I laughed triumphantly and almost jauntily, and half sprang at him. But he slumped down on a chair, still naked. So much gloom had fallen around and upon him that part of my anger left me. My clenched fists relaxed, my denouncement stuck in my throat. He had tried to trick me, to shove himself into my own age at my expense—but it had not worked. I only paraphrased Robert Burns.
"The best-laid plans of mice and men," I taunted, "go oft astray."
He looked up and stared at me for a full minute—yes, at least sixty seconds—before making any reply.
"I can understand your feelings," he muttered then, as humbly as a child caught in a jam closet. "Once more, I thought, I had tricked my way ahead of you. But I reap the reward of my sinful vanity."
I was amazed. This was nothing like Guaracco. "Do not tell me," I jeered, "that you repent."
His hand wrung the point of his beard. "Is it not permitted the proudest and foulest wrongdoer to say that he has done ill?" His head bowed almost upon his bare, scrawny knees. "Leo, let me make my poor excuses. My heart was full of zeal for what I should behold and learn, five centuries in the future. It would be to me what heaven is to the true churchman. And now, without even a glimpse—"
At last he rose. He held out a trembling hand. He seemed suddenly grown old and frail.
"Do not laugh or reproach. I have been deceitful, but let me make amends. We shall be true scientists and philosophers together. Will you not forgive, and take me as your friend?"
I could not exult over so patently broken an adversary, and his manner of earnest humility disarmed me. I took his hand. At once he straightened up, and his voice and bearing captured some of the old sprightliness.
"That is better, Cousin Leo—for we are kinsmen in taste and direction, at least. What wonders shall we not wreak together! The world will hear of us!"
As he spoke, a commotion and the sound of an excited voice came from below us. I, being dressed, ran down in place of Guaracco.
Sandro Botticelli stood facing Lisa. He was mud-spattered and panting, as from swift riding, and his plump, pleasant face full of grave concern.
"Leo," he said at once, "I risk my career, perhaps my life, in warning you. Fly, and at once!"
"At once?" I echoed, scowling in amazement. "Why?"
He gestured excitedly. "Do not bandy words, man," he scolded me. "Begone, I say! Lorenzo has signed a writ for your arrest. You are a doomed man."
My mouth fell open, it seemed to me, a good twelve inches.
"It is because of what happened at Volterra," Botticelli plunged on. "That town was sacked because of you. Lorenzo wanted alum, for your flying machine."
"Aye, and I got alum—"
"But you did not make a flying machine with it. Criticism has flamed up over the treatment of the Volterrans, and Lorenzo needs a scapegoat. When Guaracco informed him that you had used it deceitfully, for another purpose—"
"Guaracco!" I roared.
I saw his plan now, to usurp my place at the time reflector, leaving me to imprisonment, perhaps death, on a trumped-up charge. I took a step toward the stairs, for I wanted that scoundrel's blood.
But Botticelli came hurrying after me, and caught my arm.
"I hear galloping hoofs, Leo! The officers are coming. Run, I tell you! Run!"
At that moment the door burst open and two officers rushed in.
CHAPTER XV
Santi Pelagrini
Deliberately I gazed at the men who had entered so unceremoniously.
"You are officers?" I demanded. "You are to arrest me? Where is your warrant?"
"Here it is."
The chief of them drew his sword. I was unarmed, having laid aside even my dagger for the attempt to pass through time. Resistance was useless, and I spoke only to save poor Botticelli from possible punishment for riding to warn me.
"You will get no reward, after all," I addressed him with simulated spitefulness. "These gentlemen will take me to Lorenzo, not you. It's well for you that they came. Your effort to arrest me might have wound up in your getting hurt. I advise you to stick to paint daubing, Ser Sandro, and not to play catchpoll again."
He stared at me in pained surprise, then in grateful understanding. I walked out, closely guarded by the patrol, and was mounted upon a spare horse. Then we started—but away from Florence.
