*CHAPTER XXII*
In the fortress of Vigevano the Duke of Milan sat at wine with hisgentlemen, his dark face a core of gloom, blighting the revel. Flushedcheeks; sparkling cups; hot dyes of silk and velvet, and the starrysplintering of gems; sconces of flaming tapers, and, between, banners ofpurple and crimson, like great moths, hanging on the walls above theheads of shining, motionless men-at-arms, whose staves and helmetstrickled light--all this, the whole rich damasked picture, seemed, whilethe sullen eye commanded it, to poise upon its own fall and change, likethe pieces in a kaleidoscope,--the Duke rose and passed out; andalready, with a leap and clatter, it had tumbled into a frolic ofwhirling colours.
This company, in short, conscious of its deserts, had felt anycold-watering of its spirits at the present pass intolerable. Therewere captains in it, raw from the icy plains of Piedmont, whence theyhad come after rallying their troops into winter quarters, against aresumption of hostilities in the spring. Tried men of war, and seasonedtoss-pots all, they claimed to spend after their mood the wages ofvalour, vindicated in many a hard-wrung victory. They had stood,Charles the Bold of Burgundy opposing, for the integrity of Savoy, andhad trounced its invaders well over the border. The sense of triumphwas in them, and, consequently, of grievance that it should be sodiscounted by a royal mumps, who till yesterday had been their struttingand crowing cock of conquest. What had happened in the interval, so toreturn him upon his old damned familiar self?
Something beyond their rude guessing--something which, at a breath, hadre-enveloped him in that cloud of constitutional gloom, which action andthe rush of arms had for a little dispelled. The change had taken himearlier in the day, when, about the hour of Mass, a little white,cake-fed Milanese had come whipping into Vigevano on a foam-droppingjade, and, crying as he clattered over the drawbridge to the castle, 'Hothere, ho there! Despatches for the Duke!' had been snapped up by theportcullis, and gulped and disposed of; and was now, no doubt--since noman had set eyes on him since--in process of being digested.
It may have been he that was disagreeing with their lord, and sendingthe black bile to his cheek; or it may have been that second tale-bearerwho, riding in about midday from the capital, had brought news of thefire which, the evening before, had gutted his Grace's private closet.Small matters in any case; and in any case, the death's-head havingwithdrawn itself from the feast, hail the bright reaction from thatmalign, oppressive gloom! A fresh breeze blows through the hall; thecandle-flames are jigging to the rafters; away with mumps and glumps!_Via-via_! See the arras blossom into a garden; the sentries, leaningto it, relax into smiling Gabriels of Paradise; the wine froth andsparkle at the cup rim! 'Way, way for the Duke's Grace!' the seneschalhad cried at the door; and Galeazzo, clumsily ushered by MesserCastellan, that blunt old one-eyed Cyclops, had slouched heavily out,and the curtain had dropped and blotted him from the record.
He turned sharply to the sound of its thud, and gave a quick littlestoop and start, as if he were dodging something. The face--thathaunting, indefinable ghost--was it behind him again, unlayed, in spiteof all the hope and promise? Why not, since its exorcist had provedhimself a Judas?
He ground his teeth, and moved on, muttering and maddening. Onlyyesterday he had been flattering himself with the thought of returningto his capital wreathed in all the glamour of conquest. And now! Falsefire--false, damning fire. What victor was he, who could not commandhimself? What vicegerent of the All-seeing, who could nominate atraitor and hypocrite to be his proxy? And he had so believed in theaccursed boy!
The prophecy of the monk Capello stuck like a poisonous burr in hissoul. He could not shake it off. Now, he remembered, was the nearseason for its maturing--a superstition aggravated tenfold by thethought that its ripening had been let to prosper in the sun of his owncredulous trust. And he could not temporise while the moment struck andpassed, for his fate turned upon the moment. Moreover, Christmas was athand, a time dear to the traditions of his house; and, rightly ormistakenly, he believed that upon a maintenance of those traditionsdepended his house's prevalence. His acts must continue to compareroyally, in seasonable largesse and bounty, with those of Francesco, itsyet adored founder; and he could not afford to ignore those obligations.He felt himself trapped, and turning, turning, between the devil and thedeep sea.
