by Max Brand
Defensive armor had outdistanced aggressive weapons. Gun-powder was still in its infancy. The greatest danger that a knight ordinarily endured was from the weight of his armor, which might stifle him when he was thrown from his horse in the midst of a hot battle.
And Tizzo was answering the countess, with the utmost courtesy, “I am under the command of an older and more important man, my lady.”
He turned to his companion, who pushed up his visor and showed a battered, grizzled face in which the strength of youth was a little softened into folds, but with greater knowledge in his brow to make him more dangerous.
“I am going to take the short cut, Tizzo,” said the other. “The trust is a two-edged knife that hurts the fellow who uses it very often, I know, but here’s for it. Madame, I am the Baron Henry of Melrose; this is the noble Lady Beatrice Baglione, sister of Giovan Paolo Baglione; this is my son Tizzo. We are on the road from near Faenza, where we’ve just escaped from hands of Cesare Borgia, after a breath of poisoned air almost killed me. We are bound back toward Perugia. There is our story.”
The countess rode straight to Beatrice and took her by the hands. “My dear,” she said, “I’m happy that you escaped from that gross beast of a Borgia. How could I guess that such distinguished strangers were passing through my territory? Come with me into Forli. You shall rest there, and then go forward under a safe-conduct. My Lord of Melrose those were tremendous blows you gave with that sword; Sir Tizzo, you made the ax gleam in your hand like your name. I thought it was a firebrand flashing! Will you come on with me? Some of the rest of you ride forward to the castle. Have them prepare a welcome.... Ah, that Borgia! The black dog has put his teeth in the heart of the Romagna, but he’ll fight for my blood before he has it!”
The countess, talking cheerfully in this manner, put the little procession under way again, and they streamed up the winding road toward the top of the cliff. But all her courtesy was not enough to cover the eyes of Beatrice.
Caterina of Sforza-Riario headed the riders, naturally, and Tizzo was at her right hand, more or less by seeming accident. A little back of the two came Beatrice at the side of Henry of Melrose. And the girl was saying: “Do you see how she eyes Tizzo? She is making herself sweet as honey, but I know her.
She’s a famous virago. How can Tizzo be such a fool as to be taken in by her? I don’t think she’s so very handsome, do you?”
The baron looked at her with a rather grim smile for her jealousy. “She is not worth one glance of your eyes, Beatrice,” he declared. “But Tizzo would be a greater fool still if he failed to give her smile for smile. She has three birds in her claws, and if she’s angered she’s likely to swallow all of us. She never was so deeply in love that she could not wash her hands and her memory of the lover clean in blood. Be cheerful, Beatrice, or you may spoil everything. Smile and seem to enjoy the good weather. Because I have an idea that after the gates of Forli Castle close behind us it will be a long day before we come out again.”
They passed over the green uplands, and sank down into the road toward the walled town of Forli. The city itself was a place of considerable strength, but within it uprose the “Rocca” — or castle on the rock — which was the citadel and the stronghold of the town. No one could be real master of Forli until he had mastered the castle on the rock as well. And young Tizzo, riding beside the countess, making his compliments, smiling on the world, took quiet note of the mouths of the cannons in the embrasures of the walls.
The drawbridge had already been lowered. They crossed it, with the hollow echoes booming beneath them along the moat. They passed under the leaning forehead of the towers of the defense; they climbed up into the enclosed court of the powerful fortress.
Tizzo was the first on the ground to offer his hand to hold the stirrup of the countess. But she, laughing, avoided him, and sprang like a man to the ground. Like a man she was tall — almost the very inches of Tizzo; like a man her eye was bold and clear; and like a man she had power in her hand and speed in her foot. She looked to Tizzo like an Amazon; he could not help glancing past her to the more slender beauty of Beatrice and wondering what the outcome of this strange adventure would be.
II. A DANGEROUS WOMAN
THE COURTESY OF the countess might be perfect, but it was noticeable that she assigned to the three strangers three rooms in quite different parts of the castle.
