Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  She opened the door and they followed her into the hall, each of them bending under a clumsy, great bulk of clothing that loomed vast above their shoulders.

  They passed down the upper corridor, and then they went down a stairway that wound constantly. The steps were so steep and so many that the knees of Tizzo grew a little weak.

  They reached another hall beneath them, more filled with clamor of voices, tramplings, loud commands, and always the clashing footfall of armored men. The Urbino palace was buzzing like a hive, and there were no drones — every human was armed with a sting. Halberd, sword, boar-spear, dagger, club were all about the two inclining figures of the baron and his son.

  “Who’s that, and what’s here, and who the devil are these?” demanded a loud voice.

  And old Agnes shrilled back in her wavering voice: “And who are you and what are you and who gave you power to ask? If I’m tumbled out of my bed at this hour to pile charity on the backs of a couple of sinners from the hospital, who has the right to—”

  “Ah, be still!” said the soldier. “I’d rather talk to a barking dog than to you, old Agnes.”

  “Aye, but the young Agnes was for your, betters. I’ve seen the time when the lifting of my finger would sweep ten better heads than yours off the shoulders that wore them.”

  “Damn you and your better men and your better times, you hag,” said the soldier. “Get out of my sight!”

  She led on down more stairs and came to a dim passage that ended at a door guarded on either side by a man-at-arms.

  One of these stood up and lowered his halberd to a striking position.

  “Who’s there?” he asked.

  “Agnes,” she replied.

  “What’s with you, Agnes?”

  “A pair of weak-kneed beggars from the hospital,” she answered.

  “What are their names?”

  “Beggard have no names.”

  “They can’t pass at this time. Have you not heard the uproar? Captain Tizzo and the Englishman who arrived today are wanted for the hangman tonight.”

  “D’you mean that these two can’t get out of the palace?”

  “They cannot.”

  “All right,” said Agnes. “If you care nothing for fleas — and for worse things — I’ll turn this pair over to you.”

  “Turn them over to me? Damn the dirty rats, what would I do with them?”

  “I don’t care what you do with them,” said Agnes. “They were sent to me to get the clothes for the hospital. I’ve given them the clothes. That’s all I can do.”

  “I won’t have ’em. Take them back to where you found them.”

  “And tell his highness that I was stopped at the door?”

  “Well — I can’t do this, and you know it very well.”

  “I know nothing about you. I don’t want to know. Shall I leave these two with you and go back?”

  “Wait a moment.”

  “Suppose it’s Tizzo and his father. I half think that those are the right names,” said Agnes.

  The soldier chuckled. “You have a sting in the end of your tongue,” he said. “But now listen to me. Are you sure that the duke ordered these two to be allowed to carry away the old clothes for the hospital?”

  “Yes,” said Agnes, “because he recruits from hospitals and takes old men as nigh as any.”

  “It may be true,” decided the guard. “Well, shall we let them through?”

  “Who are you, fellow?” asked the other guard. And he rapped Tizzo in the ribs with the butt of his halberd.

  Tizzo grunted, half the breath driven from his body.

  “God forgive your worship,” he whined. “You’ve struck me on the place where the doctor cut me for stones, and I doubt you’ve opened the old wound. Oh, ah, I feel the heat of the blood running down my side — but God knows that I’ll never cast blame on you. I’m one of the unfortunates of the world, and the quickest way out of it will be the greatest mercy for me.”

  The soldier broke in: “That’s enough. That’s the true hospital chatter, and I’ve heard it before. Get them out, and quickly. Otherwise, we’ll be catching a thousand foul diseases from them. A sick man is worse than a sick dog. Did you hear the whine of him?”

  The other man shrugged his shoulders, shoved the key into the lock, and pulled the door wide.

  “Out with you! Out with you!” he commanded, and kicked the baron to help him more rapidly through the doorway.

  “Farewell!” called Agnes after them. “Mind you that you get one of the beggars to say a prayer for Agnes. For any Agnes. There’s not one in the world that needs praying for as much as I do!”

