I answered him that I was that man.
"I have heard the tale," said he. "Indeed, all Italy has heard it, and knows you for a man of steel, as strong and audacious as you are cunning and resourceful. I know against what desperate odds you fought that day, and how you overcame this terrible Ramiro. This it is that leads me to hope that in the service of your own ends you may become the instrument of my vengeance."
"Unfold your project, man," I muttered, fiercely almost, in my burning eagerness. "Let me hear what you would have me do."
He did not answer me until a sob had shaken his old frame.
"That boy," he muttered brokenly, "that golden-haired angel sent me for the consolation of my decaying years, that lad whom Ramiro destroyed so foully and wantonly, was my son. Futile though the attempt had proved, I had certainly set my hands at the tyrants neck, but that I founded hopes on you of a surer and more terrible revenge. That thought has manned me and upheld me when anguish was near to slaying me outright. To see the boy burn so under my very eyes! G.o.d of mercy and pity! That I should have lived so long!"
"Your child burned but a moment, suffered but an instant; for the deed, Ramiro will burn in h.e.l.l through countless generations, through interminable ages."
It was a paltry consolation, perhaps, but it was the best that then occurred to me.
"Meanwhile," I begged him, "do you tell me what you would have me do."
I urged him to it that he might, thereby, suffer his mind to rest a moment from pondering that ghastly thing that he had witnessed, that scene that would live before his eyes until they closed in their last sleep.
"You heard Lampugnani quip Ramiro with the fact that three messengers have ridden desperately within the week from Citta di Castello to Cesena, and you heard, perhaps, his obscure reference to the hat?"
"I heard both, and both I weighed," said I. The old man looked at me as if surprised.
"And what," he asked, "was the conclusion you arrived at?"
"Why, simply this: that whilst the messenger bore some letter from Vitelli to Ramiro that should serve to lull the suspicions of any who, wondering at so much traffic between these two, should be moved to take a peep into those missives, the true letter with which the courier rides is concealed within the lining of his hat--probably unknown even to himself."
He stared at me as though I had been a wizard.
"Messer Boccadoro--" he began.
"My name," I corrected him, "is Biancomonte--Lazzaro Biancomonte."
"Whatever be your name," he returned, "of the quality of your wits there can be no question. You have guessed for yourself the half of what I was come to tell you. Has your shrewdness borne you any further? Have you concluded aught concerning the nature of those letters?"
"I have concluded that it might repay some trouble to discover what is contained in letters that are sent with so much secrecy. I can conceive nothing that might lie between the Lord of Citta di Castello and this ruffian of Cesena, and yet--treason lurks often where least it is expected, and treason makes stranger bed-fellows than misfortune."
"Lampugnani was no fool, and yet a great fool," the old man murmured. He surmised what you have surmised. With each of the messengers Ramiro has dealt in the same manner. He has sent each to be fed and refreshed whilst waiting to return with the answer he was penning. For their refreshment he has ordered a very full, stout wine--not drugged, for that they might discover upon awaking; but a wine that of itself would do the work of setting them to sleep very soundly. Then, when all slept, and only he remained at table, like the drunkard that he is, it has been his habit to descend himself to the kitchen and possess himself of the messenger"s hat. With this he has returned to the hall, opened the lining and withdrawn a letter.
"Then, as I suppose, he has penned his answer, thrust it into the lining, where the other one had been, and secured it, as it was before, with his own hands. He has returned the hat to the place from whence he took it, and when the courier awakens in the morning there is another letter put into his hand, and he is bidden to bear it to Vitelli."
He paused a moment; then continued: "Lampugnani must have suspected something and watched Ramiro to make sure that his suspicions were well founded. In that he was wise, but he was a fool to allow Ramiro to see what lie he had discovered. Already he has paid the penalty. He is lying with a dagger in his throat, for an hour ago Ramiro stabbed him while he slept."
I shuddered. What a place of blood was this! Could it be that Cesare Borgia had no knowledge of what things were being performed by his Governor of Cesena?
"Poor Lampugnani!" I sighed. "G.o.d rest his soul."
"I doubt but he is in h.e.l.l," answered Mariani, without emotion. "He was as great a villain as his master, and he has gone to answer for his villainy even as this ugly monster of a Ramiro shall. But let Lampugnani be. I am not come to talk of him.
