Romance of Roman Villas Part 12

This patronage I owed solely to my own fame and not, as has been a.s.serted, to the favour of his daughter-in-law, Catherine de' Medici, for that princess had no love for her supposed half-brother Alessandro, or for his Florentine familiars.

Though I could never have been accessory to such vile work as to stab an unarmed and unsuspecting man, yet often as I thought of Alessandro's satyr leer, and the loathing bravely coupled with defiance which I had seen leap in answer to it in the face of his child d.u.c.h.ess, I thanked G.o.d that Lorenzino had no such squeamish conscience.

And yet,--as in the virgin purity of the orange-blossom, the voluptuous perfume yearningly foretells the luscious, perfect fruit, and the blush of the peach-bloom shows the flower coyly but triumphantly conscious that it will one day ripen into mouth-watering deliciousness,--so even then there were hints and prophecies in Margaret's budding womanliness that the time was approaching when she would not only awaken love but would herself know the joy of loving.

The time and the man were nearer than I thought.

It was a matter of but six years subsequent to our first meeting that, chancing to be again in Rome, I next encountered Ottavio Farnese.

He was no longer the pretty page who had served the d.u.c.h.ess at the Villa Madama, but had grown into a tall, handsome youth, with the first down of manhood upon his lip. Though much lighter in weight than myself and his rapier as slender as a child's toy, he had been well taught in fencing, as I learned when meeting him by chance in front of St. Peter's church, he, to my utter surprise, fell upon me crying out that I was a scurvy knave unfit to live.

As I am not the man to swallow insults of this sort we slashed at one another without further ceremony until the Papal guards, rushing from the Vatican, separated us. Recognising Ottavio as the grandson of the Pope (for Cardinal Farnese had on the death of Clement VI. succeeded to the tiara), they demanded why we fought. I replied that I had not the least idea, but Ottavio declared that it was to force me to confess what I had done with the casket which I had been commissioned to bring to the d.u.c.h.ess Margaret at Florence.

Laughing a little at his own zeal, but with all due deference I told him how the casket had been carried away by the Moors, on the evening when I repaired to Villa Madama to fetch it, and I had the happiness to convince him of the truth of my statement.

Dismissing the guards he strolled with me in the most amicable manner, informing me of many events which had happened during my absence in France.

The first in importance to himself was the fact that he was more madly than ever in love with the d.u.c.h.ess, and that she having experienced the brutality of one husband had no mind to venture another, and had announced her firm intention to remain a widow for the rest of her life.

In spite of this he had told her of his love, but she had treated him as a child and made sport of his pa.s.sion.

"I shall die of her disdain," he said to me, "for my love is beyond my power to conquer."

Taking him by the hand and perceiving that he was in a fever, and that unless some hope was extended to him he must lose either his life or his reason, I counselled him to keep a stout heart. "For," said I, "though you are young it is a fault which will lessen as years go by, and the Emperor surely will not look upon his daughter's repugnance to marriage with approval. Rumour hath it that he is on his way to punish, for a second time, the Moorish pirates who are back in their old nest at Tunis. When he visits Rome you should persuade the Pope to intercede with him in your behalf."

"As if I had not already thought of that!" Ottavio replied. "I have freely opened my heart to my grandfather, and he has negotiated with the Emperor, who is as favourable to an alliance with a Farnese Pope as he was to a similar compact with the Medici. Charles could force his daughter to accept me, as he compelled her to marry Alessandro; but I will not win her in that way, and she despises me, doubtless, for what she considers my pusillanimity.

"When I pleaded with her but yesterday bidding her set me any task to accomplish as a proof of my love--she laughed scornfully, saying that she had no lack of pages to fetch and carry unless it were to demand of Benvenuto Cellini the casket which he had forgotten to return to her.

"Then, though I knew that you, Benvenuto, were accounted a desperate man, I swore to her that I would not enter her presence again until I had fulfilled her behest. Yea, and I will fulfil it, for I will sail with the Emperor on this expedition to Tunis and will find the hag Afra and wrest it from her."

"Your determination," I replied, "is a good one, and, as the adventure appeals to me, I will go with you. I have already met Hayraddin, commander of the Corsairs and brother of Monna Afra, who should know the whereabouts of the casket, and I may be able to aid you in obtaining it."

As the affair turned out, though Ottavio did indeed sail for Africa with the Emperor, I was not allowed to accompany him, for his father, feigning to believe that the casket, together with certain valuable jewels stolen from Pope Clement, was in my possession, or at least hidden in some spot nearer to Rome than Tunis, caused me to be imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo, until such time as I should make rest.i.tution.

He did this, moreover, without informing his son of my arrest, so that Ottavio departed believing that I had wilfully failed of my promise to go with him. But I was not alone in misfortune, for the Emperor far from achieving victories similar to those which crowned his previous expedition, met with terrible storms which scattered the ships of his fleet and wrecked many of them upon the coast of Africa, where the savage barbarians, descending upon the drowning mariners, ma.s.sacred them in cold blood.