  Then the door slammed with a metal jangling of the lock and key.

  And Tizzo found himself in a narrow street that pitched sharply down the hill on one side and climbed steeply up it on the other.

  “Which way, father?”

  “Either way — I don’t care which,” muttered the Englishman. “That dog of a soldier has put his foot to me. I’ll have blood for it. By God, I’ll have a river of blood!”

  XVI. TIZZO’S RASHNESS

  THEY CLIMBED THE hill, and took the first way to the right, still bending under their loads.

  A pair of young cavaliers, galloping past, scattered mud and water over them and laughed over their shoulders at the two weighted-down pedestrians.

  A rabble of young drunkards streamed around a corner and suddenly beset them.

  “Way for the Lazar House! Way for the hospital!” called Tizzo, in a dreary singsong.

  The lads scattered with yells. If it were not actual disease to touch or speak with one from the hospital, it was bad luck of the worst sort, at the least.

  And now they came out into a wider street and saw a cart with two men in half-armor riding behind it. To the tail of the cart was tied a man stripped to the waist, and after him strode a giant of a man who swung a whip and used it at every tenth step. And in the cart sat a fellow who bawled out: “This is Luigi, the son of Elia the smith, for speaking ill of his glorious highness, the Duke of Urbino! This is Luigi, flogged through the streets of Urbino for a day and a night...”

  A little crowd followed after the cart. They were curious, but they never came too near. They kept to either side of the street and not a sound, not a word came out of their throats. The only reason the flogging could be seen so well was that a lantern was carried high from the cart at the end of a projecting pole, and this showed the entire picture — the carter half asleep behind his two mules, the crier of the punishment, the criminal, the big man with the whip, two soldiers who jogged behind the rest to see that the course of the law was undisturbed.

  Tizzo paused and stared at the unhappy man.

  “On, on!” said his father, shouldering past him.

  “Aye,” said Tizzo, “and yet I could drink hot blood when I see such a thing—”

  “Come, come!” exclaimed the baron. “We cant right all the wrongs in the world—”

  “But for speaking evil of the damned Guidobaldo, the poisoner and traitor, the destroyer of good knights, the dogfaced Duke of Urbino!” gasped Tizzo.

  He kept on staring at the procession, unable to start on again. The face of the prisoner must have been young, the day before. It was old, now. It was old, and long drawn. The eyes were buried in holes.

  The cart lurched over a bump in the way, the sudden pull on the cords jerked the poor Luigi forward on his face and he dragged in the mud. His back could be seen more clearly, now. The lantern light streamed down over it and showed it painted with stripes of red, as with crimson paint, sticky and wet, and in the middle of the back the stripes all gathered together in one huge, solid red patch on which the blood was flowing.

  The big man, laughing, called out: “Look, my masters! I’ll put more speed in his feet.”

  He whirled his whip and brought it down with a loud crack that made the blood fly; and Luigi was lifted to his feet by the agony.

  “Christ... mercy...” he gasped.r />
  And Tizzo heard him. He hurled the bundle from his back and caught out of the rags he had been bearing the ax with the head of good, blue steel. The edge of it gleamed like silver. —

  “A rescue! A rescue!” shouted Tizzo. “All good men behind me!”

  The two halves of the following crowd halted. The cart driver, amazed, pulled at the heads of his mules and brought them to a stand. The two soldiers, bewildered, halted their horses also. The nearest of them, seeing a man spring in at him with an ax, leveled his spear and took a shrewd thrust at the breast of Tizzo.

  He might as well have thrust at a dancing flame. The spearhead went wide of the mark and Tizzo, leaping up, planted one foot on the stirrup of the soldier and brought down his ax.

  If he had used the edge, the man never would have spoken again. But he used only the hammer head at the back of the ax; the blow hurled the man-at-arms out of the saddle and senseless into the mud.

