A Jay of Italy

by Bernard Edward Joseph Capes

  *CHAPTER XV*

  The astutest of all the six Sforza brothers was, without question,Messer Ludovico, at present sojourning in the castello of Milan. Nohigher than fourth in point of age, policy or premonition had neverceased to present him to himself for the first in succession. Theuncertainty of life's tenure, unless ameliorated a little by qualitiesof tact and conciliation like his own, made him some excuse for thissecret conviction. His eldest brother was a monster of the order which,in every age, invites tyrannicide; the Lord of Bari, the second, anease-loving, good-humoured monster of another kind (he was to dieshortly, in fact, of his own obesity), he valued only as so much grossbulk of supineness to be surmounted; Filippo, the third, was animbecile, whose very existence was already slipping into the obscuritywhich was presently to spell obliteration. There remained only, juniorto himself, Ascanio, a nonentity, and Ottaviano, a headstrong,irresponsible boy, whose possible destiny concerned him as little asthough he foresaw his drowning, within the year, in the Adda river.

  It was true that one other, more shrilly self-assertive, stood betweenhimself and the light--the Duke's little son, Gian-Galeazzo. Here, mostpeople would have thought, was his real insuperable barrier.

  He did not regard matters from these popular points of view. He wasvery patient and far-seeing. At the outset of his career he had adoptedfor his device the mulberry-tree, because he had observed it to becautious of putting forth its leaves until the last of winter wasassured. He could picture the fatherless child as the most opportune ofall steps to his exaltation. To climb presently those little shouldersto the regency! It would go hard with him but they sank graduallycrushed under his weight. This was the wise policy, to get his seat asproxy, and through merciful and enlightened rule secure its permanency.There was infinite scope in the reaction he would make from a coarse andbloody despotism. His nature hated violence; his reason recognised theeternal insecurity of power built on it. Otherwise there was littledoubt he might, in that first emergency, strike with good chance thestraight usurper's stroke. His name, for graciousness and refinement,already shone like a star in the gross bog of Milan, revealing to it itsfoulness. Men, in the shame of their fulsome bondage to tyranny, lookedup to him for hope and sympathy. He was even _persona grata_ with thepeople.

  But he abhorred, and disbelieved in, violence. He would rule, if atall, in the popular recognition of great qualities: he would prevailthrough bounty and tolerance. Bona was his crux--Bona, and the secretarySimonetta, a fellow incorruptibly devoted to the reigning family. Whilethese two lived in credit with the duchy, the regency was secure fromhim, and the State, he told himself, from progress. For whatwoman-regent had ever mothered an era of enlightenment? Good for Milan,good for Lombardy, could he once discredit and ruin Bona and Simonetta.They would fall together. The uses of Tassino as an instrument to thisend had occurred to him--only to be rejected. How could he hope so todisgrace corruption in corruption's eyes? Such puppyish intrigue wasnot worth even the Duke's interference. He rated that curly perfumedhead in Bona's lap at exactly the value of a puppy's.

  But, with the advent of the stranger, the little pseudo-oracle, thechild Tiresias, sweet and blind as Cupid, a sounder opportunity offered.To involve Bona in the defilement of this purity, in the violating ofthis holy trust, adored by the people and bequeathed to her by herlord--that was, in the vernacular, another pair of shoes. He had noted,with secret gratification, her first coquetting with the pretty toils.He had heard, with plenteous dismay, of the boy's untimely secession.But he possessed, almost alone in his tumultuous time, the faculty ofpatience; and he was well served by his well-paid spies and agents.Almost before he could order their reports, almost before he could gaugethe significance of one especial piece of information they gave him, theboy, won to forgiveness, was back at court again. Thenceforth he sawhis way smoothly, if any term so bland could be applied to such adevious course of policy.

  That was a matter of cross-roads, leading from, or to, himself, the mutesignpost of direction. One, for instance, pointed to Bona's disgracethrough Bembo; another to Simonetta's disgrace through Bona's disgrace;a third, to Bembo's downfall; a fourth, and last, to his nephew'sorphaned minority. And the meeting-place, the nucleus, of all thesetendencies was--where he himself stood, on a grave. For did they notbury suicides at cross-roads, and was not Galeazzo's policy suicidal?Of all these birds he might kill three, at least, with one stone; andthat stone, he believed, was already in his hand, or nearly.

