Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  ‘Which of us is the fool in this, sir?’ he questioned, leering. Then, with an abrupt change of manner, he waved to his men. ‘Seize and search him,’ he commanded.

  In a moment they had him down upon the floor, and they were stripping him of his garments. They made a very thorough search, but it yielded nothing.

  ‘No matter,’ said Tolentino as he got into bed again. ‘We have more than enough against him already. Make him safe for the night. He shall go down the cliff’s face again in the morning, and I swear he shall go down faster than ever he came up.’

  And Messer Tolentino rolled over, and settled down comfortably to go to sleep again.

  IV

  Locked in the guard-house — since a man who was to die so soon was not worth the trouble of consigning to a dungeon, Messer Lorenzo Castrocaro spent, as you may conceive, a somewhat troubled night. He was too young and too full of life and the zest and warmth of it to be indifferent about quitting it, to look with apathy upon death. He had seen death and a deal of it — in the past two years of his martial career. But it had been the death of others, and never until now had it seemed to him that death was a thing that very much concerned himself. Even when he had imagined that he realized the dangers before him in this enterprise of San Leo, he had felt a certain confidence that it was not for him to die. He was, in fact, in that phase of youth and vigour when a man seems to himself immortal. And even now that he lay on the wooden bench in the guard-room, in the dark, he could hardly conceive that the end of him was really at hand. The catastrophe had overtaken him so suddenly, so very casually; and surely death was too great a business to be heralded so quietly.

  He sighed wearily, and sought to find a more comfortable position on his pitilessly hard couch. He thought of many things — of his past life, of early boyhood, of his mother, of his companions in arms, and of martial feats accomplished. He saw himself hacking a way through the living barrier that blocked the breach in the wall of Forli, or riding with Valentinois in the mighty charge that routed the Colonna under Capua; and he had a singularly vivid vision of the dead men he had beheld on those occasions and how they had looked in death. So would he look tomorrow, his reason told him. But still his imagination refused to picture it.

  Then his thoughts shifted to Madonna Bianca de’ Fioravanti, whom he would never see again. For months he had experienced an odd tenderness for that lady, of a sweetly melancholy order, and in secret he had committed some atrocious verses in her honour.

  It had been no great affair when all was said; there had been other and more ardent loves in his short life; yet Madonna Bianca had evoked in him a tenderer regard, a holier feeling than any other woman that he had known. Indeed, the contrast was as sharp as that which lies between sacred and profane love. Perhaps it was because she was so unattainable, so distant, so immeasurably above him, the daughter of a great lord, the representative today of a great house, whilst he was but a condottiero, an adventurer who had for patrimony no more than his wits and his sword. He sighed. It would have been sweet to have seen her again before dying — to have poured out the story of his love as a swan pours out its deathsong. Yet, after all, it did not greatly matter.

  You see that his examination of conscience in that supreme hour had little to do with the making of his soul.

  He wondered would she hear of the end he had made; and whether, hearing, she would pity him a little; whether, indeed, she would do so much as remember him. It was odd he reflected that he should come to meet his end in the very castle that had been her father’s; yet he was glad that it was not her father’s hand that measured out to him this death that he must die tomorrow.

  Physically exhausted as he was by the exertions of his climb, he fell at last into a fitful slumber; and when next he awakened it was to find the morning sunlight pouring through the tall windows of his prison.

  He had been aroused by the grating of a key in the lock, and as he sat up, stiff and sore, on his hard couch, the door opened, and to him entered Bernardo, followed by six soldiers, all in their harness. ‘A good day to you,’ said Bernardo civilly, but a trifle thoughtlessly, considering what the day had in store for Messer Lorenzo.

  The young man smiled as he swung his feet to the ground. ‘A better day to you,’ said he; and thus earned by his pleasantry and his debonair manner, the esteem of the gruff soldier.