But he was not without a sort of desperado courage; and fury lent himnerve.
'Lead on, lead on, Castellano,' he snarled, grinning like a wolf. 'Thecalf by now should be in train for his blooding.'
They found him stalled deep among the foundations of the fortress, in astone chamber whose kiln-like conformation shaped itself horribly to theneeds and privacies of the 'question.' He might, this Tassino, havebeen a calf indeed, by the deadly pallor of his flesh. From the momentwhen, still in the glow of his send-off, he had dared, producing his_piece de conviction_ before the Duke, to incriminate Bona on itsevidence, and had been gripped by the neck for his pains, and flung,squealing like a rat, into this sewer, it had never warmed by a degreefrom this livid hue. Sickened, rather, since here, dreadfully internedthroughout the day, like a schoolboy locked in with an impossibleimposition, he had been left to writhe and moan, in awful anticipationof the coming inquisition and its likely consequences to himself. Theywere prefigured for him, in order to the sharp-setting of his wits, in ascore or so instruments, all slack and somnolent and unstrung for thetime being, but suggestive of hideous potentialities in their tautening.The rack riveted to the floor; the pulley pendent from the ceiling; thestocks in the corner, with the chafing-dish, primed with knobs ofcharcoal, ready at its foot-holes; the escalero or chevalet, which was atrough for strangling recalcitrant hogs in, limb by limb; the iron dicefor forcing into the heels, and the canes for twisting and breaking thefingers; the water-bag and the thumbscrew and the fanged pincers--such,and such in twenty variations of hook and stirrup and danglingmonstrosities of block and steel, but all pointing a common moral ofterrific human pain, where the inducements to a calmly thought-outself-exculpation which had been offered to Tassino's solitaryconsideration. No wonder that, when at last the key turned and theharsh door creaked to admit his inquisitors, he should have screamed outwith the mortal scream of a creature that finds itself cut off fromescape in a burning house.
The Castellan struck him, judicially, across the mouth, and he wassilent immediately, falling on his knees and softly chattering bloodyteeth. Galeazzo, rubbing his chin, conned him at his smiling leisure;while, motionless and apathetic in the opening of the door, stood acouple of dark, aproned figures, one a Nubian.
'Ebbene, Messer Tassino,' purred the Duke at length; 'hasreconsideration found your indictment open to some revision? Rise,sir--rise.'
He waved his hand loftily. The wretch, after a vain attempt or two,succeeded in getting to his feet, on which he stood like a man palsied.He essayed the while to answer; but somehow his tongue was at odds withhis palate.
The Duke, watching him, stealthily lifted his left hand, showing a greenstone on one of its fingers.
'Mark ye that?' said he, smiling.
The other's lips moved inaudibly; his glittering eyes were fixed uponthe token.
'Say again,' said Galeazzo, 'who charged ye with it to this errand?'
The poor animal mumbled.
'Now hist, now hist, my lord's Grace,' put in the Castellan, the lightin his solitary eye travelling like a spark in dead tinder: 'there's anemetic or so here would assist the creature's delivery.'
Tassino gulped and found his voice--or a mockery of it:--
'My lord--spare me--'twas Caprona's widow.'
'And for what purpose?'
The fool, lost in terror, garbled his lesson.
'To destroy the Duchess, whom she hates. I know not: 'twas MesserLudovic made himself her agent to me.'
'Ho!' cried the Duke, and the monosyllable rolled up and round under theroof, and was returned upon him. 'Here's addition, not subtraction.What more?'
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nbsp; Advancing, with set grinning lips, he thumbed the victim's arm, as hemight be a market-wife testing a fowl.
'Plump, plump,' he said, turning his head about. 'Shall we not singe thefat capon, Messer Castellan, before trussing him for the spit?'
At a sign, the two butchers at the door advanced and seized theirvictim. He struggled desperately in their grasp. Shriek upon shriekissued from his lips. Galeazzo thundered down his cries:--
'Lay him out,' he roared, 'and bare his ribs.'
