Cattolica was no more than a half-league distant, and I looked to reach it in a half-hour or so. I fell into thought as I trudged along, and I was building plans for the sunlit future that was to be ours. I was a man transformed that day, and I could have sung in spite of the chill December wind that buffeted me, so full of joy and gladness was my heart.
At Biancomonte I was likely to spend my days as little better than a peasant, but surely a peasant’s estate with such a companion as was to be mine was preferable to an emperor’s throne without her.
The bleak landscape seemed to me invested with a beauty that at no other time I should have noticed. God was good. I swore a thousand times, the world was a good world — so good that Heaven could scarce be better.
I had come, perhaps, the better half of the distance I had to travel, and I was giving full rein to my joyous fancy, when suddenly I espied ahead a company of horsemen. They were approaching me at a brisk pace, but I took no thought of them, accounting myself secure from any molestation. If it so happened that it was a search party from Pesaro, seeking two men disguised as monks who had ravished the coffin of Madonna Paola di Santafior, what should they want of Lazzaro Biancomonte? And so, in my confidence, I advanced even as they trotted quickly towards me.
Not until they were within a matter of a hundred paces did I raise my eyes to take their measure; and then I halted on my step, smitten of a sudden by an unreasoning and unreasonable fear, to see at their head the bulky form of the Governor of Cesena. He saw me, too, and, what was worse, he recognised me on the instant, for he clapped spurs to his horse and came at me as if he would ride me down. Within three paces of me he drew up his steed. Whether the memory of the other two occasions on which I had thwarted him arose now in his mind and made him wonder had not some fatality brought me across his path again to send awry his pretty schemes concerning Madonna Paula, I cannot say for certain; yet some suspicion of it occurred to me and filled me with apprehension.
“Body of Bacchus!” he roared. “Is it truly you, Boccadoro?”
“They call me Biancomonte now, Magnificent,” I answered him. But my tone was respectful, for it could profit me nothing to incense him.
“A fig for what they call you,” he snapped contemptuously. “Whence are you?”
“From Pesaro,” I answered truthfully.
“From Pesaro? But you are travelling towards it.”
“True. I was making for Cattolica, but I missed my way in seeking to shorten it. I am now returning by the high-road.”
The explanation satisfied him on that point, and being satisfied, he asked me when I had left Pesaro. A moment I hesitated.
“Late last night,” said I at last. He looked, at me, my foolish hesitation having perhaps unslipped a suspicion that was straining at its leash.
“In that case,” said he, “you can scarcely have heard the strange story that is being told there?”
I looked at him, as if puzzled, for a second. “If you mean the story of Madonna Paoia’s end, I heard it yesterday.”
“Why, what story was that?” quoth he in some surprise, his beetling brows coming together in one broad line of fur.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Men said that she had been poisoned.”
“Oh, that,” he cried indifferently. “But men say to-day that her body was stolen from the Church of San Domenico where it lay. An odd happening, is it not?” And his eyes covered me in a fierce scrutiny that again suggested to me those suspicions of his that I might be the man who had anticipated him. I was soon to learn that he had more grounds than at first I thought for those same suspicions.
“Odd, indeed,” I answered calmly, for all that I felt my pulses quickening with apprehension. “But is it true?” I added.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Rumour’s habit is to lie,” he answered. “Yet for such a lie as that, so monstrous an imagination would be needed that, rather, am I inclined to account it truth. There are no more poets in Pesaro since you left. But at what hour was it that you quitted the city?”
To hesitate again were to betray myself; it were to suggest that I was seeking an answer that should sort well with the rest of my story. Besides, what could the hour signify?
“It would be about the first hour of night,” I said. He looked at me with increasing strangeness.
“You must indeed have wandered from your road to have got no farther than this in all that time. Perhaps you were hampered by some heavy burden?” He leered evilly, and I turned cold.
“I was burdened with nothing heavier than this body of mine and a rather uneasy conscience.”
“Where, then, have you tarried?”
