Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  “Look behind you,” the voice bade him, “and behold for yourself that we do not lack the means to unseal your lips should you prove obstinate.”

  But Gianluca did not look. He did not need to look. He shivered; but still said no word The questioner made a sign. One of the executioners whipped the cloak from Gianluca’s shoulders, and left that poor gentleman standing in his shirt. He felt himself seized by strong - cruelly strong - hands. They turned him about, and dragged him across the room towards the hoist. Midway he hung back, throwing his entire weight upon their arms to check them.

  “No, no!” he pleaded through ashen lips.

  Suddenly the Duke spoke. “Wait!” he said and, stepping forward, barred their way. He waved his hand, and the executioners fell back, leaving Gianluca alone with his Highness in mid-apartment.

  “Messer della Pieve,” said Cesare gently, and he placed a hand upon the Assisian’s shoulder, “consider what you do; consider what is before you. I do not think the questioner has made that clear enough. You have seen the hoist at work; you have perhaps seen it wrench a man’s shoulders from their sockets.” And his steely fingers tightened about the shoulder that he held, until it seemed to Gianluca that a thousand threads of fire were coursing down his arm. He gasped in pain, and the Duke’s grip at once relaxed. Cesare smiled - a smile of tender, infinite pity.

  “Consider by that how little you are fitted to endure the cord. Be assured that you will speak in the end. And what do you think would follow? Your release? Indeed, no. If once the cords of the hoist have grappled you, you become the property of the law; and when the law has made you speak, it will silence you for ever. Consider that. From the agonies of a broken body your release lies through the hangman’s hands. Consider that you are young - that life has much to offer you, and consider above all that your silence will profit no one, your speech betray no one that is not betrayed already - that your obstinacy will lead you to sacrifice yourself for no useful purpose.”

  Gianluca’s eyes looked piteously at the Duke from out of his ashen face.

  “If - if I could believe that!” he murmured.

  “It is easy to convince you, and in convincing you of that I shall convince you also of my own disinterestedness in seeking to save you even now.

  “Learn, then, that Madonna Panthasilea degli Speranzoni has already spread her net for me; that today she thrust herself upon my notice; that tonight she sent a letter to her father informing him of this good beginning and that within a week she looks to accomplish her treacherous work and take me in her toils.

  “Knowing so much already, am I likely to fall a victim to this thing they plan? Can anything that you may add be of so much moment that you should suffer torture and death sooner than reveal it?”

  Gianluca shivered. “What do you desire to know?” he asked. “What can I add? You seem already to know all - more even than do I. Or is it,” he added in sudden apprehension, “that you seek my evidence to use it against this lady?”

  “Already have I all the evidence I need, were such my aim. There is the letter which she wrote her father. That alone would doom her did I desire it. No, no. All that I seek to learn from you is the precise nature of this trap that has been prepared. You will see that in telling me that you can no longer do any hurt to Count Guido or his daughter.”

  “Why - if that is all -”

  “That is all,” said Cesare. “A little thing. And there stands the horrible alternative awaiting you. Could I be more generous? Speak, and you may return to bed; I shall hold you a prisoner for caution’s sake until Solignola falls. Then you may go your ways in perfect freedom. I pledge you my word for that. Be silent, and -” He waved a hand to the grey cords of the hoist, and shrugged.

  That was the end of della Pieve’s silence. He saw clearly that no purpose could be served by persisting in it; that he would but sacrifice himself in vain - and this for a woman who had deemed his love presumptuous and had used him with so little mercy, So he told the Duke the little thing his Highness sought to know - that his abduction was the purpose of the conspiracy, the aim for which Madonna Panthasilea was in Assisi.

  Towards noon upon the morrow a very dainty page in the Duke’s livery came to della Pieve’s house bearing a scented letter in Cesare’s own hand, wherein his Highness like the humblest suitor, craved permission to come in person and receive news of Madonna Eufemia Bracci.

