“‘You have been wise,’ said he,’ and you shall have your life on one condition — that you devote it to my service.’
“‘Even that will I do,’ I answered readily. He turned to an attendant, and ordered him to go fetch a suit of motley. No word passed between us until that man returned with those garish garments. Then Giovanni smiled on me in his mocking, infernal way.
“‘Not that,’ I cried, guessing his purpose.
“‘Aye, that,’ he answered me; ‘that or the hangman’s noose. A man who could devise so monstrous a jest as was your challenge to the Tyrant of Pesaro should be a merry fellow if he would. I need such a one. There are two Fools at my Court, but they are mere tumblers, deformed vermin that excite as much disgust as mirth. I need a sprightlier man, a man of some learning and more drollery; such a man, in short, as you would seem to be.’
“I recoiled in horror and disgust. Was this his clemency — this sparing of my life that he might submit it to an eternal shame? For a moment my mother was forgotten. I thought only of myself, and I grew resolved to hang.
“‘When you spoke of service,’ said I ‘I thought of service of an honourable sort.’
“‘The service that I offer you is honourable,’ he said, with cold amusement. ‘Indeed, remembering that your life was forfeit, you should account yourself most fortunate. You shall be well housed and well fed, you shall wear silk and lie in fine linen, on condition that you are merry. If you prove dull our castellan shall have you whipped — for such a one as you could not be dull save out of sullenness, of which we shall seek to cure you if you show signs of it.’
“‘I will not do it,’ I cried, ‘it were too base.’
“‘My friend,’ he answered me, ‘the choice is yours. You shall have an hour in which to resolve what you will do. When they open this door for you at sunset, come forth clad as you are, and you shall hang. If you prefer to live, then don me that robe and cap of motley, and, on condition that you are merry, life is yours.’”
I paused a moment. Our horses were moving slowly, for the tale engrossed us both, me in the telling, her in the hearing. Presently —
“I need not harass you with the reflections that were mine during that hour, Madonna. Rather let me ask you: how should a man so placed make choice to be full worthy of the office proffered him?”
There was a moment’s silence while she pondered.
“Why,” she answered me, at last, “a fool I take it would have chosen death: the wise man life, since it must hold the hope of better days.”
“And since it asked a man of wit to play the fool to such a tune as the Lord Giovanni piped, that wise young man chose life and folly. But was that choice indeed so wise? The story ends not there. That young men whose early life had been one of hardships found himself, indeed, well-housed and fed as the Lord Giovanni had promised him, and so he fell into a slothful spirit, and was content to play the Fool for bed and board.
“There were times when conscience knocked loudly at my heart, and I was tortured with shame to see myself in the garb of Fools, the sport of all, from prince to scullion. But in the three years that I had dwelt at Pesaro my identity had been forgotten by the few who had ever been aware of it. Moreover, a court is a place of changes, and in three years there had been such comings and goings at the Court of Giovanni Sforza, that not more than one or two remained of those that had inhabited it when first I entered on my existence there. Thus had my position grown steadily more bearable. I was just a jester and no more, and so, in a measure — though I blush to say it — I grew content. I gathered consolation from the fact that there were not any who now remembered the story of my coming to Pesaro, or who knew of the cowardliness I had been guilty of when I consented to mask myself in the motley and assume the name of Boccadoro. I counted on the Lord Giovanni’s generosity to let things continue thus, and, meanwhile, I provided for my mother out of the vails that were earned me by my shame. But there came a day when Giovanni in evil wantonness of spirit chose to make merry at the Fool’s expense.
“To be held up to scorn and ridicule is a part of the trade of such as I, and had it been just Boccadoro whom Giovanni had exposed to the derision of his Court, haply I had been his jester still. But such sport as that would have satisfied but ill the deep-seated malice of his soul. The man whom his cruel mockery crucified for their entertainment was Lazzaro Biancomonte, whom he revealed to them, relating in his own fashion the tale I have told you.
