Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “Now they scatter to pitch camp. My lord, you have no doubt about them being enemies. Why not sound the trumpets and pour out at them with horse and pike and arquebusiers?”

  “Would you do that, Caterina?”

  “Instantly!” she cried. “Aye, and lead the spearmen myself.”

  “You would,” nodded the duke, smiling. “I know that you would, because I’ve heard of other things you’ve done. But I prefer to sit in the clouds and let the silly little people go their own way down there beneath me. When I can take them off guard, then I’ll strike them into a rout. I’ve done it many times. But those Perugians are a hardy lot of fighters.”

  “So much the more glory in beating them,” said the countess.

  “So much the more blood shed in doing it. And my soldiers cost me money, you know. We’ll go in, if it pleases you — or we can dine on the loggia; you see the moon is up and we’ll have the light of it to show us the hills.... But still there’s a wish that’s burning in me.”

  “Shall I name it to you, my lord?”

  “Can you?”

  “You would give half your army for the sake of seeing that quick-footed, bold-eyed, redheaded Tizzo — seeing him in chains.”

  “I shall have him in chains,” said the duke. “Or is he yonder? Has he escaped to the Borgia? Is it because of him that Cesare has marched south to pay me this visit?”

  “Wherever he is,” said she, “you’ll find him before long. He’s like a spark in the hand. It soon will burn you!”

  XX. THE ATTACK

  THE MOON WAS as strong as the sunset light when Tizzo made a speech. He stood in a manger of that same dairy stable where he had cloven the helmet with an ax. And now he said: “I’m going from this stable with my ax hidden under my cloak. I’m going straight for the Porta del Monte. Those who will go with me, lift the right hand.”

  There was a whispering answer. The sound came from the upswinging of every right arm. Three hundred men were packed around the cows as thick as they could stand. Others skulked in the yard outside. The forest of arms dropped.

  “Show what you have to fill your hands,” commanded Tizzo.

  Up went the same right hands. Tizzo saw hatchets, axes, mere knives of all sorts, straightened sickles fixed on short wooden handles so as to make a stabbing spear of incredible ugliness; and then there were straightened scythe-blades which looked like clumsy swords. They would cut like a sword and an ax combined. In addition, there were the clubs of all sorts and sizes, and old spearheads which had been ground razor sharp and mounted on short truncheons.

  Well-armored men could laugh at the attack of such motley weapons, and the men-at-arms who secured the guard of the gates of Urbino were armed cap-a-pie, every one. And yet Tizzo smiled as he looked around him at the silent flourish and saw the hard, grim faces of the crowd.

  “Brothers,” he said, “we are going to Porta del Monte.

  When I get there, I am going to strike with my ax one of the soldiers on guard. Raise your hands, those who are going to strike with me.”

  A third of the audience lifted hands.

  “Those who rush at the same time toward the left tower beside the gate and try to master it, give me a sign.”

  The hunchback, who was to lead that attempt, hoisted himself up on a stanchion and grinned as a third of the arms were lifted again.

  “And who are going to follow my father to the capture of the right-hand tower and the magazines of arms?” demanded Tizzo.

  The remaining hands went up.

  “If all goes well at the gate,” said Tizzo, “my father remains there in command. And who are those who will follow me back through the streets of Urbino?”

  Half of the men lifted their arms.

  “What is the shout we will raise?” repeated Tizzo.

  The answer was a murmur that swelled throats and died behind clenched teeth: “Duca! Duca!”

  The teeth of Tizzo himself set hard as he heard this stern muttering.

  The gates of Urbino were closed not at sunset but at dark. There was still green light rimming the western mountains when a number of ragged fellows went toward the Porta del Monte. Some of them came down the main street. Others issued suddenly from alleys. Nearly all of them were muffled in old, torn, ragged cloaks in spite of the great warmth of the evening. But then, all men knew that the damp night air was mortally dangerous. These were probably countrymen who had remained in Urbino until the last moment. It was only a little odd that so many of them should be flocking out at the Porta del Monte. Or were they going to have traffic with the army of the Perugians that lay in the hollow beneath?

