"At practice?" she echoed, dully as one who does not understand. Then very slowly she shook her sorrowful head. "Men practise what they must one day perform, Agostino. To your books, then, and leave swords for b.l.o.o.d.y men, nor ever let me see you again with weapons in your hands if you respect me."
"Had you not come hither, madam mother, you had been spared the sight to-day," I answered with some lingering spark of my rebellious fire still smouldering.
"It was G.o.d"s will that I should come to set a term to such vanities before they take too strong a hold upon you," answered she. "Lay down those weapons."
Had she been angry, I think I could have withstood her. Anger in her at such a time must have been as steel upon the flint of my own nature. But against that incarnation of sorrow and sadness, my purpose, my strength of character were turned to water. By similar means had she ever prevailed with my poor father. And I had, too, the habit of obedience which is not so lightly broken as I had at first accounted possible.
Sullenly then I set down my sword upon a bench that stood against the wall, and my target with it. As I turned aside to do so, her gloomy eyes were poised for an instant upon Falcone, who stood grim and silent. Then they were lowered again ere she began to address him.
"You have done very ill, Falcone," said she. "You have abused my trust in you, and you have sought to pervert my son and to lead him into ways of evil."
He started under that reproof like a fiery stallion under the spur. His face flushed scarlet. The habit of obedience may have been strong in Falcone too; but it was obedience to men; with women he had never had much to do, old warrior though he was. Moreover, in this he felt that an affront had been put upon the memory of Giovanni d"Anguissola, who was my father and who went nigh to being Falcone"s G.o.d. And this his answer plainly showed.
"The ways into which I lead your son, Madonna," said he in a low voice that boomed up and echoed in the groined ceiling overhead, "are the ways that were trod by my lord his father. And who says that the ways of Giovanni d"Anguissola were evil ways lies foully, be he man or woman, patrician or villein, pope or devil." And upon that he paused magnificently, his eyes aflash.
She shuddered under his rough speech. Then answered without looking up, and with no trace of anger in her voice:
"You are restored to health and strength by now, Messer Falcone. The seneschal shall have orders to pay you ten gold ducats in discharge of all that may be still your due from us. See that by night you have left Mondolfo."
And then, without changing her deadly inflection, or even making a noticeable pause, "Come, Agostino," she commanded.
But I did not move. Her words had fixed me there with horror. I heard from Falcone a sound that was between a growl and a sob. I dared not look at him, but the eye of my fancy saw him standing rigid, pale, and self-contained.
What would he do, what would he say? Oh, she had done a cruel, a bitterly cruel wrong. This poor old warrior, all scarred and patched from wounds that he had taken in my father"s service, to be turned away in his old age, as we should not have turned away a dog! It was a monstrous thing. Mondolfo was his home. The Anguissola were his family, and their honour was his honour, since as a villein he had no honour of his own. To cast him out thus!
All this flashed through my anguished mind in one brief throb of time, as I waited, marvelling what he would do, what say, in answer to that dismissal.
He would not plead, or else I did not know him; and I was sure of that, without knowing what else there was that must make it impossible for old Falcone to stoop to ask a favour of my mother.
Awhile he just stood there, his wits overthrown by sheer surprise. And then, when at last he moved, the thing he did was the last thing that I had looked for. Not to her did he turn; not to her, but to me, and he dropped on one knee before me.
"My lord!" he cried, and before he added another word I knew already what else he was about to say. For never yet had I been so addressed in my lordship of Mondolfo. To all there I was just the Madonnino. But to Falcone, in that supreme hour of his need, I was become his lord.
"My lord," he said, then. "Is it your wish that I should go?"
I drew back, still wrought upon by my surprise; and then my mother"s voice came cold and acid.
"The Madonnino"s wish is not concerned in this, Mester Falcone. It is I who order your departure."
Falcone did not answer her; he affected not to hear her, and continued to address himself to me.
"You are the master here, my lord," he urged. "You are the law in Mondolfo. You carry life and death in your right hand, and against your will no man or woman in your lordship can prevail."
