by Max Brand
The Borgia merely laughed. “Tizzo, you’re honest. And I have honest work to do. That’s why I’ve sent for you.”
“Honest work?” said Tizzo, lifting his eyebrows a little.
“I want the Countess Sforza-Riario taken to Rome.”
“I’d be glad to ride anywhere with Caterina,” said Tizzo.
“Do you call her by her name?” asked Machiavelli.
“She hates me so well that we’ve become intimates,” said Tizzo.
The Florentine and the Borgia looked at one another and laughed a little.
“And on the way to Rome with the beautiful countess,” said Borgia, “you will take the first step toward making peace between me and Guidobaldo da Montefeltro.
“You’ll carry a letter from me to Urbino — and there—”
“Ah!” said Tizzo. “It’s tomorrow that I’m to be eaten, and not today. Go to Urbino — did you say go into Urbino?”
“I understand you perfectly,” answered the Borgia. “You’re afraid that the old enmity between Guidobaldo and me might make it a dangerous trip?”
“Afraid?” murmured Tizzo thoughtfully, as though he did not like the taste of the word in his mouth. Then he broke out: “My lord, there’s some damned dark bit of policy behind all this, I suppose. But I won’t try to fathom it. I’ve sworn to serve you with mind and hand and heart for three months. Give me the countess and I’ll take her as far toward Rome as God will let me. Give me the letter and I’ll put it in the hands of Guidobaldo if I fall dead the next moment. I’ll go now to prepare for the ride, and come back for your final orders.”
He was gone from the room in another moment, as the duke waved his assent.
Cesare Borgia went to the casement and leaned there, looking with troubled eyes over the roofs of the town.
“A sword against a walking stick — a five-foot Swiss two-handed man-slayer, against a little trick of a cane,” murmured Machiavelli. “Tell me how this Tizzo has managed to live so long. He’ll certainly die tomorrow.”
The Borgia said nothing in answer to this comment, and Machiavelli began to look at him, studying him with a curious attention.
“You’re troubled, my lord,” he said at last.
“I am, Niccolô,” said the duke. “I’m troubled.”
“But everything goes according to your plan.”
“Did you notice how he spoke?”
“With a fine, free swing to his words, my lord. A fellow like that would sooner use his sword than his brain.”
“Do you think so? He has a quick wit, though. But there was something about his way of talking — something from the heart — a certain noble carelessness, Niccolô.”
“Ah, is that what you are thinking of?”
“Yes — a certain air with which he spoke.”
“Then perhaps I know what troubles my lord.”
“Tell me, Niccolô.”
“Is it shame, my lord?”
“Ah? Shame?” said the Borgia. “I wonder!”
XII. AN UNDERSTANDING
FROM LADY BEATRICE Baglione to her brother, Giovan Paolo, Lord of Perugia.
DEAR GIOVAN PAOLO:
Tizzo is away again like a wild hawk — or like a wild duck that some hawk will plume and eat presently. The Borgia has sent him with a handful of men to Urbino with a letter to Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, the duke, and with Caterina Sforza. What is in the Borgia brain? I am sick and dizzy. I begged Tizzo on my knees to reconsider, but he has bound himself to be a slave to the Borgia for some months — eternities they will prove and end with his wretched death.
You cannot know what it means to me to be in love with such a wild-headed fellow. I try to tear the thought of him out of my heart. But the memory of his red hair burns in my mind. And all that he has done for you, for me, for our house. He should be kept under lock and key and only allowed liberty when there is some great danger threatening. There is too much English blood in him to permit him to fathom or suspect the depths of these cunning people.
Before you get this he will be in Urbino. Perhaps he will be dead and Caterina Sforza will be in the hands of the Duke of Urbino. What can you do to help him? Try to think. I know you will because you love him almost as much as I do. I have only one comfort. His father, Baron Melrose has ridden with him.
And you know as I know that the two of them are a double edge sword that cuts faster in all directions than sneaking traitors and murderers ever can suspect.
My sleep has gone from me. My heart is breaking. I wish to God that I were a man so that I could stay at the side of Tizzo wherever he rides.
Farewell.
BEATRICE
Letter from Cesare, Duke of Valentinois and Romagna, to Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino.
MY DEAR LORD AND BROTHER:
I send this to you by the hand of Tizzo of Melrose, one of my most distinguished captains, whose reputation will have come to your ears long before this. He is escorting on the way to Rome the Countess Sforza-Riario, whom you will be glad to receive and shelter for the night for my sake and her own.
I have asked Tizzo to open my heart to you. The purpose of his speech will be my heartfelt intent to enter into a lasting alliance with you. If I could join myself to your known greatness of mind and position, where would there be a limit to our ambitions?
Consider what I have suggested and which he will repeat more at large. There are many things that we could do together. These are times of stir and change.
My confidence in you I need not express. The coming of Tizzo and of the countess are eloquent of it.
Let me hear happy news from you soon. Your affectionate friend,
CESARE
This letter the Duke of Urbino read once and again, moving a candle closer so that he could be sure of some of the words. In the meantime he rubbed his nose, which, like that of his distinguished ancestor Federigo, was so big that it seemed like the single handle of a cup.
