by Max Brand
“I listen to you,” said Bardi, “but still I cannot believe you.”
“Bardi,” said Marozzo, “the thing I have told you is entirely true. I have seen the blood that Tizzo spilled and the irons through which he cut. He is adrift in Perugia. He cannot have left the city so soon. And now the walls are well manned. He is likely as not to come at last to your house for shelter. Listen to me, Bardi! With him there is Melrose — a helpless mass of flesh, unable to stir without assistance. With him there is also à greater prize than all else — dressed as a slip of a boy — the Lady Beatrice Baglione!”
“God rains miracles on Perugia tonight!” said Bardi. “The Lady Beatrice, inside the walls of Perugia? Marozzo, you are mad!”
“So I thought when I saw her,” said Marozzo. “But I with my own eyes have seen her this night, and talked with her. I am out of my wits when I think of it. Yes, she is here, drawn by her crazy passion for Tizzo which would make her run through flames. Bardi, if they come to your house, you will become the first man, the favored citizen of Perugia if you turn them over, at once, to della Penna.”
“The Lady Beatrice!” exclaimed the stunned voice of Bardi.
“Farewell,” said Marozzo. “Remember that all suspicions against you will be laid if you can make the trap which catches Tizzo.”
“Wait, then—” exclaimed Bardi. There was a terrible moment of silence.
“Well?” said Marozzo.
“I was thinking of a place where he might be found,” muttered Bardi. “But, no — I was wrong!”
CHAPTER XIII.
BEATRICE LEADS ON.
MAROZZO HAD DEPARTED when Tizzo issued from behind the bed and found young Bardi fallen into a chair with his white face in his hands.
“You heard, Tizzo?” he said. “All men have their price, it seems; and mine was almost reached. Dog that I am, I was within one breath of betraying you!”
“You know, Antonio,” said Tizzo, “that none of us would have good faith if it were never tested in the fire. Lift your head, my brother. I value you a thousand times more; I know that you are the true steel because I have seen the metal tested.”
Bardi, suddenly holding out his hand, grasped that of Tizzo strongly.
“There is such a flame of high heart in you,” said Bardi, “that you could turn a cat into a lion! But is the rest true? Melrose — have you used witchcraft to steal him from the prison of della Penna, from which no man ever has escaped?”
“No witchcraft, Antonio. Only a stolen pack of keys, a sharp file, and that ax of mine with the good blue Damascus steel in the head of it! All of these things — and then Lady Beatrice in the last moment bringing up horses like a cavalry charge to give us wings for our escape and scatter della Penna’s men. Now you know the entire story.”
“I hear the miracle told in simple words, but a miracle it still remains. Where are they now?”
“Waiting for me in the dark throat of a little alley, not far from here.”
“The Lady Beatrice!” murmured Bardi, staring. “And you left them there?”
“There was one thing more important than their safety. The retaking of Perugia. I had to find the key that would open one of the gates of the city to us. And I have found it, Antonio. You are the man!”
“I am — I shall do it! God stands on your side, Tizzo. Otherwise it could not be that you would pass through such dangers unhurt! But you and the Lady Beatrice, and Melrose — how will you leave the town?”
“I have no idea,” confessed Tizzo. “We have made two steps towards safety. What the third one will be, I cannot tell.”
“I shall go with you,” said Bardi. “The moment I am dressed, I shall go without, whatever comes of the adventure—”
“You will stay here,” commanded Tizzo. “Antonio, if you love me, remain here to play your part well. The other task is entirely mine. See Falcone and the Lady Atlanta again. Concert your measures. Spend money like water if you must; it will all come back to you. And let me go alone.”
“How will you leave the house?”
“By the window that gave me entrance.”
“Not even a cat could climb that sheer wall.”
“Not a cat, but a Tizzo can do it.”
Bardi, approaching the window, stared down at the profound darkness. There was only a faint, starlit glimmer of the wet pavement beneath. He drew back with a shudder.
