by Max Brand
The peasant, with one half-frightened glance over his shoulder, began to beat the mules with his long staff; by the time the cart reached the top of the hill, the gray mules were galloping with the short-striding, stiff-legged swing peculiar to the race.
“You hurry, my lord,” said the peasant.
“Did you see a man on a gray horse?” said Tizzo. “A gray horse with four black points on its legs and a black silk muzzle?”
“I saw it,” said the peasant. “A half hour before you went by me—”
“Gallop! Gallop!” said Tizzo. “If you bring me up with him, ten florins! Ten florins, d’you hear?”
“I hear!” said the peasant, and struck his mules in turn.
“Was the gray horse weakening?” asked Tizzo.
“It was only trotting when I saw it,” said the peasant, “but it trotted faster than most horses would gallop, on a long road.”
“Was it thin as if from a hard journey?” asked Tizzo, eagerly. “Was it gaunt beneath, and the back roached?”
“No, highness. It seemed in good condition.”
“What a horse!” said Tizzo. “A Pegasus! A winged throne for a man; a glory and a triumph to the eye... Tell me, what was the look of the man that rode it?”
“A good, strong-built man,” said the peasant, speaking loudly over the rattling of the cart, the groaning of the heavy axles. “A man that might make one and a half of you, highness!” He glanced almost with a smile over the lithe, slight body of Tizzo, and measured his inches. He was not, in fact, a hair’s breadth above a middle height.
“A good, strong-built man—” said Tizzo, thoughtfully.
“You want to overtake him, very much? He wears a helmet at his saddlebow, and there is good steel plate from his neck to his knees; he has a two-handed sword, also!”
“Has he?” said Tizzo. “And a big-built man, with all that weight of armor to carry as well — and I with four horses dead beat behind me — and he with only one? No, it is not a horse. It is an immortal!”
“Perhaps,” said the peasant, with a touch of malice, “when your highness comes up with this armored man, you will be sorry that you caught him.”
“Sorry?” said Tizzo. “Tut, tut! It is a cousin of my wife’s sister, and he left home without a purse of money that he may need along the way. No fighting, my friend. No fighting, at all. Just a matter of pure friendship!”
The peasant looked into the eyes of his passenger and saw them glimmer as bright as the blue of flame that underlies the yellow tip. After that, the man kept his eyes upon the road they were travelling. He was trying to think. It seemed to him that he had seen a man with eyes like that, once in his life before.
“What’s forward in Faenza?” asked Tizzo. “Is the Duke of Valentinois in the town still?”
“Aye,” said the peasant. “Cesare Borgia is there with his Frenchmen and his Swiss and with his good peasants of the Romagna, too.”
“Will he make soldiers of them, as men say?”
“He will, as no other man can.”
“And who has the Borgia poisoned lately?” asked Tizzo.
“Poisoned?” said the peasant. “He poisons no man. The good duke is stern with his soldiers, friendly to all others.”
“The good duke?” said Tizzo.
“Aye, the good duke,” said the peasant, looking at Tizzo with surprise.
“Well,” explained Tizzo, laughing, “they say things about him in Rome. They say that the Borgias kill their man in an hour or in two years at their will. The wine they give is neither salty nor bitter. It has just the right breath of sweetness; it is a little richer in the aftertaste. He grows warm. He sweats with pleasure. He feels the strong wine mounting to his brain. He laughs — and in the middle of his laughter he becomes silent. He is dead. Or on the other hand, he goes home happily. The Borgias attend him cheerfully to the door. They send their servants to light him on the way home. He sleeps well. It is a month later before his eyes at noonday are as dim as evening light; his memory fails like that of any old dotard; food disgusts his sight; his hair falls, his teeth loosen, he crawls like a frost-bitten insect into his room and dies in the corner. Have you never heard stories like this about Cesare Borgia?”
“In Rome,” said the peasant, “they will say anything. I have an uncle who once went there in the Holy Year. Well, they will say anything in Rome, but up here we know the great duke very well.”
“How well do you know him?” asked Tizzo.