The Countess Riario, stepping up and down in her room, said to her maid: “You, Alicia — you have seen him — what do you think?”
“Of whom, madame?” asked the maid.
“Of the man, you fool,” said the countess.
“Of which man, madame?” asked the maid.
“Blockhead, there was only one!”
There was a beautiful Venetian stand near by, of jet inlaid with ivory; and the capable hand of the countess gripped the stand now. The maid had saved herself from a fractured skull more than once before this by the speed of her foot in dodging. But she knew a danger when she saw it, and her brain was stimulated.
“There was the noble young gentleman who rode with you into the court, madame. There was he, of course. And when he took off his helmet and I saw the gold of his hair—”
“Red — silly chattering idiot — red hair. Would I waste my time looking at golden hair? Insipid nonsense — gold — in the purse, and flame in the head — that’s what I prefer!”
“When I saw the flame of his hair, madame, and the blue of his eyes, I understood that he was a very proper man, though not exactly a giant—”
“Judge a dog by the depth of his bite, not by the length of his muzzle,” said the countess. “I saw that slenderly made fellow carve the helmet of that Giulio almost down to the skull — the helmet and the coif of mail beneath it!”
“Jesu!” cried the maid.
“And with a stroke as light and easy as the flick of a hand, the white hand of an empty girl. He is a man, Alicia. I want to sent him a gift of some sort. What shall it be?... Wait — there is a belt of gold with amethyst studs — have that carried to him at once, and give him my wish that he may rest comfortably after his hard journey and the work of the fighting — ah ha — if you had seen him battling, Alicia! If you had seen him rushing among my men, and tumbling them over as though they were so many dummies that had not been tied in place. The ring of the ax strokes is still in my ears. He tossed the spears aside as though they had been headless straws. It was a picture to fill the heart, Alicia... Why are you standing there like a lackbrain? Why don’t you take the belt to him instantly?”
“I beg the pardon of madame.... You forget that you already have given it to Giovanni degli Azurri.”
“Ah — ah — that Giovanni?... Is he still in the castle? Is he still in the Rocca?”
“Madame, you had supper with him last night; and dinner before it; and breakfast in the morning—”
“Did I? That was yesterday. He has a dark skin. I hate a man with a greasy skin. Besides, he talks too much! Here! Take this lute to the noble Tizzo. Tell him it is from my hand, and then we’ll see if he has wit enough to sing a song with it; and through the singing, he may be able to discover that his room is not very far from mine — not very far — hurry, Alicia! Wait — give something to the others. To the baron-let me see — there was a man, Alicia. Ten years younger, and I would not have changed a dozen Tizzos for one such bigshouldered fighter. He jousts like a champion and handles a sword like a Frenchman. Have a good warm cloak of English wool carried to him. And then the girl — I hate silly faces, Alicia. I hate silly, young, witless, thoughtless faces.... Do you think that young Tizzo has an eye for her?”
“One would call her pretty enough to take a young man’s eyes,” said the girl.
“Pretty enough? Silly enough, you mean to say. Take her a dish of sweetmeats with my compliments. Pretty enough? Look at me, Alicia. Tell my how I appear, now that I’m no longer a girl, in the eyes of a man.”
Alicia, directly challenged in this manner, fell into a
trembling so that her knees hardly would bear her up. Her glance wandered wildly out the window toward the brown and blue Apennines. If she did not tell the truth, she would be beaten; if she did not convey some sort of a compliment, she would be cast out of her sinecure which brought her a better income than any two knights in Forli possessed. The Apennines brought no suggestions into the mind of Alicia. She looked out the opposite window over the plains as far as the distant blue stream of the Adriatic.
“Madame,” she said, “the truth is a thing that ought to be told.”
The Countess, at her mirror, viewed herself from a different angle.
“Go on, Alicia, tell me the truth,” she commanded.
“The fact is, madame, that when men see you in the morning they are filled with delight; in the full light of the noonday — a time for which madame the countess doesn’t care a whit anyway — a man would think you a very handsome good friend; and in the evening light, madame is always adored.”