  Panthasilea’s eyes sparkled as she read. Her plans were speeding marvellously. Fortune for once was arrayed against this Cesare Borgia whose proverbial luck had caused him to be dubbed Filius Fortunae.

  The permission his Highness sought she very readily accorded, and so it fell out that the Borgia came in person some few hours later. Leaving his splendid cavalcade to await him in the little square, he went alone into her house.

  He came magnificently arrayed, as a suitor should. His doublet was of cloth of gold; milk-white one silken hose, sky-blue the other, and the girdle and carriages of his sword were ablaze with jewels worth many a principality.

  He found her in a chamber whose window doors opened upon the topmost of the garden’s several terraces, and it was a room that was a worthy setting for so rare a gem. Eastern carpets were spread upon the mosaic floor, rich tapestries arrayed the walls; books and a lute stood upon an ebony table that was inlaid with ivory figures. By the fireplace two of her women were at work upon the embroidering of an altar-cloth, whilst madonna, herself, reclined upon a low couch of Eastern pattern. A subtle fragrance hung upon the air - the bittersweet of lilac essences, a trace of which he had yesternight detected in the intercepted letter.

  Upon his entrance she made as if to rise; but in that he checked her. With sweet concern he forbade the effort, and swiftly crossed the room to stay her by force if need be; whereupon she sank back, smiling.

  She was all in white, coiffed in a golden net from which a sapphire, large as a bean, hung upon her brow.

  One of her women hastened to approach a low chair of antique design, whose feet, carved in the form of the lion’s paw, were of solid silver. He sat, and solicitously inquired how fared madonna’s ankle, to receive her assurance that by tomorrow it should bear her weight again.

  Their interview was brief, perforce, and flavoured by hints from him of the deep regard he had conceived for her; it was confined to pretty play of courtly speeches, a game of fence at which Madonna Eufemia Bracci of Spoleto showed herself no novice.

  And yet, tightly strung to her task though she was, she feasted her eyes upon the rare grace and beauty of his resplendent presence, nor repelled the dangerous rapture which his haunting eyes and soft melodious voice aroused in her.

  When at length he departed, he left her very thoughtful.

  On the morrow he returned, and again upon the following day; and ever did the cavalcade await him in the square below. The game began to interest him beyond all his expectations. This thrusting of his head into the lion’s maw afforded him sensations such as he had never yet experienced; this hunting the hunters, this befooling the befoolers, was no new thing to him, but never had he engaged upon it under circumstances more entertaining.

  On the occasion of his third visit he found her alone, her women having been dismissed before his entrance. Wondering what fresh move in the game might this portend, he dropped upon one knee to thank her for the signal favour of it, and bore her fragrant hand to his devout lips. But her face was very grave, and for the first time she surprised him.

  “My lord,” she said, “you mistake me. I have dismissed my women because I had that to say to you which you must prefer that I say without witnesses. My lord, you must visit me no more.”

  For once in his life he was so astonished that he permitted his countenance to reflect his feelings. Yet she mistook for chagrin the sudden change she saw there.

  “I must visit you no more, madonna!” he cried, and his accents confirmed her impression. “How have I offended? Tell me, that on my knees, here at your feet, I may atone.” />
  Gently she shook her head, gazing down upon him with a tender sadness. “How should you have offended, my lord? Rise, I implore you.”

  “Not until I know my sin.” And his eyes were the eyes of the humblest suppliant at a shrine.

  “You have not sinned, my lord. It is-” She bit her lip; a gentle colour warmed her cheek. “It is that I - I must think of my good name. Oh, have patience with me, Highness. You will make me the talk of this scandal-mongering town if daily your escort is seen awaiting you below whilst you come to visit me.”

  At last he understood the fiendish subtlety at work within that lovely head. “And is that all?” he cried. “Is there no other reason - none?”

  “What other reason should there be?” she murmured, eyes averted.

  “Why, then, it is soon remedied. In future I will come alone.”

  She pondered a moment, and gently shook her head. “Best not, my lord. Indeed, that were worse. You would be seen to enter. And coming thus — oh, what would folks not say?”

