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The Shame of Motley, a novel by Rafael Sabatini |
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Part 1. Flower Of The Quince - Chapter 7. The Summons From Rome |
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_ PART I. FLOWER OF THE QUINCE CHAPTER VII. THE SUMMONS FROM ROME If Madonna Paola did not achieve quite all that she had promised me so readily, yet she achieved more than from my acquaintance with the nature of Giovanni Sforza--and my knowledge of the deep malice he entertained for me--I should have dared to hope. The Tyrant of Pesaro, as I was soon to learn, was greatly taken with this fair cousin of his, whom that morning he had beheld for the first time. And being taken with her, it may be that Giovanni listened the more readily to her intercessions on my poor behalf. Since it was she who begged this thing, he could not wholly refuse. But since he was Giovanni Sforza, he could not wholly grant. He promised her that my life, at least, should be secure, and that not only would he pardon me, but that he would have his own physician see to it that I was made sound again. For the time, that was enough, he thought. First let them bring me back to life. When that was achieved, it would be early enough to consider what course this life should take thereafter. And she, knowing him not and finding him so kind and gracious, trusted that he would perform that which he tricked her into believing that he promised. For some ten days I lay abed, feverish at first and later very weak from the great loss of blood I had sustained. But after the second day, when my fever had abated, I had some visitors, among whom was Madonna Paola, who bore me the news that her intercessions for me with the Lord of Pesaro were likely to bear fruit, and that I might look for my reinstatement. Yet, if I permitted myself to hope as she bade me; I did so none too fully. My situation, bearing in mind how at once I had served and thwarted the ends of Cesare Borgia, was perplexing. Another visitor I had was Messer Magistri--the pompous seneschal of Pesaro--who, after his own fashion, seemed to have a liking for me, and a certain pity. Here was my chance of discharging the true errand on which I was returned. "I owe thanks," said I, "to many circumstances for the sparing of my life; but above all people and all things do I owe thanks to our gracious Lady Lucrezia. Do you think, Messer Magistri, that she would consent to see me and permit me again to express the gratitude that fills my heart?" Mosser Magistri thought that he could promise this, and consented to bear my message to her. Within the hour she was at my bedside and divining that, haply, I had news to give her of the letter I had born her brother, she dismissed Magistri who was in attendance. Once we were alone her first words were of kindly concern for my condition, delivered in that sweet, musical voice that was by no means the least charm of a princess to whom Nature had been prodigal of gifts. For without going to that length of exaggerated praise which some have bestowed--for her own ear, and with an eye to profit--upon Madonna Lucrezia, yet were I less than truthful if I sought to belittle her ample claims to beauty. Some six years later than the time of which I write she was met on the occasion of her entry into Ferrara by a certain clown dressed in the scanty guise of the shepherd Paris, who proffered her the apple of beauty with the mean-souled flattery that since beholding her he had been forced to alter his old-time judgment in favour of Venus. He lied, like the brazen, self-seeking adulator that he was, and for which he should have been soundly whipped. Her nose was a shade too long, her chin a shade too short to admit, even remotely, of such comparisons. Still, that she had a certain gracious beauty, as I have said, it is not mine to deny. There was an almost childish freshness in her face, an almost childish innocence in her fine gray eyes, and, above all, a golden and resplendent hair as brought to mind the tresses of God's angels. That fair child--for no more than a child was she--drew a chair to my bedside. There she sate herself, whilst I thanked her for her concern on my behalf, and answered that I was doing well enough, and should be abroad again in a day or two. "Brave lad," she murmured, patting my hand, which lay upon the coverlet, as though she had been my sister and I anything but a Fool, "count me ever your friend hereafter, for what you have done for Madonna Paola. For although it was my own family you thwarted, yet you did so to serve one who is more to me than any family, more than any sister could be." "What I did, Madonna," I answered, "I did with the better heart since it opened out a way that was barred me, solved me a riddle which my Lord, your Illustrious brother, set me--one that otherwise might well have overtaxed my wits." "Ah?" Her gray eyes fell on me in a swift and searching glance, a glance that revealed to the full their matchless beauty. Care seemed of a sudden to have aged her face. The question of her eyes needed no translation into words. "The Lord Cardinal of Valencia entrusted me with a letter for you, in answer to your own," I informed her, and from underneath my pillow I drew the package, which during Magistri's absence I had abstracted from my boot that I might have it in readiness when she came. She sighed as she took it, and a wistful smile invested the corners of her mouth. "I had hoped he would have found better employment for you," she said. "His Excellency promised that he would more fitly employ me in the future did I discharge this errand with secrecy and despatch. But by aiding Madonna Paola I have burned my boats against returning to claim