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 — thi
s 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.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 111
