Cesare smiled at that phase of Tito’s protestations, and his smile added fuel to the other’s flaming wrath.
“You say that my word is unsupported by any proofs, Magnificent. In Lojano the word of Genelleschi is accounted proof enough of anything he says.”
“I do not gainsay it. But why should not I prefer to place my trust in Ferrante, whom I have ever found loyal?”
“I have warned you, Magnificent,” cried the other. “I have no more to say.”
The Duke stood pondering a moment, staring through the window at the red roofs of Lojano. Then he turned again to Messer Tito.
“My disbelief in you shall be justified,” he said. “I will put him to the test. If he fail me, I shall do penance to you for my unbelief. But woe betide you if he comes unscathed through the ordeal. Will you accept the wager?”
Genelleschi, knowing the utter falseness of the accusations he had brought, knowing the loyalty of the man he had defamed, quailed at the question. But he stood committed by what he had said.
“I accept,” he answered, and went so far as to invest with pretended eagerness his answer. Whatever might follow, he must now appear sincere.
Cesare cogitated him in silence a moment, then crossed back to the table from which he had moved, and took up a package freshly sealed - the letter to Ramiro de Lorqua which Agabito had just prepared.
“At Imola,” he said, “lies Ramiro de Lorqua with two thousand men, awaiting my orders for the attack upon San Ciascano. Those orders are in this letter. Ferrante knows that Caserta and the defenders of San Ciascano would pay handsomely to learn the contents. This letter shall go by Ferrante’s hand tonight. That shall be the test.”
“But, Highness,” cried Tito, with cunning concern, “if he should betray you! Have you counted the cost to yourself?”
“I know the cost, sir,” was Cesare’s answer, his face inscrutable. “Thus do I justify myself for testing him.” And with that he gave Genelleschi his dismissal.
Tito Genelleschi went home with very mingled sensations. Things had fallen out in a most amazing manner, and had exceeded by much any intentions of his own when he had sought audience of the Duke. He had the feeling of one who has been swept along by sheer chance, and force of circumstances, into committing himself to far more than he had ever dreamed of at the outset. He was pervaded, too, by a grave misgiving - an uneasiness as to what steps Cesare might take against him when Ferrante emerged triumphant from the test, as Ferrante must; for Messer Tito had no cause to doubt the man’s exceeding loyalty to his master. The Duke had threatened him with vague consequences of his accusation should Ferrante’s conduct prove it false. There was need for action on his part; he must take his measures; in some way he must contrive that Ferrante’s letter should miscarry; it but remained to devise the means, to determine upon a plan. Thus, and again compelled by sheer force of circumstances in very self-defence to carry through this matter to which he had so rashly set his mind, did Tito Genelleschi become an active traitor to Cesare Borgia. Ferrante must fail; Cesare Borgia must pay the price of having said to Tito Genelleschi, “I do not believe you.”
Tito sought counsel with his brother. The latter’s face became grave when he heard how Tito stood committed, and he criticised the matter freely and harshly. His elder brother lost patience.
“What’s done is done,” he broke in, very surly. “And what’s to do is to do; we should do better to consider that.”
“Ah!” said Girolamo. “And what is to do?”
Thus abruptly questioned, Tito as abruptly replied, and in doing so answered not only his brother’s words but his own perplexity.
“The contents of that letter,” said he, “must be made known to the defenders of San Ciascano, that the plans of Valentinois may be wrecked, and that thus he may be persuaded that Ferrante is a traitor.”
Girolamo looked at him, his lips pursed, his eyes scared.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “that of course is what you would wish. It is daring to the point of madness. Fortunately it is also impossible.”
“Say you so? Ha!” It was a snort of anger. Tito felt that his endurance that morning was being sorely taxed. “Impossible, eh?” And then, on the instant, as he eyed his brother, inspiration came in answer to the urgent call of his rage. His rising anger sank again upon the instant. His eyes dilated with surprise at his own conceit. A superior smile twisted his thin lips.
