Carry me to Count Antonio!" So I have brought her in obedience to her request."
As Luigi ended, Venusta opened her eyes, and, rising to her knees, held out her hands in supplication, saying, "Protect me, my lord, protect me.
For the Duke has sent me word that to-morrow night he will burn my house and all that it holds, and will take me and lodge me in prison, and so use me there that I may know what befalls those who give aid to traitors. And all this comes upon me, my lord, because I gave a draught of wine to your men when they were thirsty."
"I feared this thing," said Antonio, "and deeply I grieve at it. But I am loth to go in open war against the Duke; moreover in the plain he would be too strong for me. What then can I do? For here is no place in which a lady, the more if she be alone and unattended, can be lodged with seemliness."
"If the choice be between this and a prison----" said Venusta with a faint sorrowful smile.
"Yet it might be that I could convey you beyond His Highness"s power,"
pursued Antonio. "But I fear you could not travel far to-night."
"Indeed I am weary even to death," moaned Venusta.
"There is nothing for it but that to-night at least she rest here," said Antonio to Tommasino.
Tommasino frowned. "When woman comes in," said he behind the screen of his hand, "safety flies out."
"Better fly safety than courtesy and kindness, cousin," said Count Antonio, and Tommasino ceased to dissuade him, although he was uneasy concerning the coming of Venusta.
That night, therefore, all made their camp outside, and gave the cave to Venusta for her use, having made a curtain of green boughs across its mouth. But again the next day Venusta was too sick for travel; nay, she seemed very sick, and she prayed Luigi to go to Rilano and seek a physician; and Luigi, Antonio having granted him permission, went, and returned saying that no physician dared come in face of His Highness"s proclamation; but the truth was that Luigi was in the pay of Venusta and of the Duke, and had sought by his journey not a physician, but means of informing the Duke how Venusta had sped, and of seeking counsel from him as to what should next be done. And that day and for four days more Venusta abode in the cave, protesting that she could not travel; and Antonio used her with great courtesy, above all when he heard that the Duke, having stayed to muster all his force for fear of Antonio, had at length appointed the next day for the burning of her house at Rilano and the carrying off of all her goods. These tidings he gave her, and though he spoke gently, she fell at once into great distress, declaring that she had not believed the Duke would carry out his purpose, and weeping for her jewels and prized possessions which were in the house.
Now Count Antonio, though no true man could call him fool, had yet a simplicity n.o.bler it may be than the suspicious wisdom of those who, reading other hearts by their own, count all men rogues and all women wanton: and when he saw the lady weeping for the trinkets and her loved toys and trifles, he said, "Nay, though I cannot meet the Duke face to face, yet I will ride now and come there before him, and bring what you value most from the house."
"You will be taken," said she, and she gazed at him with timid admiring eyes. "I had rather a thousand times lose the jewels than that you should run into danger, my lord. For I owe to you liberty, and perhaps life."
"I will leave Tommasino to guard you and ride at once," and Antonio rose to his feet, smiling at her for her foolish fears.
Then a thing that seemed strange happened. For Antonio gave a sudden cry of pain. And behold, he had set his foot on the point of a dagger that was on the ground near to the Lady Venusta; and the dagger ran deep into his foot, for it was resting on a stone and the point sloped upwards, so that he trod full and with all his weight on the point; and he sank back on the ground with the dagger in his foot. How came the dagger there?
How came it to rest against the stone? None could tell then, though it seems plain to him that considers now. None then thought that the lady who fled to Antonio as though he were her lover, and lavished tears and sighs on him, had placed it there. Nor that honest Luigi, who made such moan of his carelessness in dropping his poniard, had taken more pains over the losing of his weapon than most men over the preservation of theirs. Luigi cursed himself, and the lady cried out on fate; and Count Antonio consoled both of them, saying that the wound would soon be well, and that it was too light a matter for a lady to dim her bright eyes for the sake of it.
Yet light as the matter was, it was enough for Venusta"s purpose and for the scheme of Duke Valentine. For Count Antonio could neither mount his horse nor go afoot to Venusta"s house in Rilano; and, if the jewels were to be saved and the lady"s tears dried (mightily, she declared with pretty self-reproach, was she ashamed to think of the jewels beside Antonio"s hurt, but yet they were dear to her), then Tommasino must go in his place to Rilano.
"And take all save Bena and two more," said Antonio. "For the Duke will not come here if he goes to Rilano."
"I," said Bena, "am neither nurse nor physician nor woman. Let Martolo stay; he says there is already too much blood on his conscience; and let me go, for there is not so much as I could bear on mine, and maybe we shall have a chance of an encounter with the foreguard of the Duke."
But Venusta said to Antonio, "Let both of these men go, and let Luigi stay. For he is a clever fellow, and will aid me in tending your wound."
"So be it," said Antonio. "Let Luigi and the two youngest stay; and do the rest of you go, and return as speedily as you may. And the Lady Venusta shall, of her great goodness, dress my wound, which pains me more than such a trifle should."
