“It is time,” said one of the soldiers, whilst the executioner, stepping into my chamber, pinioned my wrists behind me, and retaining hold of the cord bade me march. He followed, holding that slender cord, and so, like a beast to the shambles, went I.
Once more they led me into the hall, where the shadows were lengthening in dark contrast to the splashes of sunlight that lingered on the floor, and whose blood-red hue was deepened by the gules of the windows through which it was filtered.
Ramiro was waiting for me, and six of his officers were in attendance. But, for once, there were no men-at-arms at hand. On a chair, the one usually occupied by Ramiro, himself, sat Madonna Paola, still in her torn and bedraggled raiment, her face white, her eyes wild as they had been when first she had been haled into Ramiro’s presence, some two hours ago, and her features so rigidly composed that it told the tale of the awful self-control she must be exerting — a self-control that might end with a sudden snap that would plunge her into madness.
A wild rage possessed me at sight of her. Let Ramiro be ruthless and cruel where men were concerned; that was a thing for which forgiveness might be found him. But that he should submit a lady, delicately nurtured as was Madonna, to such horrors as she had undergone since she had awakened from his sleeping-potion in the Church of San Domenico, was something for which no Hell could punish him condignly.
Ramiro met me with a countenance through the assumed gravity of which I could espy his wicked, infernal mockery peeping forth.
“I deplore your end, Lazzaro Biancomonte,” said he slowly, “for you are a brave man, and brave men are rare. You were worthy of better things, but you chose to cross swords with Ramiro del’ Orca, and you have got your death-blow. May God have mercy on your soul.”
“I am praying,” said I, “for just so much mercy as you shall have justice. If my prayer is heard, I should be well-content.”
He changed countenance a little. So, too, I thought, did Madonna Paola. My firmness may have yielded her some grain of comfort. Ramiro set his hands on his hips, and eyed me squarely.
“You are a dauntless rogue,” he confessed.
I laughed for answer, and in that moment it entered my mind that I might yet enjoy some measure of revenge in this life. More than that, I might benefit Madonna. For were the seed I was about to sow to take root in the craven heart of Ramiro del’ Orca, it would so fully occupy his mind that he would have little time to bestow on Paola in the few hours that were left him. But before I could bethink me of words, he was speaking again.
“I held out to you a slender hope,” said he. “I told you that there was one little thing might save you. That hope has borne no fruit; the little thing, I spoke of has not come to pass. It rested with Madonna Paola, here. She had it in her hands to effect your salvation, but she has refused. Your blood rests on her head.”
She shuddered at the words, and a low moan escaped her. She covered her face with her hands. A moment I stood looking at her; then I shifted my glance to Ramiro.
“Will it please you, Illustrious, to allow me a few moments’ conversation with Madonna Paola di Santafior?”
I invested my tones with a weight of meaning that did not escape him. His face suddenly lightened; whilst one of his officers — a fellow very fitly named Lupone — laughed outright.
“Your hero seems none so heroic after all,” he said derisively to the Governor. “The imminence of death makes him amenable.”
Ramiro scowled on him for answer. Then, turning to me— “Do you think you could bend her stubbornness?” quoth he.
“I might attempt it,” answered I.
His eyes flashed with evil hope; his lips parted in a smile. He shot a glance at Madonna, who had withdrawn her hands from her face and was regarding me now with a strange expression of horror and incredulity — marvelling, no doubt, to find me such a craven as I must have seemed.
Ramiro looked at the diminishing sunlight on the floor.
“In some five minutes the sun will have completely set,” said he. “Those five minutes you shall have to seek to enlist Madonna’s aid on your behalf. If you succeed — and she may tell you on what terms you are to have your life — you shall depart from Cesena to-night a free man.”
He paused a moment, and his eyes, lighted by an odious smile, rested once more on Madonna Paula. Then he bade all withdraw, and went with them into an adjoining chamber, fondly nurturing the hopes that were begotten of his belief that Lazzaro Biancomonte was a villain.
