Whose were that foot and that voice? Basterga’s? The Syndic’s eyes gleamed, he raised his head. There was another score he had to pay! His own score, not Baudichon’s. Fool, to have left his treasure unguarded for every thieving wench to take! Fool, thrice and again, for putting his neck back into the lion’s mouth. Stealthily Blondel pulled the handbell nearer to him and covered it with his cloak. He would have added a weapon, but there was no arm within reach, and while he hesitated between his chair and the door of the small inner room, the outer door opened, and Basterga appeared and advanced, smiling, towards him.
“Your servant, Messer Syndic,” he said. “I heard that you had been inquiring for me in my absence, and I am here to place myself at your disposition. You are not looking — —” he stopped short, in feigned surprise. “There is nothing wrong, I hope?”
Had the scholar been such a man as Baudichon, Blondel’s answer would have been one frenzied shriek of insults and reproaches. But face to face with Basterga’s massive quietude, with his giant bulk, with that air, at once masterful and cynical, which proclaimed to those with whom he talked that he gave them but half his mind while reading theirs, the wrath of the smaller man cooled. A moment his lips writhed, without sound; then, “Wrong?” he cried, his voice harsh and broken. “Wrong? All is wrong!”
“You are not well?” Basterga said, eyeing him with concern.
“Well? I shall never be better! Never!” Blondel shrieked. And after a pause, “Curse you!” he added. “It is your doing!”
Basterga stared. He was in the dark as to what had happened, though the Syndic’s manner on leaving the bridge had prepared him for something. “My doing, Messer Blondel?” he said. “Why? What have I done?”
“Done?”
“Ay, done! It was not my fault,” the scholar continued, with a touch of sternness, “that I could not offer you the remedium on easy terms. Nor mine, that hard as the terms were, you did not accept them. Besides,” he continued, slowly and with meaning,
“Terque quaterque redit!
You remember the Sibylline books? How often they were offered, and the terms? It is not too late, Messer Blondel — even now. While there is life there is hope, there is more than hope. There is certainty.”
“Is there?” Blondel cried; he extended a lean hand, shaking with vindictive passion. “Is there? Go and look in your casket, fool! Go and look in your steel box!” he hissed. “Go! And see if it be not too late!”
For a moment Basterga peered at him, his brow contracted, his eyes screwed up. The blow was unexpected. Then, “Have you taken the stuff?” he muttered.
“I? No! But she has!” And on that, seeing the change in the other’s face — for, for once, the scholar’s mask slipped and suffered his consternation to appear — Blondel laughed triumphantly: in torture himself, he revelled in a disaster that touched another. “She has! She has!”
“She? Who?”
“The girl of the house! Anne you call her! Curse her! child of perdition, as she is! She!” And he clawed the air.
“She has taken it?” Basterga spoke incredulously, but his brow was damp, his cheeks were a shade more sallow than usual; he did not deceive the other’s penetration. “Impossible!” he continued, striving to rally his forces. “Why should she take it? She has no illness, no disease! Try” — he swallowed something— “to be clear, man. Try to be clear. Who has told you this cock-and-bull story?”
“It is the truth.”
“She has taken it?”
“To give to her mother — yes.”
“And she?”
“Has taken it? Yes.”
The scholar, ordinarily so cool and self-contained, could not withhold an execration. His small eyes glittered, his face swelled with rage; for a moment he was within a little of an explosion. Of what mad, what insensate folly, unworthy of a schoolboy, worthy only of a sot, an imbecile, a Grio, had he been guilty! To leave the potion, that if it had not the virtues which he ascribed to it, had virtue — or it had not served his purpose of deceiving the Syndic during some days or hours — to leave the potion unprotected, at the mercy of a chance hand, of a treacherous girl! Safeguarded, in appearance only, and to blind his dupe! It seemed incredible that he could have been so careless!
True, he might replace the stuff at some expense; but not in a day or an hour. And how — with one dose in all the world! — keep up the farce? The dose consumed, the play was at an end. An end — or, no, was he losing his wits, his courage? On the instant, in the twinkling of an eye, he shaped a fresh course.
He cursed the girl anew, and apparently with the same fervour. “A month’s work it cost me!” he cried. “A month’s work! and ten gold pieces!”
The Syndic, pale, and almost in a state of collapse — for the bitter satisfaction of imparting the news no longer supported him — stared. “A month’s work?” he muttered. “A month? Years you told me! And a fortune!”
“I told you? Never!” Basterga opened his eyes in seeming amazement. “Never, good sir, in all my life!” he repeated emphatically. “But” — returning grimly to his former point— “ten gold pieces, or a fortune — no matter which, she shall pay dearly for it, the thieving jade!”
The Syndic sat heavily in his seat, and, with a hand on either arm of the abbot’s chair, stared dully at the other. “A fortune, you told me,” he said, in a voice little above a whisper. “And years. Was it a fiction, all a fiction? About Ibn Jasher, and the Physician of Aleppo, and M. Laurens of Paris, and — and the rest?”
Basterga deliberately took a turn to the window, came back, and stood looking down at him. “Mon Dieu!” he muttered. “Is it possible?”
