“Was such indeed your intention?” I asked scarce above a whisper, overawed as men are when they perceive precisely what their folly and wickedness have cost them.
He halted before me, and set one hand of his upon my shoulder, looking up into my face. “It has been my fondest dream, Agostino,” he said.
I groaned. “It is a dream that never can be realized now,” said I miserably.
“Never, indeed, if Cosimo d’Anguissola continues to be Lord of Mondolfo,” he answered, his keen, friendly eyes considering me.
I reddened and paled under his glance.
“Nor otherwise,” said I. “For Monna Bianca holds me in the contempt which I deserve. Better a thousand times that I should have remained out of this world to which you caused me to return — unless, indeed, my present torment is the expiation that is required of me unless, indeed, I was but brought back that I might pay with suffering for all the evil that I have wrought.”
He smiled a little. “Is it so with you? Why, then, you afflict yourself too soon, boy. You are over-hasty to judge. I am her father, and my little Bianca is a book in which I have studied deeply. I read her better than do you, Agostino. But we will talk of this again.”
He turned away to resume his pacing in the very moment in which he had fired me with such exalted hopes. “Meanwhile, there is this Farnese dog with his parcel of minions and harlots making a sty of my house. He threatens to remain until I come to what he terms a reasonable mind — until I consent to do his will and allow my daughter to marry his henchman; and he parted from me enjoining me to give the matter thought, and impudently assuring me that in Cosimo d’Anguissola — in that guelphic jackal — I had a husband worthy of Bianca de’ Cavalcanti.”
He spoke it between his teeth, his eyes kindling angrily again.
“The remedy, my lord, is to send Bianca hence,” I said. “Let her seek shelter in a convent until Messer Pier Luigi shall have taken his departure. And if she is no longer here, Cosimo will have little inclination to linger.”
He flung back his head, and there was defiance in every line of his clear-cut face. “Never!” he snapped. “The thing could have been done two weeks ago, when they first came. It would have seemed that the step was determined before his coming, and that in my independence I would not alter my plans. But to do it now were to show fear of him; and that is not my way.
“Go, Agostino. Let me have the night to think. I know not how to act. But we will talk again to-morrow.”
It was best so; best leave it to the night to bring counsel, for we were face to face with grave issues which might need determining sword in hand.
That I slept little will be readily conceived. I plagued my mind with this matter of Cosimo’s suit, thinking that I saw the ultimate intent — to bring Pagliano under the ducal sway by rendering master of it one who was devoted to Farnese.
And then, too, I would think of that other thing that Cavalcanti had said: that I had been hasty in my judgment of his daughter’s mind. My hopes rose and tortured me with the suspense they held. Then came to me the awful thought that here there might be a measure of retribution, and that it might be intended as my punishment that Cosimo, whom I had unconsciously bested in my sinful passion, should best me now in this pure and holy love.
I was astir betimes, and out in the gardens before any, hoping, I think, that Bianca, too, might seek the early morning peace of that place, and that so we might have speech.
Instead, it was Giuliana who came to me. I had been pacing the terrace some ten minutes, inhaling the matutinal fragrance, drawing my hands through the cool dew that glistened upon the boxwood hedges, when I saw her issue from the loggia that opened to the gardens.
Upon her coming I turned to go within, and I would have passed her without a word, but that she put forth a hand to detain me.
“I was seeking you, Agostino,” she said in greeting.
“Having found me, Madonna, you will give me leave to go,” said I.
But she was resolutely barring my way. A slow smile parted her scarlet lips and broke over that ivory countenance that once I had deemed so lovely and now I loathed.
“I mind me another occasion in a garden betimes one morning when you were in no such haste to shun me.”
I crimsoned under her insolent regard. “Have you the courage to remember?” I exclaimed.
“Half the art of life is to harbour happy memories,” said she.
“Happy?” quoth I.
“Do you deny that we were happy on that morning? — it would be just about this time of year, two years ago. And what a change in you since then! Heigho! And yet men say that woman is inconstant!”