“I, with these eyes, have seen him take a great sword and stand to the charge of a bull, and cut off the head of the bull with one stroke. My God, how I howled. My throat still aches when I remember how I shouted. We all shouted.”
“That proves he’s a good man?” asked Tizzo.
“It proves he’s a man,” said the peasant, “and as for his goodness, ask the people of the Romagna what happens when other armies come among us. We do not care who wins. The victors are as great a plague as the defeated. For working people like us, there is no right in war. There is only wrong. I beg the pardon of your highness.”
“I understand you perfectly,” said Tizzo. “And Cesare Borgia?”
“Well, you should see the difference! He will have no stealing, no taking of men’s wives and daughters, no plundering of wine-shops, no commandeering of food, no slaughtering of our cattle, our pigs, our chickens. No, no! The good duke stops all of that. He asks in the towns merely for bed, fire, and roof for his soldiers. He pays for everything else. And for the men who fail to obey his commands — well, God help them! I saw two fine fellows hanging by the heels from the windows of his own sleeping apartment in the palace only the day before yesterday. Great, big, wide-shouldered fighting men — hanging there like pigs at the autumn slaughtering time. And what had they done? Why, no great thing at all. They simply had taken a fancy to a girl, that Angela, the daughter of the old vintner; and when she ran they followed her into the house, and knocked her father over the head when he tried to stop them. Why, they didn’t kill the old man. Half of one of his ears is gone, but otherwise he’s as well as can be; but the good duke would not have it. And he hanged them out of his windows. No — there is a man to follow — there is a man to die for!”
“Perhaps,” said Tizzo — and then he broke out with a shout. “Do you see? Do you see?”
“The walls of Faenza? Yes,” said the driver.
“Damn the walls of Faenza along with the Romans that built them first; I see something better; I see my fellow of the gray horse turning in at that gate, yonder. Do I not? Are my eyes lying to me?”
“No, my lord. I see it, also. I see him turn to scan the road this way — and now he passes on into the tavern.”
“Tavern?” said Tizzo.
“The Giglio Rosso, highness. And there a man that can afford to buy them can find the good wines of Tuscany, so good that they are food and drink all in one moment.”
“Gallop!” said Tizzo. “Gallop, gallop!”
And off they rode.
CHAPTER II. WHEN A BORGIA SMILES
THE RIDER OF the gray horse knelt on the carpet beside the bed in the best room of the Giglio Rosso, with the arched windows giving on a pleasant garden; for the tavern had been a charming villa, in better days, and in the garden it offered on this hot day the delightful spectacle of half a dozen little fountains that raised trembling arms of silver into the sun. But the traveller had no eye for these things or for the luxurious appointments of the chamber, nor for the thin-faced, white-skinned man who stood in a corner. His whole regard was bent, with a modest discretion, on the man who lay lounging on the bed. He was half-dressed. One riding boot was on, smearing mud on the silken covering of the bed, the other boot lay on the floor. He had pulled off his jacket from one shoulder, but the other inert arm still remained in a sleeve. He lay, in fact, as though he had been struck down by a mortal wound and was now dying, or dead. No one could be sure of his expression, since he had a small mask across the upper part of his face. Under the edge of the
cloth, one could see a red, pimply eruption on account of which, perhaps, he used the mask. The lower part of his face was covered with a short, heavy beard and cropped mustaches. He was a big man, and even the mask could not entirely obscure his large, handsome features.
“I remember you, Dino Sanudo,” said a slow, weary voice. “Why do you come rushing here all the way from Perugia? What is wrong?”
“I have been chased, my lord,” said Sanudo. “The man is at my heels now.”
“Chased?” said the other. “And by one man — all the way from Perugia?”
“I have played the decoy, my lord of Valentinois. I have brought him here as a present to you. Giovanpaolo will pay a great deal of money for the life of this man who follows me.”
“Giovanpaolo is an exile from his city,” said Cesare Borgia.
“He has returned; he has taken the town,” said Sanudo.
The Borgia closed his eyes and sighed.
“The traitor?” he inquired. “The rich one?”
“Dead, my lord.”
