Chapter VIII: Part 8

Agapemone was her temple, and its inmost chamber her shrine. Here, under stained glass windows, ran a frieze in relievo of warm terra-cotta, thronged with little goat-faced satyrs pursuing nymphs through groves of pregnant vines. Here, supporting the frieze, were pilasters of blood-red porphyry, which burst high up into fronds of gold; while, screening the interspaces on the walls, were panels of glowing tapestry relating the legend of Adonis, from his first budding on the enchanted tree to his final shrouding under the winter of love's grief. Here, also, the faces of dead Capronas, past lords of this House Beautiful, winked and gloated out of shadowy corners, whenever a log, toppling over on the hearth, sent up a shower of sparks. Prominent in one place was a tall massive clock, copper and brass, a _chef-d'[oe]uvre_ of Dondi the horologist, which thudded the hours melodiously, like a chime of distant bells, and made the swooning senses in love with time. Couches there were everywhere, soft and wooing to the soul of languor; thick rugs and skins upon the marble floor; tables with clawed legs, of chalcedony or jasper, on which were scattered in lovely wantonness a hundred toys of Elysium. Lutes, sweets, and goblets of rich repousse; wine in green flasks, and delicate long-stemmed glasses; an ivory and silver crucifix, half-hidden under a pile of raisins; two love-birds in a gilded cage, and a golden salver containing an aspic of larks' tongues, tilted upon a volume of some French Romaunt touching the knightly adventures of Messer Roland a troubadour--these and their like, varied or repeated, returned, in a thousandfold interest of colour and sparkle, the soft investment of the tapers--enough, but not too many--in their beauty. One velvet cloth had been swept from its place, spilling upon a rug, where it sprawled unregarded, its costly burden of a begemmed chalice, a pair of perfumed gloves, and an illuminated volume of sonnets in a jewelled cover, dedicated to the goddess herself, and celebrating, in letters of gold and silver on vellum, her incomparable seductions. She had pulled them over, no doubt, when she reached for the orange which now, untasted, filled her hand, soft and covetous as a child's.

The warmth and drowsy stillness of the room penetrated her as she lay holding it. Gradually her lids closed, her bare arm drooped from its sleeve, and the orange rolled on the floor. Her thoughts and expectations had been already busy for an hour with, 'Will he come? Will he come? Will he come?' It had been like counting sheep trotting through a hedge--one, two, three, four--up to a hundred--and now her drugged brain confused the tally, and she seemed to herself to swerve all in a moment into a luminous mist.

He entered like a pale scented flower into her dream--a soft and shapely thing, melting into its ecstasy, fulfilling its enchantment. She held him, and whispered to him: 'The hour, sweet love! Is it mine at last?'--and, so murmuring, stirred and opened her eyes.

He was there, close by her, looking down upon her as she lay. How pale was his face, and how wistful. His walk through the icy dark had but just tinted it, as when November flaws blow the snow from the rose's dead cheek. He looked dispirited and tired. The childlike pathos of his eyes moved her heart-strings no less than did the red, combative swelling of his lips. She longed to master him in order to be mastered. Her hedonism's highest moral attainment was always in pleasing herself by surrendering herself to the pleasure of another; and how, knowing herself, could she doubt the irresistible persuasiveness of her faith?

She did not speak for a little, the wine of slumber in her brain emboldening her in the meanwhile to dare this vision with her beauty, to seek her response in its eyes. Her cheeks, her half-closed lids, were, like a baby's, flushed with sleep. Suddenly she stirred, and, smiling and murmuring, held out white arms to it:--

'The hour thou sang'st to me! Bernardo, hast thou come to make that mine?'

He stood as if stricken--white, dumfoundered. She stretched her shoulders a little, and, raising her hands, put their rosy knuckles to her eyes; and so relaxed all, and drooped.

'I was dreaming,' she murmured. 'I thought thou camest to me and said: "Beatrice, I will forego that heaven for thy sake. Give me the hour, to kiss and shame." She stole a glance at him, and dropped her clasped hands to her lap, and hung her head. 'And I answered,' she whispered, '"Take it, and make one woman happy."'

He gave a little cry. And then, suddenly, before he could move or speak, she had sat up swiftly, and whipped her arms about his neck, and pulled him to the couch beside her.

'Listen,' she urged--'nay, thou shalt not go. I hold thy weakness in a vice. Struggle, and I will tighten it. Listen, child, while I tell thee a child's tale. It is about a huntsman that followed a voice; and he pushed into a thicket, and lo! enchantment seized him beyond. And he whispered amazed, "What is this?" and the voice answered, "Love--the end to all thy hunting." O! little huntsman of Nature, be content. Thou hast traced the voice of thy long longing to its home.'

She repaid his struggles with kisses, his wild protests with honeyed words. He set his pretty teeth at her, and she pouted her mouth to them; he hurled insult at her head, and she bore the sweet ache of it for the sake of the lips that bruised. When he desisted, exhausted, she would get in her soft pleas, rebuking him with a tearful meekness:--

'Ay, scourge me, set thy teeth in me, only hate me not. Shalt find me but the tenderer, being whipped. Talk on of Nature. Is it not natural to want to be loved; and, for a woman, in a woman's way?'

'Forbear!--O, wicked! O, thou harlot!' he panted, still fighting with her.

'Lie still! So a sick infant quarrels with its food,' she answered. 'O love--dear love, will you not hear reason?'

'Reason!' he stormed. 'O, thou siren! to beguile me here on that lying pretext, and thus shame me for my trust!'

'No lie,' she pleaded. 'Thou shalt have the ring indeed.'

'At thy price? I will die first.'

'Bernardo!'

'_Thou_ to talk of natural love! False to it; false to thy lord; false even to thy stained bed! Unhand me! Why, I loathe thee.'

'Not yet.'

