by Max Brand
A wounded man propped against a wall, groaning and dying, was nothing to Tizzo. What mattered was the well-harnessed warhorse that stood beside the stranger — a Barb mare like Tizzo’s own. Instantly in the saddle of it, Tizzo drove at a gallop for the fight.
It had hardly moved from the spot where he left it. In that narrow-fronted mêlée, arms were already terribly wearied from constant striking. And from the nearest side alley, Tizzo burst into the throng shouting: “Baglioni! Tizzo for Baglioni! Melrose and Baglioni! Tizzo for Baglioni!”
He saw mighty workmen in the front rank, his father, Giovan Paolo, Falcone and others, but no voice was more welcome to his ears than the roar of Alfredo the carter. It was he who brought up the block at once, and the blue-bladed ax of Tizzo cleft the chains of that barrier.
The stream of the assailants instantly surged well forward.
A shrill screaming trailed through the air. Women were seen by Tizzo leaning, out of windows, screeching prayers to one side and benedictions upon the other. He could not tell whether he were blessed or cursed, so he laughed as he spurred the Barb mare forward.
That terrible ax which was tempered to cleave all day like clay the hard olive wood, now struck right and left and with every lifting of it, the blood ran down the handle of the weapon. Blood bathed Tizzo himself, turned the brightness of his armor dim, drooped the plume of his helmet. But still his battle cry was as savage as at first:
“Melrose! Melrose! Baglioni! Tizzo to the rescue! Melrose! Melrose!” The strange sounding name of the Englishman beat now into the ears of many who were not long to live. For the pressure of the inward stream was far greater than those who stood in defense could endure.
IT was the failure of the chains that broke their spirits. On those great linked iron bars they had depended to prevent any action of mounted men in the streets of the town, and yet in spite of this impediment, the men of Giovan Paolo had pressed forward. And when new chains were encountered, before the men of Jeronimo della Penna could rally in force, the blue-bladed ax of Tizzo had cloven the iron of the joint and caused the chain to drop.
It was that strange ax in the hands of Tizzo that caused the panic to start, that shower of terrible ax blows, and the laughter of the man who wielded the weapon.
But that was not all. As he laughed, he was also cursing.
There pushed forward at his side the great bulk of the invincible carter with his mace and the huge form of the Englishman, ever wielding the great, two-handed sword.
They would hear him say: “Now for you, you fine knight of the red plume! Have at you! Melrose! Baglioni! Tizzo! Tizzo!”
Those last words seemed to strike a dreadful hypnosis through the limbs of the listeners. And then the terrible ax swayed, flashed, fell, was newly bathed in crimson, and the hoofs of the fierce Barb mare trampled another fallen form.
There were men — horrible to tell — who cried out for mercy, when they heard the cry of “Tizzo! Tizzo!” But the relentless ax soared and fell, unheeding.
Then a slight form bore up behind him and the voice of the Lady Beatrice called: “Are you man or devil? Tizzo, in the devil’s name, since you care nothing for that of the Lord, show mercy!”
After that, the terrible ax forebore some of those who screamed out in surrender.
For the battle was no longer a battle. It was rout.
The labor of mounting the steep streets had ended. There was level going across the top of the town, and here the assailants were able to make a faster progress, until they came into the piazza before the cathedral.
TEN times, at least, rushing forward with a hungry purpose, Tizzo had made at the form of a knight armed cap-a-pie who continually shouted: “Della Penna! Della Penna! To me, brave hearts, good friends! Della Penna!”
And always he was shut away by a press of many men and hard blows.
It was as they entered the piazza that he saw a man who was armored with nothing whatever, and who carried a sword which he never raised, and the face of the man was the drawn, pale caricature of the features of the chief of traitors, Grifone Baglione.
Tizzo was close enough to see Giovan Paolo spur toward this man and then halt his horse, shouting: “Is it you — you—”
Then he cried out: “Go your way — I shall not cover my hands with the blood of our house, as you have done! I shall not strike at you, Grifone!”