“At that I rebelled, and I said such things to him in that hour, before all his Court, as a man may not say to a prince and live. Passion surged up in him, and he ordered his castellan to flog me to the bone — in short, to slay me with a whip.
“From that punishment I was saved by the intercessions of Madonna Lucrezia. But I was driven out of Pesaro that very night, and so it happens that I am a wanderer now.”
At that I left it. I had no mind to tell her what motives had impelled Lucrezia Borgia to rescue me, nor on what errand I had gone to Rome and was from Rome returning.
She had heard me in silence, and now that I had done, she heaved a sigh, for which gentle expression of pity out of my heart I thanked her. We were silent, thereafter, for a little while. At length she turned her head to regard me in the light of the now declining moon.
“Messer Biancomonte,” said she, and the sound of the old name, falling from her lips, thrilled me with a joy unspeakable, and seemed already to reinvest me in my old estate, “Messer Biancomonte, you have done me in these four-and-twenty hours such service as never did knight of old for any lady — and you did it, too, out of the most disinterested and noble of motives, proving thereby how truly knightly is that heart of yours, which, for my sake, has all but beat its last to-night. You must journey on to Pesaro with me despite this banishment of which you have told me. I will be surety that no harm shall come to you. I could not do less, and I shall hope to do far more. Such influence as I may prove to have with my cousin of Pesaro shall be exerted all on your behalf, my friend; and if in the nature of Giovanni Sforza there be a tithe of the gratitude with which you have inspired me, you shall, at least, have justice, and Biancomonte shall be yours again.”
I was silent for a spell, so touched was I by the kindness she manifested me — so touched, indeed, and so unused to it that I forgot how amply I had earned it, and how rudely she had used me ere that was done.
“Alas!” I sighed. “God knows I am no longer fit to sit in the house of the Biancomonte. I am come too low, Madonna.”
“That Lazzaro, after whom you are named,” she answered, “had come yet lower. But he lived again, and resumed his former station. Take your courage from that.”
“He lived not at the mercy of Giovanni of Pesaro,” said I.
There was a fresh pause at that. Then— “At least,” she urged me, “you’ll come to Pesaro with me?”
“Why yes,” said I. “I could not let you go alone.” And in my heart I felt a pang of shame, and called myself a cur for making use of her as I was doing to reach the Court of Giovanni Sforza.
“You need fear no consequences,” she promised me. “I can be surety for that at least.”
In the east a brighter, yellower light than the moon’s began to show. It was the dawn, from which I gathered that it must be approaching the thirteenth hour. Pesaro could not be more than a couple of leagues farther, and, presently, when we had gained the summit of the slight hill we were ascending, we beheld in the distance a blurred mass looming on the edge of the glittering sea. A silver ribbon that uncoiled itself from the western hills disappeared behind it. That silvery streak was the River Foglia; that heap of buildings against the landscape’s virgin white, the town of Pesaro.
Madonna pointed to it with a sudden cry of gladness. “See Messer Biancomonte, how near we are. Courage, my friend; a little farther, and yonder we have rest and comfort for you.”
She had need, in truth, to cry me “Courage!” for I was weakening fast once more. It may have been the
much that I had talked, or the infernal jolting of my mule, but I was losing blood again, and as we were on the point of riding forward my senses swam, so that I cried out; and but for her prompt assistance I might have rolled headlong from my saddle.
As it was, she caught me about the waist as any mother might have done her son. “What ails you?” she inquired, her newly-aroused anxiety contrasting sharply with her joyous cry of a moment earlier. “Are you faint, my friend?” It needed no confession on my part. My condition was all too plain as I leaned against her frail body for support.
“It is my wound,” I gasped. Then I set my teeth in anguish. So near the haven, and to fail now! It could not be; it must not be. I summoned all my resolution, all my fortitude; but in vain. Nature demanded payment for the abuses she had suffered.
“If we proceed thus,” she ventured fearfully, “you leaning against me, and going at a slow pace — no faster than a walk — think you, you can bear it? Try, good Messer ‘Biancomonte.”
