marked submission did he give me thanks in his master's name.
I mounted and set out, and at my heels came now the litter and its escort.
Thus did we quit the plain and breast the slopes, where the snow grew
deeper and firmer underfoot as we advanced. And as I went, still plaguing
my mind to devise a means by which I might penetrate to the Court of
Pesaro, little did I dream that the matter was being solved for me--the
solution having begun with my offer to guide that company across the
hills.
CHAPTER III
MADONNA PAOLA
We gained the heights in the forenoon, and there we dismounted and paused
awhile to breathe our horses ere we took the path that was to lead us down
to Cagli. The air was sharp and cold, for all that overhead was spread a
cloudless, cobalt dome of sky, and the sun poured down its light upon the
wide expanse of snow-clad earth, of a whiteness so dazzling as to be
hurtful to the sight.
Hitherto I had ridden stolidly ahead, as unheeding of that following
company as if I had been unconscious of its existence. But now that we
paused, their fat, white-faced leader, whose name was Giacopo, approached
me and sought to draw me into conversation. I yielded readily enough, for
I scented a mystery about that closely-curtained litter, and mysteries are
ever provoking to such a mind as mine. For all that it might profit me
naught to learn who rode there, and why with all this haste, yet these
were matters, I confess, on which my curiosity was aroused.
"Are you journeying beyond Cagli?" I asked him presently, in an idle tone.
He cocked his head, and eyed me aslant, the suspicion in his eyes
confirming the existence of the mystery I scented.
"Yes," he answered, after a pause. "We hope to reach Urbino before night.
And you? Are you journeying far?"
"That far, at least," I answered him, emulating the caution he had shown.
And then, ere more might pass between us, the leather curtains of the
litter were sharply drawn aside. At the sound I turned my head, and so
far was the vision different from that which--for no reason that I can
give--I had expected, that I was stricken with surprise and wonder. A
lady--a very child, indeed--had leapt nimbly to the ground ere any of
those grooms could offer her assistance.
She was, I thought, the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen, and to
one who had read the famous work of Messer Firenzuola on feminine beauty
it might seem, at first, that here stood the incarnation of that writer's
catalogue of womanly perfections. She was of a good shape and stature,
despite her tender years; her face was oval, delicately featured and of an
ivory pallor. Her eyes--blue as the heavens overhead--were not of the
colour most approved by Firenzuola, nor was her hair of the golden brown
which that arbiter commends. Had Firenzuola seen her, it may well be that
he had altered or modified his views. She was sumptuously arrayed in a
loose-sleeved camorra of grey velvet that was heavy with costly furs;
above the lenza of fine linen on her head gleamed the gold thread of a
jewelled net, and at her waist a girdle of surpassing richness, all set
with gems, glowed like a thing of fire in the bright sunshine.
She took a deep breath of the sharp, invigorating air, then looked about
her, and espying me in conversation with Giacopo she approached us across
the gleaming snow.
"Is this," she inquired, and her sweet, melodious voice was a perfect
match to the graceful charm of her whole presence, "the traveller who so
kindly consented to fill for us the office of a guide?"
Giacopo answered briefly that I was that man.
"I am in your debt, sir," she protested, with an odd earnestness. "You do
not know how great a service you have rendered me. But if at any time
Paola Sforza di Santafior may be able to discharge this obligation, you
shall find me very willing."
White-faced, black-browed Giacopo scowled at this proclamation of her
identity.
I made her a low bow, and answered coldly, brusquely almost, for I hated
the very name of Sforza, and every living thing that bore it.
"Madonna, you overrate my service. It so chanced that I was travelling
this way."
She looked more closely at me, as if she would have sought the reason of
my churlish tone, and I was strangely thankful that she could not see the
motley worn by the muffled stranger who confronted her. No doubt she
accounted me a clown, whose nature inclined to surliness, and so she
turned away, telling Giacopo that as soon as the horses were breathed they
might push on.
"We must rest them yet awhile, Madonna," answered he, "if they are to
carry us as far as Cagli. Heaven send that we may obtain fresh cattle
there, else is all lost."
Her frown proclaimed how much his words displeased her.
"You forget that if there are no horses for us, neither are there any for
those others." And she waved her hand towards the valley below and the
road by which we had come. From this and from what was said I gathered
that they were a party of fugitives with pursuers at their heels.
"They have a warrant which we have not," was Giacopo's answer, gloomily
delivered, "and they will seize cattle where they can find it."
With a little gesture of impatience, more at his fears than at the peril
that aroused them, she moved away towards her litter.
"Your horse would be better for the loan of your cloak, sir stranger,"
said Giacopo to me.
I knew him to be right, but shrugged my shoulders.
"Better the horse should die of cold than I," I answered gruffly, and
turning from him I set myself to pace the snow and stir the blood that was
chilling in my veins.
There was a beauty in the white, sunlit landscape spread before me that
compelled my glance. To some it might compare but ill with the luxuriant
splendour that is of the vernal season; but to me there was a wondrously
impressive charm about that solemn, silent, virginal expanse of snow,
expressionless as the Sphinx, and imposing and majestic by virtue of that
very lack of expression. From Fabriano, at our feet, was spread to the
east, the broad plain that lies twixt the Esino and the Masone, as far as
Mount Comero, which, in the distance, lifted its round shoulder from the
haze of sea. To the west the country lay under the same winding-sheet of
snow as far as eye might range, to the towers of distant Perugia, to the
Lake Trasimeno--a silver sheen that broke the white monotony--to Etruscan
Cortona, perched like an eyrie on its mountain top, and to the line of
Tuscan hills, like heavy, low-lying clouds upon the blue horizon.
Lost was I in the contemplation of that scene when a cry, succeeded by a
volley of horrid blasphemy, drew my attention of a sudden to my
companions. They stood grouped together, and their eyes were on the road
by which we had scaled those heights. Their first expression of loud
astonishment had been succeeded by an utter silence. I stepped forward to
command a better view of what they contemplated, and in the plain below,
midway between Narni and the slopes, a mile or so behind us, I caught a
glitter as of a hundred mirrors in the sunshine. A company of some dozen
men-at-arms it was, riding briskly along the tracks we had left behind us
in the snow. Could these be the pursuers?
Even as I formed the question in my mind, the lady's silvery voice, behind
me, put it into words. She had drawn aside the curtains of her litter and
she was leaning out, her eyes upon those dancing points of brilliance.
