CHAPTER X. THE FALL OF PESARO
As we rode back through the town of Pesaro, some fifty men of the sixscore that had sallied from the Castle a half-hour ago, we found thestreets well-nigh deserted, the rebellious citizens having fled back tothe shelter of their homes, like rats to their burrows in time of peril.
As we advanced through the shambles that we had left about the Castlegates, it occurred to me that within the courtyard a crowd would bewaiting to receive and welcome me, and it became necessary to devisesome means of avoiding this reception. I beckoned Giacomo to my side.
"Let it be given out that I will speak to no man until I haverendered thanks to Heaven for this signal victory," I muttered to theunsuspecting Albanian. "Do you clear a way for me so soon a we arewithin."
He obeyed me so well that when the bridge had been let down, he precededme with a couple of his men and gently but firmly pressed back thosethat would have approached--among the first of whom were Madonna Paolaand her brother.
"Way!" he shouted. "Make way for the High and Mighty Lord of Pesaro!"
Thus I passed through, my half-shattered visor sufficiently closed stillto conceal my face, and in this manner I gained the door of the easternwing and dismounted. Two or three attendants sprang forward, ready togo with me that they might assist me to disarm. But I waved themimperiously back, and mounted the stairs alone. Alone I crossed theante-chamber, and tapped at the door of the Lord Giovanni's closet.Instantly it opened, for he had watched my return and been awaiting me.Hastily he drew me in and closed the door.
He was flushed with excitement and trembling like a leaf. Yet at thesight that I presented he lost some of his high colour, and recoiled tostare at my armour, battered, dinted, and splashed with browning stains,which loudly proclaimed the fray through which I had been.
He fell to praising my valour, to speaking of the great service I hadrendered him, and of the gratitude that he would ever entertain for me,all in terms of a fawning, cloying sweetness that disgusted me more thanever his cruelties had done. I took off my helmet whilst he spoke, andlet it fall with a crash. The face I revealed to him was livid withfatigue, and blackened with the dust that had caked upon my sweat. Hecame forward again and helped hastily to strip off my harness, and whenthat was done he fetched a great silver basin and a ewer of embossedgold from which he poured me fragrant rose-water that I might wash.Macerated sweet herbs he found me, lupin meal and glasswort, the betterthat I might cleanse myself; and when, at last, I was refreshed bymy ablutions, he poured me a goblet of a full-bodied golden wine thatseemed to infuse fresh life into my veins. And all the time he spokeof the prowess I had shown, and lamented that all these years he shouldhave had me at his Court and never guessed my worth.
At length I turned to resume my clothes. And since it must excitecomment and perhaps arouse suspicion were I to appear in any but myjester's garish livery, I once more assumed my foliated cape, my cap andbells.
"Wear it yet for a little while," he said, "and thus complete theservice you have done me. Presently you may doff it for all time, andresume your true estate. Biancomonte, as I promised you, shall be yoursagain. The Lord of Pesaro does not betray his word."
I smiled grimly at the pride of his utterance.
"It is an easy thing," said I, "freely to give that which is no longerours."
He coloured with the anger that was ever ready.
"What shall that mean?" he asked.
"Why, that in a few days you will have Cesare Borgia here, and you willbe Lord of Pesaro no more. I have saved your honour for you. More thanthat it were idle to attempt."
"Think not that I shall submit," he cried. "I shall find in Italy thehelp I need to return and drive the usurper out. You must have faith inthat, yourself, else had you never bargained with me as you have donefor the return of your Estates."
To that I answered nothing, but urged him to go below and show himself;and the better that he might bear himself among his courtiers, Idetailed to him the most salient features of that fight.
He went, not without a certain uneasiness which, however, was soondispelled by the thunder of acclamation with which he was received; notonly by his courtiers, but by the soldiers who had fought in that hotskirmish, and who believed that it was he had led them.
