Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  She explained: ‘It happened in the days when my father was no more than a boy. There was the plague in Florence, and it was carried thither to the borgo. Men were dying like flies at close of autumn. To succour them my grandfather ordered that pavilion to be built with others that have since been demolished, and he had the place enclosed by walls. There was a saintly minorite, one Fra Cristofero, who came to tend the plague-ridden, and who himself was miraculously preserved from the contagion.’

  Ser Pantaleone twisted his features in a grimace of disgust. ‘And do you keep that as a monument in honour of so ugly an event?’ he asked.

  ‘Why, no. There were other buildings there; but, as I have told you, they were demolished. That was the only one retained.’

  ‘But why?’ he asked.

  ‘It has its uses.’

  He looked at her with raised eyebrows, expressing a faint incredulity.

  ‘You will not tell me that it is tenanted?’ he asked in a note that was faintly jesting.

  ‘No, no.’

  She spoke too quickly, he noted; and her voice had trembled, whilst those deep loyal eyes of hers had fallen guiltily away from his regard.

  ‘No, no,’ she repeated. ‘Of course, it is not tenanted now.’ He looked idly away towards the spot. She had lied to him, he was convinced already. Yet he would make assurance doubly sure. Suddenly he drew his legs under him and started half-rising with a sudden exclamation, his face averted from her and turned towards the enclosed garden.

  And then he felt her hand upon his sleeve.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, and her voice was breathless.

  ‘Surely...Surely, you are wrong,’ he said. ‘It is tenanted. It seemed to me that I saw something or someone move there in the shadow.’

  ‘Oh, no, no — impossible! You were mistaken! There is no one there!’ Agitation quivered in every syllable of that breathless denial.

  He had drawn from her the answer to the question he had not asked. Satisfied, he craftily made haste to reassure her.

  ‘Why, no,’ he said, and laughed in self-derision. ‘I see now what it is — the shadow of that gnarled olive deceived me.’ He looked at her, a smile on his full lips. ‘Alas!’ he said. ‘You have laid what might have become the ghost of Fra...what was his name?’

  ‘Of Fra Cristofero?’ said she, and smiled back at him in her relief. But she rose. ‘Come, sir, you have sat here too long for one in your condition.’

  ‘Long enough,’ said Pantaleone with more truth than she suspected, and he rose obediently to depart.

  It was as he said. He had sat there long enough to achieve his ends, and the very suddenness with which now she urged his departure was yet a further confirmation of what he had discovered. She desired to draw him from that spot before he should chance, indeed, to see what she believed him to have imagined he had seen. Very willingly, then, he went.

  IV

  A fool never doubts his judgement or questions its findings. He reaches a conclusion at a leap, and having reached it acts forthwith upon it. And that is why he is a fool. But your really astute fellow moves more slowly and with caution, testing the ground at every step, mistrusting his inferences until he has exhausted confirmation of them. Even where he is swift to conclude he will still be slow to act unless urged by necessity to immediate action.

  Thus Pantaleone. He had added link to link until he held in his hands a fairly solid chain of circumstantial evidence, from which he was entitled to infer, firstly — and this most positively — that Matteo Orsini was sheltered at Pievano; secondly — and not quite so positively — that he was bestowed in the lazar-house in that hortus inclusus.

  A rash fellow would have summoned his men and forthwith stormed the place. But Pantaleone was not rash. He counted first the cost of error. He considered that in spite of all indications it was yet possible that his quarry might not be in that lazar-house. And in that case did he take any such action he would find himself in the position of a gamester who staking all upon a single throw has seen the dice turn up ambs-ace. He would have discovered himself in his true character, and must submit to being driven forth in ignominy to bear his tale of failure to his master.