  It had come to Messer Lorenzo that, since die he must, the thing would be best done jocosely. Lamentations would not avail him. Let him then be blithe. Perhaps, after all, death were not so fearful a business as priests represented it; and as for that flaming hell that lies agape for young men who have drunk of the lusty cup of their youth there would be shrift for him before he went.

  He rose, and ran his fingers through his long, fair hair, which had become tousled. Then he looked at his hands, grimy and bruised from yesternight’s adventure, and begged Bernardo to fetch him water.

  Bernardo’s brows went up in surprise. The labour of washing did not seem a reasonable thing to him under the circumstances. Outside in the courtyard a drum began to beat a call. Bernardo thrust out a dubious lip.

  ‘Messer Tolentino is awaiting you,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ replied Castrocaro. ‘You would not have me present myself thus before him. It were to show a lack of proper respect for the hangman.’

  Bernardo shrugged, and gave an order to one of his men. The fellow set his pike in a corner and went out, to return presently with an iron basin full of water. This he placed upon the table. Messer Lorenzo thanked him pleasantly, removed his doublet and shirt, and stripped to the waist he proceeded to make the best toilet that he could as briefly as possible.

  Washed and refreshed, his garments dusted and their disarray repaired, he acknowledged himself ready. The men surrounded him at a word from Bernardo, marched him out into the open where the impatient castellan awaited him.

  With a firm step, his head high, and his cheeks but little paler than their habit, Messer Lorenzo came into the spacious inner bailie of the castle. He glanced wistfully at the cobalt sky, and then considered the line of soldiers drawn up in the courtyard, all in their harness of steel and leather, with the grey walls of the fortress for their background. Not more than thirty men in all did they number, and they composed the castle’s entire garrison.

  A little in front of them the tall castellan was pacing slowly. He was all in black, in mourning for his late master, the Lord Fioravanti, and his hand rested easily upon the hilt of his sheathed sword, thrusting the weapon up behind. He halted at the approach of the doomed prisoner, and the men surrounding the latter fell away, leaving him face to face with Messer Tolentino.

  The castellan considered him sternly for a little while, and Messer Lorenzo bore the inspection well, his deep blue eyes returning the other’s solemn glance intrepidly.

  At last the captain spoke:

  ‘I do not know what was your intent in penetrating here last night, save that it was traitorous; that much the lies you told me have made plain, and for that you are to suffer death, as must any man taken as you had been.’

  ‘For death I am prepared,’ said Messer Lorenzo coolly; ‘but I implore you to spare me the torture of a funeral oration before I go. My fortitude may not be equal to so much, particularly when you consider that I have had no breakfast.’

  Tolentino smiled sourly, considering him.

  ‘Very well,’ said he. And then: ‘You will not tell me who you are and what you sought here?’

  ‘I have told you already, but you choose to discredit what I say. What need, then, for further words? It were but to weary you and me. Let us get to the hanging, which, from the general look of you, is no doubt a matter that you understand better.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Tolentino.

  But now quite suddenly, from the line of men there was one who, having heard question and answer, made bold to call out:

  ‘Sir captain, I can tell you who he is.’

  The captain wheeled sharply upo
n the man-at-arms who had made the announcement.

  ‘He is Messer Lorenzo Castrocaro.’

  ‘One of Valentinois’ condottieri?’ exclaimed Tolentino.

  ‘The same, sir captain,’ the man assured him; and Messer Lorenzo, looking, recognized one who had served under his own banner some months since.

  He shrugged indifferently at the captain’s very evident satisfaction.

  ‘What odds?’ he said. ‘One name will serve as well as another to die under.’

  ‘And how,’ quoth the captain, ‘would you prefer to die? You shall have your choice.’

  ‘Of old age, I think,’ said Messer Lorenzo airily, and heard the titter that responded to his sally. But Tolentino scowled, displeased.

  ‘I mean, sir, will you be hanged, or will you leap from the ledge to which you climbed last night?’

  ‘Why, that now is a very different matter. You circumscribe the choice. Appoint for me, I pray, the death that will afford you the greater diversion.’

