Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  There was a check when the long column of the army of the Borgia came in view. The generals who had been in revolt had spread their forces in varying directions toward Ancona. The troops of Vitellozzo, for instance, were quartered in Morro and Fiumessino, a dozen miles south and east of Sinigaglia. The duke came on with five hundred chosen men-at-arms in the lead of his column.

  These men were under the command of Ludovico di Mirandola and Raffaello de’ Pazzi. Next came a picked thousand of Gascon and Swiss infantry, men able to stand off the charge of cavalry with their pikes and blast the mounted men with the fire from their arquebuses. The main body followed behind, raising a great dust cloud, and with the brilliant uniforms of the Romagnol infantry gleaming through the dust.

  The generals from Sinigaglia drew rein when they saw the imposing force. Oliverotto shouted suddenly: “There! Do you see it? There’s the trap, and Vitellozzo was right from the first!”

  One of the Orsini turned sharply to Tizzo with murder in his face.

  “You knew what would happen, Tizzo!” he exclaimed.

  “What will happen?” muttered Tizzo, frowning. “A friendly meeting is what will happen. Look!” He pointed.

  Ahead of them, at the slow pace of a walking mule, Vitellozzo was riding forward alone, his head still slightly depressed, as though he saw nothing worthy of concern in the imposing host that was moving toward them.

  Oliverotto groaned and then laughed.

  “Well, if the devil is taking charge of us, we’ll have to go where he beckons,” said the general, and they all went forward toward the Borgia.

  Cesare Borgia, on an ambling pad that looked hardly as large as its rider, swept out from the head of the column with half a dozen of his leaders around him. He was completely armed in the finest plate that gleamed with reddish cast, there was so much gold chased over the surface of the armor. His head alone was bare, the long hair blowing, and his face dimmed by the usual mask. It seemed to Tizzo that the eyes of the duke were flashing with an extra brilliance as he rode up.

  In the background was the white face of Bonfadini the poisoner, and near Bonfadini rode that man of increasing fame, Niccolô Machiavelli, with his faint smile that made his face look like that of a cat.

  Reining his pad back to a walk as he drew near, the Borgia called out heartily: “Where is my brother, Vitellozzo?”

  Then he seemed to make sure of the repentant rebel for the first time and rode straight to him. He leaned from his saddle and caught the arm of Vitellozzo to prevent him from dismounting, then kissed him affectionately.

  The duke said, so that all could hear, “The best of friends make the shrewdest of enemies, Vitellozzo. But now we are home again in one house.”

  Vitellozzo answered, “Perhaps so, my lord. I see we are to have the same devil with us.”

  “What devil?” asked the duke.

  “The white one,” said Vitellozzo, and pointed at Bonfadini.

  Everyone in Italy knew the singular talent of Bonfadini, but Cesare Borgia laughed openly and loudly when he heard the remark.

  “My dear Vitellozzo,” he said, “a sin loses most of its taint when it’s exposed to the open day. You must admit that.”

  The white face of Bonfadini, for the first time in the knowledge of men, slowly turned scarlet. Tizzo looked at the cold devil with amazement. And Vitellozzo said, “If I die in my sleep, tonight, my ghost will know whom to blame for the quick trip to heaven.”

  The duke was greeting the others, one by one. When he came to Tizzo, he laid his big hand on the shoulder of his captain and said: “Honesty is a new policy for me, Tizzo. But I think it’s going to prove the best one.”

  At this, his own staff and the men from Sinigaglia all laughed. They rode on together. The men-at-arms who followed, seeing this amicable reunion, all began to shout and cheer and cry: “Duca! Duca! Vitellozzo! Orsini! Tizzo! Oliverotto! Duca! Duca!” for they could see that some hard and dangerous fighting was being avoided by this reconciliation. The news spread back through the column. All the way into Sinigagha there was a continual cheering from the rearward ranks.

  Tizzo listened carefully to every word the duke spoke. Paolo Orsini was very bold. He said to the Borgia, frankly: “You always have hated me and my house, my lord.”