Her eyes were hot waters, all misted over with passion. 'Thou canst not indeed, so pitiful to the worst. I cry to thee in my need. I knew thee first. Bernardo! will you forsake your friend?'

'Friend!'

'Ay. Only tell me what you would do with the ring?'

'What but return it to her that trusted me with it,'

'And for what reward?--Nay, strive not.'

'My conscience's peace--just that. Unclasp thy hands.'

'See there! Her gratitude would kill it in thee for ever. As would be hers to thee, so be thine to me. Art thou for a fall? Fall soft, then, on my love. She will not let thee down so kindly, who hath a lord and duchy to consider.'

He made a supreme effort--her robe tore in his hand--and, breaking from her, stood panting and disordered. She made no effort to recapture him, but, flinging herself to abandonment, sobbed and sighed.

'O, I am undone! Wilt thou forsake me? Kill me first! Nay, I will not let thee go!'

She sprang to her feet. He leapt away from her.

'Beast!' he cried, 'that foulest our garden! I will have thee whipped out of Milan with a bow-string.'

Scorn and hatred flashed into her face. She was no longer Venus, but Ashtoreth, the goddess of unclean frenzy.

'Thou wilt?' she hissed. 'I thank thee for that warning. Go, sir, and claim thy doxy to thy vengeance. She will leap, I promise thee, to that chance. Only, wouldst thou view the sport'--she struck her naked bosom relentlessly--'by this I advise thee--O, I advise thee like a lover!--hide well in her skirts--hide well. They will need to be thick and close to screen thee from a woman scorned. Wilt thou not go? I have the ring, I tell thee--_I_, myself, no other. Let her know. She'll bid thee pay the price perchance--too late. A fatal ring to thee. Why art thou lingering? I would not spare thee now, though thou knelt'st and prayed to me with tears of blood.'

She stood up rigid, her hands clenched, as, without another word, Bernardo turned, and, stalking with high head and glittering eyes, passed out of the room.

But, the moment the door had closed upon him, she flung herself face downwards on the couch, writhing and choking and clutching at her throat.

'I must kill him,' she moaned; 'I must kill my love!'

*CHAPTER XIX*

The hitch in the progress of the harvest came ever a little and a little more into evidence: the smut darkened on the ear; the whisper of a threatened blight grew from vague to articulate--grew clearer, grew bolder--until, lo!--all in a moment it was a definite voice.

This happened on the morning succeeding Bernardo's visit to the Casa Caprona--a visit of which, it would appear, the Duchess of Milan had been made somehow cognisant.

Bona, on this morning, came into the hall of council, her white hand laid, as she walked, upon the shoulder of Messer Cecco Simonetta, the State Secretary. That light, caressing touch was an arresting one to some eyes observing it--Ludovico's among the number. Its like, in that particular context of confidence and affection, had not been seen for many weeks--never, indeed, since the secretary had taken it upon himself to caution his mistress on the subject of a perilous fancy. He would have had no wish to balk any whim of hers that turned on self-indulgence. It was this whim of self-renunciation which had alarmed him. There was a mood which might conceivably vindicate itself in the sacrifice of a kingdom to a sentiment. Such things had happened; and saints were men. He would put it to her with all humility.

And she had listened and answered icily: 'I thank thee, Messer Secretary. But our faith is commensurate with our purpose, which is to sweep out our house, not pull it down. What then? Dread'st thou to be included in the scourings? Fear not. It is no part of our faith to forget our obligations.'

Which was a cruel response; but its hauteur silenced Mr. Secretary. And thenceforth he served in silence, watching, anxiously enough, the progress of his lady's infatuation, and feeling at last immensely relieved when on this day, her warm palm settled on his shoulder, melting the long frost between them.

She looked rather wistfully into his worn eyes, and smiled a little tale without words of confidence restored. And he, for his part, spoke of no matters less commonplace than the State's welfare.

'The Duke will make Christmas with us, Madonna,' he said; 'I have advices from him.'

'He will be most welcome,' she answered, and her face coloured with real pleasure. But the next moment it was like snow, and its vision hard crystals of frost. She had seen the Saint Magistrate advancing to accost her.

There was a strange look in the boy's eyes as they gazed, unflinchingly nevertheless, into hers--a look mingled of pain and doubt and fortitude. She had said no unkind word to him; yet a frost can nip without wind; and surely here was a plant very sensitive to the human atmosphere. He questioned her face a little; then spoke out bold, though low--while Messer Ludovico, turning papers at the table, was very busy--watching.

'Madonna, wilt thou walk apart? I am fain to crave thy private ear a moment.'

She stood like ice.

'Touching whose shortcomings now?' she asked aloud, and with a little cold laugh which disdained that implied confidence.

He gazed at her steadily, though in trouble.

'Nay, I spoke of none. It is of moment. Madonna, I entreat thee.'

For an instant the milk of her sweetened to him. He was such a baby after all. And then she remembered whence he had lately come, and gall flooded her veins--gall not so much of jealousy, perhaps, as of contempt. Doubtless, she thought, he could have ventured himself into that hothouse in the Via Sforza with impunity, since, though spirit he might be, he was of that uninflammability that his virtue amounted to little better than the virtue of sexlessness. She felt almost glad, at last, to have this excuse for dissociating herself from a cause which had always chilled, and had ceased now for some time even to amuse her.

Feel no surprise over the seeming suddenness of her revolt. Apart from her position, this Duchess of Milan was never anything but a typical woman, common-souled, lacking spiritual sensitiveness, leaning to her masculine peers. Breeding was her business, and motherhood her passion. She took no more jar of offence from the intimate custody of babies, than does a cat in licking open the eyes of its seven-days born. Her refinements were adventitious, an accident of her condition. She had felt it no outrage to her stately loveliness to yield it to Tassino's usings. She had that Madonna-like serenity of face which is the expression of an inviolable mindlessness; and no impressions other than physical could long pervade her. Stupidity is the rarest beauty-preserver; and it is to be feared that Bona was stupid.