Meanwhile I sat above, in the closet he had vacated, and thence Iwatched him, with such mingling feelings in my heart as baffle now myhalting pen. Scorn there was in my mood and a hot contempt of himthat he could stand there and accept their acclamation with an air ofhumility that I am persuaded was assumed: a certain envious anger wasthere, too, to think that such a weak-kneed, lily-livered craven shouldreceive the plaudits of the deeds that I, his buffoon, had performed forhim. Those acclamations were not for him, although those who acclaimedhim thought so. They were for the man who had routed Ramiro del' Orcaand his followers, and that man assuredly was I. Yet there I crouchedabove, behind the velvet curtains where none might see me, whilst hestood smiling and toying with his brown beard and listening to the finewords of praise that, I could imagine, were falling from the lips ofMadonna Paola, who had drawn near and was speaking to him.
There is in my nature a certain love of effectiveness, a certain tastefor theatrical parade and the contriving of odd situations. This bent ofmine was whispering to me then to throw wide the window, and, stemmingtheir noisy plaudits, announce to them the truth of what had passed. Yetwhat if I had done so? They would have accounted it but a new jest ofBoccadoro, the Fool, and one so ill-conceived that they might urge theLord Giovanni to have him whipped for it.
Aye, it would have been a folly, a futile act that would have earned meunbelief, contempt and anger. And yet there was a moment when jealousyurged me almost headlong to that rashness. For in Madonna Paola'seyes there was a new expression as they rested on the face of GiovanniSforza--an expression that told me she had come to love this man whom alittle while ago she had despised.
God! was there ever such an irony? Was there ever such a paradox? Sheloved him, and yet it was not him she loved. The man she loved was theman who had shown the qualities of his mind in the verses with which theCourt was ringing; the man who had that morning given proof of his highmettle and knightly prowess by the deeds of arms he had performed. I wasthat man--not he at whom so adoringly she looked. And so--I argued, inmy warped way and with the philosophy worthy of a Fool--it was Iwhom she loved, and Giovanni was but the symbol that stood for me. Herepresented the songs and the deeds that were mine.
But if I did not throw wide that window and proclaim the fact to earsthat would have been deaf to the truth of them, what think you that Idid? I took a subtler vengeance. I repaired to my own chamber, procuredme pen and ink, and, there, with a heart that was brimming over withgall, I penned an epic modelled upon the stately lines of Virgil,wherein I sang the prowess of the Lord Giovanni Sforza, describing thatmorning's mighty feat of arms, and detailing each particular of thecombat 'twixt Giovanni and Ramiro del' Orca.
It was a brave thing when it was done; a finer and worthier poeticalachievement than any that I had yet encompassed, and that night, afterthey had supped, as merrily as though Duke Valentino had never beenheard of, and whilst they were still sitting at their wine, I got me alute and stole down to the banqueting hall.
I announced myself by leaping on a table and loudly twanging the stringsof my instrument. There was a hush, succeeded by a burst of acclamation.They were in a high good-humour, and the Fool with a new song was thevery thing they craved.
When silence was restored I began, and whilst my fingers movedsluggishly across the strings, striking here and there a chord,I recited the epic I had penned. My voice swelled with a feverishenthusiasm whose colossal irony none there save one could guess. He, atfirst surprised, grew angry presently, as I could see by the cloud thathad settled on his brow. Yet he restrained himself, and the rest ofthe company were too enthralled by the breathless quality of my poem tobestow their glances on any countenance save mine.
Madonna P
aola sat upon the Lord of Pesaro's right, and her blue eyeswere round and her lips parted with enthusiasm as I proceeded. And whenpresently I came to that point in the fight betwixt Giovanni and Ramirodel' Orca, when Ramiro, having broken down the Lord Giovanni's visor,was on the point of driving his sword into his adversary's face, I sawher shrink in a repetition of the morning's alarm, and her bosom heavedmore swiftly, as though the issue of that combat hung now upon my linesand she were made anxious again for the life of the man whom she hadlearnt to love.
I finished on a slow and stately rhythm, my voice rising and fallingsoftly, after the manner of a Gregorian chant, as I dwelt on the pietythat had succeeded the Lord of Pesaro's brave exploits, and how upon hisreturn from the stricken field he had repaired straight to his closet,his battered and bloody harness on his back, that he might kneel ere hedisarmed and render thanks to God for the victory vouchsafed him.
On that "Te Deum" I finished softly, and as my voice ceased and thevibration of my last chord melted away, a thunder of applause was myreward.
