Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  “Not quite that,” Basterga murmured, his eyes wandering to the steel casket, chained to the wall beside the hearth. “Still, I understand; and, believe me,” he added in a tone of sympathy, “I feel for you, Messer Blondel. I feel deeply for you.”

  “Feel?” the Syndic muttered. For an instant his eyes gleamed savagely, the veins of his temples swelled. “Feel!”

  “But what can I do?”

  Blondel could have answered, but to what advantage? What could words profit him, seeing that it was a life for a life, and that, as all that a man hath he will give for his life, so there is nothing another hath that he will take for it. Argument was useless; prayer, in view of the other’s confession, beside the mark. The magistrate saw this, and made an effort to resume his dignity. “We will talk another day,” he murmured, pressing his hand to his brow, “another day!” And he turned to the door. “You will not mention what I have said to you, Messer Basterga?”

  “Not a syllable,” his host answered, as he followed him out. The abruptness of the departure did not surprise him. “Believe me, I feel for you, Messer Blondel.”

  The Syndic acknowledged the phrase by a gesture not without pathos, and, passing out, stumbled blindly down the narrow stairs. Basterga attended him with respect to the outer door, and there they parted in silence. The magistrate, his shoulders bowed, walked slowly to the left, where, turning into the town through the inner gate, the Porte Tertasse, he disappeared. The big man waited a while, sunning himself on the steps, his face towards the ramparts.

  “He will come back, oh, yes, he will come back,” he purred, smiling all over his large face. “For I, Cæsar Basterga, have a brain. And ’tis better a brain than thews and sinews, gold or lands, seeing that it has all these at command when I need them. The fish is hooked. It will be strange if I do not land him before the year is out. But the bribe to his physician — it was a happy thought: a happy thought of this brain of Cæsar Basterga, graduate of Padua, viri valde periti, doctissimique!”

  CHAPTER VI.

  TO TAKE OR LEAVE.

  The house in the Corraterie, near the Porte Tertasse, differed in no outward respect from its neighbours. The same row of chestnut trees darkened its lower windows, the same breezy view of the Rhone meadows, the sloping vineyards and the far-off Jura lightened its upper rooms. A kindred life, a life apparently as quiet and demure, moved within its walls. Yet was the house a house apart. Silently and secretly, it had absorbed and sucked and drawn into itself the hearts and souls and minds of two men. It held for the one that which the old prize above all things in the world — life; and for the other, that which the young set above life — love.

  Life? The Syndic did not doubt; the bait had been dangled before his eyes with too much cunning, too much skill. In a casket, in a room in that house in the Corraterie, his life lay hidden; his life, and he could not come at it! His life? Was it a marvel that waking or sleeping he saw only that house, and that room, and that casket chained to the wall; that he saw at one time the four steps rising to the door, and the placid front with its three tiers of windows; at another time, the room itself with its litter of scripts and dark-bound books, and rich furnishings, and phials and jars and strangely shaped alembics? Was it a marvel that in the dreams of the night the sick man toiled up and up and up the narrow staircase, of which every point remained fixed in his mind; or that waking, whatever his task, or wherever he might be, alone or in company, in his parlour or in the Town House, he still fell a-dreaming of the room and the box — the room and the box that held his life?

  Had this been the worst! But it was not. There were times, bitter times, dark hours, when the pains were upon him, and he saw his fate clear before him; for he had known men die of the disease which held him in its clutches, and he knew how they had died. And then he must needs lock himself into his room that other eyes might not witness the passionate fits of revolt, of rage and horror, and weak weeping, into which the knowledge cast him. And out of which he presently came back to — the house. His life lay there, in that room, in that house, and he could not come at it! He could not come at it! But he would! He would!