In a moment Tassino was stretched in the rack, an operator, head andheel, gripping at the spokes of the drums. The Duke came and stoodabove, contemplative again now, and ingratiatory.
'So!' he said; 'we are in train, at last, for the truth. Tassino, mypoor boy, who indeed sent you with this ring to me?'
'O Messer! before God! It was your brother.'
'And acting for whom?'
'The lady, Beatrice.'
'Who had been given it by?'
'Messer Bembo.'
'Ay: and he had received it from----?'
The poor wretch choked, and was silent. Galeazzo glanced aside: thewinches creaked.
'Mercy, in God's name! Mercy!' shrieked the miserable creature. 'Iwill swear that it was won from her Grace by fraud--that she neverknowingly parted with it to--to----'
'Ha!' struck in the Duke; and drew himself up, and pondered awhileblackly.
'My brother--my brother,' ran his thought. 'It may be; it may well be.To ruin her in mine eyes--yes: a fond fool. But a loyal fool. She'dnot conspire--not she; nor Simonetta, loyal too--who mistrusts him, andwhom he 'd drag down with her. What, Ludovic!--too crafty, toooverreaching. Yet, conspiracy there may be, and she its unconscioustool.'
He looked down again, glooming, grating his chin.
'Here's some revision, then. Thou whelp, so to have bitten the handthat stroked thee! Shall I not draw thy teeth for it?'
'Pity, pity!' moaned Tassino. 'I spoke under compulsion.'
'And so shall,' snarled the other. 'What! To mend a slander oncompulsion! More physic may bring more cure. Perchance hast made thisCountess too thy cats-paw?'
'My lord! No! On my soul!'
'She hates the Duchess?'
'Yes, poisonously.'
'Why?'
'My lord!'
'Why, I say?'
'Alas! she covets for herself what the Duchess claims to heaven.'
'Riddles, swine! Covets! What or whom?'
'O, O! Your Grace's false deputy, Messer Bembo.'
'What! false? You'll stick to it?'
'How can I help?--O! dread my lord, how can I help the truth, unless you'd wrench from me a travesty of it?'
His breast heaved and sobbed. The tyrant gloomed upon him.
'Is it true, then, he's a traitor?'
'O, the blackest--the most subtle! There can I utter withoutprompting.'
It was true that he believed he could. Remember how, mongrel though hewas, his mind had been fed on slander of our saint.
Galeazzo dropped into a moody reverie. A long quivering sigh thereatbroke from his prostrate victim. Mean wits are cunning for themselves;and, looking up into the dark eyes bent above him, Tassino thought hesaw reflected there a first faint ghost of hope. O, to hold, tomaterialise it! He must be infinitely cautious.
He moaned, and wagged his head. The Duke broke out again:--
'False! is he false to me? And yet my wife is true, thou sayest? andyet this woman of Caprona's jealous, thou sayest? Of whom?--O, dog,beware!'
'Master, of a shadow. She reads the woman's baseness in the man's.'
'Ho! Not like thou: what, puppy?'
'Before God, no. 'Tis Madonna's very innocence helps his designs.'
'How?'
'By trusting in, and exalting them for heaven's. She'll wake when it'stoo late, and weep and curse herself for having betrayed thee.'
'She will? Betray? Too late? These be terms meeter to a rebellionthan a schism.'
'Yet must I speak them, weeping, though I die.'
The despot gnawed his lip.
'Hast venom in thee, and with reason, to sting the boy?'
'Alas! to warn thee rather from his fang.'
'Ha!'
'It will lie flat against his palate, till the time when with his subtleeyes he shall invite thy hand to stroke his head. No rebellion, lord;no python rearing on his crushing folds. Yet may the little snake bedeadlier.'
He was gathering confidence hair by hair. There were glints of comingtempest, well known to him, blooding the corners of Galeazzo's eyes. Hebelieved, by them, that he should presently ride this storm of his ownevoking.
'Ah!' he moaned, 'I'm sick. Mercy, lord! Truth 's not itself unlessupright.'