  Tolentino considered him, stroking his long chin, his brows wrinkled. He liked the fellow for his intrepid daring in the face of death. But — he was Castellan of San Leo, and knew his duty.

  ‘Why,’ said he slowly at length, ‘we know that you can climb like an ape; let us see if you can fly like a bird. Take him up to the ramparts yonder.’

  ‘Ah, but stay!’ cried Messer Castrocaro, with suddenly startled thoughts of those sins of his youth and with a certain corollary hope. ‘Are you all pagans in San Leo? Is a Christian to be thrust across the black edge of death unshriven? Am I to have no priest, then?’

  Tolentino frowned, as if impatient of this fresh motive for delay; then he signed shortly to Bernardo.

  ‘Go fetch the priest,’ said he; and thus dashed that faint, sly hope Messer Lorenzo had been harbouring that the place might contain no priest, and that these men, being faithful children of Mother Church, would never dare to slay unshriven a man who asked for shrift.

  Bernardo went. He gained the chapel door on the very pronouncement of the ‘Ite Missa est,’ just as the morning Mass was ended, and on the threshold, in his haste, he all but stumbled against a lady in black who was coming forth attended by two women. He drew aside and flattened himself against the wall, muttering words of apology.

  But the lady did not at once pass on.

  ‘Why all this haste to chapel?’ quoth she, accounting it strangely unusual in one of Tolentino’s men.

  ‘Messer Father Girolamo is required,’ said he. ‘There is a man about to die who must be shriven.’

  ‘A man?’ said she, with a show of tender solicitude, conceiving that one of the all too slender garrison had been wounded to the death.

  ‘Ay, a captain of Valentino’s — one Lorenzo Castrocaro — who came hither in the night. And,’ he added vaingloriously, ‘it was I, Madonna, who took him.’

  But the Lady Bianca de’ Fioravanti never heard his last words. She fell back a step, and rested, as if for support, against one of the diminutive pillars of the porch. Her face had become deathly white, her eyes stared dully at the soldier.

  ‘What...What is his name, did you say?’ she faltered.

  ‘Lorenzo Castrocaro — a captain of Valentino’s,’ he repeated.

  ‘Lorenzo Castrocaro?’ she said in her turn, but on her lips the name seemed another, so differently did she utter it.

  ‘Ay, Madonna,’ he replied.

  Suddenly she gripped his arm, so that she hurt him.

  ‘And he is wounded — to the death?’ she cried with a sudden fierceness, as it seemed to him.

  ‘Nay; not wounded. He is to die, having been captured. That is all. Messer Tolentino will have him jump from the rock. You will have a good view from the battlements, Madonna. It is—’

  She released his arm, and fell back from him in horror, cutting short his praise of the entertainment provided.

  ‘Take me to your captain,’ she commanded.

  He stared at her, bewildered. ‘And the priest?’ he inquired.

  ‘Let that wait. Take me to your captain.’

  The command was so imperious that he dared not disobey her. He bowed, muttering in his beard, and, turning, went up the passage again, and so out into the courtyard, the lady and her women following.

  Across the intervening space Madonna Bianca’s eyes met the proud glance of Messer Lorenzo’s, and saw the sudden abatement of that pride, saw the faint flush that stirred at sight of her in those pale cheeks. For to the young man this was a startling apparition, seeing that — as Cesare Borgia had been careful to provide — he had no knowledge or even suspicion of her presence in San Leo.

  A moment she paused, looked at him, her soul in her eyes; then she swept forward, past Bernardo, her women ever following her. Thus came she, very pale but very resolute of mien, to the captain of her fortress.

  Messer Tolentino bowed profoundly, uncovering, and at once explained the situation.

  ‘Here is a young adventurer, Madonna, whom we captured last night within these walls,’ said he. ‘He is a captain in the service of Cesare Borgia.’

  She looked at the prisoner again standing rigid before her, and from the prisoner to her officer.

  ‘How came he here?’ she asked, her voice curiously strained.

