by Max Brand
“I cannot go with you farther than the walls.”
“Then I shall not leave Perugia.”
“Beatrice, I beg you — if you love me —
“I only love the man who lets me share his dangers,” she said.
“I will take you to the walls and see you safely away.”
“I shall not go unless you come with me.
He groaned.
AND then he said: “The work which lies before me is something I cannot turn my back on.”
“Your work is spoiled before it commenced,” she said.
“Why?”
“I’ve lingered up and down this street, and I’ve seen half a dozen men enter that building.”
“Why not? More than one family lives in it.”
“Men in cloaks, with something under the cloaks.”
“Bread from the baker, perhaps.”
“Bread or steel ground sharp along two edges, more likely,” she said.
“Marignello has been paid his price. He would not betray me.”
“Perhaps he could get a greater price from della Penna.”
“He would not dare to confess that he had been in touch with me.”
“No? He would simply say that, from the first, he had been attempting to draw you into a trap.”
“There is not that degree of guile in him.”
“Tizzo, for all your cleverness — and I know you are not a fool — you continue to think that men are as honest as yourself. And that is a folly. Why, Tizzo, every man in Perugia knows that Mateo Marozzo, for instance, would pay all the gold in his treasury for the sake of one chance to drive a knife into your body!”
“Marozzo hates me. They all hate me, now. But I must count on Marignello. Without him, I have no hope. And that means that Melrose has to die without a hand lifted to save him.”
“Henry of Melrose,” she said, “has followed adventure all his life. He could never expect to die peacefully. Let him have the end that he has invited.”
“I cannot, Beatrice.”
“Will not, you should say.”
“I love you, Beatrice; but even you hardly stir my blood and draw my soul from me so much as that wild Englishman.”
“He taught you half a dozen tricks of fencing, and therefore you love him.”
“There is something more than that,” said Tizzo, frowning. “Long ago, when I saw him, suddenly I had to follow him. I left the inheritance of a great house and a huge fortune for the sake of tagging about the world at his heels.”
“Perhaps he used a charm on you?” Tizzo crossed himself and murmured: “God forbid! But I must go forward in this.”
“You mean that you will surely enter that house?”
“Most surely I shall.”
“Well, then, I shall show you one thing first,” said the girl.
Before he could stop her, she was half way across the street, and he saw her pass straight through the door of the tall house. As she opened the door, he had a glimpse of a dull light and suddenly reaching hands. He saw a flash of naked steel here and there in the background.
He ran like a deer to the rescue but the door slammed heavily; he arrived at it only in time to hear the clank of the heavy iron bolt rammed home into a stone socket.
TO beat against the door with his ax would simply be a folly. He ran to the left into a meager alley hardly the width of a man’s body and saw, high above his head, the glimmer of a light through a barred window.
Springing up as high as possible, he was barely able to hook the lower edge of the ax over the sill of the window. Then he drew himself up into the casement and curled into the embrasure. Through the bars of the window he found himself looking down into a large room with a fire flickering on a deep hearth and a mist of woodsmoke in the air. And in the midst of the room stood a full dozen of men clustered about the Lady Beatrice, holding her fast by the arms.
Alberto Marignello stood before her, his rather handsome but heavy face darkened by a scowl.
“Now, my lad,” he was saying, “explain why you open the door of a place where you have never been seen before?”
“I come here because I bring a message.”
“What sort of a message?”
“A brief one,” said the girl.
“From whom?”
“From a man I met outside the gate of San Ercolano.”
“Well, what sort of a man?”
“A young man with red hair.”
“Ah, ha!” said Marignello. “Young — with red hair, and blue eyes that never stop shining?”
“Yes, that is he.”
“You see?” said Marignello. “She has seen that Tizzo — that blue-eyed devil of a Tizzo! Well, and what message did he give you?”
“To come here and find a man called Alberto Marignello.”
“That is my name.”
