Chapter XXXII: I Refuse Cæsar

Late in the afternoon I roused myself from my reverie. I had now chosen my path. I knew that no argument or consideration could swerve me from it. The consciousness that I had made the decision raised my spirits. In some measure at least I could divine the future. I asked the honor of waiting upon Forli and Marianna, and when I met them craved their pardon for my brusque behavior, explaining it, as well I might, on the ground of all I had recently undergone. They pressed me for my decision. I told them my first answer was for the Emperor, and they were fain to wait, but their gleaming eyes and cheerful gestures indicated that they regarded all omens as favorable.

“Ah! Gualtiero, we know that at your best, you can match the wits of Caesare Borgia,” said the Cardinal, and then proceeded to tell with gusto how the foreign noblemen surrounding the Emperor had arranged an impromptu ball that evening, and that I was very welcome to attend if only I would appear in domino--as would indeed many of the guests. I consented, with an alacrity which no doubt heightened their expectations.

So for one evening I seemed almost recalled again to the Southland. A masker’s dress was provided, sufficiently resplendent in gold lace and Flanders point to satisfy a Venetian magnifico. One of Forli’s clever valets completed my toilet with a skill worthy of Andrea. When I drew my domino over my eyes, and stepped out into the corridors already full of silk trains and scarlet bravery, instinctively I felt the senses quicken, the blood rise. For the moment I was living even as I had lived before I heard the dread name--Luther.

A great hall of the castle had been used for the fête. A thousand candles swung from their hanging sconces. Fresh leaves and spring flowers hid the barren walls behind. From a bower of laurel sounded music, harps, and tender viols, and the music was not the stately rhythms of the north, but the pulsating, stuccato melodies of Italy or Spain. Under the lights moved all the high dames and dignitaries of Castile, Aragon and Naples who had followed the court of the Emperor; Spaniards with their stately grace, Italians whose vivacious talk was as much with their hands as with their tongues. From under the masks I saw dark eyes that had learned to flash languorously in the orange-groves of Seville or Palermo. On an easy divan by one entrance lounged Forli, smiling benignantly from his red cap and robe upon us all, yet lamenting that years and churchly dignity forbade him to join in the revelry. In and out of the thronging dancers went a woman in a lustrous yellow dress, its color made vivid by its trimming of black. The closeness of the fit and the low cut neck displayed her figure rarely. Despite her mask I knew that half the company identified her.

“Oh, marvellous creature,” raved a Sicilian beside me, “the form of Venus, and the mouth of Juno! Who is she?”

“Ask not too many questions,” replied a more contained Spaniard; “piety toward Holy Church forbids. For the sake of naming her, let me call her the Cardinal’s ‘niece.’”

“Ha!” laughed the Sicilian. “I understand.”

But even as he spoke I saw the Portuguese ambassador, in all his cloth of gold, bow to Marianna, and an instant later she whirled down the great hall as his partner. The spirit of the hour was upon me. Captured by the swaying music I offered myself to a tall, stiffly dressed Castilian, to my belief the Duchess of Lerida, and found her a very happy companion. Other dances followed. I forgot everything in the spirit of the hour. I was almost unconscious of the flight of time, as I exchanged harmless badinage with some Italian lady whose accent was Venetian,--when the voice of the master-ushers sounded, “His Majesty the Emperor!”

Charles entered by an upper doorway. Ten flunkeys carrying tall candelabra marched before him, making his entrance one blaze of light. The music stopped an instant, then revived in a fiercer, swifter strain. The Emperor seated himself upon an armchair upon a low dais, and I saw him despatch a page to summon Forli. The Cardinal joined the sovereign upon the dais, and conversed long. I would have given much to have overheard them. When the dancing resumed, by a kind of mutual consent all the revellers held back to make way for a _passionesa_. A tall Spanish gentleman advanced to the middle of the floor. He wore a long blue cloak reaching to his heels. To meet him came my lady of the yellow dress. Never had I seen Marianna dance more rarely. They went through the difficult figures with marvellous grace, leaping very high, advancing, retreating, sometimes almost sinking into one another’s arms, but never touching, and always facing one another. The hall rang with applause. I heard the Emperor’s “bravo!”