“I will try, Madonna,” I replied. “Perhaps thus, and if I am silent, we may yet reach Pesaro together. If not — if my strength gives out — the town is yonder and the day is coming. You will find your way without me.”
“I will not leave you, sir,” she vowed; and it was good to hear her.
“Indeed, I hope you may not know the need,” I answered wearily. And thus we started on once more.
Sant’ Iddio! What agonies I suffered ere the sun rose up out of the sea to flood us with his winter glory! What agonies were mine during those two hours or so of that last stage of our eventful journey! “I must bear up until we are at the gates of Pesaro,” I kept murmuring to myself, and, as if my spirit were inclined to become the servant of my will and hold my battered flesh alive until we got that far, Pesaro’s gates I had the joy of entering ere I was constrained to give way.
Dimly I remember — for very dim were my perceptions growing — that as we crossed the bridge and passed beneath the archway of the Porta Romana, the officer turned out to see who came. At sight of me be gaped a moment in astonishment.
“Boccadoro?” he exclaimed, at last. “So soon returned?”
“Like Perseus from the rescue of Andromeda,” answered I, in a feeble voice, “saving that Perseus was less bloody than am I. Behold the Madonna Paola Sforza di Santafior, the noble cousin of our High and Mighty Lord.”
And then as if my task being done, I were free to set my weary brain to rest, my senses grew confused, the officer’s voice became a hum that gradually waxed fainter as I sank into what seemed the most luxurious and delicious sleep that ever mortal knew.
Two days later, when I was conscious once more, I learned what excitement those words of mine had sown, with what honours Madonna Paola was escorted to the Castle, and how the citizens of Pesaro turned out upon hearing the news which ran like fire before us. And Madonna, it seems, had loudly proclaimed how gallantly I had served her, for as they bore me along in a cloak carried by four men-at-arms, the cry that was heard in the streets of Pesaro that morning was “Boccadoro!” They had loved me, had those good citizens of Pesaro, and the news of my departure had cast a gloom upon the town. To have their hero return in a manner so truly heroic provoked that brave display of their affection, and I deeply doubt if ever in the days of greatest loyalty the name of Sforza was as loudly cried in Pesaro as, they tell me, was the name of Sforza’s Fool that day.
CHAPTER VII. THE SUMMONS FROM ROME
If Madonna Paola did not achieve quite all that she had promised me so readily, yet she achieved more than from my acquaintance with the nature of Giovanni Sforza — and my knowledge of the deep malice he entertained for me — I should have dared to hope.
The Tyrant of Pesaro, as I was soon to learn, was greatly taken with this fair cousin of his, whom that morning he had beheld for the first time. And being taken with her, it may be that Giovanni listened the more readily to her intercessions on my poor behalf. Since it was she who begged this thing, he could not wholly refuse. But since he was Giovanni Sforza, he could not wholly grant. He promised her that my life, at least, should be secure, and that not only would he pardon me, but that he would have his own physician see to it that I was made sound again. For the time, that was enough, he thought. First let them bring me back to life. When that was achieved, it would be early enough to consider what course this life should take thereafter.
And she, knowing him not and finding him so kind and gracious, trusted that he would perform that which he tricked her into believing that he promised.
For some ten days I lay abed, feverish at first and later very weak from the great loss of blood I had sustained. But after the second day, when my fever had abated, I had some visitors, among whom was Madonna Paola, who bore me the news that her intercessions for me with the Lord of Pesaro were likely to bear fruit, and that I might look for my reinstatement. Yet, if I permitted myself to hope as she bade me; I did so none too fully.
My situation, bearing in mind how at once I had served and thwarted the ends of Cesare Borgia, was perplexing.
Another visitor I had was Messer Magistri — the pompous seneschal of Pesaro — who, after his own fashion, seemed to have a liking for me, and a certain pity. Here was my chance of discharging the true errand on which I was returned.
“I owe thanks,” said I, “to many circumstances for the sparing of my life; but above all people and all things do I owe thanks to our gracious Lady Lucrezia. Do you think, Messer Magistri, that she would consent to see me and permit me again to express the gratitude that fills my heart?”
