His laughter faded; and his eyes surveyed me with a sudden solemnity.
"Then why did you evade my question?" he demanded shrewdly. And then his countenance changed as swiftly again. It was illumined by the light of sudden understanding. "I have it," he cried. "The answer is plain. You did not a.s.sist the Lord Giovanni to write them. Why? Because you wrote them yourself, and you gave them to him that he might pa.s.s them off as his own."
It was a merciful thing for me that the whole company fell into a burst of laughter and applauded Filippo"s quick discernment, which they never doubted. All talked at once, and a hundred proofs were advanced in support of Filippo"s opinion. The Lord Giovanni"s celebrated dullness of mind, amounting almost to stupidity, was cited, and they reminded one another of the profound astonishment with which they had listened to the compositions that had suddenly burst from him.
Filippo turned to his sister, on whose pale face I saw it written that she was as convinced as any there, and my feelings were those of a dastard who has broken faith with the man who trusted him.
"Do you appreciate now, Madonna," he murmured, "the deceits and wiles by which that craven crept like a snake into your esteem?"
I guessed at once that by that thrust he sought to incline her more to the union he had in view for her.
"At least he was no craven," answered she. "His burning desire to please me may have betrayed him into this foolish duplicity. But he still must live in my memory as a brave and gallant gentleman; or have you forgotten, Filippo, that n.o.ble combat with the forces of Ramiro del"
Orca?"
To such a question Filippo had no answer, and presently his mood sobered a little. For myself, I was glad when the time came to withdraw from that company that twitted and pestered me and played upon my sense of shame at the imprudence I had committed.
Now that I look back, I can scarce conceive why it should have so wrought upon me; for, in truth, the little love I bore the Lord Giovanni might rather have led me to rejoice that his imposture should be laid bare to the eyes of all the world. I think that really there was an element of fear in my feelings--fear that, upon reflection, Madonna Paola might ask herself how came that burning sincerity into the love-songs written in her honour which it was now disclosed that I had penned. The answer she might find to such a question was one that might arouse her pride and so outrage it as to lead her to cast me out of her friendship and never again suffer me to approach her.
Such a conclusion, however, she fortunately did not arrive at. Haply she accounted the fervour of those lines a.s.sumed, for when on the morrow she met me, she did no more than gently chide me for the deceit that I had had a hand in practising upon her. She accepted my explanation that my share in that affair had been wrung from me with threats of torture, and putting it from her mind she returned to the matter of the approaching alliance she sought to elude, renewing her prayers that I should aid her.
"I have," she told me then, "one other friend who might a.s.sist us, and who has the power perhaps if he but has the will. He is the Governor of Cesena, and for all that he holds service under Cesare Borgia, yet he seems much devoted to me, and I do not doubt that to further my interests he would even consent to pit his wits against those of the family he serves."
"In which case, Madonna," answered I, spurred to it, perhaps, by an insensate pang of jealousy at the thought that there should be another beside myself to have her confidence, "he would be a traitor. And it is ever an ill thing to trust a traitor. Who once betrays may betray again."
That she manifested no resentment, but, on the contrary, readily agreed with me, showed me how idle had been that jealousy of mine, and made me ashamed of it.
"Why yes," she mused, "it is the very thought that had occurred to me, and caused me to spurn the aid he proffered when last he was here."
"Ah!" I cried. "What aid was that?"
"You must know, Lazzaro," said she, "that he comes often to Pesaro from Cesena, being a man in whom the Duke places great trust, and on whom he has bestowed considerable powers. He never fails to lie at the Palace when he comes, and he seems to--to have conceived a regard for me. He is a man of twice my years," she added hurriedly, "and haply looks upon me as he might upon a daughter."
I sniffed the air. I had heard of such men.
"A week ago, when last he came, I was cast down and grieved by the affair of this marriage, which Filippo had that day disclosed to me. The Governor of Cesena, observing my sadness, sought my confidence with a kindliness of which you would scarce believe him capable; for he is a fierce and bl.u.s.tering man of war. In the fulness of my heart there was nothing that seemed so desirable as a friendly ear into which I might pour the tale of my affliction. He heard me gravely, and when I had done he placed himself at my disposal, a.s.suring me that if I would but trust myself to him, he would defeat the ends of the House of Borgia. Not until then did I seem to bethink me that he was the servant of that house, and his readiness to betray the hand that paid him sowed mistrust and a certain loathing of him in my mind. I let him see it, perhaps, which was unwise, and, may be, even ungrateful. He seemed deeply wounded, and the subject was abandoned. But I have since thought that perhaps I acted with a rashness that was--"
"With a rashness that was eminently justifiable," I interrupted her.
"You could not have been better advised than to have mistrusted such a man."
But touching this same Governor of Cesena, there was a fine surprise in store for me. At dusk some two days later there was a sudden commotion in the courtyard of the Palace, and when I inquired of a groom into its cause, I was informed that his Excellency the Governor of Cesena had arrived.
Curious to see this man whose willingness to betray the house he served, where Madonna was concerned, was by no means difficult to probe, I descended to the banqueting-hall at supper time.
They were not yet at table when I entered, and a group was gathered in the centre of the room about a huge man, at sight of whose red head and crimson, brutal face I would have turned and sought again the refuge of my own quarters but that his wolf"s eye had already fastened on me.