As the general dancing resumed I brought myself beside Marianna. Old instinct made me bow her my invitation. She held out her hands. Once in the dance I almost regretted my boldness. She was like a wild thing under my touch. Faster and faster we whirled, and her face was very close to mine. I felt her hot breath on my cheeks. On my forehead was the intoxicating touch of her flying hair. A strange feeling of enchantment, bending my will, subverting my powers, seemed stealing over me.

“Gualtiero,” she said out of lips all red and pearls, “Gualtiero! I have conquered, have conquered! _Caro mio!_ let us dance and dance forever!”

But I would not kiss her, not even when we swung under the shadowy pillars by the musicians. The dance ended. I disengaged her arm, alleging that I saw a great French nobleman glancing her way, and of a truth it was probably the Comte de Ponthieu who danced with her next. Yet despite his well-trained gracefulness, it was a very cold and unresponding lady he led about the room.

Then as I stood watching the swaying glittering hall, the hollowness, the mockery of all this spectacle swept across my soul with a kind of nausea. Here were we, the noble and mighty of Christendom dancing our nights away while God’s truth was being crucified, while human wrong and sin went unreproved, while Dr. Luther lay at Worms with the ban of the Empire about to be fulmined against him. I was at the end of my masker’s mood. The dancers were already beginning to scatter toward their several apartments. I went toward the rooms which had been placed at my disposal by Forli.

I had drunk again from the Southern goblet. The first taste had been sweet, but the dregs were bitter.

* * * * *

As I left the festival hall no one seemed watching me, and for an instant a wild thought entered my mind of slipping past the guards, and out into the wide night and freedom. But it was unlikely that I would be allowed to pass the gate, and an unlucky attempt would make my last condition far worse than my present. One thing, however, I felt bound to do. Wandering around the great complex of passages, galleries, and cabinets that made up the state apartments of the castle, I stumbled upon a yawning serving-man, who was evidently one of the regular denizens of the residence, and very glad to find a soul among his new guests who could speak a word of German. From him (with a little well-feigned questioning) I readily learned where lay the chambers of the Abbess of Quedlinburg, and thither I took my steps. I was not mad enough to try to penetrate the chambers of nuns, and I knew the chances were all against accomplishing anything, but to lie down under the same roof that covered Ilsa and make no effort in her behalf and my own comported neither with love nor courage.

And then for once Fortuna (treacherous lady!), was not wholly unkind. Near the entrance way to the abbess’s apartments I found a balcony which by vast good luck actually overhung the great hall from on high. The dancers were dispersing now; the tall candles were flaring down in their sockets, but the weary viols were still scraping out their last numbers. In the balcony, intent on the sights of splendor below, I caught the leaning forms of two or three women. There was light enough for me to see them clearly. By their dress they were beyond doubt lay servitors of Quedlinburg, and my heart beat faster. Now or never I must play my game. Drawing my domino closer across my face, and adopting a rolling gait as if I were a cavalier who had partaken too freely of the _aqua vitae_, I came up boldly.

“Holla! my fine wenches,” cried I, in affectedly broken German, “I swear there has been a pretty sight down there under your eyes, but not so pretty as if some of you had been dancing yourselves.”

The girls looked up, scared and simpering. They were quite of a class to take kindly to the advances of any individual with a mustache and the clothes of a gentleman.

“Oh! gentle sir!” began the boldest, “you make us blush. Surely you do not mean your fine words.”

“Of a truth I do, by St. Maria. There is no countess or duchess down below with a whiter neck and a slimmer waist than yours, my pretty.” And here with an abandon that did me credit as an actor, I put my sinful hand around the very body of one of the girls--to wit, Trude, with that mingling of force and cozening which will make the average country hussy pledge her soul.

“Oh! sir, oh! sir,” began she, turning very red, “I am a poor but honest maid. My father is an honest man. I do not know you--”

“Come, come, my lass,” I enjoined, “I mean not the least mischief, just that you walk with me a few turns in the gallery. If my Lady Abbess’s maids wish to sit up late to watch his Majesty’s ball, they surely must pay the dance-groschen afterward.”