Men leapt from their chairs in their enthusiasm, and crowded round thetable on which I was perched, whilst, when presently I sprang down, onenoble woman kissed me on the lips before them all, saying that my mouthwas indeed a mouth of gold.
Madonna Paola was leaning towards the Lord Giovanni, her eyes shiningwith excitement and filmed with tears as they proudly met his glance,and I knew that my song had but served to endear him the more to her bycausing her to realise more keenly the brave qualities of the adventurethat I sang. The sight of it almost turned me faint, and I would haveeluded them and got away as I had come but that they lifted me up andbore me so to the table at which the Lord Giovanni sat. He smiled, buthis face was very pale. Could it be that I had touched him? Could it bethat I had driven the iron into his soul, and that he could not bear toconfront me, knowing what a dastard I must deem him?
The splendid Filippo of Santafior had risen to his feet, and was wavinga white, bejewelled hand in an imperious demand for silence. When atlast it came he spoke, his voice silvery and his accents mincing.
"Lord of Pesaro; I demand a boon. He who for years has suffered theignominy of the motley is at last revealed to us as a poet of suchmagnitude of soul and richness of expression that he would not sufferby comparison with the great Bojardo or tim greater Virgil. Let him bestripped for ever of that hideous garb he wears, and let him be treated,hereafter, with the dignity his high gifts deserve. Thus shall the daycome when Pesaro will take honour in calling him her son."
Loud and long was the applause that succeeded his words, and when atlast it had died down, the Lord Giovanni proved equal to the occasion,like the consummate actor that he was.
"I would," said he, "that these high gifts, of which to-night he hasafforded proof, could have been employed upon a worthier subject. I fearme that since you have heard his epic you will be prone to overestimatethe deed of which it tells the story. I would, too, my friends," hecontinued, with a sigh, "that it were still mine to offer him suchencouragement as he deserves. But I am sorely afraid that my days inPesaro are numbered, that my sands are all but run--at least, for alittle while. The conqueror is at our gates, and it would be vain toset against the overwhelming force of his numbers the handful ofvaliant knights and brave soldiers that to-day opposed and scattered hisforerunners. It is my intention to withdraw, now that my honour is safeby what has passed, and that none will dare to say that it was throughfear that I fled. Yet my absence, I trust, may be but brief. I go tocollect the necessary resources, for I have powerful friends in thisItaly whose interests touching the Duca Valentino go hand in hand withmine, and who will, thus, be the readier to lend me assistance. Once Ihave this, I shall return and then--woe to the vanquished!"
The tide of enthusiasm that had been rising as he spoke, now overflowed.Swords leapt from their scabbards--mere toy weapons were they, meantmore for ornament than offence, yet were they the earnest of the stouterarms those gentlemen were ready to wield when the time came. He quietedtheir clamours with a dignified wave of the hand.
"When that day comes I shall see to it that Boccadoro has his deserts.Meanwhile let the suggestion of my illustrious cousin be acted upon, andlet this gifted poet be arrayed in a manner that shall sort better withthe nobility of his mind that to-night he has revealed to us."
Thus was it that I came, at last, to shed the motley and move among mengarbed as themselves. And with my outward trappings I cast off, too,the name of Boccadoro, and I insisted upon being known again as LazzaroBiancomonte.
But in so far as the Court of Pesaro was concerned, this new life uponwhich I was embarked was of little moment, for on the Tuesday thatfollowed that first Sunday in October of such momentous memory, the LordGiovanni's Court passed out of being.
It came about with his flight to Bologna, accompanied by the Albaniancaptain and his men, as well as by several of the knights who had joinedin Sunday's fray. Ardently, as I came afterwards to learn, did he urgeMadonna Paola and her brother to go with them, and I believe that thelady would have done his will in this had not the Lord Filippo opposedthe step. He was no warrior himself, he swore--for it was a thing hemade open boast of, affecting to despise all who followed the coarsetrade of arms--and, as for his sister, it was not fitting that sheshould go with a fugitive party made up of a handful of knights and somefifty rough mercenaries, and be exposed to the hardships and perilsthat must be theirs. Not even when he was reminded that the advancingconqueror was Cesare Borgia did it affect him, for despite his shallow,mincing ways, and his paraded scorn of war and warriors, the LordFilippo was stout enough at heart. He did not fear the Borgia, heanswered serenely, and if he came, he would offer him such hospitalityas lay within his power.