  “That’s true,” said the Borgia. “But why should I refuse to use one of the sharpest swords in Italy, even if my enemy has put the edge to it?”

  Paolo Orsini laughed. He said: “Every man with a clear head and a strong hand ought to be in your service, my lord. If that could happen, Italy would soon be one country, and never a Frenchman or a Swiss in it.”

  “Or a Spaniard, either,” said Vitellozzo.

  There was a slight, embarrassed pause. The reference to the Spanish blood of the Borgias was too direct and insulting, but the duke turned to Vitellozzo and said calmly, “You stab at me, Vitellozzo, but a dagger of words has no point — not when a friend uses it.”

  “My lord, you mistook me,” said Vitellozzo.

  But there was a sour twist of satisfaction on his face. All of these men, Tizzo could see, feared the duke to the cores of their hearts, but they were unwilling to rejoin him and submit to his leadership without making some gestures of an independent mind and spirit.

  Cesare Borgia said, “But where is the noble Giovan Paolo Baglione?”

  He looked at Tizzo, who answered, “He is gone toward Perugia.”

  “And his sister with him?” asked the Borgia sharply.

  “The Lady Beatrice is with him,” admitted Tizzo.

  “Do you hear, Niccolô?” asked the duke.

  “I said it before the thing happened,” answered Machiavelli.

  “You did,” agreed the duke. “I am going to listen to you more carefully. After all, the Florentine brain is the finest in the world, as all men will admit.”

  “It’s the finest for intrigue, at least,” put in Oliverotto, and stared sternly at Machiavelli.

  He did not like the young statesman. None of the soldiers, in fact, could endure him in spite of the smoothness of his address.

  Machiavelli said, “Oliverotto, you ought to know that intrigue is what unties the strings of the purse and if the purse were tied up, where would we find the brave Oliverottos?”

  “Now, what the devil does he mean by that?” demanded the general, turning his back on Machiavelli.

  “I will write it out for you,” said Machiavelli, “and let you study the meaning at your leisure.”

  “Ha?” exclaimed Oliverotto, and turned sharply back to glare at Machiavelli. The passion of the soldier was so great that Tizzo half expected to see a dagger drawn on the moment, but after looking into the faintly smiling face and the cold, bright eyes of the Florentine for a moment, Oliverotto muttered a few indistinct words and turned his scowling glance back on the road.

  Vitellozzo laughed loudly. “To lose one’s temper is a luxury that most of us have to pay for, Oliverotto,” he said.

  But the other general said nothing.

  XXVI. A MAD DOG

  WHEN CESARE BORGIA and his army approached Sinigaglia, the first act of the Borgia was to send Lorenzo Ridi, one of his fiercest captains and best fighters, with a dozen picked lances straight through the city with word to gallop the heart out of their horses until they managed to overtake and kill Giovan Paolo Baglione. The orders were secret. The other hired soldiers must know nothing about this, but the Borgia felt, and he was right, that half his work was undone if the most famous of all the hired soldiers managed to escape scot-free.

  So that chosen detachment rushed through Sinigaglia, crossed its moated drawbridges, and swept off on the Perugia road. The word was that Giovan Paolo, since his own army was at a great distance, had left the city with only his sister and perhaps one or two more companions. Therefore the pursuit hastened with red spurs, and they were soon in the hills, with a widening view of the town just behind them.

  So they entered a narrow valley and raised close volleys of th
under from the sides. They rode in a stream that stretched out a full furlong, the best horses keeping well in the van. And as they approached a corner of the valley and the head of their scattered column galloped around the turn of the road, six mail-clad knights with spears in rest charged them.

  Lorenzo Ridi went down with a deep spear wound in his breast. Two more fell immediately behind him.

  The fall of Lorenzo Ridi in itself would have been enough to unnerve his followers. And when they saw the solid front which the horsemen of Giovan Paolo offered, it seemed to them that they were seeing a wall of steel. This handful of escort had been picked up by the Perugian. With it, he scattered the group of Borgians and sent them fleeing more wildly than they had pursued.

  When Giovan Paolo turned the head of his horse, he saw his sister already on her knees, disarming Lorenzo Ridi and trying to stanch the deadly flow from his breast.