“Well, then I’m to tell you that he cannot come tonight.”
“Ah, he cannot come?”
“No.”
“Will he come tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow after dark, if you will come out to the camp of Giovan Paolo and arrange a second meeting place.”
“I go again into the jaws of the lion?” said Marignello. “I am not such a fool.”
“That was the message. And then I come here,” said Beatrice, angrily, “and you all leap at me like dogs at a bone.”
It seemed a miracle to the watcher at the window that they should not see, at once, that she was no boy at all. The beauty and the dignity of the Baglioni was in her face in spite of her rough clothes. And in her voice there was a strange sweetness that should have undeceived them at once, he thought. But in that voice there was also a huskiness, and it was true that she looked slender and small enough to have passed for a boy at the turning point towards youth.
A strangeness came into the mind of Tizzo. He half wanted to shout: “Fools! You have in your hands the greatest prize, bar one, that you could ask for. You have the sister of Giovan Paolo. With her in your hands, you are safe, and Giovan Paolo himself will not dare to attack the city — not if he had a million armed men behind him!” And again, with his bare hands, he wanted to tear at the iron bars and wrench them from their stone sockets and plunge into the room.
HERE a great booming of thunder began, one of those cataracting sounds which pour over heaven like a cart over a brazen bridge. Inserting the stout oaken haft of the ax between the bars, he bore down with all his strength. Something gave. It was not the stone socket, but the soft iron itself bent, and so was pulled loose. With his hand he was able to draw it away from the socket.
As the uproar of the thunder died down, one of the men said: “This story that the boy tells is all very smooth and well. But I wish to ask when he passed through the gate at San Ercolano?”
“Oh, half an hour ago,” said the Lady Beatrice.
The fellow who had asked the question turned with a sudden grin on his companions. He threw out his hand to make an important gesture. Then he said: “It was less than a half hour ago that I passed near San Ercolano and found out that the gate had not been opened during the entire afternoon.”
“The small portal in the gate was open, however,” said Beatrice, and the heart of Tizzo stood still as he listened.
“The portal was not opened!” shouted the fellow who had last spoken. He had a broad, brutal face and Tizzo swore that he would never forget that countenance.
“The portal was not opened. The entire guard was taken from the gate at noon! At noon, mind you! And the boy lies!”
“Ah, ha,” said Marignello. “Is that the way of it? Now, he looks capable of a good lie, when I look at him again. His face is a little too fine for those clothes. Give me your hand, boy!”
Beatrice held out her hand, and Marignello leaned over it. Suddenly he threw it to one side. He exclaimed: “It is soft as the hand of a woman! This fellow never has done a stroke of work! What has your labor been, eh?”
“I’ve been a tailor’s apprentice,” s
aid Beatrice, instantly.
“Ha? So! Well that may be, too,” said Marignello, half convinced by this remark.
“No tailor’s apprentice ever stood so straight,” said another. “From sitting cross-legged, their shoulders begin to stoop before they’re twelve years old.”
“Aye, and their chins stick out in front.”
“Aye, and they squint!”
These remarks came in a general murmur. The thunder rolled heavily again, and Tizzo used that noise to cover the wrenching jerk with which he pried loose a second bar. Another pair, and he would have opened a sufficient space to admit his body. After that, if once he got down into that room with his ax — well, they would have something to think about other than this “boy” they were questioning.
“YOU are not a tailor’s apprentice,” said Marignello, pointing to her hand. “See, there is no enlargement of the thumb and the forefinger of the right hand, and the left forefinger is not stuck full of the little scars of the needle point. Confess that you have lied.”
“I was ill for six months and the scars wore away from my skin,” said Beatrice Baglione.
“I never saw a tailor,” said Marignello, “who dared to look people straight in the eyes in the manner of this lad. He holds up his chin in the manner of one who has told servants to come and to go. Come — the signore will be here in a little while, and then we may learn something more about this lad.”
