by Max Brand
He said: “To be short — you’ve heard the duke’s criers proclaiming a reward of five hundred ducats through the streets for the capture of Baron Melrose and Captain Tizzo. We are they!”
There was not a whisper in answer, for a moment. Through the silence, Tizzo heard the grinding of the fodder which the cows were consuming, tossing their heads from time to time to tear out long streamers of the hay and then lick it easily into their mouths. They observed this human scene with bland, indifferent eyes.
The hunchback was the first to speak, and he sneered, “The baron? I know little about him. But Captain Tizzo is the man who cut through the street chains in Perugia. Everybody in Italy knows that story. Now I ask you, all my masters, if this spindling fellow has the arms or the shoulders to strike such strokes? Could he sway the ax that might deal such blows? Answer me, any man who dares to say so?”
The growl was a convincing reply. They meant business, now, and quick business.
Tizzo said, “There are some of you who never saw a small cat scratch the nose of a big dog and make him run off, howling. I say that I am he who cut the chains at Perugia. And in my hand is the ax that dealt the strokes.”
This statement made a very obvious impression. But the hunchback tore the ax suddenly from the grasp of Tizzo and held it high over his head. The lantern light sent a blue flickering over the fine steel of the axhead.
“You hear what he says?” declared the hunchback. “Now look with your own eyes on the ax that he carries! Are any of you fools enough to believe him? Why, here’s an ax so light that it hardly fills half my hand!”
The old man put in: “Neighbor Berte, you still have the old Austrian helmet with the dents that the Swiss swords knocked into it; but none of their swords would carve through it. Bring it here and let the young man try the edge of his ax on it, if he thinks he can manage the trick.”
Berte laughed and showed a mouth in which there was not a single tooth, though he was a young man. The bread he ate constantly lacerated his gums, and therefore his lips were continually edged with drying blood.
He said: “I’ll bring the helmet in two minutes. Wait for me here!”
He was gone at once. The hunchback, with a grin, leaned back against a stanchion and stared into the face of Tizzo.
“You have a couple of minutes to live, brother,” he said. “Tie the hands of the fellow who calls himself Baron Melrose, some of you. We’ll leave this lying captain the use of his hands until he’s proved the lie with the ax in his grip.... Here, stand back a little. Give me that club.... I take my place behind this man who calls himself Tizzo of Perugia. When he deals the blow to the helmet, if his ax fails to cut a good gash in the steel, that moment I bring down my club on his head and see how far his brains will spatter. Is that a fair judgment?”
They laughed, all those wolfish men, and nodded at one another.
“A fairer judgment than Luigi had!” they said.
Tall Berte now returned and put on the stump of a post an old conical, open helmet of great weight and thickness of metal, no matter how old its workmanship might be.
“There!” said Berte, stepping back. “That old headpiece has saved lives in its day. It may be the losing of another life now that it’s grown so old-fashioned. Step up, signore! Step up and try your luck! The five-foot Swiss swords could do no more than knock those dents into it. See if your ax can slash through it. What? Never hang back! Those were greater strokes than you claim to have struck in Perugia!”
Tizzo, freed, stepped forward with his ax and took the helmet in his hand.
It was even more massive to the touch than it was to the eye. The solid weight of it surprised him, and he saw that the entire top of the headpiece was doubly reinforced.
He glanced up with a smile at the faces around him.
“This is a good, tough nut to crack,” said Tizzo. “But give me elbow room, friends, and I’ll try my hand at it. Keep out of the swing of my ax, though.”
He weighted the ax first in his left hand and then his right, as though he intended to strike it with a single arm. But now he took the well-balanced weapon in a double grasp and swung it to the right and to the left in sweeping circles. Suddenly he reversed the sway. The ax swept up on high. His body, not more than middle height at the most, seemed to stretch whole inches taller. It curved backward with a swift and sudden tension and then, like a full-drawn bow when the string is released, all that accumulated tension of muscle and nerve released.
The ax flashed too swiftly for the eye to follow. It was a blue glint in the lantern light. Right in the center of the helmet the blow struck with a clang, followed by a splintering noise.
Tizzo straightened slowly from the great effort. And a groan of profound wonder came from the men around him. The hunchback, grunting with awe that was almost terror, had fallen on his knees. He picked up one half of the cloven helmet. With the other hand he traced the crack which the ax had cut through the post beneath.
XVIII. “ANOTHER MAN’S POISON”
BY DAY CESARE Borgia preferred to sleep; by night he usually was up and about, but on this night he sat gloomily in front of his casement with his chin propped on his big bands. No one would have dared to keep him company or even speak to him at such a time, except that same young Florentine envoy, Niccolo Machiavelli.
He, with a soft step, paced up and down the room, speaking from time to time, sometimes humming a phrase of music, and paying no heed to the continual silence with which Cesare Borgia received his remarks. Here the door was opened a crack and the voice of the master poisoner, Bonfadini, murmured, “A letter from Captain Tizzo!”
“That is what I’ve been waiting for,” said the Borgia, in a sudden loud voice. “Bring it in. Read it, Alessandro! From what place does it come?”