"Body of G.o.d!" he swore, and that was all. But his eyes were on me in a marvellous stare, as were now--impelled by that oath of his--the eyes of all the company. We looked at each other for a moment, then a great laugh burst from him, shaking his vast bulk and wrinkling his hideous face. He thrust the intervening men aside as if they had been a growth of sedges he would penetrate, and he advanced towards me; the Lord Filippo and his sister looking on with all the rest in interested surprise.
In front of me he halted, and setting his hands on his hips he regarded me with a brutal mirth.
"What may your trade be now?" he asked at last contemptuously.
I had taken rapid stock of him in the seconds that were sped, and from the surpa.s.sing richness of his apparel, his gold-broidered doublet and crimson, fur-edged surcoat, I knew that Messer Ramiro del" Orca was grown to the high estate of Governor of Cesena.
"A new trade even as yours," I answered him.
"Nay, that is no answer," he cried, overlooking my offensiveness. "Do you still follow the trade of arms?"
"I think," Filippo interposed, "that our Excellency is in some error.
This gentleman is Lazzaro Biancomonte, a poet of whom Italy will one day be proud, despite the fact that for a time he acted as the Lord Giovanni Sforza"s Fool."
Ramiro looked at his interlocutor, as the mastiff may look at the lap dog. He grunted, and blew out his cheeks.
"There is yet another part he played," said he, "as I have good cause to remember--for he is the only man that can boast of having unhorsed Ramiro del" Orca. He was for a brief season the Lord Giovanni Sforza himself."
"How?" asked the profoundly amazed Filippo, whilst all present pressed closer to miss nothing of the disclosure that seemed to impend. Myself, I groaned. There was naught that I could say to stem the tide of revelation that was coming.
"Do you then keep this paladin here arrayed like a clerk?" quoth Ramiro in his sardonic way. "And can it be that the secret of his feat of arms has been guarded so well that you are still in ignorance of it?"
Filippo"s wits worked swiftly, and swiftly they pieced together the hints that Ramiro had let fall.
"You will tell us," said he, "that the fight in the streets of Pesaro, in which your Excellency"s party suffered defeat, was led by Biancomonte in the armour of Giovanni Sforza?"
Ramiro looked at him with that displeasure with which the jester visits the man who by antic.i.p.ation robs his story of its points.
"It was known to you?" growled he.
"Not so. I have but learnt it from you. But it nowise astonishes me."
And he looked at his sister, whose eyes devoured me, as if they would read in my soul whether this thing were indeed true. Under her eyes I dropped my glance like a man ashamed at hearing a disgraceful act of his paraded.
"Had it indeed been the Lord Giovanni, he had been dead that day,"
laughed Ramiro grimly. "Indeed it was nothing but my astonishment at sight of the face I was about to stab, after having broken the fastenings of his visor that stayed my hand for long enough to give him the advantage. But I bear you no grudge for that," he ended, turning on me with a ferocious smile, "nor yet for that other trick by which--as Boccadoro the Fool--you bested me. I am not a sweet man when thwarted, yet I can admire wit and respect courage. But see to it," he ended, with a sudden and most unreasonable ferocity, his visage empurpling if possible still more, "see to it that you pit neither that courage nor that wit against me again. I have heard the story of how you came to be Fool of the Court of Pesaro. Cesena is a dull place, and we might enliven it by the presence of a jester of such nimble wits as yours."
He turned without awaiting my reply, and strode away to take his place at table, whilst I walked slowly to my accustomed seat, and took little part in the conversation that ensued, which, as you may imagine, had me and that exploit of mine for scope.
Anon an elephantine trumpeting of laughter seemed to set the air a-quivering. Ramiro was lying back in his chair a prey to such a pa.s.sion of mirth that it swelled the veins of his throat and brow until I thought that they must burst--and, from my soul, I hoped they would.
Adown his rugged cheeks two tears were slowly trickling. The Lord Filippo, as presently transpired, had been telling him of the epic I had written in praise of the Lord Giovanni"s prowess. Naught would now satisfy that ogre but he must have the epic read, and Filippo, who had retained a copy of it, went in quest of it, and himself read it aloud for the delight of all a.s.sembled and the torture of myself who saw in Madonna Paola"s eyes that she accounted the deception I had practised on her a thing beyond pardon.
Filippo had a taste for letters, as I think I have made clear, and he read those lines with the same fire and fervour that I, myself, had breathed into them two years ago. But instead of the rapt and breathless attention with which my reading had been attended, the present company listened with a smile, whilst ever and anon a short laugh or a quiet chuckle would mark how well they understood to-night the subtle ironies which had originally escaped them.
I crept away, sick at heart, while they were still making sport over my work, cursing the Lord Giovanni, who had forced me to these things, and my own mad mood that had permitted me in an evil hour to be so forced.
Yet my grief and bitterness were little things that night compared with what Madonna was to make them on the morrow.
She sent for me betimes, and I went in fear and trembling of her wrath and scorn. How shall I speak of that interview? How shall I describe the immeasurable contempt with which she visited me, and which I felt was perhaps no more than I deserved.
"Messer Biancomonte," said she coldly, "I have ever accounted you my friend, and disinterested the motives that inspired a heart seemingly n.o.ble to do service to a forlorn and helpless lady. It seems that I was wrong. That the indulging of a warped and malignant spirit was the inspiration you had to appear to befriend me."
"Madonna, you are over-cruel," I cried out, wounded to the very soul of me.