It was only another moment, in fact, when a knock came distinctly at the street door.
“Shall I open?” asked one of the men.
“No, not till I have spoken,” said Marignello.
He approached the door and called out: “Who is there?”
The answer was indistinguishable to Tizzo, but Marignello called again: “What word has passed between us?”
He paused for the answer and then said to the other: “This is right. He has named the word which he and I alone know. It is the signore.”
He then unbarred the door and there entered a man in a scarlet cloak whose collar was wrapped up high about the head and face in order to shut off the rain.
He threw back this cloak and revealed himself in a fine doublet and costly hose that had a silken sheen. He had a colored handkerchief thrust inside his belt and carried a dagger as well as a sword. His soft hat was of blue velvet, and it was pulled low over his forehead. In spite of this, the silver gleam of a scar appeared just above the center of the forehead and looked like a streak of grease. Tizzo recognized his own handiwork. With the point of his dagger he had drawn a cross into the flesh of Mateo Marozzo, the point of the sharp steel shuddering against the bone. This man he had branded for life, and it was a deed which he looked back upon only with pleasure. He wished, now, that he had driven the dagger through the fellow’s heart.
Marignello said: “We have caught a queer lad here, who says that he’s a tailor’s apprentice. But he hasn’t that look. He says that he carries a message from Tizzo. Will your lordship look at him?”
Marozzo approached the Lady Beatrice and stared full in her face.
Then he said: “This is, in fact, a very queer — lad! Marignella, take yourself and your men away. Let me have plenty of time alone with this — lad. And I may make something of him!”
CHAPTER V.
THE SLAP.
MARIGNELLO GOT QUICKLY out of the room, the slamming of the door behind him and his companions being quite covered by an immense, crashing downpour of the rain. In that uproar, Tizzo managed to work the other bars from the sockets. He had plenty of room, now, to slip through the window, but his position was frightfully complicated. If he leaped down, the ten foot drop to the floor from that high casement probably would send him sprawling, and before he could rise the dagger of Marozzo would be in his back. He waited, the corners of his mouth jerking with eagerness.
He could hear Marozzo, now, saying: “Dangerous, beautiful — most beautiful, most dangerous, Lady Beatrice! Can I tell you how welcome you are to me?”
“My dear Mateo,” said the girl, “I ought to be welcome to you. You can make a very neat sum of money out of me, I suppose.”
“Money?” said Marozzo. “Do you think that we will sell you? No, sweetheart, you will never leave Perugia, and so long as you are inside the city the hands of Giovan Paolo are tied. He cannot strike at us for fear we may strike at you. You mean more than money to all of us. You mean life, Beatrice, life!”
He began to laugh, putting his face close to hers, jeering.
“And the handsome fellow with the red hair — the firebrand — Tizzo — I suppose it was he who drew you into this crazy adventure, my lady? Your reputation — what is that to a man whose brain is all in a flame? Such a bright flame that the pretty little moths, the charming, delicate Beatrices, are always flying into the fire!”
“Mateo,” she answered, “Tizzo has nothing to do with this.”
“Certainly not. You didn’t even know that he was expected here this evening? You were merely walking up the street by chance? You merely happened to walk through this door? Certainly Tizzo could have nothing to do with it!”
She took a deep, quick breath and looked fixedly at Marozzo.
“Mateo, you can make a fortune, a great fortune, if you’ll see me out of the city.”
“If an angel came down and offered me a throne in heaven for returning you to your brother, I would never do it!” said Marozzo.
“No,” she said, slowly, “I think you mean that!” his hands, struck aside the next thrust. He was in no position to use the edge of the ax for a counterstroke. Instead, he drove the butt of the haft between the eyes of Marozzo and snatched the sword as it fell from the unnerved hand.
Marozzo fell in a heap, not utterly unconscious but still struggling to recover himself. To Tizzo the miracle was that a yell of alarm had not roused the house before this.