"Madonna," cried one of her grooms, in a quaver of alarm, "they are Borgia
soldiers."
"Your fear is father to that opinion," she answered scornfully. "How can
you descry it at this distance?"
Now, either God had given that knave an eagle's sight, or else, as she
suggested, fear spurred his imagination and begot his certainty of what he
thought he saw.
"The leader's bannerol bears the device of a red bull," he answered
promptly.
I thought she paled a little, and her brows contracted.
"In God's name, let us get forward, then!" cried Giacopo. "Orsu! To
horse, knaves!"
No second bidding did they need. In the twinkling of an eye they were in
the saddle, and one of them had caught the bridle of the leading mule of
the litter. Giacopo called to me to lead the way with him, with no more
ceremony than if I had been one of themselves. But I made no ado. A
chase is an interesting business, whatever your point of view, and if a
greater safety lies with the hunter, there is a keener excitement with the
hunted.
Down that steep and slippery hillside we blundered, making for Cagli at a
pace in which there lay a myriad-fold more danger than could menace us
from any party of pursuers. But fear was spur and whip to the unreasoning
minds of those poltroons, and so from the danger behind us we fled, and
courted a more deadly and certain peril in the fleeing. At first I sought
to remonstrate with Giacopo; but he was deaf to the wisdom that I spoke.
He turned upon me a face which terror had rendered whiter than its natural
habit, white as the egg of a duck, with a hint of blue or green behind it.
I had, besides, an ugly impression of teeth and eyeballs.
"Death is behind us, sir," he snarled. "Let us get on."
"Death is more assuredly before you," I answered grimly. "If you will
court it, go your way. As for me, I am over-young to break my neck and be
left on the mountain-side to fatten crows. I shall follow at my leisure."
"Gesu!" he cried, through chattering teeth. "Are you a coward, then?"
The taunt would have angered me had his condition been other than it was;
but coming from one so possessed of the devil of terror, it did no more
than provoke my mirth.
"Come on, then, valiant runagate," I laughed at him.
And on we went, our horses now plunging, now sliding down yard upon yard
of moving snow, snorting and trembling, more reasoning far than these
rational animals that bestrode them. Twice did it chance that a man was
flung from his saddle, yet I know not what prayers Madonna may have been
uttering in her litter, to obtain for us the miracle of reaching the plain
with never so much as a broken bone.
Thus far had we come, but no farther, it seemed, was it possible to go.
The horses, which by dint of slipping and sliding had encompassed the
descent at a good pace, were so winded that we could get no more than an
amble out of them, saving mine, which was tolerably fresh.
At this a new terror assailed the timorous Giacopo. His head was ever
turned to look behind--unfailing index of a frightened spirit; his eyes
were ever on the crest of the hills, expecting at every moment to behold
the flash of the pursuers' steel. The end soon followed. He drew rein
and called a halt, sullenly sitting his horse like a man deprived of wit--
which is to pay him the compliment of supposing that he ever had wit to be
deprived of.
Instantly the curtain-rings rasped, and Madonna Paola's head appeared, her
voice inquiring the reason of this fresh delay.
Sullenly Giacopo moved his horse nearer, and sullenly he answered her.
"Madonna, our horses are done. It is useless to go farther."
"Useless?" she cried, and I had an instance of how sharply could ring the
voice that I had heard so gentle. "Of what do you talk, you knave? Ride
on at once."
"It is vain to ride on," he answered obdurately, insolence rising in his
voice. "Another half-league--another league at most, and we are taken."
"Cagli is less than a league distant," she reminded him. "Once there,
we can obtain fresh horses. You will not fail me now, Giacopo!"
"There will be delays, perforce, at Cagli," he reminded her, "and,
meanwhile, there are these to guide the Borgia sbirri." And he pointed to
the tracks we were leaving in the snow.
She turned from him, and addressed herself to the other three.
"You will stand by me, my friends," she cried. "Giacopo, here, is a
coward; but you are better men." They stirred, and one of them was
momentarily moved into a faint semblance of valour.
"We will go with you, Madonna," he exclaimed. "Let Giacopo remain behind,
if so he will."
But Giacopo was a very ill-conditioned rogue; neither true himself, nor
tolerant, it seemed, of truth in others.
"You will be hanged for your pains when you are caught!" he exclaimed, "as
caught you will be, and within the hour. If you would save your necks,
stay here and make surrender."
His speech was not without effect upon them, beholding which, Madonna
leapt from the litter, the better to confront them. The corners of her
sensitive little mouth were quivering now with the emotion that possessed
her, and on her eyes there was a film of tears.
"You cowards!" she blazed at them, "you hinds, that lack the spirit even
to run! Were I asking you to stand and fight in defence of me, you could
not show yourselves more palsied. I was a fool," she sobbed, stamping her
foot so that the snow squelched under it. "I was a fool to entrust myself
to you."
"Madonna," answered one of them, "if flight could still avail us, you
should not find us stubborn. But it were useless. I tell you again,
Madonna, that when I espied them from the hill-top yonder, they were but a
half-league behind. Soon we shall have them over the mountain, and we
shall be seen."
"Fool!" she cried, "a half-league behind, you say; and you forget that we
were on the summit, and they had yet to scale it. If you but press on we
shall treble that distance, at least, ere they begin the descent.
Besides, Giacopo," she added, turning again to the leader, "you may be at
fault; you may be scared by a shadow; you may be wrong in accounting them
our pursuers."
The man shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and grunted.
"Arnaldo, there, made no mistake. He told us what he saw."
"Now Heaven help a poor, deserted maid, who set her trust in curs!" she
exclaimed, between grief and anger.
I had been no better than those hinds of hers had I remained unmoved. I
have said that I hated the very name of Sforza; but what had this tender
child to do with my wrongs that she should be brought within the compass
of that hatred? I had inferred that her pursuers were of the House of
Borgia, and in a flash it came to me that were I so inclined I might
prove, by virtue of the ring I carried, the one man in Italy to serve her
in this extremity. And to be of service to her, her winsome beauty had
already inflamed me. For there was I know not what about this child that
seemed to take me in its toils, and so wrought upon me that there and then
I would have risked my life in her good service. Oh, you may laugh who
read. Indeed, deep down in my heart I laughed myself, I think, at the
heroics to which I was yielding--I, the Fool, most base of lacqueys--over
a damsel of the noble House of Santafior. It was shame of my motley,
maybe, that caused me to draw my cloak more tightly about me as I urged
forward my horse, until I had come into their midst.