Now, it is to be remembered that Bernardo had not mentioned shortcomings at all; but her object being to snub rather than answer him, she chose to take refuge in her sex's prerogative of intuition. Dwelling a moment in a rising temper, she suddenly flounced on him.

'If you will seek doubtful company, Messer, you must not cry out to have your fervour misread by it.'

He was about to answer; but she stopped him peremptorily.

'Women will be women, good or bad. We cannot promote a civil war in Milan to avenge some pin-prick to thy conscience. Indeed, sir, we weary a little of this precisianism. Is it come to be a sin to laugh, to warm our hands at a fire, to prefer a fried collop to a wafer? You must forgive us, like the angel that you are. We are human, after all, and pledged to human policies. Our State's before the magistracy. There are things weightier to discuss than a mischief's naughty word. We cannot hear you now.'

She turned away, relenting but a little, though flushed and trembling.

'Come, brother,' she said. 'Shall we not pass to the order of the day?'

Ludovico responded with smooth and smiling alacrity. One could never have guessed by his face the consternation which had seized his soul. Yet, so cleverly had he hoodwinked himself, this sudden leap of light was near staggering him. Merriment and warmth and fried collops? The charge in its utter, its laughable irrelevancy, was, he thought, a little hard on the saint, seeing how the gist of the new creed lay all in a natural enjoyment of life's bounties. What powder had winged such a startling shot?--weariness?--disenchantment?--remorseful hankerings, perhaps, after a discarded suet pudding, which, after all, had been infinitely more native to this woman's taste than the ethereal souffle, whose frothy prettiness had for the moment appealed to her meat-fed satiety?

The last, most probably. And, in that case----

His brain, through all the mazes of council, went tracing out a busy thread of self-policy. If this were really the end, he must hurry to foreclose on it ere the split widened into a gulf--before ever the first whisper of its opening reached Tassino's ears. The time for temporising was closed.

'It touches, your Grace,' he purred, 'upon the reception to be accorded the envoys of Ferrara and Mantua.'

The wind of a fall, like the wind of an avalanche, runs before the body of it. Messer Bembo, passing out, amazed, from his rebuff, found in himself an illustration of this inevitable human truism. All the envies, spites, and jealousies which his sweetness, under favour, had kept at bay, seemed now gathered in his path to hustle and insult him.

'Good Master Nature,' mocked one, 'hast ever a collop in thy pocket for a starved woodman?'

'See how he stumbles, missing his leading-strings!' cackled another.

A third knocked off his bonnet.

'Prophesy, who is he that smote thee!' he cried, and ducking, came up elsewhere.

'Ay, prophesy!' thundered a fourth voice; and a fist like a rammer crashed upon the assailant's face, spread-eagling it. The man went down in a welter. Bembo fled to Lanti's arms, feebly imprisoning them.

'Thou thing of bloody passions!' he shrieked. 'Wouldst thou so vindicate me?'

Carlo roared over his shoulder:--

'Help his prophecy, ye vermin, when he's ears to hear; and tell him I wait to carve them from his head.'

He bore Bembo with him from the hall, as he might carry a moth fluttering on his sleeve. Murmurs rose in his wake, seething and furious; but he heeded them not. In a deserted court beyond, he shook the pretty spoil from his arm, not roughly but with an air of madness, and stood breathing like a driven ox.

'What now?' he groaned at last--'what now?'

Then all in a moment the boy was sobbing before him.

'O Carlo! dear Carlo! I would the Duke were returned!'

His grief and helplessness moved the other to a frenzy. His chest heaved, he caught at his throat, struggling vainly for utterance of the fears which had of late been tormenting him without definite reason. Seeing his state, Bernardo sought to propitiate it with a smile that trembled out of tears.

'Nay, mind me not--a child to cry at a shadow.'

Lanti choked, and found voice at length.

'The Duke? Monstrous! Call'st thou for him? Forget'st Capello? Art changed indeed.'

'Alas!' cried the boy, 'no change in me. I think only of a more ruling tyranny than mine. Pitiless himself, he made pity sweet in others. I've converted 'em from deeds to words, that's all.'

'The Duke!'

'I begin to see. Thou warned'st me, I remember. The fashion of me passes, like thy shoe's long beaks. Yesterday they were a span; to-day they're shrunk by half; to-morrow, mayhap, ye'll trim them from your feet and run on goat's hooves.'

'Thou ravest. 'Tis for thee, being Duke-deputy, to trim _us_.'

'Into what? Cherubs or satyrs? Be quick, lest the fashion change while you talk.'

'Go to! Thou art the Duke, I say.'

'Well, a fine puppet, and great at righting wrongs. There's Lucia to witness.'

'She's provided for.'

'With bread. O, I am a very Mahomet. If I but nod my head, the city shall crack and crumble to it.'

'God! What ails thee, boy?'

'Something mortal, I think. A breath withered me just now!'

'A breath? Whose breath?'

'Whose? O Carlo, forgive me! What have I said or done? Look, I'm myself again. It just fell like a frost in June, killing my young olives. I had so hung upon it, too--its help and promise. The harvest seemed so certain.'

'Ah! She's thrown you over?'

'Dreams, dreams!' sighed poor little Nathan; 'to live on dreams--a deaf man's voices, a blind man's vision. I have seen such things, built such kingdoms out of dreams. Carlo! what have I done?'

Lanti ground his teeth.

'Done? Proved woman's constancy a dream--that's all.'

He clapped his chest, and looked earnestly at Bembo, and cried in a broken voice:--

'Boy--before God--tell me--thou hast not learned to desire her?'

The child looked up at him, with a pitiful mouth.

'Ah! I know not what you mean; unless it be that pain with which I see her melt from out my dream when most possessing it.'