"Returning from his b.l.o.o.d.y act, Ramiro ordered me to bed. I went, and as I pa.s.sed Lampugnani"s room I saw the door standing wide. It was thus that I learnt what had befallen. I remembered his words concerning the hat and I remembered old suspicions of my own aroused by the thought of the potent wine which Ramiro had ordered me to see given to the couriers. I sped back to the gallery that overlooks the hall. Ramiro was absent, and I surmised at once that he was gone to the kitchen. Then was it that I thought of you and of what service you might render if things were indeed as I now more than suspected. Like an inspiration it came to me how I might prepare your way. I ran down to the hall, sweating in my terror that he should return ere I had performed the task I went on.
From the buffet I drew a flagon of that same stout wine that Ramiro used upon his messengers. I ripped away the seal and crimson cord by which it is distinguished, and placing it on the table I removed the flagon I had set for him before I had first departed.
"Then I fled back to the gallery, and from the shadows I watched for his return. Soon he came, bearing a hat in his hand; and from that hat he took a letter, all as you have surmised. He read it, and I saw his face lighten with a fierce excitement. Then he helped himself freely to wine, and drank thirstily, for all that he was overladen with it. One of the qualities of this wine is that in quenching thirst it produces yet a greater. Ramiro drank again, then sat with the letter before him in the light of the single taper I had left burning. Presently he grew sleepy.
He shook himself and drank again. Then again he sat conning his epistle, and thus I left him and came hither in quest of you."
There followed a pause.
"Well?" I asked at length. "What is it you would have me do? Stab him as he sleeps?"
He shook his head. "That were too sweet and sudden a death for him. If it had been no more than a matter of that, my old arms would have lent me strength enough. But think you it would repay me for having seen my boy pinned by that monster"s pike to the burning logs?"
"What is it, then, you ask of me?"
"If that letter were indeed the treasonable doc.u.ment we account it; if its treason should be aimed at Cesare Borgia--it could scarce be aimed at another--would it not be a sweet thing to obtain possession of it?"
"Aye, but when he wakes to-morrow and finds it gone--what then? You know this Governor of Cesena well enough to be a.s.sured that he would ransack the castle, torture, rack, burn and flay us all until the missive were forthcoming."
"That," he groaned, "is what deterred me. If I had the means of getting the letter sent to Cesare Borgia, or of escaping with it myself from Cesena, I should not have hesitated. Cesare Borgia is lying at Faenza, and I could ride there in a day. But it would be impossible for me to leave the place before morning. I have duties to perform in the town, and I might get away whilst I am about them, but before then the letter will have been missed, and no one will be allowed to leave the citadel."
"Why then," said I, "the only hope lies in abstracting that letter in such a manner that he shall not suspect the loss; and that seems a very desperate hope."
We sat in silence for some moments, during which I thought intently to little purpose.
"Does he sleep yet, think you?" I asked presently.
"a.s.suredly he must."
"And if I were to go to the gallery, is there any fear that I should be discovered by others?"
"None. All at Cesena are asleep by now."
"Then," said I, rising, "let us take a look at him. Who knows what may suggest itself? Come." I moved towards the door, and he took up his lanthorn and followed me, enjoining me to tread lightly.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE LETTER
On tiptoe I crept down that corridor to the gallery above the banqueting-hall, secure from sight in the enveloping darkness, and intent upon allowing no sound to betray my presence, lest Ramiro should have awakened. Behind me, treading as lightly, came Messer Mariani.
Thus we gained the gallery. I leaned against the stout oaken bal.u.s.trade, and looked down into the black pit of the hall, broken in the centre by the circle of light from the two tapers that burnt upon the table. The other torches had all been quenched.
At the table sat Messer Ramiro, his head fallen forward and sideways upon his right arm which was outstretched and limp along the board.
Before him lay a paper which I inferred to be the letter whose possession might mean so much.
I could hear the old man breathing heavily beside me as I leaned there in the dark, and sought to devise a means by which that paper might be obtained. No doubt it would be the easiest thing in the world to s.n.a.t.c.h it away without disturbing him. But there was always to be considered that when he waked and missed the letter we should have to reckon with his measures to regain possession of it.
It became necessary, therefore, to go about it in a manner that should leave him unsuspicious of the theft. A little while I pondered this, deeming the thing desperate at first. Then an idea came to me on a sudden, and turning to Mariani I asked him could he find me a sheet of paper of about the size of that letter held by Ramiro. He answered me that he could, and bade me wait there until he should return.