  Therefore, despite his stout convictions, Pantaleone waited and watched, what time he took his ease at Pievano and savoured the hospitality of the Lord Almerico. He walked in the gardens with Madonna in the mornings, in the afternoon he would either permit Raffaele to teach him chess or repay these lessons by showing the golden-haired lad how to use a sword in conjunction with a dagger, and by what tricks — not tricks of swordsmanship, indeed, but of pure knavery — an adversary might be done to death; in the evenings he would converse with his host, which is to say that he would listen to the Lord Almerico’s learned disquisitions upon life culled from the philosophy of Seneca or the teachings of Epictetus as preserved in the writings of Flavius Arrianus.

  Pantaleone it must be confessed was a little bewildered and wearied by these discourses. A man with his full lips, and all the qualities those full lips implied, could find scant sense in the austere philosophy of the stoic, though he was faintly interested to observe the hold which that teaching had gained upon his host, and how his host appeared to have modelled the conduct of his life upon it, purchasing tranquillity as the stoic teaches. Although it was not thus that Pantaleone understood existence, yet he forbore argument and feigned agreement, knowing in his crafty way that agreement with a man is the short road to his esteem and confidence.

  He earned, however, little discernible reward for all his patient pains. No such confidences as he hoped for were ever reposed in him. Matteo Orsini’s name was never mentioned in his presence, and when once he mentioned it himself to speak in glowing praise of the man and in a proper sorrow at his reported death, he was met by a silence that showed him how far indeed he was, their amiability notwithstanding, from having earned their trust. And he had other signs of this. On more occasions than one his sudden coming into their presence was marked by as sudden an interruption of the conversation between them, and the ensuing of a constrained silence.

  Thus a week passed in which his mission made no progress, whereat he was beginning to grow restive, feeling that if his inaction endured much longer it might end by thrusting him into a rashness. No single shred of confirmation had his conclusions received, no single grain of independent evidence that the lazar-house was tenanted. And then, at last, one night as he was taking his way to bed lighted by Raffaele, who was now become his body-servant, he chanced upon a small discovery.

  His own room was over the rocca’s vast courtyard, and commanded no other view but that. But as on his way to it he passed one of the windows of the gallery facing southward towards that hortus inclusus, and as idly he looked in that direction, he caught the yellow glint of a point of light that was moving towards it through the darkness.

  He was satisfied that what he did any man in his place would have done, and, therefore, that it could awaken no suspicion. He stood still, looking at that light a moment, and then drew the page’s attention to it.

  ‘Someone is roving in the gardens very late,’ said he.

  Raffaele came to stand beside him, and pressed his face against the glass, the better to peer into the darkness.

  ‘It will be Mario,’ said the boy. ‘I saw him standing by the door when I came up.’

  ‘And what the devil does he do in the garden at such an hour? He can hardly be gathering snails at this season of the year.’

  ‘Indeed, no,’ agreed Raffaele, clearly intrigued.

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Pantaleone, who perceived that he was wasting time, since Raffaele had no knowledge to betray. ‘It is no affair of ours.’ He yawned. ‘Come on, my lad, or I shall sleep where I stand.’

  First he thought of alluding to the matter casually upon the morrow, watching the effect upon Almerico and his daughter. But sleep brought sounder counsels, and when the morrow came he held his peace. He walked as usual with Madonna in the garden, though nev
er now on the upper terraces whence a view was obtained of the enclosure about the lazar-house. She had refused to repeat that visit of theirs to the garden’s heights, ever pleading that she found the ascent excessively fatiguing.

  Pantaleone habitually wore a tiny gold pomander ball, no larger than a cherry, suspended from his neck by a slender chain of gold. He wore it as usual that morning when they went forth together; but had Madonna observed him closely she would have noted that at a stage of their sauntering it vanished.

  Pantaleone remained apparently unconscious of its disappearance until towards the third hour of night — after they had supped and when it was usual for them to retire to bed, the hour, in fact, at which last night he had observed that mysterious light in the garden. Then it was that quite suddenly he leapt to his feet with an exclamation of dismay that provoked their concerned inquiries.

  ‘My pomander!’ he cried, with all the air of a man whom some great mischance has overwhelmed. ‘I have lost it.’

  My Lord Almerico recovered from his concern and smiled. He quoted the stoic.