"Lady," said I bluntly and without preamble, "can I assist you? I have
inferred your case from what I have overheard."
All eyes were on me, gaping with surprise--hers no less than her grooms'.
"What can you do alone, sir?" she asked, her gentle glance upraised to
mine.
"If, as I gather, your pursuers are servants of the House of Borgia, I may
do something."
"They are," she answered, without hesitation, some eagerness, even,
investing her tones.
It may seem an odd thing that this lady should so readily have taken a
stranger into her confidence. Yet reflect upon the parlous condition in
which she found herself. Deserted by her dispirited grooms, her enemies
hot upon her heels, she was in no case to trifle with assistance, or to
despise an offer of services, however frail it might seem. With both
hands she clutched at the slender hope I brought her in the hour of her
despair.
"Sir," she cried, "if indeed it lies in your power to help me, you could
not find it in your heart to be sparing of that power did you but know the
details of my sorry circumstance."
"That power, Madonna, it may be that I have," said I, and at those words
of mine her servants seemed to honour me with a greater interest. They
leaned forward on their horses and eyed me with eyes grown of a sudden
hopeful. "And," I continued, "if you will have utter faith in me, I see a
way to render doubly certain your escape."
She looked up into my face, and what she saw there may have reassured her
that I promised no more than I could accomplish. For the rest she had to
choose between trusting me and suffering capture.
"Sir," said she, "I do not know you, nor why you should interest yourself
in the concerns of a desolated woman. But, Heaven knows, I am in no case
to stand pondering the aid you offer, nor, indeed, do I doubt the good
faith that moves you. Let me hear, sir, how you would propose to serve
me."
"Whence are you?" I inquired.
"From Rome," she informed me without hesitation, "to seek at my cousin's
Court of Pesaro shelter from a persecution to which the Borgia family is
submitting me."
At her cousin's Court of Pesaro! An odd coincidence, this--and while I
was pondering it, it flashed into my mind that by helping her I might
assist myself. Had aught been needed o strengthen my purpose to serve
her, I had it now.
"Yet," said I, surprise investing my voice, "at Pesaro there is Madonna
Lucrezia of that same House of Borgia."
She smiled away the doubt my words implied.
"Madonna Lucrezia is my friend," said she; "as sweet and gentle a friend
as ever woman had, and she will stand by me even against her own family."
Since she was satisfied of that, I waived the point, and returned to what
was of more immediate interest.
"And you fled," said I, "with these?" And I indicated her attendants.
"Not content to leave the clearest of tracks behind you in the snow, you
have had yourself attended by four grooms in the livery of Santafior. So
that by asking a few questions any that were so inclined might follow you
with ease."
She opened wide her eyes at that. Oftentimes have I observed that it
needs a fool to teach some elementary wisdom to the wise ones of this
world. I leapt from my saddle and stood in the road beside her, the
bridle on my arm.
"Listen now, Madonna. If you would make good your escape it first imports
that you should rid yourself of this valiant escort. Separate from it for
a little while. Take you my horse--it is a very gentle beast, and it wilt
carry you with safety--and ride on, alone, to Cagli."
"Alone?" quoth she, in some surprise.
"Why, yes," I answered gruffly. "What of that? At the Inn of 'The Full
Moon' ask for the hostess, and tell her that you are to await an escort
there, begging her, meanwhile, to place you under her protection. She is
a worthy soul, or else I do not know one, and she will befriend you
readily. But see to it that you tell her nothing of your affairs."
"And then?" she inquired eagerly.
"Then, wait you there until to-night, or even until to-morrow morning, for
these knaves to rejoin you to the end that you may resume your journey."
"But we--" began Giacopo. Scenting his protest, I cut him short.
"You four," said I, "shall escort me--for I shall replace Madonna in the
litter--you shall escort me towards Fabriano. Thus shall we draw the
pursuit upon ourselves, and assure your lady a clear road of escape."
They swore most roundly and with great circumstance of oaths that they
would lend themselves to no such madness, and it took me some moments to
persuade them that I was possessed of a talisman that should keep us all
from harm.
"Were it otherwise, dolts, do you think I should be eager to go with you?
Would any chance wayfarer so wantonly imperil his neck for the sake of a
lady with whom he can scarce be called acquainted?"
It was an argument that had weight with them, as indeed, it must have had
with the dullest. I flashed my ring before their eyes.
"This escutcheon," said I, "is the shield that shall stand between us and
danger from any of the house that bears these arms."
Thus I convinced and wrought upon them until they were ready to obey me--
the more ready since any alternative was really to be preferred to their
present situation. In danger they already stood from those that followed
as they well knew; and now it seemed to them that by obeying one who was
armed with such credentials, it might be theirs to escape that danger.
But even as I was convincing them, by the same arguments was I sowing
doubts in the lady's subtler mind.
"You are attached to that house?" quoth she, in accents of mistrust. She
wanted to say more. I saw it in her eyes that she was wondering was there
treachery underlying an action so singularly disinterested as to justify
suspicion.
"Madonna," said I, "if you would save yourself I implore that you will
trust me. Very soon your pursuers will be appearing on those heights, and
then your chance of flight will be lost to you. I will ask you but this:
Did I propose to betray you into their hands, could I have done better
than to have left you with your grooms?"
Her face lighted. A sunny smile broke on me from her heavenly eyes.
"I should have thought of that," said she. And what more she would have
added I put off by urging her to mount.
Sitting the man's saddle as best she might--well enough, indeed, to fill
us all with surprise and admiration--she took her leave of me with pretty
words of thanks, which again I interrupted.
"You have but to follow the road," said I, "and it will bring you straight
to Cagli. The distance is a short league, and you should come there
safely. Farewell, Madonna!"
"May I not know," she asked at parting, "the name of him that has so
generously befriended me?"
I hesitated a second. Then--"They call me Boccadoro," answered I.
"If your mouth be as truly golden as your heart, then are you well-named,"
said she. Then, gathering her mantle about her, and waving me farewell,
she rode off without so much as a glance at the cowardly hinds who had
failed her in the hour of her need.
