CHAPTER XVI. IN THE CITADEL OF CESENA
I will not harass you at any further length with the feelings that weremine as we sped northward towards Cesena. If you are a person of someimagination and not destitute of human sympathy you will be able tosurmise them; if you are not--why then, my tale is not for you, andit is more than probable that you will have wearied of it and flung itaside long before you reach this page.
We rode so hard that by sunset Cesena was in sight, and ere night hadfallen we were within the walls of the citadel. It was when we haddismounted and I stood in the courtyard between Ercole and another ofthe soldiers that Ramiro again addressed me.
"Animal," said he, "they tell me that I bear a name for harsh measuresand rough ways. You shall be a witness hereafter of how deeply I ammaligned. For instead of putting you to the question and loosening yourlying tongue with the rack, I am content to keep you a prisoner until mymen return with that which I suspect you to be hiding from me. But ifI then discover that you have sought to fool me, you shall flutter fromRamiro del' Orca's flagstaff."
He pointed up to the tower of the Castle, from which a beam protruded,laden at that moment with a ghastly burden just discernible in thethickening gloom. He named it well when he called it his "flagstaff,"and the miserable banner of carrion that hung from it was a fittingpennon for the ruthless Governor of Cesena. Worthy was he to have wornthe silver hauberk of Werner von Urslingen with its motto, "The enemy ofGod, of pity and of mercy."
Forbidding, black-browed men caught me with rough hands and dragged meoff to a dank, unlighted prison, as empty of furniture as it was full ofnoisome smells. And there they left me to my ugly thoughts and mydeeply despondent mood what time the Governor of Cesena supped with hisofficers in the hall of the Castle.
Ramiro drank deep that night as was his habit, and being overladenwith wine it entered his mind that in one of his dungeons lay LazzaroBiancomonte, who, at one time, had been known as Boccadoro, the merriestFool in Italy. In his drunkenness he grew merry, and when Ramiro del'Orca grew merry men crossed themselves and betook them to their prayers.He would fain be amused, and to serve that end he summoned one of hissbirri and bade the fellow drag Boccadoro from his dungeon and fetch himinto his presence.
When they came for me I turned cold with fear that Madonna was alreadytaken, and, by contrast with such a fear as that, the reflection that hemight carry out his threat to hang me from that black beam of his, fadedinto insignificant proportions.
They ushered me into a great hall, not ill-furnished, the floor strewedplentifully with rushes, and warmed by an enormous fire of blazing oak.By the door stood two pikemen in armour, like a pair of statues; in thecentre of the floor was a heavy oaken board, laden now with flagons andbeakers, at which sat Ramiro with a pair of gossips so villainous tolook at, that the sight of them reminded me of the adage "God makes aman and then accompanies him."
The Governor made a hideous noise at sight of me, which I wasconstrained to accept as an expression of horrid glee.
"Boccadoro," said he, "do you recall that when last I had the honour ofbeing entertained by your pert tongue, I promised you that did you evercross my path again I would raise you to the dignity of Fool of my Courtof Cesena?"
Into what magniloquence does vanity betray us! His Court of Cesena! Aswell might you describe a pig-sty as a bower of roses.
But his words, despite the unsavoury thing of which they seemed tohold a promise, fell sweetly on my ear, inasmuch as for the time theyrelieved my fears touching Madonna. It was not to advise me of hercapture that he had had me haled into his odious presence. I gatheredcourage.
"Have you not fools enough already at Cesena?" I asked him.
A moment he looked as if he were inclining to anger. Then he burst intoa coarse laugh, and turned to one of his gossips.
"Did I not tell you, Lampugnani, that his wit was quick and penetrating?Hear him, rogue. Already has he discerned your quality." He laughedconsumedly at his own jest, and turning to me he pointed to a crimsonbundle on a chair beside me. "Take those garments," he roughly bade me."Go dress yourself in them, then come you back and entertain us."
Without answering him, and already anticipating the nature of theclothes he bade me don, I lifted one of the garments from the heap. Itwas a foliated jester's cap, with a bell hanging from every point, whichgave out a tinkling sound as I picked it up. I let it fall again asthough it had scorched me, the memory of what stood between MadonnaPaola and me rising like a warning spectre in my mind. I would not againdefile myself by the garb of folly; not again would I incur the shame ofplaying the Fool for the amusement of others.
