‘I have brought you here, Ser Lorenzo,’ she said, ‘that you may tell me the true object of your visit to San Leo.’ Her eyes were averted from his face, her bosom heaved gently, her voice quivered never so slightly.
He cleared his throat, to answer her. His resolve was now clear and definite.
‘I can tell you what I did not come to do, Madonna,’ he answered, and his accents were almost harsh. ‘I did not come to betray you into the hands of your enemies. Of that I here make oath as I hope for the salvation of my soul.’
It may seem perjury at the first glance; yet it was strictly true, if not the whole truth. As we have seen, he had not dreamt that she was in San Leo, or that in delivering up the castle to Della Volpe’s men he would be delivering up Madonna Bianca. Had he known of her presence, he would not, it is certain, have accepted the task. Therefore was he able to swear as he had done, and to swear truly, though he suppressed some truth.
‘That much I think I knew,’ she answered gently.
The words and the tone if they surprised him emboldened him in his deceit, urged him along the path to which already he had set his foot. At no other time — considering what he was, and what she — would he have dared so much. But his was now the courage of the desperate. He stood to die, and nothing in life daunts him who is face to face with death. He threw boldly that he might at the eleventh hour win back the right to live.
‘Ah, ask me not why I came,’ he implored her hoarsely. ‘I have dared much, thinking that I dared all. But now — here before you, under the glance of your angel eyes — my courage fails me. I am become a coward who was not afraid when they brought me out to die.’
She shivered at his words. This he perceived, and inwardly the villain smiled.
‘Look. Madonna.’ He held out his hands, bruised, swollen, and gashed. ‘I am something in this state from head to foot.’ He turned. ‘Look yonder.’ And he pointed down the sheer face of the cliff. ‘That way I came last night — in the dark, risking death at every step. You see that ledge, where there is scarce room to stand. Along that ledge I crept, to yonder wider space, and thence I leapt across that little gulf.’ She shuddered as she followed his tale. ‘By that crevice I came upwards, tearing knees and elbows, and so until I had gained the platform on the southern side, there.’
‘How brave!’ she cried.
‘How mad!’ said he. ‘I show you this that you may know what courage then was mine, what indomitable impulse drove me hither. You would not think, Madonna, that having braved so much, I should falter now, and yet—’ He stopped, and covered his face with his hands.
She drew nearer, sidling towards him. ‘And yet?’ said she softly and encouragingly.
‘Oh! I dare not!’ he cried out. ‘I was mad — mad!’ And then by chance his tongue stumbled upon the very words to suit his case. ‘Indeed, I do not know what was the spirit of madness that possessed me.’
He did not know! She trembled from head to foot at that admission. He did not know! But she knew. She knew, and hence the confidence with which she had interposed to brush Tolentino aside. For had he died, had the executioner driven him over that ledge in that horrible death-leap, it would have been her hands that had destroyed him.
For was it not she who had bewitched him? Was it not she who had drugged him with a love philtre — the elixirium aureum procured from Messer Corvinus Trismegistus? Did she not know that it was that elixir, burning fiercely and unappeasably in his veins, that had possessed him like a madness and brought him thither, reckless of all danger, so that he might come to her?
The mage had said that he would become her utter slave ere the moon had waned again. What had been the wizard’s precise words? She strove to recall them, and succeeded: ‘He will come to you though the whole world lie between you and him.’
Again the confident promise rang in her ears, and here, surely, was its fulfilment. Behold how truly had the mage spoken — how well his golden elixir had done its work.
Thus reasoned Madonna Bianca, clearly and confidently. There were tears in her dark eyes as she turned them now upon the bowed head of the young captain at her side; the corners of her gentle mouth drooped wistfully. She put forth a hot hand, and laid it gently upon his fair head, which seemed all turned to gold in the fierce sunlight.
‘Poor — poor Lorenzo!’ she murmured fondly.
He started round and stared at her, very white.
‘Oh, Madonna!’ he cried, and sank upon one knee before her. ‘You have surprised my secret — my unutterable secret! Ah, let me go! Let them hurl me from the rock, and so end my wretchedness!’