“Eh?”
“I can scarcely believe it!” The scholar spoke with a calmness half cynical, half compassionate. “But I suppose you really think that of me, though it seems incredible! You are under the impression that the drug this jade stole was the remedium of Ibn Jasher, the one incomparable and sovereign result of long years of study and research? You believe that I kept this in a mere locked box, the key accessible by all who knew my habits, and the treasure at the mercy of the first thief! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! If I said it a thousand times I could not express my astonishment. I might be the vine grower of the proverb,
Cui saepe viator Cessisset magna compellans voce cucullum!”
The Syndic heard him without changing the attitude of weakness and exhaustion into which he had fallen on sitting down. But midway in the other’s harangue, his lips parted, he held his breath, and in his eyes grew a faint light of dawning hope. “But if it be not so?” he muttered feebly. “If this be not so, why — —”
“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!”
“Why did you look so startled a moment ago?”
“Why, man? Because ten pieces of gold are ten pieces! To me at least! And the potion, which was made after a recipe of that same Messer Laurens of Paris, cost no less. It is a love-philtre, beneficent to the young, but if taken by the old so noxious, that had you swallowed it,” with a grin, “you had not been long Syndic, Messer Blondel!”
Blondel shook his head. “You do not deceive me,” he muttered. For though he was anxious to believe, as yet he could not. He could not; he had seen the other’s face. “It is the remedium she has taken! I feel it.”
“And given to her mother?”
Blondel inclined his head.
The scholar laughed contemptuously. “Then is the test easy,” he said. “If it be the remedium you will find her mother, who has not left her bed for three years, grown strong and well and vigorous, and like to him who lifted up his bed and walked. But if it be the love-philtre, you have but to come with me, and you will find her — —” He did not finish the sentence, but a shrug of his shoulders and a mysterious smile filled the gap.
Imperceptibly Blondel had raised himself in his chair. The gleam of hope, once lighted in his eyes, was growing bright. “How?” he asked. “How shall we find her? If it be the philtre only that she has taken — as you sa
y?”
“If it be the philtre? The mother, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Mad! Mad!” Basterga repeated with decision, “and beside herself. As you had been,” he continued grimly, “had you by any chance taken the aqua Medeæ.”
“That you kept in the steel box?”
“Ay.”
“You are sure it was not the remedium?” Blondel leaned forward. If only he could believe it, if only it were the truth, how great the difference! No wonder that the muscles of his lean throat swelled, and his hands closed convulsively on the arms of his great chair, as he strove to read the other’s mind.
He had as soon read a printed page without light. The scholar saw that it needed but a little to convince him, and took his line with confidence; nor without some pride in the wits that had saved him. “The remedium?” he repeated with impatient wonder. “Do you know that the remedium is unique? That it is a man’s life? That in the world’s history it scarce appears once in five hundred years? That all the wealth of kings cannot produce it, nor the Spanish Indies furnish it? Do you remember these things, Messer Blondel, and do you ask if I keep it like a common philtre in a box in my lodgings?” He snorted in contempt, and going disdainfully to the hearth spat in the fire as if he could not brook the idea. Then returning to the Syndic’s side, he took up his story in a different tone. “The remedium,” he said, “my good friend, is in the Grand Duke’s Treasury at Turin. It is in a steel box, it is true, but in one with three locks and three keys, sealed with the Grand Duke’s private signet and with mine; and laid where the Treasurer himself cannot meddle with it.”
The Syndic sat up straight, and with his eyes fixed sullenly on the floor fingered his beard. He was almost persuaded, but not quite. Could it be, could it really be that the thing still existed? That it was still to be obtained, that life by its means was still possible?
“Well?” Basterga said, when the silence had lasted some time.
“The proof!” Blondel retorted, excitement once more over-mastering him. “Let me have the proof! Let me see, man, if the woman be mad.”
But the scholar, leaning Atlas-like, against the wall beside the long low window, with his arms crossed, and his great head sunk on his breast, did not move. He saw that this was his hour and he must use it. “To what purpose?” he answered slowly: and he shrugged his shoulders. “Why go to the trouble? The remedium is in Turin. And if it be not, it is the Grand Duke’s affair only, and mine, since you will not come to his terms. I would, I confess,” he continued, in a more kindly tone, “that it were your affair also, Messer Blondel. I would I could have made you see things as they are and as I see them. As, believe me, Messer Petitot would see them were he in your place; as Messer Fabri and Messer Baudichon — I warrant it — do see them; as — pardon me — all who rank themselves among the wise and the illuminate, see them. For all such, believe me, these are times of enlightening, when the words which past generations have woven into shackles for men’s minds fall from them, and are seen to be but the straw they are; when men move, like children awaking from foolish dreams, and life — —”
The Syndic’s eyes glowed dully.
“Life,” Basterga continued sonorously, “is seen to be that which it is, the one thing needful which makes all other things of use, and without which all other things are superfluities! Bethink you a minute, Messer Blondel! Would Petitot give his life to save yours?”
