‘That is not true, Magnificent. I have had no dealings with the Holy Father, and I have supplied him with no poisons. I know not how Messer Djem may have died, nor have I ever said I did.’
‘How, then, comes this story current, and your name in it?’
Corvinus hastened to explain. Explanations were a merchandise with which he was well stocked.
‘It may be thus. Of such a poison I possess the secret, and some there have been who have sought it from me. Hence, no doubt, knowing that I have it and conceiving that it was used, the vulgar have drawn conclusions, as the vulgar will, unwarrantably.’
Cesare smiled.
‘’Tis very subtle, Trismegistus.’ And he nodded gravely. ‘And you say that you have such a poison? What, pray, may be its nature?’
‘That, Magnificent, is secret,’ was the answer.
‘I care not. I desire to know, and I have asked you.’
There was no heat in the rejoinder. It was quite cold — deadly cold. But it had more power to compel than any anger. Corvinus fenced no more; he made haste to answer.
‘It consists chiefly of the juice of catapuce and the powdered yolk of an egg, but its preparation is not easy.’
‘You have it at hand?’
‘Here, Magnificent,’ replied the mage.
And from the same bronze coffer whence he had taken the love-philtre — the golden elixir — he drew now a tiny cedar box, opened it, and placed it before the Duke. It contained a fine yellow powder.
‘One drachm of that will kill thirty days after it has been administered, two drachms in half the time.’
Cesare sniffed it and eyed the mage sardonically.
‘I desire to make experiment,’ said he. ‘How much is here?’
‘Two drachms, highness.’
The Duke held out the box to Corvinus.
‘Swallow it,’ he bade him calmly.
The mage drew back in an alarm that almost argued faith in his own statement. ‘My lord!’ he cried, aghast.
‘Swallow it,’ Cesare repeated, without raising his voice. Corvinus blinked and gulped. ‘Would you have me die, my lord?’
‘Die? Do you, then, confess yourself mortal, Thrice-Mage — you, the great Corvinus Trismegistus, whose knowledge is wide and deep as the limitless ocean, you who are so little sensible to the ills and decay of the flesh that already you have lived two thousand years? Is the potency of this powder such that it can slay even the immortals?’
And now, at last, Corvinus began to apprehend the real scope of Cesare’s visit. It was true that he had set it about that the Sultan Djem had been poisoned, and that he had boasted that he himself had supplied the Borgias with the fabulous secret drug that at such a distance of time had killed the Grand Turk’s brother; and, as a consequence, he had made great profit by the sale of what he alleged was the same poison — a subtle veneno a termine, as he called it — so convenient for wives who were anxious for a change of husbands, so serviceable to husbands grown weary of their wives.
He understood at last that Cesare, informed of the defamatory lie that had procured the mage such profit, had sought him out to punish him. And it is a fact that Corvinus himself, despite his considerable knowledge, actually believed in the drug’s fabulous power to slay at such a distance of time. He had found the recipe in an old MS volume, with many another kindred prescription, and he believed it with all the blind credulity of the Cinquecento in such matters, with in fact, all the credulity of those who came to seek his magician’s aid.
The Duke’s sinister mockery, the extraordinary sense which he ever conveyed of his power to compel, of the futility of attempting to resist his commands, filled Corvinus with an abject dread.
‘Highness...alas!...I fear it may be as you say!’ he cried.
‘But even so, of what are you afraid? Come, man, you are trifling! Have you not said of this elixir that it will restore the dead to life? I pledge you my word that I shall see that it is administered to you when you are dead. Come, then; swallow me this powder, and see that you die of it precisely a fortnight hence, or, by my soul’s salvation, I’ll have you hanged for an impostor without giving you the benefit afterwards of your own dose of resurrection.’
‘My lord — my lord!’ groaned the unfortunate man.
‘Now, understand me,’ said the Duke. ‘If this powder acts as you say it will, and kills you at the appointed time, your own elixir shall be given to you to bring you back again to life. But if it kills you sooner, you may remain dead; and if it kills you not at all — why, then I’ll hang you, and publish the truth of the whole matter, that men may know the falsehood of the manner of Djem’s death upon which you have been trading! Refuse me, and—’
The Duke’s gesture was significant.