  The captain of the gate pulled out the beautifully shining length of his sword and held it at the breast of the first of the crowd, a slender fellow of not more than middle height, with a tuft of red hair sticking out through a gap in his cloak’s hood. —

  “Where are the lot of you going, fellow?” demanded the captain.

  “Out of Urbino to get some cool air,” said Tizzo.

  “Out of Urbino to talk to the Perugians, you mean,” said the captain. “What’s to keep me from knowing or thinking that you’re a pack of damned traitors?”

  “This, highness, ought to convince you,” said Tizzo, and shifting away from the sword with a sudden side step, he jerked the blue-headed ax from under his cloak and struck.

  The blow clanged on the steel and at the same instant cut through it with a dull, chopping sound. That ruined helmet never would be worn again. And the captain of the gate fell on his face, dead.

  There were a dozen soldiers on guard, three times the usual number, because the Perugians were in sight down there in the hollow, their tents showing like a pale blue mist under the increasing moonlight. Those dozen guards were mastered and slain instantly, in the moment of bewilderment which gripped them after they saw the captain fall. A few of them cried out in terror or in the death agony, but the mob of three hundred and more assailants never uttered a sound.

  That was the special horror of the moment, the silence with which the crowd showed the flash of weapons and rushed to work, part of them to destroy the guard at the gate, part of them through the doors at the bottom of the towers, to the right and left of the gate. The hunchback with his club sprang like a horrible spider up the winding stairs of the left tower. The sword of the baron led the way more slowly on the right.

  The three strokes went home almost at the same moment. The gate was hardly won before the great, husky, roaring voice of the hunchback began to sound from the top of the left gate; and a man-at-arms, like a signal of victory, was hurled out of the topmost casement. The poor fellow dropped, spinning head over heels, screaming, and struck the pavement below, crushed to death.

  Tizzo, rushing with part of his men to the more serious work of the attack on the right tower and the little armory beside it, was not halfway up the stairs before he heard the shouting that announced the victory.

  He went on with the peasants and found a score of his men already in the armory, snatching up steel caps to put on their heads, seizing swords, targets, battle-axes, poniards sharp as a cat’s tooth.

  There was hardly a wound to count. The success was complete and perfect. And Tizzo was once more on the ground level of the gate with the baron panting beside him before he heard the alarm bells begin to crash from all parts of Urbino. It had required all that time, so sudden was the stoke, for the news to reach from the Porta del Monte to the rest of the city.

  He left more than a hundred men with his father, a third part of that number in the left-and right-hand towers.

  “If you had half a dozen men who understood firearms,” said Tizzo, “you could make sure of the gate.”

  “I can be sure of it anyway,” said Melrose. “Why don’t the Perugians come swarming up to take this advantage?”

  “I never knew Giovan Paolo to be so slow,” said Tizzo. “Do you hear? I go with the rest of the men straight back through the city and try to rouse the mob. Every one of
my fellows is carrying extra weapons from the armory. I’m heading for the Porta S. Bartolo. The Borgians are out there on the Pesaro Road. And if I have luck, I’ll carry that gate and open it to our friends.”

  “Good lad,” said the baron. “Be confident of me. All will go well here. See how the gutter rats come swarming to take part in the victory!”

  For already men were scampering toward the Porta del Monte, shouting the battle cry which was gathering force every moment: “Duca! Duca!”

  Tizzo gripped the hand of his father and left the knight arming himself rapidly with complete steel plate which he had found in the armory. For his own part, he was content, as usual, with a mere breastplate and steel cap; but he had a sword by his side to help out the ax which was his favorite.

  He started to cross the city with all his selected men swarming behind him.

  They were like a column of marching ants. Some of them ran ahead into houses and tumbled the inhabitants out into the street. Others stood over the people who already were gathered along the way and made them join the chorus of “Duca! Duca!”

  Hundreds and hundreds were joining the wild-headed throng behind Tizzo. He walked in the lead, most of the time with the steel cap removed so that the flame-red of his hair could be seen. And the cry was increasingly: “Duca! Duca! Tizzo! Tizzo! Tizzo! Who has five hundred ducats to pay for a redhead?”