“A place where men have red blood in them,” said Bonfadini. “There’s enough of that color on the letter. And the messenger dropped dead from his horse when he reached Forli.”
“Ah? Ah?” muttered the duke. “How does it come that I can spend fortunes on men, and yet I never have people ready to die for me as they’re ready to die for that penniless adventurer of a Tizzo?”
“Money only buys the time of men,” said Machiavelli.
“What buys their hearts’ blood, Niccolo?”
“Love,” said the Florentine, and laughed a little.
“The letter! The letter!” said the Borgia. “I’m a new man before I hear even a word of it. Tizzo would never send a letter unless there were something worth-while inside it.” Bonfadini, breaking open the writing, now read aloud, holding the page close to the small flame of the single lamp in the room. “‘My dear lord: A parrot died for me the other day, and that’s why I’m alive to write this letter.
‘Duke Guidobaldo received me with every courtesy and listened like a scholar while I made my speech about your deep-seated affection for his excellency and your desire to join hands with him in public and in private war. Once I thought he was about to smile, but he swallowed it. He took the care of the countess out of my hands at once, and in such a way that I could not protest without doubting his intention to hold her as a safe prisoner at your disposal—’”
“D’you see, Niccolo?” said the duke. “I told you how it would work. Guidobaldo took the countess into his own hands, and it will need fighting to get her away from him again. I have a perfect cause for war—”
“You will have more causes before that letter is ended,” said Machiavelli.
Bonfadini read on: “‘Presently two cups of spiced wine were sent to our room in the night for sleeping draughts; and if we had drunk them we would still be asleep, my father and I, without ever a dream. But we gave a taste to a parrot in the room and he dropped asleep in time to warn us.; The same sleep that we all come to at the end of living. There were soldiers at the door; we got out the window, onto the roof, and found an old crone who liked red hair and let us down to the street. There we fell in with a mob who wanted to knife us as members
of the gentry, because the gutter-sweepings and riffraff of this town seem to hold grudges against the blue-bloods and even feel that one man is as good as another.
‘They were about to cut our throats when I managed to cut the Gordian knot, literally, with a stroke of my ax. And now we are accepted as good fellows — a title which seems to be incomparably above that of kings or emperors in the opinion of these queer people. They swear to die rather than give us up to the duke, though he has raised the price on our heads from five hundred to a thousand ducats. His idea seems to be that we are to drop forever out of sight in Urbino, after which he will be able to send you word that your envoys got drunk and were killed in a stupid brawl, leaving the poor countess in his hands, and he remains your humble servant, as ever.
“‘We have tried to get out of the town, but every inch of the walls is watched; this letter coming to your hands will be proof that some one of my new friends in Urbino has risked his life to carry word to you.
“‘Now that you have read this far, sound the trumpets and order horses, and away, because—’”
Here Cesare Borgia shouted suddenly, with a lion’s roar, “Sound horns! Sound to horse! To horse!” He added, “I’ll take Tizzo at his word!”
A distant voice called out, faintly heard through the walls, and a moment later strong trumpets were blowing, followed by a rushing of feet through the court below.
Cesare Borgia began to laugh as he listened to the rest of the letter.
“‘...because at the end of the fourth day from this writing, which is on Monday, I intend, if a single Romagnol spear shines in the passes about Rubino, to gather about me as many of the rabble as can bear arms of one sort or another and rush the Porta del Monte. If I can capture that one gate and let in a few companies of my lord’s best fighting men, trust me that they will be enough to stab Urbino to the heart. If I cannot capture and hold the gate until your troops are inside the walls, don’t try the attack because the town is invulnerable, and there are plenty of good soldiers inside it.
“‘However, those good soldiers will only fight so long as they have the advantages. One and all, they hate everything about Duke Guidobaldo except his money. Once you can break into the town, they will run like rats; unless perhaps a garrison remains in the palace, which is a fort within a fort.
“‘My lord, everything depends on haste and speed.
“‘I see that I have been dropped as a bait into the mouth of the shark. I have managed to jump out of his mouth again, but his teeth are on all sides of me, sharper than swords.
“‘For these reasons, I cannot send you my affection, but I can send you my duty. My hair is not yet gray. — Tizzo.’”
The Borgia already was up and striding for the door.
“You’ve heard!” he called. “What do you say to this, Niccolô?”
“I say,” said Machiavelli, “that either you will bruise and break your hands on those great walls and heights of Urbino, or else you will have a dukedom for the mere gesture of taking. With three more men like Tizzo, you would have half the towns of Italy in your hands inside a year.”
“Aye!” cried the duke. “What a man for me and for the future! There is a sword that strikes a thousand blows and still the edge is never turned. What is the reason for that, my wise Niccolô?”
“Why, my lord,” said Machiavelli, “the reason is that a man who loves danger for its own sake sharpens his temper the more he is used. Another man’s poison is his food.”
