Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  He had come in on the rear of the Sforza men on the run. A long lunge drove the point of his sword through the gorget rivets at the back of the neck of one man-at-arms. That fellow was down, never to rise again. And now with a huge stroke the baron dropped a second man-at-arms.

  That second of interval had put Tizzo back on his feet again. He swerved from the lunging sword of Giovanni degli Azurri and struck with his ax at the junction between the helmet and the gorget. The steel split; the ax sank in; and Giovanni degli Azurri, dropping his sword, clasped his throat with both hands and fell sprawling to his knees.

  His fall was the end. The other defenders threw up their mailed hands and shouted for quarter. Only the virago, Caterina Sforza, scorning surrender, lifted her sword over her head and rushed in for a final attack. A side-stroke of Tizzo’s ax knocked the sword out of her grip and sent it clanging against the wall. He caught her by the hands and held her fast. She groaned with rage like a man and suddenly stopped struggling.

  A strange voice called to them from the floor. It was Giovanni degli Azurri, his visor raised so that he could gasp in more air, and the blood-bubbles breaking on his lips. He had risen to his knees, but now he began to sink down again.

  “I confess — my God forgive me! — it was your maid who stole the jewels; and I forged a letter in the hand of Lady Beatrice to draw him out of the Rocca; I posted the three men to murder him at the rendezvous beyond the town. And now — now—”

  He slipped to his side. Caterina Sforza dropped on her knees and screeched out: “Giovanni, what do you mean? What do you say?”

  “Aye — for love of you,” muttered Giovanni.

  She struck him with her mailed hand across his bleeding face. But he was already past feeling. He fell on his back and died with one groan and one quick updrawing of the knees.

  The Countess Riario looked up from his dead face at Tizzo and Beatrice in one another’s arms. The girl was wiping the sweat and the blood from the face of her lover with the puffed velvet sleeve of her dress.

  They were laughing together; and the baron stood by them leaning on his sword, smiling faintly as he watched their joy.

  Except for Tizzo, the Borgians had rushed on to find less fighting and more loot, herding their new prisoners before them.

  And now from the wounded and the dead the blood spread across the floor in widening pools that interlinked and made little flowing streams.

  The countess walked straight up to Melrose.

  “My lord,” she said, “I have given you the treatment of a common criminal. Will you reward me for it by giving me good advice?”

  “Madame,” said the Englishman, “a knight is sworn to serve all ladies.”

  “Tell me what to do, then. Surrender to Cesare Borgia or throw myself from the casement, there?”

  “If you were my daughter,” said the baron, “I’d hope to see you leap from the wall and die; but since you are the noble Countess Riario, I expect you to take my arm and let me lead you to the Duke of Romagna.”

  She hesitated, glaring savagely at him. Then, with a shrug of the shoulders and a laugh, she accepted his arm.

  All day the riot rang and roared through the streets of Forli and through the courts and rooms of the Rocca; but when night came, joy had exhausted itself. A few drunken voices sang in the town and Niccolo Machiavelli listened to them with a pleased smile as he sat by the side of the duke at the casement. Cesare Borgia rather lay than sat in a great chair, his head flung back.

  “A successful day,” said Machiavelli. “You have Forli, town and citadel. It has cost you only a few men, and the work has been done by one who has rewarded himself.”

  “Tizzo?” murmured the duke.

  “I see him standing on the rampart with the girl in his arms. They are like one bit of black paper, curiously carved and held up against the moon between thumb and forefinger.”

  “Fools always find happiness in foolish ways,” said the Borgia. “But you see that I know how to use edged tools?”

  “This time — yes. But the next time you may cut your hand to the bone.”