  ‘In this life, my friend, we never lose anything. Sometimes we return a thing. That is the proper view. Why, then, all this concern about a pomander, a trifle that may be replaced by a ducat.’

  ‘Should I be so concerned if that were all?’ cried Pantaleone, with a faint show of impatience at the philosophy with which Orsini bore another’s loss. ‘It was my talisman — a potent charm against the evil eye given me by my sainted mother. For her sake I hold it sacred. I would sooner lose all I have than that.’

  It made a difference, Madonna Fulvia agreed, admiring the filial piety he displayed; and even her father had no more to say.

  ‘Let me think, now; let me think,’ said Pantaleone, standing rapt, fingering the cleft in his shaven chin. ‘I had it this morning in the garden — at least I had it when I went forth. I...Yes!’ He smote fist into palm. ‘It was in the garden — it must have been in the garden that I lost it.’ And without a by-your-leave to his host he swung to the page.

  ‘A lantern, Raffaele.’

  ‘Were it not wiser to wait until daylight?’ wondered Almerico.

  ‘Sir, sir,’ cried Pantaleone wildly, ‘I could not rest, I could not sleep in my suspense, in my uncertainty as to whether I shall recover it or not. I will hunt for it all night if need be.’

  They attempted further to dissuade him, but before his wild insistence and his general air of distraction, they gave way, the old nobleman scarcely troubling to veil a sneer at superstitions that could take such potent hold upon a man. Since nothing less than to go forth at once would satisfy him, they bade Raffaele go with him, and whether this was a measure of kindly concern or whether of precaution, Pantaleone was by no means sure.

  Forth into the night sallied he and Raffaele, each armed with a lantern, and straight they went to the first terrace. With their double light they searched every foot of the long walk, all to no purpose.

  ‘Five ducats, Raffaele, if you find it,’ said Pantaleone. ‘Let us divide our forces, thus are we likely to shorten the search. Do you go up to the next terrace, and search that carefully, foot by foot. Five ducats if you find it.’

  ‘Five ducats!’ Raffaele was a little breathless. ‘Why the thing isn’t worth more than half a ducat!’

  ‘Nevertheless five shall you have if you find it me. I value it far above its price.’

  Raffaele sped upwards with his lantern, leaving Pantaleone in the act of resuming his search over ground that had been covered already The adventurer waited until the sound of the lad’s footsteps had grown distant and until from where he stood the other’s light was no longer visible. Then he passed behind a stiff box hedge, that would screen his own light from any windows of the house, and there without more ado he extinguished it. That done he crossed the garden with as much speed as was consistent with his care to make no sound. By a clump of larches within a dozen paces of the wall of the enclosure he came to a halt, effaced himself among the trees, and waited, watchful and listening.

  Moments passed in utter silence. In the distance he could perceive the faint gleam of Raffaele’s lantern moving at a snail’s pace along the third terrace on the hillside. Raffaele he knew was safely engaged for the next hour. That promise of five ducats would sustain his patience against failure. Whilst any who might be spying from the house would be able to make out no more than a glimmer of light up yonder, and would suppose that Raffaele and himself were engaged together.

  Reassured on that score, then, Pantaleone was patient on his side, and waited. Nor was his patience sorely taxed. Some ten minutes or so after he had gained his point of observation, he heard the creaking of a door, and from the postern in the inner barbican he beheld the gleam of another lantern. It advanced swiftly towards him — for a pathway ran beside the larches — and presently there came the sound of feet. Soon Pantaleone could discern the figure of a man faintly outlined against the all-pervading gloom.

  Immovable he stood screened by the larches, unseen yet observing. The figure advanced; it passed so closely by him that by putting forth his arm he might have touched it. He recognized the livid pock-marked face of the castellan, and he noted that the fellow carried a basket slung on the crook of his left arm. He caught the faint gleam of napery atop of it, and thrusting forth from this the neck of a wine-flask.

