Whether, do what he would, his feelings made themselves known — for the shoulders can speak, and eloquently, on occasion — or the reverse was the case, and his failure to rise to the bait disappointed the tormentor, the big man, Basterga, presently resumed the attack.
“Tissotius pereat, Tissotianus adest!” he muttered with a sneer. “But perhaps, young sir, Latinity is not one of your subjects. The tongue of the immortal Cicero — —”
“I speak it a little,” Claude answered quietly. “It were foolish to approach the door of learning without the key.”
“Oh, you are a wit, young sir! Well, with your wit and your Latinity can you construe this: —
Stultitiam expellas, furca tamen usque recurret Tissotius periit terque quaterque redit!”
“I think so,” Claude replied gravely.
“Good, if it please you! And the meaning?”
“Tissot was a fool, and you are another!” the young man returned. “Will you now solve me one, reverend sir, with all submission?”
“Said and done!” the big man answered disdainfully.
“Nec volucres plumæ faciunt nec cuspis Achillem! Construe me that then if you will!”
Basterga shrugged his shoulders. “Fine feathers do not make fine birds!” he said. “If you apply it to me,” he continued with a contemptuous face, “I — —”
“Oh, no, to your company,” Claude answered. Self-control comes hardly to the young, and he had already forgotten his rôle. “Ask him what happened last night at the ‘Bible and Hand,’” he continued, pointing to Grio, “and how he stands now with his friend the Syndic!”
“The Syndic?”
“The Syndic Blondel!”
The moment the words had passed his lips, Claude repented. He saw that he had struck a note more serious than he intended. The big man did not move, but over his fat face crept a watching expression; he was plainly startled. His eyes, reduced almost to pin-points, seemed for an instant the eyes of a cat about to spring. The effect was so evident indeed that it bewildered Claude and so completely diverted his attention from Grio, the real target, that when the bully, who had listened stupidly to the exchange of wit, proved by a brutal oath his comprehension of the reference to himself, the young man scarcely heard him.
“The Syndic Blondel?” Basterga muttered after a pregnant pause. “What know you of him, pray?”
Before the young man could answer, Grio broke in. “So you have followed me here, have you?” he cried, striking his jug on the table and glaring across the board at the offender. “You weren’t content to escape last night it seems. Now — —”
“Enough!” Basterga muttered, the keen expression of his face unchanged. “Softly! Softly! Where are we? I don’t understand. What is this? Last night — —”
“I want not to rake up bygones if you will let them be,” Claude answered with a sulky air, half assumed. “It was you who attacked me.”
“You puppy!” Grio roared. “Do you think — —”
“Enough!” Basterga said again: and his eyes leaving the young man fixed themselves on his companion. “I begin to understand,” he murmured, his voice low, but not the less menacing for that, or for the cat-like purr in it. “I begin to comprehend. This is one of your tricks, Messer Grio. One of the clever tricks you play in your cups! Some day you’ll do that in them will — No!” repressing the bully as he attempted to rise. “Have done now and let us understand. The ‘Bible and Hand,’ eh? ’Twas there, I suppose, you and this youth met, and — —”
“Quarrelled,” said Claude sullenly. “That’s all.”
“And you followed him hither?”
“No, I did not.”
“No? Then how come you here?” Basterga asked, his eyes still watchful. “In this house, I mean? ’Tis not easy to find.”
“My father lodged here,” Claude vouchsafed. And he shrugged his shoulders, thinking that with that the matter was clear.
But Basterga continued to eye him with something that was not far removed from suspicion. “Oh,” he said. “That is it, is it? Your father lodged here. And the Syndic — Blondel, was it you said? How comes he into it? Grio was prating of him, I suppose?” For an instant, while he waited the answer to the question, his eyes shrank again to pin-points.
“He came in and found us at sword-play,” Claude answered. “Or just falling to it. And though the fault was not mine, he would have sent me to prison if I had not had a letter for him.”
