Yet were his fears all idle. The old count in his library had fallen soundly asleep over the fourth book of the “De Rerum Natura.”
Meanwhile, Francesco’s servant, a lank, loose-limbed fellow, whose name - for what it matters - was Gasparo, sped swiftly towards the Zoccolanti and the house of Scipione, on the errand that was to fetch the victim to the springe so cunningly prepared.
Had Messer Amerigo Vitelli but known of it, all had been well - from the monstrous point of view of nimble-witted Franceschino. But Messer Amerigo did not know, and thence it was to ensue that Francesco was to pay for the vanity that had bound him to silence until the thing should be accomplished.
It came about by one of those coincidences, which, meeting us at every step and weaving themselves into the warp of our intentions, alter, modify and set a pattern upon the fabric we call Life.
Messer Amerigo had been supping at the house of one Nomaglie, whose banquets outrivalled any that Lucullus ever spread. He was rolling home, flushed spiritually, and materially fired by a Vesuvian wine which he had grossly abused and some of whose sulphur had got into his veins and made him ripe for any devilry. With him came some half-score merry gentlemen of Urbino, entirely of Amerigo’s kidney and similarly charged with Nomaglie’s volcanic brew. The noisy party was flanked by four stalwart lackeys, bearing torches, and preceded by a boy in cloth-of-gold wearing a gilded mask in the form of a calf’s head - the emblem of the Vitelli - and thrumming a lute.
Into this company blundered our friend Gasparo, to find his way blocked; for the noisy troop sprawled itself from wall to wall across the narrow street.
The servant flattened himself in a doorway to give passage to them. But they were by no means minded to give passage in their turn to him or any other whom at that hour they might chance to meet.
“Now, who may this be?” quoth Amerigo, in his sweet, mincing voice, his tongue stumbling over the consonants. “And why does he lurk there like a spy?” He stopped, and the procession halted with him - the master of these revels. “Hale him forth,” he commanded.
Gasparo was instantly charged by the foremost roysterers, seized, and dragged, exceedingly scared, into mid-street before Amerigo. The latter struck a judicial attitude, its dignity a trifle marred by the leaning of his pink cap over his left eye. His podgy figure was gorgeous in rosy silk, with a line of diamond buttons running down the middle of his doublet; his hose was striped pink and white, vertically from foot to knee, horizontally thence to his trunks. He looked extremely absurd.
“So, rogue,” he roared, “explain this night-walking.”
“I - I am Gasparo, sir,” pleaded the lackey, nor thought to explain that he was the servant of Francesco degli Omodei, conceiving in his vanity that he was as well known to Messer Amerigo as was Messer Amerigo to him.
“Oho!” crowed Vitelli. “You are Gasparo, eh?” And to the company he imparted with drunken owlishness the solemn information. “He is Gasparo. Mark that well, sirs. He is Gasparo.”
And the revellers responded by linking arms and dancing furiously about the lackey and his interlocutor in a circle, howling to the renewed thrumming of the lute:
“He is Gasparo - paro - paro!
He is Gasparo - paro - puh!”
This gibbering, swirling human vortex frightened the poor groom out of the little sense he had received from stingy Nature. Already he foresaw an ugly ending to this frolic, imagined grim horrors to which this demoniac mummery was but the prologue.
Amerigo took him by the arm, and drew him close. “We are detaining you, you say?” quoth he. “Of course we are detaining you. You will abstain from fatuous observations of that sort. We cannot endure them. This, sir, is a company of wits.”
Upon that word of his the lute thrummed again, the circular dance was resumed, the page in the golden calf’s head improvised, and the others howled the chorus:
“Oh, Gasparo - paro - paro!
Oh, most fortunate of cits!
Oh, Gasparo - paro - paro!
You are fallen among wits!”
Round and round went the idiotic, howling, drunken crew, a swirl of many coloured legs, a rainbow of fluttering cloaks, weird, phantasmagoric, and - to Gasparo - wholly terrific as seen in the ruddy, fitful glare of the torches.
“You are expected, eh, Gasparo?” quoth Amerigo, when presently the dancers paused.
