Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “Because there’s a cat in it, you fool!” said the second.

  And they both laughed and went on.

  XXIX. THE BURNING OF A CANDLE

  WHEN SHE GOT out as far as the branch would bear her weight and when it had already begun to crackle beneath her, she found that she could barely reach to the edge of the nearest casement with the tip of her toe and the ends of her fingers. She had to grit her teeth. When she looked down, the pavement of the court seemed harder than stone, and rough as teeth to receive her.

  Then, with a shake of the head, she thought of Tizzo. How like a cat he would spring across this little gap. For her own part, she barely was able to summon enough resolution to make the attempt. She drew herself out. She felt her fingers slipping. She had a frantic impulse to fling herself back into the tree which she had just quitted; but the noise of that would certainly bring the soldiers — and the end of her attempt. So she held to her grip as firmly as she could and gradually drew herself forward until both feet were firmly planted in the casement.

  The shutters were open. She stood looking down into a little room which was almost bare. There was only a small table in the center of it, and a bench on one side of the table. A pair of gloves lay on this table and a candle burned on it. The candle gleam was reflected from the boss of a shield that leaned in a corner of the room, with a long pike rising beside it.

  She could see everything with perfect clearness. There was a cheese rind beside the gloves on the table, and a fitter of crumbs of bread crust. And on the floor there was a sleek, long-tailed gray rat moving quickly here and there, no doubt picking up fallen crumbs.

  Now it lifted its head. She could see the bright, long whiskers tremble back and forth as the horrible creature scented more food above its head.

  But she could thank God for the rat. It was the sufficient warranty that there was no human being in the room, unless he were asleep in a corner bed.

  She slipped down to the sill of the window and dropped to the floor beneath, turning her back and lowering herself with her hands, there was such a distance to the floor. Behind her she heard the light, tapping scurry of feet as the rat fled to its hole.

  She had gained the floor when two powerful hands gripped her by the arms.

  “So, my fine young thief!” said a man’s voice.

  She wrenched herself desperately. She merely succeeded in twisting around, so that he held her in the grasp of one strong arm. The other hand held over her head a deadly little poniard. The wine-breath, sour with an admixture of cheese, stifled her.

  And then she saw over his scarred face the coming of a broad smile.

  “A wench!” he said, “Ah, ha! Wine and bread and cheese — and then a wench!”

  He jammed the poniard back into the scabbard and slipped his hands down her arms until he held her by the wrists. After that, he pushed her back to arm’s length and looked at her from head to foot.

  “And so I thought — so I thought!” he said. “Even better than my thinking, and better than my dreaming.”

  She did not stir; she would show neither terror nor disgust. With a still face she regarded him.

  “A brazen one for such a young one,” said the soldier. “What’s your name?”

  “Giulia.”

  “Whose daughter?”

  “Tomaso, the chief fisherman.”

  “He’s as important as that?” grinned the soldier.

  Where the scar cut across his upper lip the mustaches scattered as he smiled and showed a broad white glint of scar tissue. He had no forehead at all — only two wrinkles of flesh above the eyebrows and then a shag of hair.

  “And whom have you come to see?” asked the soldier.

  She answered — she had planned that answer—’”Tizzo.”

  “Ah ha! You aim at the high ones, eh?” said the soldier. “Tizzo, is it? Let me see. Does that sound reasonable? All the fine ladies throw their gloves to him. Why should he look down as far as a fisherman’s daughter? I’ll take you to the captain of the watch, perhaps — and he may have something to say, and certain ways of saying it.”

  She said nothing. She kept watching that face, seeing it as she never had seen another thing in her life.

  The moonlight streamed in across her shoulder and mixed with the dim yellow of the lamplight that illumined him. It seemed to her that the moonlight was like a stream of cold water, chilling her to the bone.

  “Tizzo!” said the soldier. “And thinking about him has almost made you dumb, eh? Well, he’s a good captain. By God, he’s one of the best that rides a horse or swings an ax. I’ve seen that ax of his chip a way through a forest of steel helmets. Tizzo, is it? And did you come for love or money?”

  “He gave me the purse at my belt,” she answered.

  “Ah, did he?”

  He took hold of the purse at her belt and wrenched it away. He stepped back from her, holding her with an occasionally watchful eye.

  She could leap back into the casement, now, and so fling herself into the tree and escape — but that would not save Tizzo.

  She had to steel herself with invincible calmness.

  He poured the money on the table — a few coppers — much silver — some glintings of golden coins.

  “What a fool he is! Gold! To throw away gold on a wench!”

  He came back to her. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Giulia,” she answered. “The daughter of Tomaso.”

  “You lie,” said the soldier.

  She answered nothing. It seemed to her that she could not endure for another moment the weight of his eyes; outwardly she maintained a thin shell of calm. Inside, she felt the scream working higher in her throat.

  “Well...” he said.

  He went back to the money on the table.

  “It you’ve told me a lie, you’ve paid for it,” he said. “You lost your purse — and you don’t know where. Is that the story you would tell him?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  He doubted her with his eye for another moment, then he walked to the door.

  “I can’t turn my shoulder on fortune as good as this. Do you know where the room of Tizzo is?”