A moment I stood watching her as she cantered away in the sunshine; then
stepping to the litter, I vaulted in.
"Now, rogues," said I to the escort, "strike me that road to Fabriano."
"I know you not, sir," protested Giacopo. "But this I know--that if you
intend us treachery you shall have my knife in your gullet for your
pains."
"Fool!" I scorned him, "since when has it been worth the while of any man
to betray such creatures as are you? Plague me no more! Be moving, else
I leave you to your coward's fate."
It was the tone best understood by hinds of their lily-livered quality.
It quelled their faint spark of mutiny, and a moment later one of those
knaves had caught the bridle of the leading mule and the litter moved
forward, whilst Giacopo and the others came on behind at as brisk a pace
as their weary horses would yield. In this guise we took the road south,
in the direction opposite to that travelled by the lady. As we rode, I
summoned Giacopo to my side.
"Take your daggers," I bade him, "and rip me that blazon from your coats.
See that you leave no sign about you to proclaim you of the House of
Santafior, or all is lost. It is a precaution you would have taken
earlier if God had given you the wit of a grasshopper."
He nodded that he understood my order, and scowled his disapproval of my
comment on his wit. For the rest, they did my bidding there and then.
Having satisfied myself that no betraying sign remained about them, I drew
the curtains of my litter, and reclining there I gave myself up to
pondering the manner in which I should greet the Borgia sbirri when they
overtook me. From that I passed on to the contemplation of the position
in which I found myself, and the thing that I had done. And the
proportions of the jest that I was perpetrating afforded me no little
amusement. It was a burla not unworthy the peerless gifts of Boccadoro,
and a fitting one on which to close his wild career of folly. For had I
not vowed that Boccadoro I would be no more once the errand on which I
travelled was accomplished? By Cesare Borgia's grace I looked to--
A sudden jolt brought me back to the immediate present, and the
realisation that in the last few moments we had increased our pace.
I put out my head.
"Giacopo!" I shouted. He was at my side in an instant. "Why are we
galloping?"
"They are behind," he answered, and fear was again overspreading his fat
face. "We caught a glimpse of them as we mounted the last hill."
"You caught a glimpse of whom?" quoth I.
"Why, of the Borgia soldiers."
"Animal," I answered him, "what have we to do with them? They may have
mistaken us for some party of which they are in pursuit. But since we are
not that party, let your jaded beasts travel at a more reasonable speed.
We do not wish to have the air of fugitives."
He understood me, and I was obeyed. For a half-hour we rode at a more
gentle pace. That was about the time they took to come up with us, still
a league or so from Fabriano. We heard their cantering hoofs crushing the
snow, and then a loud imperious voice shouting to us a command to stay.
Instantly we brought up in unconcerned obedience, and they thundered
alongside with cries of triumph at having run their prey to earth.
I cast aside my hat, and thrust my motleyed head through the curtains with
a jangle of bells, to inquire into the reason of this halt. Whom my
appearance astounded the more--whether the lacqueys of Santafior, or the
Borgia men-at-arms that now encircled us--I cannot guess. But in the
crowd of faces that confronted me there was not one but wore a look of
deep amazement.
CHAPTER IV
THE COZENING OF RAMIRO
The cavalcade that had overtaken us proved to number some twenty men-at-
arms, whose leader was no less a person than Ramiro del' Orca--that same
mountain of a man who had attended my departure from the Vatican three
nights ago. From the circumstance that so important a personage should
have been charged with the pursuit of the Lady of Santafior, I inferred
that great issues were at stake.
He was clad in mail and leather, and from his lance fluttered the bannerol
bearing the Borgia arms, which had announced his quality to Madonna's
servants.
At sight of me his bloodshot eyes grew round with wonder, and for a little
season a deathly calm preceded the thunder of his voice.
"Sainted Host!" he roared at last. "What trickery may this be?" And
sidling his horse nearer he tore aside the curtains of my litter.
Out of faces pale as death the craven grooms looked on, to behold me
reclining there, my cloak flung down across my legs to hide my boots, and
my motley garb of red and black and yellow all revealed. I believe their
astonishment by far surpassed the Captain's own.
"You are choicely met, Ser Ramiro," I greeted him. Then, seeing that he
only stared, and made no shift to speak: "Maybe," quoth I, "you'll explain
why you detain me. I am in haste."
"Explain?" he thundered. "Sangue di Cristo! The burden of explaining
lies with you. What make you here?"
"Why," answered I, in tones of deep astonishment, "I am about the business
of the Lord Cardinal of Valencia, our master."
"Davvero?" he jeered. He stretched out a mighty paw, and took me by the
collar of my doublet. "Now, bethink you how you answer me, or there will
be a fool the less in the world."
"Indeed, the world might spare more."
He scowled at my pleasantry. To him, apparently, the situation afforded
no scope for philosophical reflections.
"Where is the girl?" he asked abruptly.
"Girl?" quoth I. "What girl? Am I a mother-abbess, that you should set
me such a question?"
Two dark lines showed between his brows. His voice quivered with passion.
"I ask you again--where is the girl?"
I laughed like one who is a little wearied by the entertainment provided
for him.
"Here be no girls, Messer del' Orca," I answered him in the same tone.
"Nor can I think what this babble of girls portends."
My seeming innocence, and the assurance with which I maintained the
expression of it, whispered a doubt into his mind. He released me, and
turned upon his men, a baffled look in his eyes.
"Was not this the party?" he inquired ferociously. "Have you misled me,
beasts?
"It seemed the party, Illustrious," answered one of them.
"Do you dare tell me that 'it seemed'?" he roared, seeking to father upon
them the blunder he was beginning to fear that he had made. "But--What is
the livery of these knaves?
"They wear none," someone answered him, and at that answer he seemed to
turn limp and lose his fierce assurance.
Then he bridled afresh.
"Yet the party, I'll swear, is this!" he insisted; and turning once more
to me: "Explain, animal!" he bade me in terrifying tones. "Explain, or,
by the Host! be you ignorant or not, I'll have you hanged."
I accounted it high time to take another tone with him. Hanging was a
discomfort I was never less minded to suffer.
"Draw nearer, fool," said I contemptuously, and at the epithet, so greatly
did my audacity amaze him, he mildly did my bidding.
"I know not what doubts are battling in your thick head, sir captain," I
pursued. "But this I know--that if you persist in hindering me, or commit
the egregious folly of offering me violence, you will answer for it,
hereafter, to the Lord Cardinal of Valencia.
