Cosimo at least had ceased to smile. His handsome white face had lost some of its supercilious confidence. Here was something unexpected, something upon which he had not reckoned, against which he had not provided.
“What has Ser Galeotto to do with this?” he demanded harshly.
“That, sir, no doubt he will tell us, if you will have patience,” Gonzaga answered, so sweetly and deferentially that of a certainty some of Cosimo’s uneasiness must have been dissipated.
I leaned forward now, scarce daring to draw breath lest I should lose a word of what was to follow. The blood that had earlier surged to my face had now all receded again, and my pulses throbbed like hammers.
Then Galeotto spoke, his voice very calm and level.
“Will your excellency first permit me to see the papal brief upon which you acted in summoning hither the accused?”
Silently Gonzaga delivered a parchment into Galeotto’s hands. The condottiero studied it, frowning. Then he smote it sharply with his right hand.
“This document is not in order,” he announced.
“How?” quoth Cosimo, and he smiled again, reassured completely by now, convinced that here was no more than a minor quibble of the law.
“You are here described as Cosimo d’Anguissola, Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina. These titles are not yours.”
The blood stirred faintly in Cosimo’s cheeks.
“Those fiefs were conferred upon me by our late lord, Duke Pier Luigi,” he replied.
Gonzaga spoke. “The confiscations effected by the late usurping Duke, and the awards made out of such confiscations, have been cancelled by Imperial decree. All lands so confiscated are by this decree revertible to their original holders upon their taking oath of allegiance to Caesar.”
Cosimo continued to smile. “This is no matter of a confiscation effected by Duke Pier Luigi,” he said. “The confiscation and my own investiture in the confiscated fiefs are a consequence of Agostino d’Anguissola’s recreancy — at least, it is in such terms that my investiture is expressly announced in the papal bull that has been granted me and in the brief which lies before your excellency. Nor was such express announcement necessary, for since I was next heir after Ser Agostino to the Tyranny of Mondolfo, it follows that upon his being outlawed and his life forfeit I enter upon my succession.”
Here, thought I, were we finally checkmated. But Galeotto showed no sign of defeat.
“Where is this bull you speak of?” he demanded, as though he were the judge himself.
Cosimo haughtily looked past him at Gonzaga. “Does your excellency ask to see it?”
“Assuredly,” said Gonzaga shortly. “I may not take your word for its existence.”
Cosimo plucked a parchment from the breast of his brown satin doublet, unfolded it, and advanced to lay it before Gonzaga, so that he stood near Galeotto — not more than an arm’s length between them.
The Governor conned it; then passed it to Galeotto. “It seems in order,” he said.
Nevertheless, Galeotto studied it awhile; and then, still holding it, he looked at Cosimo, and the scarred face that hitherto had been so sombre now wore a smile.
“It is as irregular as the other,” he said. “It is entirely worthless.”
“Worthless?” quoth Cosimo, in an amazement that was almost scornful. “But have I not already explained...”
“It sets forth here,” cut in Galeotto with assurance, “that the fief of Mondolfo and Carmina are confiscated from Agostino d’Anguissola. Now I submit to your excellency, and to your worthinesses,” he added, turning aside, “that this confiscation is grotesque and impossible, since Mondolfo and Carmina never were the property of Agostino d’Anguissola, and could no more be taken from him than can a coat be taken from the back of a naked man — unless,” he added, sneering, “a papal bull is capable of miracles.”
Cosimo stared at him with round eyes, and I stared too, no glimmer of the enormous truth breaking yet upon my bewildered mind. In the court the silence was deathly until Gonzaga spoke.
“Do you say that Mondolfo and Carmina did not belong — that they never were the fiefs of Agostino d’Anguissola?” he asked.
“That is what I say,” returned Galeotto, towering there, immense and formidable in his gleaming armour.
“To whom, then, did they belong?”
“They did and do belong to Giovanni d’Anguissola — Agostino’s father.”
Cosimo shrugged at this, and some of the dismay passed from his countenance.
“What folly is this?” he cried. “Giovanni d’Anguissola died at Perugia eight years ago.”