Corvinus looked into the young man’s beautiful, relentless eyes, and saw that to hope to turn him from his purpose were worse than idle. As soon, then, risk the powder as accept the certainty of the rope, with perhaps a foretaste of hell upon the rack. Besides, some chemical skill he had, and a timely emetic might save him — that and flight. Which shows the precise extent of his faith in his elixir of life.
With trembling hands he took the powder.
‘See that you spill none of it,’ Cesare admonished him ‘or the strangler shall valet you, Thrice-Mage!’
‘My lord, my lord!’ quavered the wretched warlock, his eyes bulging. ‘Mercy! I...’
‘The poison, or the strangler,’ said the Duke.
In despair, and yet heartening himself by the thought of the emetic, Corvinus bore the edge of the box to his ashen lips, and emptied into his mouth the faintly musty contents, Cesare watching him closely the while. When it was done, the appalled magician sank limply to his chair.
The Duke laughed softly, replaced his visor, and, flinging his ample cloak about him, strode towards the curtains that masked the door.
‘Sleep easily, Thrice-Mage,’ he said, with infinite mockery. ‘I shall not fail you.’
Watching him depart, so confidently, so utterly fearless and unconcerned, Corvinus was assailed by rage and a fierce temptation to extinguish the light and try conclusions with Cesare in the dark, summoning the Nubian to his aid. It was with that thought in his mind that he smote the gong. But, whilst the note of it still rang upon the air, he abandoned a notion so desperate. It would not save him if he were poisoned, whilst if he allowed Cesare to depart unmolested he would be the sooner gone, and the sooner Cesare were gone the sooner would Corvinus be free to administer himself the emetic that was now his only hope.
The curtains flashed back, and the Nubian appeared. On the threshold Cesare paused, and over his shoulder, ever mocking, he flung the warlock his valediction:
‘Fare you well, Thrice-Mage!’ he said; and, with a laugh, passed out.
Corvinus dashed wildly to his shelves in quest of that emetic, fiercely cursing the Duke of Valentinois and all the Borgia brood.
II
As the Nubian opened the door of the mage’s house to give egress to the Duke, he felt himself suddenly caught about the neck in the crook of a steely, strangling arm, whilst the shrill note of a whistle sounded almost in his very ear.
Instantly the hitherto silent and deserted street awoke to life. From out of doorways darted swift-footed men in answer to the Duke’s summons. Into the hands of two of these he delivered the Nubian; to the others he issued a brief command, ‘In!’ he said, waving a hand down the passage. ‘In, and take him.’ And upon that he stepped out into the street and so departed.
Later that evening word was brought him at the palace of how Messer Corvinus had been taken in the very act of mixing a drug.
‘The antidote, no doubt,’ said Cesare to the officer who bore him the information. ‘You would be just in time to save my experiment from being frustrated. A wicked, faithless, inconsiderate fellow, this Corvinus. Let him be kept in close confinement, guarded by men whom you can trust, until you hear from me again.’
Thereafter Cesare sum
moned a council of his officers — Corella the Venetian, Naldo the Forlivese, Ramiro de Lorqua, his lieutenant-general of Romagna, Della Volpe the one-eyed, and Lorenzo Castrocaro.
A tall, clean-limbed young man was this last, very proud in his bearing, very splendid in his apparel, with golden hair and handsome, dreamy eyes of a blue as dark as sapphires. Cesare held him in great regard, knowing him valiant, resourceful, and ambitious. Tonight he regarded him with a fresh interest, in view of what at the magician’s he had overheard.
The Duke waved his officers to their seats about his council board, and craved of Della Volpe, who was in charge of the siege operations, news of the fortress of San Leo.
The veteran’s swarthy face was gloomy. His single eye — he had lost the other in the Duke’s service — avoided his master’s penetrating glance. He sighed wearily.
‘We make no progress,’ he confessed, ‘nor can make any. San Leo is not a place to be carried by assault, as your magnificence well knows. It stands there upon its mountaintop like a monument upon a plinth, approached by a bridlepath offering no cover. And, for all that it is reported to be held by scarcely more than a score of men, a thousand cannot take it. There is no foothold at the summit for more than a dozen men at a time, and as for using guns against it, it were easier to mount a park of artillery upon a fiddle-string.’