  It issued in that always; in some plan or scheme for gaining possession of the philtre. Some of the plans that occurred to him were wild and desperate; dangerous and hopeless on the face of them. Others were merely violent; others again, of which craft was the mainspring, held out a prospect of success. For a whole day the notion of arresting Basterga on a charge of treason, and seizing the steel casket together with his papers, was uppermost. It seemed feasible, and was feasible; nay, it was more than feasible, it was easy; for already there were rumours of the man abroad, and his name had been mentioned at the council table. The Syndic had only to give the word, and the arrest would be made, the search instituted, the papers and casket seized. Nay, if he did not give the word, it was possible that others might.

  But when he thought of that step, that irrevocable step, he knew that he would not have the courage to take it. For if Basterga had so much as two minutes’ notice, if his ear so much as caught the tread of those who came to take him, he might, in pure malignity, pour the medicine on the floor, or he might so hide it as to defy search. And at the thought — at the thought of the destruction of that wherein lay his only chance of life, his only hope of seeing the sun and feeling again the balmy breath of spring, the Syndic trembled and shook and sweated with rage and fear. No, he would not have the courage. He would not dare. For a week and more after the thought occurred to him, he dared not approach the scholar’s lodging, or be seen in the neighbourhood, so great was his fear of arousing Basterga’s suspicions and setting him on his guard.

  At the end of a fortnight or so, the choice of ways was presented to him in a concrete form; and with an abruptness which placed him on the edge of perplexity. It was at a morning meeting of the smaller council. The day was dull, the chamber warm, the business to be transacted monotonous; and Blondel, far from well and interested in one thing only — beside which the most important affairs of Geneva seemed small as the doings of an ant-hill viewed through a glass — had fallen asleep, or nearly asleep. Naturally a restless and wakeful man, of thin habit and nervous temperament, he had never done such a thing before: and it was unfortunate that he succumbed on this occasion, for while he drowsed the current of business changed. The debate grew serious, even vital. Finally he awoke to the knowledge of place and time with a name ringing in his ears; a name so fixed in his waking thoughts that, before he knew where he was or what he was doing, he repeated it in a tone that drew all eyes upon him.

  “Basterga!”

  Some knew he had slept and smiled; more had not noticed it, and turned, struck by the strange tone in which he echoed the name. Fabri, the First Syndic, who sat two places from him, and had just taken a letter from the secretary, leaned forward so as to view him. “Ay, Basterga,” he said, “an Italian, I take it. Do you know him, Messer Blondel?”

  He was awake now, but, confused and startled, inclined to believe that he was on his trial; and that the faint parleyings with treason, small things hard to define, to which he had stooped, were known. Mechanically, to gain time, he repeated the name: “Basterga?”

  “Yes,” Fabri repeated. “Do you know him?”

  “Cæsar Basterga, is it?”

  “That is his name.”

  He was himself now, though his nerves still shook; himself so far as he could be, while ignorant of what had passed, and how he came to be challenged. “Yes, I know him,” he said slowly, “if you mean a Paduan, a scholar of some note, I believe. Who applied to me — I dare say it would be six weeks back — for a licence to stay a while in the town.”

  “Which you granted?”

  “In the usual course. He had letters from” — Blondel shrugged his shoulders— “I forget from whom. What of him?” with a steady look at Baudichon the councillor, his life-long rival, and the quarter whence if trouble were brewing it was to be expected. “What of him?” he repeated, thro
wing himself back in his chair, and tapping the table with his fingers.

  “This,” Fabri answered, waving the letter which he had in his hands.

  “But I do not know what that is,” Blondel replied coolly. “I am afraid” — he looked at his neighbour on either side— “was I asleep?”

  “I fear so,” said one, while the other smiled. They were his very good friends and allies.

  “Well, it is not like me. I can say that I am not often,” with a keen look at Baudichon, “caught napping! And now, M. Fabri,” he continued with his usual practical air, “I have delayed the business long enough. What is it? And what is that?” He pointed to the letter in the First Syndic’s hands.