  He sprang up, and boldly put an arm about her. She suffered it, but he felt the shudder that ran through her. “Does it matter - what they say?” quoth he.

  “Not - not to you, my lord. But me - consider me. What is a maid’s fair name once it is blown upon by scandal?”

  “There - there is a back way - by your garden. Thus none would see me. Give me the key, Eufemia.”

  Under lowered lids he watched her face, saw what he looked for, and released her. Inwardly he smiled. He was the very prince of amorous boobies, of love-lorn fools - the most obliging numskull that ever dashed into a trap prepared for him. So was she thinking, not a doubt, in a mental glow at the subtleties of her poor strategy.

  She stood trembling before him. “My lord, I - I - dare not.”

  So much fencing began to nauseate him; the daring of it amounted to folly and moved him to some contempt. He grew cold upon the instant.

  “So be it, then,” said he. “I will not come again.”

  He reduced her now to terror. He saw the quick alarm that leapt to her dark eyes. He admired her swift recovery of a situation that was slipping from her grasp.

  “My lord, you are angry with me.” She hid her face on his shoulder. “You shall have the key,” she murmured.

  He departed with it, persuaded that she was the most callous, heartless traitress that had ever drawn the breath of life. He might have thought differently had he seen her as she sat there after his departure, weeping bitterly and reviling herself most cruelly. And yet that night she wrote to her father to tell him that all was speeding excellently, and that the end was near.

  And Solignola, lulled more and more by these messages and by the desultory manner in which the siege was being conducted, kept but indifferent watch. They heard at times the blows of picks under the southern wall of the citadel, and they knew that Corella’s men were at work there. But they no longer sallied to disperse them, deeming it but an idle waste of life now that another and more effective method of checkmate was all but in their grasp.

  The following afternoon was well advanced when Cesare Borgia tapped upon the window doors of the room in which it was Panthasilea’s custom to receive him. He found her alone; and there was some confusion in her manner of receiving him now that he came in secret, as a lover avowed. But he was that day the very incarnation of discretion.

  They talked of many things that afternoon, and presently their talk drifting by the way of the verse of Aquilano to the writings of Sperulo, who had followed Cesare’s banner as a soldier, the Duke fell into reminiscences. He spoke of himself for once, and of his task in Italy and his high aims; and as he talked, her erstwhile wonder at the difference betwixt what she found in him and what she had looked for, arose again. He was, she had been told, a man compounded of craft and ambition; harsh, unscrupulous, terrible to foe and friend alike; a man devoid of heart, and therefore pitiless. She found him so gentle, courtly, and joyous, and of so rare a sweetness of thought and speech that she was forced to ask herself, might not envy of his great achievements and his strength be the true source of the hatred in which he was held by those upon whom he warred.

  A tall-necked Venetian flagon of sweet Puglia wine stood that afternoon upon the table, having been left there by her women; and, moved by an impulse she could scarce explain, she poured a cup for him when towards dusk he rose to take his leave. He came to stand beside her by the table whilst she brimmed the goblet, and when she would have filled another for herself, he covered the vessel with his hands.

  It was as if some of the passion latent in him, at which, as if despite him, his ardent glance had hinted none too seldom, leaped of a sudden forth.

  “Nay, nay,” said he, his great eyes full upon her, their glancing seeming to envelop her, and hold her as in a spell. “One cup for us twain, I do beseech you, lady, unworthy though I be. Pledge me, and leave on the wine the fragrance of your lips ere I pledge you in my turn. And if I reel not hence ecstatically, divinely drunk, why, then I am a clod of earth.”

  She demurred a little, but his will made sport with hers as does the breeze in autumn with the leaf; and he watched her the while for all the hot passion that seemed to film his eyes. For he was acquainted with drugged wines, and such pretty artifices, and had no fancy for unnecessary risks in this game that he was playing.

  But this wine was innocent. She drank, and handed him the cup. He bent his knee to receive it, and drained it, kneeling, his eyes upon her face.