“Oh!” And returning with a manifest effort to the tone and manner of a few minutes before: —
“Impiger, Iracundus, Inexorabilis, acer Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis,”
he hummed. “I doubt if such manners will be appreciated in Geneva, young man,” and furtively he wiped his brow. “To old stagers like my friend here who has given his proofs of fidelity to the State, some indulgence is granted — —”
“I see that,” Claude answered with sarcasm.
“I am saying it. But you, if you will not be warned, will soon find or make the town too hot for you.”
“He will find this house too hot for him!” growled his companion, who had made more than one vain attempt to assert himself. “And that to-day! To-day! Perdition, I know him now,” he continued, fixing his bloodshot eyes on the young man, “and if he crows here as he crowed last night, his comb must be cut! As well soon as late, for there will be no living with him! There, don’t hold me, man! Let me at him!” And he tried to rise.
“Fool, have done!” Basterga replied, still restraining him, but only by the exertion of considerable force. And then in a lower tone but one partially audible, “Do you want to draw the eyes of all Geneva this way?” he continued. “Do you want the house marked and watched and every gossip’s tongue wagging about it? You did harm enough last night, I’ll answer, and well if no worse comes of it! Have done, I say, or I shall speak, you know to whom!”
“Why does he come here? Why does he follow me?” the sot complained.
“Cannot you hear that his father lodged here?”
“A lie!” Grio cried vehemently. “He is spying on us! First at the ‘Bible and Hand’ last night, and then here! It is you who are the fool, man. Let me go! Let me at him, I say!”
“I shall not!” the big man answered firmly. And he whispered in the other’s ear something which Claude could not catch. Whatever it was it cooled Grio’s rage. He ceased to struggle, nodded sulkily and sat back. He stretched out his hand, took a long draught, and having emptied his jug, “Here’s Geneva!” he said, wiping his lips with the air of a man who had given a toast. “Only don’t let him cross me! That is all. Where is the wench?”
“She has gone upstairs,” Basterga answered with one eye on Claude. He seemed to be unable to shake off a secret doubt of him.
“Then let her come down,” Grio answered with a grin, half drunken, half brutal, “and make her show sport. Here, you there,” to the young man who shared Claude’s table, “call her down and — —”
“Sit still!” Basterga growled, and he trod — Claude was almost sure of it — on the bully’s foot. “It is late, and these young gentlemen should be at their themes. Theology, young sir,” he turned to Claude with the slightest shade of over-civility in his pompous tone, “like the pursuit of the Alcahest, which some call the Quintessence of the Elements, allows no rival near its throne!”
“I attend my first lecture to-morrow,” Claude answered drily. And he kept his seat. His face was red and his hand trembled. They would call her down for their sport, would they! Not in his presence, nor again in his absence, if he could avoid it.
Grio struck the table. “Call her down!” he ordered in a tone which betrayed the influence of his last draught. “Do you hear!” And he looked fiercely at Louis Gentilis, the young man who sat opposite Claude.
But Louis only looked at Basterga and grinned.
And Basterga it was plain was not in the mood to amuse himself. Whatever the reason, the big man was no longer at h
is ease in Mercier’s company. Some unpleasant thought, some suspicion, born of the incident at the “Bible and Hand,” seemed to rankle in his mind, and, strive as he would, betrayed its presence in the tone of his voice and the glance of his eye. He was uneasy, nor could he hide his uneasiness. To the look which Gentilis shot at him he replied by one which imperatively bade the young man keep his seat. “Enough fooling for to-day,” he said, and stealthily he repressed Grio’s resistance. “Enough! Enough! I see that the young gentleman does not altogether understand our humours. He will come to them in time, in time,” his voice almost fawning, “and see we mean no harm. Did I understand,” he continued, addressing Claude directly, “that your father knew Messer Blondel?”
“Who is now Syndic? My uncle did,” Claude answered rather curtly. He was more and more puzzled by the change in Basterga’s manner. Was the big man a poltroon whom the bold front shown to Grio brought to heel? Or was there something behind, some secret upon which his words had unwittingly touched?