‘Yet until San Leo is ours we are not fully masters of Urbino,’ said the Duke. ‘We cannot leave the place in the hands of Fioravanti.’
‘We shall have to starve him out, then,’ said Della Volpe.
‘And that would take a year at least,’ put in Corella, who had been gathering information. ‘They have great store of wheat and other victuals and they are watered by a well in the inner bailie of the fortress. With few mouths to feed, as they have, they can hold us in check for ever.’
‘There is a rumour today,’ said Della Volpe, ‘that the Lord Fioravanti is sick, and that it is feared he may not live.’
‘Not a doubt but Venice will say I poisoned him,’ said Cesare, sneering. ‘Still, even if he dies, it will be no gain to us. There is his castellan, Tolentino, to take his place; and Tolentino is the more obstinate of the two. We must consider some way to reduce them. Meanwhile, Taddeo, be vigilant, and hold the path against all.’
Della Volpe inclined his head.
‘I have taken all my measures for that,’ he said.
And now young Castrocaro stirred in his chair, leaning forward across the table.
‘By your leave,’ said he, ‘those measures may not suffice.’
Della Volpe frowned, rolled his single eye, which was preternaturally fierce, and scowled contemptuously upon this young cockerel whose pretence it seemed to be to teach that war-battered old captain the art of beleaguering.
‘There is another way to reach San Leo,’ Castrocaro explained; and drew upon himself the attention of all, particularly the Duke, in whose fine eyes there gleamed now an eager interest very unusual in him.
Castrocaro met with a confident smile this sudden and general alertness he had provoked.
‘It is not,’ he explained, ‘such a way by which a company can go, but sufficient to enable a bold man who is acquainted with it to bear messages, and, at need, even victuals into the fortress. Therefore, it will be necessary that Messer della Volpe surround the entire base of the rock if he would be sure that none shall slip through his lines.’
‘You are certain of what you tell us?’ quoth the Duke sharply.
‘Certain!’ echoed Castrocaro; and he smiled. ‘The way of which I speak lies mainly to the south of the rock. It is perilous even for a goat, yet it is practicable with care to one who knows it. Myself, as a boy, have made the ascent more often than I should have cared to tell my mother. In quest of an eagle’s nest I have more than once reached the little plateau that thrusts out under the very wall of the fortress on the southern side. Thence, to enter the castle, all that would be needed would be a rope and a grappling hook; for the wall is extremely low just there — not more than twelve feet high.’
The Duke pondered the young soldier with very thoughtful eyes, in silence, for some moments.
‘I shall further consider this,’ he said at length. ‘Meanwhile, I thank you for the information. You have heard, Della Volpe. You will profit by what Castrocaro tells us, encircling the base entirely with your troops.’
Della Volpe bowed, and upon that the council rose.
Next morning Cesare Borgia summoned Castrocaro to his presence. He received the young condottiero in the noble library of the palace, a spacious chamber, its lofty ceiling gloriously frescoed by Mantegna, its walls hung with costly tapestries and cloth of gold, its shelves stocked with a priceless and imposing array of volumes, all in manuscript; for, although the new German invention of the printing press was already at work, by not a single vulgar production of that machine would Duke Guidobaldo have contaminated his cherished and marvellous collection.
At work at a table spread with papers sat the black-gowned figure of Agabito Gherardi, the Duke’s secretary.
‘You have the acquaintance, have you not,’ quoth Cesare, ‘of Madonna Bianca, the daughter of Fioravanti of San Leo?’
The young man, taken by surprise, flushed slightly despite his habitual self-possession, and his blue eyes, avoiding the Duke’s, considered the summer sky and the palace gardens through one of the windows that stood open to the broad marble balcony.
‘I have that honour in some slight degree,’ he answered; and Cesare considered from his air and tone that the magician’s golden elixir was scarcely needed here as urgently as Madonna Bianca opined, and that what still was wanting to enchant him the sorcery of her beauty might accomplish unaided, as the magician had supposed.
He smiled gently.
‘You may improve that acquaintance, if you so desire.’