At this I thought it time to rebel. Were I too meekly to submit to this examination, my very meekness might afford him fresh grounds for doubts.
“Once have I told you,” I answered wearily, “that I lost my way. And, however much it may flatter me to have your Excellency evincing such an interest in my concerns, I am at a loss to find a reason for it.”
He leered prodigiously once more, and his eyebrows shot up to the level of his cap.
“I will tell you, brute beast,” he answered me. “I question you because I suspect that you are hiding something from me.”
“What should I hide from your Excellency?”
He dared not enlighten me on that point, for should his suspicions prove unfounded he would have uselessly betrayed himself.
“If you are honest, why do you lie?”
“I?” I ejaculated. “In what have I lied?”
“In that you have told me that you left Pesaro at the first hour of night. At the third hour you were still in the Church of San Domenico, whither you followed Madonna Paola’s bier.”
It was my turn to knit my brows. “Was I indeed?” quoth I. “Why, yes, it may well be. But what of that? Is the hour in which I quitted Pesaro a matter of such moment as to be worth lying over? If I said that I left about the first hour, it is because I was under the impression that it was so. But I was so distraught by grief at Madonna’s death that I may have been careless in my account of time.”
“More lies,” he blazed with sudden passion. “It may have been the third hour, you say. Fool, the gates of Pesaro close at the second hour of night. Where are your wits?”
Outwardly calm, but inwardly in a panic — more for Madonna’s sake than for my own — I promptly held out the hand on which I wore the Borgia ring. In a flash of inspiration did that counter suggest itself to me.
“There is a key that will open any gate in Romagna at any hour.”
He looked at the ring, and of what passed in his mind I can but offer a surmise. He may have remembered that once before I had fooled him with the help of that gold circlet; or he may have thought that I was secretly in the service of the Borgias, and that, acting in their interests, I had carried off Madonna Paola. Be that as it may, the sight of the ring threw him into a fury. He turned on his horse.
“Lucagnolo!” he called, and a man of officer’s rank detached himself from the score of men-at-arms and rode forward. “Let six men escort me home to Cesena. Take you the remainder and beat up the country for three leagues about this spot. Do not leave a house outside Cattolica unsearched. You know what we are seeking?”
The man inclined his head.
“If it is within the circle you have appointed, we will find it,” he answered confidently.
“Set about it,” was the surly command, and Ramiro turned again to me. “You have gone a little pale, good Messer Boccadoro,” he sneered. “We shall soon learn whether you have sought to fool me. Woe betide you, should it be so. We bear a name for swift justice at Cesena.”
“So be it then,” I answered as calmly as I might. “Meanwhile, perhaps you will now suffer me to go my ways.”
“The readier since your way must lie with ours.”
“Not so, Magnificent, I am for Cattolica.”
“Not so, animal,” he mimicked me with elephantine grace, “you are for Cesena, and you ha
d best go with a good will. Our manner of constraining men is reputed rude.” He turned again. “Ercole, take you this man behind you. Assist him, Stefano.”
And so it was done, and a few minutes later I was riding, strapped to the steel-clad Ercole, away from Paola at every stride. Thus at every stride the anguish that possessed me increased, as the fear that they must find her rose ever higher.
CHAPTER XVI. IN THE CITADEL OF CESENA
I will not harass you at any further length with the feelings that were mine as we sped northward towards Cesena. If you are a person of some imagination and not destitute of human sympathy you will be able to surmise them; if you are not — why then, my tale is not for you, and it is more than probable that you will have wearied of it and flung it aside long before you reach this page.
We rode so hard that by sunset Cesena was in sight, and ere night had fallen we were within the walls of the citadel. It was when we had dismounted and I stood in the courtyard between Ercole and another of the soldiers that Ramiro again addressed me.
