CHAPTER XVII. THE SENESCHAL
For an hour or so that night I played the Fool for Messer Ramiro'sentertainment in a manner which did high justice to the fame that atPesaro I had earned for the name of Boccadoro.
Beginning with quip and jest and paradox, aimed now at him, now at theofficer who had remained to keep him company in his cups, now at theservants who ministered to him, now at the guards standing at attention,I passed on later to play the part of narrator, and I delighted his fouland prurient mind with the story of Andreuccio da Perugia and anotherof the more licentious tales of Messer Giovanni Boccacci. I crimson nowwith shame at the manner in which I set myself to pander to his moodthat with my wit I might defend my life and limbs, and preserve them forthe service of my Holy Flower of the Quince in the hour of her need.
One man alone of all those present did I spare my banter. This was theold seneschal, Miriani. He stood at his post by the buffet, and ever andanon he would come forward to replenish Messer Ramiro's cup in obedienceto the monsters imperious orders.
What fortitude was it, I wondered, that kept the old man outwardly socalm? His face was as the face of one who is dead, its features set andrigid, its colour ashen. But his step was tolerably firm, and his handseemed to have lost the trembling that had assailed it under the firstshock of the horror he had witnessed.
As I watched him furtively I thought that were I Ramiro I should bewareof him. That frozen calm argued to me some terrible labour of the mindbeneath that livid mask. But the Governor of Cesena appeared insensible,or else he was contemptuous of danger from that quarter. It may evenhave delighted his outrageous nature to behold a man whose son he haddone to death with such brutality continue obedient and submissive tohis will, for it may have flattered his vanity by the concession thatbearing seemed to make to his grim power.
An hour went by, my second tale was done, and I was now entrancingMesser Ramiro with some impromptu verses upon the divorce of GiovanniSforza, a theme set me by himself, when I was interrupted by the arrivalof a soldier, who entered unannounced.
I paled and turned cold at the cry with which Ramiro rose to greet him,and the words he dropped, which told me that here was one of the ridersof the party that, under Lucagnolo, had been ordered to search thecountry about Cattolica. Had they found Madonna?
"Messer Lucagnolo," the fellow announced, "has sent me to report to youthe failure of his search to the west and north of Cattolica. He hasbeaten the country thoroughly for three leagues of the town on those twosides, as you desired him, but unfortunately without result. He isnow spreading his search to the south, and not a house is being leftunvisited. By morning he hopes to report again to your Excellency."
A wild wave of joy swept through my soul. They had ransacked the countrywest and north of Cattolica without result. Why then, assuredly, theyhad missed the peasant's hut that sheltered her, and where she waitedyet for my return. Their search to the south I knew would prove equallyfutile. I could have fallen on my knees in a prayer of thanksgiving hadmy surroundings been other than they were.
Ramiro's eye wandered round to me and settled on me in a loweringglance. By his face it was plain that the message disappointed him.
"I wonder," said he, "whether we could make you talk?" And from me hiseyes roamed on to the instrument of torture at the end of that longchamber. I grew sick with fear, for if he were to do this thing, andmaim me by it, how should I avail myself or her hereafter?
"Excellency," I cried, "since you met me you have hinted at somethingthat I am hiding from you, at something touching which I could give youinformation did I choose. What it may be passes all thought of mine. Butthis I do assure you: no torture could make me tell you what I do notknow, nor is any torture needed to extract from me such information as Imay be possessed of. I do but beg that you wilt frankly question me uponthis matter, whatever it may be, and your Excellency shall be answeredto the best of my knowledge."
He looked at me as if taken aback a little by my assurance and theseemingly transparent candour of my speech, and in his face I saw thathe believed me. A moment he hesitated yet; then--
"I am seeking knowledge concerning Madonna Paolo di Santafior," he saidpresently, resuming, as he spoke, his seat at table. "As I told you, thebody, which was believed to be dead, was stolen in the night from SanDomenico. Know you aught of this?"
It may be an ignoble thing to lie, but with what other weapon was I tofight this brigand? Surely if an exception can be made to the rule, anda lie become a meritorious thing, such an occasion as this would surelyjustify such an exception.
"I know nothing," I answered boldly, unhesitatingly, and even with aring of truth and sincerity that was calculated to convince, "nor canI even believe this rumour. It is a wild story. That the body has beenstolen may be true enough. Such things occur; though he was a bold manwho laid hands upon the body of a person of such importance. But thatshe lives--Gesu! that is an old wife's tale. I had, myself, the word ofthe Lord Filippo's physician that she was dead."