“Impossible, eh?” he repeated, in such a manner that it became plain to Girolamo that his brother had solved the riddle. But Tito vouchsafed him no enlightenment just yet. He sent for Cassandra.
“What has Cassandra to do with this?” inquired Girolamo.
“Everything,” said Tito, with a great assurance.
When she came, Tito set a chair at the table for her, motioned her into it, then placed ink, pens and paper before her.
“You are to write a letter, Cassandra, to your fine lover - to this Ferrante da Isola,” said he.
Her great eyes regarded him with astonishment, which for the moment lighted the dullness of her beautiful, vacant face.
“You are to confess yourself moved by this letter - stirred to the very soul of you. Ah - you have a soul, Cassandra?” he inquired, with the sneer that he held ever in readiness. Her stupidity was a constant irritation to him, the keener when he considered her faultless beauty.
“Fra Giorgio has taught me so,” she answered, impervious as ever to the subtleties of sarcasm.
“Fra Giorgio is a fool,” said he.
“You must not say so, Tito,” she admonished him. “Fra Giorgio says that it is sinful to mock at priests.”
“By which, conscious of the mockery he must provoke, he means that it is sinful to mock at him. But our business is with Messer Ferrante.”
Yes, Tito,” said she.
“You shall write, then, that, moved by his burning epistle - and - and the thought of his heart suffering the same fate as the - liver of Messer Prometheus, you desire more knowledge of him.”
“Oh, but I do not. He is too tall and lean and ugly; and he is beardless, and I love a beard.”
“Tchah!” snapped Tito peevishly. “Attend to me. You are to write him as I bid you; what you may think is another matter, with which we have no concern. You shall say that we - Girolamo and I - are from home, and bid him come to you this evening at sunset. Ah - and by the garden gate; that will have a more furtive, romantic air, which, doubtless, will impress the Sicilian dog, eh, Girolamo?”
Girolamo shrugged. “You forget I do not share your confidence,” said his brother.
“But you can guess the rest. He will come, Cassandra, not a doubt of that, and for a while - an hour, say - you may pretend to him and to yourself that he is indeed your lover, and hold him in dalliance with you in the garden, there. Then - But I’ll school you in the rest. The letter first. Come, girl; here is what you need.”
She took a pen, dipped it, and poised it above a sheet of paper. Her delicate brows were drawn together in perplexity, wondering what all this should portend. At last she asked Girolamo; she preferred always to address her questions to him; he was wont to answer her with less impatience than Tito.
“Why am I to do this?”
“It is Tito’s affair,” said Girolamo. “But the object is to punish this upstart for the affront he has put upon us in daring to lift his eyes to you.”
“How will you punish him?” she asked, smiling interestedly now, athirst for details.
“That you shall learn presently,” cut in Tito. “First the letter - the letter. Come, begin.”
“How shall I begin?”
Tito flung himself into a chair, and peevishly dictated the epistle, she laboriously penning the words he flung at her with ever-growing impatience. And by eccentricities of spelling, and vagaries of handwriting, she achieved a document at last which should afford Messer Ferrante some considerable mental exercise. So said Tito when he scowlingly surveyed the scrawl. He dispatched it none the less t
o the captain’s quarters by a young maid of the house, and then made known to Girolamo the remainder of his plot, and to Cassandra just so much as it imported her to know, schooling her carefully in what was required of her.
Girolamo acknowledged the plan to be shrewd, deplored certain elements of danger it contained, and finally expressed the opinion that Ferrante, charged with such a mission and in the very hour of setting out upon it, would not come, whatever his feelings for Cassandra. Tito scoffed at his brother’s conception of a lover.
“Oh, he will come; he will come, never fear,” said Tito, “and in the fact that he will never dare confess that small breach of duty lies our own security from those minor dangers that seem so big to you.”
That there were full grounds for Tito’s assurance the evening proved. For as the Angelus was ringing from the Duomo adown the street at the back of the Palazzo Genelleschi came the rattle of hoofs, to halt by the green door by the tall brown wall.