  Let it not be supposed that Ludovico was a wicked man. He was destinedto bear one of the greatest of the renaissance reputations; but thatreputation was to draw no less from munificence than from magnificence,from tolerance than from power. He stood, at this time, on the foreheadof an epoch, feeling the promise of his wings, poising and waiting onlyfor their maturity. His sympathies were all with progress, with moralemancipation. He was even now, in Milan (if it can be said withoutblasphemy), comparable to Christ in Hades. In a filthy age he wasfastidious; precise and delicate in his speech; one of those men beforewhom the insolence of moral offences is instinctively silent.Guicciardini, a grudging Florentine, nevertheless pronounced him when hecame to rule, 'milde and mercifull'; Arluno credited him with asublimity of justice and benevolence. Others, less interested,testified to his wisdom and sagacity, about which there was certainly nodisputing. If at any period the wrong that is ready to perpetrateitself in order to procure good is justifiable, it was to be justifiedin these corrupt years, when conformity with usage spelt putrefaction.He could foresee no health for the State in patching its disease. Hewas the operator predestined by Providence to remove, stock and block,the cancer.

  Yet, though loving truth, he lied; yet, though hating the sight ofblood, he procured its shedding; yet, though admiring virtue, he did nothesitate to prostitute it to his ends. There were crimes attributed tohim of which he was no doubt innocent; there were lesser, or worse,unrecorded, of which he was no doubt guilty. Feeling himself, bytemperament and intellect, the inevitable instrument of a vastemancipation, recognising his call to be as peremptory as it wasunconsidered, he had no choice, in obeying it, but to cast scruples tothe winds. With him, as with his contemporary the English Richard, adeep fervour of patriotism was at once the goad and the destruction.Judgment on the means both took to vindicate their commissions restswith the gods, who first inspired, then repudiated them. But there isno logic in Olympus.

  Ludovico was sitting one evening in his private cabinet in the castello,when a lady was announced to him by the soft-voiced page. Every oneinstinctively subdued his speech in the presence of Messer Ludovico,even the rough venderaccios who occasionally came to make him theirreports or receive his instructions.

  The lady came in, and stood silent as a statue by the heavy portiere,which, closed, cut off all eavesdropping as effectively as a mattress.Nevertheless Messer Ludovico waited for full assurance of the page'swithdrawal before he rose, and courteously greeted his visitor.

  'Ave, Madonna Beatrice!' he said. 'You are welcome as the moonlight inmy poor apartment.'

  It was so far from being that, as to make the compliment anextravagance. Yet the beauty of the woman in her long black robe andmantle, and little black silk cap dropping wings of muslin, sortedgravely enough with the slumberous gold of picture frames under thelamplight, and all the sombre sparkle of gems and glass and silver withwhich the chamber was strewed in a considered disorder.

  'You sent for me, Messer, and I have come,' she said. Her low,untroubled voice was quite in keeping with the rest.

  'Fie, fie!' he answered smoothly. 'I begged a privilege, I begged anhonour--with diffidence, of one so lately stricken. Will you be seatedwhile I stand?'

  As her subject, he meant to imply. She accepted the condescension forwhat it was worth. He bent his heavy eyebrows on her pleasantly. Theywere full and shaggy for so young a man. Presently she found thesilence intolerable.

  'You sent for me, Messer,' she
repeated coldly. 'Will you say onaccount of which of your interests?'

  'See the dangerous intuition of your sex!' he retorted smilingly--'aweapon wont to cut its wielder's hand. On account of _your_ interest,purely.'

  She glanced up at him with insolent incredulity.

  'True,' he said. 'I desired only to save you the consequences of animprudence. That troth-ring, Madonna, our Duchess's: is it not rather aperilous toy to play with?'

  She was startled, for all her immobility--so startled, that he could seethe breath jump in her bosom. But, in the very gasp of her fear, shecaught herself to recollection, and stiffened, silent, to the ordeal shefelt was coming.

  'How did I know it was in your possession?' he said, with a littlewhisper of a laugh. 'Your beauty is ever more speaking than your lips,Madonna; but I am an oracle: I can read the unspoken question. There isa creature, Narcisso his name, once fellow to a loved servant of ourcourt. You know Messer Lanti? an honest, bluff gentleman. He did wellto part with such a dangerous rogue. Why, the times are complicate: weshould be choice in our confidants. This Narcisso is very well to slita throat; but to negotiate a delicate theft----'

  He paused. 'Go on,' she whispered.

  'I will be frank as day,' he purred. ''Twas seen on this rogue'sfinger, when making for your house. It was not there when he left.'