"Nevertheless, this old wife's tale, as you dub it, is one of which Ihave had confirmation. Lend me your wits, Boccadoro, and you shallnot regret it. Exercise them now, and conjecture me who could haveabstracted the body from the church. In seeking this information I amacting in the interests of the noble House of Borgia which I serve andto which she was to have been allied, as you well know."
I could have laughed to see how the apparent sincerity of my denial hadconvinced him to such an extent that he even sought my help to discoverthe true thief, and to account for his interest in the matter he lied tome of his service to the House of Borgia.
"I will gladly lend you these wits," said I, "to disprove to you therumour of which you say that you have confirmation. Let us accept thestatement that the body has been stolen. That much, no doubt, is true,for even rumours require some slight foundation. But who in all thisworld could say that when the body was taken it was not dead?Clearly but one man--he that administered the poison. And, I ask yourExcellency, would he be likely to tell the world what he had done?"
He might have answered me: "I am that man." But he did not. Instead, hehung his head, as if pondering the words of wisdom I had uttered--wordsmeant to convince him of my own innocence in the matter; and this theyachieved, at least in part. He flashed me a look of sudden suspicion, itis true; but it faded almost as soon as it shone from his brooding eye.
"Maybe I am a fool that I do not string you up and test the truth ofwhat you say," he grumbled. "But I incline to believe you, and you are amerry rogue. You shall remain and have peace and comfort so long as youamuse me. But tremble if I discover that you have sought to deceive me.You shall have the cord first and other things after, and your deathshall be the thing you'll pray for long before it takes you from myvengeance. If you know aught, speak now and you shall find me merciful.Your life and liberty shall be the recompense of your honesty towardsme."
"I repeat, Excellency," I answered, without changing colour, "that allthat I know have I already told you."
He was convinced, I think, for the time being.
"Get you gone, then," he bade me. "I have other business to deal withere I sleep. Mariani, see that Boccadoro is well lodged."
The old man bowed, and lifting a torch from its socket, he silentlymotioned me to go with him. I made Messer Ramiro a profound obeisance,and withdrew in the wake of the seneschal.
He led me up a flight of stairs that rose from the hall and along agallery that ran half round it, then plunging down a corridor he haltedpresently, and, opening a door, ushered me into a tolerably furnishedroom.
A servant followed hanging the clothes that I had worn when I arrived.
The old man lingered a moment after the servant had withdrawn, and hishollow eyes rested on me for a second. I thought that he was on thepoint of saying something, and I waited returning his glance with onethat quailed before the anguish of his own. I feared to speak, to offeran expression of the sympathy that filled my heart; for in that strangepla
ce I could not tell how far a man was to be trusted--even a man sowronged as this one. On his own part it may be that a like doubt besethim concerning me, for in the end he departed as he had come, no wordhaving passed his ashen lips.
Left alone, I surveyed my surroundings by the light of the taper he hadleft in the iron sconce on the wall. The single window overlooked thecourtyard, so that even had I been disposed and able to cut through theiron that barred it, I should but succeed in falling into the hands ofthe guards who abounded in that nest of infamy.
So that, for the night at least, the notion of flight must be abandoned.What the morrow would bring forth we must wait and see. Perhaps some wayof escape would offer itself. Then my thoughts returned to Paola, and Iwas tortured by surmises as to her fate, and chiefly as to how she couldhave eluded the search that must have been made for her in the hut whereI had left her. Had the peasant befriended her, I wondered; and whatdid she think of my protracted absence? I sat on the edge of the bed andgave rein to my conjectures. The noises in the castle had all ceased,and still I sat on, unconscious of time, my taper burning low.
It may have been midnight when I was startled by the sound of a stealthystep in the corridor near my door. A heavy footfall I should have leftunheeded, but this soft tread aroused me on the instant, and I satlistening.
It halted at my door, and was succeeded by a soft, scratching sound.Noiselessly I rose, and with ready hands I waited, prepared, in theinstinct of self-preservation, to fall upon the intruder, however futilethe act might be. But the door did not open as I expected. Instead, thescratching sound continued, growing slightly louder. Then it occurred tome, at last, that whoever came might be a friend craving admittance, andproceeding stealthily that others in the castle might not overhear him.