“And yet your eyes are laughing at the danger!” breathed Bardi. “What breed of man are you, Tizzo? Give me your hand. Farewell. I turn my head because I cannot endure to see you pass through that window — farewell again!”
BUT hardly a moment later Tizzo, at the bottom of the great wall, picked up the woodsman’s ax which he had left there and went swiftly towards the little dark-throated alley where he had left Melrose and the girl.
Two steps from the entrance he called, softly, and the thinnest of whistles answered him. He had heard that signal before, from Lady Beatrice, and he recognized it now; that was why he was half-laughing with joy as he went forward.
The girl said: “All well, Tizzo?”
“Aye, all well,” he answered. “All well till daylight.”
He could make out the big outline of his father, stretched on the wet pavement at full length. The girl had made of her cloak a pillow on which the head of the Englishman rested.
“And you, sir?” asked Tizzo, on his knees beside the baron.
“Every moment better,” said the baron. “My legs and arms are still half asleep, but the life is coming back into them. Before noon tomorrow I shall be able to wear full armor and leap onto my horse again without touching the stirrups. But still even to sit up is a little hard. Tell me what you have done. You could not scale that wall after all, could you?”
“Easily,” said Tizzo. “I have seen Antonio Bardi, plotted with him the opening of Perugia, and heard the voice of Marozzo announcing that a double guard is on the walls. Perugia buzzes like a hornets’ nest. It is known everywhere that you have escaped, that Lady Beatrice is inside the walls, and that I am here, also. We have from now until daylight to devise a means of getting out of Perugia. As soon as the sun is up, we shall be found, even if we squeeze ourselves into a rat-hole.”
IT was much later when Tizzo looked up and saw the pale blue-green invading the sky and making the stars a trifle dim.
“Day is almost here,” he said, “and we are no nearer the solution.”
“True,” said Melrose. “But the glory is, Tizzo, that when we are found, I shall be able to swing a sword and die like a man. Strength has come back to me!”
The girl stirred a little. She, abandoning the problem to the two men, had been sound asleep, her head on the shoulder of Tizzo. Now she yawned and stretched, then rose, settled her hat on her head, and looked about her.
“What have you decided, my masters?” she asked.
“We have decided that Perugia is as good a place as the next one to die in,” said Tizzo.
“We could try to get over the wall at some low place,” said the girl.
“The walls have a double guard,” said Tizzo. “We might begin to climb down, but we’d be full of crossbow quarrels before ever we got to the bottom of the great walls.”
“Can we bribe the guard at a gate?”
“I’ve thought of that. But nothing we can offer will be worth a tithe of the immense reward that Jeronimo della Penna will give for our capture.”
“That is true, of course,” said the girl.
She began to walk up and down, whistling very softly.
Then she said: “Tizzo, if I cannot follow you, you must follow me.”
“How?” he asked.
“In silence and with a little hope,” she answered. “Come! Let us go!”
CHAPTER XIV.
“WITH THE OTHER RUBBISH.”
ALFREDO, THE SON of Lorenzo, at the first full gleam of the daylight, left his bed, dressed, washed, breakfasted, and prepared his lunch for the midday meal.
; That is to say, he threw off the blanket, pulled on his heavy shoes, rubbed his eyes open, and put in his mouth half an onion and some stale bread. For lunch, he split open another stale loaf, laid a long slice of moldy cheese inside the split, and put the lunch in the pocket of his coat. He was now ready for the day and went out to the stable-yard behind his little shack. For he was a rich man, owning no fewer than four mules. Every day he collected rubbish here and there in the town, the débris which was constantly collecting from building operations, or junk of a thousand sorts. This material he carted out of the town, emptied it a good distance from the wall, and then hauled back into Perugia a good load of country produce. The rates he charged were so high that, in the course of half a dozen years he had been able to increase his team from two donkeys to four mules; besides, he had been able to put money aside.