The tyrant tossed his hand:--
'Set the dog on his legs.'
The dog so far justified his title that, being released, he crawledabject on all fours to his master's feet, and crouched there ready tolick them.
'Bah!' cried the Duke, and spurned him. 'Get on thy hind legs, ape!The rope's but slackened from thy hanging; the noose yet cuddles to thyneck. Stand'st there to justify thyself, or answer with a separate rackand screw for every lie thou 'st uttered.'
He strode a pace or two like one demented; turned, snarled out a suddenshocking laugh, and came close up again to the trembling, but stillconfident wretch.
'See, we'll be reasonable,' he said, mockingly insinuative; 'a twinamity of dialecticians, ardent for the truth, cooing like love-birds."Well, on my faith, he's a traitor," says you; and "your faith shall bemine on vindication, sweet brother," says I. Now, what proves himtraitor? I ask.'
'He rules the palace.'
'Why, I set him in my place.'
'You did indeed; but--ah! dare I say what's whispered?'
'You 'd better.'
'Why--O, mercy! Bid me not.'
'I'll not ask again.'
'You force me to it--that, being there, he designs to stay.'
'He'll be Duke?'
'No, no.'
'You shall wince with better reason. Dog, you dog my patience. I'llturn. What then?'
'Only that he sits for Christ. Let them depose him that are devils'men.'
'My men?'
'O! he's subtle. No word against your Grace; only the dumb pleas oflove and pity courting comparison.'
'With what?'
'Your Grace's sharper methods.'
'Beast! Did I not waive them for his sake? Did I not leave myconscience in his keeping?'
'Alas! if thou didst, he's used it, like a false friend, in damningevidence against thee.'
'O Judas!'
'Used it to point the moral of his own large tolerance. The people riseto him--cry him in the streets: "Down with Galeazzo! Nature's ourGod!"'
'Ha! He's Nature?'
'As they read him--lord of the slums.'
'Lord of filthy swine. I'll ring their snouts. Well, goon. God of theslums, is he?'
'God of thy palace, too; mends and amends thy laws--sugars them forsweet palates--gains the women--O, a prince of confectioners! There'sthe ring to prove.'
'What!'
'I can guess when he wheedled it.'
'Thou canst?'
'The moment thy back was turned. So quick he sped to discredit thee--toreverse thy judgments. The monk thou'd left to starve, a dogwell-served--he'd release him, a fine text to open on. But Jacopo wasobdurate--would not let him pass, neither him nor Cicada----'
'What! the Fool?'
'O, they're in one conspiracy--inseparable. He's to be Vizier someday.'
'I'll remember that.'
'So he ran off, and presently returned with a pass-token. I guessed notwhat at the time; now I guess. It was the ring he'd coaxed fromMadonna.'
'And saved the monk thereby?'
'Ah-ha! Jacopo had forestalled him; the monk was dead.'
'What did he then?'
'Cursed thy lord's Grace, and ran; ran and hid himself awa
y among thepeople, he and his Fool, and spat his poison in that sewer, to festerand bear fruit. 'Twas only presently the Duchess heard of him, andpersuaded him on sweet promise of amendment back to the Court. He'smade the most of that concession since, using it to----'
He checked himself, and whimpered and sprang back. On the instant thestorm which he had dreaded while provoking was burst upon him.Credulous and irrational like all tyrants, Galeazzo never thought toanalyse interests and motives in any indictment whose pretext wasdevotion to himself and his safety. Wrapped in eternal unbelief in allmen, no man was so easily arrested as he by the first hint of aplausible rogue professing to serve him, or so quick, being inoculated,to develop the very confluent scab of suspicion. It were well only forAutolycus to make the most of his fees during his little spell offavour, and to disappear on the earliest threat of himself fallingvictim to the disease he had promoted.