When we were alone, she and I, I stood a moment where they had left me, my hands pinioned behind me, and the cord which the executioner had held trailing the ground like a lambent tail. Then I went slowly forward until I stood close before her. Her eyes were on my face, still with that same look of unbelief.
“Madonna mia,” said I, “do not for an instant think that it is my purpose to ask of you any sacrifice that might save my worthless life. Rather was my purpose in seeking these few moments with you, to strengthen and encourage you by such news as it is mine to bring.”
She looked now as if she scarcely understood.
“If I will wed him to-night, he has promised that you shall go free,” she said in a whisper. “He says that he can bring a priest from the neighbourhood at a moment’s notice.”
“Do not heed him,” I cried sternly.
“I do not heed him,” said she, more composedly. “If he seeks to force me, I shall find a way of setting myself free. Dear Mother of Heaven! death were a sweet and restful thing after all that I have suffered in these days.”
Then she fell suddenly to weeping.
“Think me not an utter coward, Lazzaro. Willingly would I do this thing to save so noble a life as yours, did I not think that you must hate me for it. I was stout and firm in my refusal, confident that you would have had me so. Was I not right, my poor, poor Lazzaro?”
“Madonna, you were right,” I answered firmly and calmly.
“And you are to die, amor mio,” she murmured passionately. “You are to die when the promise of happiness seemed held out to us. And yet, were you to live at the price at which life is offered you, would your life be endurable? Tell me the truth, Lazzaro; swear it to me. For if life is the dearer thing to you, why then, you shall have your life.”
“Need you ask me, Paola?” questioned I. “Does not your heart tell you how much easier is death than would be such life as I must lead hereafter, even if we could trust Ramiro, which we cannot. Be brave, Madonna, and help me to be brave and to bear thyself with a becoming fortitude. Now listen to what I have to tell you. Ramiro del’ Orca is a traitor who is plotting the death of his overlord. Proofs of it are by now in the hands of Cesare Borgia, and in some seven or eight hours the Duke himself should be here to put this monster to the question touching these matters. I will say a word in his ear ere I depart that will fill his mind with a very wholesome fear, and you will find that during the few hours left him he will have little leisure to think of you and afflict you with his odious wooing. Be strong, then, for a little while, for Cesare is coming to set you free.”
She looked at me now with eyes that were wide open. Suddenly —
“Could we not gain time?” she cried, and in her eagerness she rose and set her hands upon my shoulders. “Could I not pretend to acquiesce to his wishes, and so delay your end?”
“I have thought of it,” I answered gloomily, “but the thought has brought me no hope. Ramiro is not to be trusted. He might tell you that he sets me free, but he dare not do so; he fears that I may have knowledge of his dealings with Vitelli, and assuredly he would break faith with us. Again the coming of the Duke might be delayed. Alas!” I ended in despair, “there is nothing to be done but to let things run their course.”
There was even more in my mind than I expressed. My mistrust of Ramiro went further than I had explained, and concerning Madonna more closely than it did me.
“Nay, Lazzaro mine,” she still protested, “I will attempt it. It is, at least, well wo
rth the risk.
“You forget,” said I, “that even when Cesare comes we cannot say how he will bear himself towards you. You were to have been betrothed to his cousin, Ignacio. It is a matter upon which he may insist.”
She looked at me for a moment with anguish in her eyes that turned my misery into torture.
“Lazzaro,” she moaned, “was ever woman so beset! I think that Heaven must have laid some curse upon me.”
Her face was close to mine. I stooped forward and kissed her on her brow.
“May God have you in His keeping, Madonna mia,” I murmured. “The sun is gone.”
“Lazzaro!” It was the cry of a breaking heart. Her arms went round my neck, and in a passion of grief her kisses burned on my lips.
Then the door of the anteroom opened — and I thanked God for the mercy of that interruption. I whispered a word to her, and in obedience she sprang back, and sank limp and broken on the chair once again.
Ramiro entered, his men behind him, his face alit with eagerness. There and then I swamped his hopes.
