We stayed in Fos...o...b..one little more than a half-hour, and having made a hasty supper we resumed our way, giving out that we wished to reach Fano ere we slept. And so by the first hour of night Fos...o...b..one was a league or so behind us, and we were advancing briskly towards the sea. Overhead a moon rode at the full in a clear sky, and its light was reflected by the snow, so that we were not discomforted by any darkness. We fell, presently, into a gentler pace, for, after all, there could be no advantage in reaching Pesaro before morning, and as we rode we talked, and I made bold to ask her the cause of her flight from Rome.
She told me then that she was Madonna Paola Sforza di Santafior, and that Pope Alexander, in his nepotism and his desire to make rich and powerful alliances for his family, had settled upon her as the wife for his nephew, Ignacio Borgia. He had been emboldened to this step by the fact that her only protector was her brother, Filippo di Santafior, whom they had sought to coerce. It was her brother, who, seeing himself in a dangerous and unenviable position, had secretly suggested flight to her, urging her to repair to her kinsman Giovanni Sforza at Pesaro. Her flight, however, must have been speedily discovered and the Borgias, who saw in that act a defiance of their supreme authority, had ordered her pursuit.
But for me, she concluded, that pursuits must have resulted in her capture, and once they had her back in Rome, willing or unwilling, they would have driven her into the alliance by means of which they sought to bring her fortune into their own house. This drew her into fresh protestations of the undying grat.i.tude she entertained towards me, protestations which I would have stemmed, but that she persisted in them.
"It is a good and n.o.ble thing that you have done," said she, "and I think that Heaven must have directed you to my aid, for it is scarce likely that in all Italy I should have found another man who would have done so much."
"Why, what, after all, is this much that I have done?" I cried. "It is no less than my manhood bade me do; no less than any other would have done seeing you so beset."
"Nay, that is more than I can ever think," she answered. "Who for the sake of an unknown would have suffered such inconveniences as have you? Who would have returned as you have returned to advise me of the defection of my grooms? Who, when other escort failed, would have gone the length of journeying all this way to render a service that is beyond repayment? And, above all, who for the sake of an unknown maid would have submitted to this travesty of yours?"
"Travesty?" quoth I, so struck by that as to interrupt her at last.
"What travesty, Madonna?"
"Why, this garb of motley that you donned the better to fool my pursuers and that you still wear in my poor service."
I turned in the saddle to stare at her, and in the moonlight I clearly saw her eyes meet mine. So! that was the reason of her kindness and of the easy familiarity of her speech with me! She deemed me some knight-errant who caracoled through Italy in quest of imperilled maidens needing aid. Of a certainty she had gathered her knowledge of the world from the works of Messer Bojardo, or perhaps from the "Amadis of Gaul"
of Messer Bernardo Ta.s.so. And, no doubt, she thought that suits of motley grew on bushes by the roadside, whence those who had a fancy for disguise might cull them.
Well, well, it were better she should know the truth at once, and choose such a demeanour as she considered fitting towards a Fool. I had no stomach for the courtesies that were meant for such a man as I was not.
"Madonna, you are in error," I informed her, speaking slowly. "This garb is no travesty. It is my usual raiment."
There was a pause and I saw the slackening of her reins. No doubt, had we been afoot she would have halted, the better to confront me.
"How?" she asked, and a new note, imperious and chill, was sounding already in her voice. "You would not have me understand that you are by trade a Fool?
"Allowing that I am not a fool by birth, under what other circ.u.mstances, think you, I should be likely to wear the garments of a Fool?"
"But this morning," she protested, after a brief pause, "when first I met you, you were not so arrayed."
"I was arrayed even as I am now, in a cloak and hat and boots that hid my motley from such undiscerning eyes as were yours and your grooms"--all taken up with your own fears as you then were."
There was in the tail of that a sting, as I meant there should be, for the sudden haughtiness of her tone was cutting into me. Was I less worthy of thanks because I was a Fool? Had I on that account done less to serve and save her? Or was it that the action which, in a spurred and armoured knight, had been accounted n.o.ble was deemed unworthy of thanks in a crested, motleyed jester? It seemed, indeed, that some such reasoning she followed, for after that we spoke no more until we were approaching Fano.
A many times before had I felt the shame of my ign.o.ble trade, but never so acutely as at that moment. It had seared my soul when Giovanni Sforza had told my story to his Court, ere he had driven me from Pesaro with threats of hanging, and it had burned even deeper when later, Madonna Lucrezia, upon entrusting me with her letter to her brother, had upbraided me with the supineness that so long had held me in that vile bondage. But deepest of all went now the burning iron of that disgrace.
For my companion"s silence seemed to argue that had she known my quality she would have scorned the aid of which she had availed herself to such good purpose. If any doubt of this had mercifully remained me, her next words would have served to have resolved it. It was when the lights of Fano gleamed ahead; we were coming to a cross-roads, and I urged the turning to the left.