"May it please your Excellency to excuse me," I answered in a firm tone."I have made a vow never again to put on motley."
He eyed me sardonically for a moment, as if enjoying in anticipation thepleasure of compelling me against my will. He sat back in his chair andthrew one heavily-booted leg across the other.
"In the Citadel of Cesena," said he, "we fear neither God nor Devil, andvows are as water to us--things we cannot stomach. It does not please meto excuse you."
I may have paled a little before the sinister smile with which heaccompanied his words, but I stood my ground boldly.
"It is not," said I, "a question of what a vow may be to you and yours,but of what a vow is to me. It is a thing I cannot break."
"Sangue di Cristo!" he snarled, "we will break it for you, then--thator your bones. Resolve yourself, beast, the motley or the rack--or yet,if you prefer it, there is the cord yonder." And he pointed to the farend of the chamber where some ropes were hanging from a pulley, theimplements of the ghastly torture of the cord. Of such a nature was thismonster that he made a torture-chamber of his dining-hall.
"Let the rogue make acquaintance with it," laughed Lampugnani, showinga mouthful of yellow teeth behind the black beard that bushed his lips."I'll swear his dancing would afford us more amusement than his quips.Swing him up, Illustrious."
But the Illustrious seemed to ponder the matter.
"You shall have five minutes in which to decide," he informed mepresently. "They say that I am cruel. Behold how patient is my clemency.Five minutes shall you have where many another would hang you out ofhand for bearding him as you have done me."
"You may begin at once," said I. "neither five minutes nor five yearswill alter my determination."
His brow grew black with anger. "We shall see," was all he said.
There was a silence now in which we waited, a storm of thoughts battlingin my mind. Presently Ramiro caught up one of the flagons and appliedit to his cup. It proved empty, and in a gust of passion he hurled itagainst the wall where it burst into a thousand pieces. Clearly he wasvery angry, and it taxed my wits to account for the little measure ofpatience he was showing me.
"Beppo!" he called. A page lounging by the buffet sprang to attention.He was a slender, rather delicate lad, fair of hair and blue of eyes,not more than twelve years of age. An elderly man who stood besidehim--one Mariani, the seneschal of Cesena--stepped forward also,solicitude in his glance.
"Bring me wine," bawled the ogre. "Must I tell you what I need? If youdo not put those eyes of yours to better service, I'll have them pluckedfrom your empty head. Bestir, animal."
The old man caught up a beaker from the buffet and handed it to the boy.
"Here, my son," said he. "Hasten to his Excellency."
The lad took the beaker from his father's hands, and trembling in hisfear of Ramiro's anger, he sprang forward to serve him. In his hastethe poor youth slipped in some grease that had clung to the rushes.In seeking to recover himself he tripped over the feet of one of thehalberdiers that guarded me, and measured his length upon the floor atRamiro's feet, flooding the Governor's legs with the wine he carried.
How shall I tell you of the horror that was the sequel?
For just one instant Ramiro looked down at the sprawling lad, his eyesglowing like a madman's. Then suddenly he rose, stooped, and set onehand to the boy'
s belt, the other to the collar of his jerkin. Feelinghimself lifted, and knowing whose were the dread hands that held him,poor Beppo uttered a single scream of terror. Then Ramiro swung himround with an ease that displayed the man's prodigious strength. Forjust a second he seemed to hesitate how to dispose of the human bundlethat he held. Then, as if suddenly taking his resolve, that devil hurledthe lad across the little intervening space, straight into the heart ofthe blazing fire.
Beppo hurtled against the logs with a sickening crash, and a thousandsparks leapt up and vanished in the cavern of the chimney. Ramirowheeled sharply about, and snatching the pike from the hands of one ofmy guards, he pinned down the poor body of the boy to make sure of hisvictim's entire destruction.
Away by the buffet old Mariani looked on with a face as grey as ashes,his eyes protruding in horror at the thing they witnessed. One glimpse Ihad of him, and I scarce know which was the sight that sickened me more,the fathers anguish or the twitching limbs of the burning child. Twolegs and two arms protruded from the blaze and writhed and wriggledhorribly what time the flames peeled the garments from them and lickedthe flesh from the bones. At length they fell still and sank down intothe white heat of the logs, a hideous, pungent odour spreading throughthe chamber. From the old man by the buffet, who had stood spellboundduring this ghastly scene, there broke at last an anguished cry.