"I am going upon a secret mission"--and here I sank my voice to a whisper
for his ears alone--"in the service of the house that hires you, as for
yourself you might easily have inferred. Behold." And I revealed my
ring. "Detain me longer at your peril."
He must have had some notion of the fact that I was journeying in Cesare
Borgia's service, and this coupled with the sight of that talisman
effected in his manner a swift and wholesome change. Had I, arrayed in
the panoply of Mother Church, defied the devil, my victory could not have
been more complete.
He looked about him like a man whose wits have been scattered suddenly to
the four winds of Heaven.
"But this litter," he mumbled, riveting his dazed eyes upon me, "and these
four knaves--?"
"Tell me," I questioned, with sudden earnestness, "are you in quest of
just such a party?"
"Aye that I am," he answered sharply, intelligence returning to his
glance, inquiry burning in it.
"And would the men, peradventure, be wearing the livery of the House of
Santafior?"
His quick assent came almost choked in a company of oaths.
"Why then, if that be your quarry, you are but wasting time. Such a party
passed us at the gallop about an hour ago. It would be an hour, would it
not, Giacopo?"
"I should say an hour," answered the lacquey dully.
"In what direction?" came Ramiro's frenzied question. He doubted me no
longer.
"In the direction of Fabriano I should say," I answered. "Although it may
well be that they were making for Sinigaglia. The road branches farther
on."
He waited for no more. Without word of thanks for the priceless
information I had given him, he wheeled his horse, and shouted a hoarse
command to his followers. A moment later and they were cantering past us,
the snow flying beneath their hoofs; within five minutes the last of them
had vanished round an angle of the road, and the only indication of the
halt they had made was the broad path of dirty brown where their horses
had crushed the snow.
I have been an actor in few more entertaining comedies than the cozening
of Ser Ramiro, and a witness of nothing that afforded me at once so much
relief and relish as his abrupt departure. I sank back on the cushions of
my litter, and gave myself over to a burst of full-souled laughter which
was interrupted ere it was half done by Giacopo, who had dismounted and
approached me.
"You have fooled us finely," said he, with venom.
I quenched my laughter to regard him. Of what did he babble? Was he, and
were his fellows, too, so ungrateful as to bear a grudge against the man
who had saved them?
"You have fooled us finely," he insisted in a louder voice.
"That, knave, is my trade," said I. "But it rather seems to me that it
was Messer Ramiro del' Orca whom I fooled."
"Aye," he answered querulously. "But what when he discerns how you have
played upon him? What when he discovers the trick by which you have
thrown him off the scent? What when he returns?"
"Spare me" I begged, "I am but indifferently skilful at conjecture."
"Nay, but you shall answer me," he cried, livid with a passion that my
bantering tone had quickened.
"Can it be that you are indeed curious to know what will befall when he
returns?" I questioned meekly.
"I am," he snorted, with an angry twist of the lips.
"It should be easy to gratify the morbid spirit of curiosity that actuates
you. Remain here, and await his return. Thus shall you learn."
"That will not I," he vowed.
"Nor I, nor I, nor I!" chorused his followers.
"Then, why plague me with unprofitable questions? What concern is it of
ours how Messer del' Orca shall vent his wrath when he is disillusioned.
Your duty now is to rejoin your mistress. Ride hard for Cagli. Seek her
at the sign of 'The Full Moon,' and then away for Pesaro. If you are
brisk you will gain the shelter of the Lord Giovanni Sforza's fortress
long before Messer del' Orca again picks up the scent, if, indeed, he ever
does so."
Giacopo laughed derisively till his fat body shook with the scornful mirth
of him.
"By my faith, I'm done with the business," he cried, and the other three
expressed a very hearty agreement with that attitude.
"How done with it?" I asked.
"I shall make my way back across the hills and so retrace my steps to
Rome. I'll risk my head no more for any lady or any Fool."
"If you should ever chance to risk it for yourself," said I, with
unmeasured scorn, "you'll risk it for the greatest fool and the
cowardliest rogue that ever shamed the name of man. And your mistress?
Is she to wait at Cagli until doomsday? If anywhere within the bulk of
that elephant's body there lurks the heart of a rabbit, you'll get you to
horse and ride to the help of that poor lady."
They resented my tone, and showed their resentment plainly. Messer
Giacopo went the length of raising his hand to me. But I am a man of
amazing strength--amazing inasmuch as being slender of shape I do not have
the air of it. Leaping suddenly from the litter, I caught that miserable
vassal by the breast of his doublet, shook him once or twice, then tossed
him headlong into a drift of snow by the roadside.
At that they bared their knives and made shift to attack me. But I flung
myself on to one of the mules of the litter, and showing them the stout
Pistoja dagger that I carried, I presented with it a bold and truculent
front, no whit intimidated by their numbers. Four to one though they
were, they thought better of it. A moment they stood off, consulting
among themselves; then Giacopo mounted, and with some mocking counsel as
to how I should dispose of the litter and the mules, they made off, no
doubt, to find their way back to Rome. Giacopo, as I was afterwards to
discover, was Madonna Paola's purse-bearer, so that they would not lack
for means.
Awhile I stayed there, cursing them for the white-livered cravens that
they were, and thinking of that poor child who had ridden on to Cagli, and
who would await them in vain. There, on the mule, I sat in the noontide
sunlight, and pondered this, so absorbed in her affairs as to have grown
forgetful of my own. At last I resolved to ride on to Cagli alone, and
inform her that her men were fled.
There was no time to lose, for as that rogue Giacopo had said, Ramiro del'
Orca might discover at any moment how he had been tricked, and return hot-
foot to find me and extort the truth from me by such means as I had no
stomach for enduring.
First, then, it was of moment thoroughly to efface our tracks, leaving no
sign that might guide Meser Ramiro to repair the error into which I had
tricked him. Slowly, says the proverb, one journeys far and safely.