Thus the whole band, saving Luigi and two youths, rode off early in the morning with Tommasino, their intent being to reach Rilano and get clear of it again before the Duke came thither from the city: and Venusta sent no message to the Duke, seeing that all had fallen out most prosperously and as had been arranged between them. For the Duke was not in truth minded to go at all to Rilano; but at earliest dawn, before Tommasino had set forth, the Lord Lorenzo left the city with a hundred pikemen; more he would not take, fearing to be delayed if his troop were too large; and he made a great circuit, avoiding Rilano and the country adjacent to it. So that by mid-day Tommasino was come with thirty-and-four men (the whole strength of the band except the three with Antonio) to Rilano, and, meeting with no resistance, entered Venusta"s house, and took all that was precious in it, and loaded their horses with the rich tapestries and the choicest of the furnishings; and then, having regaled themselves with good cheer, started in the afternoon to ride back to the cave, Tommasino and Bena grumbling to one another because they had chanced on no fighting, but not daring to tarry by reason of Antonio"s orders.
But their lamentations were without need; for when they came to the pa.s.s of Mount Agnino, there at the entrance of the road which led up to the cave, by the side of the river, was encamped a force of eighty pikemen under the Lieutenant of the Guard. Thus skilfully had the Lord Lorenzo performed his duty, and cut off Tommasino and his company from all access to the cave; and now he himself was gone with twenty men up the mountain path, to take Antonio according to the scheme of the Duke and the Lady Venusta. But Bena and Tommasino were sore aghast, and said to one another, "There is treachery. What are we to do?" For the eighty of the Duke"s men were posted strongly, and it was a great hazard to attack them. Yet this risk they would have run, for they were ready rather to die than to sit there idle while Antonio was taken; and in all likelihood they would have died, had the Lieutenant obeyed the orders which Lorenzo had given him and rested where he was, covered by the hill and the river. But the Lieutenant was a young man, of hot temper and impetuous, and to his mistaken pride it seemed as though it were cowardice for eighty men to shrink from attacking thirty-and-five, and for the Duke"s Guards to play for advantage in a contest with a band of robbers. Moreover Tommasino"s men taunted his men, crying to them to come down and fight like men in the open. Therefore, counting on a sure victory and the pardon it would gain, about three o"clock in the afternoon he cried, "Let us have at these rascals!" and to Tommasino"s great joy, his troop remounted their horses and made ready to charge from their position. Then Tommasino said, "We are all ready to face the enemy for my lord and cousin"s sake. But I have need now of those who will run away for his sake."
Then he laid his plans that when the Lieutenant"s troop charged, his men should not stand their ground. And five men he placed on one extremity of his line, Bena at their head; and four others with himself he posted at the other extremity; also he spread out his line very wide, so that it stretched on either side beyond the line of the Lieutenant. And he bade the twenty-and-five in the centre not abide the onset, but turn and flee at a gallop, trusting to the speed of their horses for escape. And he made them fling away all that they had brought from the Lady Venusta"s house, that they might ride the lighter.
"And I pray G.o.d," said he, "that you will escape alive; but if you do not, it is only what your oath to my lord constrains you to. But you and I, Bena, with our men, will ride, not back towards the plain, but on towards the hills, and it may be that we shall thus get ahead of the Lieutenant; and once we are ahead of him in the hilly ground, he will not catch us before we come to the cave."
"Unless," began Bena, "there be another party----"
"Hist!" said Tommasino, and he whispered to Bena, "They will fear if they hear all."
Then the Duke"s men came forth, and it fell out as Tommasino had planned; for the body of the Duke"s men, when they saw Tommasino"s rank broken and his band flying, set up a great shout of scorn and triumph, and dug spurs into their horses and pursued the runaways. And the runaways rode at their top speed, and, having come nearly to Rilano without being caught, they were three of them overtaken and captured by the well at the entrance to the village; but the rest, wheeling to the right, dashed across the plain, making for Antonio"s old hiding-place; and, having lost two more of their number whose horses failed, and having slain four of the Guard who pursued incautiously ahead of the rest, they reached the spurs of the hills, and there scattered, every man by himself, and found refuge, some in the woods, some in shepherds"
huts; so they came off with their lives. But the men with Tommasino and Bena had ridden straight for the hill-road, and had pa.s.sed the Lieutenant before he apprehended Tommasino"s scheme. Then he cried aloud to his men, and eight of them, hearing him, checked their horses, but could not understand what he desired of them till he cried aloud again, and pointed with his hand towards where the ten, Tommasino leading and Bena in the rear, had gained the hill-road and were riding up it as swiftly as their horses could mount. Then the Lieutenant, cursing his own folly, gathered them, and they rode after Tommasino and Bena.
"Be of good heart," said the Lieutenant. "They are between us and the company of my Lord Lorenzo."