“I did not know you then,” I answered harshly.
“And do you know me now? Has womanhood no mysteries for you since you gathered wisdom in the wilderness?”
I looked at her with detestation in my eyes. The effrontery, the ease and insolence of her bearing, all confirmed my conviction of her utter shamelessness and heartlessness.
“The day after... after your husband died,” I said, “I saw you in a dell near Castel Guelfo with my Lord Gambara. In that hour I knew you.”
She bit her lip, then smiled again. “What would you?” answered she. “Through your folly and crime I was become an outcast. I went in danger of my life. You had basely deserted me. My Lord Gambara, more generous, offered me shelter and protection. I was not born for martyrdom and dungeons,” she added, and sighed with smiling plaintiveness. “Are you, of all men, the one to blame me?”
“I have not the right, I know,” I answered. “Nor do I blame you more than I blame myself. But since I blame myself most bitterly — since I despise and hate myself for what is past, you may judge what my feelings are for you. And judging them, I think it were well you gave me leave to go.”
“I came to speak of other than ourselves, Ser Agostino,” she answered, all unmoved still by my scorn, or leastways showing nothing of what emotions might be hers. “It is of that simpering daughter of my Lord of Pagliano.”
“There is nothing I could less desire to hear you talk upon,” said I.
“It is so very like a man to scorn the thing I could tell him after he has already heard it from me.”
“The thing you told me was false,” said I. “It was begotten of fear to see your own base interests thwarted. It is proven so by the circumstance that the Duke has sought the hand of Madonna Bianca for Cosimo d’Anguissola.”
“For Cosimo?” she cried, and I never saw her so serious and thoughtful. “For Cosimo? You are sure of this?” The urgency of her tone was such that it held me there and compelled my answer.
“I have it from my lord himself.”
She knit her brows, her eyes upon the ground; then slowly she raised them, and looked at me again, the same unusual seriousness and alertness in every line of her face.
“Why, by what dark ways does he burrow to his ends?” she mused.
And then her eyes grew lively, her expression cunning and vengeful. “I see it!” she exclaimed. “O, it is as clear as crystal. This is the Roman manner of using complaisant husbands.”
“Madonna!” I rebuked her angrily — angry to think that anyone should conceive that Bianca could be so abused.
“Gesu!” she returned with a shrug. “The thing is plain enough if you will but look at it. Here his excellency dares nothing, lest he should provoke the resentment of that uncompromising Lord of Pagliano. But once she is safely away — as Cosimo’s wife...”
“Stop!” I cried, putting out a hand as if I would cover her mouth. Then collecting myself. “Do you suggest that Cosimo could lend himself to so infamous a compact?”
“Lend himself? That pander? You do not know your cousin. If you have any interest in this Madonna Bianca you will get her hence without delay, and see that Pier Luigi has no knowledge of the convent to which she is consigned. He enjoys the privileges of a papal offspring, and there is no sanctuary he will respect. So let the thing be done speedil
y and in secret.”
I looked at her between doubt and horror.
“Why should you mistrust me?” she asked, answering my look. “I have been frank with you. It is not you nor that white-faced ninny I would serve. You may both go hang for me, though I loved you once, Agostino.” And the sudden tenderness of tone and smile were infinitely mocking. “No, no, beloved, if I meddle in this at all, it is because my own interests are in peril.”
I shuddered at the cold, matter-of-fact tone in which she alluded to such interests as those which she could have in Pier Luigi.
“Ay, shrink and cringe, sir saint,” she sneered. “Having cast me off and taken up holiness, you have the right, of course.” And with that she moved past me, and down the terrace-steps without ever turning her head to look at me again. And that was the last I ever saw of her, as you shall find, though little was it to have been supposed so then.
I stood hesitating, half minded to go after her and question her more closely as to what she knew and what she did no more than surmise. But then I reflected that it mattered little. What really mattered was that her good advice should be acted upon without delay.
I went towards the house and in the loggia came face to face with Cosimo.
