Chapter IV: Part 4

'Nay, not to grieve truth's heart--the onus shall be ours. This same Franciscan--this soothsaying monk--where hast lodged him?'

'In the "Hermit's Cell."'

'Ah, old jester! He shall prove his asceticism thereby. Let practised abstinence save him in such pass. He shall eat his words--an everlasting banquet. A fat astrologer, by the token, as I hear.'

'He went in, fat.'

'Wretch! wouldst thou starve him? Remember the worms, thy cousins. Hath he foretold his end?'

'Ay, by starvation.'

'He lies, then. Thou shalt take him _in extremis_, and, with thy knife in his throat, give him the lie. An impostor proved. What sort of night is it?'

'Why, it rains and thunders.'

'Hush! Why should we fear rain and thunder? God put His bow in the sky. Jacopo, it is a sweet and fearful thing to be chosen minister of one of His purifications--Noah, and Lot, and now thy prince.'

'Purification?' said the executioner: 'by what?'

'By love, thou fool!' whispered Galeazzo, half ecstatic, half furious, with a nervous glance about him. 'There were the purifications by water one, one by fire, and a third by blood, to the last of which His servants yet testify in the spirit of their Redeemer. Blood, Jacopo, thou little monster--blood flowing, streams of it, the visible token of the sacrifice. That was our task till yesterday. Now in the end comes Love, and calleth for a cleansed and fruitful soil. Let us hasten with the last tares--to cut them down, and let their blood consummate the fertilising. Quick: we have no time to lose.'

He flung himself from the statue, and tiptoed, in a sort of gloating rapture, to the door.

'Show me this tare, I say.'

He went down the tower a few paces, with assured steps, then, bethinking himself, beckoned the other to lead. The flight conducted them to a private postern, well secured and guarded inside and out. As they issued from this, the howl of blown rain met and staggered them. Looking up at the blackened sky from the depths of that well of masonry, it seemed to crack and split in a rush of fusing stars. The mad soul of the tyrant leapt to speed the chase. He was one with this mighty demonstration--as like a chosen instrument of the divine retribution. His brain danced and flickered with exquisite visions of power. He was an angel, a destroying angel, commissioned to purge the world of lies. 'Bring me to this monk!' he screamed through the thunder.

Deep in the foundations of the north-eastern tower the miserable creature was embedded, in a stone chamber as utterly void and empty as despair. The walls, the floor, the roof, were all chiselled as smooth as glass. There was not anywhere foothold for a cat--nor door, nor trap, nor egress, nor window of any kind, save where, just under the ceiling, the grated opening by which he had been lowered let in by day a haggard ghost of light. And even that wretched solace was withdrawn as night fell--became a phantom, a diluted whisp of memory, sank like water into the blackness, and left the fancy suddenly naked in self-consciousness of hell. Then Capello screamed, and threw himself towards the last flitting of that spectre. He fell and bruised his limbs horribly: the very pain was a saving occupation. He struck his skull, and revelled in the agonised dance of lights the blow procured him. But one by one they blew out; and in a moment dead negation had him by the throat again, rolling him over and over, choking him under enormous slabs of darkness. Now, gasping, he cursed his improvidence in not having glued his vision to the place of the light's going. It would have been something gained from madness to hold and gloat upon it, to watch hour by hour for its feeble re-dawn. Among all the spawning monstrosities of that pit, with only the assured prospect of a lingering death before him, the prodigy of eternal darkness quite overcrowed that other of thirst and famine.

Yet the dawn broke, it would seem, before its due. Had he annihilated time, and was this death? He rose rapturously to his feet, and stood staring at the grating, the tears gushing down his fallen cheeks. The bars were withdrawn; and in their place was a lamp intruded, and a face looked down.

'Capello, dost thou hunger and thirst?'

The voice awoke him to life, and to the knowledge of who out of all the world could be thus addressing him. He answered, quaveringly: 'I hunger and thirst, Galeazzo.'

'It is a beatitude, monk,' said the voice. 'Thou shalt have thy fill of justice.'

'Alas!' cried the prisoner: 'justice is with thee, I fear, an empty phrase.'

'Comfort thyself,' said the other: 'I shall make a full measure of it. It shall bubble and sparkle to the brim like a great goblet of Malmsey. Dost know the wine Malmsey, monk?--a cool, heady, fragrant liquid, that gurgles down the arid throat, making one o' hot days think of gushing weirs, and the green of grass under naked feet.'

The monk fell on his knees, stretching out his arms.

'I ask no mercy of thee, but to end me without torture.'

'Torture, quotha!' cried the fiend above--'what torture in the vision of a wine-cup crushed, or, for the matter of that, a feast on white tables under trees. Picture it, Capello: the quails in cold jelly; the melting pasties; the salmon-trout tucked under blankets of whipped cream; the luscious peaches, and apricots like maiden's cheeks. Why, art not a Conventual, man, and rich in such experiences of the belly? And to call 'em torture--fie!'

'Mercy!' gasped the monk. His swollen throat could hardly shape the word. Galeazzo laughed, and bent over.

'Answer, then: how long am I to live?'

'By justice, for ever.'

'What! live for ever on an empty phrase? Then art thou, too, provisioned for eternity.'

He held out his hand:--

'Art humbled at last, monk, or monkey? How much for a nut?'

Leaping at the mad thought of some relenting in the voice and question, the prisoner ran under the outstretched hand, and held up his own, abjectly, fulsomely.

'Master, give it me--one--one only, to dull this living agony!'

'A sop to thee, then,' cried Galeazzo, and dropped a chestnut. The monk caught it, and, cracking it between his teeth, roared out and fell spitting and sputtering. He had crunched upon nothing more savoury than a shell filled up with river slime. The Duke screamed and hopped with laughter.

'Is not that richer than quail, more refreshing than Malmsey?'