  So, laughing, yelling, they thronged up the streets.

  A murmur, a dim shouting, an echo out of the distant horizon first climbed to the open loggia where Duke Guidobaldo sat at supper with Countess Caterina. And then, suddenly, they heard the first crashing of the alarm bells, harsh, fierce, rapid, senseless language of fear.

  Guidobaldo leaped to his feet. The countess sat perfectly composed. And onto the terrace ran one of those silken courtiers now white with fear and trembling.

  “The Porta del Monte! The Porta del Monte!” was all he could gasp.

  “What about the Porta del Monte?” asked the stem countess. “Have the Perugians captured it? If they have, Guidobaldo — they’ll gut your city in an hour. I know Giovan Paolo and the ways of his men.”

  Duke Guidobaldo shouted: “What has happened at the Porta del Monte, you foots?”

  “The mob! The mob is up, shouting for the ‘Duca! Duca!’ and leading the mob is the English baron and his son. Tizzo is there. They have murdered the guard. They are holding the gate—”

  “Are they?” snarled the duke. “I’ll smash them against the walls with a single sweep of the men-at-arms! Wait here for me, Caterina. I’ll finish this little work in a few minutes, wash my hands, and come back to you.”

  He was gone, instantly. And in his room below pages hustled him into his gilded armor while he called out orders that caused his throng of chosen men-at-arms, his household bodyguard, to pour out into the court beneath. There they waited, all mounted and ready for action, three score chosen lances; and a hundred arquebusiers formed up behind them.

  The duke, clambering heavily into the saddle-he never was a warrior — called to his men: “Down to the Porta del Monte, all of you, and cut down the ragamuffins there. There’s a good bright moon to show you your way, and just enough work to warm you. But unless we close the gate, the Perugians will be in on us, and then the devil to pay. Forward! Arquebusiers, come on as fast as you may!”

  Everywhere in the city the trumpets were sounding as the garrison gathered at the endangered points; and from the north and south towers of the Porta del Monte the small cannon were booming more as a signal to the Perugians to hurry than to inflict harm.

  This was the situation when Duke Guidobaldo arrived with his cavalry. If there had been mailed men-at-arms to oppose him, he would have remained behind to watch his soldiers clear the way for him. But since there were only a score or two of ragged fellows, half-armed, in the open throat of the gate, he rushed in valiantly and swept the rabble out of his path.

  It was over in ten seconds. Half the citizens were down, and the rest had fled, screaming with fear or with the pain of wounds. And as the duke drew rein, he heard the pounding of hoofs that approached from the hollow and saw the gleam of the moonlight on the horsemen of Giovan Paolo, not a furlong away!

  It was a near thing, a very near thing. His flesh crawled at the nearness of it. But well before the Perugians arrived, the heavy gates had been swung shut, and the men-at-arms, furious with the first easy taste of blood, were swarming up the stairs of the south tower and the north. The south gate tower they took at the first rush. But to the north they encountered strangely unexpected resistance. For there was Baron Henry of Melrose, now armored from head to foot, and rallying his men for a last, desperate stand. Again and again the men-at-arms charged up the stairs and recoiled from the blows of the knight and the savage thrusts of his followers.

  In the meantime, helpless before the gates and the lofty walls, Giovan Paolo and his knights shook their spears vainly and cursed their bad luck. They had come five seconds too late to gain one of the richest prizes in Italy.

  XXI. THE SINGED FISH

  TWO THOUSAND MEN, a flowing river, half-armed or not armed at all, followed Tizzo to the Bartolo Gate on the Pesaro Road. But the uproarious shouting of “Duca! Duca! Tizzo! Tizzo! Tizzo!” had outlined their whole course as though with fire, and the troops within Urbino were gathering rapidly in squadrons of horse and companies of pikes and arquebusiers.