“Delia Penna?”
“Dead, my lord.”
“Delia Penna, too? Who killed him?”
“Was he a friend of yours, my lord?”
“He was.”
“The man who follows me is the one who slew him.”
Cesare Borgia raised a finger.
“What is the name of this man?”
“Tizzo of Melrose.”
“Italian and English?”
“A mongrel half-breed with red hair; his father is that condottiere, that Baron Melrose.”
“Bonfadini, if this Tizzo, this redhead spark from the fire, enters the Giglio Rosso, have him secured for me.”
The white-faced fellow in the corner bowed and left the room instantly.
“Tell me of the retaking of Perugia,” said the Duke of Valentinois and the Romagna.
“It was a question of might,” said Sanudo. “And a sudden attack. There was the question of Giovanpaolo Baglioni fighting like an Achilles; and that heavy-handed Englishman, Melrose, striking in; and the surprise troubled some of the defenders; they would not stand when they saw the iron chains across the street cloven in two.”
“Ha?” said the Borgia, suddenly lifting himself on one elbow. “Cloven in two? By whom?”
“By this same Tizzo.”
“A giant, is he?”
“No, but he carries an ax that has enchantment in the head of it.”
The Borgia relaxed on the bed again.
“And then?” he said.
“A rout — murder — wild flight in all directions — and the shouting of ‘Baglioni! Baglioni!’ till my ears rang. I took my way out of the northern gate; this Tizzo followed me.”
“Is he an old enemy?”
“No, my lord. It was very strange. Something drew him after me.”
“And then you remembered me — and led him to me all the way from Perugia?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Very good,” said the Borgia.
“This Tizzo,” said Sanudo, “is betrothed to Beatrice, the sister of Giovanpaolo; and because of that and a thousand services that the half-breed Englishman has done to Giovanpaolo, he is willing to spend a great fortune to buy Tizzo into safety again.”
“Be still, Sanudo. I wish to think.”
THE chamber grew silent. Sanudo, moving slowly as though he feared to attract attention, rose to his feet. He saw that the eyes of the other were closed. The moments passed. In the distance, there came a sudden outbreaking of shouts and crashing noises. Sanudo, his head jerked back, listened with shining eyes and parted lips. A door closed with a shock that ran all through the building. After that followed not silence, but a confusion of rapid murmuring. And still Cesare Borgia did not move on the bed, did not open his eyes. By the regularity of the rise and fall of the breast, on which appeared the golden rose of the Gonfaloniere of the Church, Sanudo made sure that the duke was sleeping. But he dared not move. The catlike humors of this man he had heard too much about.
The door opened. It was white-faced Alessandro Bonfadini again.
“The man is taken,” he said.
“How?” asked the Borgia.
“By numbers — fighting,” said Bonfadini.
“Dead or alive?”
“Unharmed, my lord. But Pietro is cut in the leg; Roberto is speared through both cheeks; Giovanni—”
“Ah, Giovanni?” said the Borgia.
“He is hurt in the body. He may not live. They came at Tizzo at last in a wave. He no longer had room to dance between the swords. They fell on him with weight of numbers. Now he is in chains.”
“Sanudo, leave the room,” said the Borgia.
Dino Sanudo bowed very low, made three steps backward, turned, and carried his big shoulders through the doorway. He closed the door after him with softness.
“Give me wine,” said the Borgia.
Alessandro Bonfadini went to the table and took from it a silver pitcher with a gleaming dance of nymphs carved around the swelling sides of it and incidents of boar-hunt worked about the top. He poured clear red wine into a golden cup with a wide, shallow bowl. The pedestal of it was a bowed Atlas whose pillow that cushioned his shoulders against the crushing weight of the sky was a single huge sapphire. This cup Bonfadini filled, carried to his master, and sank on one knee. With his left hand, gently, he raised the inert head of his master. With the other he offered the cup, tilting it delicately as the Borgia drank. At exactly the correct moment, he drew the cup away and cautiously lowered the head of Cesare Borgia into the pillow again.
“Talk,” said the Borgia.