It was supremely well done, the villain knew; and she were no woman but a very harpy did she now permit his death. He was prepared for a pitying gentleness towards an affliction which she must now suppose her own beauty had inspired, and so he had looked for a kindly dismissal. But he was not prepared for any such answer as she made him.
‘Dear love, what are you saying? Is there no other happiness for you save that of death? Have I shown anger? Do I show aught but gladness that for me you should have dared so much?’
To Messer Lorenzo it seemed in that moment that something was amiss with the world, or else with his poor brain. Was it conceivable that this noble lady should herself have turned the eyes of favour upon him? Was it possible that she should return this love of his, which he had deemed of such small account that in his urgent need he had not scrupled to parade it for purposes of deceit, where he would not have dared parade it otherwise?
He gave utterance to his overmastering amazement.
‘Oh, it is impossible!’ he cried; and this time there was no acting in his cry.
‘What is impossible?’ quoth she; and, setting her hands under his elbows, she raised him gently from his kneeling posture. ‘What is impossible?’ she repeated when they stood face to face once more.
And now the fire in his eyes was not simulated.
‘It is impossible that you should not scorn my love,’ said he.
‘Scorn it? I? I who have awakened it — I who have desired it?’
‘Desired it?’ he echoed, almost in a whisper. ‘Desired it?’ For a spell they stood so, staring each into the other’s eyes; then they fell into each other’s arms, she sobbing in her extreme joy, and he upon the verge of doing no less, for, as you will perceive, it had been a very trying morning for him.
And it was thus — the Lady of San Leo and the Borgia captain clasped heart to heart under the summer sky — that Messer Tolentino found them.
Marvelling at the long delay, the castellan had thought it well to go after them. And what he now beheld struck him to stone, left him gaping like a foolish image.
They fell apart for very decency, and then the lady, rosily confused, presented Messer Lorenzo to the castellan as her future lord, and explained to him in confidence — and as she understood it — the true reason of that gentleman’s visit to San Leo.
That Tolentino profoundly and scornfully discountenanced the whole affair — that he accounted it unpardonable in his mistress, a loyal subject of Duke Guidobaldo’s, the holder, indeed, of one of the fortresses of Urbino, to take to husband one whose fortunes followed those of the Borgia usurper — there is no doubt; for Messer Tolentino has left it upon record. And if he did not there and then tell her so, with all that warmth of expression for which he was justly renowned, it was because he was dumbfounded by sheer amazement.
Thereafter, Messer Lorenzo was cared for as became a man in his position. A bath was prepared for him; fresh garments were found to fit him, the richest and most becoming being selected; the garrison was disappointed of its execution, and the Borgia captain went to dine at Madonna’s table. For this banquet the choicest viands that the besieged commanded were forthcoming, and the rarest wines from Fioravanti’s cellar were procured.
Messer Lorenzo was gay and sprightly, and in the afternoon, basking in the sunshine of Madonna Bianca’s smiles, he took up a lute that he discovered in her bo
wer, and sang for her one of the atrocious songs that in her honour he had made. It was a dangerous experiment. And the marvel of it is that, despite a pretty taste of her own in lyric composition, Madonna Bianca seemed well pleased.
In all Italy there was no happier man in that hour than Lorenzo Castrocaro, who, from the very edge of death, saw himself suddenly thrust up to the highest and best that he could have dared to ask of life. His happiness entirely engrossed his mind awhile. All else was forgotten. But suddenly, quite suddenly, remembrance flooded back upon him and left him cold with horror. He had been midway through his second song, Madonna languishing beside him, when the thought struck him, and he checked abruptly. The lute fell clattering from his grasp, which had suddenly grown nerveless.
With a startled cry his mistress leaned over him.
‘Enzo! Are you ill?’
He rose precipitately.
‘No, no; not ill. But — Oh!’ He clenched his hands and groaned. She too had risen, all sweet solicitude, demanding to know what ailed him. He turned to her a face that was blank with despair.
‘What have I done? What have I done?’ he cried, thereby increasing her alarm.
It crossed her mind that perhaps the effect of the magician’s philtre was beginning to wane. Fearfully, urgently she insisted upon knowing what might be alarming him; and he, seeing himself forced to explain, paused but an instant to choose a middle course in words, to find expressions that would not betray him.