Slowly, then, did I consider! The escort was, no doubt, on its way back
to Rome, and if I could but rid myself of that cumbrous litter, Ser Ramiro
would find himself mightily hard put to it to again pick up the trail. I
remembered a ravine a little way behind, and I rode my mule back to that
as fast as it would travel with the litter and the other mule attached to
it. Arrived there, I unharnessed the beasts on the very edge of that
shallow precipice. Then exerting all my strength, I contrived to roll the
litter over. Down that steep incline it went, over and over, gathering
more snow to itself at every revolution, and sinking at last into the
drift at the bottom. There were signs enough to show its presence, but
those signs would hardly be read by any but the sharpest eyes, or by such
as might be looking for it in precisely such a position. I must trust to
luck that it escaped the notice of Messer Ramiro. But even if he did
discover it, I did not think that it would tell him overmuch.
That done I resumed my hat and cloak--which I had retained--mounted once
more, and urging the other mule along, I proceeded thus as fast as might
be for a half-league or so in the direction of Cagli. That distance
covered, again I halted. There was not a soul in sight. I stripped one
of the mules of all its harness, which I buried in the snow, behind a
hedge, then I drove the beast loose into a field. The peasant-owner of
that land might conclude upon the morrow that it had rained asses in the
night.
And now I was able to travel at a brisker pace, and in an hour or so I had
passed the point where the road diverged, and I caught a glimpse of the
four grooms, already high up in the hills which they were crossing.
Whether they saw me or not I do not know, but with a last curse at their
cowardice I put them from my mind, and cantered briskly on towards Cagli.
It was a short league farther, and in little more than half an hour, my
mule half-dead, I halted at the door of "The Full Moon."
Flinging my reins to the ostler, I strode into the inn, swaddled in my
cloak, and called for the hostess. The place was empty, as indeed all
Cagli had seemed when I rode up. She came forward--a woman with a brown,
full face, and large kindly eyes--and I asked her whether a lady had
arrived there in safety that morning. At first she seemed mistrustful,
but when I had assured her that I was in that lady's service, she frankly
owned that Madonna was safe in her own room. Thither I allowed her to
lead me, at once eager and reluctant. Eager with my own eyes to assure
myself of her perfect safety; reluctant that, since a man may not
penetrate to a lady's chamber hat on head, by uncovering I must disclose
my shameful trade. Yet there was nothing for it but a bold face, and as I
mounted the stairs in the woman's wake, I told myself that I was doubly a
fool to be tormented by qualms of such a nature.
Hat in hand I followed the hostess into Madonna's room. The lady rose
from the window-seat to greet me, her face pale and her gentle eyes
wearing an anxious look. At sight of my head crowned with the crested,
horned hood of folly, a frown of bewilderment drew her brows together, and
she looked more closely to see whether I was indeed the man who had
befriended her that morning in her extremity. In the eyes of the hostess
I caught a gleam of recognition. She knew me for the merry loon who had
entertained her guests one night a fortnight since, when on my way from
Pesaro to Rome. But before she could give expression to this discovery of
hers, the lady spoke.
"Leave us awhile, my woman," she commanded. But I stayed the hostess as
she was withdrawing.
"This lady," said I, "will need an escort of three or four stout knaves
upon a journey that she is going. She will be setting out as soon as may
be."
"But what of my grooms?" cried the lady.
"Madonna," I informed her, "they have deserted you. That is the reason of
my presence here. You shall hear the story of it presently. Meanwhile,
we must arrange to replace them." And I turned again to the hostess.
She was standing in thought, a doubtful expression on her face. But as I
looked at her she shook her head.
"There is no such escort to be found to-day in Cagli," she made answer.
"The town is all but empty, and every lusty man is either gone on the
pilgrimage to the Holy House of Loretto, or else is at Pesaro for the
Feast of the Epiphany."
It was in vain that I protested that a couple of knaves might surely be
found. She answered me that such as were in Cagli were there because they
would not be elsewhere.
The lady's face grew clouded as she listened, for from my insistence she
shrewdly inferred that it imported to be gone.
"There is your ostler," quoth I at last. "He will do for one."
"He is the only man I have. My husband and my sons are gone to Pesaro."
"Yet spare us this one, and you shall be well paid his services."
But no bribe could tempt her to give way, and no doubt she was well-
advised, for she contended that there was work to be done such as was
beyond her years and strength, and that if she sent her ostler off, as
well might she close her inn--a thing that was impossible.
Here, then, was an obstacle with which I had not reckoned. It was
impossible to send the lady off alone, to travel a distance of some ten
leagues, and the most of it by night--for if she would make sure of
escaping, she must journey now without pause until she came to Pesaro.
And then, in a flash, it occurred to me that here lay the means, ready to
my hand, by avail of which I might boldly re-enter Pesaro despite my
banishment, and discharge my errand to Lucrezia Borgia. For, surely,
considering the mission on which ostensibly I should be returning--as the
saviour and protector of his kinswoman--Giovanni Sforza could not enforce
that ban against me. Next I bethought me of the other aspect that the
business wore. In fooling Ramiro I had thwarted the Borgia ends; in
rescuing Madonna Paola I had perhaps set at naught the Cardinal of
Valencia's aims. If so, what then? It would seem that because the lady's
eyes were mild and sweet, and because her beauty had so deeply wrought
upon me, I had indeed fooled away my chance of salvation from the life and
trade that were grown hateful to me. For back to Rome and Cesare Borgia I
should dare go no more. Clearly I had burned my boats, and I had done it
almost unthinkingly, acting upon the good impulse to befriend this lady,
and never reckoning the cost down to its total. For all that the thing I
had done, and what I might yet do, should offer me the means I needed to
enter Pesaro without danger to my neck, I did not see that I was to derive
great profit in the end--unless my profit lay in knowing that I had
advanced the ruin of Giovanni Sforza by delivering my letter to Lucrezia.
That at any rate was enough incentive clearly to define for me the line
that I should take through this tangle into which the ever-jesting Fates
had thrust me.
I was still at my thoughts, still pondering this most perplexing
situation, the hostess standing silent by the door, when suddenly Madonna
Paola spoke.
"Sir," said she, in faltering accents, "I--I have not the right to ask
you, and I stand already so deeply in your debt. Not a doubt of it, but
it will have inconvenienced you to have journeyed thus far to inform me of
the flight of my grooms. Yet if you could--" She paused, timid of
proceeding, and her glance fell.
The hostess was all ears, struck by the respectful manner in which this
very evidently noble lady addressed a Fool. I opened the door for her.
"You may leave us now," said I. "I will come to you presently."
When she was gone I turned once more to the lady, my course resolved upon.
