I groaned and cursed in one. “Twelve hours!” I cried. “And she... I can’t wait, Galeotto. I must ride on alone.”
He lay on his back and stared up at me, and his eyes had a glassy stare. Then he roused himself by an effort, and raised himself upon his elbow.
“That is it, boy — ride on alone. Take Falcone. Listen, there are three score men of mine at Pagliano who will follow you to Hell at a word that Falcone shall speak to them from me. About it, then, and save her. But wait, boy! Do no violence to Farnese, if you can help it.”
“But if I can’t?” I asked.
“If you can’t — no matter. But endeavour not to offer him any hurt! Leave that to me — anon when all is ripe for it. To-day it would be premature, and... and we... we should be... crushed by the...” His speech trailed off into incoherent mutterings; his eyelids dropped, and he was fast asleep again.
Ten minutes later we were riding north again, and all that night we rode, along the endless Aemilian Way, pausing for no more than a draught of wine from time to time, and munching a loaf as we rode. We crossed the Po, and kept steadily on, taking fresh horses when we could, until towards sunset a turn in the road brought Pagliano into our view — grey and lichened on the crest of its smooth emerald hill.
The dusk was falling and lights began to gleam from some of the castle windows when we brought up in the shadow of the gateway.
A man-at-arms lounged out of the guardhouse to inquire our business.
“Is Madonna Bianca wed yet?” was the breathless greeting I gave him.
He peered at me, and then at Falcone, and he swore in some surprise.
“Well, returned my lord! Madonna Bianca? The nuptials were celebrated to-day. The bride has gone.”
“Gone?” I roared. “Gone whither, man?”
“Why, to Piacenza — to my Lord Cosimo’s palace there. They set out some three hours since.”
“Where is your lord?” I asked him, flinging myself from the saddle.
“Within doors, most noble.”
How I found him, or by what ways I went to do so, are things that are effaced completely from my memory. But I know that I came upon him in the library. He was sitting hunched in a great chair, his face ashen, his eyes fevered. At sight of me — the cause, however innocent, of all this evil — his brows grew dark, and his eyes angry. If he had reproaches for me, I gave him no time to utter them, but hurled him mine.
“What have you done, sir?” I demanded. “By what right did you do this thing? By what right did you make a sacrifice of that sweet dove? Did you conceive me so vile as to think that I should ever owe you gratitude — that I should ever do aught but abhor the deed, abhor all who had a hand in it, abhor the very life itself purchased for me at such a cost?”
He cowered before my furious wrath; for I must have seemed terrific as I stood thundering there, my face wild, my eyes bloodshot, half mad from pain and rage and sleeplessness.
“And do you know what you have done?” I went on. “Do you know to what you have sold her? Must I tell you?”
And I told him, in a dozen brutal words that brought him to his feet, the lion in him roused at last, his eyes ablaze.
“We must after them,” I urged. “We must wrest her from these beasts, and make a widow of her for the purpose. Galeotto’s lances are below and they will follow me. You may bring what more you please. Come, sir — to horse!”
He sprang forward with no answer beyond a muttered prayer that we might come in time.
“We must,” I answered fiercely, and ran madly from the room, along the gallery and down the stairs, shouting and raging like a maniac, Cavalcanti following me.
Within ten minutes, Galeotto’s three score men and another score of those who garrisoned Pagliano for Cavalcanti were in the saddle and galloping hell-for-leather to Piacenza. Ahead on fresh horses went Falcone and I, the Lord of Pagliano spurring beside me and pestering me with questions as to the source of my knowledge.
Our great fear was lest we should find the gates of Piacenza closed on our arrival. But we covered the ten miles in something under an hour, and the head of our little column was already through the Fodesta Gate when the first hour of night rang out from the Duomo, giving the signal for the closing of the gates.
The officer in charge turned out to view so numerous a company, and challenged us to stand. But I flung him the answer that we were the Black Bands of Ser Galeotto and that we rode by order of the Duke, with which perforce he had to be content; for we did not stay for more and were too numerous to be detained by such meagre force as he commanded.