  Thereafter he took his leave of her, and she stood at the window looking after his departing figure as it descended the garden and was merged at last into the thickening gloom. Then she shivered, a sob broke from her quivering lips, and she sank limp into a chair, again as yesterday to fall a-weeping for no reason in the world that was apparent.

  And again that night she wrote to the Count, her father, that all was going better than she could have dared to hope, and that within three days she looked to place in the hands of those who waited that which should enable them to purchase the emancipation of Solignola.

  He came again upon the morrow, and upon the morrow of that again; and now Count Guido’s daughter entered upon a season of sore experiences. In Cesare’s absence she ripened her plans for his ultimate capture; in his presence she was all numb, fascinated by him, filled with horror and self-loathing at her task, the very creature of his will.

  At last was reached that fateful evening that had been settled for the Judas deed. He came at nightfall, as she had begged him - urging her request as an added precaution against scandal - and he found her awaiting him in the gloom, no other light in the chamber save that of the logs that blazed upon the hearth. He took her hand and bore it to his lips. It was ice-cold and trembled in the clasp of his as trembled all her body now. He scanned her face and saw that it was drawn, for all that its pallor was dissembled by the ruddy firelight. He saw that she could not bear his gaze, and so concluded - as already he had suspected - that the snare was to be sprung tonight.

  “Eufemia!” he cried. “My Eufemia, how cold you are!”

  She shivered at the endearment, at the soft caress of his voice, the pleading ardour of his eyes. “It - it is very chill,” she faltered. “The wind is in the north.”

  He turned from her and crossed again to the windows, her glance following him. He drew the heavy curtains close, and shut out what little daylight yet lingered in the sky.

  “So,” he said, “it will be more snug within.”

  He was dressed from head to foot in the warm red-brown of leaves in autumn; and as he stood there against the dark background of the curtains, the red light of the logs, playing over the smooth velvet of his doublet and the shimmering silk of his hose, turned him into a man of flame; and of shifting liquid fire seemed the girdle of gold scales that clasped his waist.

  Tall, majestic, and magnificently lithe and graceful, he seemed to her now the very embodiment of perfect manhood. More than man he seemed in the fantastic, ardent pano
ply he borrowed from the firelight.

  He moved, and fire glowed and shot, quivered, vanished and gleamed again along his scaly girdle. He took her hands and drew her down beside him on the Eastern settle, out of the firelight’s direct range, yet so that her face remained illumined.

  She submitted despite herself. All her instincts cried out against this dangerous propinquity, thus in the flame-lit gloom.

  “I - I will call for lights,” she faltered, but made no attempt to rise or to disengage the hand he held.

  “Let be,” he answered gently. “There is light enough, and I have not long to stay.”

  “Ah?” she breathed the question and felt her heart-beats quickening.

  “But a moment; and I am more grieved since it is my last evening here with you.”

  He noted the guilty start, the sudden spasm of fear that rippled across her face, the quivering half-stifled voice in which she asked: “But why?”

  “I am the slave of harsh necessity,” he explained.

  “Work awaits me. Tomorrow at dawn we deliver the final assault which is to carry Solignola.”

  Here was news for her. It seemed that not an hour too soon had she resolved to act.

  “You - are certain that it will be final?” she questioned, intrigued by his assurance, eager to know more.

  He smiled with confidence. “You shall judge,” said he. “There is a weakness in the walls to the south under the hill, spied out from the commencement by Corella. Since then we have spent the time in mining at that spot; and there has been during these last days an odd lack of vigilence on the part of Count Guido’s followers. Solignola seems as a town lulled by some false hope. This has served us well. Our preparations are complete. At dawn we fire the mine, and enter through the breach.”

  “So that I shall see you no more,” said she, feeling that something she must say. And then, whether urged to make-believe or by sheer femininity, she continued: “Will you ever think again, I wonder, when you pass on to further conquests, of poor Eufemia Bracci and her loneliness in Spoleto?”