“He is a good man,” Basterga said. “And of the first in Geneva. His brother too, who is Procureur-General. Their father died for the State, and the sons, the Syndic in particular, served with high honour in the war. Savoy has no stouter foe than Philibert Blondel, nor Geneva a more devoted son.” And he drank as if he drank a toast to them.
Claude nodded.
“A man of great parts too. Probably you will wait on him?”
“Next week. I was near waiting on him after another fashion,” Claude continued rather grimly. “Between him and your friend there,” with a glance at Grio, who had relapsed into a moody glaring silence, “I was like to get more gyves than justice.”
The big man laughed. “Our friend here has served the State,” he remarked, “and does what another may not. Come, Messer Grio,” he continued, clapping him on the shoulder, as he rose from his seat. “We have sat long enough. If the young ones will not stir, it becomes the old ones to set an example. Will you to my room and view the precipitation of which I told you?”
Grio gave a snarling assent, and got to his feet; and the party broke up with no more words. Claude took his cap and prepared to withdraw, well content with himself and the line he had taken. But he did not leave the house until his ears assured him that the two who had ascended the stairs together had actually repaired to Basterga’s room on the first floor, and there shut themselves up.
CHAPTER IV.
CÆSAR BASTERGA.
Had it been Mercier’s eye in place of his ear which attended the two men to the upper room, he would have remarked — perhaps with surprise, since he had gained some knowledge of Grio’s temper — that in proportion as they mounted the staircase, the toper’s crest drooped, and his arrogance ebbed away; until at the door of Basterga’s chamber, it was but a sneaking and awkward man who crossed the threshold.
Nor was the reason far to seek. Whatever the standpoint of the two men in public, their relations to one another in private were delivered up, stamped and sealed in that moment of entrance. While Basterga, leaving the other to close the door, strode across the room to the window and stood gazing out, his very back stern and contemptuous, Grio fidgeted and frowned, waiting with ill-concealed penitence, until the other chose to address him. At length Basterga turned, and his gleaming eyes, his moon-face pale with anger, withered his companion.
“Again! Again!” he growled — it seemed he dare not lift his voice. “Will you never be satisfied until we are broken on the wheel? You dog, you! The sooner you are broken the better, were that all! Ay, and were that all, I could watch the bar fall with pleasure! But do you think I will see the fruit of years of planning, do you think that I will see the reward of this brain — this! this, you brainless idiot, who know not what a brain is” — and he tapped his brow repeatedly with an earnestness almost grotesque— “do you think that I will see this cast away, because you swill, swine that you are! Swill and prate in your cups!”
“‘Fore God, I said nothing!” Grio whined. “I said nothing! It was only that he would not drink and I — —”
“Made him?”
“No, he would not, I say, and we were coming to blows. And then — —”
“He gave back, did he?”
“No, Messer Blondel came in.”
Cæsar Basterga stretched out his huge arms. “Fool! Fool! Fool!” he hissed, with a gesture of despair. “There it is! And Blondel, who should have sent you to the whipping-post, or out of Geneva, has to cloak you! And men ask why, and what there is between our most upright Syndic and a drunken, bragging — —”
“Softly,” Grio muttered, with a flash of sullen resentment. “Softly, Messer Basterga! I — —”
“A drunken, swilling, prating pig!” the other persisted. “A broken soldier living on an hour of chance service? Pooh, man,” with contempt, “do not threaten me! Do you think that I do not know you more than half craven? The lad below there would cut your comb yet, did I suffer it. But that is not the point. The point is that you must needs advertise the world that you and the Syndic, who has charge of the walls, are hail-fellows, and the world will ask why! Or he must deal with you as you deserve and out you go from Geneva!”
“Per Bacco! I am not the only soldier,” Grio muttered, “who ruffles it here!”