  So, when Tizzo and the head of his column reached the open square near the gate, he was not at all surprised to see the gates closed, the walls and towers thronged with soldiers, and a hundred arquebusiers drawn up in good order to contest the way. A hundred arquebusiers with lighted matches, and leveled, heavy guns, all ready to blast the rebels from the surface of the pavement. And off to either side appeared in the moonlight the glimmering heads of small bodies of horse.

  There was hope, but it was far removed. That hope was in the distant echoing cry of “Duca! Duca!” which resounded beyond the walls. There, he could be sure were the Borgians, horse, foot — the fiery Gascons, the tall Swiss with their terrible pikes, and not least of all, the companies of Romagnol peasants so well drilled and armed. His own company was among them. How willingly he would have exchanged all this mob for that single company of trained fighting men!

  But behind him he had merely a torrent of men. The strength of its rush was all that he could strike with.

  He caught two burly fellows by the shoulder and lifted himself up until he was head above all the rest. And he shouted: “On the run, friends! Half of us must die, but the other half will butcher those arquebusiers! On the run! Follow me!”

  And swinging himself down to the ground, he ran forward rapidly into the lead, until the moonlight gleamed on him well before all the rest. The eager Italian temperament could not hold back behind such a leader. There was a yell of wildest enthusiasm. Men who had been faltering at the sight of the terrible guns now rushed blindly forward.

  The arquebusiers were commanded by a gentleman of: culture who had accepted a company of foot in order to show his good nature and his willingness to learn the game of war from the bottom. He now stood splendid in complete gilded armor, leaning on his naked sword, and calling his commands with casual precision. He called out cheerfully: “We will blow the heads of the ragamuffins down their own throats. Aim carefully, my lads — and now — fire!... Ah, well done! Well done! Draw sword and cut them down before they can run —

  The blast of fire from the arquebuses had ripped the front of the rebels to pieces. But Tizzo, unharmed, ran straight on, and behind him streamed a thin wedge of his followers.

  He himself picked out the noble captain who had expected! so confidently that the rabble would be dispersed by that volley. The sword-stroke of the noble was flicked aside by the flourish of the ax; and the next blow split the helmet of the soldier as though it had been kindling wood instead of fine steel.

  The arquebusiers were taken by amazement. Their volley would have been enough to have ha
lted a charge delivered by the bravest of knights. But here were half-armed and wholly untrained people of the street who came running in lightly with half their friends laid dead before their eyes. The arquebusiers, having no time to load again, drew their swords, but they gave only a few feeble strokes. They felt that the devil was abroad. Their commander was dead, and now they took to their heels and left their heavy weapons behind them.

  That was how Tizzo won through to the gate, and burst it open.

  Hot work followed.

  As the huge panels of the gate swayed wide, Tizzo could see down the moon-whitened strip of the Pesaro Road the glitter of a column of cavalry which now rushed toward the open gate. And as they rode, the men-at-arms were shouting: “Duca! Duca!” at the top of their lungs.

  Against the thunder of their hoofs, another uproar of galloping horses and rattling of mailed riders rushed at Tizzo from behind. The cavalry posted around the gate when the arquebusiers were swept away, now poured out to ride down the rabble. Half the townsmen they swept aside, butchering them, trampling them underfoot. But right in the center of the gateway they met Tizzo, the hunchback, and a few desperately determined men. These were borne back by the shock of the attack, but they still were fighting when the men of the Borgia rushed into the battle.

  The impact of their charge was decisive. Cesare Borgia himself headed the cavalry rush. Behind him his best men were striking with spear or with lance. They slashed straight through the cavalry of Duke Guidobaldo’s forces.

  Cesare himself saw a saddle near him emptied by a bullet or an arrow. An instant later a man rose as from the ground and sat in the saddle and shouted: “My lord, give me men to take to the Porta del Monte.”

  “Take whatever you please,” said Borgia. “Tizzo, you have burned down the gates of Troy for us — and now the city is ours! Take what you want. If I had a bucket of diamonds, I’d pour them over you. Halloo! Halloo! Tomaso! Innocente! Follow Captain Tizzo! If he wants to take you to hell, give my compliments to the devil.”