"Mercy, my lord, mercy!"
The Governor of Cesena straightened himself from his task, pulled thepike from the flames, and restored it to the man-at-arms. Then turningto Mariani:
"Fetch me wine," he bade him curtly, as he seated himself once moreupon the chair from which he had risen to perform that deed of ghastlyruthlessness.
A torch spluttered suddenly in its sconce, and the fierce hissing of thefire--like some monster licking its chops over a bloody meal--were theonly sounds that disturbed the stillness that ensued.
Every man there, including Ramiro's table companions, was white to thelips; for accustomed though they might be to horrors in that brigand'snest, this was a horror that surpassed anything they had ever witnessed.The silence irked Messer Ramiro. He looked round from under his shaggybrows, and he spluttered out an oath.
"Will you bring me this wine, pig?" he growled at the almost senselessMariani, and in his air and voice there was a promise of such terrificthings that the old man put aside his horror to make room for his fears,and mechanically seizing another flagon he hurried forward to ministerto the wants of his fearful lord.
Ramiro eyed him with cynical amusement.
"Your hand shakes, Mariani," he derided him. "Are you cold? Go warmyourself," he added, with a brutal laugh and a jerk of his thumb towardsthe fire.
My eyes have looked upon some gruesome sights, and I have heard suchtales of ruthless cruelty as you would deem almost passing possibility.I have read of the awful doings of the Lord Bernabo Visconti at Milan inthe olden time, but I believe that compared with this monster of Cesenathat same Bernabo was no worse than a sucking dove. How it befell thatmen permitted him to live, how it was that none bethought him to putpoison in his wine or a knife in his back, is something that I shallnever wholly understand. Could it be that these robbers of whom he madea hedge for his protection were no better than himself, or was it thatthe man's terrific brutality was on such a scale that it filled themwith an almost supernatural awe of him? To men better versed than am Iin the mysterious ways of human nature do I leave the answering of thesequestions.
The ogre turned his bloodshot eyes upon me, as with his hand he caressedhis tawny beard. He seemed to have cooled a little now, and to haveregained some mastery of his drunken self. Old Mariani tottered back tohis buffet, and stood leaning against it, his eyes wandering, with thelook of a man demented, to the fire that had devoured his child. There,indeed, if he escaped the madness with which the poignancy of his griefwas threatening him, was a tool that might turn its edge against thisinhuman monster, this devil, this bloody carnifex of a Governor.
"Chance," said Ramiro, "has designed that you should see something ofhow we deal with clumsy knaves at Cesena, Boccadoro. To disobedientones I can assure you that we are not half so merciful. There is no suchshort shrift for them. You have had more than the time I promised youfor reflection. The garments await you yonder. Let us know--"
The door opened suddenly, and a servant entered.
"A courier from the Lord Vitellozzo Vitelli, Tyrant of Citta diCastello," he announced, unwittingly breaking in upon Ramiro's words,"with urgent messages for the high and Mighty Governor of Cesena."
On the instant Ramiro rose, the expression of his face changing fromcynical amusement to sober concern, the task upon which he was engagedforgotten.
"Admit him instantly," he commanded. And whilst he waited he paced thechamber in long strides, his chin thrust slightly forward, suggestive ofdeep thought. And during that pause, I, too, was thinking. Not indeedof him, nor vainly speculating upon such matters as might be involvedin the message, the announcement of which seemed so deeply to engage hismind, but chiefly of my own and Madonna Paola's concerns.
It was not fear of what I had seen that now sent my thoughts into a newchannel and inspired me with the wisdom of obeying Ramiro del' Orca'sbehest that I should don the hateful motley and play the Fool for hisdiversion. It was not that I feared death; it was that I feared what theconsequences of my death might be to Paola di Santafior.
However desperate a position may seem, unlooked-for loopholes oftenpresent themselves, and so long as we live and have sound limbs to aidus to seize such opportunities as may offer, it is a weak thing utterlyto abandon hope.