Word was brought back to Rome that this was the fate both of the Emperor and of Ottavio Farnese, and though this proved but an unfounded rumour, the heart of the gentle Margaret was filled with remorse as well as grief, for having driven so chivalrous a youth and one who loved her so devotedly to his death.

She mourned him most sincerely, wearing widow's weeds in his honour as though she had in reality been his bride. Such is the strange contrariety of a woman's heart that he who living had been the object of her scorn, was now loved with the most vehement pa.s.sion.

When at last it was known that the Emperor and Ottavio had indeed been rescued and were returning to Italy, but that the latter was dangerously ill, her transports of alternate joy and foreboding were most piteous to behold.

I was a witness to them, for at this time by twisting my sheets into a rope I had most marvellously escaped from the battlements of St. Angelo.

As I deemed it prudent to remain for a time in hiding and knew that the Villa Madama was unoccupied, I had repaired thither under cover of the night, and without undressing had slept soundly upon the floor, the house being denuded of furniture.

But in the morning I was awakened by a great clatter of trampling horses and sumpter mules, and springing to my feet and finding myself confronted by the d.u.c.h.ess I gave myself up for lost. This was, however, the most fortunate circ.u.mstance which could have happened to me, for on hearing my story she promised me her protection and her intercession with the Pope. She told me also that she had come with all this train of servants and household stuff to put the villa in order for the reception of her betrothed husband, Ottavio Farnese, as a more salubrious residence than her palace at Rome, and more conducive to his rapid recovery.

And hither, shortly after, he was borne in a litter and I beheld their rapturous meeting, and certes the spectacle of so great joy went far toward repaying me for all the misfortunes which I had suffered.

The young Duke, though very weak, extended his hand to me with a smile, saying that I was ever Benvenuto (welcome), and reminding me how in that very spot I had a.s.sisted at incantations which had foretold that he would one day be the husband of the d.u.c.h.ess, which prognostication was now so miraculously fulfilled. "I have," he added, "but one regret--that I come to her forsworn, for I promised ere claiming her as my wife to recover the casket."

"That promise, my Lord," I made haste to reply, "you shall keep, for I have been more fortunate in my quest than your excellency."

I then showed him the secret hiding-place constructed by Pope Clement in the wall; for, while prowling in the villa, I had remembered what Duke Alessandro had said of it, and had not failed to press each one of the Medici b.a.l.l.s, so frequently employed in the decoration of the villa, until I lighted upon the ingenious spring which disclosed the recess, and within it a package marked with the name of the d.u.c.h.ess.

The wrapper had mouldered away with dampness and discovered the casket with the poisoned key still in the lock, having been so left by that wicked Afra with the express design of revenging herself upon the innocent Margaret for the death of her abominable son, and perhaps also upon Margaret's father for the misfortunes which he had occasioned her race.

The d.u.c.h.ess being called, evinced the greatest joy and would have fallen into the trap and have unlocked the casket at once, had I not first discovered the key and sent for a pair of pincers with which I turned it. While waiting the arrival of the pincers she asked her consort if he had any idea why she set such store upon the casket.

"Doubtless," he replied with a frown, "because it contains the portrait of your husband, who, with all his faults, was at least a brave man."

"You have rightly guessed," she answered, "the bravest of the brave and the only man whom I have ever loved."

I marvelled to hear her thus speak, until the lid being opened, we discovered, not my medal of Alessandro de' Medici, for that Margaret had long ago given to his mother as an inconsiderate trifle; but the likeness of the pretty page, Ottavio, which I had painted at their first acquaintance; and which, in despite all contrariety of womanly coquetry, had remained as ineffaceably imprinted upon her heart.

CHAPTER IV

FLOWER O' THE PEACH

Now for a tale ill.u.s.trative That shall delight my pa.s.sion for romance, Embodying hints authentic of some theme

Or incident that to my knowledge came When sojourning abroad, the background true; Like to some faded tapestry retouched With the seductive broidery-work of fancy.

ANON--altered.

I

Let the trovere ease her conscience at the outset--the tale about to be recorded is _over_ true.

Even as there was more truth than called for in the testimony of that ingenious witness who, being adjured by the judge to speak the truth, replied: "Of a surety, your honor, that will I, the truth, the whole truth, and--a little more."

But the little more which I shall give you is peradventure the truest part of my tale; for, though you will find it not in the chronicles of such historiographers as give their quills solely to statecraft and wars, yet it lies like a pressed flower between the musty leaves of the _novellini_ of Franco Sacchetti and of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, who relate with great particularity the artifice by which the head of the house of the Aldobrandini won his bride.

Let who will carp that in combining matter from various sources I have followed the example of those unscrupulous antiquaries who, discovering an antique statue, straightway replace its missing parts by others lying near at hand, or, more criminal still, complete it according to the whims of their own fancy.

To that accusation needs must that I plead at the outset _mea culpa_, advancing only that the original torso as well as the legs and arms which I have made free to a.s.semble are still preserved, properly ticketed, in the museum of history, while for him who cavils with the authenticity of this "restoration" the buried palaces of the ancient world patiently await exhumation to yield to each body its own particular members, and to each excavator his own treasure trove.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Alinari_

Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. The Grand Cascade and Fountain of Atlas]