  “Treason!” shouted the other soldier. “All true men—”

  But the crowd stood in frozen silence as Tizzo ducked under the belly of the first horse and leaped at the other soldier. He had one help, now. The baron, tossing aside his bundles in turn, had snatched out his sword from the mass of cloth and was running in with the weapon raised.

  That sight was too much for the man of war. He put spurs to his horse and went plunging away, still screeching, “Treason! Rebellion! The people are up!”

  And only then did the people who looked on suddenly give voice with such a sound as Tizzo never had heard before from men or from beasts — a low, groaning, mournful, growling noise; and the two halves of the crowd began to flow suddenly into the street.

  “We’re lost!” cried the baron. “To your heels, Tizzo!”

  The man who carried the whip had turned and started to flee. One wing of the closing crowd met him. There was a scream, a sound of blows. It was the big man who had yelled out.

  But Tizzo, running forward, slashed the rope that tethered Luigi to the cart’s tail. The carter, in the meantime, began to flog his mules; they broke into a gallop. And Tizzo found himself with one arm around the reeling body of Luigi, his other hand free to handle his ax.

  His father came and stood beside him, the sword raised and ready at a balance for the first stroke.

  “This is the end, Tizzo!” he exclaimed. Poison from high hands would have been better than death from the mob. Guard my back truly as I’ll guard yours, and still well make a fight of it.” —

  “Wait!” exclaimed Tizzo. “I think that they mean no harm After the first growling noise, the crowd made no sound. But they came straight in. They were almost on Tizzo and his father before two or three of them muttered: Friends!

  Friends! Put down your weapons. Every man here would die for you, brothers!”

  “They mean it,” muttered Tizzo over his shoulder. Let The baron, undecided, nevertheless kept his sword raised and did not strike until he saw the many reaching hands go out to Luigi, take him up, lift him shoulder high, and begin to bear him away.

  A tall old man, still strong and swift stepping, caught Tizzo and the baron by the arms.

  “This is the first day of my life!’ he said. Now I am born. Now I have seen a common man lift hand against the duke’s own officers. I thank God! I’m ready to die! Come with us, friends! There is no safety in Urbino for you, now, but you are safer with us than with any others!

  And they went with the flow of the crowd, under the dim starlight, hurried along blindly as though the run of a river had picked them up and were carrying them along.

  They entered alleys filled with a foul, sour savor. They twisted around dingy corners. And at last a door opened, and they poured into a dairy barn where the cows were tethered in rows, and a single dim lantern gave them a flickering fight as unclean as the streets through which they had been passing.

  Hay was piled in an empty manger and Luigi was laid on this bed, face down. —

  A young woman came swiftly into the throng.

  “His wife! The wife of Luigi!” said voices, and a way was made for her suddenly.

  She climbed into the manger and took the head of her husband in her lap. And every now and then she would jerk up her head and look over the crowd with startled eyes, only to bow again, a moment later, and stare at the bleeding flesh of Luigi.

  The old man who had taken the baron and Tizzo by the arms now officiated with an air of authority. At his direction warm water was brought. With his own hands he washed the blood away, and then plastered over the back of Luigi a good layer of lard.

  Said a voice near Tizzo: “There goes enough lard to give a savor to ten pounds of black bread.”

  And another answered, “Aye, but the bread he eats is pain! I won’t grudge him the lard tonight!”

  It seemed to Tizzo that he had never seen such men before. He had had to do with foresters, on the place of his foster father, and here and there he had mingled briefly with the common people. But now it seemed to him that he was beholding them for the first time, and he was amazed.

  They were in rags; they were dirty, ill-smelling; but now that he looked at them by the lantern light, it seemed to him that he never had seen better brows, keener eyes, more resolute faces. Now and again his eye fell on some brutal face, but for the most part, in good clothes and with a bath between them and the past, they would have seemed as noble a lot as ever stood in a court.

  And a great, strange thought burst in upon Tizzo — that perhaps men, after all, are very much alike. The born prince might have his royalty by accident rather than merit. And the cobbler, the peasant, the household drudge, the serf, perhaps were all of them as kingly as any who sat on thrones, except that their feet had been forced into lower ways.