'Most? She? She to possess thy dream, thy purpose?' cried Lanti, and drew back in great emotion.

'She _is_ my purpose,' said the boy--'or _was_, alack!'

'Is and was,' growled the other. 'Well, 'tis true that for the purpose of thy purpose _I_ remain; but then I don't count. What am _I_ to thee?'

'My love, beyond all women.'

'I am? That's much. Now will we do without the Duchess.'

'Alas!'

'Shall we not?'

'She hath so nursed my flock to pasture--the kind ewe-mother. The bell was about her neck. Now, it seems, she will have neither bell nor shepherd, and the flock must stray.'

'Hath she in truth cast thee? On what pretext?'

'Nay, I know not. It seemed the twin-brother of him that once she used for loving me.'

'Ay, it is their way. But scorn, for your part, to show caloric as she cools.'

'Alas!'

'Trust me there. What had you said to chill her?'

'Nothing that I know, but to crave her ear a moment.'

'It is the sink of slander in a woman--a pink shell with a dead fish inside. Yet thy whisper might have sweetened it.'

'Stung it rather. Carlo, I know not what to do.'

'Tell me.'

'Shall I, indeed? I fear thee. Wilt thou be gentle?'

'As a lamb.'

'Well, then, I'll tell thee--I am so lost. Carlo, dear, I know where the ring is.'

'You do? Do you see how calm I am? Where is it?'

'Beatrice hath it--thy Beatrice.'

'You know that?'

'She sent to tell me--last night. God help me, Carlo, for a credulous fool!'

'You went to her? Well?'

'She would give it me, Carlo--O Carlo! on such a condition!'

'Which if you refused----?'

'It shall be a fatal ring to me, she ended.'

'Shall it?--or to her? Well, that's said. And now, wilt thou go rest a little, sweetheart, while I think? I cannot think in company.'

'I will go, but not to rest.'

'Pooh! thy Fool shall drug thy folly with his greater.'

'Alas! he's gone.'

'Gone?'

'He too. Nay, blaspheme not. He had his reasons.'

'For what?'

'For leaving me awhile. "My folly starves on thine ambrosia," he said. "I would fain feed it a little on human flesh."'

'How long's he gone?'

'Some days.'

'Let him keep out of my way when he returns.'

'I'll not love you if you hurt him.'

'Then I'll not hurt him. Thy love is mine, and thy confidence, look you. This ring--speak not a word on it, to Bona or another, till I bid you.'

'Then I will not.'

'That's good. God rest you, sweetling.'

He watched him go, with frowning eyes; then, no message coming to him from the hall, strode off to his own quarters in the palace, and bided there all day.

'These women,' was the burden of his fury--'these women--soulless beasts! To aim at winning heaven by debauching its angel!--there's their morality in a nutshell! But I'll send him back there first. So Beatrice hath the ring! What will she do with it? What shall I with the knowledge? God! if my wits could run with my rage! To forestall her, else----'

His fingers worked, as he tramped, on the jewelled hilt of his poniard.

It was Messer Lanti's misfortune that, in knocking down Bernardo's assailant, he had defaced, literally as well as symbolically, the escutcheon of a powerful family. The fact was brought to the Duchess's notice when, shortly after the event, she passed through the hall in company with her brother-in-law. Hoarse clamour of kinsmen and partisans greeted her, backed, by way of red evidence, by the condition of the victim himself.

Her wrath and emotion knew no bounds. She flushed, and stamped, and wept, and in the midst collapsed. It was outrageous that her authority should be so defied (though, indeed, it had not been) by the brute creature of a creature of her lord's. The Duke had never foreseen or intended such an arrogation of his prerogatives by his deputy. She would teach this swashbuckler a lesson.

Then she broke down and turned, tearful, almost wringing her hands, to her brother-in-law. Sure never woman was cursed in such a false position--impotent and responsible in one. What should she do?

He took her aside.

'These two,' he said, 'are as yet _persona gratae_ with Galeazzo. At the same time thou canst not with decency or safety ignore the outrage. Seize and confine Messer Lanti out of harm's way until the Duke's return--just a formal and considerate detention, pending his decision. There's thy wise compromise, sister.'

And so indeed it seemed. But undoubtedly the best wisdom lay in his own adroit seizure of a fortuitous situation. He had wanted this Lanti out of the way; had foreseen him, as it were, lurking in the thickets far ahead through which his policy sought a road. Here was the fine opportunity, and without risk to himself, to ambush the ambuscado, and have it laid by the heels.

Bona sobbed and fretted, nursing her grievance.

'Why did this angel come to vex us with his heaven? The world, I think, would be very well but for its schooling by saints and prophets. Children grow naughty under inquisition. There, have it as you will, brother; use or abuse me--it is all one. It is my fate to be persecuted through my best intentions.'

Ludovico put force on himself to linger a little and soothe her. His soul leapt with anxiety to be gone. To instruct Jacopo; to commission Tassino--to loose his long-straining bolt in fact--here was the moment sprung inevitable upon him. He had no choice but to seize it; and then--

'Your Grace must excuse me,' he said at length, smiling. 'I have to go prepare against a journey.'

'A journey!' she exclaimed, aghast.

'Surely,' he answered mildly. 'The matter is insignificant enough to have escaped your burdened memory; but smaller souls must hold to their engagements. My brother Bari and I are to Christmas with the King of France in Tours. We sail from Genoa, whither, in a day or two, I must ride to join him. It is unfortunate, at this pass; but----'

'Go, sir,' she broke in--'go. I see I am to be the scapegoat of all your policies,' and she hurried from him, weeping.

*CHAPTER XX*

More and more drearily the burden of his long days pressed upon Tassino. He was not built for heroic endurance; and to have to suffer Damocles' fate without the feast was a very death-in-life to him. Here, in this dingy cabin, was no solace of wine to string his nerves; no charm of lights to scare away bogies; no outlook but upon beastliness and squalor. He seemed stranded on a mud-bank amidst the ebbing life of the city, and he despaired that the tide would ever turn and release him.