Yet though he said this, his mind was not at ease; for the horses of his men, being unaccustomed to the hills, could not mount the road as did the sure-footed mountain-horses ridden by Tommasino"s company, and the s.p.a.ce widened between them; and at last Tommasino"s company disappeared from sight, at the point where the track turned sharp to the left, round a great jutting rock that stood across the way and left room for but three men to ride abreast between river and rock. Then the Lieutenant drew rein and took counsel with his men, for he feared that Tommasino would wait for him behind the jutting rock and dash out on his flank as he rode round. Therefore for a while he considered, and a while longer he allowed for the breathing of the horses; and then with great caution rode on towards the jutting rock, which lay about the half of a mile from him. And when he came near it, he and his men heard a voice cry, "Quiet, quiet! They are close now!"
"They will dash at us as we go round," said the Lieutenant.
"And we can go no more than three together," said one of the guards.
"Are you all ready?" said the voice behind the cliff, in accents that but just reached round the rock. "Not a sound, for your lives!" Yet a sound there was, as of a jingling bit, and then again an angry, "Curse you, you clumsy fool, be still." And then all was still.
"They are ready for us now," whispered a guard, with an uneasy smile.
"I will go," said the Lieutenant. "Which two of you will lead the way with me?"
But the men grumbled, saying, "It is the way to death that you ask us to lead, sir."
Then the Lieutenant drew his men back, and as they retreated they made a noise great hoping to make Tommasino think they were gone. And, having thus withdrawn some five hundred paces, they rested in utter quiet for half an hour. And it was then late afternoon. And the Lieutenant said, "I will go first alone, and in all likelihood I shall be slain; but do you follow immediately after me and avenge my death." And this they, being ashamed for their first refusal, promised to do. Then the Lieutenant rode softly forward till he came within twenty yards of the rock, and he clapped spurs to his horse and shouted, and, followed close by his men crying, "For G.o.d and our Duke!" charged round the jutting rock.
And behold, on the other side of it was not a man! And of Tommasino and his company naught was to be seen--for they had used the last hour to put a great distance between them and their pursuers--save that away, far up the road, in the waning light of the sun, was to be dimly perceived the figure of a man on horseback, who waved his hat to them and, turning, was in an instant lost to view. And this man was Bena, who, by himself and without a blow, had held the pa.s.sage of the jutting rock for hard on an hour, and thus given time to Tommasino to ride on and come upon the rear of Lorenzo"s company before the Lieutenant and his men could hem them in on the other side.
Thus had the day worn to evening, and long had the day seemed to Antonio, who sat before the mouth of the cave, with Venusta by his side.
All day they had sat thus alone, for Luigi and the two youths had gone to set snares in the wood behind the cave--or such was the pretext Luigi made; and Antonio had let them go, charging them to keep in earshot. As the long day pa.s.sed, Antonio, seeking to entertain the lady and find amus.e.m.e.nt for her through the hours, began to recount to her all that he had done, how he had seized the Sacred Bones, the manner of his difference with the Abbot of St. Prisian, and much else. But of the killing of Duke Paul he would not speak; nor did he speak of his love for Lucia till Venusta pressed him, making parade of great sympathy for him. But when he had set his tongue to the task, he grew eloquent, his eyes gleamed and his cheek flushed, and he spoke in the low reverent voice that a true lover uses when he speaks of his mistress, as though his wonted accents were too common and mean for her name. And Venusta sat listening, casting now and again a look at him out of her deep eyes, and finding his eyes never on hers but filled with the fancied vision of Lucia. And at last, growing impatient with him, she broke out petulantly, "Is this girl, then, different from all others, that you speak of her as though she were a G.o.ddess?"
"I would not have spoken of her but that you pressed me," laughed Antonio. "Yet in my eyes she is a G.o.ddess, as every maid should be to her lover."
Venusta caught a twig from the ground and broke it sharp across. "Boys"
talk!" said she, and flung the broken twig away.
Antonio laughed gently, and leant back, resting on the rock. "May be,"
said he. "Yet is there none who talks boys" talk for you?"
"I love men," said she, "not boys. And if I were a man I think I would love a woman, not a G.o.ddess."
"It is Heaven"s chance, I doubt not," said Antonio, laughing again. "Had you and I chanced to love, we should not have quarrelled with the boys"
talk nor at the name of G.o.ddess."
She flushed suddenly and bit her lip, but she answered in raillery, "Indeed had it been so, a marvel of a lover I should have had! For you have not seen your mistress for many, many months, and yet you are faithful to her. Are you not, my lord?"
"Small credit not to wander where you love to rest," said Antonio.
"And yet youth goes in waiting, and delights missed come not again,"
said she, leaning towards him with a light in her eyes, and scanning his fair hair and bronzed cheek, his broad shoulders and the sinewy hands that nursed his knee.
"It may well be that they will not come to me," he said. "For the Duke has a halter ready for my throat, if by force or guile he can take me."