“At noon the wrinkes show, eh?” asked the countess.
“No, madame, but—”
The countess turned her head slowly, like a lionness, so that the strength of her chin and th powerful arch of her nose stood in relief against those same blue Apennines beyond the window.
“Well—” she said. “Well, run about your business. And don’t forget to take the lute.”
It was ten minutes later when Alicia, out of breath, tapped at a door in a certain way; and it was opened almost at once by a tall, powerfully built man in early middle age, his beard and mustaches close-cropped to permit the wearing of a helmet, his complexion swarthy, his eyes easily lighted, like a coal of fire when a draught of air blows upon it.
He glanced down the hall above the head of the girl to make sure that she was alone, took her by the elbows, kissed her, and drew her into the room.
“Now, Alicia, what’s the news?” he asked.
She paused for a moment to recover her breath and begin her smiling. She was a pretty girl, with pale tawny hair and only a touch of shrewish sharpness about the tip of the nose and the forward thrust of the chin. By twenty-five or so she already would begin to look like a hag.
“Trouble for you, Giovanni,” she said. “In that lot of people whom the countess picked up while she was hawking, there was a redheaded and blue-eyed young fellow who has caught her eye. She sent me to him with that enameled lute as a present.”
“The one which I gave to her?” exclaimed Giovanni.
“The very same one. She never can remember who has given her things,” the girl said.
“I had better find a way to call the man into a quarrel,” said Giovanni. “The countess will always forgive what a swordstroke accomplishes honestly.”
“Yes, of course,” said Alicia. “And if the stranger should happen to cut your throat, she would bury you today and forget you tomorrow. This Tizzo of Melrose — have you heard about him?”
“No,” said Giovanni.
“Well, there is a rumor running about the castle now. One of the men-at-arms was at the taking of Perugia, when Giovan Paolo Baglione returned to the town, and this is the Tizzo who rode beside him. He does strange things with an ax. There is a story that he shore through the chains that blocked the streets of Perugia against the horsemen of the Baglioni.”
“Cut through the street-chains? With an ax? Impossible!” said Giovanni.
“Just now, when the fighting men of the countess attacked him he knocked them about, and whacked them off their horses. He is not big, but he strikes terribly close to the life every time he swings his ax; and a sword is like a magic flame in his hands. It burns through armor like a sting of a wasp through the skin of the hand.”
“Ah?” said Giovanni. “That sounds like enchantment.
“It does. And the countess saw the fighting and is enchanted. Giovanni, have a good care—”
“Hush!” said he. “Listen!”
He held up his hand and began to make soft steps toward the single casement that opened out of his room upon one of the castle courts. Alicia followed him, nodding, for the trembling music of a lute had commenced, and then a man’s voice began to sing, not overloudly, one of those old Italian songs which have originated no one knows when or where. Roughly translated, it runs something like this:
What shall I do with this weariness of light?
The day is like the eye of a prying fool
And the thought of a lover is burdened by it.
Only the stars and the moon have wisdom.
Of all the birds there is only a single one,
Of all the birds one who knows that night is the time for song.
And I of all men understand how to wait for darkness.
Oh, my beloved, are you, also, patient?
From the casement, leaning into the deep of it, Giovanni saw a crimson scarf of silk, with a knot tied into the center of it, drop from a window, and as it passed a casement immediately below, a swift hand darted out and caught it. There was only a glimpse of a young fellow with flame-red hair, and gleaming eyes, and laughter. Then he and the scarf he had caught disappeared.
“Did you see?” said Giovanni, drawing back darkly.
“I saw. And I had warned you, Giovanni. Something ought to be done.”
“Yes, and before night,” said he. “But if the devil is so apt with weapons — well, there is wine and poison for it, Alicia.”
“There is,” agreed the girl, simply. But still she was held in thought.
“What was in that scarf?” muttered Giovanni.
“A ring — or an unset jewel, with the fragrance of her favorite perfume drenching it. Giovanni, you must send him away.”