The monk fell on his knees:--

'Now hear me, God!' he gabbled awry: 'Let not this man ever again know surcease from torment, in bed, at board, in his body, or in his mind. Let his lust consummate in frostbite; let the worm burrow in his entrails, and the maggot in his brain. May his drink be salt, and his meat bitter as aloes. May his short lease of wicked life be cancelled, and death seize him, and damnation wither in the moment of his supreme impenitence. Darken his vision, so that for evermore it shall see despair and the mockery of fruitless hope. Let him walk a self-conscious leper in the sunshine, and strive vainly to propitiate the loathing in eyes in which he sees himself reflected an abhorred and filthy ape. May the curse of Assisi----'

Galeazzo screamed him down:--

'Quote him not--beast--vile apostate from his teaching!'

For a moment the two battled in a war of screeching blasphemy: the next, the grate was flung into place, the light whisked and vanished, a door slammed, and the blackness of the cell closed once more upon the moaning heap in its midst.

Quaking and ashen, babbling oaths and prayers, Galeazzo flung back to his closet.

'Bring wine!' he shook out between his teeth to Jacopo.

When it came, he tasted, and flung it from him.

'Salt!' he shrieked. His fancy quite overcrowed his reason. 'O God, I am poisoned!'

He rose, staggering, and entered his oratory, and cast himself on his knees before the little shrine.

'Not from this man,' he protested, whimpering and writhing; 'Lord, not from this man--I know him better than Thou--a recusant, a sorcerer! Be not deceived because of his calling. To curse Thine anointed! kill him, Lord--kill the blasphemer--I hold him ready to Thy hand! Good sweet St. Francis, I but weed thy pastures--a wicked false brother, tainting the fold. How shall love prevail, this poison at its root?--Poison! O my God, to be stricken for evermore! life's fruit to change to choking ashes in my mouth! It cannot be--I, Galeazzo the Duke--yet I taunted him with visions: what if I have caught the infection of mine own imagination--too fearful, spare me this once. Lord God, consider--as I put it to Thee--now--like this--listen. To starve with him should be but a fast enlarged. What then? Some, honest ascetics, no Conventuals, so push abstinence to ecstasy as that they may cross the lines of death in a dream, and wake without a pang to heaven gained. If he does not, should he suffer, he is properly condemned for a gross pampered brother, false to his vows, unworthy Thine advocacy. Now, call the test a fair one. Chain back this dog that ravens to tear me. How, so stricken, made corrupt, could I work Thy will but through corruption? Hush! Thou mean'st it not--only as a jest? Give me some sign, then. Ah! Thou laugh'st--very quietly, but I hear Thee. Canst not deceive Galeazzo--ha-ha! between me and You, Lord, between me and You! Silence, thou dog monk! What dost thou here? Escaped! by God, get back--the first word was mine--thou art too late. What! damnation seize thee! Lord! he scorns Thy judgment--catch him, hold him--he is there by the door!'

He sprang to his feet, glaring and gesticulating.

'Galeazzo!' exclaimed Bembo. The boy had mounted to the closet unheard. It was his privilege to come unannounced. He stood a moment regarding the madman in amazement and pity, then hurried softly to his side.

'What is it? The face again?'

His tone, his entreaty, dispelled the other's delirium. The tyrant gazed at him a minute, slow recognition dawning in his eyes; then, of a sudden, broke into a thick fast flurry of sobs, and cast himself upon his shoulder.

'My saint,' he wept adoringly--'my Conscience, my little angel! and I had thought thee--nay, but the sign for which I prayed art thou given.'

His emotion gushed inwardly, filling all his channels to gasping. Presently he looked up, with a passionate murmur and caress.

'Love, with thy red lips like a girl's! Would that my own were worthy to marry with them.'

Bembo withdrew a little:--

'What wild words are these? Yet, peradventure, the giddy babble of a conqueror. O Galeazzo! hast triumphed o'er thyself indeed--casting that old familiar? chasing him hereout? Why, then, I whom thou hast appointed to be thy conscience, interpreting thy rule through truth and love, am the more emboldened to beseech the favour for which I came.'

'Ask it only, sweet.' His chest still heaved spasmodically to the catching of his breath.

'It is,' said the boy steadily, 'that thou wouldst give me, thy conscience's delegate, a last justification by the sacraments.'

The Duke smiled faintly, and nodded, and murmured: 'I will confess ere midnight, and, fasting, receive the Holy Communion before I go to-morrow. Does it please thee? Come, then.'

He re-entered his cabinet, reeling a little, and sat himself down, as if exhausted, by the table.

'Bernardo,' he said weakly, half apologetically, 'I am overwrought: there is wine in that jug: I prithee give it me to drink.'

The boy, unhesitating, handed him the flagon.

'It is the symbol of joy redeemed,' he said. 'Put thy lips to the chalice, Galeazzo, and take what thy soul needest--no more.'

The Duke lifted the cup shakily, stumbled at its brim, steadied himself, and sipped. His eyes dilated and grew wolfish--'I am vindicated,' he stuttered: 'O sweet little saint!'--and he drank greedily, ecstatically, and, smacking his lips, put down the vessel.

He was himself again from that draught.

'Bernardo,' he said, in a reassured, half-maudlin confidence, 'canst thou read the stars?'

'Nay,' said the other gravely, 'they are the Sibyls' books.'

'True. Yet some essay.'

'Ay: then flies a comet, cancelling all their sums.'

'An impious vanity, is it not?'

'Truly, I think so.'

'And deserving of the last chastisement.'

'Poor fools, they make their own.'

'What?'

'Why, taking colds instead of rest--cramps, chills, and agues--immense pains, and all for nothing; the dead moon for the living sun; nursing all day that they may starve by night. God gave us level eyes. The star's best resting place for them is on a hill. We need no more knowledge than to read beauty through the wise lens Nature hath proportioned us. Not God Himself can foretell a future.'

'Not God?'