“That is what is generally believed, and what Giovanni d’Anguissola has left all to believe, even to his own priest-ridden wife, even to his own son, sitting there, lest had the world known the truth whilst Pier Luigi lived such a confiscation as this should, indeed, have been perpetrated.
“But he did not die at Perugia. At Perugia, Ser Cosimo, he took this scar which for thirteen years has served him for a mask.” And he pointed to his own face.
I came to my feet, scarce believing what I heard. Galeotto was Giovanni d’Anguissola — my father! And my heart had never told me so!
In a flash I saw things that hitherto had been obscure, things that should have guided me to the truth had I but heeded their indications.
How, for instance, had I assumed that the Anguissola whom he had mentioned as one of the heads of the conspiracy against Pier Luigi could have been myself?
I stood swaying there, whilst his voice boomed out again.
“Now that I have sworn fealty to the Emperor in my true name, upon the hands of my Lord Gonzaga here; now that the Imperial aegis protects me from Pope and Pope’s bastards; now that I have accomplished my life’s work, and broken the Pontifical sway in this Piacenza, I can stand forth again and resume the state that is my own.
“There stands my foster-brother, who has borne witness to my true identity; there Falcone, who has been my equerry these thirty years; and there are the brothers Pallavicini, who tended me and sheltered me when I lay at the point of death from the wounds that disfigured me at Perugia.”
“So, my Lord Cosimo, ere you can proceed further in this matter against my son, you will need to take your brief and your bull back to Rome and get them amended, for there is in Italy no Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina other than myself.”
Cosimo fell back before him limp and trembling, his spirit broken by this shattering blow.
And then Gonzaga uttered words that might have heartened him. But after being hurled from what he accounted the pinnacle of success, he mistrusted now the crafty Lieutenant, saw that he had been played with as a mouse by this Imperial cat with the soft, deadly paws.
“We might waive the formalities in the interests of justice,” purred the Lieutenant. “There is this memorial, my lord,” he said, and tapped the document, his eyes upon my father.
“Since your excellency wishes the matter to be disposed of out of hand, it can, I think, be done,” he said, and he looked again at Cosimo.
“You have said that this memorial is false, because the witnesses whose names are here cannot be admitted to testify.”
Cosimo braced himself for a last effort. “Do you defy the Pope?” he thundered.
“If necessary,” was the answer. “I have done so all my life.”
Cosimo turned to Gonzaga. “It is not I who have branded this memorial false,” he said, “but the Holy Father himself.”
“The Emperor,” said my father, “may opine that in this matter the Holy Father has been deluded by liars. There are other witnesses. There is myself, for one. This memorial contains nothing but what was imparted to me by the Lord of Pagliano on his death-bed, in the presence of his confessor.”
“We cannot admit the confessor,” Gonzaga thrust in.
“Give me leave, your excellency. It was not in his quality as confessor that Fra Gervasio heard the dying man depone. Cavalcanti’s confession followed upon that. An
d there was in addition present the seneschal of Pagliano who is present here. Sufficient to establish this memorial alike before the Imperial and the Pontifical Courts.
“And I swear to God, as I stand here in His sight,” he continued in a ringing voice, “that every word there set down is as spoken by Ettore Cavalcanti, Lord of Pagliano, some hours before he died; and so will those others swear. And I charge your excellency, as Caesar’s vicegerent, to accept that memorial as an indictment of that caitiff Cosimo d’Anguissola, who lent himself to so foul and sacrilegious a deed — for it involved the defilement of the Sacrament of Marriage.”
“In that you lie!” screamed Cosimo, crimson now with rage, the veins at his throat and brow swelling like ropes.
A silence followed. My father turned to Falcone, and held out his hand. Falcone sprang to give him a heavy iron gauntlet. Holding this by the fingers, my father took a step towards Cosimo, and he was smiling, very calm again after his late furious mood.
“Be it so,” he said. “Since you say that I lie, I do here challenge you to prove it upon my body.”
And he crashed the iron glove straight into Cosimo’s face so that the skin was broken, and blood flowed about the mouth, leaving the lower half of the visage crimson, the upper dead-white.