Swiftly I crossed to the door, and opened. On the threshold a darkfigure straightened itself from a stooping posture, and the light of thetaper behind me fell on a face of a pallor that seemed to glisten in itsintensity. It was the face of Mariani, the seneschal of the Castle ofCessna.
One glance we exchanged, and intuitively I seemed to apprehend themotive of this midnight visit. He came either to bring me aid or to seekmine, with vengeance for his guerdon. I stood aside, and silently heentered my room and closed the door.
"Quench your taper," he bade me in a husky whisper.
Without hesitation I obeyed him, a strange excitement thrilling me. Fora second we stood in the dark, then another light gleamed as he pluckedaway the cloak that masked a lanthorn which he had brought with him. Heset the lanthorn on the floor, and held the cloak in his hand, readyat a moment's notice to conceal the light in its folds. Then pulling medown beside him on the bed, where he had perched himself:
"My friend," said he, "it may be that I bring you assistance."
"Speak, then," I bade him. "You shall not find me slow to act if thereis the need or the way."
"So I had surmised," he said. "Are you not that same Boccadoro, Fool ofthe Court of Pesaro, who donned the Lord Giovanni's armour and rode outto do battle in his stead?"
I answered him that I was that man.
"I have heard the tale," said he. "Indeed, all Italy has heard it, andknows you for a man of steel, as strong and audacious as you are cunningand resourceful. I know against what desperate odds you fought that day,and how you overcame this terrible Ramiro. This it is that leads me tohope that in the service of your own ends you may become the instrumentof my vengeance."
"Unfold your project, man," I muttered, fiercely almost, in my burningeagerness. "Let me hear what you would have me do."
He did not answer me until a sob had shaken his old frame.
"That boy," he muttered brokenly, "that golden-haired angel sent me forthe consolation of my decaying years, that lad whom Ramiro destroyed sofoully and wantonly, was my son. Futile though the attempt had proved, Ihad certainly set my hands at the tyrants neck, but that I founded hopeson you of a surer and more terrible revenge. That thought has manned meand upheld me when anguish was near to slaying me outright. To see theboy burn so under my very eyes! God of mercy and pity! That I shouldhave lived so long!"
"Your child burned but a moment, suffered but an instant; for thedeed, Ramiro will burn in Hell through countless generations, throughinterminable ages."
It was a paltry consolation, perhaps, but it was the best that thenoccurred to me.
"Meanwhile," I begged him, "do you tell me what you would have me do."
I urged him to it that he might, thereby, suffer his mind to rest amoment from pondering that ghastly thing that he had witnessed, thatscene that would live before his eyes until they closed in their lastsleep.
"You heard Lampugnani quip Ramiro with the fact that three messengershave ridden desperately within the week from Citta di Castello toCesena, and you heard, perhaps, his obscure reference to the hat?"
"I heard both, and both I weighed," said I. The old man looked at me asif surprised.
"And what," he asked, "was the conclusion you arrived at?"
"Why, simply this: that whilst the messenger bore some letter fromVitelli to Ramiro that should serve to lull the suspicions of any who,wondering at so much traffic between these two, should be moved to takea peep into those missives, the true letter with which the courier ridesis concealed within the lining of his hat--probably unknown even tohimself."
He stared at me as though I had been a wizard.
"Messer Boccadoro--" he began.
"My name," I corrected him, "is Biancomonte--Lazzaro Biancomonte."
"Whatever be your name," he returned, "of the quality of your wits therecan be no question. You have guessed for yourself the half of what I wascome to tell you. Has your shrewdness borne you any further? Have youconcluded aught concerning the nature of those letters?"
"I have concluded that it might repay some trouble to discover what iscontained in letters that are sent with so much secrecy. I can conceivenothing that might lie between the Lord of Citta di Castello and thisruffian of Cesena, and yet--treason lurks often where least it isexpected, and treason makes stranger bed-fellows than misfortune."
"Lampugnani was no fool, and yet a great fool," the old man murmured. Hesurmised what you have surmised. With each of the messengers Ramirohas dealt in the same manner. He has sent each to be fed and refreshedwhilst waiting to return with the answer he was penning. For theirrefreshment he has ordered a very full, stout wine--not drugged, forthat they might discover upon awaking; but a wine that of itself woulddo the work of setting them to sleep very soundly. Then, when all slept,and only he remained at table, like the drunkard that he is, it has beenhis habit to descend himself to the kitchen and possess himself ofthe messenger's hat. With this he has returned to the hall, opened thelining and withdrawn a letter.
