Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  He took his way through the familiar alleys, and the beacon by which he steered his course was a light gleaming from one of the windows of the mezzanine. It was the window of a room which, he knew, Beatrice affected - a sort of anteroom to her bedchamber - and it opened doorwise upon a wide balcony of granite, whence a flight of some twenty steps, guarded by a balustrade that was smothered in a luxuriance of ivy, ran down into the garden.

  At the foot of this staircase Francesco halted to consider the face of the house. Save for that window, all was darkness, which meant that the household was by now abed. True he could not see the windows of the library, which faced the street. It was likely enough that his uncle would be at one of his studious vigils. But then his uncle was not lightly disturbed, and Francesco did not intend to make himself heard until his plan had reached fulfilment.

  Bidding his groom await him there he went up that granite staircase to the balcony with noisy foot and clank of scabbard to herald his approach. And ere he was midway the lighted space above was widened as the curtains were flung quickly aside. The glass doors stood open, and a figure, black against the light, appeared under the lintel.

  “Who comes?” he heard his cousin’s voice.

  “It is I, Bice,” he answered promptly, and made his voice quiver, as if he were a prey to excitement. “I - Francesco.” And as he gained the balcony and stood level with her: “Is your father with you?” he asked breathlessly, and added, “I come with news.”

  She drew back and aside to give him entrance. She eyed him in astonishment - a slender slip of womanhood, with the black hair and pale skin that was common to the Omodei.

  “An odd hour this for visiting,” said she. “My father is at his studies. I will fetch him.”

  “Did I not say that I bring news, Bice?” he cried, and the quiver in his voice became more marked. “Let your father have peace. My news concerns yourself.”

  “Me?” Her soft eyes regarded him with some mistrust. She knew her cousin’s fame for shiftiness and guile. Her very father had schooled her in that knowledge.

  “Ay, you,” he answered, and flung, exhausted, into the nearest chair, breathing noisily and fanning himself with his velvet cap. “I -I have run at least a mile, to bring you word - in time,” he gasped.

  His well-played fatigue, his distraught air, were awakening her alarm. She blenched as she regarded him from where she stood by the window door, one slender arm uplifted, the hand grasping the curtain’s edge above her head. She was all in white, in a loose robe that was open at the neck, and caught at the waist in a girdle of hammered gold with a turquoise clasp. Her ebony hair hung behind her in two heavy plaited ropes, dressed so for the night.

  All was as it should be, opined Messer Francesco with satisfaction. He had judged his moment as he judged all things, he reflected complacently, with a judgment that was unerring.

  She stared at him, her eyes dilating, dark glistening pools in the white beauty of her face, and held her breath what time she awaited his explanation.

  But instead of explaining he continued to play upon her fears and to strain them to the very verge of breaking point.

  “A cup of wine!” he panted. “A draught of water! To drink - Gesu! give me to drink!”

  At last she stirred. She moved to a diminutive press of brown walnut carved with podgy cupids, that stood in a corner of that very choicely appointed chamber and into a dainty thin-stemmed beaker poured him a draught of Puglia.

  “Whence do you come?” she asked, impatient for his news, and infected by some of his excitement.

  “No matter whence I come,” said he, taking the cup from her hands. “It is my news that matters.” And avidly he gulped the wine, what time she watched him, wondering and uneasy.

  “It concerns Messer Baldassare Scipione,” he enlightened her, and saw her sudden start.

  “What - what of him?”

  His eyes narrowed now as they pondered her. “I know you and him to be betrothed,” he explained. “Your father told me of it but yesterday. Hence my anxiety, my haste to bring you word of this thing that is to do.” And like a thunderbolt he launched his lying message: “There is a plot to murder Captain Scipione this night.”

  “Gesu Maria!” she gasped, and clutched her breast, the last remnant of her mistrust of her cousin whelmed in sudden terror for her lover. Her eyes were wild, her face livid, her bosom heaved convulsively; she looked as she would faint.

  “Nay, nay, courage, Bice! Courage!” he admonished her. “There is still time to save him - else had I not been here.”