Listening at his grille, he would often curse to hear the name of his hated rival--'Bembo! Bembe, Bambino!' sing out upon the swarming air. It was the rallying-cry of the new socialism, the popular catchword of the moment; and he hugged himself in the thought of what it would spell to Galeazzo on his return, and by what racking and rending and stretching of necks he would mark his appreciation of its utterers' enthusiasm. If the Duke would only come back! Here was the last of three who desired, it appeared, each for a very different reason, the re-installation of an ogre in his kingdom.

But, in the meanwhile, he cowered in an endless apprehension as to his own safety, which Ludovico's last visit had certainly done nothing to reassure. On the contrary, it had but served to intensify the gloom of mystery in which he dwelt. He had since made sundry feeble-artful attempts to discover from Narcisso what secret attached to the ring, which, it appeared, that amiable peculator was accused of having filched, and why Messer Ludovico was so set on possessing it. Needless to say, his efforts met with no success whatever; and the corrosion of a new suspicion was all that they added to his already palsied nerves. The sick flabbiness and demoralisation of him grew positively pitiful, as he stood day after day at his grille, watching and moping and snivelling, and sometimes wishing he were dead.

Well, the thicker the mud, the more productive the tide when it comes; but he was fairly sunk to his neck before it floated him out.

One day, gazing down, his attention was attracted to a figure which had halted near below his coign of espial. As things went, there was nothing so remarkable in this figure, in its alien speech or apparel, as to make it arresting otherwise than by reason of its contiguity to himself. It was simply that of a crinkled hag, swart, snake-locked, cowled, her dress jingling with sequins, her right hand clawed upon a crutch. She appeared, in fact, just an old Levantine hoodie-crow, of the breed which was familiar enough to Milan in these cataclysmic days, when all sorts of queer, tragic fowl were being driven northwards from overseas before a tidal wave of Islamism. For half Christendom was writhing at this time under the embroidered slipper of the Turk, while other half was fighting and scratching and backing within its own ranks, in a _sauve qui peut_ from Sultan Mahomet's ever nearer-resounding tread.

From Bosnia and Servia and Hungary; from Negropont and the islands of the Greek Archipelago; from new Rome itself, whose desolated houses and markets weeping Amastris had been emptied to repeople; from Trebizond and the Crimea, it came endlessly floating, this waste drift of palaces and temples and antique civilisations, which had been wrecked and scattered by that ruthless hate. Ruined merchants and traders; unfrocked satraps; priests of outlandish garb; girl derelicts blooded and defiled by janissaries; childless mothers and motherless children--scared immigrants all, they wailed and wandered in the towns, denouncing in their despair the creed whose jealousies and corruptions had delivered them to this pass.

In the first of their coming, a certain indignant sympathy had helped to the practical amelioration of their bitter lot. Men scowled and muttered over the histories of their wrongs; took warning for a possible overthrow of the entire Christian Church; talked big of sinking all differences in a kingdom-wide crusade; and, finally, fell to fisticuffs upon the question of a common commander for this problematic host. After which the immigrants, always flocking in thicker, and making civil difficulties, fell gradually subject to an indifference, not to say intolerance, which was at least half as great as that from which they had fled. Fashion, moreover, began to find in the Ser Mahomet a figure more and more attractive, in proportion as he approached it, issuing from the mists of the Orient. It was ravished with, if it did not want to be ravished by, those adorable Spahis, with their tinkling jackets and sashes and melancholy, wicked faces. It adapted prettily to itself the caftan, and the curdee, and the turban; re-read Messer Boccaccio's most Eastern fables; acted them, too, in drawers of rose-coloured damask, and little talpoes, which were tiny jewelled caps of velvet, cocked, and falling over one ear in a tassel. But by that time the cult of immigrancy was discredited _du haut en das_.

Many of the unhappy wretches were drawn by natural process into such sinks as 'The Vineyard.' The poor are good to the poor, and pitiful--which is strange--towards any fall from prosperity. In the instance of this old woman, it was notable how she was humoured of the drifting populace. The very ladroni, who, outside their own rookery, might have tormented and soused her in the kennel, were content here to rally and banter her a little, showing their white teeth to one another in jokes whose bent she was none the worse for misapprehending. For she had not much Italian, it appeared; though what was hers she was turning to the best possible advantage in the matter of fortune-telling.

Tassino saw many brawny palms thrust out for her shrewd conning; echoed from his eyrie many of the _Eccomi perdutos_ and _O me beatos_ which greeted her broken sallies. She got a mite here and there, and buzzed and mumbled over it, clutching it to her lean bosom. Presently some distraction, of rape or murder, carried her audience elsewhere, and she was left temporarily alone. Then Tassino, moved by a sudden impulse, reached down his arm through the grate and tapped her reverend crown. She started, and ducked, and peered up. He whispered out to her:--

'Zitto, old mother! Come up here, and tell me my fortune for money.'

She seemed to hesitate; he signified the way; and lo! on a thought she came. He met her at the door, and dragged her in.

'Tell me my fortune,' he said, and thrust out a dirty palm.

She pored over it, chuckling and pattering her little incomprehensible shibboleth. Presently she seemed to pounce triumphantly on a knot. She leered up, her hand still clutching his, her hair falling over her eyes.

'Ah-yah!' she muttered. 'Ringa, ringa!' and shook her head.

He shrugged peevishly:--

'What do you mean, old hag?'

'Ringa!' she repeated: 'no ringa, no fortuna.'

He snatched his hand away.

'What ring, thou cursed harridan?'

She shook her head again.

'No know. Ringa--I see it--green cat-stone--hold off Fortuna. Get, and she change.'