  It was a thought that discomforted Tizzo. He knew that it was a great blasphemy, and he put it away from him as quickly as possible. For, of course, kingship comes from God and from God only, and common people are born to serve their superiors. Nevertheless, he was so troubled that he began to breathe a little faster. There was a giddy lightness in his breast. He found that his teeth were hard-set.

  At his shoulder he heard the voice of his father saying, “We had better be out of this. This no place for people of our bearing, Tizzo. Quickly, lad — and come with me.”

  Tizzo pulled off his cloak and stepped forward.

  “Here, friend,” he said to Luigi’s wife, “wrap your husband in this.”

  Her hand caught at the cloak and then dropped it. Her eyes remained staring aghast. She pointed with a trembling hand.

  “Look! Look!” she cried.

  And a sudden snarl came out of the throats of the crowd.

  “One of the gentry! A spy! A spy!... Let me come at him!... Let me have my hands in his throat!”

  XVII. THE TEST

  SUCH HANDS AS Tizzo never had felt before gripped him. He saw the cloak and hat torn off his father at the same moment.

  The baron, huge and weighty with trained muscle, struggled desperately. Knives gleamed.

  And Tizzo shouted, “Father, we’re helpless. Stand still and let the fools remember what we’ve done for Luigi!”

  This sudden outcry stilled the fight for a moment. But the people had become animals, with burning eyes and flaring nostrils. They kept inching nearer and nearer to their prisoners. The tall old man who had been spreading the lard over Luigi’s back began to exclaim, “What are you thinking of, friends? Do you forget that these are the men that knocked one soldier into the mud and made the other run? If you wanted fighting, why didn’t you use your hands when poor Luigi was being flogged at the tail of the cart? What reason have spies for fighting the duke’s own men?”

  A hunchback, deformed but not crippled by the great bunch behind his shoulders, thrust his long head still farther forward. He had a pale face, slit with a vast mouth, that formed itself strangely around the words he spoke.

  “What reason?” he said. “A very good reason. To seem to strike a blow for a friend of the pe
ople, and so be brought in among them and see them, and count the faces of the men who hate the duke.”

  “Aye, aye!” muttered the rest. “That’s the point of it.” Those newly opened eyes of Tizzo scanned the others again. To be sure, these ragamuffins could not afford plate armor and fight on horseback against the gentlemen, but the arquebus was becoming cheaper, more manageable year by year. Suppose that the mob ever were disciplined and armed with such weapons — what would their millions do to the scant thousands of the gentry? The tremendous picture rolled darkly across the eyes of Tizzo. He shuddered a little.

  The old man — a blessing on him! — was continuing the argument.

  “What fools the pair of them would be to disguise themselves in nothing but old hats and cloaks? Do you think that they’re half-wits, my friends?”

  “All the gentry are more than half fools,” said the hunchback.

  There was an instant muttering of assent.

  And the hunchbacked man went on, “Now that we have a pair of spies, let’s close their eyes and ears for them forever.”

  “Luigi,” said the old fellow, “here are the two men who saved you from the tail of the cart. Turn your head and see them. Speak a word for them.”

  The head of Luigi was turned by the hands of his wife, but he looked with red-stained, senseless eyes at the faces around him. When his lips parted, a feverish, incoherent babbling issued, and nothing more. His wife began to weep softly, unwilling to obtrude her grief upon the attention of men.

  “If they’re not of the duke’s gentry,” said the hunchback, “let them say what they are. Let us hear what sort of common men they may be.”

  “There’s no other way but to tell them,” said the baron. “Shall I do it?”

  “Speak out. It’s as well to be hanged by the duke’s hangman as to be stabbed in the back by these fellows,” said Tizzo.

  The baron looked calmly around him. His clothes had been pulled half off his back, but he bore himself always with a good deal of dignity, and yet there was a cheerfulness about his bulldog face and the wine-red of it that could not help appealing to ordinary men.