This Alfredo, son of Lorenzo, was not a pretty man to see. He had served in the wars and had an eye knocked out. He wore a short growth of beard all over his face and so avoided the necessity and the wasted time involved in shaving.
The beard he trimmed once a month or so with a sheep-shears. He was a big man, with capacious shoulders, huge arms, and hands as tough as the heels of his mules. He was said to be strong enough to serve as a fifth mule in case of need.
Now Alfredo, the son of Lorenzo, got to the stable-shed, fed his mules, harnessed them, watered them, and at last led them out to hitch them to the vast two-wheeled cart whose creakings and squeakings could be heard almost through Perugia. The cart was heaped with a load of rubbish of all sorts, collected in the latter half of the preceding day.
BUT as he brought the mules out, pulling their stubborn heads along with a powerful hand, he saw three figures, dim in the half-light of the dawn, standing in his yard. One, the largest by far of the three, leaned against the wall, as though very weary. Another remained near the big man, wrapped in a cloak.
The third, a mere strip of a boy, advanced towards him, saying: “Well met, Alfredo!”
Alfredo picked a good thick club off the top of the loaded cart.
“Before daylight there are no good meetings,” he said. “Who are you?”
“A friend,” said the stripling.
“You lie,” said Alfredo. “I have no friends except the gray mule, there. He would do something for me in a time of trouble, I think.”
“Nevertheless, I am a friend,” said the youth.
“Prove it,” said the carter.
“One day the carriage of a noble passed and thrust your cart off the road. The cart was broken in the ditch. The next day I brought you money to buy a new one.”
“May all the highblood in Perugia be damned!” said the carter. “The Baglioni first, because they are the leeches, the bloodsuckers, who grow rich on the labor of the poor men. Their taxes eat the marrow out of my bones. But a curse on all men who drive in swift carriages, drawn by galloping, blooded horses; a curse, and a double curse on them all. Now, as for this story you tell me, you have heard of the thing, but the truth is it was the noble Lady Beatrice herself who brought me the money the next day — the queen of heaven bring her happiness in return for it! — and as for you, you are a liar.”
“I have told a few lies in my time,” said the girl, “but I am the Lady Beatrice.”
“And I,” said the carter, “am the Archangel Gabriel. Get out of my way and let me harness my mules to the cart. Are you drunk? Do they let infants like you have the price of wine to spend in a shop?”
“I am the Lady Beatrice,” she answered.
“And I am the King of France,” said the carter.
“And this,” said the girl, “is the Englishman who escaped from the prison of Jeronimo della Penna. This is the Baron of Melrose.”
“This mule next to you — that seems a mule,” said the carter, “is really the winged horse of the poet. Do you think I am a half-wit, my lad? Come, Come! Trouble me no more.”
“And this,” said the girl, “is Tizzo.”
“Ha!” exclaimed the carter. “Now, of all the lies and the father and the mother of lying, this is the greatest lie! You stand there to tell me that the man I have seen with my own eyes, the Firebrand as they truly call him, prancing his horses through Perugia, striking sparks out of the streets and out of the eyes of the people, the warrior, the hero, the man whose ax splits helmets like kindling wood — that Tizzo whom I have seen with my own eyes, you tell me he is that skulking sneak who hangs his head there, wrapped in a cloak? My lad, it is true that all the three people you speak of were loose in Perugia last night, but the devil who favors them has flown them away again.”
“No,” said the girl. “Alfredo, the carter, is going to take them through the gate of the city and set them free.”
THE carter, stunned, continued to stare at her for a long time. “Let me see you,” he said. “It is true that you are a woman. Yes. No man ever had legs as sleek and small about the knees as those. But the Lady Beatrice — she would never be fool enough to come here to me for help. And — if that is the great Tizzo, the Firebrand — here — here — look here! This is the thick top of a jousting helmet; yonder is my own ax.
“Let him try to split this fragment, if he is the man with the magic in his hands!”