"Did not the Magnificent send you to seize me?" I demanded of the leader. "Take me before him, that my case may be heard."
They did not reply to that, or to other demands. We went southeast, mile after mile, leaving the good main road for shorter and rougher stretches. Once again I asked where we were going and what my fate would be, and once again I was unanswered. We stopped that night at a little house where a grape grower gave us bread and cheese and wine, and subsequently shelter. I slept in front of the fireplace, with the men standing watch over me in turn.
By mid-morning of the next day, we rode into the seaport of Rimini, and straight to the stone wharfs. The leader of our party sent a messenger to call ashore the captain of a small lateen-rigged ship riding close in at anchor. He talked aside with this captain, and gave him an official-looking document. Then I was taken from my horse and led forward.
"Go with this ship master," ordered the chief officer.
I protested loudly, and one of the officers gave me a rough shove. Next instant I had knocked him down, and the instant after that the others had swarmed upon me, throwing me to the stones of the wharf and pinioning me.
Before I was put into a skiff to go to the vessel, irons were procured—broad, heavy cuffs, connected by a single link and fastened with coarse locks, and clamped upon my wrists. There was no further sense in resistance. I was rowed out, hoisted to the half-deck, and placed in a closetlike compartment off the captain's cabin. We sailed at noon.
The captain did deign to tell me a little of what was to befall.
"You are ordered to imprisonment, sir," he said, "at the Fortaleza degli Santi Pelagrini—the Fortress of the Holy Pilgrims."
I had never heard of it,[*12] and said so.
"It is a great grace and service to heaven," the captain elaborated. "Holy men built it, two good centuries gone, for an abbey. But the heathen Turk, who flouts true belief and seeks to conquer us all, has taken the coastline, all save this fortress alone. Because we would hold our own, even in the teeth of Islam, it is garrisoned by the Holy Pilgrims."
He told me about the Order of the Holy Pilgrims, as well. They were military monks, not powerful or high-born, like the Templars of the Knights of St. John, but simple monks, armed and trained to fight. As he described them, they had been originally a band of common soldiers who, reaching Jerusalem at the high tide of the Crusades, forsook the world and entered the church. After the ousting of the Christians from the Holy Land, they had survived and fought on, and now stubbornly defended the island on which their fortress-priory stood.
And they were to be my jailers. It did me no good to protest my innocence and my right to justice. Lorenzo's anger, stimulated by the lies of Guaracco, had caused him to doom me thus to imprisonment and forgetfulness without benefit of trial. He or any other ruler of the time was able to do so, putting away a man as easily as he might put away a book or a suit of clothes. I could be thankful that he had not executed me. Or could I?
Five days were sailed before a light breeze, south and slightly eastward over the waters of the Adriatic. I was not permitted to go on deck, but there was a latticed port, and I saw as quickly as any lookout the two rakish galleys, with crescent-blazoned banners, that gave us chase on the fifth day.
For awhile it was a close race, and I thought that I might soon exchange my enforced idleness in the little cabin for labor at a galley oar. Then guns spoke to our front, a cheer went up from our sailors, and we drew nigh to the defending shores of the island where stood the Fortress of the Holy Pilgrims.
I was allowed on deck at last. I saw the island as a rocky protuberance from the blue ocean, its flattish top green with gr
owth, and but a single landing place—an arm of the sea, extending almost to the foot of the great square-towered castle of gray stone that dominated all points of the rock. A boat was put off, with myself, the captain, and some sailors to row us. I could see, afar off, the sullen Turkish galleys.
We came to the mouth of the inlet, and found that it bore two great lumpish towers of masonry, one at either brink, for the stretching of a chain if enemy were to be held off.[*13] A skiff came forward to meet us, rowed by two tanned, shaven-headed men in black serge robes. A third stood upright with his foot on the thwart, a crossbow ready in his hands. Its cord was drawn and a bolt ready in the groove.
"Who are you?" he called in a clear, challenging voice.