  The man passed on, and reached the wall. A green door was set in it just thereabouts, and Pantaleone was prepared to see him vanish through, preparing indeed to follow. Instead, however, Mario paused at the wall’s foot some ten paces away from that door, and Pantaleone caught the sound of hands softly clapped, and a voice softly calling:

  ‘Are you there, Colomba?’

  Instantly from beyond the wall floated the answer in a woman’s voice:

  ‘I am here.’

  What followed was none so distinct, and asked for guesswork on Pantaleone’s part. Partly he saw and partly inferred that Mario had taken a ladder that lay at the wall’s foot, set it against the wall, mounted it, and from the summit slung down his basket to his wife within the enclosure.

  That was all. The thing being done, Mario descended again, removed the ladder, and returned unencumbered now and moving swiftly.

  Pantaleone found his every suspicion confirmed. As he had supposed, Colomba and the groom Giuberti were ministering to the concealed Matteo Orsini, whose food was borne to him thus in the night by Mario — and no doubt in the raw, to be cooked and prepared by Mario’s wife — so that none in Pievano should share the secret with those who already and perforce were in possession of it.

  All this was clear as daylight. But on the other hand the affair had its dark and mysterious side. Why should Mario employ a ladder to scale a wall when there was a door there ready to his hand. It was very odd, but it was some detail of precaution, he supposed, and dismissed the matter with that explanation.

  Moreover something was happening that suddenly drew his attention to himself and his own position. Mario, instead of returning to the house, had paused midway a moment, as if hesitating, and then had struck across the gardens towards the light that marked the spot where Raffaele hunted.

  Now this to Messer Pantaleone was a serious matter. It might, unless he were careful, lead to the discovery of his own real pursuits. He came forth from his concealment and very softly set himself to follow Mario. Thus as far as the second terrace. Then as Mario still went on upwards, Pantaleone turned quickly away to the right, thus returning to the very spot where he had extinguished his lantern. Arrived there, he turned and came running back shouting as he ran:

  ‘Raffaele! Raffaele!’

  He saw the swinging lantern of Mario arrested in its progress, and a moment later farther along the upper terrace gleamed Raffaele’s light, as the boy approached the edge in answer to that summons.

  ‘I have found it!’ cried Pantaleone, as indeed he had found it — in his pocket where it had been safely bestowed.

  ‘I have found it...found i
t!’ he repeated on a note of ridiculous triumph, as if he were Columbus announcing that he had found the New World.

  He advanced to the foot of the flight of steps that led upward, and there he awaited them.

  ‘You have found it?’ quoth Raffaele, crestfallen.

  Pantaleone dangled it aloft by the chain.

  ‘Behold!’ he said, and added— ‘but you shall have a ducat for your pains none the less. So comfort you.’

  ‘Did you find it in the dark?’ It was Mario’s voice that growled the question, and Pantaleone was quick to catch the note of suspicion running through it.

  ‘Fool,’ he answered, preferring to take him literally. ‘How could I have found it in the dark? I upset my lantern in my excitement.’

  Mario was scanning his face closely.

  ‘It is very odd,’ said he, ‘that as I came this way I saw no light.’

  ‘I was beyond the hedge yonder. That may have screened it,’ Pantaleone explained, and added no word more, for he knew that who explains himself too much accuses himself.

  They trooped back to the house together; Raffaele silenced by his disappointment, Mario thoughtful and suspicious of all this ado, Pantaleone babbling naively in his delight at the recovery of his precious amulet, and recounting the circumstances under which his mother had set it round his neck, with what words she had enjoined him to keep it safe, and against what dreadful perils it had been his shield — all lies that came bubbling from his fertile mind like water from a spring.

  But despite all this, when at length he came to bid good night to Mario, he saw that clay-coloured face grimly set in lines of mistrust.

  He went thoughtfully to bed in consequence. He lay awake some time considering his discovery and considering still more deeply that part of it which left him mystified. At another time he might have delayed his action until he had cleared that up. But here he decided that to delay further might be dangerous. He told himself again that he had discovered all that mattered, and he fell asleep promising himself that upon the morrow he would act upon that discovery and lay Messer Matteo Orsini snugly by the heels.