Gonzaga sat on, entirely unmoved, and waited, indifferent to the stir there was amid the Ten. For by the ancient laws of chivalry — however much they might be falling now into desuetude — if Cosimo took up the glove, the matter passed beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, and all men must abide by the issue of the trial by battle.
For a long moment Cosimo hesitated. Then he saw ruin all about him. He — who had come to this court so confidently — had walked into a trap. He saw it now, and saw that the only loophole was the chance this combat offered him. He played the man in the end. He stooped and took up the glove.
“Upon your body, then — God helping me,” he said.
Unable longer to control myself, I sprang to my father’s side. I caught his arm.
“Let me! Father, let me!”
He looked into my face and smiled, and the steel-coloured eyes seemed moist and singularly soft.
“My son!” he said, and his voice was gentle and soothing as a woman’s caress.
“My father!” I answered him, a knot in my throat.
“Alas, that I must deny you the first thing you ask me by that name,” he said. “But the challenge is given and accepted. Do you take Bianca to the Duomo and pray that right may be done and God’s will prevail. Gervasio shall go with you.”
And then came an interruption from Gonzaga.
“My lord,” he said, “will you determine when and where this battle is to be fought?”
“Upon the instant,” answered my father, “on the banks of Po with a score of lances to keep the lists.”
Gonzaga looked at Cosimo. “Do you agree to this?”
“It cannot be too soon for me,” replied the quivering Cosimo, black hatred in his glance.
“Be it so, then,” said the Governor, and he rose, the Court rising with him.
My father pressed my hand again. “To the Duomo, Agostino, till I come,” he said, and on that we parted.
My sword was returned to me by Gonzaga’s orders. In so far as it concerned myself the trial was at an end, and I was free.
At Gonzaga’s invitation, very gladly I there and then swore fealty to the Emperor upon his hands, and then, with Bianca and Gervasio, I made my way through the cheering crowd and came out into the sunshine, where my lances, who had already heard the news, set up a great shout at sight of me.
Thus we crossed the square, and went to the Duomo, to render thanks. We knelt at the altar-rail, and Gervasio knelt above us upon the altar’s lowest step.
Somewhere behind us knelt Bianca’s women, who had followed us to the church.
Thus we waited for close upon two hours that were as an eternity.
And kneeling there, the eyes of my soul conned closely the scroll of my young life as it had been unfolded hitherto. I reviewed its beginnings in the greyness of Mondolfo, under the tutelage of my poor, dolorous mother who had striven so fiercely to set my feet upon the ways of sanctity. But my ways had been errant ways, even though, myself, I had sought to walk as she directed. I had strayed and blundered, veered and veered again, a very mockery of what she strove to make me — a strolling saint, indeed, as Cosimo had dubbed me, a wandering mummer when I sought after holiness.
But my strolling, my errantry ended here at last at the steps of this altar, as I knew.
Deeply had I sinned. But deeply and strenuously had I expiated, and the heaviest burden of my expiation had been that endured in the past year at Pagliano beside my gentle Bianca who was another’s wedded wife. That cross of penitence — so singularly condign to my sin — I had borne with fortitude, heartened by the confidence that thus should I win to pardon and that the burden would be mercifully lifted when the expiation was complete. In the lifting of that burden from me I should see a sign that pardon was mine at last, that at last I was accounted worthy of this pure maid through whom I should have won to grace, through whom I had come to learn that Love — God’s greatest gift — is the great sanctifier of man.
That the stroke of that ardently awaited hour was even now impending I did not for a moment doubt.
Behind us, the door opened and steps clanked upon the granite floor.
Fra Gervasio rose very tall and gaunt, his gaze anxious.
He looked, and the anxiety passed. Thankfulness overspread his face. He smiled serenely, tears in his deep-set eyes. Seeing this, I, too, dared to look at last.
Up the aisle came my father very erect and solemn, and behind him followed Falcone with eyes a-twinkle in his weather-beaten face.
“Let the will of Heaven be done,” said my father. And Gervasio came down to pronounce the nuptial blessing over us.