  THE END

  The Bait and the Trap (1935)

  CONTENTS

  RE-ENTER THE FIREBRAND IN A NOVEL OF HIGH ADVENTURE

  I. JOUSTING MATCH

  II. A DANGEROUS WOMAN

  III. BEATRICE CALLS

  IV. THE MESSENGER

  V. TIZZO’S OFFER

  VI. A BARGAIN IS STRUCK

  VII. TORTURE

  VIII. A SPARTAN MOTHER

  IX. THE ASSAULT

  X. THE EDGED TOOL

  XI. MISSION OF DANGER

  XII. AN UNDERSTANDING

  XIII. POISON

  XIV. TRAPPED

  XV. AGNES-ONCE EVE

  XVI. TIZZO’S RASHNESS

  XVII. THE TEST

  XVIII. “ANOTHER MAN’S POISON”

  XIX. THE EYES OF AGNES

  XX. THE ATTACK

  XXI. THE SINGED FISH

  XXII. A STRANGE POISON

  XXIII. STATECRAFT EXTRAORDINARY

  XXIV. ARRIVAL OF TIZZO

  XXV. THE SHREWD MACHIAVELLI

  XXVI. A MAD DOG

  XXVII. BONFADINI’S PLEASURE

  XXVIII. A CAT IN A TREE

  XXIX. THE BURNING OF A CANDLE

  XXX. THE PEARLS

  XXXI. BONFADINI AGAIN

  XXXII. ONE MAN’S POLICY

  The magazine in which this novel first appeared: Argosy, August 3, 1935

  RE-ENTER THE FIREBRAND IN A NOVEL OF HIGH ADVENTURE

  “OUT OF ALL this,” said the Borgia, “I shall make a net...”

  “In what manner?” asked Machiavelli.

  “Who is the most honest man about me — barring my faithful Bonfadini?” asked the duke.

  “Why, redheaded, fire-eating Tizzo, I suppose,” said the Florentine.

  “He is the net I will use to catch the traitors, one and all!”

  Thus Tizzo, the Firebrand, is to become a pawn in the hands of the most powerful and unscrupulous prince in Italy, Cesare Borgia. The stakes are high: for the Borgia, control of all Italy; and for Tizzo the safe return of his betrothed, Lady Beatrice... or perhaps a reward more illusive, a touch of the famous Borgia poison.

  GEORGE CHALLIS is one of the better-known pen-names of Frederick Faust, whose best-known pseudonym is “Max Brand.” Born in Seattle in 1892, he rose quickly through the ranks as a very prolific and industrious author. He created the popular character of Dr. Kildare for the motion pictures and wrote so many magazine novels and short stories that he was justly called “King of the pulp writers.”

  More than ninety books have appeared under the name of Max Brand alone, including the well-known Destry Rides Again. Not confined to any one genre, he became equally famous for his novels of adventure and derring-do under the by-line of George Challis.

  Shortly before he was killed in the Second World War, it was estimated that he had published some twenty-five million words. This unbelievable wordage approximates a full-length book every three weeks I Readers will find that George Challis is nonetheless an author of skill, authenticity and magnetic readability.

  I. JOUSTING MATCH

  CATERINA, COUNTESS SFOBZA-RIABIO, high lady and mistress of the rich, strong town of Forli, was tall, well made, slenderly strong, and as beautiful as she was wise. She used to say that there was only one gift that God had specially denied her, and that was a pair of hands that had the strength of a man in them. But if she had not a man’s strength, she had a man’s will to power, and more than a man’s headlong courage.

  She was not quite as cruel as Cesare Borgia, her neighbor to the north who now was overrunning the Romagna with his troops of Swiss and French and trained peasants, but she was cruel enough to be famous for her outbursts of rage and vengeance. That sternness showed in the strength of her jaw and in the imperial arch of her nose, but usually she covered the iron in her nature with a smiling pleasantry.

  Three husbands had not be
en able to age her; she looked ten years younger than the truth. And this morning she looked younger than ever because her peregrine falcon had three times outfooted the birds of the rest of the hawking party and swooped to victory from the dizzy height of the blue sky. The entire troop had been galloping hard over hill and dale, sweeping through the soft soil of vineyards and orchards; crashing over the golden stand of ripe wheat; soaring again over the rolling pasture lands until the horses were half exhausted and the riders nearly spent. Even the troop of two score men-at-arms who followed the hunt, always pursuing short cuts, taking straight lines to save distance, were fairly well tired, though their life was in the saddle.