“No! And is not that half our battle?” Basterga rejoined, gazing on him with massive scorn. “To make use of them and their grumbling, and their distaste for the Venerable Company of Pastors who rule us! Such men are our tools; but tools only, and senseless tools, for Geneva won for the Grand Duke, and what will they be the better, save in the way of a little more licence and a little more drink? But for you I had something better! Is the little farm in Piedmont not worth a month’s abstinence? Is drink-money for your old age, when else you must starve or stab in the purlieus of Genoa, not worth one month’s sobriety? But you must needs for the sake of a single night’s debauch ruin me and get yourself broken on the wheel!”
Grio shrank under his eye. “There is no harm done,” he muttered at last. “Nobody suspects what is between us.”
“How do you know that?” came the retort. “What? You think it is natural Blondel should favour such as you?”
“It will not be the first time Geneva cloak has covered Genoa velvet!”
“Velvet!” Basterga repeated with a sneer. “Rags rather!” And then more quickly, “But that is not all, nor the half. Do you think Blondel, who is on the point, Blondel, who will and will not and on whom all must turn, Blondel the upright, the impeccable, the patriotic, without whom we can do nothing, and who, I tell you, hangs in the balance — do you think he likes it, blockhead? Or is the more inclined to trust his life with us when he sees us brawlers, toss-pots, common swillers? Do you think he on whom I am bringing to bear all the resources of this brain — this!” — and again the big man tapped his forehead with tragic earnestness— “and whom you could as much move to side with us as you could move yonder peak of the Jura from its base — do you think he will deem better of our part for this?”
“Well, no.”
“No! No, a thousand times!”
“But I count drunk the same as sober for that!” Grio cried, plucking up spirit and speaking with a gleam of defiance in his eye. “For it is my opinion that you have no more chance of moving him than I have! And so to be plain you have it, Messer Basterga. For how are you going to move him? With what? Tell me that!”
“Ah!”
“With money?” Grio continued with a fluency which showed he spoke on a subject to which he had given much thought. “He is rich and ten thousand crowns would not buy him. And the Grand Duke, much as he craves Geneva, will not spend over boldly.”
“No, I shall not move him with money.”
“With power and rank, then? Will the Grand Duke make him Governor of Geneva? No, for he dare not trust him. And less than that, what is it to Syndic Blondel, whose word to-day is all but law in Geneva?”
“No, nor with power,” Basterga answered qu
ietly.
“Is it with revenge, then? There are men I know who love revenge. But he is not of the south, and at such a risk revenge were dearly bought.”
“No, nor with revenge,” Basterga replied.
“A woman, then? For that is all that is left,” Grio rejoined in triumph. Once he had spoken out, he had put himself on a level with his master; he had worsted him, or he was much mistaken. “Perhaps, from the way you have played with the little prude below, it is a woman. But they are plenty, even in Geneva, and he is rich and old.”
“No, nor with a woman.”
“Then with what?”
“With this!” Basterga replied. And for the third time, drawing himself up to his full height, he tapped his brow. “Do you doubt its power?”
For answer Grio shrugged his shoulders, his manner sullen and contemptuous.
“You do?”
“I don’t see how it works, Messer Basterga,” the veteran muttered. “I say not you have not good wits. You have, I grant it. But the best of wits must have their means and method. It is not by wishing and willing — —”
“How know you that?”
“Eh?”
“How know you that?” Basterga repeated with sudden energy, and he shook a massive finger before the other’s eyes. “But how know you anything,” he continued with disdain, as he dropped the hand again, and turned on his heel, “dolt, imbecile, rudiment that you are? Ay, and blind to boot, for it was but the other day I worked a miracle before you, and you learned nothing from it.”
“It is no question of miracles,” the other muttered doggedly. “But of how you will persuade the Syndic Blondel to betray Geneva to Savoy!”
“Is it so? Then tell me this: the girl below who smacked your face a month back because you laid a hand upon her wrist, and who would have had you put to the door the same day — how did I tame her? Can you answer me that?”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 404