And he swerved his furious horse away from that target.
But Tizzo, crying out: “Let him stand! No man touch him!” found that his voice was wasted. For savage swords raised, and Grifone, expert swordsman that he was, never raised blade to defend his life. He fell under twenty strokes, and the wash of the battle poured over him.
This Tizzo saw askance, and giving up his struggle to reach the spot, as he saw the traitor fall, pushed fiercely onward toward that figure with the white plume above the helmet about whom men were constantly rallying.
“Della Penna!” was the cry that bubbled from the lips of the warriors who thronged about that tall form on the great black horse.
And Tizzo rushed the swift Barb mare toward the figure, shouting: “Melrose! Melrose! Tizzo! Tizzo!”
And he saw the man of the white plume snatch a lance from the head of a man beside him, a great lance with a hooded hand-hold. Then, bowed above the long spear, della Penna rushed back to meet that implacable pursuer.
To Tizzo, it was like the first movement of a dance. He waited till the last instant, then with an upward stroke of the ax head, he knocked the lance aside and, with a half-swing of the ax, brought it sheer down on the crest of the knight. That blade was sadly battered and blunted by the cleaving of solid armor. But the true Damascus steel had kept its temper; and as a hatchet cleaves the block of wood, so that stroke cleft the helmet of della Penna.
He did not live to cry out once more. His body, lurching sidewise from the saddle, seemed reaching for the ground to break the force of his fall. And then the armored body crashed on the stones of the pavement loudly enough to be heard above the battle.
IT was the final stroke.
There broke out, after it, a wild uproar of fear. No one remained to reward valor, and therefore all men fled. Moreover, the height of the town had been taken. As for the men who had supported the traitors, they took to their horses and poured out of Perugia as from a spot afflicted by the plague, and yet most of them had thought to spend the rest of their lives in the place as lords of the multitude.
So the fall of della Penna unnerved his followers. And the men of Giovan Paolo rushed hard on their traces.
It was said that fugitives from the battle were slain as far as ten miles on the other side of the city. And this was true.
It was said that a certain number closed themselves into the cathedral and were there cut down by the inbreaking forces of Giovan Paolo. But this was false. For the garrison of the cathedral surrendered when Giovan Paolo, unwilling to cover the floor of the house of God with blood, permitted the men inside to depart in peace.
But Perugia, down to the farther ward, was conquered and pacified all on one night, and blood ran on every street of the town.
CHAPTER XXI.
FAREWELL.
THERE WAS A scene which Tizzo did not see, but which remains to this day famous through all of Italy.
For the Lady Atlanta, with four of her maidens as a train, advanced through the bloodstained streets of Perugia as far as the main piazza where the cathedral still stands. There she walked among the dead until she came to a place where a man lifted up his unarmored hand.
And that was Grifone.
Some say that they said a great many things. Some say that it was a scene sufficient to cover many pages of a record. But what actually happened was as follows:
The Lady Atlanta, dropping on her knees, caught the hand of her dying son and called out to him. What he said in answer was: “Bartolomeo! Guido! Give me my armor! I must go out and fight gentlemen as though they were dogs!”
At this Lady Atla
nta said to him: “It is I, my son! It is your mother, and therefore speak to me.”
But Grifone said: “I am already in hell. She would not speak to me. It is some lying devil!”
In spite of what is written in other places, this is all that Lady Atlanta spoke to her son, and those were the words which he answered.
Afterward, her women lifted the dead body and carried it away. There were a number of men who would have been glad to strike a weapon into the dead body of the chief traitor, who allowed the noblest of his kindred to be killed by treason on the night of the Great Betrayal, but the fact is that all men drew aside when they saw the black-robed figure of Lady Atlanta carrying her son from his dying place.
There were not many, however, who commented on the fact that he abandoned his house and rushed out into the street without armor, or that he failed to lift his famous sword in defense of his head. This, however, was the truth.