“The sun is gone, Magnificent,” said I. “You had best get me hanged.”
His brow darkened, for there was a note of mockery and triumph in my voice.
“You have fooled me, animal,” he cried. His jaw set, and his eyes continued to regard me with an evil glow. Then he laughed terribly, shrugged his shoulders, and spoke again. “After all, it shall avail you little.” He turned to the carnifex. “Federigo, do your work,” said he, whereupon the fellow stepped behind me, and the halberdiers ranged themselves one on either side of me again.
“A word ere I go, Messer del’ Orca,” I demanded insolently.
He looked at me sharply, wondering, maybe, at the fresh tone I took.
“Say it and begone,” he sullenly permitted me.
I paused a moment to choose fitting words for that portentous death-song of mine. At length —
“You boasted to me a little while ago,” said I, smiling grimly, “that the man did not live who had thrice fooled you. That man does live, for that man am I.”
“Bah!” he returned contemptuously, thinking, no doubt, that I referred to my interview with Madonna Paola. “You may take what pride you will from such a thought. You are upon the threshold of death.”
“True, but the thought is one that affords me more comfort and joy than pride. As much comfort and joy as you shall take horror when I tell you in what manner I have fooled you.” I paused to heighten the sensation of my words.
“To such good purpose have I used my wits that ere another sun shall rise and set you will have followed me along the black road that I am now treading — the road whose bourne is the gallows. Bethink you of the charred paper that last night you brushed from this table when you awoke to find a candle fallen on the treacherous letter Vitellozzo Vitelli sent you in the lining of a hat.”
His jaw fell, his face flamed redder than ever for a second, then it went grey as ashes.
“Of what do you prate, fool?” he questioned huskily, seeking to bluster it before the startled glances of his officers.
“I speak,” said I, “of that charred paper. It was I who laid the candle across it; but it was a virgin sheet I burned. Vitelli’s letter I had first abstracted.”
“You lie!” he almost screamed.
“To prove that I do not, I will tell you what it contained. It held proof that bribed by the Tyrant of Citta di Castello you had undertaken to pose an arbalister to slay the Duke on the occasion of his coming visit to Cesena.”
He glared at me a moment in furious amazement. Then he turned to his officers.
“Do not heed him,” he bade them. “The dog lies to sow doubts in your minds ere he goes out to hang. It is a puerile revenge.”
I laughed with amused confidence. There was one among them had heard Lampugnani’s words touching the messenger’s hat — words that had cost the fellow his life. But my concern was little with the effect my words might produce upon his followers.
“By to-morrow you will know whether I have lied or not. Nay, before then shall you know it, for by midnight Cesare Borgia should be at Cesena. Vitellozzo Vitelli’s letter is in his hands by now.”
At that Ramiro burst into a laugh. So convinced was he of the impossibility of my having got the letter to the Duke, even if what I had said of its abstraction were true, that he gathered assurance from what seemed to him so monstrous an exaggeration.
“By your own words are you confounded,” said he. “Out of your own mouth have you proven your lies. Assuming that all you say were true, how could you, who since last night have been a prisoner, have got a messenger to bear anything from you to Cesare Borgia?”
I looked at him with a contemptuous amusement that daunted him.
“Where is Mariani?” I asked quietly. “Where is the father of the lad you so brutally and wantonly slew yesternight? Seek him throughout Cesena, and when you find him not, perhaps you will realise that one who had seen his own son suffer such an outrageous and cruel death at your brigand’s hands would be a willing and ready instrument in an act that should avenge him.”
Vergine santa! What a consternation was his. He must have missed Mariani early in the day, for he took no measure, asked no questions that might confirm or refute the thing I announced. His face grew livid, and his knees loosened. He sank on to a chair and mopped the cold sweat from his brow with his great brown hand. No thought had he now for the eyes of his officers or their opinions. Fear, icy and horrid, such fear as in his time he had inspired in a thousand hearts was now possessed of his. Sweet indeed was the flavour of my vengeance.