“Quick! Quick, Tizzo!” gasped Lady Beatrice, already at the street door.
“Go in the name of God,” he commanded. “Go to the house of Lady Atlanta and she will shield you. I have one more thing to attempt here.”
With a twist of cloth he was tying the hands of Marozzo behind his back. Then he drew the little poniard from the side of Marozzo and flashed it before his eyes.
“I mean it with all my heart. We are leaving the house now, my lady!”
“To cheat your friend Marignello of his share in the reward? There is as much fox as dog in you, Mateo,” she said.
And Marozzo, overwhelmed with a sudden frenzy of hate, flicked the tips of his fingers across her face.
IT was not thought that governed Tizzo. Far better for him to have slipped back down to the street and waited for Marozzo and his prize in the darkness of the narrow way. But he could not resist the lightning impulse which overcame him when he saw the girl struck. He slid through the window and dropped to the floor, and his foot, striking a wet spot on the tiles, shot him headlong on the slippery pavement.
He was already half twisting to his feet when he saw Marozzo running in at him with a levelled sword. An agony of quick fear had turned the face of Mateo white and pulled his mouth into a horrible grin; an agony of joy at this golden opportunity set his eyes blazing. He might have brought a dozen men swarming by a single cry, but that conflict of his emotions seemed to have throttled him. Or perhaps he saw, in this gleaming instant, a chance to accomplish a double deed — the capture of Lady Beatrice and the death of Tizzo. Such a thing would make him a hero forever among the powers who then ruled the city of Perugia. He would be, at once, among the great ones.
So he sprang at Tizzo, the sword shooting out before him for the death stroke. It came with such speed that there was no avoiding it, but Beatrice caught at the backward flaring cloak of Marozzo with such strength that he was checked and jerked a little to the side. That gave Tizzo the fraction of a moment he needed for rising to his feet. The head of the ax, light as gilded paper in the practiced grasp of If you mark me again like a branded beast—” groaned Marozzo. �
��Kill me outright, Tizzo. Ah, God, to think that I had you so close to the point of my sword!”
“A greater miracle is going to happen,” said Tizzo. “You will have a chance for your life if you listen to me! Beatrice, will you go? Will you go? Are you staying here to drive me mad? Slip away! Swift, to the house of the lady, and she will help you from the city.”
The girl stepped to the table and sat down on the edge of it, swinging one small foot.
“I stay here,” she said. “I haven’t had so many chances of seeing you at work, Tizzo.”
He glared at her, baffled.
“There is still danger!” he insisted. “There is a frightful danger — I beg you with the blood of my heart — go at once!”
“While you stay here?” said the girl. “No, I stay where you stay. Save your breath. You can’t persuade me to leave you.”
He glared at her once more, half enraged, half desperate. Then he turned back to Marozzo.
“STAND up!” he commanded, and Marozzo rose. His eyes saw one thing only, the deadly splinter of steel, the almost invisible needle point of the poniard which was at his breast.
“Step to the door,” said Tizzo, and led his captive there.
He pulled that door a trifle ajar and ordered: “Call to Marignello and tell him to send all his companions away. Tell him you have learned something that is only for his ears and yours. In a hearty, happy voice, Marozzo, or by St. Stephen you’ll have something sharper than arrows in your heart!”
“I’ll be no tool of yours!” panted Marozzo. “Stab me, then; but I’ll not do your work for you! The day is cursed that first saw you!”
“Ah, Mateo, do you invite me?” asked Tizzo through his teeth. “Don’t you see, Marozzo, that wild horses are drawing me forward to your slaughter, you jackal? But do as I tell you and I give back your dirty life. You hear?”
In that moment of shame and surrender, Marozzo glanced towards the girl and found her hard, cruel eyes fixed upon him. His head dropped.
“Make up your mind,” said Tizzo. “Will you call to Marignello? Heartily?”