'No, for there is no Future, nor ever will be. The Past but eternally prolongs itself to the Present. Heaven or hell is the road we tread, and must retrace when we come to the brink of the abyss where Time drops sheer into nothingness. Joy or woe, then, to him the returning wanderer, according as he hath provisioned his way. So shall he starve, or travel in content, or meet with weary retributions. O, in providence, hold thy hand, thinking on this, whenever thy hand is tempted!'

Galeazzo was amazed, discomfited. This unorthodoxy was the last to accommodate itself to his principles of conduct. The Future to him was always an unmortgaged reversion, sufficient to pay off all debts to conscience and leave a handsome residue for income. He could only exclaim, again, like one aghast: '_No Future_?'

'Nay,' said Bembo, smiling, 'what is the heresy to reason or religion? To foresee the issues of to-day were, for Omniscience, to suppress all strains but the angels'. What irony to accept worship from the foredoomed! What insensate folly wantonly to multiply the devil's recruits! O Galeazzo, there is no Future for God or Men? Hope shudders at the inexorable word: Evil presumes on it: it is the lodestone to all dogmatism; the bogey, the weapon of the unversed Churchman; the very bait to acquisition and self-greed. Be what, returning, ye would find yourselves--no lovelier ambition. See, we walk with Christ, the human God and comrade, I have but this hour left him bathing his tired feet in the brook. He will follow anon; and all the pretty birds and insects and wildflowers he watched while resting will have suggested to him a thousand tales and reflections gathered of an ancient lore. He can be full of wonder too, but wiser by many moons than we. There is no Future. God possesses the Past.'

The Duke sprang to his feet, and went up and down once or twice. This view of a self-retaliatory entity--of a returning body condemned by natural laws to retraverse every point of its upward flight--disturbed him horribly. He desired no responsibility in things done and gone. Eternity, timely propitiated, was his golden chance. He stopped and looked at Bembo, at once inexpressibly cringing and crafty.

'Bernardino,' murmured he: 'I can never get it out of my head that whenever thou sayest God thou meanest gods. _The gods possess the past?_--why, one would fancy somehow it ran glibber than the other.'

Bembo sighed.

'Well, why not? Nature, and Love, and the Holy Ghost--_Tria juncta in Uno_--why not gods?'

The Duke pressed his hand to his forehead; then ran and clasped the boy about the shoulders.

'Adorable little wisdom,' he cried: 'take my conscience, and record on it what thou wilt!'

'To-morrow,' said Bembo, with a happy smile: 'when its tablets are sponged and clean.'

Galeazzo fawned, showing his teeth. There was something in him infinitely suggestive of the cat that, in alternate spasms of animalism, licks and bites the hand that caresses it. This strange new heresy of a limited omniscience oddly affected him. Could it be possible, after all, that the soul's responsibility was to itself alone? In any case so pure a spirit as this could represent him only to his advantage. Still, at the same time, if God were no more than relatively wiser and stronger than himself--why, it was not _his_ theory--let the Parablist answer for it--on Messer Bembo's saintly head fall the onus, if any, of leaving Capello where he was. For his own part, he told himself, the God of Moses remaining in his old place in the heavens, he, Galeazzo, would have been inclined to consider the virtuous policy of releasing the Monk.

And so he prepared himself to confess and communicate.

*CHAPTER IX*

The Duke of Milan, confessed, absolved, and his conscience pawned to a saint, had, on the virtue of that pledge, started in a humour of unbridled self-righteousness for the territory of Vercelli. With him went some four thousand troops, horse and footmen, a drain of bristling splendour from the city; yet the roaring hum of that city's life, and the flash and sting thereof, were not appreciably lessened in the flying of its hornet swarm. Rather waxed they poignant in the general sense of a periodic emancipation from a hideous thralldom. The tyrant was gone, and for a time the intolerable incubus of him was lifted.

But, for the moment, there was something more--a consciousness, within the precincts of the palace and beyond them, of a substituted atmosphere, in which the spirit experienced a strange self-expansion--other than mere relief from strain--which was foreign to its knowledge. Men felt it, and pondered, or laughed, or were sceptical according as their temperaments induced them. So, in droughty days, the little errant winds that blow from nowhere, rising and falling on a thought, affect us with a sense of the unaccountable. There was such a sweet odd zephyr abroad in Milan. The queer question was, Was the little gale a little mountebank gale, tumbling ephemerally for its living, or did it represent a permanent atmospheric change?

A few days before Galeazzo's departure, Bernardo--by special appointment _custos conscientiae ducalis_--had, while walking in the outer ward of the Castello with Cicada, happened upon the vision of a Franciscan monk, plump and rosy, but with inflammatory eyes, entering with Messer Jacopo through a private postern in the walls. He had saluted the jocund figure reverentially, as one necessarily sacred through its calling, and was standing aside with doffed bonnet, when the other, halting with an expression of good-humoured curiosity on his face, had greeted him, puffed and asthmatic, in his turn:--

'Peace to thee, my son! Can this be he of whom it might be said, "_Puer natus est nobis: et vocabitur nomen ejus, Magni Consilii Angelus_"?'

The Franciscan had rumbled the query at Jacopo, who had shrugged, and answered shortly: 'Well; 'tis Messer Bembo.'

'So?' had responded the monk, gratified; 'the David of our later generation?' and instantly and ingratiatory he had waddled up, and, putting a prosperous hand on Bernardo's shoulder, had bent to whisper hoarsely, and quite audibly to Cicada, into the boy's ear:--

'Child--I know--I am to thank _thee_ for this summons.' Then, before Bembo, wondering, could respond: 'Ay, ay; Saul's ears are opened to the truth. The stars cannot lie. You sent for me, yourself their sainted emissary, to confirm the verdict. What! I might have failed to answer else. We know the Duke, eh? But, mum!'

And with these enigmatic words, and a roguish wink and squeeze, he had hurried away again, following the impatient summons of Jacopo, who was beckoning him towards a flight of open stairs niched in the north curtain, up which the two had thereon gone, and so disappeared among the battlements.