His officers instinctively drew away from him before the guilt so clearly written on his face, and their eyes were full of doubt as to how they should proceed and of some fear — for it must have been passing through their minds that they stood, themselves, in danger of being involved with him in the Duke’s punishment of his disloyalty.
This was more than had ever entered into my calculations or found room in my hopes. By a brisk appeal to them, it almost seemed that I might work my salvation in this eleventh hour.
Madonna watched the scene with eyes that suggested to me that the same hope had arisen in her own mind. My halberdiers and the carnifex alone stood stolidly indifferent. Ramiro was to them the man that hired them; with his intriguing they had no concern.
For a moment or two there was a silence, and Ramiro sat staring before him, his white face glistening with the sweat of fear. A very coward at heart was this overbearing ogre of Cesena, who for years had been the terror and scourge of the countryside. At last he mastered his emotion and sprang to his feet.
“You have had the laugh of me,” he snarled, fury now ringing in his voice. “But ere you die you may regret it that you mocked me.”
He turned to the executioner.
“Strip him,” he commanded fiercely. “He shall not hang as I intended — at least not before we have torn every bone of his body from its socket. To the cord with him!” And he pointed to the torture at the end of the hall.
The executioner made shift to obey him when suddenly Madonna Paola leapt to her feet, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright with a new excitement.
“Is there none here,” he cried, appealing to Ramiro’s officers, “that will draw his sword in the service of his overlord, the Duca Valentino? There stands a traitor, and there one who has proven his loyalty to Cesare Borgia. The Duke is likely to demand a heavy price for the life of that faithful one to whose warning he owes his escape of assassination. Will none of you side now with the right that anon you may stand well with Cesare Borgia when he comes? Or, by idly allowing this traitor to have his way, will you participate in the punishment that must be his?”
It was the very spur they needed. And scarce was that final question of hers flung at those knaves, when the answer came from one of them. It was that same sturdy Lupone.
“I, for one, am for the Duke,” said he, and his sword leapt from its scabbard. “I
draw my iron for Valentino. Let every loyal man do likewise and seize this traitor.” And with his sword he pointed at Ramiro.
In an instant three others bared their weapons and ranged themselves beside him. The remaining two — of whom was Lucagnolo — folded their hands, manifesting by that impassivity that they were minded to take neither one side nor the other.
The carnifex paused in his labours of undressing me, and the affair promised to grow interesting. But Ramiro did not stand his ground. Fury swelling his veins and crimsoning his huge face, he sprang to the door and bellowed to his guards. Six men trooped in almost at once, and reinforced by the halberdiers that had been guarding me, they made short work of the resistance of those four officers. In as little time as it takes me to record it, they were disarmed and ranged against the wall behind those guards and others that had come to their support — to be dealt with by Ramiro after he had dealt with me.
His fear of Cesare’s coming was put by for the moment in his fierce lust to be avenged upon me who had betrayed him and the officers who had turned against him. Madonna sank back once more in her despair. The little spark that she had so bravely fanned to life had been quenched almost as soon as it had shown itself.
“Now, Federigo,” said Ramiro grimly, “I am waiting.”
The executioner resumed his work, and in an instant I stood stripped of my brigandine. As the fellow led me, unresisting, to the torture — for what resistance could have availed me now? — I tried to pray for strength to endure what was to come. I was done with life; for some portion of an hour I must go through the cruellest of agonies; and then, when it pleased God in His mercy that I should swoon, it would be to wake no more in this world. For they would bear out my unconscious body, and hang it by the neck from that black beam they called Ramiro del’ Orca’s flagstaff.
I cast a last glance at Madonna. She had fallen on her knees, and with folded hands was praying intently, none heeding her.
Federigo halted me beneath the pulleys, and his horrid hands grew busy adjusting the ropes to my wrists.
And then, when the last ray of hope had faded, but before the executioner had completed his hideous task, a trumpet-blast, winding a challenge to the gates of the Castle of Cesena, suddenly rang out upon the evening air, and startled us all by its sudden and imperious note.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 132