  “Well, it is really your affair in the main,” Fabri answered, “since as Fourth Syndic you are responsible for the guard and the city’s safety; and ours afterwards. It is a warning,” he continued, his eyes reverting to the page before him, “from our secret agent in Turin, whose name I need not mention” — Blondel nodded— “informing us of a fresh attempt to be made on the city before Christmas; by means of rafts formed of hurdles and capable of transporting whole companies of soldiers. These he has seen tried in the River Po, and they performed the work. Having reached the walls by their means the assailants are to mount by ladders which are being made to fit into one another. They are covered with black cloth, and can be laid against the wall without noise. It sounds — circumstantial?” Fabri commented, breaking off and looking at Blondel.

  The Syndic nodded thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said, “I think so. I think also,” he continued, “that with the aid of my friend, Captain Blandano, I shall be able to give a good account of the rafts and the ladders.”

  Baudichon the councillor interposed. “But that is not all,” he muttered, rolling ponderously in his chair as he spoke. He was a stout man with a double chin and a weighty manner; honest, but slow, and the spokesman of the more wealthy burghers. His neighbour Petitot, a man of singular appearance, lean, with a long thin drooping nose, commonly supported him. Petitot, who bore the nickname of “the Inquisitor,” represented the Venerable Company of Pastors, and was viewed with especial distaste by the turbulent spirits whom the war had left in the city, as well as by the lower ranks, who upheld Blondel. In sense and vigour the Fourth Syndic was more than a match for the two precisians: but honesty of purpose has a weight of its own that slowly makes itself felt. “That is not all,” Baudichon repeated after a glance at his neighbour and ally Petitot, “I want to know — —”

  “One moment, M. Baudichon, if you please,” Fabri said, cutting him short, amid a partial titter; the phrase “I want to know” was so often on the councillor’s lips that it had become ridiculous. “One moment; as you say, that is not all. The writer proceeds to warn us that the Grand Duke’s lieutenant, M. d’Albigny, has taken a house on the Italian side of the frontier, and is there constructing a huge petard on wheels which is to be dragged up to the gate — —”

  “With the ladders and rafts?”

  “They seem to belong to another scheme,” Fabri said, as he turned back and conned the letter afresh.

  “With M. d’Albigny at the bottom of both?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, if he be not more successful with this,” Blondel answered contemptuously, “than he was with the attempt to mine the Arsenal — which ended in supplying us with two or three casks of powder — I think Captain Blandano and I may deal with him.”

  A murmur of assent approved the boast; but it did not proceed from all. There were men at the table who had children, who had wives, who had daughters, whose faces were grave. Just thirty years had passed over the world since the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew — to be speedily followed by the sack of Antwerp — had paled the cheek of Europe. Just thirty years were to elapse and the sack of Magdeburg was to prove a match and more than a match for both in horror and cruelty. That the Papists, if they entered, would deal more gently with Geneva, the head and front of offence, or extend to the Mother of Heretics mercy which they had refused to her children, these men did not believe. The presence of an enemy ever lurking within a league of their gates, ever threatening them by night and by day, had shaken their nerves. They feared everything, they feared always. In fitful sleep, in the small hours, they heard their doors smashed in; their dreams were disturbed by cries and shrieks, by the din of bells, and the clash of weapons.

  To these men Blondel seemed over confident. But no one took on himself to gainsay him in his particular province, the superintendence of the guard; and though Baudichon sighed and Petitot shook his head, the word was left with him. “Is that all, Messer Fabri?” he asked.

  “Yes, if we lay it to heart.”

  “But I want to know,” Baudichon struck in, puffing pompously, “what is to be done about — Basterga.”

  “Basterga? To be sure I was forgetting him,” Fabri answered. “What is to be done? What do you say, Messer Blondel? What are we to do about him?”

  “I will tell you if you will tell me what the point is that touches him. You forget, Messer Syndic” — with a somewhat sickly smile— “that I was asleep.”

  “The letter,” Fabri replied, returning to it, “touches him seriously. It asserts that a person of that name is here in the Grand Duke’s interest, that he is in the secret of these plots, and that we should do well to expel him, if we do not seize and imprison him.”