  'The gloating fool!' She stabbed out the words. 'Seen! By whom?'

  'By one,' he answered, 'whose business it was to look for it.'

  'Who, I say?'

  'Most high lady, the very predestined man--no other. Would you still askwho? I had thought you more accomplished. Intrigue, like a statue, isnot carved out with a single tool. The eyes, the ears, the lips, eachdemand their separate instrument. Dost thou seek to shape all with one?O, fie, fie!'

  He shook his finger gaily at her. She sat, frowning, with her handsclenched before her; but she gave no answer.

  'Why, I am but a tyro,' said the prince; 'yet could I teach thee, itseems, some first precepts in our craft--as thus: Use things most usefulfor their uses; employ not your dagger as a shoe-horn, or it may chanceto cut your heel; an instrument hath its purpose and design; think notone password will unlock all camps; selection is the cream ofpolicy--and so on.'

  She started to her feet, in an instant resolution.

  'I have the ring,' she said.

  He bowed suavely. She stared at him.

  'What then, Messer?'

  'Why,' he said, 'only that, do you not think, it were safer in my handsthan in yours?'

  'Safer!' she cried in a suppressed voice; 'for whom?'

  'Yourself,' he answered serenely.

  'Ah!' she cried, 'you would threaten, if I refuse, to destroy me withit?'

  He made a deprecating motion with his hands.

  'Beware,' she said fiercely; 'I can retort. Where is Tassino?'

  He looked at her kindly.

  'Madonna, do you not know? Nay, do I not know that you know? He lieshidden in the burrow of this same Narcisso.'

  'At whose instigation? Not yours, Messer--O no, of course, not yours!'

  His lips never changed from their expression of smiling good-humour.

  'Entirely at mine,' he said.

  She gave a little gasp. His subtlety was too chill a thing for herfire; but she struggled against her quenching by it.

  'Why do you not produce him, then? Do you not know that he is cried forhigh and low? that he is wanted to complete his contract with thearmourer's drab? It is an ill thing to cross, this present ecstasy ofconversion. We are all Bernardines now--lunatics--latter-dayCistercians--raging neophytes of love.'

  'While the ecstasy lasts,' he murmured, unruffled.

  'Ah!' she cried violently, 'yet may it last your time. Fanaticism is norespecter of rank or service. Standest thou so well with Bona? Shewould have racked the racker himself in the first fury of hercontrition--torn confession from Jacopo's sullen throat with iron hooks,had not her saint rebuked her. Tassino had been last seen by him in theman's company, but, when they went to look for him, he was gone. Whenor whither, the fellow swore he knew not. It was like enough, thoubeing the lure. Will you not produce him now, and save your peace?'

  Ludovico, regarding her vehemence from under half-closed lids, exhibitednot the slightest tremor.

  'Madonna,' he said, 'thy mourning beauty becometh thee like Cassandra's.Hast thou, too, so angered Apollo with thy continence as to make himnullify in thee his own gift of prophecy? Alas, that lips so movingmust be so discounted in their warnings!'

  She drew back, chilled and baffled.

  'Thou wilt not?' she muttered. 'Well, then, thou wilt not. Take thouthine own course; I may not know thy purpose.'

  For a moment the cold of him deepened to deadliness, and his voice to aniron hardness:--

  'Nor any like thee--self-seekers--dominated by some single lust. _My_purpose is a labyrinth of Cnossus. Beware, rash fools, who would seek tounravel it!'

  Her lips were a little parted; the fine wings of her nostrils quivered.For all her bravery she felt her heart constricting as in the frost ofsome terror which she could neither gauge nor compass. But, in the veryinstant of her fear, Ludovico was his own bland self again.

  'Tools, tools!' he said smiling--'for the eyes, the ears, the lips. Ishall take up this one when I need it, not before. Meanwhile it liesready to my hand.'

  'I do not doubt thy cunning,' she said faintly.

  'What then, Madonna?' he asked.

  She struggled with herself, swallowing with difficulty.

  'Its adequacy for its purpose--that is all.'

  'What purpose?'

  She looked up, and dared him:--

  'To destroy the Duchess.'

  He laughed out, tolerantly.

  'Intuition! Intuition! O thou self-wounding impulse! To destroy theDuchess? Well! What is thy ring for? To destroy Monna Beatrice,belike. And Monna Beatrice had her instrument too, they will sayafterwards--a blunt, coarse blade, but hers, hers only--as she thought.Yet, it seems, one Ludovic used something of him, this Narcisso,also--played him for his ends--marked him down, even, for landlord to afribble called Tassino. What, Carissima! He hath not told thee somuch?'