Then had Bernardo turned, humour battling with reverence in his sensorium, and 'Cicca!' had exclaimed, with a little click of laughter.

The Fool's answer had been prompt and emphatic.

'Cracked!' he had snapped, like a dog at a fly.

'Who was he?'

'Nay, curtail not his short lease. He is yet, and, being, is the Fra Capello--may I die else.'

'Well, if he is, _what_ is he?'

'Why, a short-of-breath monk; yet soon destined, if I read him aright, to be a breathless monk.'

'Nay, thou wilt only new-knot a riddle. I will follow and ask the Provost-Marshal, though I love him not.'

'Nor he thee, methinks. Hold back. The butcher looks askance at the pet lamb. Well, what wouldst thou? Of this same monkish rotundity, this hemisphere of fat, this moon-paunch, this great blob of star-jelly, this planet-counterfeiting frog, this astronomic globe stuffed out with pasties and ortolans? Well, 'tis Fra Capello, I tell thee, an astrologer, a diviner by the stars--do I not aver it, though I have never set eyes on the man before?'

'How know'st, then?'

'Why, true, my perspicacity is only this and that, a poor matter of inferences. As, for example, the inference of the fingers, that when I burn them, fire is near; or the inference of the nose, that when I smell cooking fish, it is a fast day; or the inference of the palate, that when I drink water, I am a fool.'

'A dear wise fool.'

'Ay, a wise fool, to know what one and one make. Dost thou?'

'Two, to be sure.'

'Well, God fit thy perspicacity with twins, when thy time comes. One out of one and one is enough for me.'

'Peace! How know'st this holy father is an astrologer?'

'Inference, sir--merely inference. As, for example again, the inference of the ears, that when I mark the substance of his whisper to thee, I seem to remember talk of a certain Franciscan, who, having predicted by the stars short shrift for Galeazzo, and been invited to come and discuss his reasons, did prove unaccountably coy, though certainly seer to his own nativity. Imprimis, the astrologer was reported a Conventual and fat; whereby comes in the inference of the eye. Now, "Ho-ho!" thinks I, "this same swag-bellied monk who babbles of stars! Surely it is our Fra Capello? And hooked at last? By what killing bait?"'

Here he had touched the boy's shoulder swiftly, and as swiftly had withdrawn his hand, an ineffable expression, shrewd and caustic, puckering his face. Bembo had looked serious.

'Cicca! I do believe thou art madder than any astrologer--unless----'

'No!' had cried the Fool; 'I am sober; wrong me not.'

Then Bembo had repented lovingly:--

'Pardon, dear Cicca. But, indeed, I understand thee not.'

'Why,' I said, 'what killing bait had tempted the monk's shyness at length?'

'What, then?'

'Thyself.'

'I?'

'Art thou not a star-child and Galeazzo's protege? O, pretty, sweet decoy, to draw the astrologer from his cloister!'

'Dost mean that the Duke would use me to question the truth of these predictions? Alas! not I, nor any man, can interpret nothingness into a text.'

'Wilt thou tell him so?'

'Who?'

'The Duke.'

'I have told him so.'

'Thou hast? Then God keep the Franciscan in breath!'

'Amen!' had said Bembo, in all fervour and innocence. He had thought the other to mean nothing more than that the Duke was designing, on _his_ authority, to win a faulty brother from the heresy--as he construed it--of divination.

As _he_ construed it. Young and inexperienced as he was, he had yet a prophet's purpose and vision--the vision which, in despite of all traditional beliefs, looks backwards. His soft eyes were steadfast to that end which was the beginning. No sophistries could beguile him from the essential truth of his kind creed. _He_ was an atavism of something vastly remoter than Caligula--than any tyranny. He 'threw back' to the stock of those first angels who knew the daughters of men--to the first fruits of an amazed and incredible sorrow. By so great a step was he close to the God his sires had offended; was close to the parting of the ways between earth and heaven, and with all the lore of the since-accumulated ages to instruct him in his choice of roads. O, believe little Bernardo that his was the true insight, the true wisdom! There is no Future, nor ever will be. The past but prolongs itself to the present; and all enterprise, all yearning, are but to recover the ground we have lost. That truth once recognised, the horror of Futurity shall close its gates; its timeless wastes shall be no more to us; and we--we shall be wandering back, by aeons of pathetic memories, to trace to its source the love that gushed in Paradise.

Three days later the boy--the Duke being gone--was strolling, again with Cicada his shadow, on the ramparts. It had become something his habit to take the air, after hearing the morning causes, on these outer walls, whence the tired vision could stretch itself luxuriantly on leagues of peaceful plain. He liked then to be left alone, or at the most to the sole company of his dogged henchman, the erst Fool. Cicada's gruff but jealous sympathy was an emollient to lacerated sensibilities; his wit was a tonic; his tact the fruit of long necessity. No one would have guessed, not gentle Bernardo himself, how the little, ugly, caustic creature was, when most wilful or eccentric in seeming, watching over and medicining his moods of inevitable weariness or depression.

Perhaps he was in such a mood now--induced by that passion of the irremediable which occasionally must overtake every just judge--as he leaned upon the battlements, his cheek propped on his palm, and gazed out dreamily over the shining campagna.

'Cicca,' he said suddenly, 'what made thee a Fool?'

'Circumstance,' answered the other promptly.

'Ah!' sighed Bembo--'that blind brute force of Nature, wavering out of chaos. No agent of God--His foe, rather, to be anticipated and circumvented. Providence is the true wise name for our Master. He _provideth_, of the immensity of His love, for and against. He can do no further, nor foretell but by analogy the blundering spites of Circumstance. But always He persuades the monster of his interest lying more and more in sweet order--dreams of him sleeping caged, a lazy, satiated chimera, in the mid-gardens of love.'