The brothers were sitting with Cassandra at the trysting spot by an old lichened fountain that spouted into a little lake in which Girolamo - who was an Epicurean - cultivated frogs and eels.
At the sound of hoofs Tito became attentive; when they halted he rose, caught his brother by the arm and vanished with him into the house.
Alone on the stone seat beside the fountain Cassandra waited, and was faintly taken with a desire to laugh. But her waiting was brief, and presently she saw the tall figure of her lover advancing towards her in the twilight. He was all cased in grey leather, save for the band of claret hose which showed between his thigh-boots and his jerkin, and the steel cap and gorget gleaming like silver on his head and at his neck. His face was pale with emotion under the tan of it, and his eyes, when he came to fall upon one knee beside her, were the eyes of a fanatic at prayer.
“Madonna,” he murmured, “you have shown me a mercy beyond all my deserts; given me a happiness such as I dreamt not that life could hold. I scarce dared to hope that you would deign return an answer to my poor scrawl. That you should bid me come to you and give utterance in words to all the fierce longings that are my torture was something that not even my dreams had dared to promise me.” She sat - the demurest maid in all Italy that evening - with folded hands and downcast eyes, listening to this madman’s babble. And now that he paused she made him no answer, for the excellent reason that she could think of none.
“You will forgive me that I come before you thus - in this campaigner’s raiment. It is not so I had seen myself paying my court and homage at your feet. But I go tonight upon a journey and a mission. Indeed, but for the hunger of my eyes to look once again upon your peerless beauty, but for the hunger of my ears to hear the melodies of your sweet accents - I had by now - were I full dutiful to the Duke, my master - been out of Lojano. Do you, madonna, absolve me for my want of duty and for my condition?”
He knelt there looking up almost timidly - and he the captain of a score of battles - at this fair child, who was to him the incarnation of all that is good and beautiful and noble upon earth.
She viewed him languidly - and he was good to look upon: dark and swarthy; shapely and tall; young and strong, with a fine, male beauty in his shaven face, and a rare fire in his full, black eyes. But she had been too well schooled by Messer Tito to lapse now from her lesson, and fall into admiration of him. Besides, was he not a lowborn knave, when all was said, and was not this devotion he professed for her an insult? She had her brothers’ word for it, and this beautiful, soulless fool had no judgment that was not her brothers’.
“I find that you are very well,” she said, and he flushed with pleasure. “And as for your want of duty - why, what is an hour?”
His face clouded for a moment. She did not understand that an hour filched from such a duty as was his might be a serious matter were it known of.
“What is an hour?” he echoed slowly, and then, his passion rising he gave it tongue. “Ah, what is not an hour? What may it not be? The sweetness of heaven, the bitterness of hell may all be crowded into an hour. Were this hour all of my life that I should spend thus in your beloved presence, then my life were but an hour - the rest but prologue and epilogue to this one hour of living.”
“Oh, sir,” she said, her lids drooping, and the long fringe of them lying upon her perfect cheek; and again, “Oh, sir!”
A fool you had vowed her, surely, had you witnessed her then and heard the vacuous simper of her tones. But the captain - so blinding was his distemper - was translated into ecstasy.
“I am called Ferrante,” he murmured. “Will you - will you not speak my name, Cassandra?”
She flashed him a glance, then drooped her lids again. “Ferrante!” she murmured, and turned his brain to fire, for never had he dreamed that his name contained such melodies. He put forth a trembling, faltering hand to take one of her own, that was surrendered to him and lay passive in his grasp.
“Wilt give me this, sweet angel?” he implored her.
“Give you what?” quoth she.
“This hand - this little hand.”
“Why - to what purpose? Have you not two great able hands of your own?”
“Delicious wit,” cried the enraptured wight. “Be merciful, dear maid!”
She laughed, that foolish treble laugh of hers, which rang in his infatuated ears like a peal of silver bells, what time he feasted his eyes upon the matchless beauty of her face. His breathing was shortened by the excess of emotion that possessed him; a languor slowly crept along his veins. And then she bade him sit beside her, and he obeyed her, eagerly yet timidly - very foolishly, thought she.