The Syndic smiled after a sickly fashion. Petitot? The stickling pedant! The thin, niggling whipster!
“Or Messer Fabri?”
Blondel shook his head.
“Or Messer Baudichon?”
“I called him but now — a fat hog!”
It was Basterga’s turn to shake his head. “He is not one to forget,” he said gravely. “I fear you will hear of that again, Messer Blondel. I fear it will make trouble for you. But if these will not, is there any man in Geneva, any man you can name, who would give his life for you?”
“Do men give life so easily?” Blondel answered, moving painfully in his chair.
“Yet you will give yours for them! You will give yours! And who will be a ducat the better?”
“I shall at least die for freedom,” the Syndic muttered, gnawing his moustache.
“A word!”
“For the religion, then.”
“It is that which men make it!” the scholar retorted. “There have been good men of all religions, though we dare not say as much in public, or in Geneva. ’Tis not the religion. ’Tis the way men live it! Was John Bernardino of Assisi, whom some call St. Francis, a worse man than Arnold of Brescia, the Reformer? Or is your Beza a better man than Messer Francis of Sales? Or would the heavens fall if Geneva embraced the faith of the good Archbishop of Milan? Words, Messer Blondel, believe me, words!”
“Yet men die for them!”
“Not wise men. And when you have died for them, who will thank you?” The Syndic groaned. “Who will know, or style you martyr?” Basterga continued forcibly. “Baudichon, whom you have called a fat hog? He will sit in your seat. Petitot — he said but a little while ago that he would buy this house if he lived long enough.”
“He did?” The Syndic came to his feet as if a spring had raised him.
“Certainly. And he is a rich man, you know.”
“May the Bise search his bones!” Blondel cried, trembling with fury. For this was the realisation of his worst fears. Petitot to live in his house, lie warm in his bed, sneer at his memory across the table that had been his, rule in the Council where he had been first! Petitot, that miserable crawler who had clogged his efforts for years, who had shared, without deserving, his honours, who had spied on him and carped at him day by day and hour by hour! Petitot to succeed him! To be all and own all, and sun himself in the popular eye, and say “Geneva, it is I!” While he, Blondel, lay rotting and forgotten, stark, beneath snow and rain, winter wind and summer drought!
Perish Geneva first! Perish friend and foe alike!
The Syndic wavered. His hand shook, his thin dry cheek burned with fever, his lips moved unceasingly. Why should he die? They would not die for him. Nay, they would not thank him, they would not praise him. A traitor? To live he must turn traitor? Ay, but try Petitot, and see if he would not do the same! Or Baudichon, who could not sleep of nights for fear — how would he act with death staring him in the face? The bravest soldiers when disarmed, or called upon to surrender or die, capitulate without blame. And that was his position.
Life, too; dear, warm life! Life that might hold much for him still. Hitherto these men and their fellows had hampered and thwarted him, marred his plans and balked his efforts. Freed from them and supported by an enlightened and ambitious prince, he might rise to heights hitherto invisible. He might lift up and cast down at will, might rule the Council as his creatures, might live to see Berne and the Cantons at his feet, might leave Geneva the capital of a great and wealthy country.
All this, at his will; or he might die! Die and rot and be forgotten like a dog that is cast out.
He did not believe in his heart that faith and honour were words; fetters woven by wise men to hamper fools. He did not believe that all religions were alike, and good or bad as men made them. But on the one side was life, and on the other death. And he longed to live.
“I would that I could make you see things as I see them,” Basterga resumed, in a gentle tone. Patiently waiting the other’s pleasure he had not missed an expression of his countenance, and, thinking the moment ripe, he used his last argument. “Believe me, I have the will, all the will, to help you. And the terms are not mine. Only I would have you remember this, Messer Blondel: that others may do what you will not, so that after all you may find that you have cast life away, and no one the better. Baudichon, for instance, plays the Brutus in public. But he is a fearful man, and a timid; and to save himself and his family — he thinks much of his family — he would do what you will not.”
“He would do it!” the Syndi
c cried passionately. And he struck the table. “He would, curse him!”
“And he would not forget,” Basterga continued, with a meaning nod, “that you had miscalled him!”
“No! But I will be before him!” The Syndic was on his feet again, shaking like a leaf.
“Ay?” Basterga blew his nose to hide the flash of triumph that shone in his eyes. “You will be wise in time? Well, I am not surprised. I thought that you would not be so mad — that no man could be so mad as to throw away life for a shadow!”
“But mind you,” Blondel snarled, “the proof. I must have the proof,” he repeated. He was anxious to persuade himself that his surrender depended on a condition; he would fain hide his shame under a show of bargaining. “The proof, man, or I will not take a step.”
“You shall have it.”
“To-day?”
“Within the hour.”
“And if she be not mad — I believe you are deceiving me, and it was the remedium the girl took — if she be not mad — —” The Syndic, stammering and repeating himself, broke off there. He could not meet the other’s eyes; between a shame new to him and the overpowering sense of what he had done, he was in a pitiable state. “Curse you,” with violence, “I believe you have laid a trap for me!” he cried. “I say if she be not mad, I have done.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 421