Mosser Magistri thought that he could promise this, and consented to bear my message to her. Within the hour she was at my bedside and divining that, haply, I had news to give her of the letter I had born her brother, she dismissed Magistri who was in attendance.
Once we were alone her first words were of kindly concern for my condition, delivered in that sweet, musical voice that was by no means the least charm of a princess to whom Nature had been prodigal of gifts. For without going to that length of exaggerated praise which some have bestowed — for her own ear, and with an eye to profit — upon Madonna Lucrezia, yet were I less than truthful if I sought to belittle her ample claims to beauty. Some six years later than the time of which I write she was met on the occasion of her entry into Ferrara by a certain clown dressed in the scanty guise of the shepherd Paris, who proffered her the apple of beauty with the mean-souled flattery that since beholding her he had been forced to alter his old-time judgment in favour of Venus.
He lied, like the brazen, self-seeking adulator that he was, and for which he should have been soundly whipped. Her nose was a shade too long, her chin a shade too short to admit, even remotely, of such comparisons. Still, that she had a certain gracious beauty, as I have said, it is not mine to deny. There was an almost childish freshness in her face, an almost childish innocence in her fine gray eyes, and, above all, a golden and resplendent hair as brought to mind the tresses of God’s angels.
That fair child — for no more than a child was she — drew a chair to my bedside.
There she sate herself, whilst I thanked her for her concern on my behalf, and answered that I was doing well enough, and should be abroad again in a day or two.
“Brave lad,” she murmured, patting my hand, which lay upon the coverlet, as though she had been my sister and I anything but a Fool, “count me ever your friend hereafter, for what you have done for Madonna Paola. For although it was my own family you thwarted, yet you did so to serve one who is more to me than any family, more than any sister could be.”
“What I did, Madonna,” I answered, “I did with the better heart since it opened out a way that was barred me, solved me a riddle which my Lord, your Illustrious brother, set me — one that otherwise might well have overtaxed my wits.”
“Ah?” Her gray eyes fell on me in a swift and searching glance, a glance that revealed to the full their matchless beauty. Care seemed of a sudden to have aged her face. The qu
estion of her eyes needed no translation into words.
“The Lord Cardinal of Valencia entrusted me with a letter for you, in answer to your own,” I informed her, and from underneath my pillow I drew the package, which during Magistri’s absence I had abstracted from my boot that I might have it in readiness when she came.
She sighed as she took it, and a wistful smile invested the corners of her mouth.
“I had hoped he would have found better employment for you,” she said.
“His Excellency promised that he would more fitly employ me in the future did I discharge this errand with secrecy and despatch. But by aiding Madonna Paola I have burned my boats against returning to claim the redemption of that promise; though had it not been for Madonna Paola and what I did, I scarce know how I should have penetrated here to you.”
She broke the seal, and rising crossed to the window, where she stood reading the letter, her back toward me. Presently I heard a stifled sob. The letter was crushed in her hand. Then moments passed ere she confronted me once more. But her manner as all changed; she was agitated and preoccupied, and for all that she forced herself to talk of me and my affairs, her mind was clearly elsewhere. At last she left me, nor did I see her again during the time I was confined to my bed.
On the eleventh day I rose, and the weather being mild and spring-like, I was permitted by my grave-faced doctor to take the air a little on the terrace that overlooks the sea. I found no garments but some suits of motley, and so, in despite of my repugnance now to reassume that garb, I had no choice but to array myself in one of these. I selected the least garish one — a suit of black and yellow stripes, with hose that was half black, half yellow, too; and so, leaning upon the crutch they had left me, I crept forth into the sunlight, the very ghost of the man that I had been a fortnight ago.
I found a stone seat in a sheltered corner looking southward towards Ancona, and there I rested me and breathed the strong invigorating air of the Adriatic. The snows were gone, and between me and the wall some twenty paces off — there was a stretch of soft, green turf.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 117