  The man was young. He had a pale eye and a pale droop of mustaches. He was famous for ferocity and a savage delight in blood. Cesare Borgia used him constantly for desperately important or murderous missions.

  Giovan Paolo dismounted, threw the reins of his horse to one of his men-at-arms, and stood by the prostrate form of Ridi. The other two men who had been stricken from their horses had not even been wounded. They were merely stunned from their falls.

  Ridi said calmly: “You held the spear that spitted me, Giovan Paolo.”

  “I held it,” admitted the Baglione.

  “Luck was with you,” said Ridi. “It was the work of the damned armorer that left a weak joint there under the shoulder plate. However — Lady Beatrice, don’t dirty your hands with me any longer. My life is dripping out of me. Nothing can stop it from running. Ah hail To think of dying like this in a little skirmish at the first shock of the spears!”

  The girl said nothing. She had grown a little pale. Now she went to a small run of water beside the road, washed her stained hands clean, and brought water to Lorenzo Ridi.

  He thanked her. “Put my helmet under my head,” he said. “This is poor business for you, Giovan Paolo. If you could have knocked me over and taken me alive, there would have been several thousand ducats of ransom money to gain for my life. Now you see it’s coined into drops of blood that are worth nothing except to dogs and wolves. Or would you have ransomed me?”

  “I ask you the question back,” said the Baglione. “Would you have held me for ransom if you had captured me?”

  Ridi looked up at him with a contented smile.

  “I would have cut your throat, my friend,” he said.

  “Out of your own malice?”

  “Orders, Giovan Paolo.”

  “From the Borgia?”

  “Yes.”

  “What has happened in Sinigaglia?”

  “Nothing — so far. But in a few minutes the slaughter will start.”

  “Ah, I was right in riding away?”

  “Of course you were right,” said the dying man. “There’s no question of your rightness. But why the rest remained for the trap to close on them I can’t understand.”

  “It was Tizzo,” answered Giovan Paolo. “He trusted the Borgia. And the amount of his trust outweighed the fear of the Orsini and the rest.”

  “True,” agreet Ridi. “There’s a strange fellow, now — that Tizzo. As quick as a cat and as strong as a lion; as clever as a sharp knife; and yet he cannot see through the Borgia. He lets himself be turned into the bait that will trap all the hired soldiers — even the trapping of Giovan Paolo, though he loves you more than he loves his own life.”

  “All?” asked the Baglione. “Will Vitellozzo be killed among the rest?”

  “Yes. All. And Vitellozzo among the first. All of them may not be slaughtered in Sinigaglia. A few might be saved to take to Rome and let the people have a look at their deaths.”

  “And Tizzo himself?” asked Beatrice Baglione, putting out a hand to protect herself from the answer she feared.

  “Why, you could answer that for yourself,” suggested Ridi.

  “Do you mean that he will be murdered by the Borgia devil?”

  “Tell me what else could happen?” asked Ridi. “This Tizzo is strangely honest. He cannot fight except for a good cause. The Borgia has hoodwinked him by making him feel that all this war, murders, poisonings and all, has been for the sake of the great, new, united Italy. But when Tizzo finds that the duke has broken his faith and used him for a cat’s-paw, the sword of Tizzo will be out. That ax of his will try to chop its way through the skull of the Borgia. There’s no doubt of that. Once the generals are safely in hand, don’t you see that the Borgia will have to kill Tizzo also, in self-defense?”

  The girl did not cry out. She folded her hands together and stared at the distance. Then she stood up and withdrew, unnoticed. Ridi was turning very pale. His lips parted. His breathing came in gasps.

  “Can I reach Perugia and bring back my army in time to strike? muttered Giovan Paolo, thinking aloud.

  What good would your little army do against the Borgia’s forces? asked Ridi. And by this time, even, the soldiers of the revolted generals are fraternizing with the Borgians. The towspeople are raising their yell of ‘Duca! Duca!’ And before night the whole army of your friends will be in the hands of the duke. If you came against him, you would be swept down into the sea.”