Then he looked up and across the room, toward the chair in which the Countess Sforza-Riario was sitting. It was a famous chair of carved wood, having as one support a horned stag and as the other an angry dragon with lifted wings. The countess lost so many years by this dim light that to her beauty was added the perfume of youth. The duke shaded his eyes and looked at her again, but the illusion persisted. He began to smile a little.
“This Tizzo,” he said, “is a man high in the confidence of Cesare Borgia?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And a friend to you?”
“So much a friend,” she answered, “that he cut the Rocca of Forli out of my hand and gave it to the Borgia!”
“Ah?” said Guidobaldo, and fell into thought again, stroking that long hooked nose.
He was not conscious of his ugliness. His position was so great that he did not have to think of his face.
Then he read the letter aloud. As he finished, he asked: “Did you know what was written here?”
“No,” said the countess.
“Does it bring any thought into your mind?”
“One thought,” she said.
“What is it?”
“That Cesare Borgia has gone mad. If he lets me come into your hands, what prevents you from making an agreement with me by which you receive my claim to Forli and all the territory around it?
“And by the same agreement I receive my freedom — and certain funds in ready cash, perhaps, or some pleasant, small estate in Urbino?”
“Yes,” said the duke. “It would be a simple matter for us to come to this agreement. Tell me: Do you fear that this Tizzo will have you put out of the way long before Rome is reached?”
“No,” she answered. “He is a man for battle, desperate chances, and he loves danger more than he ever can love a woman — there is beautiful Beatrice Baglione, and yet he cannot find time between his wild undertakings to marry her — he is not an agent for murder, my lord.”
“He is a man of great value to Cesare Borgia,” murmured the duke, �
��and yet he, together with you, has been placed in my hands, and his father along with him. Has the Borgia lost his wits, or has he some deep scheme in view?”
“He is always deep, but what scheme can he have in mind now?” she asked.
“War?”
“You have the strongest castle in Italy. If he had an army of birds he still would hardly be able to scale your walls.”
“True,” murmured the duke. “Very true! But I wish that I could look into that mind of his.”
He began to walk the floor, pausing at last behind the chair of Caterina and leaning on it.
“You and I could come to an understanding, my dear, could we not?” asked the duke.
For answer, she reached up her hand, quietly, and took soft hold on one of his.
XIII. POISON
FROM THE CASEMENT of the room in which Tizzo was quartered with his father, the eyes skipped briefly over the crowded, tiled roofs of the town of Urbino and danced away over a ragged sea of mountains.
Tizzo’s eyes skipped away in that fashion, watched the last green and gold of the sunset die out, and then he turned his glance down toward the town. The lights were beginning to shine along the streets.
“A town like this,” he said, “who could take it with all the armies in the world?”
“All the armies in the world never could take it if it were honestly garrisoned,” said the baron. “But where can you find an honest garrison in these times?”
Tizzo leaned far out until he was flat on his stomach, peering down the steep of the great wall beneath. It seemed an incredible work, this heap on heap of masonry, like the work of an army continued through centuries. Somewhere in the dark tangle of the streets below he could hear a man’s voice that was singing, lustily, a rare old song of the countryside:
Her hand is gone from the loom,
Her step no longer hurries toward me,
Her voice no more sings from the pasture,
She has left me the empty night.
Tizzo waited, but when the next verse did not follow, he rolled it out with a ringing voice:
Search for her not so far as heaven;
Look up, but not to the stars;
The castle of my lord held many treasures;
Then why did he steal my happiness?
From the street below a voice began to shout; Tizzo, laughing, tinned back into the room and began to tease a green and golden parrot which was climbing head down around the wire walls of its cage.
How can you tell, Tizzo?” asked the baron. “It may he that it is treason to sing that song in the castle of Urbino.”
“If a song can be treason, I’m glad to die for it,” said Tizzo, and from a silver bowl of fruit he began to pick out the little white, dry, sugar-covered figs and eat them, together with morsels of bread which he broke from a loaf, cramming his mouth too full for talk.
His father watched him and smiled at him.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “A man can sing himself into more trouble than he can talk his way out of afterwards. When I was serving under Piccinino, there was a big Milanese who had a throat like a bull and a voice that could fill it, and one day he sang a serenade that had the name of Giulia in it. Well, it happened that Piccinino was fond of a girl with that name, and when he heard the song he didn’t stop to ask questions. He sent down a pair of his men and they slipped a dagger under the fifth rib of the singer before he had finished emptying the song from his throat. When you’re around these great people, it’s best to speak in a small voice and not sing at all.”
“Well,” said Tizzo, “I need room for my elbows and a chance to make a noise, now and then. Room — room to swing an ax, say, or a sword—”
He washed down the bread and figs with a mouthful of red wine, and picked up that blue-headed steel ax which was dearer to him than all his possessions except Falcone, his white horse. Swinging the ax, he did an improvised dance about the room, striking swift blows to right and left, and making the edge of the ax whistle just past carved and gilded furniture, and then all around the head of a little marble faun that occupied a niche in the wall.