Now, for this dumb-struck quartette of knaves and butchers, was enactedone of those little _danses-diaboliques_ in which this fearful man waswont to vent his periodic frenzies. He shrieked and leapt and foamed,racing and twisting to and fro within the narrow confines of thedungeon. Ravings and blasphemies tore and sputtered from his lips; maddestruction issued at his hands. He spurned whatever blocked his path,things living or inanimate; nor seemed to feel or recognise how hebruised himself, but stumbled over, and snatched at, and hurled aside,all that crossed the red vision of his rage. Struggling for coherence,he could force his imprecations but by fits and snatches to risearticulate:--
'Subtle!--I'll be subtler--devil unmasked--no Future?--a speciousdog--hell gapes in front--master of my own--to vindicate themonk?--treason against his lord--ha, ha! Jacopo! good servant! goodrefuter of a sacrilegious hound!'
Then all at once, quite suddenly as it had risen, the tempest passed.Slack, dribbling, hoarse, unashamed, he stopped beside his death-whiteinformer and pawed and mouthed upon him:--
'Why, Tassino! Why--my little honest carver o' joints! Thou mean'st mewell, I do believe.'
'O my lord!' cried the trembling rogue, 'if you would but trust me!'
'Why, so I do, Tassino,' urged the Duke, nervously handling and strokingthe young man's arm. 'So I do, little pretty varlet. I believe thystory--fie! an impious tale. Deserv'st well of me for thatboldness--good courage--the truth needs it. Wilt serve me yet?'
'My lord, to the death.'
'Fie, fie! Not so far, I hope. Yet, listen; 'twere meet this viperwere not let to crawl himself within our laurels, and crown our triumphwith a poisonous bite. Hey?'
'I understand your Grace.'
'A hint's enough, then. 'Tis no great matter; but these worms willsting.'
'I'll jog Jacopo.'
'You will? He's true to me?'
'O yes!'
'No convert to the other?'
'He hates him well.'
'Does he? A viper has no friends but his kind. This one--hark! a wordin your ear. He 'd loose Capello, who damned me, and was damned? Wereit not right then the false prophet should take the false prophet'splace?'
'Most right.'
'The word's with thee, little chuck. How about the Fool?'
'As bad, or worse, my lord.'
'Hush! Two vipers, do you say?'
'My lord!'
'Be circumspect, that's all. 'Tis our will to give great largesse thisChristmastide.'
'The very sound will jingle out his memory--bury the golden calf undergold.'
'Good, little rogue. We'll linger on the Mount meanwhile--just a day orso, to let the promise work. 'Twere a sleeveless triumph through agrudging city. Let these thorns be plucked first from our road.'
'I'll ride at once, saving your Grace.'
'Do so, and tell Jacopo, "Quietly, mind--without fuss."'
'Trust me.'
The Duke flicked his arm and turned, smiling, to the Castellan.
'You shall provide Messer Tassino,' said he smoothly, 'with his liberty,and a swift horse.'
A week later, Sforza the second of Milan set out for his Capital, in allthe pomp and circumstance of state which befitted a mighty princegreatly homing after conquest. His path, by all the rules of glory,should have been a bright one; yet his laurels might have been Death'sown, from the gloom they cast upon his brow. Last night, looking fromhis chamber window, he had seen a misty comet cast athwart that track:to-day, scarce had he started, when three ravens, rising from therice-swamps, had come flapping with hoarse crow to cross it. He hadthundered for an arbalest--loosed the quarrel--shot wide--spun theweapon to the ground. An inexplicable horror had seized him.Thenceforth he rode with bent head and glassy eyes fixed upon thecrupper. The road of death ran before; behind sat the shadow of hisfear, cutting him from retreat. So he reached the Porta Giovia, passedover the drawbridge, in silence dismounted, and for the first timelooked up vaguely.
'Black, black!' he muttered to the page who held his horse. 'Let Massbe sung in it to-morrow, and for the chaunts be dirges. See to it.'
Did he hope so to hoodwink heaven, by abasing himself in the vestmentsof remorse? Likely enough. He had always been cunning to hold from itthe worst of his confidence.
But in the thick of the night a voice came to him, blown upon the windof dreams:--
'No Future, O, no Future! Look to thy Past!'
And he started up in terror, quavering aloud:--
'Who's that that being dead yet speaketh!'
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