“Indeed, I am, sir. Let me go; let me go, I beg, Magnificent,” implored the lout.
“He’s expected,” said Amerigo to the company, very solemnly and a trifle thickly. “This laggard lover is expected, and he wastes his time here with a parcel of drunken, bawdy midnight brawlers. Shame on thee, Gasparo.” Then in Gasparo’s ear, but loud enough for all to hear him: “Where does she live now, and what’s her name? Is she tall or short, fat or lean, black or golden? Descant, man! Propound her virtues of the spirit and the flesh, that we decide if you shall keep this tryst. I am Amerigo Vitelli, the arbiter foeminae of Italy. You may have heard of me. So descant freely - as to a judge.”
And now Gasparo saw light of a sudden in his trouble. He had but to mention the name of the man to whom he bore his message, and there would be an end to this baiting.
“You mistake, Messer Amerigo,” said he. “You mistake, Magnificent. I am expected by the Captain Baldassare Scipione at his house yonder. I beg that you’ll suffer me to go.”
The leer faded slowly from Amerigo’s flushed and puffy face. Some of the drunken vacuity departed from his eye, and the company, either noting or feeling the change, fell silent. Gasparo felt it too. It was as if a chill wind had blown suddenly upon him.
“What are you to Messer Scipione?” asked Amerigo, his voice now harsh. He was grown wicked of a sudden, and from mischievously ape-drunk that he had been, he was turned lion-drunk at the mention of his successful rival. His mood was now to roar and rend.
Scared back into the tremors from which he had been daring to emerge, Gasparo stammered, “I - I have a letter, Magnificent, for the captain.”
Had the fool but said from whom he came instead of to whom he went, all might have been well. But, because he imagined himself known to Vitelli, he did not.
The mere mention of the letter filled Amerigo with suspicious jealousy, which in his drunken state craved satisfaction. Harshly he demanded its production. The lackey whimpered that he dared not obey; implored them anew to let him go; for he had the scent of danger breast-high by now.
Amerigo in his new mood was very short with him. “The letter!” he snarled. And then to his friends, with a wave of a fat white hand: “Obtain it me!” he commanded.
They were like hounds unleashed upon a quarry, in their eagerness for the frolic that obeying him entailed. Four of them pounced upon the unfortunate Gasparo. In the twinkling of an eye the doublet was gone from his back, ripped into four pieces; his vest followed it, similarly quartered, and lastly, his very shirt. The rent garments were flung to others to be searched.
A dagger was inserted at Gasparo’s waistband, and his trunks were swiftly slashed away, he never daring to move, lest the dagger’s other edge should scrape acquaintance with his flesh.
Within five seconds of their laying hands upon him, Gasparo stood as naked as upon the occasion of his first appearance in this vale of sorrow, and in Amerigo’s hands was the letter which his doublet had yielded. The completion of their work of denudation had been mere wantonness.
Reckless of any consequences, Amerigo broke the threads which bound the missive, and called for light. A torch was advanced. Vitelli read, and his face grew black with rage, then lighted again with inspiration. If Beatrice was in danger, as the letter said, was not he, himself, the very man to fly to her assistance. If not, if the letter were... He checked on the notion, scowling again in an effort of thought. The blundering servant had said, he remembered, that he was expected by the captain. Then this letter... Again he checked, and very softly licked his lips and smiled.
Meanwhile the Saturnalian dance about G
asparo was resumed. The lute throbbed, and the boy improvised, whilst the others thundered after him, and awakened the street from end to end.
“He’s as rosy as a cupid,
This Gasparo - paro - paro;
And his legs are sweetly crooked,
Oh, Gasparo - paro - puh!”
Amerigo broke through the ring. “Away, away!” he cried. Then beckoned a torchbearer. “Attend me, you,” he commanded. “Gay people, a happy night! Seek your sport elsewhere. My game’s afoot! Good night! Most happy night!”
And he was gone, stumbling and lurching down the street, at once lighted and supported by his torchbearer.
They watched his departure in a sudden silence of surprise; then vainly shouted to him to return.