  “Only that it’s in this wing of the palace.”

  “Well, come along with me. What a night for me! I can go back to Switzerland after one more profit like this. I can see the mountains again and listen to the cows booming in the valleys. Come along.”

  He led her from the room into a corridor and, keeping his grip on her arm, conducted her past several doors. At last he stopped and pointed.

  “There you are,” he said. “The thing is to see whether or not the brave captain has left his door unlocked for you. If he hasn’t, I march you to the captain of the guard, money or no money. There may be some deviltry behind all this. A fisherman’s daughter never had an eye as straight as yours!”

  She bowed her head and tried the knob of the door. Incredibly, it turned and gave at once. The door pushed open and showed her a thin wavering of candlelight inside. A great breath came into her body. All the rest had been despair, but this was hope. Through the narrow gap of the opening door, she could see the central table, and the burning candle and, lying on a chair near by, that famous ax with its head of the blue Damascus steel.

  “He’s waiting for you, then,” whispered the soldier. “Good fortune!”

  And he went off down the hall with long, silent strides, hunching his shoulders to take weight from his feet.

  Beatrice Baglione, pushing the door wide, looked anxiously around her.

  Tizzo, fully clothed, had thrown himself on the bed in the corner of the room. He lay sprawling, his head turned down until it almost touched his shoulder. The candlelight touched dimly on the flaming red of his hair. And her heart leaped and raced away toward him.

  A touch of terror was in her happiness until, as she closed the door behind her, distinctly she heard the sound of his breathing.

  The moonlight was entering the two windows
a white step. But the candle threw most of the dim fight that invaded the room. It seemed to her that a thin, white mist issued from the candle and curled slightly upward in the air, worked on by the draught that came in through the windows. But this mist, if there were one, was so extremely thin that it was hardly visible. It might have been a matter of thought only. But not a matter of thought was the faint fragrance which filled the air — something in the nature of the sweetness of violets — a clean delight of perfume.

  She went toward the bed, passing into one of the dim billows of that mist. One breath, and she was staggered. A second and she fell to the floor.

  She knew, then. Poison — Bonfadini the master devil of the craft! Men had died before in the house of the Borgia, from as small a thing as inhaling the fragrance of a bouquet of roses.

  She screamed loudly for help. Her throat muscles had strained, but not even a whisper came to her ears.

  She could make no sound. Darkness was rolling over her brain. She got to hands and knees which trembled under her, and crawled forward.

  Her knees gave way.

  She dragged herself on hands and elbows only. The rest of her body trailed like the body of a snail. Its weight was enormous. She wanted to drop her head and fall asleep. It was agony, it was death to maintain that struggle, but she saw before her the hand of Tizzo that drooped down over the side of the bed.

  It was an infinite distance away. It was a distance that grew greater and greater, or was that because of the dimness of her eyes?

  And then, suddenly, it was immediately before her. She caught at it with her last strength and fell senseless on her face.

  XXX. THE PEARLS

  AT A LITTLE after nine in the evening, Bonfadini stepped close to Cesare Borgia and murmured at his ear, “I found him asleep. I changed the candle that was burning in his room for one of another sort. He will have sweet dreams, my lord. He will have dreams so delightful that he never will waken from them.” —

  “Poor Tizzo,” said the Borgia. “I tell you, Bonfadini, that I feel a stroke against my heart when I think that that ax of his never will strike for me again. And perhaps poison was too ignoble. He should have been openly arrested.”

  “He is too popular with the soldiers, my lord. We would have risked an open revolt if Tizzo had been led out to meet a gentleman’s death under the edge of the executioner’s sword.” —

  “True again,” said the Borgia. “When one sees how common soldiery and other fools follow brave and honest leaders, it is almost a temptation to change the role and become such a man myself.”

  “My lord chooses to amuse himself with speculation,” said Bonfadini, dryly.

  “What is your pay for this little job with Tizzo?” asked the Borgia.

  “The pearls have been growing larger, my lord. As you see?”

  The poisoner took out a string of pearls, held it by a central point, and allowed the jewels to fall away from the place where his fingers pinched the silk on which they were strung. Beginning with jewels quite small, they increased gradually in size on either side, mounting into big pearls toward the center of the necklace, which was left open for a gap of several inches.

  “You’ve increased the length of the silk, Bonfadini,” said the Borgia.

  “My lord,” said the poisoner, “that is because I trust that you will live a long and happy life.”

  “And that you will make it happier by removing my enemies one by one — a pearl for every life?” asked the Borgia smiling.

  “It has been so to this point,” said Bonfadini, and held up the necklace with an admiring eye, half-closed by pleasure.

  “Do you want me to count them?” asked the Borgia grimly.

  “You may do so with pleasure, my lord. These on the left all have been added in memory of the good men and the lovely women who have been a little too much in my lord’s way. They have inherited the heaven that was their due, and a little before their time. These on the right are the scoundrels who have gone to a hell that already was hungry for them.”

  The duke laughed dryly.

  “I see you are a genius, Bonfadini,” he said, “and you have a way of making even your poisonings acts of virtue.”