  She made an effort to control her fears; to put them by, and summon reason to her aid. “Put why - why have you lost time in seeking me? Why did you not instantly bear your story to the podesta?” she questioned.

  “To him? To Ramires?” He laughed softly and with infinite scorn. “Because the magistrate himself is in this business.”

  “Ramires!” she cried. “Oh, impossible!”

  “Ah, wait.” His tone was a thought impatient as he proceeded to offer an explanation that should render credible his bold lie. “Men who stand high in their master’s favour, as does Scipione in Cesare Borgia’s, are seldom loved by their fellow-servants. Ramires fears that Scipione may supplant him. Envy and jealousy are scorpion-whips to drive such men as the Podesta Ramires. They have urged him to ally himself with Scipione’s other enemies, and so, tonight, the thing is to be done.”

  It seemed incredible. Doubts of its truth recurring, instinctive mistrust of her cousin flickered anew in Beatrice’s mind. But she cast them out, bethinking her that did she heed them and were she in error, her lover’s life might pay the price of these same doubts. Yet they insisted and demanded satisfaction.

  She controlled her fears, and eyed her cousin, as if to pierce to the very soul and brain of him.

  “Here is a very sudden and strange concern, Francesco, for a man you never loved. It would seem more natural to me to find you linked with his enemies than have you come here to warn me.”

  He stared at her for a moment, as if dumbfounded - as indeed he was. Then he rose with an angry stamp of exasperation.

  “God give me patience!” he exclaimed. “Here’s woman’s logic - woman’s way! You’ll stand in talk and seek to plumb my motives while they cut your lover’s throat. By the Host! girl, I may not have loved this fellow of your choice. But must it follow that I wish his death?”

  “Yet, so much emotion for a man you do not love -”

  “Hear her, O Virgin!” quoth he, and turned upon her in a blazing heat of impatience. “Is my emotion for him, do you say? Bah!” He snapped finger against thumb. “Let them slit his throat and be done with it, for aught I care. My concern, my emotion, is for you. Shall I see you widowed or ever you are wed? Have I no right to a concern on your behalf, Bice? But there, I see you do not trust me; and, as God lives, I know not why I should serve you, that being so.”

  With a gesture expressing injury and anger he pulled his cloak about him, and strode to the window. But now terror, like a hurricane, swept her after him, to clutch his arm, and to detain him.

  “Nay, Franceschino, wait! I was wrong - so wrong!”

  He paused, looking down, ruffled, yet long-suffering.

  “Can you serve me?” she asked him breathlessly. “Is there aught you can do to save him?”

  “For that purpose have I sought you,” he answered, with a great dignity. “They do not strike till midnight.”

  “Midnight!” she gasped. “It wants but an hour.”

  “Time and to spare for what you have to do.”

  “I? What is there I can do? What power have I?” She was pleading piteously through such questions.

  “The power to subtract him from his enemies before they are upon him; to get him away from his house in the Zoccolanti. Bring him here to your side, and keep him here till morning - till the danger is overpast. Then he can call his men to arms, and take measures for his safety.”

  She recoiled, staring
at him between wonder and horror. “Keep him here - here? And till morning? Are you mad, Francesco?”

  He pondered her, did this very subtle gentleman, with positive contempt. “Is this your love for him?” he asked. “At every step you raise an obstacle. And why not here? You’re soon to be his wife.”

  A crimson flush spread slowly on her face, and was gone, leaving her paler than she had been. “Francesco,” said she, in a voice that was forcedly calm, “if you desire to serve me and to save me the life of Baldassare, you may do it without putting this shame upon me. Go to him. Warn him of his peril, and bear him home with you to your own house, there to abide till morning. Go - and send me word when it is done. I shall not sleep until I hear from you.”

  He stood surveying her, and his expression melted from contempt to pity; a faint smile appeared at the comers of his tight-lipped, cruel mouth.

