CHAPTER IX. THE "TRATTA DI CORDE"
Whilst the bustle of preparation went on briskly in Urbino, Gian Maria,on his side, was rapidly disposing of affairs in Babbiano, that he mightreturn to the nuptials for which he was impatient. But he had chancedupon a deeper tangle than he had reckoned with, and more to do than hehad looked for.
On the day of his departure from Urbino, he had ridden as far as Cagli,and halted at the house of the noble Messer Valdicampo. This had beenplaced at his disposal, and there he proposed to lie the night. Theyhad supped--the Duke, de' Alvari, Gismondo Santi, Messer Valdicampo, hiswife and two daughters, and a couple of friends, potential citizens ofCagli, whom he had invited, that they might witness the honour that wasbeing done his house. It waxed late, and the torpor that ensues upon thegenerous gratification of appetite was settling upon the company whenArmstadt--Gian Maria's Swiss captain--entered and approached his masterwith the air of a man who is the bearer of news. He halted a pace or twofrom the Duke's high-backed chair, and stood eyeing Gian Maria in stupidpatience.
"Well, fool?" growled the Duke, turning his head.
The Swiss approached another step. "They have brought him, Highness," hesaid in a confidential whisper.
"Am I a wizard that I must read your thoughts?" hectored Gian Maria."Who has brought whom?"
Armstadt eyed the company in hesitation. Then, stepping close to theDuke, he murmured in his ear:
"The men I left behind have brought the fool--Ser Peppe."
A sudden brightening of the eye showed that Gian Maria understood.Without apology to the board, he turned and whispered back to hiscaptain to have the fellow taken to his chamber, there to await him."Let a couple of your knaves be in attendance, and do you come too,Martino."
Martin bowed, and withdrew, whereupon Gian Maria found grace to cravehis host's pardon, with the explanation that the man had brought himnews he had been expecting. Valdicampo, who for the honour of having aDuke sleep beneath his roof would have stomached improprieties far moreflagrant, belittled the matter and dismissed it. And presently GianMaria rose with the announcement that he had far to journey on themorrow, and so, with his host's good leave, would be abed.
Valdicampo, himself, then played the part of chamberlain, and taking upone of the large candle branches, he lighted the Duke to his apartments.He would have carried his good offices, and his candles, as far as GianMaria's very bed-chamber, but that in the ante-room his Highness, aspolitely as might be, bade him set down the lights and leave him.
The Duke remained standing for a moment, deliberating whether to affordknowledge to Alvari and Santi--who had followed him and stood awaitinghis commands--of what he was about to do. In the end he decided that hewould act alone and upon his sole discretion. So he dismissed them.
When they had gone and he was quite alone, he clapped his handstogether, and in answer to that summons the door of his bedroom opened,revealing Martin Armstadt on the threshold.
"He is there?" inquired the Duke.
"Awaiting your Highness," answered the Swiss, and he held the door forGian Maria to enter.
The bedchamber apportioned the Duke in the Palazzo Valdicampo was anoble and lofty room, in the midst of which loomed the great carved bedof honour, with its upright pillars and funereal canopy.
On the overmantel stood two five-armed sconces with lighted tapers. YetGian Maria did not seem to deem that there was light enough for suchpurpose as he entertained, for he bade Martin fetch him the candelabrathat had been left behind. Then he turned his attention to the groupstanding by the window, where the light from the overmantel fell fullupon it.
This consisted of three men, two being mercenaries of Armstadt's guard,in corselet and morion, and the third, who stood captive between, theunfortunate Ser Peppe. The fool's face was paler than its wont, whilstthe usual roguery had passed from his eyes and his mouth, fear havingtaken possession of its room. He met the Duke's cruel glance with one ofalarm and piteous entreaty.
Having assured himself that Peppe had no weapons, and that his arms werepinioned behind him, Gian Maria bade the two guards withdraw, but holdthemselves in readiness in the ante-chamber with Armstadt. Then heturned to Peppe with a scowl on his low brow.
"You are not so merry as you were this morning, fool," he scoffed.
Peppino squirmed a little, but his nature, schooled by the long habit ofjest, prompted a bold whimsicality in his reply.
"The circumstances are scarcely as propitious--to me. Your Highness,though, seems in excellent good-humour."
Gian Maria looked at him angrily a moment. He was a slow-witted man, andhe could devise no ready answer, no such cutting gibe as it would havepleasured him to administer. He walked leisurely to the fire-place, andleant his elbow on the overmantel.
"Your humour led you into saying some things for which I should bemerciful if I had you whipped."
"And, by the same reasoning, charitable if you had me hanged," returnedthe fool dryly, a pale smile on his lips.
"Ah! You acknowledge it?" cried Gian Maria, never seeing the ironyintended. "But I am a very clement prince, fool."
"Proverbially clement," the jester protested, but he did not succeedthis time in excluding the sarcasm from his voice.
Gian Maria shot him a furious glance.
"Are you mocking me, animal? Keep your venomous tongue in bounds, orI'll have you deprived of it."
Peppe's face turned grey at the threat, as well it might--for whatshould such a one as he do in the world without a tongue?
Seeing him dumb and stricken, the Duke continued:
"Now, for all that you deserve a hanging for your insolence, I amwilling that you should come by no hurt so that you answer truthfullysuch questions as I have for you."
Peppino's grotesque figure was doubled in a bow.
"I await your questions, glorious lord," he answered.
"You spoke----" the Duke hesitated a moment, writhing inwardly at thememory of the exact words in which the fool had spoken. "You spoke thismorning of one whom the Lady Valentina had met."
The fear seemed to increase on the jester's face. "Yes," he answered, ina choking voice.
"Where did she meet this knight you spoke of, and in such wondrous wordsof praise described to me?"
"In the woods at Acquasparta, where the river Metauro is no better thana brook. Some two leagues this side of Sant' Angelo."
"Sant' Angelo!" echoed Gian Maria, starting at the very mention of theplace where the late conspiracy against him had been hatched. "And whenwas this?"
"On the Wednesday before Easter, as Monna Valentina was journeying fromSanta Sofia to Urbino."
No word spake the Duke in answer. He stood still, his head bowed, andhis thoughts running again on that conspiracy. The mountain fight inwhich Masuccio had been killed had taken place on the Tuesday night, andthe conviction--scant though the evidence might be--grew upon him thatthis man was one of the conspirators who had escaped.
"How came your lady to speak with this man--was he known to her?" heinquired at last.
"No, Highness; but he was wounded, and so aroused her compassion. Shesought to minister to his hurt."
"Wounded?" cried Gian Maria, in a shout. "Now, by God, it is as Isuspected. I'll swear he got that wound the night before at Sant'Angelo. What was his name, fool? Tell me that, and you shall go free."
For just a second the hunchback seemed to hesitate. He stood in awesomefear of Gian Maria, of whose cruelties some ghastly tales were told. Butin greater fear he stood of the eternal damnation he might earn did hebreak the oath he had plighted not to divulge that knight's identity.
"Alas!" he sighed, "I would it might be mine to earn my freedom at solight a price; yet it is one that ignorance will not let me pay. I donot know his name."
The Duke looked at him searchingly and suspiciously.
Dull though he was by nature, eagerness seemed now to have set a cunningedge upon his wits, and suspicion had led him to observe the fool'smomentary hesitation.
"Of what appearance was he? Describe him to me. How was he dressed? Whatwas the manner of his face?"
"Again, Lord Duke, I cannot answer you. I had but the most fleetingglimpse of him."
The Duke's sallow countenance grew very evil-looking, and an ugly smiletwisted his lip and laid bare his strong white teeth.
"So fleeting that no memory of him is left you?" quoth he.
"Precisely, Highness."
"You lie, you filth," Gian Maria thundered in a towering rage. "It wasbut this morning that you said his height was splendid, his countenancenoble, his manner princely, his speech courtly, and--I know not whatbesides. Yet now you tell me--you tell me--that your glimpse of him wasso fleeting that you cannot describe him. You know his name, rogue, andI will have it from you, or else----"
"Indeed, indeed, most noble lord, be not incensed----" the fool began,in fearful protestation. But the Duke interrupted him.
"Incensed?" he echoed, his eyes dilating in a sort of horror at thenotion. "Do you dare impute to me the mortal sin of choler? I amnot incensed; there is no anger in me." He crossed himself, as if toexorcise the evil mood if it indeed existed, and devotedly bowing hishead and folding his hands--"Libera me a malo, Domine!" he murmuredaudibly. Then, with a greater fierceness than before--"Now," hedemanded, "will you tell me his name?"
"I would I could," the terrified hunchback began. But at that the Duketurned from him with a shrug of angry impatience, and clapping his handstogether:
"Ola! Martino!" he called. Instantly the door opened, and the Swissappeared. "Bring in your men and your rope."
The captain turned on his heel, and simultaneously the fool cast himselfat Gian Maria's feet.
"Mercy, your Highness!" he wailed. "Do not have me hanged. I am----"
"We are not going to hang you," the Duke broke in coldly. "Dead youwould indeed be dumb, and avail us nothing. We want you alive, MesserPeppino--alive and talkative; we find you very reserved for a fool. Butwe hope to make you speak."
On his knees, Peppe raised his wild eyes to Heaven.
"Mother of the Afflicted," he prayed, at which the Duke broke into acontemptuous laugh.
"What has the Heavenly Mother to do with such filth as you? Make yourappeals to me. I am the more immediate arbiter of your fate. Tell methe name of that man you met in the woods, and all may yet be well withyou."
Peppino knelt in silence, a cold sweat gathering on his pale brow, and ahorrid fear tightening at his heart and throat.
And yet greater than this horror they were preparing for him was thehorror of losing his immortal soul by a breach of the solemn oath hehad sworn. Gian Maria turned from him, at last, to his bravi, who nowentered silently and with the air of men who knew the work expectedof them. Martino mounted the bed, and swung for an instant from theframework of the canopy.
"It will hold, Highness," he announced.
Gian Maria bade him, since that was so, remove the velvet hangings,whilst he despatched one of the men to see that the ante-chamber doorwas closed, so that no cry should penetrate to the apartments of theValdicampo household.
In a few seconds all was ready, and Peppino was rudely lifted from hisknees and from the prayers he had been pattering to the Virgin to lendhim strength in this hour of need.
"For the last time, sir fool," quoth the Duke, "will you tell us hisname?"
"Highness, I cannot," answered Peppe, for all that terror was freezinghis very blood.
A light of satisfaction gleamed now in Gian Maria's eyes.
"So you know it!" he exclaimed. "You no longer protest your ignorance,but only that you cannot tell me. Up with him, Martino."
In a last pitiable struggle against the inevitable, the fool broke fromhis guards, and flung himself towards the door. One of the burly Swisscaught him by the neck in a grip that made him cry out with pain. GianMaria eyed him with a sinister smile, and Martin proceeded to fasten oneend of the rope to his pinioned wrists. Then they led him, shiveringto the great bed. The other end of the cord was passed over one ofthe bared arms of the canopy-frame. This end was grasped by the twomen-at-arms. Martin stood beside the prisoner. The Duke flung himselfinto a great carved chair, an air of relish now investing his round,pale face.
"You know what is about to befall you," he said, in tones of chillingindifference. "Will you speak before we begin?"
"My lord," said the fool, in a voice that terror was throttling, "youare a good Christian, a loyal son of Mother Church, and a believer inthe eternal fires of hell?"
A frown settled on Gian Maria's brow. Was the fool about to intimidatehim with talk of supernatural vengeance?
"Thus," Peppe continued, "you will perhaps be merciful when I confessmy position. I made most solemn oath to the man I met at Acquasparta onthat luckless day, that I would never reveal his identity. What am I todo? If I keep my oath, you will torture me to death perhaps. If I breakit, I shall be damned eternally. Have mercy, noble lord, since now youknow how I am placed."
The smile broadened on Gian Maria's face, and the cruelty of his mouthand eyes seemed intensified by it. The fool had told him that which hewould have given much to learn. He had told him that this man whosename he sought, had so feared that his presence that day at Acquaspartashould become known, that he had bound the fool by oath not to divulgethe secret of it. Of what he had before suspected he was now assured.The man in question was one of the conspirators; probably the verychief of them. Nothing short of the fool's death under torture would nowrestrain him from learning the name of that unknown who had done himthe double injury of conspiring against him, and--if the fool were to bebelieved--of capturing the heart of Valentina.
"For the damnation of your soul I shall not be called to answer," hesaid at last. "Care enough have I to save my own--for temptations aremany and this poor flesh is weak. But it is this man's name I need,and--by the five wounds of Lucia of Viterbo!--I will have it. Will youspeak?"
Something like a sob shook the poor fool's deformed frame. But that wasall. With bowed head he preserved a stubborn silence. The Duke made asign to the men, and instantly the two of them threw their weight uponthe rope, hoisting Peppe by his wrists until he was at the height of thecanopy itself. That done, they paused, and turned their eyes upon theDuke for further orders. Again Gian Maria called upon the fool to answerhis questions; but Peppe, a writhing, misshapen mass from which twowriggling legs depended, maintained a stubborn silence.
"Let him go," snarled Gian Maria, out of patience. The men released therope, and allowed some three feet of it to run through their hands.Then they grasped it again, so that Peppe's sudden fall was as suddenlyarrested by a jerk that almost wrenched his arms from their sockets. Ashriek broke from him at that exquisite torture, and he was dragged oncemore to the full height of the canopy.
"Will you speak now?" asked Gian Maria coldly, amusedly almost. Butstill the fool was silent, his nether lip caught so tightly in his teeththat the blood trickled from it adown his chin. Again the Duke gave thesignal, and again they let him go. This time they allowed him a longerdrop, so that the wrench with which they arrested it was more severethan had been the first.
Peppe felt his bones starting from their joints, and it was as if aburning iron were searing him at shoulder, elbow and wrist.
"Merciful God!" he screamed. "Oh, have pity, noble lord."
But the noble lord had him hoisted anew to the canopy. Writhing therein the extremity of his anguish, the poor hunchback poured forth fromfrothing lips a stream of curses and imprecations, invoking Heaven andhell to strike his tormentors dead.
But the Duke, from whose demeanour it might be inferred that he wasinured to the effect produced by this form of torture, looked on witha cruel smile, as of one who watches the progress of events towards theend that he desires and has planned. He was less patient, and his signalcame more quickly now. For a third time the fool was dropped, and drawnup, now, a short three feet from the ground.
This time he did not so much as scream. He hung there, da
ngling at therope's end, his mouth all bloody, his face ghastly in its glisteningpallor, and of his eyes naught showing save the whites. He hung there,and moaned piteously and incessantly. Martin glanced questioningly atGian Maria, and his eyes very plainly inquired whether they had notbetter cease. But Gian Maria paid no heed to him.
"Will that suffice you?" he asked the fool. "Will you speak now?"
But the fool's only answer was a moan, whereupon again, at the Duke'srelentless signal, he was swung aloft. But at the terror of a fourthdrop, more fearful than any of its three predecessors, he awoke verysuddenly to the impossible horror of his position. That this agony wouldendure until he died or fainted, he was assured. And since he seemedincapable of either fainting or dying, suffer more he could not. Whatwas heaven or hell to him then that the thought of either could effacethe horror of this torture and strengthen him to continue to endure theagony of it? He could endure no more--no, not to save a dozen souls ifhe had had them:
"I'll speak," he screamed. "Let me down, and you shall have his name,Lord Duke."
"Pronounce it first, or the manner of your descent shall be as theothers."
Peppe passed his tongue over his bleeding lips, hung still and spoke.
"It was your cousin," he panted, "Francesco del Falco, Count of Aquila."
The Duke stared at him a moment, with startled countenance and mouthagape.
"You are telling me the truth, animal?" he demanded, in a quiveringvoice. "It was the Count of Aquila who was wounded and whom MonnaValentina tended?"
"I swear it," answered the fool. "Now, in the name of God and Hisblessed saints, let me down."
For a moment yet he was held there, awaiting Gian Maria's signal. TheDuke continued to eye him with that same astonished look, what time heturned over in his mind the news he had gathered. Then conviction of thetruth sank into his mind. It was the Lord of Aquila who was the idolof the Babbianians. What, then, more natural than that the conspiratorsshould have sought to place him on the throne they proposed to wrestfrom Gian Maria? He dubbed himself a fool that he had not guessed somuch before.
"Let him down," he curtly bade his men. "Then take him hence, and lethim go with God. He has served his purpose."
Gently they lowered him, but when his feet touched the ground he wasunable to stand. His legs doubled under him, and he lay--a littlecrook-backed heap--upon the rushes of the floor. His senses had desertedhim.
At a sign from Armstadt the two men picked him up and carried him outbetween them.
Gian Maria moved across the room to a tapestried prie-dieu, and kneltdown before an ivory crucifix to render thanks to God for the signallight of grace, by which He had vouchsafed to show the Duke his enemy.
Thereafter, drawing from the breast of his doublet a chaplet of gold andamber beads, he piously discharged his nightly devotions.
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