  “And you want to know — —”

  “I want to know,” Baudichon answered, rolling in his chair as was his habit when delivering himself, “what you know of him, Messer Blondel.”

  Blondel turned rudely on him, perhaps to hide a slight ebb of colour from his cheeks. “What I know?” he said.

  “Ay, ay.”

  “No more than you know!”

  “But,” Petitot retorted in his dry, thin voice, “it was you, Messer Blondel, not Messer Baudichon, who gave him permission to reside in the town.”

  “And I want to know,” Baudichon chimed in remorselessly, “what credentials he had. That is what I want to know!”

  “Credentials? Oh, something formal! I don’t know what,” Blondel replied rudely. He looked to the secretary who sat at the foot of the table. “Do you know?” he asked.

  “No, Messer Syndic,” the man replied. “I remember that a licence was granted to him in the name of Cæsar Basterga, graduate of Padua; and doubtless — for licences to reside are not granted without such — he had letters, but I do not recall from whom. They would be returned to him with the licence.”

  “And that is all,” Petitot said, his long nose drooping, his inquisitive eyes looking over his glasses, “that you know about him, Messer Blondel?”

  Did they know anything, and, if so, what did they know? Blondel hesitated. This persistence, this continual harping on one point, began to alarm him. But he carried it bravely. “Do you mean as to his convictions?” he asked with a sneer.

  “No, I mean at all!”

  “I want to know,” Baudichon added — the parrot phrase began to carry to Blondel’s ears the note of fate— “what you know about him.”

  This time a pause betrayed Blondel’s hesitation. Should he admit that he had been to Basterga’s lodging; or dared he deny a fact that might imply an intimacy greater than he had acknowledged? A faint perspiration rose on his brow as he decided that he dare not. “I know that he lives in a house in the Corraterie,” he answered, “a house beside the Porte Tertasse, and that he is a scholar — I believe of some repute. I know so much,” he continued boldly, “because he wrote to thank me for the licence, and, by way of acknowledgment, invited me to visit his lodging to view a rare manuscript of the Scriptures. I did so, and remained a few minutes with him. That is all I know of him. I suppose,” with a grim look at Baudichon and the Inquisitor, who had exchanged meaning glances, “it is not alleged that I am in the plot with him? Or that he has confided to me the Grand Duke’s plans?”

  Fabri laughed heartily at the notion, and the
laugh, which was echoed by four-fifths of those at the table, cleared the air. Petitot, it is true, limited himself to a smile, and Baudichon shrugged his shoulders. But for the moment the challenge silenced them. The game passed to Blondel’s hands, and his spirits rose. “If M. Baudichon wants to know more about him,” he said contemptuously, “I dare say that the information can be obtained.”

  “The point is,” Fabri answered, “what are we to do?”

  “As to — what?”

  “As to expelling him or seizing him.”

  “Oh!” The exclamation fell from Blondel’s lips before he could stay it. He saw what was coming, and the dilemma in which he was to be placed.

  “We have the letter before us,” the First Syndic continued, “and apart from it, we know nothing for this person or against him.” He looked round the table and met assenting glances. “I think, therefore, that it will be well, to leave it to Messer Blondel. He is responsible for the safety of the city, and it should be for him to say what is to be done.”

  “Yes, yes,” several voices agreed. “Leave it to Messer Blondel.”

  “You assent to that, Messer Baudichon?”

  “I suppose so,” the councillor muttered reluctantly.

  “Very good,” said Fabri. “Then, Messer Blondel, it remains with you to say what is to be done.”

  The Fourth Syndic hesitated, and with reason; had Baudichon, had the Inquisitor known the whole, they could hardly have placed him in a more awkward dilemma. If he took the course that prudence in his own interests dictated, and shielded Basterga, his action might lay him open to future criticism. If, on the other hand, he gave the word to expel or seize him, he broke at once and for ever with the man who held his last chance of life in the hollow of his hand.