“This will end badly,” muttered one. “He is overdrunk to be let go.”
“Why, then, after him!” put in another.
The procession formed up once more, the golden boy placed himself at the head, and so led them away down the street, thrumming his lute, and improvising fresh verses on the subject of Gasparo.
The lackey, shivering and whimpering in a doorway, watched their departure. Then he crept forth, and picking up the poor remains of his garments, disguised his nakedness as best he could in them. In a fury, fiercely hoping for vengeance, he went off resolutely to thunder on Messer Baldassare Scipione’s door, to inform the captain of what had taken place, and of how he had been robbed of a letter from Monna Beatrice degli Omodei, which he had been bidden bring with all dispatch.
The captain listened patiently, questioned fruitlessly, swore fiercely, called for sword and hat, dispatched Gasparo to rouse the podesta, and himself set out at a run for the house of Omodei.
In Madonna Beatrice’s chamber sat the cousins waiting. The man consumed by his impatience and his fears of an interruption at the eleventh hour; the girl in frozen terror, with thudding heart and heaving bosom; desperately sustained from fainting by the imperative necessity to witness whatever might come to pass; fostering - and yet afraid to foster - the hope that Francesco’s diabolical plans should yet miscarry.
Abruptly and silently Francesco came to his feet, with head slightly inclined, listening intently. He smiled cruelly. The game was won.
“Your lover comes, Beatrice,” he announced, very softly.
His ears had caught the distant creak of rusty hinges, and so had hers. Her heart worked ponderously, a sickness oppressed her, and rolling noises were booming in her ears; and yet, knowing that she dared not sink into the merciful unconsciousness stealing over her like a slumber, she shook it off, and by a sheer effort of will regained her self-control.
Francesco softly crossed to her, and plucked away the gag.
“Scream now, if it will comfort you,” said he. And she, knowing that to cry out would but serve to hasten her lover to his doom, was silent.
Her cousin drew away, and went to take his stand by the heavy curtains, a fine, tall figure, brave in grey and gold. He crouched a little, balanced for the spring, his long dagger gleaming in his hand.
To the ears of the twain, strained now and super-sensitive, came a snapping of twigs in the garden below. The lover approached in reckless, headlong haste. At last his step was on the staircase - the step of one whose foot is softly clad - mounting swiftly to the balcony.
Francesco, pale and something breathless, with furrowed brow and dilated nostrils, moved neither limb nor eye as he waited at his post. Had he but done so - had he but chanced to look at Beatrice in that moment he would have seen in her face that which would have given him pause.
She sat there in her bonds, her head thrust forward, her lips parted, her eyes wide. And though fear sprawled lividly across the winsome beauty of her face, yet there was something else - a certain surprise and even some relief. For Beatrice knew that the man who was climbing the staircase to meet Francesco’s dagger was not her lover. In that moment, as she listened to those approaching steps, she lived but in her hearing, which had absorbed into itself the entire sentiency of her being.
Even Francesco should have known that this soft-shod, stealthy, yet uncertain footstep was not Scipione’s. To herald the captain’s approach there had been a firmer tread, the clink of spurs, perhaps the clank of sword.
His reason should have warned him of the thing which she had learned entirely without reasoning. But like herself, he, too, had whittled all his faculties into one sharp point, and was intent but upon that.
She would have cried out had she bethought her that hers was the power of utterance. She would have stayed Francesco’s hand; for she knew not into what breast his dagger was about to plunge. But her brain was numb to all save three mighty facts which absorbed her consciousness - knowledge, surprise and infinite relief that this was not Baldassare.
The steps pattered across the balcony, and the crimson curtains bellied inwards. And in that same moment, Francesco struck; once, twice, thrice, in quick succession his poniard rose and descended through the thick velvet of the curtains into the body of the man beyond.
There came a muffled cry, a cough, a gurgling groan, and with them a frantic agitation of the curtains that told of clutching for support. Then the rod snapped above, a man hurtled forward, tripped by the draperies he had torn from their hangings and enveloped by them. Swathed in them as in a winding-sheet, he rolled at their feet, a crimson velvet bundle from which protruded two legs in pink and white silk that kicked convulsively, and then were stiff and still.