Up the dark street we swept — the same street down which I had last ridden on that night when Gambara had opened the gates of the prison for me — and so we came to the square and to Cosimo’s palace.
All was in darkness, and the great doors were closed. A strange appearance this for a house to which a bride had so newly come.
I dismounted as lightly as if I had not ridden lately more than just the ten miles from Pagliano. Indeed, I had become unconscious of all fatigue, entirely oblivious of the fact that for three nights now I had not slept — save for the three hours at Bologna.
I knocked briskly on the iron-studded gates. We stood there waiting, Cavalcanti and Falcone afoot with me, the men on horseback still, a silent phalanx.
I issued an order to Falcone. “Ten of them to secure our egress, the rest to remain here and allow none to leave the house.”
The equerry stepped back to convey the command in his turn to the men, and the ten he summoned slipped instantly from their saddles and ranged themselves in the shadow of the wall.
I knocked again, more imperatively, and at last the postern in the door was opened by an elderly serving-man.
“What’s this?” he asked, and thrust a lanthorn into my face.
“We seek Messer Cosimo d’Anguissola,” I answered. He looked beyond me at the troop that lined the street, and his face became troubled. “Why, what is amiss?” quoth he.
“Fool, I shall tell that to your master. Conduct me to him. The matter presses.”
“Nay, then — but have you not heard? My lord was wed to-day. You would not have my lord disturbed at such a time?” He seemed to leer.
I put my foot into his stomach, and bore him backward, flinging him full length upon the ground. He went over and rolled away into a corner, where he lay bellowing.
“Silence him!” I bade the men who followed us in. “Then, half of you remain here to guard the stairs; the rest attend us.”
The house was vast, and it remained silent, so that it did not seem that the clown’s scream when he went over had been heard by any.
Up the broad staircase we sped, guided by the light of the lanthorn, which Falcone had picked up — for the place was ominously in darkness. Cavalcanti kept pace with me, panting with rage and anxiety.
At the head of the stairs we came upon a man whom I recognized for one of the Duke’s gentlemen-in-waiting. He had been attracted, no doubt, by the sound of our approach; but at sight of us he turned to escape. Cavalcanti reached forward in time to take him by the ankle, so that he came down heavily upon his face.
In an instant I was sitting upon him, my dagger at his throat.
“A sound,” said I, “and you shall finish it in Hell!” Eyes bulging with fear stared at me out of his white face. He was an effeminate cur, of the sort that the Duke was wont to keep about him, and at once I saw that we should have no trouble with him.
“Where is Cosimo?” I asked him shortly. “Come, man, conduct us to the room that holds him if you would buy your dirty life.”
“He is not here,” wailed the fellow.
“You lie, you hound,” said Cavalcanti, and turning to me— “Finish him, Agostino,” he bade me.
The man under me writhed, filled now by the terror that Cavalcanti had so cunningly known how to inspire in him. “I swear to God that he is not here,” he answered, and but that fear had robbed him of his voice, he would have s
creamed it. “Gesu! I swear it — it is true!”
I looked up at Cavalcanti, baffled, and sick with sudden dismay. I saw Cavalcanti’s eye, which had grown dull, kindle anew. He stooped over the prostrate man.
“Is the bride here — is my daughter in this house?”
The fellow whimpered and did not answer until my dagger’s edge was at his throat again. Then he suddenly screeched— “Yes!”
In an instant I had dragged him to his feet again, his pretty clothes and daintily curled hair all crumpled, so that he looked the most pitiful thing in all the world.
“Lead us to her chamber,” I bade him.
And he obeyed as men obey when the fear of death is upon them.
CHAPTER X. THE NUPTIALS OF BIANCA
An awful thought was in my mind as we went, evoked by the presence in such a place of one of the Duke’s gentlemen; an awful question rose again and again to my lips, and yet I could not bring myself to utter it.
So we went on in utter silence now, my hand upon his shoulder, clutching velvet doublet and flesh and bone beneath it, my dagger bare in my other hand.
