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 hop
eful. “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.
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“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.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 113