As he sat thus in the tepid eventide, in that fair-scented garden, he came to think that heaven and the world had used him very well. He was at peace with all men; he loved all men. And presently he spoke of that, spoke of the change that loving her had wrought in his whole life; how it altered the drift and current of it; how from harsh and overbearing that he had been accounted, he would henceforth strive to be meek and gentle, that he might be worthier of her gentle self - in all of which he employed the very choice and flowery eloquence that comes to some men in the season of their inamoration, but which she found wearisome and very foolish.
This, however, she dissembled. She listened demurely, as becomes a maid, and occasionally gave such answers as she had been tutored in, false words suggesting her reciprocation of his passion.
Thus the hour that he had said might hold his lifetime sped swiftly for him in his delicious intoxication, slowly for her to whom each minute brought an increasing weariness. The shadows deepened about them; the purple afterglow was fading from the sky; the trees and shrubs became dark blurs against a gloomy background; the windows of the house behind him sprang into light, and from the lake came the harsh croaking of a frog.
He rose, alarmed, mindful of his mission, and sought to shake his sweet entrancement from him.
“You are not leaving me?” she sighed.
“Alas, madonna, that must I, though grieving!”
“It is but a moment since you came,” she protested, and ravished him by the innocence that could utter such words of open wooing. He had won a pearl among maidens for his own.
He took her hand, and stayed to speak again of love; then spoke again of going. But her little fingers had coiled themselves about his own. In the gloom he saw the pale shimmer of her upturned face; her voice came up to him on the scented summer air. He bent over her as he answered: “Listen, beloved. Tonight I ride to Imola with messages of state. But on my return I shall seek your brothers, to beg of them this treasure in their keeping.”
She sighed. “When will you return?” she asked.
“In three days’ time, if all goes well. An age, sweet lady. But oh, the reward that my patience shall receive!”
She broke in quickly: “You shall not go without a stirrup-cup; you shall not leave until you have pledged me. Come!” And she drew him, no longer resisting, to the house.
Through glass doors opening
from the terrace she led him into a spacious, handsome chamber, and there in the light shed from the golden candle-branch he stood and his eyes devoured the glorious beauty of her.
She beat her hands together and a page appeared, whom she bade bring wine.
And what time they waited they stood before each other, and a something of pity took her in that moment. She was a woman after all, and the call of his splendid manhood could not go unheeded. It may well be that had he left her to herself she had now lacked the courage for her treacherous task. But in that moment his passion, so long held in check, welled up in a great tide that swept him to his ruin.
He caught her slight, frail body in his arms. Crushing her to him, he fiercely sought her lips. She battled to resist him, and for a second he had sight of her white face; and what he saw there checked him. It was a look of fear and loathing blent. He let her go, and fell back, foolish, awkward and ashamed. And then - for Ferrante was shrewder than most men - it came to him that this aversion to his clasp was odd in an innocent who had so lately offered him such liberal encouragement.
Even as the thought disturbed him the page entered, bearing on a golden salver a jug of beaten gold and two opalescent, thinstemmed goblets of Venetian make. She moved to meet the page, with a fluttering laugh. She poured the wine.
He watched her closely out of gloomy eyes, and noted the deathly pallor of her face, the trembling of her hand. Was it still the effect of his embrace, he wondered.
She came to him prettily now, a goblet in each hand. He took the one she offered him, and bowed as she pledged him, smiling, though still pale.
“God speed you on your journey,” said she.
“God hasten my return to you,” he answered, and drank the half of the contents of his cup.
It was a potent wine, hot in the throat and quickening to the blood.
Its effect upon him was very swift. Scarce had he drunk but that there appeared to him less need for urgency in his departure. He considered that his horse was safely tethered to the ring outside the gate. A few moments more would matter little; he would make them good upon the road; and the present was very sweet. A mood of happy optimism enwrapped him as a cloak. He sank languidly to a chair. Indeed, with each breath he took his languor grew. It was the summer air, he thought; the day had been excessively hot.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 415