'Che allegria!' said Cicada; 'I will go then, and poke him in the ribs, and ask him why he made a Fool of me.'

Bembo smiled and sighed.

'There is a proof of his blindness. What, in truth, was thy origin, dear Cicca?'

The Fool came and leaned beside him.

'Canst look on me and ask? I was born in this dark age of tyranny, and of it; I shall die in it and of it. I have never known liberty. Sobriety and reason are empty terms to me. Ask of me no fruit but the fruit of mine inheritance. A drunken woman in labour will bring forth a drunken child. I am Cicada the Fool, lower than a slave, curst pimp to Folly.'

Soft as a butterfly, Bernardo's hand fluttered to his shoulder and rested there. The creature's dim eyes were fixed upon the crawling plain; his face worked with emotion.

'There was a time,' he said, 'I understand, when governments were loyal at once to the individual and the state--when they wrought for the common weal. In those days, it would seem certain, riches--anything above a specified income--must have disqualified a man for office. It is the ideal constitution. Corruption will enter else. Wealth, and the emulation of wealth, are the moth in stored states. That was the age of the republics and all the virtues. I am born, alack, after my time. I have held Esau the first saint in the calendar. I am not sure I do not do so now, Messer Bembo despite.'

'And I, too, love Esau,' said Bernardo quietly.

Cicada, amazed, whipped upon him; then suddenly seized him in his arms.

'Thou dearest, most loving of babes!' he cried rapturously; 'sweet saint of all to me! What! did I twit thee, mine emancipator, with my curse to thralldom? Loves Esau, quotha! No cant his creed. Child, thou art asphodel to that cactus. Put thy foot on this mouth that could so slander thee!'

'Poor Cicca!' said Bembo, gently disengaging himself. 'Thou rebukest sweetly my idle curiosity.'

'Curiosity!' cried the other. 'Would the angels always showed as much! Thou art welcome to all of me I can tell:--as, for example, that my mother--_exitus acta probat_--was a fool, a sweet, pretty, vicious fool; and yet, after all, not such a fool as, having borne, to acknowledge me.'

'Poor wretch! Why not?'

'Why not? Why, for the reason Pasiphae concealed her share in the Minotaur. Motley is the labyrinth of Milan. My father was a bull.'

'Well, I am answered.'

'Ah! thou think'st I jest. Relatively--relatively only, sir, I assure thee. Hast ever heard speak of Filippo Maria, the last of the Visconti?'

'Little, alas! to his credit.'

'I will answer in my person to that. He was uglier than any bull--a monster so hideous as to be attractive to a certain order of frailty. I inclined his way. Perhaps that was my salvation. The child most interests the parent whose features it reflects. It is bad-luck to break a mirror; and so I was spared--for the labyrinth.'

'O infamous! He made thee his jester?'

'And fed me. Let that be remembered to him. When the reckoning comes, the bull, not Pasiphae, shall have my voice.'

'Hideous! Thy mother?'

'Let it pass on that. I need say no more, if a word can damn.'

'Cicca!'

'He was meat and drink to me, I say.'

'Drink, alas!'

'He meant it kindly. When I sparkled, 'twas his own wit he felt himself applauding. That was my easy time. He died in '47, and my majesty's Fooldom was appropriated incontinent to the titillation of these peasants of Cotignola their hairy ears.'

'Hush, and thou wilt be wise!'

'In my grave, not sooner. Francesco, our Magnificent's father, was so-so for humour--a good, blunt soldier, who'd take his cue of laughter from some quicker wit, then roar it out despotically. No sniggerer, like his son, who qualifies all praise with envy. Shall I tell thee how I lost Galeazzo's favour? He wrote a sonnet. 'Twas an achievement. A Roman triumph has been ceded to less--hardly to worse. Lord, sir! there was that applause and hand-clapping at Court! But Wisdom looked sour. "What, fool!" demanded the Duke: "dost question its merit?" "Nay," quoth Wisdom; "but only the sincerity of the praise. Sign thy next with my name, and mark its fate." He did--actually. Poor Wisdom! as if it had been truth the sonneteer desired! Never was poor doxy of a Muse worse treated. This was exalted like the other; but in a pillory. It made a day's sport for the mob, at my expense. Was not that pain and humiliation enough? But Galeazzo must visit upon me the rage of his mortification. Well, when he was done with me, Messer Lanti, high in favour, begged the remnant of my folly, and it was thrown to him. The story leaked out; I had had so many holes cut in me. It had been wiser to seal my lips with kindness. But the Duke, as you may suppose, loves me to this day.'

As he spoke, they turned an angle of the battlements, and saw advancing towards them, smiling and insinuative, the figure of Tassino. Bernardo started, in some wonder. He had not set eyes on this dandiprat since his public condemnation of him, and, if he thought of him at all, had believed him gone to make the restitution ordered. Now he gazed at him with an expression in which pity and an instinctive abhorrence fought for precedence.

The young man was brilliantly, even what a later generation would have called 'loudly,' dressed. He had emerged from his temporary pupation a very tiger-moth; but the soul of the ignoble larva yet obtained between the gorgeous wings. Truckling, insinuative, and wicked throughout, he accosted his judge with a servile bow, as he stood cringing before him. Bembo mastered his antipathy.

'What! Messer cavalier,' he said, struggling to be gay. 'Art returned?'--for he guessed nothing of the truth. Then a kind thought struck him. 'Perchance thou comest as a bridegroom, _bene meritus_.'

Tassino glanced up an instant, and lowered his eyes. How he coveted the frank audacity of the Patrician swashbuckler, with which he had been made acquainted, but which he found impossible to the craven meanness of his nature. To dare by instinct--how splendid! No doubt there is that fox of self-conscious pusillanimity gnawing at the ribs of many a seeming-brazen upstart. He twined and untwined his fingers, and shook his head, and sobbed out a sigh, with craft and hatred at his heart. Bernardo looked grave.