  “You try my patience very sorely - by the Host you do!” said he. “I wonder what this captain finds to love in such a fool!” Then in a sudden heat he went on: “Why, every ninny sees a demi-god in the lout who quivers at her touch. Yet you - you - say you love this man; you believe you love him, and yet you hold him in such base esteem that you can picture him fleeing in terror to take hiding in my house at a word of peril that I may speak to him. Is that your conception of Baldassare Scipione?” he demanded with scathing scorn. “Do you account the man you love so poor-spirited a cur? Why, girl, it is odds he would not believe me; and if he did, he would scorn my offer and stay to have his throat cut for his honour’s sake. Such, at least, is the Baldassare Scipione whom I know - I, who do not love him.”

  It was all most subtly thought of, and it sank deep into Beatrice’s mind, and there took root. How could she doubt the truth of an argument that revealed her lover as a hero of romance? What woman could resist the flattery of so conceiving the man she loved? Conviction overwhelmed her. Then a fresh doubt leapt up, but of another sort.

  “But - but if this be so - how can I hope to lure him from his danger?”

  “By not allowing him to perceive it,” he answered promptly.

  “How, then-” she stared at him, utterly at a loss.

  He smiled, reassuringly and faintly mocking, a smile that seemed to ask what should she do without his guidance.

  “I have thought of it all,” he said. “You will represent the danger as threatening you - not him. You will write him three lines to say you are in grave peril and in urgent need of him, bidding him come to you upon the instant. Such a call as that he will not refuse. He will come - Mars borne upon the wings of Eros.”

  “That were to lie to him,” said she.

  “Oh, give me patience!” he cried again. “It is no lie. You are in danger - in danger of going mad, in danger of dying of a broken heart when they bring you word of how he perished. So bid him come,” he urged her sharply, “and bid him come by the garden and that staircase. Thus he will be less in danger of being seen.”

  That hint of secrecy revived her erstwhile scruples. She stood now by the table, which was strewn with a half-wrought embroidery and the coloured silks that had been her materials, and she confessed her horror in her glance.

  “I can’t, I can’t!” she wailed. “How can I, Francesco? To keep him here - here!” And shivering as she spoke, she covered her crimsoning face.

  Francesco snorted. “Would you prefer that his enemies prevail?” he asked her fiercely. “Shall Baldassare Scipione be so much carrion tomorrow?” He leaned towards her, urging eagerly: “Come, come! Is this an hour for scruples. Its sands are running down. Soon it will be too late. As for your fair name - tush! your fears are idle. I will remain with you. Or, if that suffice not to quiet your scruples, your father shall be summoned to join us in this vigil.”

  Her face cleared. “Then all is plain. Why did you not say this earlier?” And yet she hesitated, and knit her brows whilst he fetched writing materials from the press, and thrust aside the embroidery on the table, clearing a space, that she might write. “How shall we keep him, once he comes and finds there is no danger for me?”

  “Write!” he snapped. “I have thought of everything. Come, come, or he’ll be butchered whilst you are asking questions.”

  Conquered at last, she sat down and wrote furiously:

  MY BALDASSARE, - I am in danger, and in urgent need of you. Come to me instantly. The garden door is unlatched; come by the steps to my chamber.

  BEATRICE.

  She folded the note, tied it with some threads of crimson silk, and gave it to him. Her heart was beating as it would stifle her.

  “You are sure that we shall be in time?” said she.

  “No doubt,” he reassured her, “though you’ve wasted a deal of it.”

  He stepped to the window, and whistled softly. At the same time, she moved in the opposite direction to the door.

  “Where are you going?” he asked sharply.

  “To call my father,” she answered, her hand upon the latch. “Wait!” He was so impressive, and mysterious that she obeyed him, and came slowly back to the table.

  Steps pattered on the stone staircase. His groom appeared on the balcony. Francesco tossed the note to him.

  “That to the Illustrious Captain Scipione at once, and make all haste,” he ordered.

  The man’s steps pattered down again and through the garden at a run. Francesco came slowly back into the room, his face a shade paler than it had been, his manner restless, his eyes furtive.

  “Your servants will be abed?” he asked, as if in idleness.

  “Why, yes,” she answered. “But I will rouse them when I call my father.”