  She shook her head dully.

  'No?' mocked the Prince. 'And ye such sworn allies! O sweet, you shalllearn policy betimes! You will not yield the ring? Well, there isTassino, as you say. Play him against it.'

  She knew she dared not. The vague implication of forces andunderstandings behind all this banter quite cowed her. She had defiedthe serpent, and been struck and overcome. Hate was no match for thiscraft. But emotion remained. She dwelt a long minute on his smooth,impenetrable face; then, all in an instant, yielded up her sex, andstole towards him, arms and moist eyes entreating.

  'I dared thee; I was wrong. Only----'

  Her palms trembled on his shoulders; her bosom heaved against his hand.

  'I have suffered, what only a woman can. O, Messer, let me keep thering!'

  Her voice possessed him like an embrace; the soft pleading of it madeany concession to his kindness possible. He was very sensitive to allemotions of loveliness, but with the rare gift of reasoning intemptation. He shook his head.

  'Ah!' she murmured, 'let me. Thou shalt find jealousy a hot ally.'

  She pressed closer to him. He neither resisted nor invited.

  'Most excellent sweetness,' he said gently. 'I melt upon thisconfidence. Henceforth we'll bury misunderstanding, and kiss upon hisgrave. But truth with sugar is still a drug. A jealous woman is bad inpolicy. Trust her always to destroy her betrayer, though throughwhatever betrayal of her friends. Besides, forgive me, Messer Bembo mayyet prove accommodating.'

  At that she dropped her hands and stepped back.

  'Is this to bury misunderstanding?' she cried low. 'O, I would _I_ wereDuchess of Milan.'

  'More impossible things might happen,' he said thickly, for all hisself-control.

  She star
ed at him fascinated a moment; then swiftly advanced again.

  'Let me keep the ring,' she urged hoarsely. 'I could set somethingagainst it--some knowledge--some information.'

  He had mastered himself in the interval; and now stood pondering uponher and fondling his chin.

  'Yes?' he murmured. 'But it must be something to be worth.'

  She hesitated; then spoke out:--

  'A plot to kill the Duke--no more.'

  The two stared at one another. She could see a pulse moving in histhroat; but when at last he spoke, it was without emotion.

  'Indeed, Madonna? They are so many. When is this particular one tobe?'

  'Do you not know?' she answered as derisively as she dared. 'I thoughtyou had a tool for everything. Well, it is to be in Milan.'

  'In Milan--as before,' he repeated ironically. 'And the heads of thisconspiracy, Madonna?'

  'Ah!' she cried, with a sigh of triumph; 'they are yours at the price ofthe ring.'

  He canvassed her a little, but profoundly.

  'After all,' he murmured, 'why should I seek to know?'

  'Why?' she said, with a laugh of recovering scorn, 'why but to nip it inits bud, Messer?'

  He was quick to grasp this implied menace of retaliation.

  'Tell me,' he said, 'why are you so hot to retain this same ring?'

  'For only a woman's reason,' she answered. 'Wouldst thou understand it?Not though I spoke an hour by St. Ambrose' clock. I would deal the blowmyself, in my own way--that is all.'

  'Thou wouldst ruin Bona?'

  'Ay, and her saint, who robbed me of my love.'

  'By her connivance? Marry, be honest, sweet lady. Was it not ratherMesser Bembo who denied you Messer Bembo?'

  'Will you have the names?'

  'Hold a little. Here's matter black enough, but unsupported. I musthave some proof. Tell me who's your informant?'

  'And have you go and bleed him? Nay, I am learning my tools.'

  'Bravo!' he said, and kissed his hand to her. 'Well, I see, we mustcall a truce awhile.'

  'And I will keep the ring,' she said.

  He beamed thoughtfully on her. No doubt he was considering thepossibility of improving the interval by rooting out, on his ownaccount, details of the secret she held from him.

  'Provisionally,' he said pleasantly--'provisionally, Madonna; so long asyou undertake to make no use of it until you hear from me my decision.'

  'The longer that is delayed, the better for your purpose, Messer,' shedared to say.

  He smiled blankly at her a little; then courteously advancing, andraising her hand, imprinted a fervent kiss on it.

  'Though I fail to gather your meaning,' he said, 'it is neverthelesscertain that you would make a very imposing Duchess, Monna Beatrice.'