by Max Brand
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. However, Giovanpaolo made one great mistake, which was in thinking that the attack would not come for a few days, at least. He could not dream that it would be so soon.
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!”
At that time, however, he still did not know that even his very cousin, the rich and handsome Grifone, had actually taken a main part in the conspiracy, so that although the house was Baglioni in name, it was, in fact, a cruel trap for the hero.
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 axe 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 Corgnie, trying to close with the newcomer, received from the axe a tremendous stroke which glanced from his helmet, clove through his shoulder armor, and almost severed the arm from his body.
Of that wound, afterwards, he bled to death.
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 battle-field. But he with his lunging sword and Tizzo with the terrible, beating axe, kept the doorway clear for a moment.
CHAPTER XVIII.
MARVELS AND MIRACLES.
IT WAS LADY Beatrice who 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, traitor and dog? Have you joined yourself with villains?”
Grifone, when he heard this, shaking his sword above his head, tried to break through the press of his soldiers, and called out: “It was you who drove me to treason. Your treachery to me, Giovanpaolo, for which you shall die. You have disgraced the honor of my house!”
In that he must have glanced at the reputation of his wife, who was beautiful as an angel, and, so far as men knew, as virtuous as an angel, also. Giovanpaolo answered: “Have you listened to villains, Grifone, and believed them, like a poor, weak-witted fool?”
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 axe 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.
A good number of citizens had come out from their houses towards the uproar and these made a dark, solid edging around the piazza, keeping themselves safe from the conflict, like a shore around a turbulent sea.
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.
Then he made Giovanpaolo hold him up on the low wall at the edge of the loggia in such a fashion that with his hands he could swing out and grasp the edge of the roof just above.
With a mighty effort, he tried to pull himself up, but one hand failed to hold and left him dangling by a precarious grasp. Lady Beatrice, trying to reach out to save him, herself almost fell headlong into the street below, but her brother caught and held her.
Behind them, they heard the conspirators smashing down the door to the outer room, the furniture which had been piled against it, yielding with a groaning sound as it was pushed across the floor.
Tizzo, listening to that uproar which shook the house, made a new, great effort and swung himself up onto the edge of the roof. There he lay precariously on the steeply slanting surface, looking down into the piazza as into a deep well.
ABOVE him, the roof of the loggia rose to the higher wall of the house with a window in the midst of it. He reached that window, presently, smashed it open, and peered into an obscurity of shadow in which he could see nothing. He had no time to make sure of what was about him. Beneath him events were flowing like a wild river, and he was close to ruin with Lady Beatrice and Giovanpaolo. He merely tied the belt of his sword about a chair that could not slip through the window, and then fastened the safety catch which held sheath and blade firmly together. He had been able to trust his life once before to the strength of that catch. He would have to trust three lives to it, now.
Sliding down to the end of the scabbard, on which he took a firm hold, he found that he could actually look over the edge of the wall onto the loggia beneath. Already the battering ram was crashing against the door that led from the outer room onto the loggia, and it must have seemed to the two Baglioni that they were only a moment from death. Above all other voices, like a rising fountain above still water, came the maddened screaming of
the voice of Mateo Marozzo, who was yelling:
“Down with the doors! Down with them! Oh, God, give my hands one grasp on his throat!”
Like a hunting dog, Marozzo had followed his enemy and was now on his traces. It was a foolish hand, Tizzo knew, that had spared Marozzo in the house of della Penna.
He threw down the crimson cloth which he had carried up with him. The reaching hand of Giovanpaolo caught it.
“Now, Beatrice!” called Giovanpaolo, and helped the girl upwards.
Partly from his strength to lift her, partly climbing like a cat, she swarmed up the length of the cloth and over the edge of the roof.
“Up to the window!” commanded Tizzo.
She went panting past him, and by his body and his scabbard climbed to the window above.