Bonfadini did not have to ask what the subject should be.
“He is a young man,” he said, “with flame-red hair and eyes the color of blue — let me see — the color of the blue part of a flame when he is excited. All his life he will be excited until he dies. He will die young. He is of middle height, slenderly made, but with strength; there are long fingerings of muscle over his shoulders and arms. When the men arrested him, he was away from them with a whirl and a leap. He drew from his pack what seemed a short truncheon, a short staff, but it turned out to have the head of an ax of fine blue steel, Damascus steel, I would say. However, he had not time to swing this. Too many blades were at his throat. He had to drop the ax as he jumped for his life, and he drew out a light sword with a narrow blade. After that he began his dance. He danced, as I said, between the swords. Every moment I saw a heavy blade cleaving him through the brain, but it was only his shadow, his ghost, that the blows fell on. He laughed as he danced.”
“Ah?” said the Borgia.
“He danced both in and out, he bent and twisted and leaped among the swords like a fish on a hook. And his own sword kept darting. Mostly for the head. Some of the men were in half armor; some only had breast-plates. Giovanni was wounded through the side as he turned in making a heavy stroke.”
“What armor was he wearing when he did all this dancing?”
“No armor except a steel lining in his hat.”
“No armor?” cried the Borgia, in a rich, ringing voice.
“None whatever, my lord. Not even a shirt of mail.”
“I have a wish,” said the Borgia.
“Yes, my lord.”
“This Dino Sanudo is a proved soldier. I have seen him fight. Yet he saw this Tizzo do such things that, rather than face him, he ran all the way from Perugia to this place like a whipped dog. Now, however, he shall face Tizzo. Give him advantages. Give him complete armor from head to foot, the heaviest and best plate that you can find. Place him in a place where I can see the thing and then send in this Tizzo to confront him. Send Tizzo without armor.”
“My lord — against a man armed cap-a-pie?”
“If the fool fought once without armor for his own pleasure, he can fight again for mine. Give him his sword — and that ax which he had no chance to use. Tell Sanudo that the death of Tizzo is the price of my favor. Then bring them together.�
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“It shall be done. In what place?”
“Where I can look on without being seen. In the chapel, perhaps.”
Alessandro Bonfadini drew up his shoulders till they were half their normal width.
“In the chapel, my lord?”
The deep voice of Borgia answered, wearily: “Yes, fool. In the chapel. Then I can look down through the window above and see everything through the grating. To see and be unseen, that is to be like God. And Godlike things are what should be found happening in sanctified chapels.”
Bonfadini raised his eyes to the ceiling, shivered a little, and went from the room with his quick, noiseless step. The Borgia closed his eyes again. He began to smile.
CHAPTER III. MASKED
THEY UNLOCKED THE irons that held Tizzo, hand and foot, and thrust him with many hands, suddenly, into a small chapel, slamming and locking the door behind him.
He looked about him, bewildered. It was a modest little chapel with a high ceiling supported on rounded pilasters. And the walls were buff, the ceiling sky-blue, the altar a shimmering intricacy of marble lacework.
Tizzo, when he saw the cross, knelt to it. He was not a very religious soul, but now he uttered a characteristic prayer.
“O Lord, you see where I am; let me have a sign that I am not forgotten!”
As he rose, the door was unlocked behind him again, and at his feet reaching hands flung his own scabbarded sword, together with his ax. And across the threshold advanced toward him a big-shouldered man armed from head to foot in massive steel plate, perfectly plain but jointed with all the exquisite skill that the Milan armorers knew how to use. And, in his hand, he carried a long sword with a knob at the end of the hilt to counterbalance the weight of the steel. The door slammed and was again locked behind this formidable metal monster, who came straight at Tizzo, without uttering a word and only with the clanking echoes of his sollerets filling the room. So, with a sudden side-stroke, he cut at the head of Tizzo.
The blade whistled, such was the force of the blow; and the keen edge caught like many little claws at the red curls of Tizzo’s hair as he ducked. The back-stroke which followed he was prepared for and sprang away so that the point swept harmlessly past him.