“Animal,” said he, “they tell me that I bear a name for harsh measures and rough ways. You shall be a witness hereafter of how deeply I am maligned. For instead of putting you to the question and loosening your lying tongue with the rack, I am content to keep you a prisoner until my men return with that which I suspect you to be hiding from me. But if I then discover that you have sought to fool me, you shall flutter from Ramiro del’ Orca’s flagstaff.”
He pointed up to the tower of the Castle, from which a beam protruded, laden at that moment with a ghastly burden just discernible in the thickening gloom. He named it well when he called it his “flagstaff,” and the miserable banner of carrion that hung from it was a fitting pennon for the ruthless Governor of Cesena. Worthy was he to have worn the silver hauberk of Werner von Urslingen with its motto, “The enemy of God, of pity and of mercy.”
Forbidding, black-browed men caught me with rough hands and dragged me off to a dank, unlighted prison, as empty of furniture as it was full of noisome smells. And there they left me to my ugly thoughts and my deeply despondent mood what time the Governor of Cesena supped with his officers in the hall of the Castle.
Ramiro drank deep that night as was his habit, and being overladen with wine it entered his mind that in one of his dungeons lay Lazzaro Biancomonte, who, at one time, had been known as Boccadoro, the merriest Fool in Italy. In his drunkenness he grew merry, and when Ramiro del’ Orca grew merry men crossed themselves and betook them to their prayers. He would fain be amused, and to serve that end he summoned one of his sbirri and bade the fellow drag Boccadoro from his dungeon and fetch him into his presence.
When they came for me I turned cold with fear that Madonna was already taken, and, by contrast with such a fear as that, the reflection that he might carry out his threat to hang me from that black beam of his, faded into insignificant proportions.
They ushered me into a great hall, not ill-furnished, the floor strewed plentifully with rushes, and warmed by an enormous fire of blazing oak. By the door stood two pikemen in armour, like a pair of statues; in the centre of the floor was a heavy oaken board, laden now with flagons and beakers, at which sat Ramiro with a pair of gossips so villainous to look at, that the sight of them reminded me of the adage “God makes a man and then accompanies him.”
The Governor made a hideous noise at sight of me, which I was constrained to accept as an expression of horrid glee.
“Boccadoro,” said he, “do you recall that when last I had the honour of being entertained by your pert tongue, I promised you that did you ever cross my path again I would raise you to the dignity of Fool of my Court of Cesena?”
Into what magniloquence does vanity betray us! His Court of Cesena! As well might you describe a pig-sty as a bower of roses.
But his words, despite the unsavoury thing of which they seemed to hold a promise, fell sweetly on my ear, inasmuch as for the time they relieved my fears touching Madonna. It was not to advise me of her capture that he had had me haled into his odious presence. I gathered courage.
“Have you not fools enough already at Cesena?” I asked him.
A moment he looked as if he were inclining to anger. Then he burst into a coarse laugh, and turned to one of his gossips.
“Did I not tell you, Lampugnani, that his wit was quick and penetrating? Hear him, rogue. Already has he discerned your quality.” He laughed consumedly at his own jest, and turning to me he pointed to a crimson bundle on a chair beside me. “Take those garments,” he roughly bade me. “Go dress yourself in them, then come you back and entertain us.”
Without answering him, and already anticipating the nature of the clothes he bade me don, I lifted one of the garments from the heap. It was a foliated jester’s cap, with a bell hanging from every point, which gave out a tinkling sound as I picked it up. I let it fall again as though it had scorched me, the memory of what stood between Madonna Paola and me rising like a warning spectre in my mind. I would not again defile myself by the garb of folly; not again would I incur the shame of playing the Fool for the amusement of others.
“May it please your Excellency to excuse me,” I answered in a firm tone. “I have made a vow never again to put on motley.”
He eyed me sardonically for a moment, as if enjoying in anticipation the pleasure of compelling me against my will. He sat back in his chair and threw one heavily-booted leg across the other.
“In the Citadel of Cesena,” said he, “we fear neither God nor Devil, and vows are as water to us — things we cannot stomach. It does not please me to excuse you.”
