Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  “You are faint,” she cried, and there was a gentle concern in her tone very sweet to hear, seeming to assure him that he was forgiven his momentary amorous violence.

  He laughed foolishly, inebriately almost. “Why...yes...” he gasped.

  “Drink,” she bade him. “The wine will revive you.”

  Mechanically he obeyed her, emptying his cup at a draught. Again that sense of heat in the throat, that sense of fire in all his veins. He strove to rise, suddenly, subconsciously alarmed. His knees failed him and he sank back gasping. The room swam; a red mist was rolling and billowing before his eyes; and then, through that mist, shining as shines the moon, clear and distinct, he beheld the face of Cassandra de’ Genelleschi - no longer the sweet, innocent, childish face he loved, but a face that looked at once foolish and wicked, a face detestable. It was as if in that moment of physical obfuscation the eyes of his soul were opened. Alarmed, he strove to concentrate all his powers to cast off the torpor that possessed him. For just one moment he succeeded, and in that moment he understood. He rose heavily from his chair, his eyes blazing, his livid, glistening face terrific to behold.

  “Traitress!” he cried, and had God given him strength a moment longer he would have killed her with his hands, such was the awful revulsion that possessed him, making her beauty the most loathsome thing in all the world.

  But ere he could move another step his knees were loosened again and he sank back into the chair from which he had risen. The priceless Venetian goblet slipped from his fingers and was shivered on the tesselated floor. Black night descended upon his brain; his senses left him, and his head fell forward on his breast.

  Cassandra stood staring down at him a moment, in horror and in fear. He looked as he were dead. Then she turned, and as she did so the door opened and her brothers entered. She would have stayed - inquisitive as a child - to see them at their work. But her part in that black business was concluded, and they drove her to bed ere they set about what more there was to do.

  Tito drew the heavy curtains across the windows, whilst Girolamo made swift search in the sleeper’s clothes. He drew forth a package sealed with the Borgia steer. It was the letter Tito had seen that day. With a dagger heated in a flame he raised the seal unbroken, and together by the candle-branch - Tito peering over Girolamo’s shoulder - they made themselves masters of the contents. Then Girolamo fetched ink and quill - he was the swifter penman of the two - and sat down to make a copy of that document.

  This letter bade Ramiro de Lorqua march with his two thousand men upon Tigliano on the morrow, reduce and occupy it before attempting the attack upon San Ciascano itself. For that he was to await Cesare’s further orders, meanwhile setting up a blockade.

  “This,” said Tito, showing his fine teeth, “will be in the hands of the men of San Ciascano long before Messer Ferrante shall have reached de Lorqua at Imola. How Caserta will welcome the information! You must carry it yourself, Girolamo.”

  Girolamo was cunningly replacing the seal. “Caserta should pay us a fine price for it.”

  They laughed together. “A great night’s work!” said Tito. “We have destroyed that upstart fool there, and we shall deal the Duke of Valentinois a blow that will stagger him.”

  Girolamo thrust the package back into the breast of Ferrante’s doublet.

  “What of this carrion?” quoth he.

  “Leave me to deal with it,” said Tito. “I’ll carry it to a wine-shop in the borgo. When he wakes his adventure at the Palazzo Genelleschi will seem a dream to him. Besides, he’ll be in haste to redeem the time he has lost, and he’ll ride like the wind for Imola. He may be stirring again before dawn.”

  “Start enough for me,” said Girolamo, and took the letter. “There will be a surprise in store for Messer Ramiro de Lorqua when he marches upon Tigliano. If Caserta knows anything of the art of war he should annihilate the Borgia captain.”

  On that they parted, Girolamo to ride to San Ciascano and Tito to dispose of Ferrante against his waking.

  By the following evening Girolamo was back again, stiff from riding, haggard and covered with dust. But he was in high spirits. The affair had sped well. Caserta’s gratitude for the warning had been profound; he had set about taking his measures; the credit of the Genelleschi with Bologna should be enhanced, and their zeal rewarded. As he was returning, and after he had crossed the River Po, Girolamo had met Ferrante, riding as if the devil were behind him, on his way to Imola. From a screen of trees by the roadside he had watched the belated messenger’s furious passage.