He gnawed his lip, frowning and wondering. There was a ring in question, certainly. Could it be possible its possession was connected somehow with his personal fortunes? If that were so, here was a veritable Pythoness.

Her eyes stared daemonic: she thrust out a finger, pointing:--

'I see, there: green cat-stone: get, and Fortuna change.'

Superstition mastered him. He trembled before her, quavering:--

'How can I? O mother! how can I?'

A voice in the street startled him. He leapt to the window and back again.

'Narcisso!' he gasped, and ran to bundle out his visitor.

'To-morrow--come again to-morrow--after dark,' he whispered hurriedly. 'I shall be alone--I will pay you--' and he drove her forth. Narcisso met her, issuing from the court below. He growled out a malediction, and came growling into the room.

'You keep nice company, Messer.'

'That is not my fault, beast,' answered Tassino pertly. 'When I choose my own, it is to amuse myself.'

'Well, I hope she amused you?'

'Not so much as I expected. I saw her telling fortunes down below, and called her up to read me mine. Acquaint me of the mystery of a certain ring I asked her; but, _oime_! she could enlighten me nothing.'

Narcisso leered at him cunningly, and spat.

'It was as well, perhaps. I see th' art set upon that impertinence; and I'll only say again, "beware!"'

'You may say what you like, old yard-dog,' answered the youth. 'It's your business, chained up here, to snarl.'

But his fat brain was busy all night with the weird Hecate and her necromancy. What did this same ring portend to him, and how was his fate involved in its possession? There _was_ a ring in question, doubtless; but whose? Then, all in an amazed moment inspiration flashed upon him. A green cat-stone! Had he not often seen such a ring on Bona's finger? It might indeed be the Duchess's own troth-ring!

He shrunk and cowered at first in the thought of the issues involved in such a possibility. Was it credible that it had been stolen from her? How could he tell, who had been imprisoned here so long? Only, if it were true that it had been, and he, Tassino, could secure it from whatever ravisher, what a weapon indeed it might be made to prove in his hand!

He exulted in that dream of retribution; had almost convinced himself by morning that its realisation lay within his near grasp. She, that old soothsayer, could surely show him the way to possess himself of what her art had so easily revealed to him for his fortune's talisman. This Eastern magic was a strange and terrible thing. He would pay her all he had for the secret!--make crawling love to her, if necessary.

All day he was in a simmer of agitated expectancy; and when dusk at last gathered and swelled he welcomed it as he had never done before. Fortunately Narcisso went out early, and need not be expected back betimes. He was engaged, the morrow being the feast of the Conception, to confess and prepare to communicate himself fasting from midnight; and it was a matter of religion with him on such occasions to take in an especial cargo against the ordeal. Before the streets were dark, Tassino was sitting alone; and so he sat, shuddering and listening, for another hour.

A step at last on the shallow stair! He held his breath. No, he was deceived. Sweating, on tiptoe, he stole to the door and peered out. All was silent, and dark as pitch. Then suddenly, while he looked, there came a muffled tramp and shuffle in the street, and on the instant a figure rose from the well of blackness below, mounting swiftly towards his door. He had barely time to retreat into the unlighted room before he felt his visitor upon him.

'My God!' he quavered; 'who is it? Keep away!' and he backed in ghastly fear to the wall.

'Hush!' (Ludovico's voice.) 'Are you alone?'

The frightened wretch stole forward a step.

'Messer! I thought you----'

'Never mind,' interrupted the other impatiently. 'Answer me.'

'Quite alone.'

'Humph! I thought you loved the dark less.'

'I--I was about to light the tapers; I swear I was. Wait only one moment, Messer.'

'Stop. No need. The night's the better confidant. Come here.'

Trembling all through, Tassino obeyed. A smooth hand groped, and fastening on his wrist, pressed a hard, round object into his palm. He had much ado not to shriek out.

'What's this?' he gasped.

'Be silent. Have you got it? Put it where it's secure. Well?'

''Tis in the scabbard of my knife, Messer--' (the blade clicked home).

'A good place; keep it there. Now, listen. There's no other here?'

'On my oath, no.'

'Nor on the stair?'

'How can there be between us and Messer's gentlemen?'

'Hark well, then. Thy life depends on it. They 've wind of thee, Tassino.'

'O, O! God pity me!'

'He helps those--you know the saw. 'Tis touch and go--come to this at last; either they destroy you, or you--them.'

'How? O, I shall die!'

'Wilt thou, then? Well, then, if thou wilt. Yet not so much as thy ear-lobe's spark of nerve were needed to forestall and turn the tables on them. They are very fond together, Tassino.'

'Curse them! If I could stab him in the back!'

'Well, why not? Thy scabbard holds the means.'

'My dagger?'

'Better.'

'What?'

'The Duchess's troth-ring.'

'Messer! My God!'

He leapt as if a trigger had clicked at him. Here was to have the gipsy's prophecy, his own fulsome hope, realised at a flash; but with what fearful significances for himself. So this had actually been the ring of contention, and secured at last--he might have known it would be--by Ludovico.

He gave an absurd little shaky laugh, desperately playful.

'How am I to stab with a ring, Messer?'

'Fool! answer for thyself.'

He was crushed immediately.

'By carrying it to the Duke?' he whispered fearfully.

'It is thy suggestion,' said Ludovico--'not for me to traverse. Well?'

'Ah! help me, Messer, for the Lord's sake. I turn in a maze.'

The Prince's thin mouth creased in the dark.

'Nay, 'tis no affair of mine,' he said. 'I am but friendship's deputy.'

Tassino almost whimpered, writhing about in helpless protest.

'He will thunder at me, "Whence reaches me this?"'

'Likely.'

'What shall I reply then?'

'Do you put the case hypothetically? I should answer broadly, on its merits, somehow as follows: "By the right round of intrigue, O Duke, completing love's cycle."'