THE GATES OF DOOM
CONTENTS
NOTE
Chapter 1. THE PLAYERS
Chapter 2. THE GAME
Chapter 3. MR SECOND SECRETARY
Chapter 4. FATE’S AGENTS
Chapter 5. THE WARNING
Chapter 6. THE ENCHANTED GARDEN
Chapter 7. EVELYN’S CONSCIENCE
Chapter 8. AT “THE WORLD’S END”
Chapter 9. THE ALIBI
Chapter 10. TWO LETTERS
Chapter 11. PAUNCEFORT’S MOVE
Chapter 12. NATURE TRIUMPHANT
Chapter 13. IN THE ROSE-GARDEN
Chapter 14. THE ROAD TO TYBURN
Chapter 15. EXECUTION
Chapter 16. RESURRECTION
Chapter 17. PAUNCEFORT THE SOWER
Chapter 18. IN CHECK
Chapter 19. THE CAPTAIN GOES INTO ACTION
Chapter 20. MR TEMPLETON IN RETIREMENT
Chapter 21. LORD CARTERET UNDERSTANDS
Chapter 22. ISRAEL SUAREZ
Chapter 23. THE LAST THROW
The cover of the first edition
NOTE
Realising that the incidents dealt with in Chapters 14 and 16 may appear to transcend those bounds of reasonable possibility to which fiction should be confined, the author considers it necessary to say that these incidents are not merely founded upon fact, but follow fact extremely closely.
For parallel happenings the doubting reader is referred to The Flying Post, December 11/13/1707, which contains an account of the strange case of John Smith, and to Plot’s Natural History of Oxfordshire (pages 197 and 199), where accounts will be found of two cases still more remarkable. — R. S.
Chapter 1. THE PLAYERS
The room — somewhat disordered now, at the end of that long night’s play — was spacious, lofty and handsomely equipped. On a boldly carved, walnut side table of Dutch origin there was a disarray of glasses, bottles, plates and broken meats. From a mahogany wine cooler beneath this table’s arched legs sprouted the corkless necks of a half-score empty bottles. About the card-table in the room’s mid
dle stood irregularly some eight or ten chairs, lately occupied by the now departed players. One overturned chair lay neglected where it had fallen. Cards were still strewn upon the table’s cover of green baize and some few lay scattered on the scarlet Turkey rug that covered a square of the blocked and polished floor.
Overhead in the heavy chandelier of ormolu and crystal the candles were guttering, caught by the draught from one of the long French windows which his lordship had just opened. In the gap he stood, gazing out into the chill grey dawn and the wraiths of mist that hung above the park.
By the carved overmantel, his shoulders to the shelf and the ormolu timepiece, which marked now the hour of three, stood Lord Pauncefort’s only lingering and most important guest. He was a man of rather more than middle height, slender as a rapier is slender, of a steely, supple strength. He was simply yet very elegantly dressed in black, relieved only by the silver embroidery on his stockings, the paste buckles that flashed from his lacquered, red-heeled shoes, and the lace at his throat, among which a great sapphire glowed with sombre fire. Enough remained, however, in his erect carriage, his Steinkirk, the clubbing of his hair and the bronze of his face to advertise the soldier.
His keen blue eyes were upon the figure of his host, and in them was reflected the faint smile that softened the somewhat hard lines of his mouth. Yet the smile was scornful — of his host and of the night that was sped; scornful and something sad.
Was it, he mused, upon such as these that his king and master relied in his dire need? Was it to gain such support as my lord Pauncefort and his precious friends could offer to that desperate cause that he, himself, had ventured once more into England where a thousand guineas was offered for his head?
The play, he reflected contemptuously, they had urged as a wise measure of precaution: let them do their plotting about a faro-table, had been their plea; thus they should pass for a parcel of idle gamesters, and none could dream that the game was a pretence, a mere mask upon their real business. Thus had they deluded themselves, but not him. He had seen, and soon, that the plotting was the pretence, and play the business. And what play! A gamester all his life, a man who had beggared himself a score of times in twenty different lands, never had he known such stakes as those which had been laid that night, never had he seen such sums change hands across the green baize of a card table.
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