The other women cast envious glances at Trude. She hung back an instant, modestly fighting against the delicious flattery of being favored by even a tipsy gentleman in such fine clothes. I knew she dared not make outcry. Her mistress would never forgive such a breach of decorum by her servants as watching out the imperial ball, when they should have been in bed. In a moment I had her around the corner of the gallery where it was dark, and with no one listening in case she gave a little scream. Then my hand around her waist relaxed. I spoke to her in the broad Harzland brogue. When I told her who I was, she all but fainted; but speedily, being indeed a girl of good fundamentals, recovered herself, and listened to me.

I told her rapidly but completely the story of how I came to be in the castle, and explained at least a part of my former relations to the Forlis, and my present predicament. Only the proffer made me by the Emperor I kept hid. That was a matter I scarcely dared to open even to my own soul. When I had finished this I began to press her to use every means to communicate with Graf Moritz and Adolf and her own father as to my captivity, and to urge them to set some manner of watch to discover whither I might be carried in custody. “For though I seem so free to-night,” I concluded, “I fear much I shall not be so free to-morrow, but again in close custody.”

To my entreaties, however, Trude shook her head. She said the abbess had withdrawn Ilsa from Worms because her mistress had become thoroughly suspicious lest in some occult way her niece was giving room to thoughts and deeds unlawful; and that Trude herself was suffering from this same treatment. She had not been permitted to leave the castle since entering, and as for Ilsa, her aunt had confined her in a narrow chamber on bread and water. “No one in the castle talks anything but Italian or Spanish gibberish,” the poor girl asserted. “I have no friends. The sight of so many strangers scares me. I know not what to do. Ach! _liebe Gott_, I wish we were all safely back in the Harzland!” A sentiment wherein I am sure I heartily joined.

Time was flying. I dared not linger with her longer. It was torturing to know that behind closed doors, so near at hand, was my Lady Ilsa, and that to her I could speak not one syllable; but what must be, must. I heartened Trude as best I could, promised a great reward if I got my liberty through her, and as a final bait told her that I would make any young peasant on whom she might cast eyes into a rich farmer. Then I took my leave, after sundry short but tender messages to Ilsa. Trude could only promise “to do her best,” but I was a little comforted. Sooner or later she at least was bound to regain her liberty of action, and I knew she was a girl of resources and energy.

Returning to the Forli chambers, I met the Cardinal as he was being divested of his regalia, and he congratulated me upon my fine appearance at the ball.

“Many spoke of ‘that elegant masked nobleman’ and how charmingly he wore his clothes and swept down the floor with the ladies. Ah! Gualtiero, you will win vast credit for us yet. The Emperor was more certain than ever that he has chosen aright.”

I fear I was not enthusiastic in my answer. I slept soundly, the good bed under me being a notable improvement upon the prison pallet. When I awoke in the morning it was already late. One of the Cardinal’s smiling valets was at my side to tell me that the Emperor breakfasted shortly before noon, and that I was expected to appear then for audience. Again an irreproachable costume had been laid out for me, nor was anything omitted to enable me to look the part of the man whom the sovereign delighted to honor. I did not see Forli, but I was informed that he would be present at the audience. By the time my own toilet was completed and I had eaten some white rolls washed down with a little excellent wine, the noon hour was at hand and another smiling gentleman usher conducted me into the Emperor’s breakfast room.

I had heard that Charles was an immoderate eater, and my eyes confirmed the tale. He sat in solitary state at a broad table, dressed as always in immaculate black, relieved only by a small cap of deep purple. Silent-footed pages bore in and out the large silver platters of roasts and highly spiced pasties. His Majesty had in truth a most Bœotian appetite, cutting off huge pieces of the hearty dishes, thrusting into his mouth large squares of bread, and at times signing to his body physician, a grave Bolognese, who would hand him a silver cup of wine duly admixed with some cordial. In the open space before the table a deformed Moorish buffoon in his motley, with a small ape, went through a series of antics at which the Emperor occasionally deigned a smile. When I entered Charles cast me one glance of recognition, then went on eating heartily, while by a door opposite I saw Forli join us. We remained standing until the Emperor thrust back the last plate, and the pages had cleared the board. Then the cold, penetrating eyes of Charles, those eyes so young in years, yet old in intellect, were turned upon me. At a nod the courtiers and pages fell back beyond range of low conversation.

“Well, Conte di Palaestro,” spoke the Emperor bluntly, in French, “you have considered. Your answer?”