'O Messer! How am I to understand you?'

'Why, easily--(I speak as one disinterested). Call it the cycle of the ring, and thus it runs: _From the husband to the wife; from the wife to her paramour; from the paramour to his doxy; from the doxy back to the husband_.'

'His doxy? O beast! Hath he a second?'

'Or had. I go by report, which says--but then I 'm no scandalmonger--that a certain lady, Caprona's widow, finds herself scorned of late.'

'And it comes from her--to me? For what? To destroy them both?'

'A shrewd suggestion. In that case your moods run together.'

'Monna Beatrice! She sends it?'

'Does she? Quote me not for it. It were ill so to requite my over-fond friendship. Thou hast the ring. I wish thee well with it. Dost mark?'

'I mark, Messer.'

'Why, so. Thou shouldst suffer after-remorse, having dragged in my name; and there is hellbane, so they tell me, in remorse.'

'I will die before I mention thee in it.'

'Well, I can trust the grave. That's to know a friend. So might I add something to thy credentials.'

'If it please you, Messer.'

'Why, look you, child, love may very well have its procurer--say a State Secretary, where love is of high standing. And thence may follow the subversion of a State. There's a pretender in Milan, they tell me, something an idol of the people--I know not. Only this I ponder: What if there be, and he that same idol which the Duchess is reported to have raised? Would Simonetta, in such case, join in the hymn of praise? One might foresee, if he did, a trinity very strong in the public worship. His Grace, I can't help thinking, would find himself _de trop_ here at present. You might put it to him--your own way. When will you set out?'

'When?'

'This moment, I 'd advise. To-morrow might mean never. The Duke's at Vigevano--less than six leagues away. A good horse might carry thee there by morning. I've such a one in my stables. He'll honour thee for this service, trust me.'

Tassino's little soul spirted into flame.

'_Viva il duca!_' he piped, and ran to the door.

He drove it before him--it opened outwards--and, descending the dark stairs with his patron, passed into the night.

An hour later he was spurring for Vigevano, while the Prince was engaged in preparing against his own journey to Genoa on the morrow.

*CHAPTER XXI*

Carlo kept his room all day, gnawing and tramping out his problem, and extracting nothing from it. Not till it was deep dark did he call for lights, and then he cursed his page, Ercole, who brought them, because they dazzled his brain from thinking. Swerving on his heel, he was in the act of bidding the boy let no one enter, unless it might be Messer Bembo, when, the door being ajar, there hurried into the chamber the figure of a fantastic hag, who, upon noting his company, stopped suddenly, and stood mumbling and sawing the air.

'Begone!' he roared, astounded, and took a furious step towards her.

She laughed harshly. His clenched fists dropped to his sides. There was no mistaking that bitter cackle. He flung his arm to the page, dismissing him.

The moment the door was shut upon them, off went the cloak and sequins, off went the hood and snaky locks, and the Fool Cicada, clean and lithe in a tight suit of jarnsey, stood revealed.

Carlo leapt upon him, mouthing.

'What mummery, beast, and at such a time? Wait while I choke thee.'

In the tumult of his fury he remembered his promise to Bernardo, and fell back, breathing.

'Hast finished?' said Cicada, acrid and unmoved. 'I could retort upon a fool but for lacking time. Where's the boy?'

'Renegade! What concerns it thee to know?'

'I say, where's the boy?'

'If I might trounce thee! Safe, at present, no thanks to thee.'

'Have I asked any? You must take horse and ride after the ring.'

'The ring!'

'I warn thee, lose not a moment. It may be even now upon the road.'

'The road!'

'That echo's a scrivener. Say after me thus, word for word, so thy skull shall keep the record: _The ring goes this moment to the Duke at Vigevano, in false witness against our Saint. Narcisso gave it to Beatrice, Beatrice to Ludovic, Ludovic to Tassino--and Tassino carries it, wrapped round with fifty damning lies_. Can you fill in the rest?'

'My God! How know you this?'

'I know. Why have I been mumming else?'

'O, thou good Fool!'

'So beatified in a moment? But stay not. To horse, and after, or by luck in front of, this ill-omened popinjay. He must be anticipated, overreached, despoiled, poniarded--anything. I've had my ear to his door--it smarts yet--Ludovic was with him. I was before the Prince and heard him coming--"trapped!" I thought. But the fool looked out--door opens to the stairs--and shut me into its angle against the wall. So again when they left together, and I slipped away behind their worships, and presently ran before. There you've the tale. And so, a' God's name mount and spur, for a minute's delay may kill all. But sith even now it be too late, why, run after to traverse that foul evidence, and the Lord speed thee. Remember--Tassino and the Vigevano road.'

Stunning, bewildering as was the nature of this blast, it served to clear Carlo's brain as a southerly wind clears stagnant water. It meant action, and in action lay his _metier_. Prompt and comprehensive instantly, now that the sum of things had been worked out for him, he dwelt but on the utterance of a single curse--so black and monstrous that the candle-flames seemed to duck to it--before he turned and strode heavily from the room.

'Mercy!' muttered Cicada, tingling where he stood; 'if Monna Beatrice isn't blinking smut out of her eyes at this very moment, there's no virtue in Hell.'

Ten minutes later, Carlo, booted, spurred, and cloaked, issued hurriedly from his quarters, and made for a postern in the north wall, on t' other side of which Ercole, so he had sped his errand well, should be already in waiting with the cavalier's horse, 'l'Inferno,' saddled and bridled for the hunt.

A thin muffle of snow lay on the pavements, choking echo; a thin, still fog, wreathing upwards from it, made everything loom fantastic--curtains, towers, the high battlemented spectres of the sentries.

He clapped his hand to his hip, in assurance of the firm hilt there, and was clearing his throat to answer the guard's challenge, when, on the moment, a whisk of sudden light seemed to overtake and pass him, and he whipped about, with a catch in his breath, to face an expected onset.