  “A wise man,” said Bonfadini, “always knows how to compromise with his conscience. A conscience, my lord is a treasure that never should be expended hastily or carelessly. Neither should pearls be cast before swine.”

  “I see that you’ve been profiting by the conversation of my Machiavelli,” said the duke.

  “A man, my lord, of the sheerest virtue.”

  Here the duke opened a purse and took from it several pearls, which he matched against those on the necklace, and finally selecting one, he handed it to the poisoner. Bonfadini dropped to one knee to receive it.

  “On which side do you place that jewel?” asked the Borgia.

  Bonfadini, with rapid fingers, was unknotting the silken string and threading the last pearl. As he held up the unfinished necklace again he said, “A man whom I have hated, my lord, and yet the justice of the clear mind and the unprejudiced soul forces me to place him on the left. He is at this moment winging his way to the upper silences and blue of heaven, my lord.”

  The duke laughed again.

  “You are one of the strings of my heart, Bonfadini,” he said. “Without you I should be nothing. But one Bonfadini and one Machiavelli are enough to ensure the fortune of any man. Have the officers gone to make the other arrests?”

  “They have, my lord. As soon as I had lighted the candle in the room of Captain Tizzo, I went immediately to the officers and passed on your orders. I think — I think that they are coming now, my lord.”

  For a steady tramping of heavy feet came up the corridor and now paused at the door of the duke’s chamber.

  “See what it is, and let them in,” commanded the Borgia.

  He reclined on his bed, pulling a big cushion behind him. There was a dish of Venetian sweetmeats on the bedside table, and after making careful selection, he placed one of these in his mouth.

  At that moment the door opened and the three Orsini were led in with their arms bound and soldiers about them.

  Paolo Orsini fell on his knees at once. “Oh, my lord, noble Cesare,” he groaned, “you are not doing more than jest with us, I know.”

  “What a fool I would be to jest with the proclaimed King of Italy!” said the duke.

  “Get on your feet,” said another Orsini. “It is worse than two deaths for me to see you on your knees to that inhuman devil.”

  Niccolô Machiavelli came unbidden into the room and observed the scene.

  “You see, my dear Niccolô,” said the duke, “that a man cannot do justice without being cursed — and that is one of the pities of this life of ours in Italy.”

  He added, with a sweep of the hand: “Take them out. I am tired of their faces. I always have been tired of the sight of them. Away with the Orsini!”

  And the Orsini were dragged from the room. Paolo began to groan as he was carried away. He began to pray aloud for the kind God to have mercy.

  “They will not die here,” said the duke to Machiavelli. “Not until they get to Rome. It would be a pity to waste the sweetness of their deaths on a place like Singaglia. But Rome will lick up their blood faster than it can pour from their wounds. Ah, here is my brave Oliverotto!”

  The general came in with a firm step and a high head.

  Cesare Borgia rose from his bed. “Are you ready?” he asked Oliverotto.

  “Ready and more than ready, my lord,” said the general. “I would despise living after I have made such a fool of myself as to trust your word.”

  The duke picked from the table a dagger with a delicately carved handle, ornamented and roughened with jewels, cut and uncut.

  “How brave are you, my dear Oliverotto?” he asked.

  “Brave enough to stand the rack,” said the general.

  “I think so and hope so,” said the Borgia. “But I intend a mercy, my fr
iend.”

  He laid the point of the dagger against the bare breast of the general and pressed, lightly.

  The point sank in.

  “If you draw a deep breath, you are a dead man, Oliverotto,” said the duke.

  His teeth and his eyes shone as he smiled at the face of his victim, but Oliverotto showed not the slightest emotion. His own glance sternly held on that of the Borgia. There was not a quiver of his lip.

  The dagger point sank slowly into the living flesh above the heart.

  “So much life, so bravely throbbing,” said the duke.

  It makes me think of a hidden bird that wants to break from the mesh and escape into the sky. You will fly faster than birds, Oliverotto, but not in the same direction.”

  “I give my soul to God,” said Oliverotto, “if he will have it. Otherwise it is a first-rate prize for the devil.”

  An instant later his head fell on his shoulder and his body would have dropped to the floor except for the hands that gripped him on either side. He was dead.

  “An excellent fellow, that Oliverotto,” said the Borgia. He picked up a napkin from the table and wiped the dagger clean on it. “Lay this dagger aside for me, Bonfadini,” he said. “I never shall use it again after it has been dipped in such brave blood.” —

  The dead body was carried away.

  “How little blood was spilled!” said the Borgia. “I think that this might be a lesson to executioners, Machiavelli.”

  “It is always ennobling,” said the Florentine, “to see a brave man die as he should.”

  “You lick your lips, Niccolô,” answered the duke. “You would be glad to have a hand in this sort of business?”

  “Not at all,” said Machiavelli. “I play the role of an observer. I do not attempt to rival my masters.”

  And before another word could be said Vitellozzo Vitelli was brought in, struggling with his guards, still half-drunk, cursing. When he saw the Borgia, he made a mighty bound and almost reached him before the guards drew him back. The Borgia, as though half in self-defense, gripped him by the collar of the shirt and then twisted the cloth.