The baron began to laugh with pleasure, and here there was a knock at -the door. When the baron called out, the door was pushed open by one page who allowed a second lad, all brilliant in sleek velvet, to enter carrying a beautiful silverncharger that had on it a pair of goblets.
Rosy crystal composed the bowls of the cups, which were held in a net of gold and supported on pedestals of silver.
“His highness sends his compliments and his good wishes for an excellent night’s sleep to my lord and to Captain Tizzo.” said the page, and straightaway presented the cups to the two guests. After that, he backed out of the room and closed the door after him with a reverent softness.
The baron lifted the cover of his goblet, and sniffed. —
“Good spiced wine,” he said. “This Guidobaldo has good manners even if he is a duke with a castle built in the middle of the sky. To your health, Tizzo!”
“Wait!” said Tizzo, who was inhaling the bouquet of the wine. “This is probably the best wine and the safest in the world — but I have been living in the shadow of Cesare Borgia, remember, and I’ve been learning some new ways in the world. The parrot can be our tester.”
He dipped a bit of bread in his wine and carried it to the cage. The parrot rolled his eyes, put out his head, twisted it to the side, and nipped the bread neatly out of the fingers of Tizzo.
“You see?” said the baron. “There’s nothing wrong. A parrot’s too wise a bird to eat poison. It shows that you’ve been too long in the wrong company, Tizzo. How much longer do you have to serve the Borgia?”
“I’m sworn to him for another ten weeks,” said Tizzo.
“I’d feel safer if you were serving any other man in the world for ten years,” said the baron. “I drink to you, Tizzo!” He was lifting the cup to his lips when they both heard a soft fall, and they saw that the parrot had fallen to the bottom of his cage, where he was stretching his wings and kicking out with his feet, and ruffing out the brilliant feathers about his neck. In a moment he was still. The wings remained halfspread, and the feathers of the ruff slowly collapsed.
The baron rubbed his lips dry. “Tizzo,” he exclaimed, “did you taste the damnable stuff?”
“Not a drop,” said Tizzo, putting the cup slowly back on the table beside him. A quick, powerful shudder ran through him.
The two stared with blank eyes at one another.
“Why?” asked the baron.
“Either for hate or for gain,” said Tizzo. “And my lady the countess hates me since Forli. Perhaps — why, perhaps the gain would be in having me out of the way, and you out of the way, also, if the duke intends to keep the countess here in the castle instead of sending her on to Rome.”
He ran to the door with silent-falling feet and leaned there, to listen.
Turning, he whispered as he tiptoed across the floor, “There are armed men waiting outside the door. I heard a sword stir in a sheath.”
“Lock the door,” said the baron. “They’ll wait for a moment for us to drop dead, and then they will come in to look at the bodies and cart them away.”
“If I turn the lock, they’ll hear the bolt sliding and then they will know that something has gone wrong with the plan.”
Tizzo reached for a jacket of mail. But his father raised a hand to stop him.
Hurrying to the casement, Melrose leaned out far and glanced down the face of the wall. The drop of it was sheer to the street, far below; even the first roof was a terrible fall beneath them. And for the first fifty feet there was no embrasure of any kind to break the smooth surface of the wall. To the left, perhaps two stories below and twenty feet away, there was a projecting roof-line.
“Take the sheets from the bed,” directed Melrose. “So—”
He tore away the covers and with the edge of his dagger began to slash the sheets into long, thin strips. The edge of the knife
was so razor-keen that the cloth divided almost without a sound.
“If they mean murder,” said the baron, “at least we’ll make them take a long step to catch us. The Borgia — the Borgia, Tizzo — was it part of his policy to send you into a murder trap?”
Tizzo, asking no questions, was imitating his father implicitly. When the sheets were cut, they began to twist the - sections so as to make strong rope, and then the ends were tied together.
And Tizzo was saying: “If Cesare Borgia loves a friend, he never will betray him. But he loves few friends. I am merely a new acquaintance. I have a value to him, but he would give me up in a moment if he dreamed that he could get a handsome return for my life.”
“Do you ever think of putting a knife into the hollow of his throat and so ending your bargain with him?” asked the baron.
“Between you and me,” said Tizzo, “I rather like him. There is a devil in him, but that devil may do a great work for Italy. Sing, Father. We’ll need a little noise. And let them think that we’re enjoying the first effect of the wine, before we have a second taste, of death.”
As they talked, quietly, calmly, their hands moved rapidly, and a long rope of the white, twisted sheets was now prepared.
Tizzo ran to the window with it.
“The roof there on the left. Can you swing yourself onto it?” murmured the baron. And he began to sing one of the old marching songs.
Tizzo, having estimated the distance from the casement to the roof with a careful glance, measured out a length of the white rope and tied the rest of the rope around a couch which he dragged with the baron’s help beneath the casement.
“You first!” he murmured to the baron.
But the older man, with a frown and a headshake, pointed toward the door and then toward his own throat as though to indicate that his voice, which had begun the song, must be permitted to continue it. And Tizzo peered up into the older face for a long half-second, realizing perfectly the calm abnegation which underlay this gesture. But there was no time for argument. He was instantly through the window and slithered down the end of the rope.