‘Why, it is this,’ he cried, and there was real chagrin in his voice as there was in his heart. ‘In my hot madness to come hither, I never paused to count the cost. I am a Borgia captain, and at this moment no better than a traitor, a deserter who has abandoned his trust and his condotta to go over to the enemy — to sit here and take my ease in the very castle that my Duke is now besieging.’
At once she perceived and apprehended the awful position that was his.
‘Gesù!’ she cried. ‘I had not thought of that.’
‘When they take me, they will surely hang me for a traitor!’ he exclaimed; and indeed he feared it very genuinely, for what else was he become? All night he had left Della Volpe and his men to await in vain the unbarring of the gate. For having failed there could be no excuse other than death or captivity. That he should not only remain living, but that he should later be discovered to have made alliance with Madonna Bianca de’ Fioravanti was a matter that could have no issue but one.
‘By heaven, it had been a thousand times better had Tolentino made an end of me this morning as he intended!’ Then he checked abruptly, and turned to her penitently. ‘Ah, no, no! I meant not that, Madonna! I spoke without reflecting. I were an ingrate to desire that — an ingrate and a fool. For had they killed me I had never known this day of happiness.’ ‘Yet what is to be done?’ she cried, crushing her hands together in her agony of mind. ‘What is to be done, my Enzo? To let you now depart would no longer save you. Oh let me think, let me think!’ And then, almost at once: ‘There is a way!’ she cried; and on that cry, which had been one of gladness, she fell suddenly very gloomy and thoughtful. ‘What way?’ quoth he.
‘I fear it is the only way,’ she said never so wistfully.
And then he guessed what was in her mind and repudiated the suggestion.
‘Ah! Not that,’ he protested. ‘That way we must not think of. I could not let you — not even to save my life.’
But on the word she looked up at him and her dark eye kindled anew with loving enthusiasm.
‘To save your life — yes. That is cause enough to justify me. For nothing less would I do it, Enzo; but to save you — you whom I have brought into this pass—’
‘What are you saying, sweet?’ he cried.
‘Why, that the fault is mine, and that I must pay the penalty.’
‘The fault?’
‘Did I not bring you hither?’
He flushed, something ill at ease to see — as he supposed — his lie recoiling now upon him.
‘Listen!’ she pursued. ‘You shall do as I bid you. You shall go as my envoy to Cesare Borgia, and you shall offer him the surrender of San Leo in my name, stipulating only for the honours of war and the safe-conduct of my garrison.’
‘No, no!’ he protested still, and honestly, his villainy grown repugnant. ‘Besides, how shall that serve me?’
‘You shall say that you knew a way to win into San Leo and accomplish this — which,’ she added, smiling wistfully, ‘is, after all, the truth. The Duke will be too well content with the result to quarrel with the means employed.’
He averted his face.
‘Oh! But it is shameful!’ he cried out, and meant not what she supposed him to mean.
‘In a few days — in a few weeks, at most — it will become inevitable,’ she reminded him. ‘After all, what do I sacrifice? A little pride, no more than that. And shall that weigh against your life with me? Better surrender now, when I have something to gain from surrender, than later, when I shall have all to lose.’
He considered. Indeed, it was the only way. And, after all, he was robbing her of nothing that she must not yield in time — of nothing, after all, that it might not be his to restore her very soon, in part at least. Considering this, and what the Duke had promised him, he gave her the fruit of his considerations, yet hating himself for the fresh deceit he practised.
‘Be it so, my Bianca,’ he said; ‘but upon terms more generous than you have named. You shall not quit your dwelling here. Let your garrison depart, but you remain!’
‘How is that possible?’ she asked.
‘It shall be,’ he assured her confidently, the promised governorship in his mind.
V
That evening, with letters appointing him her plenipotentiary, he rode out of San Leo alone, and made his way down into the valley by the bridlepath. At the foot of this he came upon Della Volpe’s pickets, who bore him off to their captain, refusing to believe his statement that he was Lorenzo Castrocaro.