WHAT between the taking and the retaking of the city of Perugia, there was hardly a house in the town which had not been plundered at least once. Therefore, very few of the citizens had a reason to rejoice. But it must be said that one of the most cheerful voices that was raised inside the town, on days that followed, was that of Alfredo, the son of Lorenzo, who appeared at his old task, except that he now had under him three four-mule teams, each pulling a high-wheeled cart, each cart driven by a special driver. While the one-eyed man remained at his house unhappily roving up and down all day and regretting the vanished times of his hard work, but all his neighbors looked up to him as to a mountain.
In those days, there were many changes.
Great men were pulled down. Many heads of traitors fell on the block. And new men were made rich and famous.
Luigi Falcone gained a name as a great soldier instead of the repute of a scholar, only, and Henry of Melrose was given the rental of so many houses that he was made rich to the end of his days.
But Tizzo was not there. He was gone.
When men asked what had been done to reward the man who had prepared the way for the recapture of Perugia and who in person had formed the sharp edge of the entering wedge, they were told that he had disappeared.
And this was true. For all of the men who loved him, and they were many, were unable to find any trace of him until several days after the fall of the town.
IT was at that time that the Lady Beatrice entered the room of her brother, now sole lord of Perugia, and threw a letter down on the table.
“News from whom?” asked Giovan Paolo.
“From the devil, I think!” said the girl.
She flung herself down on a chair and the tears began to run down her face as her famous brother began to read aloud, slowly:
“Beatrice, blessed among women, my beloved, and most worthy of all loving, my glorious lady, my bravest and best of women, sweetest and dearest, a word from one who loves you to distraction, who dies for the lack of you, whose breath is not drawn because you are not near him, who cannot eat or drink without having the taste of his food and his wine filled by the thought of you, “My noble Beatrice, “Why am I not there in Perugia to share in your high joy? Why am I not there to grasp the hand of my father and my foster-father and to make us lifelong friends?
“Why am I not there to take you to the altar of our everlasting happiness?
“Alas, Beatrice, in the battle I saw a scoundrel! of a traitor who was mounted on a great gray stallion.
“I saw him, and my eyes would not believe, and I chased him, and he fled. “For two days he fled.
“But tomorrow I shall find him, without a doubt. I shall return riding the great horse perhaps long before this letter reaches you.
“And in the meantime, my heart yearns for you.
“I curse the villain who rode a horse so mighty that I could not help but pursue him.
“Farewell.
“I love you, my heart breaks for you, my blood runs cold in longing for you.
“Farewell again. Keep my memory near your heart. Remember me to the great hero, to my father, and to Luigi Falcone. And to Antonio Bardi.
“God, how much of my heart remains behind me in Perugia! But the gray horse I must have, and will have, and shall have.
“Farewell again,
“Tizzo.”
THE END
The Cat and the Perfume (1935)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.— “GALLOP! GALLOP!”
CHAPTER II. WHEN A BORGIA SMILES
CHAPTER III. MASKED
CHAPTER IV. SACRIFICE FOR ITALY
CHAPTER V. CALLED BACK FROM THE DEAD
CHAPTER VI. THE SNAKE HISSED
CHAPTER VII.— “I SMELL RATS!”
CHAPTER VIII. DEADLY PERFUME
CHAPTER IX. MELROSE AND BORGIA
CHAPTER X. THE TURN OF A BLADE
CHAPTER I.— “GALLOP! GALLOP!”