  And now the Genelleschi, well content, sat down and waited for news of the rout of the Borgia forces under de Lorqua - the news that should prove Ferrante da Isola a traitor who had sold his duke, and vindicate Tito de’ Genelleschi’s character. Cesare Borgia should bitterly repent him for having given that gentleman the lie.

  It was on the morrow that news began to penetrate to Lojano of a bloody battle in the territory of San Ciascano; and with it came a summons to Tito de’ Genelleschi to wait upon the Duke of Valentinois. He went with a grave countenance and a mocking heart.

  “You will have heard the news?” was Cesare’s questioning greeting. The Duke had been writing busily when Tito was ushered into his presence.

  “I have heard a rumour of a battle, Highness,” said Tito, and he found it in his heart to admire the Duke as he had never yet admired him. His calm was indeed magnificent. Part of his army routed, his most trusted follower proved a traitor, yet there he sat, his countenance smooth and inscrutable, his tone level and impassive as ever.

  “That letter that Ferrante bore,” said Cesare, “bade de Lorqua march upon Tigliano and invest it. But it seems that the folk of San Ciascano had news of its contents, for Caserta lay in ambush at Tigliano awaiting the attack.”

  Tito’s heart leapt within him. With difficulty did he keep the joy he experienced from showing in his countenance. “You would not be advised, Highness!” he cried. “You would have faith in this rogue Ferrante in spite of my warnings.”

  Cesare smiled quietly into the other’s face. “Was I not well advised?” he asked.

  “Well...well advised? Well advised! But-”

  “Ay - well advised. Had it fallen out otherwise than this, Ferrante had indeed been proved a traitor.”

  “Otherwise?” faltered Messer Tito, who understood nothing now.

  “It seems you have not heard the end of the story,” said Cesare. “Whilst Caserta and his forces waited at Tigliano for de Lorqua, the latter crossed the river some miles to westward, and marching upon soldierless and undefended San Ciascano, made himself master of it with scarcely a blow struck. Caserta, seeing his rear threatened, and the state lost to him, is, I am informed, in full flight.”

  With eyes that laughed in mingled scorn and amusement, the Duke considered white-faced, uncomprehending Genelleschi for some moments.

  “You see, sir,” he explained at last, “Ferrante bore two letters; the contents of the one were intended for Caserta to lure him thus to his ruin with false information; the contents of the other - which Ferrante bore in his boot, where you did not think of looking - were for de Lorqua alone. As I bade him, so did he act, and proved his loyalty. I did not choose that you should know the full extent of the test to which I submitted him, and in which you helped him to succeed. For when, in obedience with my orders, Ferrante went to offer to sell the false dispatch to San Ciascano, he was driven out as an impostor by Caserta, who had already bought their contents from your brother.” Cesare laughed grimly. “But for the circumstance that Caserta is fled, I think I should send you to him that he might recompense you fittingly for the false information you conveyed to him.”

  A great terror took Genelleschi then, and with it - odd assortment - a fierce anger. He had been an unwitting tool - he and his - in the Borgia’s cunning hands. But terror beat his anger down, and very soon he came to his knees before the pitiless Duke - the Duke whose justice was so swift, and terrible; the Duke who
never erred on mercy’s side.

  “Mercy!” he begged, in broken accents.

  But Cesare laughed again and waved his hand contemptuously. “I am well content,” said he. “I may break camp at once and resume my march, thanks to you, who have helped me solve the riddle that delayed me. I will consider also and set against your evil intentions that you have rendered a good service to my friend Ferrante da Isola, in curing him of his lovesickness. A man so afflicted makes an indifferent soldier.”

  Still paralysed with terror - a terror that increased under the utterances of that mocking voice, under the contempt of those beautiful eyes - Tito still kept his knees, with hands upheld. The sight began to weary Cesare; then disgusted him. He rose abruptly. His glance hardened; his tone changed, and, from softly mocking, it grew of a sudden harsh.