'Alas, Messer Tassino!' said he: 'think how every minute of a delayed atonement is a peril to thy soul.'

This sufficed the other for cue.

'Atone?' he whined: 'wretch that I am! How could a hunted creature do aught but hide and shake?'

'Hunted!'

'O Messer Bembo! 'twas so simple for you to let loose the mad dog, and blink the consequences for others.'

'Mad dog!'

'Now don't, for pity's sake, go quoting my rash simile. Hast not ruined me enough already?'

'Alas, good sir! What worth was thine estate so pledged? I had no thought but to save thee for heaven.'

'And so let loose the Duke, that Cerberus? O, I am well saved, indeed, but not for heaven! Had it not been for the good Jacopo taking me in and hiding me, I had been roasting unhousel'd by now.'

'Tassino, thou dost the Duke a wrong. 'Twas thy fear distorted thy peril. He is a changed man, and most inclined to charity and justice.'

Tassino let his jaw drop, affecting astonishment.

'Since when?'

'Since the day of thy disgrace.'

The other shook his head, with a smile of growing effrontery.

'Why, look you, Messer Bembo,' he said: 'you represent his conscience, they tell me, and should know. Yet may not a man and his conscience, like ill-mated consorts, be on something less than speaking terms?'

He laughed, half insolent, half nervous, as Bernardo regarded him in silence with earnest eyes.

'Supposing,' said he, 'you were to represent, of your holy innocence and credulity, a little more and a little sweeter than the truth? Think'st thou I should have dared reissue from my hiding, were Galeazzo still here to represent his own? If I had ever thought to, there was that buried a week ago in the walls yonder would have stopped me effectively.'

'Buried--in the walls! What?'

'Dost not know? Then 'tis patent he is not all-confiding in his conscience. And yet thou shouldst know. 'Tis said thou lead'st him by the nose, as St. Mark the lion. Well, I am a sinner, properly persecuted; yet, to my erring perceptives, 'tis hard to reconcile thy saintship with thy subscribing to his sentence on a poor Franciscan monk, a crazy dreamer, who came to him with some story of the stars.'

'O, I cry you mercy! I quote Messer Jacopo, who was present. "Deserving of the last chastisement"--were not those thy words? And Omniscience dethroned--a bewildered mortal like ourselves? Anyhow, he held thy saintship to justify his sentence on the monk.'

'What sentence?'

'Wilt thou come and see? I have my host's pass.'

He staggered under the shock of a sudden leap and clutch. Young strenuous hands mauled his pretty doublet; sweet glaring eyes devoured his soul.

'I see it in thy face! O, inhuman dogs are ye all! Show me, take me to him!'

Tassino struggled feebly, and whimpered.

'Let go: I will take thee: I am not to blame.'

Shaking, but exultant in his evil little heart, he broke loose and led the way to a remote angle of the battlements, where the trunk of a great tower, like the drum of a hinge, connected the northern and eastern curtains. This was that same massy pile in whose bowels was situate the dreadful oubliette known as the 'Hermit's Cell': a grim, ironic title signifying deadness to the world, living entombment, utter abandonment and self-obliteration. It was delved fathoms deep; quarried out of the bed-rock; walled in further by a mountain of masonry. Tyranny sees an Enceladus in the least of its victims. On so exaggerated a scale of fear must the sum of its deeds be calculated.

Here the Provost-Marshal had his impregnable quarters. Looking down, one might see the huge blank bulge of the tower enter the pavement below unpierced but by an occasional loop or eyelet hole. Its only entrance, indeed, was from the rampart-walk; its direct approach by way of the flying stair-way, up which Bembo had seen the monk disappear. His heart burned in his breast as he thought of him. There was a fury in his blood, a sickness in his throat.

A sentry, lounging by the door, offered, as if by preconcert with Tassino, no bar to his entrance. But, when Cicada would have followed, he stayed him.

'Back, Fool!' he said shortly, opposing his halberd.

Cicada struggled a moment, and desisted.

'A murrain on thy tongue,' snapped he, 'that calls me one!'

The sentry laughed, and, having gained his point, produced a flask leisurely from his belt.

'What! art thou not a fool?' said he, unstoppering it, and preparing to drink.

'Understand, I have forsworn all liquor,' said Cicada, with a wry twinkle.

'So art thou certainly a fool,' said the sentry, eye and body guarding the doorway, as he raised the horn.

'Hist!' whispered Cicada, staying him: 'this remoteness--that damning gurgle--come! a ducat for a mouthful! Be quick, before he returns!'

The soldier, between cupidity and good-nature, laughed and handed over the flask. 'Done on that!' said he. But on the instant he roared out, as the other snatched and bolted with his property.

'How, thou bloody filcher! Give me back my wine!'

Cicada crowed and capered, dangling his spoil.

'Judas! for a dirty piece of silver to betray temperance!'

The sentry, with a furious oath, made at him. He dodged; eluded; finally, under the very hands of his pursuer, threw the flask into a corner, and, as the other dived for it, slipped by and disappeared into the tower. The soldier, cursing and panting in his wake, ran into the arms of an impassive figure--staggered, fell back, and saluted.

Messer Jacopo eyed the delinquent a long minute without a word. He had been silent witness, within the guard-room, of all the little scene, and was considering the penalty meet to such a breach of orders and discipline.

There had been something of pre-arrangement in this matter between him and Messer Tassino. The two were in a common accord as to the loss and inconvenience to be entailed upon themselves by any reform of existing institutions--comprehensively, as to the menace this stranger was to their interests. It would be well to demonstrate to him the unreality of his influence with Galeazzo. Let him see the starving monk, in evidence of his power's short limits. It was possible the sight might kill his presumption for ever: return him disillusioned to obscurity.

So his presence here had been procured, with orders to the sentry to debar the Fool. Jacopo wanted no shrewd cricket at the boy's side, to leaven the horror for him with his song of cheer. The full impressiveness of the awful scene must be allowed to overbear his soul in silence. This sentry had erred rather foolishly.