XIX. THE EYES OF AGNES
DUKE GUIDOBALDO, TOWARD the close of the day, strolled on the top of the ramparts of the palace and looked far across the roofs of Urbino toward the northern mountains. Now he halted and pointed. The Countess Sforza-Riario at his side halted and squinted her eyes.
“There in the hollow,” said the duke. “There’s so much dust in the air that it looks blue and covers the picture a good deal. But you can make out the glitter of the spear-points like little candle-flames. Those are the lances of Giovan Paolo of the High and Mighty Baglione; he must have fifteen hundred good men with him. The fighters from Perugia always are good ones. The Duke of Valentinois comes in from the eastern road. They are going to move toward Urbino from opposite sides and hope to take us by surprise.”
“The fools!” said the countess. “Do they think that you’ll invite them and their men into the city? And unless you invite them, they’ll never get over the walls without wings.”
The duke laughed. “We are as safe here, madame,” said he, “as though we were sitting on top of a cloud in the blue of the sky. Now see the dust cloud raised by the Perugians; it looks like a bright mist flowing there between the hills.”
The day had been very hot; Urbino still was steaming; people had come out from their houses and sat on doorsteps with haggard faces. The children had been quiet all day. Now the pleasant hum of their voices rose up as far as the battlements of the castle.
“Where is the old woman you were speaking of?” asked the duke of one of the attendants who remained at a respectful distance.
“We have her at hand, highness,” said the attendant.
“Bring her,” said the duke.
She was brought at once before him, bowed of back, her head jutting forward with every step she took.
“What is your name?” asked Guidobaldo.
“Agnes, my lord,” she answered, making her bow.
“How old are you?”
“I was ten years old when your mother was born, my lord.”
“What is your place in the palace?”
“I do sewing and mending. I used to work with the fine silks and linens. But when my hands grew darker with needle pricks and iron burns, they looked unclean.”
“So you were given coarser work?”
“Yes, my lord. I was given the dirty mending, putting together rents, and darning hose.”
The duke smiled at Caterina Sforza. “You have an honest face, Agnes,” he said.
“Thank you, my lord. It is best to look honest if one cannot look happy.”
“Are you not happy?”
“In my thoughts, yes.”
“What are your thoughts?” went on the duke, who began to feel the philosopher.
“They stopped at the time I was twenty-eight,” she answered.
“What happened then?”
“I began to grow thin. My chin got long and my eyes grew hollow.”
“If you can remember things as long ago as that, do you remember what happened four nights ago?”
“That was the night the English baron and Captain Tizzo escaped from the castle.”
“Where were you?”
“Sewing in the mending room.”
“What did you do?”
“I kept on sewing, my lord.”
“When all the other women were running and screaming?”
“I knew no matter how fast I ran, I could not catch the five hundred ducats.”
The duke started to laugh but ended with a smile. His courtiers saw that they were free to chuckle, and did so.
“I hear,” said the duke, “that on that night you brought down two men loaded with old clothes to take to the hospital?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“They never arrived at the hospital,” said Duke Guidobaldo.
“Were they thieves?” asked Agnes.
“You are not surprised?”
“I am too old to be surprised by men, my lord.”
“What if those two were the men who were escaping?”
“That would have been lucky for them.”
“What was their appearance?”
“One was older than the other. He was larger, also.”
“What was the color of their hair?”
“I could not tell, my lord. They came and asked for the clothes. I gave them the bundles. There was a great deal of noise and trampling in the palace. They were afraid to go down until I showed them the little winding stairway, and I took them down it.”
�
��She tells the thing straight enough,” remarked the duke to Caterina Sofrza.
The countess held out her hand. “What is the stone in this ring, Agnes?”
“A ruby, madame.”
“She’s the guilty witch who let them out of the castle,” said the countess instantly. “She could not tell the color of their hair, she is so old? Well, she could tell the color of this stone. One lie, and all lies!”
The courtiers started, murmured not altogether with admiration. But the duke was greatly impressed.”
“Agnes,” he said, “you have heard the countess. What do you say now?” —
“Rubies are bright enough to shine by their own light, my lord.”
“This old woman talks too well. She is lying,” said the countess.
“I think she is,” agreed the duke. “Here, Roberto. Take the old hag and give her a few strokes of the whip. Loosen her tongue for her.”
“Instantly, my lord.”
“Why not drop her into one of the bird cages?” asked the countess. “Here’s one beside us.”
It was an iron cage affixed to the edge of the parapet, with a door at the top. The bars were painted to keep them from rusting. They enclosed a space so small that a man could neither sit nor stand nor lie full length. Men were said to have existed for months in those frightful machines of torment.
“Why not?” asked the duke. “Yes, pop Agnes into that cage at once.”
“Good,” said Agnes. “I’ll have a better view of the street than I ever had before.”
The countess broke out laughing. “Let her be!” she said. “The old witch has so much courage that she deserves to live.”
“If she is a traitor,” said the duke, “I’ll have her flayed alive. But take her to the dungeon and let her cool her quick old brain there for a while. Off with her. I’ll attend to her tomorrow.... They’re coming out from the valley and straight toward the city,” he added, pointing toward the advancing little army.