Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  It may have been midnight when I was startled by the sound of a stealthy step in the corridor near my door. A heavy footfall I should have left unheeded, but this soft tread aroused me on the instant, and I sat listening.

  It halted at my door, and was succeeded by a soft, scratching sound. Noiselessly I rose, and with ready hands I waited, prepared, in the instinct of self-preservation, to fall upon the intruder, however futile the act might be. But the door did not open as I expected. Instead, the scratching sound continued, growing slightly louder. Then it occurred to me, at last, that whoever came might be a friend craving admittance, and proceeding stealthily that others in the castle might not overhear him.

  Swiftly I crossed to the door, and opened. On the threshold a dark figure straightened itself from a stooping posture, and the light of the taper behind me fell on a face of a pallor that seemed to glisten in its intensity. It was the face of Mariani, the seneschal of the Castle of Cessna.

  One glance we exchanged, and intuitively I seemed to apprehend the motive of this midnight visit. He came either to bring me aid or to seek mine, with vengeance for his guerdon. I stood aside, and silently he entered my room and closed the door.

  “Quench your taper,” he bade me in a husky whisper.

  Without hesitation I obeyed him, a strange excitement thrilling me. For a second we stood in the dark, then another light gleamed as he plucked away the cloak that masked a lanthorn which he had brought with him. He set the lanthorn on the floor, and held the cloak in his hand, ready at a moment’s notice to conceal the light in its folds. Then pulling me down beside him on the bed, where he had perched himself:

  “My friend,” said he, “it may be that I bring you assistance.”

  “Speak, then,” I bade him. “You shall not find me slow to act if there is the need or the way.”

  “So I had surmised,” he said. “Are you not that same Boccadoro, Fool of the Court of Pesaro, who donned the Lord Giovanni’s armour and rode out to do battle in his stead?”

  I answered him that I was that man.

  “I have heard the tale,” said he. “Indeed, all Italy has heard it, and knows you for a man of steel, as strong and audacious as you are cunning and resourceful. I know against what desperate odds you fought that day, and how you overcame this terrible Ramiro. This it is that leads me to hope that in the service of your own ends you may become the instrument of my vengeance.”

  “Unfold your project, man,” I muttered, fiercely almost, in my burning eagerness. “Let me hear what you would have me do.”

  He did not answer me until a sob had shaken his old frame.

  “That boy,” he muttered brokenly, “that golden-haired angel sent me for the consolation of my decaying years, that lad whom Ramiro destroyed so foully and wantonly, was my son. Futile though the attempt had proved, I had certainly set my hands at the tyrants neck, but that I founded hopes on you of a surer and more terrible revenge. That thought has manned me and upheld me when anguish was near to slaying me outright. To see the boy burn so under my very eyes! God of mercy and pity! That I should have lived so long!”

  “Your child burned but a moment, suffered but an instant; for the deed, Ramiro will burn in Hell through countless generations, through interminable ages.”

  It was a paltry consolation, perhaps, but it was the best that then occurred to me.

  “Meanwhile,” I begged him, “do you tell me what you would have me do.”

  I urged him to it that he might, thereby, suffer his mind to rest a moment from pondering that ghastly thing that he had witnessed, that scene that would live before his eyes until they closed in their last sleep.

  “You heard Lampugnani quip Ramiro with the fact that three messengers have ridden desperately within the week from Citta di Castello to Cesena, and you heard, perhaps, his obscure reference to the hat?”

  “I heard both, and both I weighed,” said I. The old man looked at me as if surprised.

  “And what,” he asked, “was the conclusion you arrived at?”

  “Why, simply this: that whilst the messenger bore some letter from Vitelli to Ramiro that should serve to lull the suspicions of any who, wondering at so much traffic between these two, should be moved to take a peep into those missives, the true letter with which the courier rides is concealed within the lining of his hat — probably unknown even to himself.”

  He stared at me as though I had been a wizard.