Giovanpaolo was already following, and the task of Tizzo was a heavier one, now. He had twisted the end of the cloth about his right arm, which swung over the edge of the room; the grip of his left hand was fastened upon the end of the scabbard, which terminated in a small knob. Even so, the smooth metal made an evil hold; he had to bow his head and grind his teeth together in the last extremity of effort as he felt the full weight of Giovanpaolo swing dangling from the cloth over the depth of the piazza.
There was one instant of that frightful strain. Then the powerful grasp of the knight was on the edge of the roof and he heaved himself onto the roof beside Tizzo.
“Marvels and miracles!” gasped Giovanpaolo. “How have you done this thing, Tizzo?”
“Swiftly! Swiftly!” urged Tizzo. “They are at out heels!”
He had snatched up the crimson cloth as he spoke, and at the same moment the doors which had held so stoutly to resist the batterings of the crowd, as though they had weakened the instant that the need of them had diminished, now were beaten down, and the pressure of men poured out instantly upon the loggia.
Tizzo, retreating through the window above, his whole body shaken and trembling from the effort which he had made, heard them shouting beneath them in despair and in wonder. It was the screeching of Mateo Marozzo that again drowned all other sound.
“He cannot have flown — three of them, they cannot have flown — but Tizzo has the wings of a devil. Look everywhere! — We shall find them — God cannot disappoint me again!”
IT was a sort of agony of virtue that strained the throat of Mateo Marozzo, and the other men made a howling like wolves. For here was all their work undone. Perugia in their hands and all the rest of the leaders of the Baglioni dead, nevertheless all was unsure once Giovanpaolo escaped to raise an army of his friends and return to the attack.
In the shadows of the room above, Giovanpaolo was saying: “You are the general, brave Tizzo. Oh, my friend, you are the leader and I am the humble follower. Tell us which way we should move now — or have we only dodged death for an instant?”
“Up with me to the highest roof. There is still a way,” said Tizzo.
And he guided them from the room down that upper corridor which he had passed through before, and below them the house seemed to rock with the turmoil of shouting. They climbed the stairs and issued by the dormer window onto the top roof, leveled for a garden.
The moon was down, the stars were out in clear multitudes, seeming to tremble above all the horrors of Perugia. But the three made only an instant of pause, then Tizzo led the way across the roof to the edge which was nearest to the neighboring ledge. He cast sword and axe before him, then leaped lightly across the ten-foot gap.
The girl turned back up the roof, ran forward, bounded high, and landed light as a cat on the safer side. Giovanpaolo’s foot slipped as he made his leap. His feet, striking the very edge of the roof, gave him a precarious balance and he began to fall backwards, striking wildly with his arms at the thin air. But the swift grip of Tizzo was instantly on him, and he was drawn forward into safety.
Why were not men already swarming on the roof of Grifone’s house? There was no answer to that question, unless Grifone and all the rest thought that the three must have cast themselves down onto the stones of the street to escape from the murder behind them.
Through a trap door which was unlocked they passed from the roof down darkling stairs into a house of silence, into which only the vague uproar from the outside penetrated as from a distance.
“Are we safe here, Giovanpaolo?” asked Tizzo.
“This is the house of Carlo Barciglia,” said Giovanpaolo. “And he is among the traitors. I saw his face. But he is at his hellish work in the house of Grifone and we may win through this place if he have fortune.”
In fact, they met not a living soul. All the people, no doubt, had been drawn out into the piazza. Giovanpaolo led them straight down into the armory of the house, where they paused, not to equip themselves with armor, but to take three hooded cloaks which might cover their faces and their bodies from recognition. After that, they walked, by Tizzo’s suggestion, straight out into the open street.
They were not regarded. They were not the only men who were masked on this night when few could tell who was a friend and who an enemy. Besides, there were many strange and horrible sights to occupy the eyes of the crowd, and not far from the door they came on a press of people about a body that lay naked on the pavement, gored with many wounds, the arms flung out crosswise, the face smiling and unmarred. Beatrice staggered and caught at the arm of Giovanpaolo; but Tizzo paused an instant to lean and touch the dead man.