“Still pursuing the old love,” he greeted me, smiling and jerking his head in the direction of Giuliana. “We ever return to it in the end, they say; yet you had best have a care. It is not well to cross my Lord Pier Luigi in such matters; he can be a very jealous tyrant.”
I wondered was there some double meaning in the words. I made shift to pass on, leaving his taunt unanswered, when suddenly he stepped up to me and tapped my shoulder.
“One other thing, sweet cousin. You little deserve a warning at my hands. Yet you shall have it. Make haste to shake the dust of Pagliano from your feet. An evil is hanging over you here.”
I looked into his wickedly handsome face, and smiled coldly.
“It is a warning which in my turn I will give to you, you jackal,” said I, and watched the expression of his countenance grow set and frozen, the colour recede from it.
“What do you mean?” he growled, touched to suspicion of my knowledge by the term I had employed. “What things has that trull dared to...”
I cut in. “I mean, sir, to warn you. Do not drive me to do more.”
We were quite alone. Behind us stretched the long, empty room, before us the empty gardens. He was without weapons as was I. But my manner was so fierce that he recoiled before me, in positive fear of my hands, I think.
I swung on my heel and pursued my way.
I went above to seek Cavalcanti, and found him newly risen. Wrapped in a gown of miniver, he received me with the news that having given the matter thought, he had determined to sacrifice his pride and remove Bianca not later than the morrow, as soon as he could arrange it. And to arrange it he would ride forth at once.
I offered to go with him, and that offer he accepted, whereafter I lounged in his antechamber waiting until he should be dressed, and considering whether to impart to him the further information I had that morning gleaned. In the end I decided not to do so, unable to bring myself to tell him that so much turpitude might possibly be plotting against Bianca. It was a statement that soiled her, so it seemed to me. Indeed I could scarcely bear to think of it.
Presently he came forth full-dressed, booted, and armed, and we went along the corridor and out upon the gallery. As side by side we were descending the steps, we caught sight of a singular group in the courtyard.
Six mounted men in black were drawn up there, and a little in the foreground a seventh, in a corselet of blackened steel and with a steel cap upon his head, stood by his horse in conversation with Farnese. In attendance upon the Duke were Cosimo and some three of his gentlemen.
We halted upon the steps, and I felt Cavalcanti’s hand suddenly tighten upon my arm.
“What is it?” I asked innocently, entirely unalarmed. “These are familiars of the Holy Office,” he answered me, his tone very grave. In that moment the Duke, turning, espied us. He came towards the staircase to meet us, and his face, too, was very solemn.
We went down, I filled by a strange uneasiness, which I am sure was entirely shared by Cavalcanti.
“Evil tidings, my Lord of Pagliano,” said Farnese. “The Holy Office has sent to arrest the person of Agostino d’Anguissola, for whom it has been seeking for over a year.”
“For me?” I cried, stepping forward ahead of Cavalcanti. “What has the Holy Office to do with me?”
The leading familiar advanced. “If you are Agostino d’Anguissola, there is a charge of sacrilege against you, for which you are required to answer before the courts of the Holy Office in Rome.”
“Sacrilege?” I echoed, entirely bewildered — for my first thought had been that here might be something concerning the death of Fifanti, and that the dread tribunal of the Inquisition dealing with the matter secretly, there would be no disclosures to be feared by those who had evoked its power.
The thought was, after all, a foolish one; for the death of Fifanti was a matter that concerned the Ruota and the open courts, and those, as I well knew, did not dare to move against me, on Messer Gambara’s account.
“Of what sacrilege can I be guilty?” I asked.
“The tribunal will inform you,” replied the familiar — a tall, sallow, elderly man.
“The tribunal will need, then, to await some other opportunity,” said Cavalcanti suddenly. “Messer d’Anguissola is my guest; and my guests are not so rudely plucked forth from Pagliano.”
The Duke drew away, and leaned upon the arm of Cosimo, watching. Behind me in the gallery I heard a rustle of feminine gowns; but I did not turn to look. My eyes were upon the stern sable figure of the familiar.