It abated nothing of the terror of the man that no sign of passion ever crossed his face, nor word his lips. He turned away, not having uttered a sound; and left the delinquent collapsed as under a heat-stroke.

'Now, let it be no worse than the strappado!' prayed the poor wretch to himself.

In the meanwhile, Cicada, swift, quivering, alert, was descending, like a gulped Jonah, into the bowels of the tower. He had no need to pick his path: the well-stairway, like a screw pinning the upper to the underworld, transmitted to him every whisper and shuffle of the footsteps he was pursuing. Sometimes, so deceptive were the echoes in that winding shaft, he fancied himself treading close upon the heels of the chase; yet each little loop-lighted landing found him, as he reached it, audibly no nearer. His mocking mouth was set grim; he dreaded, not for himself but for his darling, some nameless entrapping wickedness. 'If they design it,' he thought--'if they design it! Hell shall not hide them from me.'

Suddenly the sounds below died away and ceased. He listened an instant; then went down again, turning and turning in a nightmare of blind horror. The walls grew dank and viscous to his palm. A stumble, and all might end for him hideously. Then, at the same moment, weak light and a weaker cry greeted him. He descended, still without pause--and shot into the glowing mouth of a tiny tunnel, where were the figures he sought.

They stood at a low grating in the wall, which was pierced into a subterranean chamber. The bars were thrown open, and through the aperture Tassino directed the light of a flaring torch he held upon a figure lying prostrate on the stones below. Cicada crept, and peered over his master's shoulder. The thing on the floor was grotesque, unnatural--a human skeleton emitting noises, heaving in its midst. That great bulk had become in its shrinkage a monstrous travesty of life. But existence still preyed upon its indissoluble vestments of flesh.

'He clings to life, for a monk,' whispered the Fool.

With the sound of his voice, Bernardo was sprung into a Fury. He lashed upon Cicada, tooth and claw:--

'Thou knew'st, and hid it from me in parables!'

'Inference, inference!' cried the Fool. 'I would have spared thee.'

'Spared _me_? Thus?'

'Ah! thy shame through wicked sophistries! He was foredoomed. Had I interfered, I had been lying myself there now, and you a loving servant the less.'

Bembo flung his arms abroad, as if sweeping all away from him.

'Love! Let pass!' he shrieked: 'Fiends are ye all, with whom to breathe is poison!' and he broke by them, and went flying and crying up into the daylight. He ran, without pause, by the walls, down the notched stairway, across the ward, and came with flaming colour into the buttery.

'Give me wine and bread!' he screamed of the steward there; and the man, in a flurry of wonder, obeyed him. Then away he raced again, his hands full, and never stopped until the sentry, a new one, at the tower door barred his progress. The way was private, quoth the man. He could let none past but by order.

'Of whom?' panted Bembo.

'Why, the Provost-Marshal.'

Then the boy tried wheedling.

'Dear soldier: thou art well cared for. There is one within perishes for a little bread.'

But the man was adamant.

'Where, then, is the Provost-Marshal?' cried the other in desperation.

Within or without--the sentry professed not to know. In any case, it was death to him to leave his post.

Bernardo put down his load on the battlements, and, turning, fled away again.

*CHAPTER X*

Bona sat amongst her maidens. They were all busy as spiders upon a loom of tapestry, spinning a symbolic web. The subject was as edifying as their talk over it was free. Their lips and fingers were perpetually at odds, weaving reputations and pulling them to pieces. Bona herself said little; but abstraction gave some indulgence to the smile with which she listened, or seemed to.

'Whither do her thoughts travel?' whispered one girl of another.

'Hush!' was the answer. 'Along the Piedmont Road with her lord, of course. What else would you?'

The first giggled.

'Nothing, indeed, if it left a chance for poor little me. But, alack! I fear her charity stops nearer home.'

'What then, insignificance? Would your presumption fly at an angel?'

'Yes, indeed, though it got a peck for its pains. (Mark the Caprona's ear pricked our way! She knows we are on the eternal subject.) Heigho! it will be something to share in this promised commonwealth of love, at least.'

She spoke loud enough for the little Catherine Sforza, sitting by her adopted mother, to hear her.

'Ehi, Carlina,' cried that pert youngster: 'What share do you expect for your small part?'

'I thought of Messer Bembo, Madonna,' answered Carlina demurely.

They crowed her down with enormous laughter.

'Nay, child,' said Catherine: 'there is to be no talk of exclusiveness in this Commonwealth. We are all to take alike--Mamma, and I, and the Countess of Casa Caprona, and whoever else subscribes to the Purification. For my part I shall be content with becoming very good; and I have hopes of myself. See the reformation in our dear Countess; and she was in his company but a day or two.'

'Peace, thou naughtiness!' cried Bona; while Beatrice's eyes burned dull fire; and a girl, one who worked near her, a soft and endearing little piety, looked up and choked in a panic, 'O Madonna!'

Catherine mimicked her:--

'O Biasia! Is the subject too tender for thy conscience? Alas, dear! but if thy only hope is in this Commonwealth? Angels are not monogamous.'

Biasia blushed like a poppy; yet managed to stammer amidst the laughter: 'It is only that he,--that the subject, seems to me too sacred. He preaches heavenly love--the brotherhood of souls--in all else, one man one maid.'

Catherine very gravely got upon a stool, and paraphrased Messer Bembo, voice and manner:--

'I kiss thee, kind Madonna, for thine exposition. A man must put a fence about his desires, would he be happy. A sweet mate, a cot, beehives and a garden--he shall find all love's epitome in these. None can possess the world but in the abstract--a plea for universal brotherhood. What doth it profit me to own a palace, and live for all my needs' content in one room of it? Go to and join, and leave superfluous woman to the preacher.'