the redemption of that promise; though had it not been for Madonna Paola and what I did, I scarce know how I should have penetrated here to you." She broke the seal, and rising crossed to the window, where she stood reading the letter, her back toward me. Presently I heard a stifled sob. The letter was crushed in her hand. Then moments passed ere she confronted me once more. But her manner as all changed; she was agitated and preoccupied, and for all that she forced herself to talk of me and my affairs, her mind was clearly elsewhere. At last she left me, nor did I see her again during the time I was confined to my bed. On the eleventh day I rose, and the weather being mild and spring-like, I was permitted by my grave-faced doctor to take the air a little on the terrace that overlooks the sea. I found no garments but some suits of motley, and so, in despite of my repugnance now to reassume that garb, I had no choice but to array myself in one of these. I selected the least garish one--a suit of black and yellow stripes, with hose that was half black, half yellow, too; and so, leaning upon the crutch they had left me, I crept forth into the sunlight, the very ghost of the man that I had been a fortnight ago. I found a stone seat in a sheltered corner looking southward towards Ancona, and there I rested me and breathed the strong invigorating air of the Adriatic. The snows were gone, and between me and the wall some twenty paces off--there was a stretch of soft, green turf. I had brought with me a book that Madonna Lucrezia had sent me while I was yet abed. It was a manuscript collection of Spanish odes, with the proverbs of one Domenico Lopez--all very proper nourishment for a jester's mind. The odes seemed to possess a certain quaintness, and among the proverbs there were many that were new to me in framing and in substance. Moreover, I was glad of this means of improving my acquaintance with the tongue of Spain, and I was soon absorbed. So absorbed, indeed, as never to hear the footsteps of the Lord Giovanni, when presently he approached me unattended, nor to guess at his presence until his shadow fell athwart my page. I raised my eyes, and seeing who it was I made shift to get on my feet; but he commanded me to remain seated, commenting sympathetically upon my weak condition. He asked me what I read, and when I had told him, a thin smile fluttered across his white face. "You choose your reading with rare judgment," said he. "Read on, and prime your mind with fresh humour, prepare yourself with new conceits for our amusement against the time when health shall be more fully restored you." It was in such words as these that he intimated to me that I was pardoned, and reinstated--as the Fool of the Court of Pesaro. That was to be the sum of his clemency. We were precisely where we had been. Once before had he granted me my life on condition that I should amuse him; he did no more than repeat that mercy now. I stared at him in wonder, open-mouthed, whereit he laughed. "You are agreeably surprised, my Boccadoro?" said he, his fingers straying to his beard as was his custom. "My clemency is no more than you deserve in return for the service you have rendered to the House of Sforza." And he patted my head as though I had been one of his dogs that had borne itself bravely in the chase. I answered nothing. I sat there as if I had been a part of the stone from which my seat was hewn, for I lacked the strength to rise and strangle him as he deserved--moreover, I was bound by an oath, which it would have damned my soul to break, never to raise my hand against him. And then, before he could say more, two ladies issued from the doorway on my right. They were Madonna Lucrezia and Madonna Paola. Upon espying me they hastened forward with expressions of pleased surprise at seeing me risen and out, and when I would have got to my feet they stayed me as Giovanni had done. Madonna Paola's words seemed addressed to heaven rather than to me, for they were words of thanksgiving for this recovery of my strength. "I have no thanks," she ended warmly, "that can match the deeds by which you earned them, Messer Biancomonte." My eyes drifting to Giovanni's face surprised its sudden darkening. "Madonna Paola," said he, in an icy voice, "you have uttered a name that must not be heard within my walls of Pesaro, if you would prove yourself the friend of Boccadoro. To remind me of his true identity is to remind me of that which counts not in his favour." She turned to regard him, a mild surprise in her blue eyes. "But, my lord, you promised--" she began. "I promised," he interposed, with an easy smile and manner never so deprecatory, "that I would pardon him, grant him his life and restore him to my favour." "But did you not say that if he survived and was restored to strength you would then determine the course his life should take?" Still smiling, he produced his comfit-box, and raised the lid. "That is a thing he seems to have determined for himself," he answered smoothly--he could be smooth as a cat upon occasion, could this bastard of Costanzo Sforza. "I came upon him here, arrayed as you behold him, and reading a book of Spanish quips. Is it not clear that he has chosen?" Between thumb and forefinger he balanced a sugar-crusted comfit of coriander seed steeped in marjoram vinegar, and having put his question he bore the sweet-meat to his mouth. The ladies looked at him, and from him to me. Then Madonna Paola spoke, and there seemed a reproachful wonder in her voice. "Is this indeed your choice?" she asked me. "It is the choice that was forced on me," said I, in heat. "They left me no garment save these of folly. That I was reading this book it pleases my lord to interpret into a further sign of my intentions." She turned