"Then, as I suppose, he has penned his answer, thrust it into thelining, where the other one had been, and secured it, as it was before,with his own hands. He has returned the hat to the place from whence hetook it, and when the courier awakens in the morning there is anotherletter put into his hand, and he is bidden to bear it to Vitelli."
He paused a moment; then continued: "Lampugnani must have suspectedsomething and watched Ramiro to make sure that his suspicions were wellfounded. In that he was wise, but he was a fool to allow Ramiro to seewhat lie he had discovered. Already he has paid the penalty. He is lyingwith a dagger in his throat, for an hour ago Ramiro stabbed him while heslept."
I shuddered. What a place of blood was this! Could it be that CesareBorgia had no knowledge of what things were being performed by hisGovernor of Cesena?
"Poor Lampugnani!" I sighed. "God rest his soul."
"I doubt but he is in Hell," answered Mariani, without emotion. "Hewas as great a villain as his master, and he has gone to answer for hisvillainy even as this ugly monster of a Ramiro shall. But let Lampugnanibe. I am not come to talk of him.
"Returning from his bloody act, Ramiro ordered me to bed. I went, andas I passed Lampugnani's room I saw the door standing wide. I
t was thusthat I learnt what had befallen. I remembered his words concerning thehat and I remembered old suspicions of my own aroused by the thoughtof the potent wine which Ramiro had ordered me to see given to thecouriers. I sped back to the gallery that overlooks the hall. Ramiro wasabsent, and I surmised at once that he was gone to the kitchen. Then wasit that I thought of you and of what service you might render if thingswere indeed as I now more than suspected. Like an inspiration it came tome how I might prepare your way. I ran down to the hall, sweating inmy terror that he should return ere I had performed the task I went on.From the buffet I drew a flagon of that same stout wine that Ramiro usedupon his messengers. I ripped away the seal and crimson cord by which itis distinguished, and placing it on the table I removed the flagon I hadset for him before I had first departed.
"Then I fled back to the gallery, and from the shadows I watched for hisreturn. Soon he came, bearing a hat in his hand; and from that hat hetook a letter, all as you have surmised. He read it, and I saw his facelighten with a fierce excitement. Then he helped himself freely to wine,and drank thirstily, for all that he was overladen with it. One of thequalities of this wine is that in quenching thirst it produces yet agreater. Ramiro drank again, then sat with the letter before him in thelight of the single taper I had left burning. Presently he grew sleepy.He shook himself and drank again. Then again he sat conning his epistle,and thus I left him and came hither in quest of you."
There followed a pause.
"Well?" I asked at length. "What is it you would have me do? Stab him ashe sleeps?"
He shook his head. "That were too sweet and sudden a death for him. Ifit had been no more than a matter of that, my old arms would have lentme strength enough. But think you it would repay me for having seen myboy pinned by that monster's pike to the burning logs?"
"What is it, then, you ask of me?"
"If that letter were indeed the treasonable document we account it; ifits treason should be aimed at Cesare Borgia--it could scarce be aimedat another--would it not be a sweet thing to obtain possession of it?"
"Aye, but when he wakes to-morrow and finds it gone--what then? You knowthis Governor of Cesena well enough to be assured that he would ransackthe castle, torture, rack, burn and flay us all until the missive wereforthcoming."
"That," he groaned, "is what deterred me. If I had the means of gettingthe letter sent to Cesare Borgia, or of escaping with it myself fromCesena, I should not have hesitated. Cesare Borgia is lying at Faenza,and I could ride there in a day. But it would be impossible for me toleave the place before morning. I have duties to perform in the town,and I might get away whilst I am about them, but before then the letterwill have been missed, and no one will be allowed to leave the citadel."
"Why then," said I, "the only hope lies in abstracting that letter insuch a manner that he shall not suspect the loss; and that seems a verydesperate hope."
We sat in silence for some moments, during which I thought intently tolittle purpose.
"Does he sleep yet, think you?" I asked presently.
"Assuredly he must."
"And if I were to go to the gallery, is there any fear that I should bediscovered by others?"
"None. All at Cesena are asleep by now."
"Then," said I, rising, "let us take a look at him. Who knows what maysuggest itself? Come." I moved towards the door, and he took up hislanthorn and followed me, enjoining me to tread lightly.