“Semonetto, I shall remember you!” he said.
Then he rejoined the other two, and heard a faint, groaning murmur from Giovanpaolo.
“This is not the time,” Beatrice kept whispering. “There will be another day, Giovanpaolo. But ah, Semonetto!”
So the two left their murdered brother lying naked and dead behind them and went on with Tizzo.
In command at the gate of San Ercolano,” said Tizzo, “there is the Baron Melrose, who is my friend. He would not have a hand in this work of murder, and for my sake he will pass us safely through, perhaps.”
“Let us go there, then, in the name of God,” said Giovanpaolo. “There is blood in the very air we breathe, inside Perugia.”
THE turmoil of the city was not very great except actually around the house of Grifone, but the clanking hoofs of horses rushed this way and that in the distance, and now and again there were outbreaks of shouting.
When they came down to San Ercolano, they found a close group of a dozen or more men-at-arms on the ground, and others in command on the walls. The great iron chains had been drawn across the gate.
Their progress was Challenged instantly by the crossing of a pair of huge halberds, those ponderous, two-handed axes with which horse and rider could be struck to the ground.
“Who goes there?” came the challenge. “A friend Of Baron Melrose,” said Tizzo. “I know the voice. Let them come to me,” said the voice of Henry of Melrose, instantly. So they were passed into the room of the captain of the gate, where Melrose was walking up and down uneasily. He banished his soldiers from the room, as he grasped the hand of Tizzo.
“How have you escaped from the hands of Marozzo and the rest at the house of della Penna?” he demanded. “Show me your face, Tizzo. Are you hurt?”
“Not in the flesh,” said Tizzo. “I am safe and sound.”
And he threw back the hood to smile on the big Englishman.
“Good! Good!” said Melrose. “Tizzo, the sight of you with a whole skin lets me breathe again. I have been wondering how I could persuade them with cunning or with blows to let you escape, because you have made strong enemies in this town, my lad. Who are these with you?”
“My best of friends,” said Tizzo. “And people who may be friends of yours on another day, sir.”
“Will they?” said the baron. “I hear that there is wild work at the house of Grifone. I must see the faces of these two.”
“It is not wise, my lord,” urged Tizzo.
“Not wise? Are they a pair of bright angels who migh
t dazzle me?” asked Melrose.
“I say, it is not wise. If there is friendship between us, for the sake of that let them pass through with me!”
“Why, my lad,” said Melrose, “for all I know the king of the clan, the eagle of the sky, the lion of Perugia, Giovanpaolo himself might be one of them! My friends, unmask, if you please!”
Giovanpaolo turned his head slowly towards Tizzo. His hand made a slight motion towards his sword.
“No!” exclaimed Tizzo. “It is better to trust to him than to fight against him. Do as he commands! He has a heart greater than any in Italy!”
Giovanpaolo, slowly, raised the hood from his head; Beatrice flung back her own with a quick gesture.
But Melrose, dropping his head suddenly, stared at the floor.
“There is dust in my eyes, Tizzo,” he said. “I cannot see. God and my employers forgive me — but — battle is battle and murder is murder! The key to the small outer portal is lying on that table. Take it — go, all three of you. Quickly!”
There was not time even for thanks. The heavy key was fitted into the lock on the farther side of the gate-room; in a moment more they walked freely down the slope beyond the city wall.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE BELLS OF PERUGIA.
FAR BEYOND PERUGIA, three dark figures, small on the top of a great hill, looked back to the dim tremor of the lights of the city.
They were alone; they were unaided; but one of them had a voice which in a single day could call hundreds of armored riders about him. That was why it seemed to Tizzo that already there were armed ghosts gathering behind them and facing angrily towards the many towers of the city. Beautiful Perugia, which had passed through its bath of blood on this night, would surely be washed with red again before long, unless the attack spent itself vainly against the great walls.
Giovanpaolo, dropping to his knees, began to pray, softly, aloud. He prayed for the souls of his father, his dead brother Semonetto, the warrior soul of Astorre.