  “Out of my sight, toad,” he bade that proud gentleman of Lojano. “Get you gone, and never show your face - your own, your brother’s or your sister’s - in my dominions again. Go!”

  And Genelleschi went, and counted himself fortunate.

  FERRANTE’S JEST

  The career of Ferrante da Isola - or, to be particular, the sudden cessation of all record of it - is a matter that must have intrigued many a student of history. In a blaze of military glory he comes into its pages; flashes across them like a meteor, leaving a trail of fiery deeds in his wake; and is gone into an extinction as utter as it is abrupt.

  The tale of that passing, and of the jest that led to it, is the tale I have set myself to tell. It was early foretold this Ferrante that his jesting would undo him, for he was overfond of the practice, and for all that he loved the merry tales of Messer Giovanni Boccacci he seems to have taken their lessons little to heart, else he might have heeded the admonition of Pampinea, to guard against making jest of others. And it happened, too, that this humour of his was of a warped and bitter kind, so that his own laughter, as often as not, was purchased by the grief and tribulation of others.

  It had been so from the commencement of men’s recollection of him, but since he had himself suffered so sorely at the hands of Cassandra de Genelleschi that cruel quality of his humour had undergone increase.

  Now Ferrante’s condotta formed pan of that division of the army of Cesare Borgia that descended the Valley of Cecina to go against Piombino. But he was not destined to take part in that siege, for the Duke, it seemed, had other work for his very capable hands. At Castelnuovo - on the night the army encamped there - Cesare Borgia summoned him to his tent. He found the Duke in a furred gown, seated upon his campbed, studying a map; and before he had completed his bow, Cesare had abruptly come to the business upon which he had summoned him.

  “You are acquainted with the country hereabouts?” he asked sharply.

  Ferrante had some knowledge of it, and being a Sicilian, and not one to belittle his attainments, he answered promptly: “As with the palm of my own hand, Magnificent.”

  The Magnificent slightly raised his brows, and slightly smiled. “Nevertheless, you may find this helpful,” said he, and held out the map, which Ferrante obediently took. Then came the Duke’s next question: “What force do you judge would suffice for the taking of Reggio di Monte?”

  Now Ferrante had enjoyed for some time the confidence of the Duke, and had been a member of his councils; but never yet had he been honoured to the extent of having his opinion thus privately sought by Cesare. His pride in himself awoke; he grew suddenly in importance in his own eyes, as he drew himself up, knit his brows, and thoughtfully stroked his shaven chin, considering.

  “It would largely depend upon the time at that force’s disposal,” he replied, to avoid committing himself.

  Cesare made an impatient gesture. “Do I not know that?” he said. “Let us assume that there is haste, and that an army cannot be spared for a siege. What force could master the place?”

  The problem was a tough one; and Ferrante waxed uneasy, lest, by failing satisfactorily to solve it, his opinions should lose the vast esteem in which it would seem that they were held by the Duke.

  “Why, as to that, now,” said he reflectively, “Reggio di Monte is no such easy place to capture. It is pitched on a hill-top, like an eagle’s nest, and boasts of its impregnability to assault.” He paused a moment. “Force will not crack that nut as soon as strategy.”

  Cesare Borgia nodded. “That,” said he, “is why I sent for you.”

  Ferrante was flattered; yet not unduly. It was as a strategist that he had won distinction; his military imagination was far above the common even of great soldiers; his talent for scheming and devising, and his audacity in executing, had been duly recognised and were widely admired - though by none more ardently than by himself.

  “I propose,” said Cesare, “to give you charge of the affair when I know what men you will require.”

  Ferrante’s heart was quickened in its beating. To conduct a campaign; to lead not a mere condotta, but an army - here, indeed, was a great stride in his promotion. In imagination he beheld himself already a lieutenant-governor. But he broke into no thanks or protestation of devotion as another might have done; he bowed soberly, as one acknowledging a charge, taking the matter calmly as his due.

  “I shall require-” (he paused, considering) “two thousand men.”

