Instantly I fell into the part I was to play.
"Did I choose the latter," said I, with an a.s.sumption of sudden airiness and such a grimace as was part and parcel of my old-time trade, "then were I truly worthy of the former, for I should have proved myself, indeed, a fool. Yet if I choose the former, I pray that you"ll not follow the same course of reasoning, and hold me worthy of the latter."
When he had understood its subtleties; for his wits were of a quality that would have disgraced a calf, he roared at the conceit, and seemingly thrown into a better humour by the promise of more such entertainment, he bade my guards release me, and urged me to a.s.sume the motley without more delay.
What time I was obeying him my mind was returning to that matter of Lampugnani"s words, and it is not difficult to understand how I should arrive at the only possible conclusion they suggested. The hats of the other messengers from Vitelli, that the officer had mentioned, had been brought to Ramiro. The reason for this that at once arose in my mind was that within the messenger"s hat there was a second and more secret communication for the Governor.
This secrecy and Ramiro"s display of anger at seeing a hint of it betrayed by Lampugnani struck me, not unnaturally, as suspicious. What were these hidden communications that pa.s.sed between Vitellozzo Vitelli and the Governor of Cesena? It was a matter of which I could not pretend to offer a solution, but, nevertheless, it was one, I thought, that promised to repay investigation.
Ramiro grew impatient, and my reflections suffered interruption by his rough command that I should hasten. One of the men-at-arms helped me to truss my points, and when that was done I stepped forward--Boccadoro the Fool once more.
CHAPTER XVII. THE SENESCHAL
For an hour or so that night I played the Fool for Messer Ramiro"s entertainment in a manner which did high justice to the fame that at Pesaro I had earned for the name of Boccadoro.
Beginning with quip and jest and paradox, aimed now at him, now at the officer who had remained to keep him company in his cups, now at the servants who ministered to him, now at the guards standing at attention, I pa.s.sed on later to play the part of narrator, and I delighted his foul and prurient mind with the story of Andreuccio da Perugia and another of the more licentious tales of Messer Giovanni Boccacci. I crimson now with shame at the manner in which I set myself to pander to his mood that with my wit I might defend my life and limbs, and preserve them for the service of my Holy Flower of the Quince in the hour of her need.
One man alone of all those present did I spare my banter. This was the old seneschal, Miriani. He stood at his post by the buffet, and ever and anon he would come forward to replenish Messer Ramiro"s cup in obedience to the monsters imperious orders.
What fort.i.tude was it, I wondered, that kept the old man outwardly so calm? His face was as the face of one who is dead, its features set and rigid, its colour ashen. But his step was tolerably firm, and his hand seemed to have lost the trembling that had a.s.sailed it under the first shock of the horror he had witnessed.
As I watched him furtively I thought that were I Ramiro I should beware of him. That frozen calm argued to me some terrible labour of the mind beneath that livid mask. But the Governor of Cesena appeared insensible, or else he was contemptuous of danger from that quarter. It may even have delighted his outrageous nature to behold a man whose son he had done to death with such brutality continue obedient and submissive to his will, for it may have flattered his vanity by the concession that bearing seemed to make to his grim power.
An hour went by, my second tale was done, and I was now entrancing Messer Ramiro with some impromptu verses upon the divorce of Giovanni Sforza, a theme set me by himself, when I was interrupted by the arrival of a soldier, who entered unannounced.
I paled and turned cold at the cry with which Ramiro rose to greet him, and the words he dropped, which told me that here was one of the riders of the party that, under Lucagnolo, had been ordered to search the country about Cattolica. Had they found Madonna?
"Messer Lucagnolo," the fellow announced, "has sent me to report to you the failure of his search to the west and north of Cattolica. He has beaten the country thoroughly for three leagues of the town on those two sides, as you desired him, but unfortunately without result. He is now spreading his search to the south, and not a house is being left unvisited. By morning he hopes to report again to your Excellency."
A wild wave of joy swept through my soul. They had ransacked the country west and north of Cattolica without result. Why then, a.s.suredly, they had missed the peasant"s hut that sheltered her, and where she waited yet for my return. Their search to the south I knew would prove equally futile. I could have fallen on my knees in a prayer of thanksgiving had my surroundings been other than they were.
Ramiro"s eye wandered round to me and settled on me in a lowering glance. By his face it was plain that the message disappointed him.
"I wonder," said he, "whether we could make you talk?" And from me his eyes roamed on to the instrument of torture at the end of that long chamber. I grew sick with fear, for if he were to do this thing, and maim me by it, how should I avail myself or her hereafter?
"Excellency," I cried, "since you met me you have hinted at something that I am hiding from you, at something touching which I could give you information did I choose. What it may be pa.s.ses all thought of mine. But this I do a.s.sure you: no torture could make me tell you what I do not know, nor is any torture needed to extract from me such information as I may be possessed of. I do but beg that you wilt frankly question me upon this matter, whatever it may be, and your Excellency shall be answered to the best of my knowledge."
He looked at me as if taken aback a little by my a.s.surance and the seemingly transparent candour of my speech, and in his face I saw that he believed me. A moment he hesitated yet; then--
"I am seeking knowledge concerning Madonna Paolo di Santafior," he said presently, resuming, as he spoke, his seat at table. "As I told you, the body, which was believed to be dead, was stolen in the night from San Domenico. Know you aught of this?"
It may be an ign.o.ble thing to lie, but with what other weapon was I to fight this brigand? Surely if an exception can be made to the rule, and a lie become a meritorious thing, such an occasion as this would surely justify such an exception.