I may have paled a little before the sinister smile with which he accompanied his words, but I stood my ground boldly.
“It is not,” said I, “a question of what a vow may be to you and yours, but of what a vow is to me. It is a thing I cannot break.”
“Sangue di Cristo!” he snarled, “we will break it for you, then — that or your bones. Resolve yourself, beast, the motley or the rack — or yet, if you prefer it, there is the cord yonder.” And he pointed to the far end of the chamber where some ropes were hanging from a pulley, the implements of the ghastly torture of the cord. Of such a nature was this monster that he made a torture-chamber of his dining-hall.
“Let the rogue make acquaintance with it,” laughed Lampugnani, showing a mouthful of yellow teeth behind the black beard that bushed his lips. “I’ll swear his dancing would afford us more amusement than his quips. Swing him up, Illustrious.”
But the Illustrious seemed to ponder the matter.
“You shall have five minutes in which to decide,” he informed me presently. “They say that I am cruel. Behold how patient is my clemency. Five minutes shall you have where many another would hang you out of hand for bearding him as you have done me.”
“You may begin at once,” said I. “neither five minutes nor five years will alter my determination.”
His brow grew black with anger. “We shall see,” was all he said.
There was a silence now in which we waited, a storm of thoughts battling in my mind. Presently Ramiro caught up one of the flagons and applied it to his cup. It proved empty, and in a gust of passion he hurled it against the wall where it burst into a thousand pieces. Clearly he was very angry, and it taxed my wits to account for the little measure of patience he was showing me.
“Beppo!” he called. A page lounging by the buffet sprang to attention. He was a slender, rather delicate lad, fair of hair and blue of eyes, not more than twelve years of age. An elderly man who stood beside him — one Mariani, the seneschal of Cesena — stepped forward also, solicitude in his glance.
“Bring me wine,” bawled the ogre. “Must I tell you what I need? If you do not put those eyes of yours to better service, I’ll have them plucked from your empty head. Bestir, animal.”
The old man caught up a beaker from the buffet and handed it to the boy.
“Here, my son,” said he. “Hasten to his Excellency.”
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nbsp; The lad took the beaker from his father’s hands, and trembling in his fear of Ramiro’s anger, he sprang forward to serve him. In his haste the poor youth slipped in some grease that had clung to the rushes. In seeking to recover himself he tripped over the feet of one of the halberdiers that guarded me, and measured his length upon the floor at Ramiro’s feet, flooding the Governor’s legs with the wine he carried.
How shall I tell you of the horror that was the sequel?
For just one instant Ramiro looked down at the sprawling lad, his eyes glowing like a madman’s. Then suddenly he rose, stooped, and set one hand to the boy’s belt, the other to the collar of his jerkin. Feeling himself lifted, and knowing whose were the dread hands that held him, poor Beppo uttered a single scream of terror. Then Ramiro swung him round with an ease that displayed the man’s prodigious strength. For just a second he seemed to hesitate how to dispose of the human bundle that he held. Then, as if suddenly taking his resolve, that devil hurled the lad across the little intervening space, straight into the heart of the blazing fire.
Beppo hurtled against the logs with a sickening crash, and a thousand sparks leapt up and vanished in the cavern of the chimney. Ramiro wheeled sharply about, and snatching the pike from the hands of one of my guards, he pinned down the poor body of the boy to make sure of his victim’s entire destruction.
Away by the buffet old Mariani looked on with a face as grey as ashes, his eyes protruding in horror at the thing they witnessed. One glimpse I had of him, and I scarce know which was the sight that sickened me more, the fathers anguish or the twitching limbs of the burning child. Two legs and two arms protruded from the blaze and writhed and wriggled horribly what time the flames peeled the garments from them and licked the flesh from the bones. At length they fell still and sank down into the white heat of the logs, a hideous, pungent odour spreading through the chamber. From the old man by the buffet, who had stood spellbound during this ghastly scene, there broke at last an anguished cry.
“Mercy, my lord, mercy!”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 127