I felt as if a bowstring were tightened around my chest, but I think my voice and mien were steady.

“May it please your Majesty, with a deep sense of the loyalty which I owe the Emperor, and speaking with the profoundest gratitude for the high favor I have been accorded, I am constrained to decline your Majesty’s magnificent proffer.”

The blood mounted to Charles’s brow. The lip on his projecting jaw curled.

“I had not expected this, Conte di Palaestro. My commands are commonly obeyed.”

I bowed obediently. “That which the Emperor commands me as Conte or Graf I execute with all diligence. It is when the Emperor proposes for me a commission to Rome proper only for a prince of the blood I feel compelled to draw back.”

Charles reached for a quill from a plate, and picked his teeth nervously. His frown was very black. “Your reasons,” he ordered brusquely.

“I will answer your Majesty even to the risk of offence. The Emperor would send me to Rome to enforce certain outward reforms upon Pope and Curia, which reforms it may prove needful to compel at the culverin’s mouth. At the same time Martin Luther, instigator of these reforms, is to be burned as a heretic. I would to God the venality and worldliness of the Curia might cease, but will the Emperor believe me in this,--the mere cleansing of the Vatican will be only as the cooling of the forehead of a man wasting with fever; comfort for the instant, but never the cure. We of the party of Luther would go beyond these palliatives. It is perverted faith which has led to perverted morals. The dogma and doctrine of the Church seem to us wholly wrong, so utterly beyond repair we may never mend them. Let us, therefore, turning reverently to the Scriptures, build with God’s help a better Church, exempt from the inveterate errors of the old.”

“Holy Mother!” swore Charles, half rising. “I asked you, sirrah, for a personal answer. I am given a heretical sermon.”

I faced him steadily. A greater than Carolus Quintus would not have shaken me in the mood that held me then.

“Take not my refusal, Sire, as ungrateful churlishness. The Emperor’s opinion and Luther’s differ as to the crying need of the Church. With all loyalty to the Emperor, my conscience binds me to the opinion of Luther.”

Charles surveyed me with mingled wonderment and wrath. “You are not flattering, Monsieur. The Wittenberg heretic is preferred by you to myself.”

“Then let me name a higher authority. Your Majesty would reform the old Church. In other words, new wine should be put into very old and rotten wineskins. A wiser and mightier than the Emperor has long since asserted that this cannot be done.”

The Emperor laid down his knife, and his suspicious scrutiny grew keener.

“Monsieur, if I did not know by indubitable evidence that you had thwarted the cleverest Papal agents in your intrigues to win the northern princes to Luther, if I did not know you had almost persuaded Leo himself to withhold his Bull, I could scarce believe you sane. Tell me now, on your knightly word, do you profess your true reasons for rejecting the fairest proffer ever made by prince to subject?”

I bowed low. “Your Majesty has been pleased to seek some hidden motive in my words. I will speak more boldly. This man whom Rome and the Emperor deem worthy of the fire, I, with millions of others, esteem a saint. I have walked with him, talked with him, lived with him. Wizard or apostle as men may call him, for _me_ at least he has been the restorer of hope in God and of joy in living. He has made me know that even a reformed and chastened Rome shall no more lord it over the souls of men. I dare to enroll this banned heretic as an apostle worthy of the right hand of God, and for Martin Luther and his cause I will spend my uttermost powers. I know I have not satisfied your Majesty. Yet it is better to seem even to offend the Emperor than to pawn one’s soul.”

We confronted one another silently for a moment, then Charles spoke with ominous mildness. “You appreciate, monsieur, that the rejection of the proffer I have made you under the conditions which you create, will lead to serious consequences for yourself. I cannot leave you as a firebrand to scatter your sparks through northern Germany.”

“I am entirely aware of the Emperor’s probable disfavor. I counted the cost before I made my answer.”

“But consider well, Conte di Palaestro. I am not wont to supplicate. Yet I have no other instrument ready for this stroke at Rome. I have pitched entirely on you. Do not let fantastic reasons ruin you.”

“Can the Emperor spare Dr. Luther?” I threw out, with a gleam of hope.

“Impossible. He will return to Wittenberg. Perhaps ere the ban can be enforced, which will be some few weeks or even months, he will see reason and recant. Otherwise there is only one law for him.”