“Aye, but how?”
“Well, you have a brain and I have a brain. Between the two of us we must devise something. Sit there — sit there still as a stone, and I’ll sit here without moving until we’ve devised something. The air of Italy cannot be breathed without bringing thoughts.”
III. BEATRICE CALLS
TIZZO OF MELROSE, as the day turned into night, whistled through his teeth and did a dance along a crack in the timber floor of his room. His feet fell with no noise, and always, as he bounded forward and backward, they alighted exactly on the line. It was a mere jongleur’s trick, but Tizzo, when the humor seized upon him, was merely a jongleur. And one day he wanted to do that same dance high in the air on a tightly stretched rope.
A soft tap at the door stopped the dance. He stood with his balancing arms outstretched for a moment, listening, and heard a soft rustle go whispering down the outer hall and vanish from hearing. After that he opened the door and found on the threshold a little folded missive.
He opened it, and inside found the writing which most quickly made his heart leap. It was the hand of Beatrice — a little more roughly and largely flowing than the writing of that high lady, perhaps, but still so exactly like it that Tizzo did not pause to consider the differences. He kissed the letter twice before he closed the door and then read it. It said:
Tizzo:
There is frightful danger for all of us in the Rocca. But we have found an unexpected friend. Your father and I already have been smuggled out of the castle. We are waiting for you outside the town.
When you receive this letter, go straight down to the eastern court. There you will see a horse covered by a large blanket. It will be your own Falcone. The man leading it will unlock the postern for you. Go quietly through the town, keeping your face covered with your mantle and the blanket on the horse so that you will not be known. On the main road to Imola, beyond Forli, you will reach a farmhouse with a ruined stable beside it. The house will seem to be unoccupied, but go straight in through the front door and call. Your father and I are waiting.
God bless you and keep you. The countess is a devil incarnate. Come quickly.
BEATRICE
Tizzo went quickly.
He clapped on his head his hat with the strong steel lining, belted his sword about him, and was instantly in th
e corridor. He walked with a free and careless swing. There was nothing about him to indicate that he moved with fear of danger in his mind except the silence of his step, graceful, and padding like the footfall of a cat.
He passed through a great lower hall with the hood of his cloak pulled forward so that his face was shadowed. A door opened. Somewhere music was beginning, the musicians scraping at their instruments as they tuned them. In a very few minutes the countess would be expecting to receive her guests for the great banquet.
But Beatrice was no rattlebrained girl. And if Henry of Melrose had consented to flee from the castle like a thief, then it was certain that the Countess Riario was a mortal danger to them, all three.
That was the thought of Tizzo as he passed out into the eastern court, where he saw not a living soul. He looked up at the windows, most of them dark, a few faintly illumined by the steady glow of lamps in the lower rooms, and of flickering torches above. Then, in a farther corner, something stirred. A man leading a draped horse stepped out into the pallid starlight and Tizzo went straight to him. When he was closer, the blanketed horse lifted head and whinnied, a mere whisper of sound. But it told Tizzo louder than trumpets that this was Falcone.
The fellow who led the stallion gave the strap instantly into Tizzo’s hand. Not a word was spoken. The man who was a tall figure wrapped up to the brightness of his eyes in a great mantle, fitted a key into the small postern gate. The lock turned with a dull, rusty grating; the door opened; over the narrow of the causeway Tizzo led the horse.
“Whom do I thank?” he murmured as he went through the gate.
But the postern was shut quickly, silently behind him.
An odd touch of suspicion came up in the heart of Tizzo; and at this moment he heard the whining music of strings come from a distant casement with such a sense of warmth and hospitality and brightness about it that he could not help doubting the truth of the letter of Beatrice.
This hesitation did not endure a second. He was on the back of Falcone again, his sword was at his side, his dagger was in his belt, and if only he could have in his grasp, once more, that woodsman’s ax with its head of the blue Damascus steel, he would have felt himself once more a man free and armed against the perils of the world. However, the thought of Beatrice and of his father expanded before him pleasantly.