  “Messer Boccadoro—” he began.

  “My name,” I corrected him, “is Biancomonte — Lazzaro Biancomonte.”

  “Whatever be your name,” he returned, “of the quality of your wits there can be no question. You have guessed for yourself the half of what I was come to tell you. Has your shrewdness borne you any further? Have you concluded aught concerning the nature of those letters?”

  “I have concluded that it might repay some trouble to discover what is contained in letters that are sent with so much secrecy. I can conceive nothing that might lie between the Lord of Citta di Castello and this ruffian of Cesena, and yet — treason lurks often where least it is expected, and treason makes stranger bed-fellows than misfortune.”

  “Lampugnani was no fool, and yet a great fool,” the old man murmured. He surmised what you have surmised. With each of the messengers Ramiro has dealt in the same manner. He has sent each to be fed and refreshed whilst waiting to return with the answer he was penning. For their refreshment he has ordered a very full, stout wine — not drugged, for that they might discover upon awaking; but a wine that of itself would do the work of setting them to sleep very soundly. Then, when all slept, and only he remained at table, like the drunkard that he is, it has been his habit to descend himself to the kitchen and possess himself of the messenger’s hat. With this he has returned to the hall, opened the lining and withdrawn a letter.

  “Then, as I suppose, he has penned his answer, thrust it into the lining, where the other one had been, and secured it, as it was before, with his own hands. He has returned the hat to the place from whence he took it, and when the courier awakens in the morning there is another letter put into his hand, and he is bidden to bear it to Vitelli.”

  He paused a moment; then continued: “Lampugnani must have suspected something and watched Ramiro to make sure that his suspicions were well founded. In that he was wise, but he was a fool to allow Ramiro to see what lie he had discovered. Already he has paid the penalty. He is lying with a dagger in his throat, for an hour ago Ramiro stabbed him while he slept.”

  I shuddered. What a place of blood was this! Could it be that Cesare Borgia had no knowledge of what things were being performed by his Governor of Cesena?

  “Poor Lampugnani!” I sighed. “God rest his soul.”

  “I doubt but he is in Hell,” answered Mariani, without emotion. “He was as great a villain as his master, and he has gone to answer for his villainy even as this ugly monster of a Ramiro shall. But let Lampugnani be. I am not come to talk of him.

  “Returning from his bloody act, Ramiro ordered me to bed. I went, and as I passed Lampugnani’s room I saw the door standing wide. It was thus that I learnt what had befallen. I remembered his words concerning the hat and I remembered old suspicions of my own aroused by the thought of the potent wine which Ramiro had ordered me to see given to the couriers. I sped back to the gallery that overlooks the hall. Ramiro was absent, and I surmised at once that he was gone to the kitchen. Then was it that I thought of you and of what service you might render if things were indeed as I now more than suspected. Like an inspiration it came to me how I might prepare your way. I ran down to the hall, sweating in my terror that he should return ere I had performed the task I went on. From the buffet I drew a flagon of that same stout wine that Ramiro used upon his messengers. I ripped away the seal and crimson cord by which it is distinguished, and placing it on the table I removed the flagon I had set for him before I had first departed.

  “Then I fled back to the gallery, and from the shadows I watc
hed for his return. Soon he came, bearing a hat in his hand; and from that hat he took a letter, all as you have surmised. He read it, and I saw his face lighten with a fierce excitement. Then he helped himself freely to wine, and drank thirstily, for all that he was overladen with it. One of the qualities of this wine is that in quenching thirst it produces yet a greater. Ramiro drank again, then sat with the letter before him in the light of the single taper I had left burning. Presently he grew sleepy. He shook himself and drank again. Then again he sat conning his epistle, and thus I left him and came hither in quest of you.”

  There followed a pause.

  “Well?” I asked at length. “What is it you would have me do? Stab him as he sleeps?”