to him again, and to the appeal she made was joined that of Madonna Lucrezia. He grew serious and put up his hand in a gesture of rare loftiness. "I am more clement than you think," said he, "in having done so much. For the rest, the restoration that you ask for him is one involving political issues you little dream of. What is this?" He had turned abruptly. A servant was approaching, leading a mud-splashed courier, whom he announced as having just arrived. "Whence are you?" Giovanni questioned him. "From the Holy See," answered the courier, bowing, "with letters for the High and Mighty Lord Giovanni Sforza, Tyrant of Pesaro, and his noble spouse, Madonna Lucrezia Borgia." He proffered his letters as he spoke, and Giovanni, whose brow had grown overcast, took them with a hand that seemed reluctant. Then bidding the servant see to the courier's refreshment, he dismissed them both. A moment he stood, balancing the parchments a if from their weight he would infer the gravity of their contents; and the affairs of Boccadoro were, there and then, forgotten by us all. For the thought that rose uppermost in our minds--saving always that of Madonna Lucrezia--was that these communications concerned the sheltering of Madonna Paola, and were a command for her immediate return to Rome. At last Giovanni handed his wife the letter intended for her, and, in silence, broke the seal of his own. He unfolded it with a grim smile, but scarce had he begun to read when his expression softened into one of terror, and his face grew ashen. Next it flared crimson, the veins on his brow stood out like ropes, and his eyes flashed furiously upon Madonna Lucrezia. She was reading, her bosom rising and falling in token of the excitement that possessed her. "Madonna," he cried in an awful voice, "I have here a command from the Holy See to repair at once to Rome, to answer certain charges that are preferred against me relating to my marriage. Madonna, know you aught of this?" "I know, sir," she answered steadily, "that I, too, have here a letter calling me to Rome. But there is no reason given for the summons." Intuitively it flashed across my mind that whatever the matter might be, Madonna Lucrezia had full knowledge of it through the letter I had brought her from her brother. "Can you conjecture, Madonna, what are these charges to which my letter vaguely alludes?" Giovanni was inquiring. "Your pardon, but the subject is scarcely of a nature to permit discussion in the castle courtyard. Its character is intimate." He looked at her very searchingly, but for all that he was a man of almost twice her years, her wits were more than a match for his, and his scrutiny can have told him nothing. She preserved a calm, unruffled front. "In five minutes, Madonna," said he, very sternly, "I shall be honoured if you will receive me in your closet." She inclined her head, murmuring an unhesitating assent. Satisfied, he bowed to her and to Madonna Paola--who had been looking on with eyes that wonder had set wide open--and turning on his heel he strode briskly away. As he passed into the castle, Madonna Lucrezia heaved a sigh and rose. "My poor Boccadoro," she cried, "I fear me your affairs must wait a while. But think of me always as your friend, and believe that if I can prevail upon my brother to overlook the ill-turn you did him when you entered the service of this child"--and she pointed to Madonna Paola--"I shall send for you from Rome, for in Pesaro I fear you have little to hope for. But let this be a secret between us." From those words of hers I inferred, as perhaps she meant I should, that once she left Pesaro to obey her father's summons, our little northern state was to know her no more. Once again, only, did I see her, on the occasion of her departure, some four days later, and then but for a moment. Back to Pesaro she came no more, as you shall learn anon; but behind her she left a sweet and fragrant memory, which still endures though many years are sped and much calumny has been heaped upon her name. I might pause here to make some attempt at refuting the base falsehoods that had been bruited by that time-serving vassal Guicciardini, and others of his kidney, whom the upstart Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere--sometime pedlar--in his jealous fury at seeing the coveted pontificate pass into the family of Borgia, bought and hired to do his loathsome work of calumny and besmirch the fame of as sweet a lady as Italy has known. But this poor chronicle of mine is rather concerned with the history of Madonna Paola di Santafior, and it were a divergence well-nigh unpardonable to set my pen at present to that other task. Moreover, there is scarce the need. If any there be who doubt me, or if future generations should fall into the error of lending credence to the lies of that villain Guicciardini, of that arch-villain Giuliano della Rovere, or of other smaller fry who have lent their helot's pens to weave mendacious records of her life, dubbing her murderess, adulteress, and Heaven knows what besides--I will but refer them to the archives of Ferrara, whose Duchess she became at the age of one-and-twenty, and where she reigned for eighteen years. There shall it be found recorded that she was an exemplary, God-fearing woman; a faithful and honoured wife; a wise, devoted mother; and a princess, beloved and esteemed by her people for her piety, her charity and her wisdom. If such records as are there to be read by earnest seekers after truth be not sufficient to convince, and to reveal those others whom I have named in the light of their true baseness, then were it idle for me to set up in these pages a passing refutation of the falsehoods which it has grieved me so often to hear repeated. It was two days later