"A Christian vessel, with a message and a prisoner for you," replied our captain. A jerk of the crossbowman's shaven skull granted us leave to enter the inlet. I could see that the monks of the fortress wore each a symbol on his breast—a black cross, outlined in white, with a white cockle-shell at the center, emblematic of the church and pilgrimage. The two boats rowed inland to a dock of massive mortared stones, where we landed.
One of the monk oarsmen went swiftly ahead with the papers the captain had brought, while the rest of us mounted more leisurely the paved slope that led to the great gate of the castle. I looked to right and left, on the outdoors which I might well be leaving for a term of years.
There were some goats in a little herd; a series of rock-bordered fields where monks with looped-up gowns were hoeing crops, apparently of beans and barley; an arbor of grapevines. And, at the few spots where the steep shores relented enough to allow one to reach the seaside, parties of fishermen seined for sardines or speared for mullet.
The big gateway of collossal timbers, fastened with ancient copper bolts, stood open and allowed us to pass through a courtyard. Inside stood a row of black-robed men, armed with spears, apparently taking part in a most unpriestly military drill. They were all tanned, lean, and hard-faced, and handled their pikes with the precision and discipline of trained soldiers, which indeed they were. Into the castle hall we went, then down a corridor, and to a plain, windowless cell, lighted by a candle.
"Father Augustino!" respectfully called the monk who had conducted us.
Someone moved from behind the plain table of deal planks and stood up to greet us. He was a gaunt, fierce man, who wore a robe and symbol in no way differing from the others, yet I knew at once that here was the master of the priory.
His shoulders rose high and broad, so that he seemed a great black capital Y of a man, and his face, dark as a Moor's, was seamed and cross-hatched with scars. His nose had been smashed flat by some heavy blow, the right corner of his mouth was so notched that a tooth gleamed through, and his left eyelid lay flat over an empty socket. The sole remaining eye quested over us with stern appraisal.
The monk stood at attention, and offered the letter that the captain had brought. Father Augustino opened and read it quickly, then spoke, in the deep voice of practiced command.
"Go, Brother Pietro, and fetch Giacopo the clerk. He shall write to Lorenzo de Medici that this prisoner will be held here as he desires."
The monk made a gesture similar to a salute, and departed as briskly as a well trained orderly. Father Augustino faced the captain.
"Will you partake of our humble hospitality, my
son?"
"Gladly, Holy Father," was the captain's reply. "I dare not leave my anchorage under your guns until yonder dog galleys of Mahound depart, in any case."
The notched mouth spread in a smile. "Nay, they shall depart within the hour. Our own war craft will see to that. We have two armed boats of our own, and not a Holy Pilgrim of us but is worth three of the best of the Turkish pirates, whose feet have fast hold of hell. I shall order a party out to battle."
He came forth from the cell that did duty as his office. I noticed that he limped slightly, and that around his lean middle, outside the gown, was belted a cross-hilt sword.
"Is this the prisoner?" he asked, turning to me. "Prisoner, I call upon you to repent your sin."
"I do freely repent all sins that lie upon my soul, Father Augustino," I replied at once. "Of the sin with which I stand charged before you I cannot repent, since of it I am entirely innocent. The guilty are those who falsely procured my imprisonment."
"He is a lying dog," grumbled the captain, but I thought that the scar-chopped face and single eye of the prior were lighted up, as though he approved of my boldness.
Then another monk arrived, with a sword at his hip and a half-pike upon his shoulder. At Father Augustino's order, he marched me away, upstairs and along a gallery above.
We came into a corridor lined on either side with locked doors, and full of a musty, sweaty prison smell. A porter, burly and black-gowned, unlocked a heavy door of planking for me and pushed me inside.
My cell was some six feet by ten, with a wooden cot at the inner end. Above this was a window, not more than a foot square, and blocked by two crosswise bars. The walls were all of uneven cut stone, the mortar scraped away around each for the depth of a full inch—the work of many an idle prisoner. There was a stool, a jug for water, a wooden refuse bucket. The door that clanged shut behind me had a wooden sliding panel, through which food could be given me or slops poured forth into a gutter.