  He shook his head. “That were too sweet and sudden a death for him. If it had been no more than a matter of that, my old arms would have lent me strength enough. But think you it would repay me for having seen my boy pinned by that monster’s pike to the burning logs?”

  “What is it, then, you ask of me?”

  “If that letter were indeed the treasonable document we account it; if its treason should be aimed at Cesare Borgia — it could scarce be aimed at another — would it not be a sweet thing to obtain possession of it?”

  “Aye, but when he wakes to-morrow and finds it gone — what then? You know this Governor of Cesena well enough to be assured that he would ransack the castle, torture, rack, burn and flay us all until the missive were forthcoming.”

  “That,” he groaned, “is what deterred me. If I had the means of getting the letter sent to Cesare Borgia, or of escaping with it myself from Cesena, I should not have hesitated. Cesare Borgia is lying at Faenza, and I could ride there in a day. But it would be impossible for me to leave the place before morning. I have duties to perform in the town, and I might get away whilst I am about them, but before then the letter will have been missed, and no one will be allowed to leave the citadel.”

  “Why then,” said I, “the only hope lies in abstracting that letter in such a manner that he shall not suspect the loss; and that seems a very desperate hope.”

  We sat in silence for some moments, during which I thought intently to little purpose.

  “Does he sleep yet, think you?” I asked presently.

  “Assuredly he must.”

  “And if I were to go to the gallery, is there any fear that I should be discovered by others?”

  “None. All at Cesena are asleep by now.”

  “Then,” said I, rising, “let us take a look at him. Who knows what may suggest itself? Come.” I moved towards the door, and he took up his lanthorn and followed me, enjoining me to tread lightly.

  CHAPTER XVIII. THE LETTER

  On tiptoe I crept down that corridor to the gallery above the banqueting-hall, secure from sight in the enveloping darkness, and intent upon allowing no sound to betray my presence, lest Ramiro should have awakened. Behind me, treading as lightly, came Messer Mariani.

  Thus we gained the gallery. I leaned against the stout oaken balustrade, and looked down into the black pit of the hall, broken in the centre by the circle of light from the two tapers that burnt upon the table. The other torches had all been quenched.

  At the table sat Messer Ramiro, his head fallen forward and sideways upon his right arm which was outstretched and limp along the board. Before him lay a paper which I inferred to be the letter whose possession might mean so much.

  I could hear the old man breathing heavily beside me as I leaned there in the dark, and sought to devise a means by which that paper might be obtained. No doubt it would be the easiest thing in the world to snatch it away without disturbing him. But there was always to be considered that when he waked and missed the letter we should have to reckon with his measures to regain possession of it.

  It became necessary, therefore, to go about it in a manner that should leave him unsuspicious of the theft. A little while I pondered this, deeming the thing desperate at first. Then an idea came to me on a sudden, and turning to Mariani I asked him could he find me a sheet of paper of about the size of that letter held by Ramiro. He answered me that he could, and bade me wait there until he should return.

  I waited, watching the sleeper below, my excitement waxing with every second of the delay. Ramiro was snoring now — a loud, sonorous snore that rang like a trumpet-blast through that vast empty hall.

  At last Mariani returned, bringing the sheet of paper I had asked for, and he was full of questions of what I intended. But neither the place nor the time was one in which to stand unfolding plans. Every moment wasted increased the uncertainty of the success of my design. Someone might come, or Ramiro might awaken despite the potency of the wine he had been given — for on so well-seasoned a toper the most potent of wines could have but a transient effect.

  So I left Mariani, and moved swiftly and silently to the head of the staircase.

  I had gone down two steps, when, in the dark, I missed the third, the bells in my cap jangling at the shock. I brought my teeth together and stood breathless in apprehension, fearing that the noise might awaken him, and cursing myself for a careless fool to have forgotten those infernal bells. Above me I heard a warning hiss from old Mariani, which, if anything, increased my dread. But Ramiro snored on, and I was reassured.