OUT OF THE Apennines the river plunged toward the flat strip of the Romagna, toward the gleam of the walls of distant Faenza that stands on the great Via Emilia; swiftly the river ran, and the road beside it, but swiftest of all was the gallop of Tizzo on a long-legged gelding that had made slow work through the climbing of the Apennines, but now on the downward slope stretched out in gigantic strides. And Tizzo let him run, only keeping a tight rein to balance the awkward beast on the corners. For a rain had ceased falling only a short time before and the river was frothed with new brown and bubbles and the big rocks beside the road flashed in the sun; the surface, being mere mud, was a treacherous footing, and the clumsy gelding needed a bit of steering. He was the fourth that Tizzo had ridden since he left Perugia. Even by the riverside the road sometimes went uphill. And now they came to a long rise up which the gelding started to gallop, fell to a trot, to a walk, and finally, in spite of spurring, stood still and let its head fall.
Tizzo, in a fury, tore the feathered cap from his head and dashed it on the ground; the steel lining of the headpiece clanged on a stone with a muffled note. Then, his passion leaving him as quickly as it had flared up, he slipped to the earth and glanced over the horse.
The eye of the gelding was dull, his muzzle twitched spasmodically, his sides heaved, and there was a tremor in his knees.
“Spent like a bad coin,” said Tizzo. “Done for and gone, and be damned to all long legs on men or beasts.”
He turned, his eyes straining toward the east, which was his goal, and through the strain of his baffled impatience he began to hear the musical conversation of the river, which talked to itself contentedly with many voices; he was aware of the blue of the sky, and the pines that climbed the mountains in thick, dark-green ranks. The river seemed to rush on with a redoubled speed and he was drifting back, back, losing fatal time in the race. A dim thunder began, behind him, and turned into a distinct rattling, and now a cart drawn by two mules appeared around the corner at the foot of the hill.
Tizzo at once stripped saddle and bridle from the dripping gelding. And from behind the saddle he took the leather-holstered ax which he hooked onto his belt so that the leather-covered head of it was behind his hip and the wooden handle sloped across his back toward his right shoulder. He wore, also, a short-bladed, light sword whose slender steel would be entirely useless to carve through the thick steel plate and the under-armoring of chain-mail of Milan such as men wore in Italy in the year 1500. The sword was balanced at the right hip by a slim-bodied little poniard, a very good instrument with which to look through the breathing holes of a visored helmet. These were his weapons. He picked up his feather hat and put it on his head. That was the only defensive armor he wore. He had not even a shirt of fine mail under his long-sleeved, short-skirted jacket because his best guard was speed of hand and foot.
Now he stood waiting eagerly for the carter, with the wind ruffling the curled fringes of his flame-colored hair and tossing the plume in his steel-lined hat. At his call, the carter drew rein; the mules stretched their hind legs to keep the cart from rolling backward.
“When you we
nt by me, back there,” said the peasant, “I saw the belly of your horse pumping and I guessed you’d come to a stand before long, highness.”
He added the last word out of respect to the plume and the edging of fur around the collar of the jacket. Tizzo flung bridle and saddle into the cart, laid his hand on the high edge of it, and vaulted lightly in.
“On toward Faenza, friend,” said Tizzo, “as fast as your mules can run; and if they gallop all the way, you get this!”
He held up a florin, beautifully new from the Florence mint. The peasant opened his eyes so wide that the pupils became pinpoints in the big white circles. “But the horse — to leave your horse—”
“My servants will pick up the beast when they come along behind me,” said Tizzo. “The whip! The whip! Gallop all the way, and you have the florin. Only half if the mules trot a step.”
THERE were no servants following him. No man could have followed the frantic course he had ridden since that night of tumult when he rode conquering into Perugia at the side of Giovanpaolo Baglioni and then saw, far before him, the man on the gray horse, such a horse as Tizzo never had seen before, a horse of silk, a horse that flowed over miles like the wind. He had intended to chase the rider no farther than the northern wall of Perugia; and then, a single mile beyond the town he was prepared to halt, but the imp of the perverse and the beauty of the gray, horse had led him on, and on. For four days he had been led, stopping for brief moment, hollow-eyed for the lack of sleep, hardly ever in sight of the fugitive but always guided by report, for when men saw the gray stallion, they did not forget it readily.