He spoke the truth, a mighty truth which had stood like a mountain before me all these months, yet which I had not seen.
"I shall go or remain as you decree, my lord," he added; and then, almost in a snarl of defiance, "I obey none other," he concluded, "nor pope nor devil."
"Agostino, I am waiting for you," came my mother"s voice from the doorway.
Something had me by the throat. It was Temptation, and old Falcone was the tempter. More than that was he--though how much more I did not dream, nor with what authority he acted there. He was the Mentor who showed me the road to freedom and to manhood; he showed me how at a blow I might shiver the chains that held me, and shake them from me like the cobwebs that they were. He tested me, too; tried my courage and my will; and to my undoing was it that he found me wanting in that hour. My regrets for him went near to giving me the resolution that I lacked. Yet even these fell short.
I would to G.o.d I had given heed to him. I would to G.o.d I had flung back my head and told my mother--as he prompted me--that I was lord of Mondolfo, and that Falcone must remain since I so willed it.
I strove to do so out of my love for him rather than out of any such fine spirit as he sought to inspire in me. Had I succeeded I had established my dominion, I had become arbiter of my fate; and how much of misery, of anguish, and of sin might I not thereafter have been spared!
The hour was crucial, though I knew it not. I stood at a parting of ways; yet for lack of courage I hesitated to take the road to which so invitingly he beckoned me.
And then, before I could make any answer such as I desired, such as I strove to make, my mother spoke again, and by her tone, which had grown faltering and tearful--as was her wont in the old days when she ruled my father--she riveted anew the fetters I was endeavouring with all the strength of my poor young soul to snap.
"Tell him, Agostino, that your will is as your mother"s. Tell him so and come. I am waiting for you."
I stifled a groan, and let my arms fall limply to my sides. I was a weakling and contemptible. I realized it. And yet to-day when I look back I see how vast a strength I should have needed. I was but thirteen and of a spirit that had been cowed by her, and was held under her thrall.
"I... I am sorry, Falcone," I faltered, and there were tears in my eyes.
I shrugged again--shrugged in token of my despair and grief and impotence--and I moved down the long room towards the door where my mother waited.
I did not dare to bestow another look upon that poor broken old warrior, that faithful, lifelong servant, turned thus cruelly upon the world by a woman whom bigotry had sapped of all human feelings and a boy who was a coward masquerading under a great name.
I heard his gasping sob, and the sound smote upon my heart and hurt me as if it had been iron. I had failed him. He must suffer more in the knowledge of my unworthiness to be called the son of that master whom he had worshipped than in the dest.i.tution that might await him.
I reached the door.
"My lord! My lord!" he cried after me despairingly. On the very threshold I stood arrested by that heartbroken cry of his. I half turned.
"Falcone... " I began.
And then my mother"s white hand fell upon my wrist.
"Come, my son," she said, once more impa.s.sive.
Nervelessly I obeyed her, and as I pa.s.sed out I heard Falcone"s voice crying:
"My lord, my lord! G.o.d help me, and G.o.d help you!" An hour later he had left the citadel, and on the stones of the courtyard lay ten golden ducats which he had scattered there, and which not one of the greedy grooms or serving-men could take courage to pick up, so fearful a curse had old Falcone laid upon that money when he cast it from him.
CHAPTER III. THE PIETISTIC THRALL
That evening my mother talked to me at longer length than I remember her ever to have done before.
It may be that she feared lest Gino Falcone should have aroused in me notions which it was best to lull back at once into slumber. It may be that she, too, had felt something of the crucial quality of that moment in the armoury, just as she must have perceived my first hesitation to obey her slightest word, whence came her resolve to check this mutiny ere it should spread and become too big for her.
We sat in the room that was called her private dining-room, but which, in fact, was all things to her save the chamber in which she slept.
The fine apartments through which I had strayed as a little lad in my father"s day, the handsome lofty chambers, with their frescoed ceilings, their walls hung with costly tapestries, many of which had come from the looms of Flanders, their floors of wood mosaics, and their great carved movables, had been shut up these many years.