  A moment I stood debating whether I should go on, or first return to divest myself of that cap of mine. In the end I decided to pursue the latter course. The need for swift and sudden movement might come ere I was done with this adventure, and those bells might easily be the undoing of me. So back I went to the surprise and infinite dismay of Mariani until I had whispered in his ear the reason. We retreated together to the corridor, and there, with his help, I removed my jangling headgear, which I left him to restore to my chamber.

  Whilst he went upon that errand I returned once more on mine, and this time I gained the foot of the stairs without mishap, and stood in the hall. Ramiro’s back was towards me. On my right stood the tall buffet from which the boy had fetched him wine that evening; this I marked out as the cover to which I must fly in case of need.

  A second I stood hesitating, still considering my course; then I went softly forward, my feet making no sound in the rushes of the floor. I had covered half the distance, and, growing bolder, I was advancing more swiftly and with less caution, when suddenly my knee came in contact with a three-legged stool that had been carelessly left where none would have suspected it. The blow may have hurt afterwards, indeed, I was conscious of a soreness at the knee; but at the moment I had no thought or care for physical pain. The bench went over with a crash, and for all that the rushes may have deadened in part the sound of its fall, to my nervous ear it boomed like the report of a cannon through the stillness of the place.

  I turned cold as ice, and the sweat of fear sprang out to moisten me from head to foot. Instantly I dropped on all fours, lest Ramiro, awaking suddenly, should turn; and I waited for the least sign that should render advisable my seeking the cover of the buffet. In the gallery above I could picture old Mariani clenching his teeth at the noise, his knees knocking together, and his face white with horror; for Ramiro’s snoring had abruptly ceased. It came to an end with a choking catch of the breath, and I looked to see him raise his head and start up to ascertain what it was that had aroused him. But he never stirred, and for all that he no longer snored, his breathing continued heavy and regular, so that I was cheered by the assurance that I had but disturbed his slumber, not dispelled it.

  Yet, since I had disturbed and lightened it, a greater precaution was now necessary, and I waited there for some ten minutes maybe, a period that must have proved a very eternity to the old man upstairs. At last I had the reward of hearing the snoring recommence; lightly at first, but soon with all its former fullness.

  I rose and proceeded now with a caution that must guard me from any more unlooked-for obstacles. Moreover, as I approached, the darkness was dispelled more and more at every stride in the direction of the light. At last I reached the
table, and stood silent as a spectre at Ramiro’s side, looking down upon the features of the sleeping man.

  His face was flushed, and his tawny hair tumbled about his damp brow; his lips quivered as he breathed. For a moment, as I stood gazing on him, there was murder in my mind. His dagger hung temptingly in his girdle. To have drawn it and rid the world of this monster might have been a worthy deed, acceptable in the eyes of Heaven. But how should it profit me? Rather must it prove my destruction at the hands of his followers, and to be destroyed just then, with Paola depending upon me, and life full of promise once I regained my liberty, was something I had no mind to risk.

  My eyes wandered to the letter lying on the table. If this were of the nature we suspected, it should prove a safer tool for his destruction.

  To read it as it lay was an easy matter, and it came to me then that ere I decided upon my course it might be well that I should do so. If by chance it were innocent of treason, why, then, I might resort to the risk of that other and more desperate weapon — his own dagger.

  At the foot of the short flight of steps that led from the hall to the courtyard I could hear the slow pacing of the sentry placed there by Ramiro. But unless he were summoned, it was extremely unlikely that the fellow would leave his post, so that, I concluded, I had little to fear from that quarter. I drew back and taking up a position behind Ramiro’s chair — a position more favourable to escape in the untoward event of his awaking — I craned forward to read the letter over his shoulder. I thanked God in that hour for two things: that my sight was keen, and that Vitellozzo Vitelli wrote a large, bold hand.

  Scarcely breathing, and distracted the while by the mad racing of my pulses, I read; and this, as nearly as I can remember, is what the letter contained: