Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  The latter, wildly starting back, pulled Tizzo after him, chair and all. The hand of Marozzo was very swift. Still striving to free himself from Tizzo, he snatched out his dagger to strike, but here the plunging forward weight of the chair drove Tizzo toward the floor. He flung his arms around Marozzo’s knees and brought him crashing down at full length.

  Then, reaching upward, he caught frantically at the dagger hand of the murderer.

  But the hand was relaxed; the dagger hilt fell from inert fingers. Marozzo lay stunned from the blow which the back of his head had struck against the tiles.

  CHAPTER 28

  A FEW SLASHES with the sharp edge of the dagger and Tizzo was free.

  He caught Marozzo by the hair of the head, jerked up the loose weight of the body, and bent the neck back over his knee. There, with the knife poised, twice he tried to stab and twice his will failed him. If so much as a glimmer of open eyes had showed, the blade would have been instantly in the heart of Marozzo, but it was a limp, lifeless form that lay there, and Tizzo sprang again to his feet.

  There was a flight of time like arrows past his ears. With each second of his delay, death was drawing closer in the house of Grifone Baglioni.

  There in the corner stood his ax. The sword had been left belted about his hips when he was tied into the chair. He reached the ax with a bound, dashed open the doors, and fled down the stairs and was instantly out in the street.

  He knew the way well. And, ah, for a horse to shorten the distance!

  But there were only his straining legs to carry him up the steep way, through the dipping, staggered course of an alley, and so into the wider street and the piazza where the great house of Grifone stood.

  He had almost reached it when a thin shadow streaked down the face of the palace. A stone crashed on the pavement below with such force that it split into a hundred pieces, recoiling and then lying scattered.

  It was the appointed signal of Grifone, and in this instant the heavy balks of wood would begin to dash against the bedroom doors. Those poor sleepers, startled by the sound of the falling stone, would perhaps rouse for a single instant with wonder in their minds. And then death would burst in upon them.

  Through the open doorway of the house he leaped and heard, with one terrible, resounding crash, the sudden thundering of the battering rams against a dozen doors.

  The great lower hall stretched before him, dim with the flicker of a few lights. And at the foot of the main stairway a full dozen of men-at-arms, in complete armor, barred the way.

  “Halt!” called a voice that broke out above the frightful turmoil of the house. And a pair of swords crossed in the path of Tizzo.

  The agony in his heart needed some outlet. With all the might of his body and the strength of his charge he swung the woodman’s ax. The exquisite Damascus steel alighted full on the ridge of a heavy helmet, and the steel split like wood — steel and skull beneath it.

  That tall, knightly body, falling, cleared a small gap in the crowd, and through that gap Tizzo sprang. The force of his leap wrenched the lodged blade of the ax out of the wound it had dealt; Tizzo was up the steps far before the soldiers, weighted with their armor, had moved a stride in pursuit. And, in fact, they did not rush after him; they remained at the post which had been assigned to them, merely thrusting the body of the dead man out of the way. On a night like this, with so much murder in the air, one more death here or there made very little difference. And what could a single man perform against the hands of the scores who swarmed through the upper part of the house?

  Tizzo, as he reached the hall above, saw a confusion of tossing lights and men and heard the crashing of the heavy beams of wood against the doors of various rooms. For more than he could see, he could hear, and from the left the wild screams of a woman plunged like a burning dagger again and again into his brain.

  Giovanpaolo, sworn blood brother, was his objective; but he could not resist that frantic screeching of terror and sprang through the open doorway.

  What he saw was a female servant groveling on the floor and trying to fight off the burly man-at-arms who was tearing the jewels from her hands and neck. It was she who screamed so terribly, but at the farther end of the room stood the slender figure of the Lady Beatrice who, with a delicate French sword in her hand, fought as valiantly as a man and with some sense of fencing against another big invader, who laughed at her efforts and made half playful gestures with his sword.

  The cry of Tizzo rescued her from danger before he reached the spot. As for the brute who was plundering the serving maid, he received one of those stunning hammerstrokes with the back of the ax, and was spilled like a heap of old iron junk upon the floor.

  The man-at-arms in front of the girl, whirling as he heard that cry, swung his sword with a fine strength and made a downright stroke at Tizzo. He might as well have struck at a dead leaf which is thrust aside by the mere wind of a blow. His sword actually descended with such violence that the point of it lodged in the floor; and the circling ax of Tizzo once more cleft steel as though it had been wood. The man-at-arms, struck through the brain pan, fell forward, crashing, and the voice of Beatrice was ringing at the ears of Tizzo: “Run, Tizzo! For your life! You are unarmed, madman, among all the swords. It is murder — Tizzo — this way — through the window—”

  “Save yourself if you know a way!” he panted. “Giovanpaolo—”

  He had that one glimpse of her as she stood beside the table on which the scroll of an unfinished letter lay. She could not have spent the evening in that male costume. How did she happen to have it on now? He had only the millionth part of a second to give to that thought and to the picture of her beauty as she stood by the flame of the lamp. Then he wheeled from her and rushed again into the hall.

  He could hear a great voice shouting: “To me, friends! Hai! Semonetto! Semonetto! Hai! Baglioni! Down, traitors! A hai!”

  And through the hall rolled a tangle of men whose swords flashed and fell, aimed at a tall, white figure.

  It was the young Semonetto himself, of whom men said that among all the Baglioni there was not a better blade, hardly in Giovanpaolo himself. Now, clad only in his shirt, he struck such giant blows that the armored fighters broke back from him then rushed forward to cut him down. Still with a warding buckler and with a living sword of light, he struggled against them.

  “Semonetto! Semonetto!” shouted Tizzo, and hurled himself into that fray.

  The unexpected attack from the rear, the great, ringing, hammerstrokes of the ax which stunned brains or smashed shoulders, split the crowd in two and let Semonetto leap through the gap.

  Never would Tizzo forget that figure. For Semonetto had been wounded in the head so that one side of his face ran crimson; and from a rent in his shirt high on the breast another torrent of blood was flowing.

  “Brother!” he gasped to Tizzo.

  “Flee!” shouted Tizzo, and from the lightning circles of his ax the murderers shrank for an instant.

  Semonetto, with one wild glance about him, sprang down the great staircase with Tizzo yelling: “No, no! That way is blocked! Semonetto!”

  But Semonetto, crazed with his wounds or deafened by the uproar which rang through the house as through a brazen cave, fled on down the stairs, and Tizzo turned to run upward. He found, as he returned, that Lady Beatrice was beside him with that delicate splinter, that long dagger of a French sword in her hand.

  “Beatrice, save yourself!” he groaned to her. But she was already fleeing before him to show him the way through a narrow little door which was set flush against the wall, and so to the windings of a secret stairway. As Tizzo slammed that door behind him, he heard steel clash and break against it.

  He thrust the bolt home and fled upward, pursuing the girl.

  “Do you hear me? Beatrice!” he panted.

  She waited for him at an upper landing, where a little narrow arched window opened over a roof.

  “Here is escape, Tizzo,” she cried, “and yond
er, in that hell — yonder is Giovanpaolo! Will you save yourself?”

  Beyond the roof, beyond the rough tiling, he saw the moon hanging like a red flag of murder in the west, above the city of Perugia.

  There was the road to safety, and the girl pointing the way to it. He could save her and himself, perhaps, but in the meantime the man to whom he was sworn must be fighting for his life. He turned his back on the window with a shout.

  “Giovanpaolo!” he cried, and raced down the hall.

  CHAPTER 29

  WHEN THE ASSAULT began, Messer Astorre was roused, and called out to know what had happened. There was the vast crashing and shouting all through the house, as though the place were seized upon by thunder, but at the door of Astorre himself, and his wife, there was no disturbance. Only the voice of Filippo, the traitor, called out to him from the hall: “My lord! Your highness! It is your friend, Filippo! Open in the name of God! There is murder loosed through the house.”

  At that, Astorre took a sword in his hand and turned the key, with his own hand opening the door on his destruction. As the door yawned, Ottaviano da Corgnie struck savagely through the opening and made a great wound in the head of Astorre, striking him to his knees. While he was still down, Filippo, who had called to him like a friend, plunged a sword into the body of Astorre.

  That hero, though he was dying, was not yet dead. He managed to gain his feet and struck some great stroke with his own sword, so that for a moment the press of men failed to get through the door. He might even have succeeded in driving the scoundrels out of the room, except that his poor wife, in a frenzy of screaming terror, came like the wind and threw her arms around him to save him from further blows.

  Then Filippo — it was he himself — with his sword ran the poor woman through the shoulder and with the same stroke drove the blade of his weapon right through the body of the Baglioni. Then Astorre felt that he had his death. He put his bloody arms around his wife and kissed her.

  He fell, and as he fell his wife was dragged down with him because she was still pinned to his body by the sword of the traitor.

  They seemed to feel that his glory must be as strong as armor about his naked body and that they would have to hew at him as at a man clad in steel plate. Over fifty wounds were received by his senseless body, so that he was hewed almost to pieces, but as though by a miracle — it was in fact the work of a kind saint, said some men — the face of Astorre was not touched, so that when he lay in death with his body covered he looked like a glorious Greek hero, asleep.

  When his highness, the young Semonetto, had escaped in the upper hall by means of the battle ax of Tizzo and his own strong sword, he fled down the staircase, dripping blood as he ran, and so came to the men-at-arms at the bottom of the stairs.

  They tried to stop his flight, but he struck down two of them, killing one, and the force of his attack carried him straight through the armored crowd.

  They followed and clung to him, however. His sword struck showers of sparks from their armor, as he raged among them, and for a moment they fell back, in awe of this man.

  In that moment, he leaped into the street and, perhaps, might have escaped. But here he saw a poor serving lad, a mere page of twelve or thirteen years, who was driven by the swords above to leap from a window, and this poor boy was crushed to death on the stones of the street in front of Semonetto. He only lived long enough to gasp out: “Semonetto — my lord — avenge me!” Then he died.

  They say that Semonetto, when he saw this death and heard those dying words, turned straight around, forgot all care for his own safety, and rushed back against the men-at-arms from whom he had just escaped.

  Before he fell, he laid on the ground five armored men, and his sword was broken in two before they managed to push in close and overwhelm him with blows.

  It was a second miracle that he, like Astorre, was never wounded in the face, during all this terrible medley of blows.

  Men said that if this Semonetto had lived, not even Nicolo Piccininni would have accomplished such feats, because in all things, even in his cruelty, he was above other men. After his death, his absence was felt like a curse, and like a blessing, in Perugia.

  Berardino of Antignolle had already burst into the room of the old man, Guido Baglioni, the father of so much strength and valor and himself, men said, among the wisest of the men of his time.

  When the door was burst in, the murderers found that the old man had risen from his bed and that he had taken up a sword in a corner of the room. So many blades came at him, that he had to use both his blade and his left arm to ward off the strokes. And then a soldier leaned and stabbed the old man in the breast.

  The chief object of all that midnight attack was the person of Giovanpaolo, the most famous of all the house. Astorre was perhaps as widely known for his commanding of mercenary armies in the service of various cities through Italy, but it was known by all that Giovanpaolo was the great brain of the house of the Baglioni.

  For his destruction his treacherous host and cousin, Grifone, had taken special order.

  Also Carlo Barciglia and some of the house of da Corgnie went hurrying from their other special tasks of murder to assist in the killing of that famous man, because, as Jeronimo della Penna had said, if that one brain escaped with life, all the business of the slaughter was disappointed and undone. Here are some of the chief heads of the enterprise gathered before the door of Giovanpaolo, and it was said that just as Filippo, the traitor, called out to Astorre, so Carlo Barciglia called to Giovanpaolo and wakened him.