He put a round bit of arched steel on the ground as he spoke but Tizzo, stepping forward, produced his own ax from beneath his cloak.
“If that is honest steel,” he said, “I shall give you the proof you ask, friend.”
With that, he flourished the ax through two brief circles, and then struck a flashing blow. The whole head of the ax sank into the ground; the steel helmet top was shorn straight in two.
Alfredo the carter actually dropped to his knees and, picking up the two fragments of the steel, stared from one hand to the other.
At last he looked up with a groan of wonder.
“No other man in Perugia could do such an enchantment!” he exclaimed. “And it is true that you are Tizzo! And if that is true, all the rest — and — God the Father, this is the Lady Beatrice!”
He rose slowly to his feet.
“My Lady,” he said, “ten thousand people are searching for the three of you. Half of Perugia will be given to the man who discovers you. What made you come to me?”
“Because you carry a load of rubbish out of the town every morning. And this morning you shall carry the three of us in the rest of the worthless stuff.”
“Look,” said Alfredo, the son of Lorenzo, pointing to the four downheaded mules as though in some way they emphasized his point, “how could you trust in me? A word as we go through the gate, and the armed men will seize the cart and capture you all.”
“Alfredo,” said the girl, “I know that rich men cannot be trusted because they have the taste of money in their blood and want more of it. But you are both brave and poor. You knew me in the old days. That is why we have come to ask you for help.”
“Well,” answered the carter, “if harm comes to one of you through me, may the devil seize me the next moment.”
Then he added, referring to the event which really had staggered his imagination: “It was like a flash of blue lightning! It was like the jump of fire through the heavens, the stroke of Tizzo’s ax! Will you teach me how to swing an ax like that?”
“Yes,” said Tizzo. “I’ll teach you if you’ll give ten years to the learning of the trick.”
Suddenly the carter began to laugh aloud.
“It is Tizzo!” he said. “Because who else would tell me the truth like that? Hush, hush! Here I am bawling like a calf when all the swords in Perugia are out ready to kill veal! Softly and quickly, and God help us through the time of need!”
IT was not hard to arrange the hiding place. It was done by removing part of the rubbish from the cart and then constructing a little shelter with the use of two hurdles and some crosspieces. Into this stifling hut the three crept, crushed close together, and over the hurdles the carter leaped enough to restore the appearance of the load. After tha
t, Tizzo could hear him calling out to his mules. The cart started with a lurch.
The wheels were so big that the cart kept jerking from side to side as the wagon passed down the slope of a street over the big cobbles. The carter, walking beside it, kept calling out to the mules. The piece of wood which he used as a brake screamed continually through the friction.
After a time the cart stopped. There was the familiar, telltale clinking of steel as armored men moved near.
“I’m Alfredo, son of Lorenzo,” called the carter. “And here’s the load of rubbish that I’m taking into the country this morning.”
“You won’t take it this morning,” said a commanding voice. “Haul it back to your house. There are orders that nothing, not even a mouse, is to dare to leave Perugia today.”
“Consider, my captain,” said Alfredo, “that if I turn back, I must haul the weight up the hill. And have pity on my poor mules and myself.”
“Consider you, fellow?” said the captain. “Would I be such a fool as to consider you when I have myself to consider? Shall I put my head under a sword for the sake of a carter? No, I still have wits left to me.”
“Let me at least leave the cart here near the gate. Then I can haul it out tomorrow. But to pull the load back up the hill—”
“Shall I leave the street blocked near the gate? Do as you’re ordered and get the stuff away from here!”
“Well,” said the carter, “I call you to witness that I have tried to do as his highness commanded me, but the captain of the gate has prevented me.”
“What highness?” asked the captain.
“Jeronimo della Penna. He swore to harry the skin off my body with whips unless I had finished clearing his courtyard of rubbish today,” replied the carter.
“Ah?” said the captain. “Are you working for Jeronimo della Penna? Did he tell you to do that?”’