Francesco, breathing noisily in his excitement, stepped briskly across that writhing heap to cut the cords that bound Beatrice. He whipped them quickly away, and flung them behind the press.
Limp, now that the bonds supported her no longer, she huddled, half swooning in the chair. But Francesco had no time to think of her. Steps sounded in the passage, someone tried the door, then rapped impatiently, and his uncle’s voice called Beatrice.
Francesco dashed the sweat from his clammy brow, strode briskly to the door, turned the key, and flung it wide.
On the threshold he came face to face with his white-haired uncle, candle in one hand, the inevitable book closed upon his forefinger in the other.
“Francesco!” he exclaimed, and frowned between anger and amazement. “What make you here at such an hour? And what is happening? Why was that door locked?”
Francesco, miraculously self-controlled by now, his face a mask of sorrowing concern, drew his uncle by the arm into the chamber, and closed the door.
The old man’s eye caught that ominous red bundle on the floor, and he started forward, and perceived the absurd plump legs in their pink and white stockings. Then he looked at his daughter, who sat livid, dull-eyed, and no longer more than half conscious. Lastly he turned his blank, scared face upon his nephew.
“What does it mean?” he inquired hoarsely, a quaver in his voice, a sense of evil overcoming his usual mistrust of his nephew.
Francesco flashed a glance at Beatrice; then his grimness all deserted him. “My God!” he cried out. “How shall I tell you?” He buried his face in his hands; his shoulders heaved, and a sob escaped him.
“Francesco!” cried his uncle in tremulous appeal. “What is it? Who is that?” And he pointed to the body on the ground.
And then Francesco made pretence to control himself, and told his wicked story, told it with a cunning as surpassing as that of the tale itself, with averted eyes, in a voice stifled now by emotion, broken now by sobs. Thus did he relate how passing homeward he had seen the garden postern standing wide; wondering he had stepped into the garden, and seeing a light in the window of the chamber Beatrice was wont to inhabit, he had advanced, moved by a premonition that all was not well. Through the window he had seen them - Baldassare Scipione and Beatrice - there together. By a strange negligence, which had proved the man’s just undoing, they had not bethought them to draw the curtains close. Inflamed by a kinsman’s righteous indignation, he had climbed the stairs, and so surprised them. He had fallen upon Scipione an
d he had slain him.
Old Omodei sat, a bowed figure, hands on knees, head fallen forward, and listened to his nephew’s infamous invention, entirely duped by it, convinced by the grim evidence at hand. A while after Francesco had done, he remained so, like one bereft of understanding. At last he moved; a groan escaped him, and Francesco looking furtively saw two tears trickle slowly adown his uncle’s furrowed cheeks. Yet Francesco knew no pity.
Suddenly the old man stiffened. He rose, determination on his ashen face. He looked steadily and long at Beatrice, who met his glance with one that he accounted of defiance. She had heard the story. She knew that she must contradict it, knew that she held this vile Francesco in the hollow of her hand. And yet she sat spellbound, incapable of speech, frozen out of volition by an odd curiosity to see what these men would do. She was as a spectator at some play in whose movement she was nowise concerned.
The Count turned fiercely to Francesco. “Give me your dagger,” he demanded, and held out his hand.
“What would you do?” cried Francesco, now alarmed.
“Complete the work that you have but half done. Wipe out the remainder of this stain. Give me your dagger.”
Francesco drew away, aghast. “No, no!” he cried. “You shall not. I swear that you shall not.”
“You fool!” his uncle snarled at him. “Can I let live an Omodei at whom the vulgar may point the finger of scorn? Shall I suffer her - my daughter - to be leered at for a strumpet each time she goes abroad. Come, come! Give me your-”
He checked abruptly. His mouth fell open. He hunched his shoulders, like one gathering to resist a blow.
Beatrice had found her voice at last, and used it - used it to utter a soft, scornful laugh.
The Count recovered, and the anger that had momentarily ebbed came flooding back. “You laugh!” he cried, his eyes ablaze. “You dare to laugh?”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 426