  “You shall have a thousand,” said Cesare quietly. “That is all the force that I can spare. Will you undertake it with that?

  “Since you can spare no more, that must suffice,” said Ferrante, with a fine show of confidence in his own powers to achieve the impossible.

  “Very well,” said the Duke. “You will take your own condotta of horse; Ramires shall lead it for you; della Volpe shall command your foot, and Fabio Orsini shall act as your lieutenant. Are you content with these officers?”

  Content with them! Two - Diego Ramires and Taddeo della Volpe - were among the most famous condottieri in Cesare’s train. And they were to serve under him! His fortunes soared on giant pinions. Had he imagined himself a lieutenant-governor? He had been too modest; he perceived this now, and saw himself already Governor- General of the Romagna. Yet he contained his satisfaction, contenting himself with bowing soberly.

  “I shall require some artillery,” said he.

  “I have none for you - not indeed enough for my own needs against Piombino,” was the answer.

  Ferrante was disappointed. What was an army without artillery? He posed some such question to the Duke. “If you could spare me were it no more than four guns,” he sighed in conclusion.

  “Four guns? Why, what shall you do with four guns?” quoth Cesare. “To grant you them would be to weaken myself without strengthening you.”

  “They might serve me well for display,” said Ferrante, giving the first reason he could think of - a reason that was to recur to him later, and afford him the very kernel of the scheme he was to develop. At the moment, however, all that he thought of it was that the explanation was a paltry and unworthy one.

  Not so, it seemed, thought Cesare, for his glance quickened as it rested upon Ferrante, as though the condottiero’s words had awakened in the Duke’s mind some notion of the means by which the task he was imposing might be carried through.

  “Be it so, then,” he said. “You shall have the guns. All will be ready for you by sunrise. You will set out then.”

  Ferrante bowed and departed, well content. But outside, under the stars of that summer night, his satisfaction and self-complacency met a check. How - how was the thing to be accomplished? It had been easy to speak confidently of doing it with a thousand men, and to look confident; it would have been the same had the Duke suggested that he should do it with a hundred - and just as easy, he grimly reflected now. Here was a great chance of distinction, true; but there was a still greater chance of disaster. He felt now that the task of capturing Reggio di Monte with a thousand men was one he would like to allot to his worst enemy - and on that he went to bed, hoping for the counsel that sleep is said to bring.

  He
awoke despondent; but his spirits rose when he came forth from his tent to find his army all drawn up awaiting him. It was in his eyes a very noble sight, and never did lover look with greater ardour upon his mistress than did Ferrante upon those men-at-arms.

  There was his own condotta - a phalanx of steel-clad horsemen - rearing skywards a forest of four hundred lances, and here the close- packed ranks of sturdy Romagnuoli foot; yonder the baggage-carts and the ordinance mounted upon carriages drawn by bullocks; and above was the morning sun shining upon all and striking fire from morion, corselet and lance-head.

  Through the bustle of the camp from which they were departing came Ferrante’s officers to greet their leader; first the Spaniard Ramires, tall and handsome, leading his charger, bridle over arm; after him rolled the sturdy Taddeo della Volpe - that valiant one-eyed veteran, who had left his other eye at Forli and had boasted that he was glad of it since it enabled him to see but the half of danger; lastly came the youthful Fabio Orsini, a very pretty fellow in variegated hose, who dissembled his valour under a cloak of foppishness. If they entertained any jealousy of Ferrante’s promotion, they dissembled it, and very friendly were they as they stood there to receive his orders.

  These he issued briskly; and presently the horse, with Ramires at its head, began to move. After it, della Volpe defiled his foot; and lastly came the guns and baggage-carts. Ferrante rode some little way in the rear, accompanied by Orsini and followed by two mounted esquires.

  In this order they went back by the road that but yesterday they had travelled, and climbed the first hill of that rugged country. From the crest of it, Ferrante looked back upon the main body of the army which was on the point of resuming its westward march. Then he rode down the incline, and turned his thoughts once more to the business to which he stood committed.