My hate had conquered my last doubt. What first imported was that I
should get to Pesaro and to Madonna Lucrezia.
"You were about to ask me," said I, "that I should accompany you to
Pesaro."
"I hesitated, sir," she murmured. I bowed respectfully.
"There was not the need, Madonna," I assured her. "I am at your service."
"But, Messer Boccadoro, I have no claim upon you."
"Surely," said I, "the claim that every distressed lady has upon a man of
heart. Let us say no more. It were best not to delay in setting out,
although I can scarcely think that there is any imminent danger from
Ramiro del' Orca now."
"Who is he?" she inquired. I told her, whereupon--"
Did they come up with you?" she asked. "What passed between you?"
Succinctly I related what had chanced, and how I had sent Ramiro on a
fool's errand, adding the particulars of the flight of her grooms, and of
how I had rid myself of the litter and the second mule. She heard me, her
eyes sparkling, and at times she clapped her hands with a glee that was
almost childish, vowing that this was splendid, that was brave. I allayed
what little fears remained her by pointing out how effectively we had
effaced our tracks, and how vainly now Messer del' Orca might beat the
country in quest of a lady in a litter, escorted by four grooms.
And now she beset me with fresh thanks and fresh expressions of wonder at
my generous readiness to befriend her--a wonder all devoid of suspicion
touching the single-mindedness of my purpose. But I reminded her that we
had little leisure to stand talking, and left her to make her preparations
for the journey, whilst I went below to see that my mule and her horse
were saddled. I made bold to pay the reckoning, and when presently she
spoke of it, with flaming cheeks, and would have pledged me a jewel, I
bade her look upon it as a loan which anon she might repay me when I had
brought her safely to her kinsman's Court at Pesaro.
Thus, at last, we left Cagli, and took the road north, riding side by side
and talking pleasantly the while, ever concerning the matter of her flight
and of her hopes of shelter at Pesaro, which, being nearest to her heart,
found readiest expression. I went wrapped in my cloak once more, my head-
dress hidden 'neath my broad-brimmed hat, so that the few wayfarers we
chanced on need not marvel to see a lady in such friendly intercourse with
a Fool. And so dull was I that day as not to marvel, myself, at such a
state of things.
The sun was declining, a red ball of fire, towards the mountains on our
left, casting a blood-red glow upon the snow that everywhere encompassed
us, as we cantered briskly on towards Fossombrone.
In that hour I fell to pondering, and I even caught myself hoping that
Messer Ramiro del' Orca might not chance upon the discovery of how
egregiously I had fooled him. He was dull-witted and slow at inference,
and upon that I built the hope that he might fail to associate me with
Madonna Paola's elusion of his pursuit. Thus the chance might yet be mine
of returning to Rome and the honourable employment Cesare Borgia had
promised me. If only that were so to fall out, I might yet contrive to
mend the wreckage of my life. I was returned, it seems, to the ways of
early youth, when we build our hopes of future greatness upon untenable
foundations!
Great hopes and great ambitions rose within my breast that January
evening, fired by the gentle child that rode beside me. Fate had sent me
to her aid that day, and I seemed to have acquired, by virtue of that
circumstance, a certain right in her. Had Fate no other favours for me in
her lap! I bethought me of the very House of Sforza, to which I had been
so shamefully attached, and of its humble source in that peasant,
Giacomuzzo Attendolo, surnamed Sforza for his abnormal strength of body,
who rose to great and princely heights.
Assuredly I had the advantage of such an one, and were the chance but
given me--
I went no further. Down in my heart I laughed to scorn my own wild
musings. Cesare Borgia would come to know--he must, whether Ramiro told
him, or whether he inferred it for himself from the account Ramiro must
give him of our meeting--how I had thwarted him in one thing, whilst I had
served him in another. Fate was against me. I had fallen too low to ever
rise again, and no dreams indulged in a sunset hour, and inspired,
perhaps, by a child who was beautiful as one of the saints of God, would
ever come to be realised by poor Boccadoro.
Night was falling as we clattered through the slippery streets of
Fossombrone.
CHAPTER V
MADONNA'S INGRATITUDE
We stayed in Fossombrone little more than a half-hour, and having made a
hasty supper we resumed our way, giving out that we wished to reach Fano
ere we slept. And so by the first hour of night Fossombrone was a league
or so behind us, and we were advancing briskly towards the sea. Overhead
a moon rode at the full in a clear sky, and its light was reflected by the
snow, so that we were not discomforted by any darkness. We fell,
presently, into a gentler pace, for, after all, there could be no
advantage in reaching Pesaro before morning, and as we rode we talked, and
I made bold to ask her the cause of her flight from Rome.
She told me then that she was Madonna Paola Sforza di Santafior, and that
Pope Alexander, in his nepotism and his desire to make rich and powerful
alliances for his family, had settled upon her as the wife for his nephew,
Ignacio Borgia. He had been emboldened to this step by the fact that her
only protector was her brother, Filippo di Santafior, whom they had sought
to coerce. It was her brother, who, seeing himself in a dangerous and
unenviable position, had secretly suggested flight to her, urging her to
repair to her kinsman Giovanni Sforza at Pesaro. Her flight, however,
must have been speedily discovered and the Borgias, who saw in that act a
defiance of their supreme authority, had ordered her pursuit.
But for me, she concluded, that pursuits must have resulted in her
capture, and once they had her back in Rome, willing or unwilling, they
would have driven her into the alliance by means of which they sought to
bring her fortune into their own house. This drew her into fresh
protestations of the undying gratitude she entertained towards me,
protestations which I would have stemmed, but that she persisted in them.
"It is a good and noble thing that you have done," said she, "and I think
that Heaven must have directed you to my aid, for it is scarce likely that
in all Italy I should have found another man who would have done so much."
"Why, what, after all, is this much that I have done?" I cried. "It is no
less than my manhood bade me do; no less than any other would have done
seeing you so beset."
"Nay, that is more than I can ever think," she answered. "Who for the
sake of an unknown would have suffered such inconveniences as have you?
Who would have returned as you have returned to advise me of the defection
of my grooms? Who, when other escort failed, would have gone the length
of journeying all this way to render a service that is beyond repayment?
And, above all, who for the sake of an unknown maid would have submitted
to this travesty of yours?"
"Travesty?" quoth I, so struck by that as to interrupt her at last. "What
travesty, Madonna?"