When Della Volpe beheld him, the warriors single eye expressed at once suspicion and satisfaction.
‘Where have you been?’ he demanded harshly.
‘In San Leo, yonder,’ answered Castrocaro simply.
Della Volpe swore picturesquely.
‘We had accounted you dead. My men have been searching for your body all day at the foot of the rock.’
‘I deplore your disappointment and their wasted labour,’ said Lorenzo, smiling; and Della Volpe swore again.
‘How came you to fail, and, having failed, how come you out alive?’
‘I have not failed,’ was the answer. ‘I am riding to the Duke with the garrison’s terms of capitulation.’
Della Volpe very rudely refused to believe him, whereupon Messer Lorenzo thrust under the condottiero’s single eye Madonna Bianca’s letters. At that the veteran sneered unpleasantly.
‘Ha! By the horns of Satan! I see! You ever had a way with the women, Lorenzo. I see!’
‘For a one-eyed man you see too much,’ said Messer Lorenzo, and turned away. ‘We will speak of this again — when I am wed. Good night!’
It was very late when he reached Urbino. But late as it was — long after midnight — the Duke was not abed. Indeed, Cesare Borgia never seemed to sleep. At any hour of the day or night he was to be found by those whose business was of import.
His highness was working in the library with Agabito preparing dispatches for Rome, when Messer Lorenzo was ushered into his presence.
He looked up as the young captain entered.
‘Well,’ quoth he sharply. ‘Do you bring me news of the capture of San Leo?’
‘Not exactly, highness,’ replied the condottiero. ‘But I bring you a proposal of surrender, and the articles of capitulation. If your highness will sign them, I shall take possession of San Leo in your name tomorrow.’
The Duke’s fine eyes scanned the confident young face very searchingly. He smiled quietly.
‘You will take possession?’ he sa
id.
‘As the governor appointed by your highness,’ Messer Lorenzo blandly explained.
He laid his letters before the Duke, who scanned them with a swift eye, then tossed them to Agabito that the latter might con them more minutely.
‘There is a provision that the Lady Bianca de’ Fioravanti is to remain in San Leo,’ said the secretary, marvelling.
‘Why that?’ quoth Cesare of Messer Lorenzo. ‘Why, indeed, any conditions?’
‘Matters have put on a curious complexion,’ the condottiero expounded. ‘Things went not so smoothly with me as I had hoped. I will spare your highness the details; but, in short, I was caught within the castle walls, and — and I had to make the best terms I could under such circumstances.’
‘You do not, I trust, account them disadvantageous to yourself?’ said Cesare. ‘It would distress me that it should be so. But I cannot think it; for Madonna Bianca is accounted very beautiful.’
Castrocaro crimsoned in his sudden and extreme confusion. For once he was entirely out of countenance.
‘You are informed of the circumstances, highness?’ was all that he could say.
Cesare’s laugh was short and almost contemptuous.
‘I am something of a seer,’ he replied. ‘I could have foretold this end ere ever you set out. You have done well,’ he added, ‘and the governorship is yours. See to it at once, Agabito. Ser Lorenzo will be in haste to return to Madonna Bianca.’
A half-hour later, after the bewildered yet happy Castrocaro had departed to ride north again, Cesare rose from his writing-table, yawned, and smiled at the secretary, who had his confidence and affection.
‘And so, San Leo, that might have held out for a year, is won,’ he said, and softly rubbed his hands in satisfaction. ‘This Castrocaro thinks it is all his own achievement. The lady imagines that it is all her own — by the aid of that charlatan Trismegistus. Neither dreams that all has fallen out as I had intended, and by my contriving.’ He made philosophy for the benefit of Messer Agabito: ‘Who would achieve greatness must learn not only to use men, but to use them in such a manner that they never suspect they are being used. Had I not chanced to overhear what I overheard that night at the house of Corvinus Trismegistus, and, knowing what I knew, set the human pieces in this game in motion to yield me this result, matters might have been different indeed, and lives would have been lost ere San Leo threw up its gates. And I have seen to it that the wizard’s elixir of love should do precisely as he promised for it. Madonna Bianca, at least, believes in that impostor.’
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 440