He came at last, did the mighty Cesare, although between his coming andGiovanni's flight a full fortnight sped. As for myself, I spent the timeat the Sforza Palace, whither the Lord Filippo had carried me as hisguest, he being greatly taken with me and determined to become mypatron. We had news of Giovanni, first from Bologna and later fromRavenna, whither he was fled. At first he talked of returning to Pesarowith three hundred men he hoped to have from the Marquis of Mantua. Butprobably this was no more than another piece of that big talk of his,meant to impress the sorrowing and repining Madonna Paola, who sufferedmore for him, maybe, than he suffered himself.
She would talk with me for hours together of the Lord Giovanni, of hismental gifts, and of his splendid courage and military address, andfor all that my gorge rose with jealousy and with the force of thisinjustice to myself, I held my peace. Indeed, indeed, it was betterso. For all that I was no longer Boccadoro the Fool, yet as LazzaroBiancomonte, the poet, I was not so much better that I could indulgeany mad aspirations of my own such as might have led me to betray thedastard who had arrayed his craven self in the peacock feathers of myachievements.
In the course of the confidence with which the Lord Filippo honoured meI made bold, on the eve of Cesare's arrival, to suggest to him that heshould remove his sister from the Palace and send her to the Convent ofSanta Caterina whilst the Borgia abode in the town, lest the sight ofher should remind Cesare of the old-time marriage plans which his familyhad centred round this lady, and lead to their revival. Filippo heardme kindly, and thanked me freely for the solicitude which my counselargued. For the rest, however, it was a counsel that he frankly admittedhe saw no need to follow.
"In the three years that are sped since the Holy Father entertained suchplans for the temporal advancement of his nephew Ignacio, the fortunesof the House of Borgia have so swollen that what was then a desirablematch for one of its members is now scarcely worthy of their attention.I do not think," he concluded, "that we have the least reason to fear arenewal of that suit."
It may be that I am by nature suspicious and quick to see ignoblemotives in men's actions, but it occurred to me then that the LordFilippo would not be so greatly put about if indeed the Borgias were toreopen negotiations for the bestowing of Madonna Paola's hand upo
n thePope's nephew Ignacio. That swelling of the Borgia fortunes which in thethree years had taken place and which, he contended, would renderthem more ambitious than to seek alliance with the House of Santafior,rendered them, nevertheless, in his eyes a more desirable family to beallied with than in the days when he had counselled his sister's flightfrom Rome. And so, I thought, despite what stood between her and theLord Giovanni, Filippo would know no scruple now in urging her into analliance with the House of Borgia, should they manifest a willingness tohave that old affair reopened.
On the 29th of that same month of October, Cesare arrived in Pesaro. Hisentry was a triumphant procession, and the orderliness that prevailedamong the two thousand men-at-arms that he brought with him was a thingthat spoke eloquently for the wondrous discipline enforced by this greatcondottiero.
The Lord Filippo was among those that met him, and like the time-serverthat he was, he placed the Sforza Palace at his disposal.
The Duca Valentino came with his retinue and the gentlemen of hishousehold, among whom was ever conspicuous by his great size and redugliness the Captain Ramiro del' Orca, who now seemed to act in manyways as Cesare's factotum. This captain, for reasons which it isunnecessary to detail, I most sedulously avoided.
On the evening of his arrival Cesare supped in private with Filippo andthe members of Filippo's household--that is to say, with Madonna Paolaand two of her ladies, and three gentlemen attached to the person ofthe Lord Filippo. Cesare's only attendants were two cavaliers of hisretinue, Bartolomeo da Capranica, his Field-Marshal, and Dorio Savelli,a nobleman of Rome.