Was it, then, not better to submit to the shame of the motley once againfor a little time, when by so doing I might perhaps live to work myown salvation, and Madonna's should she suffer capture, rather thanstubbornly to invite him to put me to death out of a feeling of falsepride?
The very resolve seemed to lend me strength and to revive the hope thatlay moribund in my breast. And then, scarce was it taken, when the dooragain opened, and a man, who was splashed from head to foot with mud, inearnest of how hard he had ridden, was ushered in.
He advanced to Meser Ramiro, bowed and presented a package. Ramiro brokethe seal, and standing with his back to the fire, immediately in thelight shed by one of the wax torches, he read the letter. Then his eyeswandered to the man who had brought it, and to me it seemed that theydwelt particularly upon the hat the courier was holding in his hand.
"Take this good fellow to the kitchen," he bade the servant that hadintroduced him, "let him be fed and rested." Then, turning to the man,himself, "I shall require you to set out at daybreak with my answer,"he said; and so, with a wave of the hand, he dismissed him. As themessenger departed Ramiro returned to the table, filled himself a cup ofwine and drank.
"What says the Lord Vitelli?" Lampugnani ventured to ask him.
"If he knew you," answered Ramiro, with a scowl, "he would counsel me tostrangle some of the over-inquisitive rascals that surround me."
"Over-inquisitive?" echoed Lampugnani boldly. "Body of God! Itwere enough to wake the curiosity of an ecstatic hermit to have amud-splashed courier from Citta di Castello at Cesena three times withinone little week."
Ramiro looked at him, and by his glance it was plain to see that thewords had jarred his temper. Whatever it was that Vitelli wrote toRamiro, this gentleman was not minded to divulge it.
"If you have supped, Lampugnani," said the Governor slowly, his eyesupon his offending officer, "perhaps you will find some duty to performere you seek your bed."
Lampugnani turned crimson, and for a moment seemed to hesitate. Then herose. He was a man of choleric aspect, and that he served under Ramirodel' Orca was as much a danger to the Governor as to himself. He had notthe air of one whom it was wise to threaten in however veiled a manner.
"Shall I fetch you this fellow's hat ere I sleep?" he inquired, withcontemptuous insolence.
Not a word did Ramiro answer him, but his glance fastened uponL
ampugnani with an expression before which that impudent ruffian loweredhis own bold eyes. Thus for a moment; then with an awkward laugh tocover the intimidation that he felt, Lampugnani walked heavily from theroom and banged the door after him.
There was about it all a strangeness that set my wits to work in amighty busy fashion. That work suffered interruption by the harsh voiceof Ramiro.
"Are you resolved, Boccadoro?" he growled at me. "Have you decided forthe motley or the cord?"
Instantly I fell into the part I was to play.
"Did I choose the latter," said I, with an assumption of sudden airinessand such a grimace as was part and parcel of my old-time trade, "thenwere I truly worthy of the former, for I should have proved myself,indeed, a fool. Yet if I choose the former, I pray that you'll notfollow the same course of reasoning, and hold me worthy of the latter."
When he had understood its subtleties; for his wits were of a qualitythat would have disgraced a calf, he roared at the conceit, andseemingly thrown into a better humour by the promise of more suchentertainment, he bade my guards release me, and urged me to assume themotley without more delay.
What time I was obeying him my mind was returning to that matter ofLampugnani's words, and it is not difficult to understand how I shouldarrive at the only possible conclusion they suggested. The hats of theother messengers from Vitelli, that the officer had mentioned, had beenbrought to Ramiro. The reason for this that at once arose in my mindwas that within the messenger's hat there was a second and more secretcommunication for the Governor.
This secrecy and Ramiro's display of anger at seeing a hint of itbetrayed by Lampugnani struck me, not unnaturally, as suspicious. Whatwere these hidden communications that passed between Vitellozzo Vitelliand the Governor of Cesena? It was a matter of which I could not pretendto offer a solution, but, nevertheless, it was one, I thought, thatpromised to repay investigation.
Ramiro grew impatient, and my reflections suffered interruption by hisrough command that I should hasten. One of the men-at-arms helped me totruss my points, and when that was done I stepped forward--Boccadoro theFool once more.