  ‘He climbed the rock on the southern side at the risk of his neck,’ said Tolentino.

  ‘And what sought he?’

  ‘’Tis what we cannot precisely ascertain,’ Tolentino admitted. ‘Nor will he tell us. When captured last night he pretended to be an envoy from Duke Guidobaldo, which plainly he was not. That was but a subterfuge to escape the consequences of his rashness.’

  And the captain explained, with a pardonable parade of his own shrewdness, how he had at once perceived that had Messer Lorenzo been what he pretended, there would have been no need for him to have come to San Leo thus, in secret.

  ‘Nor need to risk his neck, as you have said, by climbing the southern side, had he been employed by Cesare Borgia,’ said the lady.

  ‘That is too hasty a conclusion, Madonna,’ Tolentino answered. ‘It is only on the southern side that it is possible to climb the wall; and along the summit itself there is no way round.’

  ‘To what end, then, do you conceive that he came?’

  ‘To what end? Why, to what end but to betray the castle into the hands of the Borgia troops,’ cried Tolentino, a little out of patience at such a superfluity of questions.

  ‘You have proof of that?’ she asked him, a rising inflection in her voice.

  ‘To common sense no proof is needed of the obvious,’ said he sententiously, snorting a little as he spoke, out of his resentment of this feminine interference in men’s affairs. ‘We are about to fling him back the way he came,’ he ended with a certain grim finality.

  But Madonna Bianca paid little heed to his manner.

  ‘Not until I am satisfied that his intentions were as you say,’ she replied; and her tone was every whit as firm as his, and was invested with a subtle reminder that she was the mistress paramount of San Leo, and he no more than the castellan.

  Tolentino glowered and shrugged.

  ‘Oh, as you please, Madonna. Yet I would make bold to remind you that my ripe experience teaches me best how to deal with such a matter.’

  The girl looked that war-worn veteran boldly in the eye. ‘Knowledge, sir captain, is surely of more account than mere experience.’

  His jaw fell.

  ‘You mean that you — that you have knowledge of why he came?’

  ‘It is possible,’ said she, and turned from the astonished captain to the still more astonished prisoner.

  Daintily she stepped up to Messer Lorenzo, whose deep sapphire eyes glowed now as they regarded her, reflecting some of the amazement in which he had listened to her words. He had weighed them, seeking to resolve the riddle they contained, and — be it confessed at once — wondering how he might turn the matter to his profit in this present desperate pass.

 
; I fear you may discover here something of the villain in Messer Lorenzo. And I admit that he showed himself but little a hero of romance in that his first thought now was how he might turn to account the lady’s interest in him. But if it was not exactly heroic, it was undeniably human, and if I have conveyed to you any notion that Messer Castrocaro was anything more than quite ordinarily human, then my task has been ill-performed indeed.

  It was not so much his love of her as his love of himself, youth’s natural love of life, that now showed him how he might induce her to open a door for his escape from the peril that encompassed him. And yet, lest you should come to think more ill of him than he deserves, you are to remember that he had raised his eyes to her long since, although accounting her far beyond his adventurer’s reach.

  She looked at him in silence for a moment. Then, with a calm too complete to be other than assumed she spoke.

  ‘Will you give me your arm to the battlements, Messer Lorenzo?’

  A scarlet flush leapt to his cheeks; he stepped forward briskly to her side. Tolentino would still have interposed.

  ‘Consider, Madonna,’ he began.

  But she waved him peremptorily aside; and, after all, she was the mistress in San Leo.

  Side by side the prisoner and the lady paramount moved away towards the staircase that led up to the embattled parapet. Tolentino growled his impatience, cursed himself for being a woman’s lackey, dismissed his men in a rage, and sat down by the well in the centre of the courtyard to await the end of that precious interview.

  Leaning on the embattled wall, looking out over the vast, sunlit Emilian Plain, Madonna Bianca broke at last the long spell of silence that had endured between herself and Castrocaro.