“Then,” I responded firmly, “I shall only deceive the Emperor by affecting to reconsider. I cannot go to Rome for your Majesty.”

All this time I had never taken my eyes from Charles, to let them wander to the listening Forli. Now with a dry “ha!” the sovereign turned abruptly to the Cardinal. The prelate’s round face was exceedingly sour.

“You have heard this fellow,” spoke Charles, with a disdainful gesture toward myself.

“_Misericordia!_ every word, Sire, oh! the foul _ammaliamento_, the witchcraft. Perhaps when Luther is burned and returned to his father the devil, the spell will vanish. My heart is torn at the despite he has shown your Majesty.”

“He has at least saved his Holiness at Rome for a while from an unpleasant hour,” spoke Charles, biting off his words one by one. “The sapience of your Eminence will no doubt discover the precise nature of his mad infection presently. It is sufficient that he will not execute my commands, and he is therefore remanded to your custody.”

The Emperor raised his hand. A Spanish guards-captain approached instantly, and stood at attention. Then again Charles spoke. “This nobleman here is under arrest. It is to be understood that he is mentally unpoised and irresponsible. His Eminence of Forli has consented to conduct him back to his friends and estates in Italy. For many high reasons this case is to be kept from vulgar rumor. You will take the prisoner back to the Cardinal’s apartments, and later the Cardinal will keep him in such a manner of custody as he may prefer, and take such measures as he may see fit for the conveyance of this unfortunate man to Italy.”

The officer’s hands fell on my shoulder. I drew myself up calmly, and offered him my walking sword. It was indeed a pitiful weapon, and he almost smiled as he took it.

“You see I am not a dangerous maniac, señor,” said I, under breath; then I bowed ceremoniously to the Emperor. He looked after me with his hard, fishlike eyes. Never again did I meet him face to face. Often I think of him, as he who might, had Heaven opened his vision, have been the friend, not the foe, of the Reformation; and by his skilful fostering of the Cause, have saved infinite tumult, and hatred, and blood; yea, have saved Christendom from being severed into two cursing and hostile camps. But it was not so ordered, and let no man forget that his Spanish mother was the daughter of Isabella the Catholic. Judge him not harshly; yet I hold he was one of the world’s wise and mighty, who saw the hour of opportunity at hand, and then in Dante’s phrase, “made the great refusal.”...

All the way back to his chambers Forli followed me, his face crimson, and gnawing at his rings in sheer rage. Then he burst out, bellowing the words into my face.

“Fool!” he cried, “fool! German, German sheep and fool!”

As for me, I walked to my captivity right happily; I had not betrayed my soul.

* * * * *

I had expected to be flung back into my prison cell, but that was spared me. On the contrary, I was allowed almost the same apartments as before, except now in my rooms all the windows were so high and small it was impossible to peer from them. There could be no illusion as to my fate, however. Hardly had I returned from the Emperor when a low-browed armorer entered, and stood before me sheepishly.

“It is commanded, your Lordship. Take no offence.” And with that apology, and with a grin possibly sympathetic, he proceeded to snap about my ankles and wrists fetters, light indeed and not painful, but connected by thin, keenly tempered chains which effectively prevented me from taking more than the shortest step, or even moving my hands enough for elegant eating. Hardly was he gone, than after him came Forli’s chief body-servant with bowl, razor, and shears, who with a smirk fit to enrage a Socrates, bade me to submit whilst he shaved off my mustache and beard, and clipped my hair exceeding close, thus altering my whole appearance.

When this second emissary had departed I was fain to cast myself upon an armchair. The touch of the steel had set all my senses tingling. I held out my manacled wrists before my eyes as though I were gazing on something wholly apart from my own identity.

“And yet, and yet,” I repeated aloud in a kind of wonderment, “an hour ago, on my bare word to the Emperor ‘I accept your service,’ I could have been envied by all the world. And now--” my voice broke in what was neither a sob nor a laugh, “I am truly glad!”