"But Fano is in front," she remonstrated coldly.
"This way we can avoid the town and gain the Pesaro road beyond it,"
answered I, my tone as cool as hers.
"Yet may it not be that at Fano I might find an escort?"
I could have cried out at her cruelty, for in her words I could but read my dismissal from her service. There had been no more talk of an escort other than that which I afforded, and with which at first she had been well content.
I sat my mule in silence for a moment. She had been very justly served had I been the va.s.sal that she deemed me, and had I borne myself in that character without consideration of her s.e.x, her station or her years.
She had been very justly served had I wheeled about and left her there to make her way to Fano, and thence to Pesaro, as best she might. She was without money, as I knew, and she would have found in Fano such a reception as would have brought the bitter tears of late repentance to her pretty eyes.
But I was soft-hearted, and, so, I reasoned with her; yet in a manner that was to leave her no doubt of the true nature of her situation, and the need to use me with a little courtesy for the sake of what I might yet do, if she lacked the grace to treat me with grat.i.tude for the sake of that which I had done already.
"Madonna," said I. "It were wiser to choose the by-road and forego the escort, since we have dispensed with it so far. There are many reasons why a lady should not seek to enter Fano at this hour of night."
"I know of none," she interrupted me.
"That may well be. Nevertheless they exist."
"This night-riding in so lonely a fashion is little to my taste," she told me sullenly. "I am for Fano."
She had the mercy to spare me the actual words, yet her tone told me as plainly as if she had uttered them that I could go with her or not, as I should choose. In silence, very sore at heart, I turned my mule"s head once more towards the lights of the town.
"Since you are resolved, so be it," was all my answer; and we proceeded.
No word did we exchange until we had entered the main street, when she curtly asked me which was the best inn.
""The Golden Fish,"" said I, as curtly, and to "The Golden Fish" we went.
Arrived there, Madonna Paola took affairs into her own hands. She dismounted, leaving the reins with a groom, and entering the common-room she proclaimed her needs to those that occupied it by loudly calling upon the landlord to find her an escort of three or four knaves to accompany her at once to Pesaro, where they should be well rewarded by the Lord Giovanni, her cousin.
I had followed her in, and I ground my teeth at such an egregious piece of folly. Her hood was thrown back, displaying the lenza of fine linen on her sable hair, and over this a net of purest gold all set with jewels. Her camorra, too, was open, and in her girdle there were gems for all to see. There were but a half-dozen men in the room. Two of these had a venerable air--they may have been traders journeying to Milan--whilst a third, who sat apart, was a slender, effeminate-looking youth. The remaining three were fellows of rough aspect, and when one of them--a black-browed ruffian--raised his eyes and fastened them upon the riches that Madonna Paola with such indifference displayed, I knew what was to follow.
He rose upon the instant, and stepping forward, he made her a low bow.
"Ill.u.s.trious lady," said he, "if these two friends of mine and I find favour with you, here is an escort ready found. We are stout fellows, and very faithful."
Faithful to their cut-throat trade, I made no doubt he meant.
His fellows now rose also, and she looked them over, giving herself the airs of having spent her virgin life in judging men by their appearance.
It was in vain I tugged her cloak, in vain I murmured the word "wait"
under cover of my hand. She there and then engaged them, and bade them make ready to set out at once. One more attempt I made to induce her to alter her resolve.
"Madonna," said I, "it is an unwise thing to go a-journeying by night with three unknown men, and of such villainous appearance. To me they seem no better than bandits."
We were standing apart from the others, and she was sipping a cup of spiced wine that the host had mulled for her. She looked at me with a tolerant smile.
"They are poor men," said she. "Would you have them robed in velvet?"
"My quarrel is with their looks, Madonna, not their garments," I answered patiently. She laughed lightly, carelessly; even, I thought, a trifle scornfully.
"You are very fanciful," said she, then added--"but if so be that you are afraid to trust yourself in their company, why then, sir, I need bring you no farther out of the road that you were following when first we met."
Did the child think that some jealousy actuated me, and prompted me to inspire her with mistrust of my supplanters? She angered me. Yet now, more than ever was I resolved to journey with her. Leave her at the mercy of those ruffians, whom in her ignorance she was mad enough to trust, I could not--not even had she whipped me. She was so young, so frail and slight, that none but a craven could have found it in his heart to have deserted her just then.
"If it please you Madonna," I answered smoothly, "I will make bold to travel on with you."
It may be that my even accents stung her; perhaps she read in them some measure of reproof of the ingrat.i.tude that lay in her altered bearing towards me. Her eyes met mine across the table, and seemed to harden as she looked. Her answer came in a vastly altered tone.