The young man threw back his head very haughtily.
‘I do not understand your potency,’ said he.
‘You have my leave,’ the Duke explained, ‘to convey in person to Madonna Bianca the news we have received that her father lies sick in San Leo.’
Still the young man held himself loftily upon the defensive, as a young lover will.
‘To what end this, highness?’ he inquired, his tone still haughty.
‘Why, to what end but a Christian one, and’ — the Duke slightly lowered his voice to a confidential tone, and smiled inscrutably— ‘a kindly purpose towards yourself. Still, if you disdain the latter, for the former any other messenger will serve.’
Ill at ease in his self-consciousness, a little mystified, yet well-content at heart, the condottiero bowed.
‘I thank your highness,’ he said. ‘Have I your leave to go?’
The Duke nodded.
‘You will wait upon me on your return. I may have other commands for you,’ he said, and so dismissed him.
An hour later came Castrocaro back to the palace library in great haste and some excitement to seek the duke again.
‘My lord,’ he cried, all in a trembling eagerness, ‘I have conveyed the message, and I am returned to crave a boon. Madonna Bianca besought of me in her affliction a written order to pass the lines of Della Volpe, that she might repair to her father.’
‘And you?’ cried the Duke sharply, his level brows drawn together by a sudden frown.
The young captain’s glance fell away. Obviously he was discouraged and abashed.
‘I answered that I had no power to grant such an order, but — but that I would seek it of your highness; that I knew you would not desire to hold a daughter from her father’s side at such time.’
‘You know a deal,’ said Cesare sourly, ‘and you promise rashly. Precipitancy in making promises has never yet helped a man to greatness. Bear that in mind.’
‘But she was in such sore affliction!’ cried Messer Lorenzo, protesting.
‘Aye!’ said the Duke dryly. ‘And she used you so kindly, eyed you so fondly, gave you such sweet wine to drink
, that you had no strength to resist her soft appeal.’
Cesare, watching his condottiero closely, observed the flicker of the young man’s eyelids at the mention of the wine, and was satisfied. But even more fully was he to have the assurance that he sought.
‘Have I been spied upon?’ quoth Messer Lorenzo hotly.
Cesare shrugged contemptuously, not deigning to reply.
‘You have leave to go,’ he said in curt dismissal.
But Messer Lorenzo was in a daring mood, and slow to obey. ‘And the authority for Madonna Bianca to join her father?’ he asked.
‘There are good reasons why none should enter San Leo at present,’ was the cold reply. ‘Since you lay such store by it, I regret the necessity to deny you. But in time of war necessity is inexorable.’
Chagrined and downcast, the condottiero bowed and withdrew. Having promised, and finding himself now unable to fulfil the promise made to her over that cup of wine which she had brought him with her own fair hands, he dared not present himself to her again. Instead he dispatched a page to her with the unwelcome news of the Duke’s refusal.
Yet in this matter Cesare Borgia was oddly inconsistent. For scarcely had Castrocaro left his presence than he turned to his white-faced secretary.
‘Write me three lines to Della Volpe,’ said he, ‘ordering that if Madonna Bianca de’ Fioravanti should attempt to steal through his lines and gain San Leo, he is to offer her no hindrance.’
Agabito’s round, pale countenance reflected his amazement at this order. But Cesare, surveying him, smiled inscrutably for all reply, and, from his knowledge of his master and that smile, Agabito perceived that Cesare was embarked upon one of those tortuous, subtle courses whose goal none could perceive until it had been reached. He bent to his task, and his pen scratched and spluttered briskly. Very soon a messenger bearing the order was on his way to Della Volpe’s camp.
That very night Madonna Bianca considerately did what the Duke expected of her. She slipped past the Borgia sentinels in the dark, and she was in San Leo by morning, though in Urbino none knew of this but Cesare, who had word of it privately from Della Volpe. Her palace by the Zoccolanti remained opened as if inhabited by her, but to all who came to seek her it was said that she was in ill-health and kept her chamber. And amongst these was Lorenzo Castrocaro, who, upon being denied admittance on this plea, concluded that she was angry with him for having failed to do as he had promised, and thereafter grew oddly silent and morose.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 436