"Why, this garb of motley that you donned the better to fool my pursuers
and that you still wear in my poor service."
I turned in the saddle to stare at her, and in the moonlight I clearly saw
her eyes meet mine. So! that was the reason of her kindness and of the
easy familiarity of her speech with me! She deemed me some knight-errant
who caracoled through Italy in quest of imperilled maidens needing aid.
Of a certainty she had gathered her knowledge of the world from the works
of Messer Bojardo, or perhaps from the "Amadis of Gaul" of Messer Bernardo
Tasso. And, no doubt, she thought that suits of motley grew on bushes by
the roadside, whence those who had a fancy for disguise might cull them.
Well, well, it were better she should know the truth at once, and choose
such a demeanour as she considered fitting towards a Fool. I had no
stomach for the courtesies that were meant for such a man as I was not.
"Madonna, you are in error," I informed her, speaking slowly. "This garb
is no travesty. It is my usual raiment."
There was a pause and I saw the slackening of her reins. No doubt, had we
been afoot she would have halted, the better to confront me.
"How?" she asked, and a new note, imperious and chill, was sounding
already in her voice. "You would not have me understand that you are by
trade a Fool?
"Allowing that I am not a fool by birth, under what other circumstances,
think you, I should be likely to wear the garments of a Fool?"
"But this morning," she protested, after a brief pause, "when first I met
you, you were not so arrayed."
"I was arrayed even as I am now, in a cloak and hat and boots that hid my
motley from such undiscerning eyes as were yours and your grooms'--all
taken up with your own fears as you then were."
There was in the tail of that a sting, as I meant there should be, for the
sudden haughtiness of her tone was cutting into me. Was I less worthy of
thanks because I was a Fool? Had I on that account done less to serve and
save her? Or was it that the action which, in a spurred and armoured
knight, had been accounted noble was deemed unworthy of thanks in a
crested, motleyed jester? It seemed, indeed, that some such reasoning she
followed, for after that we spoke no more until we were approaching Fano.
A many times before had I felt the shame of my ignoble trade, but never so
acutely as at that moment. It had seared my soul when Giovanni Sforza had
told my story to his Court, ere he had driven me from Pesaro with threats
of hanging, and it had burned even deeper when later, Madonna Lucrezia,
upon entrusting me with her letter to her brother, had upbraided me with
the supineness that so long had held me in that vile bondage. But deepest
of all went now the burning iron of that disgrace. For my companion's
silence seemed to argue that had she known my quality she would have
scorned the aid of which she had availed herself to such good purpose. If
any doubt of this had mercifully remained me, her next words would have
served to have resolved it. It was when the lights of Fano gleamed ahead;
we were coming to a cross-roads, and I urged the turning to the left.
"But Fano is in front," she remonstrated coldly.
"This way we can avoid the town and gain the Pesaro road beyond it,"
answered I, my tone as cool as hers.
"Yet may it not be that at Fano I might find an escort?"
I could have cried out at her cruelty, for in her words I could but read
my dismissal from her service. There had been no more talk of an escort
other than that which I afforded, and with which at first she had been
well content.
I sat my mule in silence for a moment. She had been very justly served
had I been the vassal that she deemed me, and had I borne myself in that
character without consideration of her sex, her station or her years. She
had been very justly served had I wheeled about and left her there to make
her way to Fano, and thence to Pesaro, as best she might. She was without
money, as I knew, and she would have found in Fano such a reception as
would have brought the bitter tears of late repentance to her pretty eyes.
But I was soft-hearted, and, so, I reasoned with her; yet in a manner that
was to leave her no doubt of the true nature of her situation, and the
need to use me with a little courtesy for the sake of what I might yet do,
if she lacked the grace to treat me with gratitude for the sake of that
which I had done already.
"Madonna," said I. "It were wiser to choose the by-road and forego the
escort, since we have dispensed with it so far. There are many reasons
why a lady should not seek to enter Fano at this hour of night."
"I know of none," she interrupted me.
"That may well be. Nevertheless they exist."
"This night-riding in so lonely a fashion is little to my taste," she told
me sullenly. "I am for Fano."
She had the mercy to spare me the actual words, yet her tone told me as
plainly as if she had uttered them that I could go with her or not, as I
should choose. In silence, very sore at heart, I turned my mule's head
once more towards the lights of the town.
"Since you are resolved, so be it," was all my answer; and we proceeded.
No word did we exchange until we had entered the main street, when she
curtly asked me which was the best inn.
"'The Golden Fish,'" said I, as curtly, and to "The Golden Fish" we went.
Arrived there, Madonna Paola took affairs into her own hands. She
dismounted, leaving the reins with a groom, and entering the common-room
she proclaimed her needs to those that occupied it by loudly calling upon
the landlord to find her an escort of three or four knaves to accompany
her at once to Pesaro, where they should be well rewarded by the Lord
Giovanni, her cousin.
I had followed her in, and I ground my teeth at such an egregious piece of
folly. Her hood was thrown back, displaying the lenza of fine linen on
her sable hair, and over this a net of purest gold all set with jewels.
Her camorra, too, was open, and in her girdle there were gems for all to
see. There were but a half-dozen men in the room. Two of these had a
venerable air--they may have been traders journeying to Milan--whilst a
third, who sat apart, was a slender, effeminate-looking youth. The
remaining three were fellows of rough aspect, and when one of them--a
black-browed ruffian--raised his eyes and fastened them upon the riches
that Madonna Paola with such indifference displayed, I knew what was to
follow.
He rose upon the instant, and stepping forward, he made her a low bow.
"Illustrious lady," said he, "if these two friends of mine and I find
favour with you, here is an escort ready found. We are stout fellows, and
very faithful."
Faithful to their cut-throat trade, I made no doubt he meant.
His fellows now rose also, and she looked them over, giving herself the
airs of having spent her virgin life in judging men by their appearance.
It was in vain I tugged her cloak, in vain I murmured the word "wait"
under cover of my hand. She there and then engaged them, and bade them
make ready to set out at once. One more attempt I made to induce her to
alter her resolve.
"Madonna," said I, "it is an unwise thing to go a-journeying by night with
three unknown men, and of such villainous appearance. To me they seem no
better than bandits."
We were standing apart from the others, and she was sipping a cup of
spiced wine that the host had mulled for her. She looked at me with a
tolerant smile.
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