  “It’s true,” murmured the Baglione.

  He looked up and took a quick, deep breath.

  The breathing of Ridi came now with a distinct, dry rattling.

  Ridi, said Giovan Paolo, “you are close to your end. Is there a last wish I can execute for you?”

  “I think not,” said Ridi.

  “Can you tell me why you always have hated me so much?”

  “Because, said Ridi, I envied the brightness that always surrounded your name. I wanted to be what men said of you, and the devil in me always made my hand too quick to kill, always thickened my tongue so that I could not use your noble words.”

  “Those are poor grounds for hate,” said Giovan Paolo. Tell me, Ridi, if there is anything that will rest your soul,” and I’ll surely try to do it for you after you are dead.”

  “Why, there’s one thing,” whispered the dying Ridi. “Lean closer, Giovan Paolo.”

  The Baglione leaned far over the soldier, who with a sudden last effort jerked himself up on one elbow. Blood spurted from the frightful wound in his breast as he made the struggle. But with his right hand he snatched out his poniard and drove it straight at the unvisored face of the Baglione.

  The first shadow of death already was dimming the eyes of Ridi, or that stroke would have been mortal. As it was, the needle-sharp point of the poniard stuck in the rim of the raised visor; the fine steel of the dagger burst into a thousand pieces, stinging and cutting the face of the Baglione. But there was no further harm. Giovan Paolo sprang to his feet, and Lorenzo Ridi dropped dead in the dust.

  “Carry him off the road,” said Giovan Paolo to his men. “Leave his armor on him. He was a mad dog, but he had courage and a great heart. Leave him as he is, unplundered. My heart aches for Tizzo! Where is Lady Beatrice?”

  “She took her horse a few minutes ago,” was the answer.

  “Her horse? Where did she ride? Up the road?”

  “No, my lord. Strange to say, she went down the road a little distance.”

  “Down the road?” muttered Giovan Paolo. “How could that be?”

  “I cannot tell, my lord.”

  The Baglione started and struck his mailed hands together.

  “She would not be insane enough to try to get back to Tizzo with a warning?” he groaned. “She would not try to — but she would! She would! To horse and after her. A thousand ducats to the man who overtakes her!”

  They were in the saddle instantly and thundering down the way, but at the next turn of the road they saw Beatrice Baglione far before them, bent in the saddle, whipping her horse to full speed.

  “My lord!” called one of the men-at-arms. “We
are riding straight back toward destruction. And we can’t overtake her. Her horse is fast; she rides as well as a man; and she has not a man’s weight.”

  Still for a moment Giovan Paolo urged his horse forward; but the heavy war horse manifestly was losing the race against that slender-limbed Arab which carried the girl.

  At last he drew rein. The dust he had raised blew up from behind and swept past him. Bitterly he stared at the dwindling form that fled down the valley road.

  XXVII. BONFADINI’S PLEASURE

  A HERD OF cattle bought by the Borgia money, numberless casks of strong red country wine, heaps of fruit, mountains of shining bread made a feast for the army and flooded the pockets of the happy Sinigaglians with hard cash. Song and shouting and laughter rang far away, through the streets. The feast for the generals was a different matter.

  Cesare Borgia always was a lavish hand, and he was more lavish than ever, on this day. He said to white-faced Bonfadini, “Let them swallow their last gifts — we’ll cut open their crops and have the things back again!”

  The generals — his own and those recently returned to him — sat at a long table while a crowd of servants passed around to serve them. The Borgia himself would not sit at the board. Now and again he came to his place at the head of the table and seemed about to take the chair there. But always he passed on again. From in front of the hearth he would lift his cup and pledge one of his generals. Or from the doorway he would be seen as he shouted some pleasantry.

  “You know, my lord,” said Vitellozzo Vitelli, “that some men fear to break bread and eat salt with others against whom they have evil intentions?”

  “Are you there again, my fine raven, croaking?” laughed the Borgia. “Try some new feathers on your back, my friend, and see whether or not I am a friend!”

  He waved his hand. At once two servants came in, carrying between them a long weight of the heaviest gold brocade.