"I know nothing," I answered boldly, unhesitatingly, and even with a ring of truth and sincerity that was calculated to convince, "nor can I even believe this rumour. It is a wild story. That the body has been stolen may be true enough. Such things occur; though he was a bold man who laid hands upon the body of a person of such importance. But that she lives--Gesu! that is an old wife"s tale. I had, myself, the word of the Lord Filippo"s physician that she was dead."
"Nevertheless, this old wife"s tale, as you dub it, is one of which I have had confirmation. Lend me your wits, Boccadoro, and you shall not regret it. Exercise them now, and conjecture me who could have abstracted the body from the church. In seeking this information I am acting in the interests of the n.o.ble House of Borgia which I serve and to which she was to have been allied, as you well know."
I could have laughed to see how the apparent sincerity of my denial had convinced him to such an extent that he even sought my help to discover the true thief, and to account for his interest in the matter he lied to me of his service to the House of Borgia.
"I will gladly lend you these wits," said I, "to disprove to you the rumour of which you say that you have confirmation. Let us accept the statement that the body has been stolen. That much, no doubt, is true, for even rumours require some slight foundation. But who in all this world could say that when the body was taken it was not dead?
Clearly but one man--he that administered the poison. And, I ask your Excellency, would he be likely to tell the world what he had done?"
He might have answered me: "I am that man." But he did not. Instead, he hung his head, as if pondering the words of wisdom I had uttered--words meant to convince him of my own innocence in the matter; and this they achieved, at least in part. He flashed me a look of sudden suspicion, it is true; but it faded almost as soon as it shone from his brooding eye.
"Maybe I am a fool that I do not string you up and test the truth of what you say," he grumbled. "But I incline to believe you, and you are a merry rogue. You shall remain and have peace and comfort so long as you amuse me. But tremble if I discover that you have sought to deceive me.
You shall have the cord first and other things after, and your death shall be the thing you"ll pray for long before it takes you from my vengeance. If you know aught, speak now and you shall find me merciful.
Your life and liberty shall be the recompense of your honesty towards me."
"I repeat, Excellency," I answered, without changing colour, "that all that I know have I already told you."
He was convinced, I think, for the time being.
"Get you gone, then," he bade me. "I have other business to deal with ere I sleep. Mariani, see that Boccadoro is well lodged."
The old man bowed, and lifting a torch from its socket, he silently motioned me to go with him. I made Messer Ramiro a profound obeisance, and withdrew in the wake of the seneschal.
He led me up a flight of stairs that rose from the hall and along a gallery that ran half round it, then plunging down a corridor he halted presently, and, opening a door, ushered me into a tolerably furnished room.
A servant followed hanging the clothes that I had worn when I arrived.
The old man lingered a moment after the servant had withdrawn, and his hollow eyes rested on me for a second. I thought that he was on the point of saying something, and I waited returning his glance with one that quailed before the anguish of his own. I feared to speak, to offer an expression of the sympathy that filled my heart; for in that strange place I could not tell how far a man was to be trusted--even a man so wronged as this one. On his own part it may be that a like doubt beset him concerning me, for in the end he departed as he had come, no word having pa.s.sed his ashen lips.
Left alone, I surveyed my surroundings by the light of the taper he had left in the iron sconce on the wall. The single window overlooked the courtyard, so that even had I been disposed and able to cut through the iron that barred it, I should but succeed in falling into the hands of the guards who abounded in that nest of infamy.
So that, for the night at least, the notion of flight must be abandoned.
What the morrow would bring forth we must wait and see. Perhaps some way of escape would offer itself. Then my thoughts returned to Paola, and I was tortured by surmises as to her fate, and chiefly as to how she could have eluded the search that must have been made for her in the hut where I had left her. Had the peasant befriended her, I wondered; and what did she think of my protracted absence? I sat on the edge of the bed and gave rein to my conjectures. The noises in the castle had all ceased, and still I sat on, unconscious of time, my taper burning low.
It may have been midnight when I was startled by the sound of a stealthy step in the corridor near my door. A heavy footfall I should have left unheeded, but this soft tread aroused me on the instant, and I sat listening.
It halted at my door, and was succeeded by a soft, scratching sound.
Noiselessly I rose, and with ready hands I waited, prepared, in the instinct of self-preservation, to fall upon the intruder, however futile the act might be. But the door did not open as I expected. Instead, the scratching sound continued, growing slightly louder. Then it occurred to me, at last, that whoever came might be a friend craving admittance, and proceeding stealthily that others in the castle might not overhear him.
Swiftly I crossed to the door, and opened. On the threshold a dark figure straightened itself from a stooping posture, and the light of the taper behind me fell on a face of a pallor that seemed to glisten in its intensity. It was the face of Mariani, the seneschal of the Castle of Cessna.
One glance we exchanged, and intuitively I seemed to apprehend the motive of this midnight visit. He came either to bring me aid or to seek mine, with vengeance for his guerdon. I stood aside, and silently he entered my room and closed the door.
"Quench your taper," he bade me in a husky whisper.
Without hesitation I obeyed him, a strange excitement thrilling me. For a second we stood in the dark, then another light gleamed as he plucked away the cloak that masked a lanthorn which he had brought with him. He set the lanthorn on the floor, and held the cloak in his hand, ready at a moment"s notice to conceal the light in its folds. Then pulling me down beside him on the bed, where he had perched himself:
"My friend," said he, "it may be that I bring you a.s.sistance."
"Speak, then," I bade him. "You shall not find me slow to act if there is the need or the way."
"So I had surmised," he said. "Are you not that same Boccadoro, Fool of the Court of Pesaro, who donned the Lord Giovanni"s armour and rode out to do battle in his stead?"