  They kept now at a little distance — picked men, every one, all covered with the finest steel plate armor that could be manufactured in Milan. Most of them were aimed with sword and spear, but there were a few who carried the heavy arquebuses which were becoming more fashionable in war since the matchlock was invented, with the little swiveled arm which turned the flame over the touchhole of the gun, with its priming.

  Forty strong men-at-arms — to guard a hawking party! But at any moment danger might pour out at them through a gap in the hills. Danger might thrust down at them from the ravaging bands of the Borgia’s conquering troops; or might lift at them from Imola; or might come across the mountains from the treacherous Florentines, insatiable of business and territory. Therefore even a hawking party must be guarded, for the countess would prove a rich prize.

  The danger was real, and that was why she enjoyed her outing with such a vital pleasure. And now, as she sat on her horse and stroked the hooded peregrine that was perched on her wrist, she looked down the steep pitch of the cliff at whose edge she was halting and surveyed the long, rich sweep of territory which was hers, and still hers until the brown mountains of the Apennines began, and rolled back into blueness and distance.

  Her glance lowered. Two men and a woman were riding along the road which climbed and sank, and curved, and rose again through the broken country at the base of the cliff. They were so far away that she could take all three into the palm of her hand. Yet her eyes were good enough to see the wind snatch the hat from the lady’s head and float it away across a hedge.

  Before that cap had ever landed, the rider of the white horse flashed with his mount over the hedge, caught the hat out of the air, and returned it to the lady.

  The countess laughed with high pleasure.

  “A gentleman and a gentle man,” she said. “Here, Gregorio! Do you see those three riding down there? Bring them up to me. Send two of the men-at-arms to invite them, and if they won’t come, bring them by force. I want to see that white horse; I want to see the man who rides it.”

  Gregorio bowed to cover his smile. He admired his lady only less than he feared her. And it was a month or two since any man had caught her eye. He picked out two of the best men-at-arms — Emilio, a sergeant in the troop, and Elia, an old and tried veteran of the wars which never ended in Italy as the sixteenth century commenced. This pair, dispatched down a short cut, were quickly in the road ahead of the three travelers, who had stopped to admire a view across the valley.

  The lady countess and her companions, gathered along the edge of the cliff, could see everything and yet remain screened from view by the heavy fringe of shrubbery that grew about them.

  What they saw was a pretty little picture in action. The two men-at-arms, their lances raised, the bright pennons fluttering near the needle-gleam of the spearheads, accosted the three, talked briefly, turned their horses, took a little distance, and suddenly crouched their spears in the rests, leaned far forward, and rushed straight down the road at the strangers.

  “Rough — a little rough,” said the Countess Sforza-Riario. “Those two fellows are unarmed, it seemed to me. That Emilio must be told that there is something more courteous in the use of strangers than a leveled lance.”

  But here something extremely odd happened, almost in the midst of the calm remark of the lady. For the two men who were assaulted, unarmored as they were, instead of fleeing for their lives or attempting to flee, rode right in at the spearmen!

  One drew a long sword, the other a mere glitter of a blade. Each parried or swerved from the lance thrust. He of the long sword banged his weapon down so hard on the helmet of Emilio that the man-at-arms toppled from the saddle, rolled headlong on the ground, and reached to the feet of the horse of the lady.

  She was on the ground instantly, with a little flash of a knife held at the visor of the fallen soldier.

  “Good!” said the countess. “Oh, excellently good!”

  She began to clap her hands softly.

  The second rider — he on the white horse — had grappled with the hardy Elia. Both of them were whirled from the saddle, but the man-at-arms fell prone, helpless with the weight of his plates of steel, and the other perched like a cat on top of him. His hat had fallen. The gleam of his hair in the bright sunlight was flame-red.

  “And all in a moment!” said the countess, laughing. “Two good lances gone in a trice. Roderigo, you should have better men than that in your command.”

  The captain, scowling, and biting an end of his short mustache, swore that there had been witchcraft in it.

