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 th
e 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!”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 112