We crossed an antechamber whose heavy carpet muffled our footsteps, and we halted before tapestry curtains that masked a door, Here, curbing my fierce impatience, I paused. I signed to the five attendant soldiers to come no farther; then I consigned the courtier who had guided us to the care of Falcone, and I restrained Cavalcanti, who was shaking from head to foot.
I raised the heavy, muffling curtain, and standing there an instant by the door, I heard my Bianca’s voice, and her words seemed to freeze the very marrow in my bones.
“O, my lord,” she was imploring in a choking voice, “O, my lord, have pity on me!”
“Sweet,” came the answer, “it is I who beseech pity at your hands. Do you not see how I suffer? Do you not see how fiercely love of you is torturing me — how I burn — that you can so cruelly deny me?”
It was Farnese’s voice. Cosimo, that dastard, had indeed carried out the horrible compact of which Giuliana had warned me, carried it out in a more horrible and inhuman manner than even she had suggested or suspected.
Cavalcanti would have hurled himself against the door but that I set a hand upon his arm to restrain him, and a finger of my other hand — the one that held the dagger — to my lips.
Softly I tried the latch. I was amazed to find the door yield. And yet, where was the need to lock it? What interruption could he have feared in a house that evidently had been delivered over to him by the bridegroom, a house that was in the hands of his own people?
Very quietly I thrust the door open, and we stood there upon the threshold — Cavalcanti and I — father and lover of that sweet maid who was the prey of this foul Duke. We stood whilst a man might count a dozen, silent witnesses of that loathsome scene.
The bridal chamber was all hung in golden arras, save the great carved bed which was draped in dead-white velvet and ivory damask — symbolizing the purity of the sweet victim to be offered up upon that sacrificial altar.
And to that dread sacrifice she had come — for my sake, as I was to learn — with the fearful willingness of Iphigenia. For that sacrifice she had been prepared; but not for this horror that was thrust upon her now.
She crouched upon a tall-backed praying-stool, her gown not more white than her face, her little hands convulsively clasped to make her prayer to that monster who stood over her, his mottled face all flushed, his eyes glowing as they considered her helplessness and terror with horrible, pitiless greed.
Thus we observed them, ourselves unperceived for some moments, for the praying-stool on which she crouched was placed to the left, by the cowled fire-place, in which a fire of scented wood was crackling, the scene lighted by two golden candlebranches that stood upon the table near the curtained window.
“O, my lord!” she cried in her despair, “of your mercy leave me, and no man shall ever know that you sought me thus. I will be silent, my lord. O, if you have no pity for me, have, at least, pity for yourself. Do not cover yourself with the infamy of such a deed — a deed that will make you hateful to all men.”
“Gladly at such a price would I purchase your love, my Bianca! What pains could daunt me? Ah, you are mine, you are mine!”
As the hawk that has been long poised closes its wings and drops at last upon its prey, so swooped he of a sudden down upon her, caught and dragged her up from the praying-stool to crush her to him.
She screamed in that embrace, and sought to battle, swinging round so that her back was fully towards us, and Farnese, swinging round also in that struggle, faced us and beheld us.
It was as if a mask had been abruptly plucked from his face, so sudden and stupendous was its alteration. From flushed that it had been it grew livid and sickly; the unholy fires were spent in his eyes, and they grew dull and dead as a snake’s; his jaw was loosened, and the sensual mouth looked unutterably foolish.
For a moment I think I smiled upon him, and then Cavalcanti and I sprang forward, both together. As we moved, his arms loosened their hold, and Bianca would have fallen but that I caught her.
Her terror still upon her, she glanced upwards to see what fresh enemy was this, and then, at sight of my face, as my arms closed about her, and held her safe —
“Agostino!” she cried, and closed her eyes to lie panting on my breast.
The Duke, fleeing like a scared rat before the anger of Cavalcanti, scuttled down the room to a small door in the wall that held the fire-place. He tore it open and sprang through, Cavalcanti following recklessly.