  He begged to be let into the room, because there was destruction in the house, but the wise Giovanpaolo said: “Traitor, if there is destruction in the house, you are a part of it!”

  In fact, there were great suspicions in the breast of Giovanpaolo because, on the night before, his sister, Lady Beatrice, had brought him assured word from Tizzo that in the hands of della Penna there was some murderous scheme for which the lord of Camerino was sending two hundred and fifty men-at-arms.

  Just after Giovanpaolo had cried out in this manner, the traitors in the hall outside his room saw that there was no way except to beat in the door of his room. As they gathered and lifted the heavy beam, they heard him cry out, inside the room: “Tizzo! I have been like a blind fool for failing to heed your warning! I have allowed murder to come into my family!”

  With the heavy balk of wood, the assassins dashed against the door. At the first stroke they smashed it down. They dropped the beam of wood which they had used to crush the barrier and they were about to pour into the room to finish their black business when they were amazed by a voice crying out loudly, behind them: “Giovanpaolo! Giovanpaolo! I come!”

  At this Giovanpaolo raised a great shout of joy.

  At the same time a slender man with a still slighter youth beside him, the first armed with a terrible ax and the second with a light sword, sharper than a needle, rushed through the group and threw them all into a slight confusion. Here a young man of the house of da Corgnie, trying to close with the newcomer, received from the ax a tremendous stroke which glanced from his helmet, clove through his shoulder armor, and almost severed the arm from his body.

  But Tizzo and Lady Beatrice were now in the room of Giovanpaolo, who had taken time to draw on a few clothes between the first alarm and the beating down of his door.

  When he saw Tizzo, he cried out: “Brother, you should have lived to revenge me; now we must die together!”

  To Lady Beatrice, he merely said: “And it was I who tried to keep two sparks from flying in the same wind!”

  For there was a certain touch of laughter in Giovanpaolo, even on a battlefield. But he with his lunging sword and Tizzo with the terrible, beating ax, kept the doorway clear for a moment.

  CHAPTER 30

  LADY BEATRICE EXCLAIMED: “The way is still open to the loggia.” In a pause in the fighting, Giovanpaolo said: “There is no use in that unless we all had wings! — Ha, Grifone, do I see your face, tra
itor and dog? Have you joined yourself with villains?”

  Then he saw Carlo and shouted: “Carlo Barciglia, come closer. If we cannot touch hands, at least let us touch swords!”

  “Pay no heed to him, Grifone,” said Carlo Barciglia. “He has the tongue that will persuade honest men that red is white! Death to him!”

  The whole body was about to rush again at the doorway when Tizzo said at the ear of his friend: “Giovanpaolo, I know a way from the loggia which even men can take. Follow me!” He added: “Beatrice, go first and open the doors from here to the loggia. If you see a strong cord or a rope, snatch it up. If not, take the long red cloth that lies across the table in the second room.”

  She obeyed those orders at once.

  And Giovanpaolo and Tizzo met the second rush against the doorway. Again the sword flamed in the hands of Giovanpaolo, the ax circled in the grasp of Tizzo, and those blows, together with the narrowness of the doorway, held back the attackers for a moment.

  Grifone called out that crossbows were coming, and that they should hold their hands.

  But as the assailants fell back, the two inside the room fled suddenly across it and, passing through the door to the outer room, they locked and bolted it behind them, throwing some furniture against it to delay further the murderers.

  In the same way they passed out onto the loggia and closed and locked that strong outer door behind them.

  They could now look down through the last of the moonlight upon the piazza beneath, where loud shouts were ringing, and the hoofs of horses struck sparks out of the pavement, galloping back and forth. The continual cry was “Camerino! Camerino!” as though the men of that town had actually taken Perugia by assault.

  There was neither cord nor rope, but the girl had brought the red cloth from the table of the second room. And Tizzo, grasping this, threw it like a long scarf over his shoulder.