“You will not be so ill-advised, my lord,” he was saying, “as to compel us to use force.”
“You will not, I trust, be so ill-advised as to attempt it,” laughed Cavalcanti, tossing his great head. “I have five score men-at-arms within these walls, Messer Black-clothes.”
The familiar bowed. “That being so, the force for to-day is yours, as you say. But I would solemnly warn you not to employ it contumaciously against the officers of the Holy Office, nor to hinder them in the duty which they are here to perform, lest you render yourself the object of their just resentment.”
Cavalcanti took a step forward, his face purple with anger that this tipstaff ruffian should take such a tone with him. But in that instant I seized his arm.
“It is a trap!” I muttered in his ear. “Beware!”
I was no more than in time. I had surprised upon Farnese’s mottled face a sly smile — the smile of the cat which sees the mouse come venturing from its lair. And I saw the smile perish — to confirm my suspicions — when at my whispered words Cavalcanti checked in his rashness.
Still holding him by the arm, I turned to the familiar.
“I shall surrender to you in a moment, sir,” said I. “Meanwhile, and you, gentlemen — give us leave apart.” And I drew the bewildered Cavalcanti aside and down the courtyard under the colonnade of the gallery.
“My lord, be wise for Bianca’s sake,” I implored him. “I am assured that here is nothing but a trap baited for you. Do not gorge their bait as your valour urges you. Defeat them, my lord, by circumspection. Do you not see that if you resist the Holy Office, they can issue a ban against you, and that against such a ban not even the Emperor can defend you? Indeed, if they told him that his feudatory, the Lord of Pagliano, had been guilty of contumaciously thwarting the ends of the Holy Inquisition, that bigot Charles V would be the first to deliver you over to the ghastly practices of that tribunal. It should not need, my lord, that I should tell you this.”
“My God!” he groaned in utter misery. “But you, Agostino?”
“There is nothing against me,” I answered impatiently. “What sacrilege have I ever committed? The thing is a trumped-up business, conceived with a foul purpose by Messer Pier Luigi
there. Courage, then, and self-restraint; and thus we shall foil their aims. Come, my lord, I will ride to Rome with them. And do not doubt that I shall return very soon.”
He looked at me with eyes that were full of trouble, indecision in every line of a face that was wont to look so resolute. He knew himself between the sword and the wall.
“I would that Galeotto were here!” cried that man usually so self-reliant. “What will he say to me when he comes? You were a sacred charge, boy.”
“Say to him that I will be returning shortly — which must be true. Come, then. You may serve me this way. The other way you will but have to endure ultimate arrest, and so leave Bianca at their mercy, which is precisely what they seek.”
He braced himself at the thought of Bianca. We turned, and in silence we paced back, quite leisurely as if entirely at our ease, for all that Cavalcanti’s face had grown very haggard.
“I yield me, sir,” I said to the familiar.
“A wise decision,” sneered the Duke.
“I trust you’ll find it so, my lord,” I answered, sneering too.
They led forward a horse for me, and when I had embraced Cavalcanti, I mounted and my funereal escort closed about me. We rode across the courtyard under the startled eyes of the folk of Pagliano, for the familiars of the Holy Office were dread and fearful objects even to the stoutest-hearted man. As we neared the gateway a shrill cry rang out on the morning air:
“Agostino!”
Fear and tenderness and pain were all blent in that cry.
I swung round in the saddle to behold the white form of Bianca, standing in the gallery with parted lips and startled eyes that were gazing after me, her arms outheld. And then, even as I looked, she crumpled and sank with a little moan into the arms of the ladies who were with her.
I looked at Pier Luigi and from the depths of my heart I cursed him, and I prayed that the day might not be far distant when he should be made to pay for all the sins of his recreant life.
And then, as we rode out into the open country, my thoughts were turned to tenderer matters, and it came to me that when all was done, that cry of Bianca’s made it worth while to have been seized by the talons of the Holy Office.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 240