  “Aye,” said the countess. “The witchcraft of sure eyes and quick, strong hands. Did you see the lady leap from her horse like a tigress and hold her poniard above the helmet of your friend? Look, now! They are stripping the two of their armor. The big fellow is putting on that of Emilio; the redhead takes that of Elia. Roderigo, take three of your best lances. Down to them again, and let me see them fight against odds, now that they are armed like knights.... Ah, what a glorious day — to go hawking for birds and end by swooping out of the sky at men!”

  The four men-at-arms were quickly in the saddle and sweeping down the short, steep road; but here the countess found herself too far from the crash and dust of the battle. To gain a nearer view, she galloped after the four leaders, and the armed men, the courtiers, followed in a stream.

  Those loud tramplings hardly could fail to be heard by the men in the roadway beneath; in fact, when her ladyship turned the shoulder of the cliff and could look at the scene, she found her four warriors already charging, heads down, lances well in rest, straight in on the pair. And these, in their borrowed armor, with their borrowed lances, galloped to meet the fresh shock.

  Six metal monsters, flaming in the sun, they crashed together. The big fellow had lifted one of the men-at-arms right out of the saddle, but the countershock knocked his own horse to its knees; and at that instant the rearmost of the four men-at-arms caught the stranger with a well centered spear that bowled him in his turn out of the saddle and into the dust.

  He whose red head was now covered by steel had a different fortune. Riding straight, confident, at the last instant he dropped suddenly to the side, which caused one spear to miss him utterly, while the second glanced off his shoulder. But his own spear caught fairly on a man-at-arms, knocking him over like a ninepin.

  “This is jousting!” cried the countess. “Glorious God, these are men!”

  He of the white horse, his spear shattered to the butt by the shock of the encounter, whirled his white horse about and went hurling against the only one of the men-at-arms who remained mounted. In his hand he swung not a sword but the old battle-ax which the veteran Elia had kept at the bow of his saddle.

  In the hand of the rider of the white horse it became both a sword to parry with and a club to strike; a side sweep turned the driving spear of the soldier away, and a shortened hammer-blow delivered with the back of the ax rolled the other fellow on the road. All was a flying mist of dust, through which the countess heard the voice of a girl crying, “Well done, Tizzo! Oh, bravely done!”

  She had ridden to the spot where the larger of the two strangers had fallen, and leaning far down, she helped him, stunned as he was, to his feet. And now, springing instantly into an empty saddle, he unsheathed his sword and prepared for
whatever might be before them.

  There was plenty of work ahead.

  The men-at-arms of the countess, swiftly surrounding the cyclone of dust, were now ranged on every side in a dense semicircle which could not be broken through. And as Tizzo saw this, he began to rein his white horse back and forth, whirling the ax in a dexterous hand as he shouted in a passion of enthusiasm, “Ah, gentlemen! We only begin the dance. Before the blood gets cold, take my hand again. Step forward. Join me, gallants!”

  One of the men-at-arms, infuriated by these taunts, rushed horse and spear suddenly in on Tizzo; but a side twist of the ax turned the thrust of the spear aside, and a terrible down-stroke shore straight through the conical crest of the helmet, through the coil of strong mail beneath, and stopped just short of the skull. The stricken fighter toppled from the saddle and seemed to break his neck in his fall.

  Tizzo, still reining his horse back and forth, continued to shout his invitation, but a calm voice said, “Bring up an arquebus and knock this bird out of the air.”

  Not until this point did the lady call out, “Stay from him. My friend, you have fought very well.... Pick up the fallen, lads.... Will you let me see your face?”

  Tizzo instantly raised his visor.

  “Madame,” he said, “I should have saluted you before, but the thick weather prevented me.”

  The countess looked at his red hair and the flame-blue of his eyes.

  “What are you?” she asked.

  Some of her men-at-arms were lifting the fallen to their feet and opening their helmets to give them air; by good fortune, not a one of them was very seriously hurt. The huge, heavy rounds of the plate armor had secured them from hurt as, oftentimes, it would do during the course of an entire day’s fighting.