Nor was this last hypocrisy. I was in one of those strangely exalted states, wherein all the common goods of life seem to take on values wholly new. I seemed a prisoner as hopelessly as if I were immured in a Castilian Inquisition dungeon, or spiked to the bench in the Turkish galleys. I knew there was every chance that Forli would be able to execute his purpose of conducting me unhindered to Italy, and once there I knew enough of the bolts and bars of Papal palazzos to be sure of going forth a free man perhaps never, perhaps only when my hair was bleached to snow. Yet I refused to despair, I refused to tell myself I had played the fool and authorized Forli’s anathemas. I knew that what I had done that day would stand justified to Ilsa, to Luther, to God. I cared for little else. And again, even as I felt of the strange steel upon my wrists, and heard the clink of the chains, it was brought home to me that I was to do some other signal service for the Cause, that in some great way, I knew not how, Luther and I had not been sundered forever; that I must keep my head clear, my senses alert, my courage ready. Perhaps the call would come only after years of weary prison, perhaps in an hour; only let me not fail to do my part.

So passed that day, and so several others, and I was buoyed up by an unnatural kind of excitement which I think made Forli and my keepers sadly puzzled when they looked for some sinking of spirit. Then at length on a morning as I sat striving to read the Cardinal’s new copy of Musæus, Forli himself entered and with him some high Italian ecclesiastic whom I did not recognize, but who doubtless was a member of the Papal legation. The newcomer started at sight of my ornaments, and Forli deliberately tapped his forehead and shook his head sadly.

“The case I have mentioned. Very pitiful. A fine young cavaliere utterly bewitched by the heretics. I am conducting him back to Italy with as little noise as possible. We need not fear to talk freely before him. He can do nothing.”

I understood entirely that Forli had arranged to hold the dialogue in that place for my particular benefit, but that could not prevent me from being all ears.

“I understand the great heretic leaves Worms to-morrow,” continued the Cardinal.

“Even so, Eminenza. He has refused all the terms of accommodation proffered him by the Archbishop of Trier and other prelates, who went to the very verge of true faith to recall him. He stands steadfast in his blasphemies.”

“Then he will return to Wittenberg, and there await the issuing of the Imperial ban?”

“Such will happen, unless your Eminence can persuade the Emperor to violate the safe-conduct, and surrender him immediately.”

“The Emperor is stubbornly fixed. He declares his word is pledged. ‘He does not wish to blush like Kaiser Sigismund, who surrendered Hus at Constance.’ He will not recall his pledges.”

The other prelate shook his head. “Then Mahomet escapes. The ban of the Empire is a fearfully slow weapon. Luther goes back to Wittenberg, and is surrounded by his friends. There are all manner of legal delays. Perhaps armies are raised for him in Saxony. Charles is about to lock horns with Francis. If the first battle goes in favor of the French, the Emperor will dare to do nothing to enrage the Elector of Saxony. A thousand zechins that Luther goes free!”

“He shall not,” asserted Forli, with a stamp.

“I trust your Eminence can persuade the Emperor, then.”

To which the Cardinal answered with a very vulpine laugh.

“_Caro amico_, it is a true saying of old Cosimo de’ Medici that ‘you cannot govern a state with paternosters,’ nor save the Church either, as I add. The Emperor is too scrupulous. Good, then, His Holiness’s legate must act without him. My mission here to Worms has been quasi-private. I can readily depart on some pretext and make no tongues chatter. I have often travelled incognito as a French nobleman. It will be very easy to overtake _il grande heretico_ at some dark turn of the road, and carry him off bodily, as easily as, well,--as I shall carry off this unfortunate crazed gentleman. If there is danger of rescue, then,” Forli’s finger passed lightly across his throat, “but you will see how I shall entirely prosper. There will be a bonfire yet in the Piazza di San Pietro.”

The second Italian regarded Forli in a kind of hesitant admiration.

“You are magnificent, Eminenza, but consider the risk of scandal! The Emperor will be furious.”

“The Emperor will know nothing for long. Nothing until our fine friar is safe and snug in Italy or lying with his throat cut. Luther will simply vanish from sight. Good Catholics will hold that his friend the devil has flown off with him. Then at last when the truth leaks out, bah! the Emperor will prove a very sensible man.”

“The Cardinal of Forli speaks with the just confidence of an Alexander.”

“An Alexander Borgia,” quoth the other, smiling subtlely. “Come, Monsignore, we have much more to talk of, and we will leave this poor gentleman to compose his crazed wits by reading.”