that the Lord Giovanni set out for Rome, obedient to the command he had received. But before his departure--on the eve of it, to be precise--there arrived at Pesaro a very wonderful and handsome gentleman. This was the brother of Madonna Paola, the High and Mighty Lord Filippo di Santafior. He had had a hint in Rome that his connivance at his sister's defiant escape was suspected at the Vatican, and he had wisely determined that his health would thrive better in a northern climate for a while. A very splendid creature was this Lord Filippo, all shimmering velvet, gleaming jewels, costly furs and glittering gold. His face was effeminate, though finely featured, and resembled, in much, his sister's. He rode a cream-coloured horse, which seemed to have been steeped in musk, so strongly was it scented. But of all his affectations the one with which I as taken most was to see one of his grooms approach him when he dismounted, to dust his wondrous clothes down to his shoes, which he wore in the splayed fashion set by the late King of France who was blessed with twelve toes on each of his deformed feet. The Lord Giovanni, himself not lacking in effeminacy, was greatly taken by the wondrous raiment, the studied lisp and the hundred affectations of this peerless gallant. Had he not been overburdened at the time by the Papal business that impended, he might there and then have cemented the intimacy which was later to spring up between them. As it was, he made him very welcome, and placed at his and his sister's disposal the beautiful palace that his father had begun, and he, himself, had completed, which was known as the Palazza Sforza. On the morrow Giovanni left Pesaro with but a small retinue, in which I was thankful not to be included. Two days later Madonna Lucrezia followed her husband, the fact that they journeyed not together, seeming to wear an ominous significance. Her eyes had a swollen look, such as attends much weeping, which afterwards I took as proof that she knew for what purpose she was going, and was moved to bitter grief at the act to which her ambitious family was constraining her. After their departure things moved sluggishly at Pesaro. The nobles of the Lord Giovanni's Court repaired to their several houses in the neighboring country, and save for the officers of the household the place became deserted. Madonna Paola remained at the Sforza Palace, and I saw her only once during the two mouths that followed, and then it was about the streets, and she had little more than a greeting for me as she passed. At her side rode her brother, a splendid blaze of finery, falcon on wrist. My days were spent in reading and reflection, for there was naught else to do. I might have gone my ways, had I so wished it, but something kept me there at Pesaro, curious to see the events with which the time was growing big. We grew sadly stagnant during Lent, and what with the uneventful course of things, and the lean fare proscribed by Mother Church, it was a very dispirited Boccadoro that wandered aimlessly whither his dulling fancy took him. But in Holy Week, at last, we received an abrupt stir which set a whirlpool of excitement in the Dead Sea of our lives. It was the sudden reappearance of the Lord Giovanni. He came alone, dust-stained and haggard, on a horse that dropped dead from exhaustion the moment Pesaro was reached, and in his pallid cheek and hollow eye we read the tale of some great fear and some disaster. That night we heard the story of how he had performed the feat of riding all the way from Rome in four-and-twenty hours, fleeing for his life from the peril of assassination, of which Madonna Lucrezia had warned him. He went off to his Castle of Gradara, where he shut himself up with the trouble we could but guess at, and so in Pesaro, that brief excitement spent, we stagnated once again. I seemed an anomaly in so gloomy a place, and more than once did I think of departing and seeking out my poor old mother in her mountain home, contenting myself hereafter with labouring like any honest villano born to the soil. But there ever seemed to be a voice that bade me stay and wait, and the voice bore a suggestion of Madonna Paola. But why dissemble here? Why cast out hints of voices heard, supernatural in their flavour? The voice, I doubt not, was just my own inclination, which bade me hope that once again it might be mine to serve that lady. An eventful year in the history of the families of Sforza and Borgia was that year of grace 1497. Spring came, and ere it had quite grown to summer we had news of the assassination of the Duke of Gandia, and the tale that he was done to death by his elder brother, Cesare Borgia; a tale which seemed to lack for reasonable substantiation, and which, despite the many voices that make bold to noise it broadcast, may or may not be true. In that same month of June messages passed between Rome and Pesaro, and gradually the burden of the messages leaked out in rumours that Pope Alexander and his family were pressing the Lord Giovanni to consent to a divorce. At last he left Pesaro again; this time to journey to Milan and seek counsel with his powerful cousin, Lodovico, whom they called "The Moor." When he returned he was more sulky and downcast than ever, and at Gradara he lived in an isolation that had been worthy of a hermit. And thus that miserable year wore itself out, and, at last, in December, we heard that the divorce was announced, and that Lucrezia Borgia was the Tyrant of Pesaro's wife no more. The news of it and the reasons that were put forward as having led to it were roared across Italy in a great, derisive burst of laughter, of which the Lord Giovanni was the unfortunate and contemptible butt. _ |
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