  It was fortunate for me - more fortunate still for your fine captain - that you, at least, had not retired before I came. Will you not sit?” And he advanced a chair. “There is something I wish to tell you ere you rouse the house.”

  She sat, he standing behind the chair he had proffered. From under his cloak he drew a coil of slender rope, noosed with a running knot, all ready for his purpose. Quick as lightning he slipped the loop over her head, and down so that it encompassed her arms and body and the chair’s tall back. He drew it tight almost in the same movement, and then, as alarmed she parted her lips to cry out, he clapped one hand to her mouth, whilst with the other he fumbled for the gag he had brought.

  When all was done, and gagged and with a second cord lashing her ankles to the chair, she sat helpless and mute before him, a wild terror staring from her dark eyes, he surveyed her, smiling, well pleased with the swift adroitness wherewith he had performed his task. He crossed to the door, and locked it. Then he drew the heavy crimson curtains across the windows, and that done he sat down, flung one silken leg over the other, and surveyed her with a smile of gentle mockery.

  “I am more distressed than I can say, to have been compelled to submit you to this rough usage and this discomfort. Necessity is my task-master. I will not have your father or your servants disturbed just yet. Presently I, myself, will call them. Meanwhile, dear Bice, dispel your personal alarms, for I swear to you that you shall suffer no hurt; that what I have done, I have done but as a temporary restraint.”

  And now he proceeded to explain. “You are to understand, dear cousin, that when I told you that there is a plot afoot to murder your fine captain, I told you not a word more than the truth. Too often has he presumed to affront me, sheltered like a coward behind the shield of Borgia justice, which would have strangled me had I slain him - though honourably - in the duello. But he was a fool for all his pains, for he might have known that Francesco degli Omodei was not the man to leave unavenged the insults of an upstart condottiero. Tonight he pays his score.”

  In loyalty to his friend Vitelli - his paymaster in this foul business - Francesco made no mention of his name. Besides his loyalty, he had to consider that for the fruition of his schemes Amerigo must ultimately wed Beatrice. To that end this business was but the means. Therefore Amerigo must nowise be associated here with Messer Francesco.

>   “Are you wondering,” he resumed, “why I have chosen such a place and hour in which to do this thing? You shall learn, sweet cousin, lest you should suffer through concern for my safety when it is done.

  “When this fool Scipione, hastening hither all on fire with love and rage and valour, shall cross that threshold, then he dies. Here in your chamber shall he breathe his last. What greater blessing could he ask of Fate? Such happiness is not given to every lover, though many sigh for it - in their verses.

  “Do not suppose that when the thing is done I shall become a fugitive from justice.” He smiled infernally, for he was cruel to the core of him. “In that hour I shall call your father, loose your bonds and rouse the house - all Urbino will I rouse, and myself, fetch the podesta to hear the tale of how, surprising your Captain Scipione here in your arms at dead midnight, I slew him for the honour of the Omodei.

  “You think, perhaps, that you will deny my story? And so, no doubt, you will. But consider now,” he mocked her, “who is there will believe you? You dream perhaps that my servant will tell of the note he bore at my bidding. Build not upon that. My servant I can trust for silence.”

  Her eyes flashed him mute hatred from out of her livid face. But Francesco was nothing daunted, nothing moved. Rather did her dumb agony spur him to further derisive explanation.

  “Urbino shall acclaim me for this night’s work,” said he. “I may even come to figure in song and story for future ages to admire me.”

  Thereafter there was a spell of silence, and the cousins sat awaiting the coming of Beatrice’s lover; she in a torture of fear, in a sickness of remorse for having given so little heed to the warnings of her intuition against this man of whose life she had never known a single deed of good.

  He sat uneasy now, fearful of interruption. It was approaching midnight; the old scholar above stairs might bethink him to seek his bed, and ere he went might come to see that all was well with his daughter. Francesco’s fears grew with every beat of his pulses. He sat livid, fretful, gnawing at his nails, his ears straining, his nerves starting at every creak that broke the midnight stillness.