Nothing was there. Only the ghosts of mist and snow peopled the ward he had traversed; but, across it, licking and leaping from a high window in the Armourer's Tower, spat a tongue of flame.

He dwelt a moment, fascinated. Faint cries and hurried warnings reached him. The flame shrunk, broke from its curb, and writhed out again.

'Galeazzo's room!' he muttered; 'a red portent to greet him!' and, turning to pursue his way--ran into a vice of arms and was in a moment a prisoner.

The shock was so stunning, that he found himself bound and helpless before he could realise its import. And then he roared out like a lassoed bull:--

'Dogs! What's this?'

The Provost Marshal answered him, waving aside his capturing sbirri.

'Her Grace's warrant, Messer.'

Lanterns seemed to have sprung like funguses from the ground, grossly multiplying the strong company which surrounded him. He stared about him bewildered; then, all in an instant, drove forward like a battering-ram. There was a clash of pikes and mail; an arquebus exploded, luckily without disaster; and Carlo was down in a writhe of men, pounding with his heels.

It brought him nothing but a full interest of bruises. Shortly he was on his feet again, torn and dishevelled; but this time with a thong about his ankles.

He found wisdom of his helplessness to temporise.

'Save thee, Provost Marshal, I have an important errand toward. Spare me to it, and I'll give my parole to deliver up my person to thee on my return.'

The dummy wagged aside the appeal, woodenly.

'I've my orders.'

Carlo lost his brief command of temper.

'Swine! To truss me like a thief?'

'To hold thy person secure, Messer.'

'With ropes, dog?'

'I'll unbind them, on that same parole.'

For all answer, Carlo dropped and rolled on the ground, bellowing curses and defiance. It was childish; but then, what was the great creature but a child? Despair divorced from reason finds its last resource in kicking; and strength of body was always this poor fellow's convincing argument. The presumption that, by his own impulsive retort on Bernardo's assailant, he had brought this cowardly retaliation on himself, made not the least of his anguish. Why could his thick head never learn the craftier ways of diplomacy? And here, in consequence, was he himself scotched, when most required for killing! He bounded like a madman.

It took a dozen of them, hauling and swaying and tottering, to convey him up, and into, and so down again within, the tower of the dungeons. Jacopo had no orders other than for his safe durance and considerate keep; but no doubt that 'swine' weighed a little on the human balance side of the incorruptible blockhead's decision. There was a cell--one adjoining the 'Hermit's'--very profound and safe indeed, though far less deadly in its appointments (so to speak, for the other had none) than its neighbour. And into this cell, by the Provost Marshal's directions, they carried Master Carlo, still struggling and roaring; and, having despoiled him of his weapons, and--with some apprehension--uncorded him, there locked him in incontinent to the enjoyment of his own clamour, which, it may be said, he made the most of up to midnight.

And then, quite suddenly, he broke into tears--a thing horrible in such a man; and casting himself down by the wall, let the flood of despair pass over his head--literally, it almost seemed, in the near cluck and rustle of waters moving in the moat outside.

*CHAPTER XXII*

In the fortress of Vigevano the Duke of Milan sat at wine with his gentlemen, his dark face a core of gloom, blighting the revel. Flushed cheeks; sparkling cups; hot dyes of silk and velvet, and the starry splintering of gems; sconces of flaming tapers, and, between, banners of purple and crimson, like great moths, hanging on the walls above the heads of shining, motionless men-at-arms, whose staves and helmets trickled light--all this, the whole rich damasked picture, seemed, while the sullen eye commanded it, to poise upon its own fall and change, like the pieces in a kaleidoscope,--the Duke rose and passed out; and already, with a leap and clatter, it had tumbled into a frolic of whirling colours.

This company, in short, conscious of its deserts, had felt any cold-watering of its spirits at the present pass intolerable. There were captains in it, raw from the icy plains of Piedmont, whence they had come after rallying their troops into winter quarters, against a resumption of hostilities in the spring. Tried men of war, and seasoned toss-pots all, they claimed to spend after their mood the wages of valour, vindicated in many a hard-wrung victory. They had stood, Charles the Bold of Burgundy opposing, for the integrity of Savoy, and had trounced its invaders well over the border. The sense of triumph was in them, and, consequently, of grievance that it should be so discounted by a royal mumps, who till yesterday had been their strutting and crowing cock of conquest. What had happened in the interval, so to return him upon his old damned familiar self?

Something beyond their rude guessing--something which, at a breath, had re-enveloped him in that cloud of constitutional gloom, which action and the rush of arms had for a little dispelled. The change had taken him earlier in the day, when, about the hour of Mass, a little white, cake-fed Milanese had come whipping into Vigevano on a foam-dropping jade, and, crying as he clattered over the drawbridge to the castle, 'Ho there, ho there! Despatches for the Duke!' had been snapped up by the portcullis, and gulped and disposed of; and was now, no doubt--since no man had set eyes on him since--in process of being digested.

It may have been he that was disagreeing with their lord, and sending the black bile to his cheek; or it may have been that second tale-bearer who, riding in about midday from the capital, had brought news of the fire which, the evening before, had gutted his Grace's private closet. Small matters in any case; and in any case, the death's-head having withdrawn itself from the feast, hail the bright reaction from that malign, oppressive gloom! A fresh breeze blows through the hall; the candle-flames are jigging to the rafters; away with mumps and glumps! _Via-via_! See the arras blossom into a garden; the sentries, leaning to it, relax into smiling Gabriels of Paradise; the wine froth and sparkle at the cup rim! 'Way, way for the Duke's Grace!' the seneschal had cried at the door; and Galeazzo, clumsily ushered by Messer Castellan, that blunt old one-eyed Cyclops, had slouched heavily out, and the curtain had dropped and blotted him from the record.