When I stretched, my hands reached up to the ceiling overhead. And when I knelt on my straw mattress, I saw that my window was only a tunnel through seven feet of wall. I looked out upon a sandy shelf, and beyond that to the sea.
This was my home, for heaven and Lorenzo de Medici knew how long.
Notes:
*12 - This Fortress of the Holy Pilgrims must have been located off the coast of Albania, which country was almost entirely overrun by invading Turks during the Fifteenth Century, though no record of it seems to exist, nor any concerning the Order of the Holy Pilgrims.
*13 - This chain defense for a harbor or landing was long a favorite with fortresses. As late as the American Revolutionary War, the British were prevented from coming up the Hudson River by a chain stretched across at West Point.
CHAPTER XVI
Captivity
For one reason alone I pass over the next six years in a few words. That is because those six years were empty—heart-breakingly empty.
I was not released from my cell, except for the reason I shall relate. I knew no passage of time except by the shifting of the sunlighted patch on my wall opposite the little window, and by the arrival, each noon, of coarse food in a wooden plate and water in a leather mug. This was the same fare, I make no doubt, as that of the monks who were my jailers.
On Sundays came a cup of wine, and I could hear the intoning of a mass. Then I would make a mark to denote a week's passing under the date which I had scratched in the biggest stone. These weekly marks added into months, and the months into years. I found myself pacing up and down, up and down, like a beast in a cage. To break myself of that frantic habit, I spent hours at calesthenic exercises which did keep me fairly fit, and at sketching with bits of burnt wood, and scratching pictures on the wall with the tongue of my belt-buckle.
My best effort was a Madonna, amusing her haloed Son with a flowery twig. As I worked thus I wondered if the picture would ever be seen by other eyes than mine. I decided that probably it would. The fortress was old, and might last for centuries. I might die in the cell, and another captive replace me, a captive who would look at the work of my hands and muse idly about the predecessor who had wrought thus.
Nobody spoke to me, not even the monk who thrust in my daily ration. And nobody watched me. In the summer of 1474, my second in the cell, I decided that escape was not impossible.
First I detached a leg of my bedstead, and with this as a lever worried the crossbars out of my window. They had been set in mortar, and had sharp points. Stealthily I began to widen the narrow aperture, working each night and restoring the bars by day, lest someone look in from the outside and bring my labo
rs to nought.
After a month I decided my diggings adequate— but they were not. Trying to wriggle through I became jammed in the window tunnel, and there I was forced to stick until a goat-keeper, chasing his charges around the walls, happened to spy my protruding head. It took two muscular friends to drag me back into my cell, and I was marched between them to Father Augustino.
The prior spoke sadly upon my prideful and rebellious nature, urged me to pray for forgiveness and a softer heart, then sentenced me to a term of bread and water—and a flogging. When an attendant came with a knotted bundle of thongs and laid them like burning wires upon my bared back, rage swallowed my reason. A sudden jerk freed my wrists from those who gripped them, and I tackled my flogger, threw him heavily, and clutched his throat with both hands. Half a dozen of the Holy Pilgrims, as ready to battle as to pray, dragged me free before I could damage the whip wielder.
Father Augustino had watched the incident with an appraising light in his single eye.
"You refuse to be corrected," pronounced he, very coldly.
"Keep your lash for slaves!" I retorted passionately. "I will die before I submit!"
To my considerable surprise, he nodded understanding. His eye danced a trifle, and his wide lips smiled, revealing other lean white teeth than the one which showed through the notch.
"Be it so," he granted, in a more human tone. "I remit the flogging. But you must be closer penned. Brethren, put him in the cell below his old one."
They did so. The new prison was smaller, and for bed had only a shelf under the window, spread with musty straw. The window itself was cross-barred and looked out upon a face of hewn rock. This part of the fortress was below ground, and a foot-wide trench was all that gave air and light.
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