Some tittered, some applauded; Biasia hung her head, and would say no more. Bona cried, 'Come down, thou wickedness!' but indulgently, as if she half-dreaded attracting to herself the flicker of the little forked tongue.

'O!' cried Catherine, 'I grant you that, with an angel, the manner spices the lesson. I will tell you, girls, how he rebuked me yesterday on this same legend of reciprocity. "How could you take sport," says he, "of witnessing that poor Montano's punishment?" "Why, very well," says I, "seeing he was a man, and therefore my natural enemy." "How is man so?" says he. "He makes me bear his children for him," says I. "But I suppose he will be made to suffer _his_ share of the toil in this new Commonwealth of love." "You talk like a child," he says. "Then," says I, "I will sing like a woman," and I extemporised--very clever, you will admit.'

She pinched up her skirts, and put out a little foot, and chirruped, in no voice at all, but with a sauce of impudence:--

'"Love is give and take," says he,
"Every gander knows--
Wear the prickle for my sake;
For thine, I'll wear the rose."

"_Grazie_, kind and true," says I,
"For that noble dower--
Only, between me and you,
_I_ should like the flower."

"And hast thou not it?" cries St. Bernardo, interrupting me; and, would you believe it, swinging round his lute, his lips and his finger-tips join issue in the prettiest nonsense ever conceived for a poor wife's fooling. Wait, and I will recall it.'

She had the quickest wit and memory, and in a moment was chaunting:--

'"Whence did our bird-soft baby come?
How learned to prattle of this for home?

Some sleepy nurse-angel let her stray,
And she found herself in the world one day.

She heard nurse calling, and further fled:
She hid herself in our cabbage bed.

There we came on her fast asleep,
What could we do but take and keep,

Carry her in and up the stair?
She would have died of cold out there.

She woke at once in a little fright;
But Love beckoned her from the light.

Lure we had lit, for dear love fain;
She had seen it shine through the window pane.

Lure we had kindled of flame and bliss,
To catch such a little ghost-moth as this.

Ah, me! it shrivelled her pretty wing.
Here she must stay, poor thing, poor thing!"'

She ended: 'Faith, St. Charming's lips make that daintiest setting to his fancies, that I could have kissed 'em while he improved his song with a homily' (she mimicked again the boy's manner, comically emphasised). '"Why," saith he, "would you grudge yourself that poignant privilege of your sex? would ye share the agony and halve the gain? What gift so careless in all the world makes such sweet possession? Furs, gowns, and trinkets pall; perishable things grow less by use; the diamond suffers by its larger peer. Only the gift of love, the wee babe, takes new delight of time; renews woman's best through herself; is a perpetual novelty, spring all the year round, flowers fresh burgeoning through faded blooms. To be sole warden of the quickening soul ye bore--you, you! to see the lamb-like heaven of its eyes cuddling to your bosom's fold--all thine, save the spent heat that cast it! O, rather be the mould than the turbulent metal it shapes! Go to, and thank God for labours yielding such reward. Go to, and be the mother of saints." Whereat I curtsied, and "Thank you, sir," says I, "for the offer, but my bed's already laid for me in Rome," and then----'

What more she might have quoted or invented none might say, for at the moment a wild figure burst into the chamber, and ran to its mistress, and entreated her with lips and hands.

'Give me thy gage--quick! There is one starves in the "Hermit's Cell," and they will not let me pass to him without. Thou art the Duke, thou art the Duke now. Give it me, in mercy, and avert God's vengeance from this wicked house!'

Bona had arisen, pale as death, pity and anguish pleading in her eyes.

'Alas! What say'st thou? Thou, not I, art the Duke.'

'Give it me,' demanded Bembo feverishly. 'Nay, quibble not, while he gasps out his agony--a monk--hear'st thou? A monk!'

She temporised a moment in her pain.

'There are black sheep in those flocks.'

'God forgive thee!'

'Alas! _thou_ wilt not. Indeed I have no talisman will open doors that my lord has shut.'

Beatrice, intent, with veiled eyes, from her place, bestirred herself with an indolent smile.

'Madonna forgets. Love laughs at locksmiths.'

The two women faced one another a minute. Some subtle emotion of antagonism, already born, waxed into a larger consciousness between them.

'How, Countess?' said Bona quietly.

'Madonna wears her bethrothal ring--a very _passepartout_. It is the talisman will serve her with monks and saints alike.'

A little flush mantled to the Duchess's brow. Standing erect a moment she slipped the ring from her finger, and held it out to Bernardo.

'It should be the pledge through love of Charity. Take it, in my lord's good name, whose jealous representative I remain. And when thou return'st it, may it be sanctified of new justice, child, against the prick of envy and slander and the spite of venomous tongues.'

She turned away stately and resumed her needle as Bernardo, with a cry of thanks, ran from the room. A minute or two later he appeared before the sentry on the ramparts and flourished his token. To his surprise the man hardly glanced at it as he stepped aside to let him pass. He thought on this with some shapeless foreboding, as he leapt like a chamois down the steeps of the tower, the food, which he had snatched up, in his hands. God pity him and his awakening! There are emotions too sacred for minuting. Let it suffice that Jacopo had proved too faithful a prophylactic to superstition. The wretched monk had not been allowed to justify his own prediction by dying of starvation. In that last interval, between the Parablist's going and coming, his throat had been cut.

A minute later Bernardo leapt like a madman from the tower. His face was ashy, his hands trembling. At the foot of the curtain he stumbled over a poor patch, prostrate and moaning.

'_I am thy Fool, and I shall never make thee smile again_.'

All quivering and unstrung, he threw himself on his knees by Cicada's side.

'Up!' he screamed, 'up! Get you out of this Sodom ere the Lord destroy it!'

The Fool bestirred himself, raising eyes full of a sombre, eager questioning.

'I am forgiven?' he gasped; but Bernardo only cried frenziedly, 'Up! up!'

*CHAPTER XI*