There was a snarl and a cry, and the Lord of Pagliano staggered back, clutching one hand to his breast, and through his fingers came an ooze of blood. Falcone ran to him. But Cavalcanti swore like a man possessed.
“It is nothing!” he snapped. “By the horns of Satan! it is nothing. A flesh wound, and like a fool I gave back before it. After him! In there! Kill! Kill!”
Out came Falcone’s sword with a swish, and into the dark closet beyond went the equerry with a roar, Cavalcanti after him.
It seemed that scarce had Farnese got within that closet than, flattening himself against the wall, he had struck at Cavalcanti as the latter followed, thus driving him back and gaining all the respite he needed. For now they found the closet empty. There was a door beyond, that opened to a corridor, and this was locked. Not a doubt but that Farnese had gone that way. They broke that door down. I heard them at it what time I comforted Bianca, and soothed her, stroking her head, her cheek, and murmuring fondly to her until presently she was weeping softly.
Thus Cavalcanti and Falcone found us presently when they returned. Farnese had escaped with one of his gentlemen who had reached him in time to warn him that the street was full of soldiers and the palace itself invaded. Thereupon the Duke had dropped from one of the windows to the garden, his gentleman with him, and Cavalcanti had been no more than in time to see them disappearing through the garden gate.
The Lord of Pagliano’s buff-coat was covered with blood where Pier Luigi had stabbed him. But he would give the matter no thought. He was like a tiger now. He dashed out into the antechamber, and I heard him bellowing orders. Someone screamed horribly, and then followed a fierce din as if the very place were coming down about our ears.
“What is it?” cried Bianca, quivering in my arms. “Are... are they fighting?”
“I do not think so, sweet,” I answered her. “We are in great strength. Have no fear.”
And then Falcone came in again.
“The Lord of Pagliano is raging like a madman,” he said. “We had best be getting away or we shall have a brush with the Captain of Justice.”
Supporting Bianca, I led her from that chamber.
“Where are we going?” she asked me.
“Home to Pagliano,” I answered her, and with that answer comforted that sorely tried maid.
We found the antechamber in wreckage. The great chandelier had been dragged from the ceiling, pictures were slashed
and cut to ribbons, the arras had been torn from the walls and the costly furniture was reduced to fire-wood; the double-windows opening to the balcony stood wide, and not a pane of glass left whole, the fragments lying all about the place.
Thus, it seemed, childishly almost, had Cavalcanti vented his terrible rage, and I could well conceive what would have befallen any of the Duke’s people upon whom in that hour he had chanced. I did not know then that the poor pimp who had acted as our guide was hanging from the balcony dead, nor that his had been the horrible scream I had heard.
On the stairs we met the raging Cavalcanti reascending, the stump of his shivered sword in his hand.
“Hasten!” he cried. “I was coming for you. Let us begone!”
Below, just within the main doors we found a pile of furniture set on a heap of straw.
“What is this?” I asked.
“You shall see,” he roared. “Get to horse.”
I hesitated a moment, then obeyed him, and took Bianca on the withers in front of me, my arm about her to support her.
Then he called to one of the men-at-arms who stood by with a flaring torch. He snatched the brand from his hand, and stabbed the straw with it in a dozen places, from each of which there leapt at once a tongue of flame. When, at last, he flung the torch into the heart of the pile, it was all a roaring, hissing, crackling blaze.
He stood back and laughed. “If there are any more of his brothel-mates in the house, they can escape as he did. They will be more fortunate than that one.” And he pointed up to the limp figure hanging from the balcony, so that I now learnt what already I have told you.
With my hand I screened Bianca’s eyes. “Do not look,” I bade her.
I shuddered at the sight of that limply hanging body. And yet I reflected that it was just. Any man who could have lent his aid to the foul crime that was attempted there that night deserved this fate and worse.
Cavalcanti got to horse, and we rode down the street, bringing folk to their windows in alarm. Behind us the flames began to lick out from the ground floor of Cosimo’s palace.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 243