Cesare Borgia, this man whose name had so terrible a sound in the earsof Italy's little princelings, this man whose power and whose greatgifts of mind had made him the subject of such bitter envy and fear,until he was the best-hated gentleman in Italy--and, therefore, the mostcalumniated--was little changed from that Cardinal of Valencia, inwhose service I had been for a brief season. The pallor of his face wasaccentuated by the ill-health in which he found himself just then, andthe air of feverish restlessness that had always pervaded him was grownmore marked in the years that were sped, as was, after all, but natural,considering the nature of the work that had claimed him since he haddeposed his priestly vestments. He was splendidly arrayed, and he borehimself with an imperial dignity, a dignity, nevertheless, tempered withgraciousness and charm, and as I regarded him then, it was borne in uponme that no fitter name could his godfathers have bestowed on him thanthat of Cesare.
The Lord Filippo exerted all his powers worthily to entertain his nobleand illustrious guest, and by his extreme, almost servile affability itnot only would seem that he had forgotten the favour and shelter hehad received at the hands of the Lord Giovanni, but it confirmed mysuspicions of his willingness to advance his own fortunes by breakingwith the fallen tyrant in so far as his sister was concerned.
Short of actually making the proposal itself, it would seem that Filippodid all in his power to urge his sister upon the attention of Cesare.But Duke Valentino's mind at that time was too full of the concerns ofconquest and administration to find room for a matter to him so triflingas the enriching of his cousin Ignacio by a wealthy alliance. To thisalone, I thought, was it due that Madonna Paola escaped the persecutionthat might then have been hers.
On the morrow Cesare moved on to Rimini, leaving his administratorsbehind him to set right the affairs of Pesaro, and ensure its propergoverning, in his name, hereafter.
And now that, for the present, my hopes of ever seeing my own wrongsredressed and my estates returned to me were too slender to justify myremaining longer in Pesaro, I craved of the Lord Filippo permission towithdraw, telling him frankly that my tardily aroused duty called me tomy widowed mother, whom for some six years I had not seen. He threw nodifficulty in the way of my going; and I was free to depart. And nowcame the hidden pain of my leave-taking of Madonna Paola. She seemed togrieve at my departure.
"Lazzaro," she cried, when I had told her of my intention, "do you, too,desert me? And I have ever held you my best of friends."
I told her of the mother and of the duty that I owed her, whereupon sheremonstrated no more, nor sought to do other than urge me to go to her.And then I spoke of Madonna's kindness to me, and of the friendship withwhich she had honoured one so lowly, and in the end I swore, with myhand on my heart and my soul on my lips, that if ever she had work forme, she would not need to call me twice.
"This ring, Madonna," said I, "was given me by the Lord Cesare Borgia,and was to have proved a talisman to open wide for me the door tofortune. It did better service than that, Madonna. It was the talismanthat saved you from your pursuers that day at Cagli, three years ago."
"You remind me, Lazzaro," she cried, "of how much you have sacrificedin my service. Yours must be a very noble nature that will do so much toserve a helpless lady without any hope of guerdon."
"Nay, nay," I answered lightly, "you must not make so much of it. Itwould never have sorted with my inclinations to have turned man-at-arms.This ring, Madonna, that once has served you, I beg that you will keep,for it may serve you again."
"I could not, Lazzaro! I could not!" she exclaimed, recoiling, yetwithout any show of deeming presumptuous my words or of being offendedby them.
"If you would make me the reward that you say I have earned, you willdo this for me. It will make me happier, Madonna. Take it"--I thrust itinto her unwilling hand--"and if ever you should need me send it back tome. That ring and the name of the place where you abide by the lips ofthe messenger you choose, and with a glad heart, as fast as horse canbear me, shall I ride to serve you once again."
"In such a spirit, yes," said she. "I take it willingly, to treasure itas a buckler against danger, since by means of it I can bring you to myaid in time of peril."
"Madonna, do not overestimate my powers," I besought her. "I would haveyou see in me no more than I am. But it sometimes happens that the mousemay aid the lion."
"And when I need the lion to aid the mouse, my good Lazzaro, I will sendfor you."
There were tears in her voice, and her eyes were very bright.
"Addio, Lazzaro," she murmured brokenly. "May God and His saints protectyou. I will pray for you, and I shall hope to see you again some day, myfriend."
"Addio, Madonna!" was all that I could trust myself to say ere I fledfrom her presence that she might not see my deep emotion, nor hear thesobs that were threatening to betray the anguish that was ravaging mysoul.