Romance of Roman Villas Part 28

"My mistress may not have clean forgotten her singing-bird," she replied, "but she has forgotten to order that his cage should be supplied with water and seed cups, and I cajoled Radicofani till he let me supply this neglect."

As she spoke she held aloft a flask of water whose crystal clearness seemed to Brandilancia's blood-shot eyes the most desirable thing in all the world.

"Ah! Signorina how can I ever thank you? and how can you get it to me?"

"Oh! I have thought of that. See I have brought a pole long enough to reach your cage, and the bottle is so slender that it will pa.s.s between the bars."

She attached the flask to one end of the pole with tantalising deliberation, pausing after it was fastened to pour and drink a gla.s.s of the water with expressive gusto. The gurgle of the liquid was more than the tortured man could bear. "Dear Signorina for the love of Heaven be quick. I die of thirst."

"Oh! no, Signor, one does not die so soon, or with so little suffering.

Men in your predicament have been known to live three days before they went mad, and four more before they died."

"You h.e.l.l cat!" he cried, "have you come to gloat over and increase my agony?"

"That is not a pretty name," she said slowly, "I like better the 'dear Signorina' with which you honoured me just now. You are too hasty, Signor Brandilancia, too hasty in your conclusions, and in speaking them forth. It might strike a wiser man in your situation that it would be worth while not to antagonise a friend who has come to serve you. In proof that you have misunderstood my motives I now pa.s.s you the water.

It was good? You would like more? Presently. It is not well to drink too much when one is as thirsty as you are, besides I want to talk with you.

Do you realise that you are in a very serious position?"

"Have I been condemned to death?"

"Not so. There will be no trial, no execution. You will simply be forgotten, left here to die. The Grand Duke believes you to be the lover of his niece. That fact would not in the least distress him, were it not for her approaching marriage, which he fears may be interrupted by some rash act on your part."

"Tell the Grand Duke, if you come from him, and the Signorina also to have no fear, that madness is past. If I am released I will repair to England and never trouble her again."

Scorn curled the dwarf's lips. "Think you, the Duke would trust your promise? And as for the Signorina she desires nothing of the sort, for she loves you pa.s.sionately."

"Poor lady," he groaned. "But for me she might have reconciled herself to her destiny, wretch that I am to break the heart of one who loves me.

Tell her from me, that if she desires me to do so, and G.o.d in His mercy delivers me from this bed of death I will keep my promise to s.n.a.t.c.h her from the fate she dreads, and we will begin the new life in the new world of which we dreamed."

The face of the dwarf was contorted with merriment which made it the more hideous.

"Is the life of a savage in the wilderness a fit one for a daughter of the Medici?" she demanded. "You need neither of you die or forego a single luxury which your hearts desire, if you will gather your wits together and listen to me.

"Possibly you think that I have no influence with the Grand Duke, but if so you greatly mistake. I know the secret of my parentage, and have so disposed matters that my death would bring it to light. Ferdinando de'

Medici will grant any request of mine. I am to go to Paris, not as the servant but as the Lady in Waiting of the Queen of France. Will it please you to join her train as Manager of her Royal Theatre and Purveyor of Sports to the French Court? You could then enjoy the society of the Queen without scandal."

His heart was hot with indignation but he restrained his anger. "If indeed," he said, "there is no escape from this loathed marriage for that sweet lady, I shall pray that no memory of me may ever intrude upon her happiness. Surely what you suggest is as impossible as it is infamous. The Grand Duke would never allow me to follow his niece to Paris."

"The Grand Duke cares not one whit what his niece may choose to do after she is once securely married. What I suggest is perfectly possible. I have taken a fancy to you, Brandilancia. If I ask the Grand Duke to give you to me as my husband he will not refuse me; on the contrary it will be a welcome solution of the problem before him. If perchance any inconvenient inquiries should in future be made by England concerning your welfare he will be spared all responsibility. His niece will have the plaything she desired, and will no longer mope. He will have secured my grat.i.tude and can trust me to preserve the conventionalities; and as for you, my popinjay, your fortune is made. Do not fancy that you will remain a mere montebank. You shall exchange your cap and bells for a ducal coronet, chateaux jewels, honours, wealth in what form you will shall be yours. You will be King in everything but name. Henry of Navarre shall in reality be nothing but your condottiere, and I will not be _exigeante_. I know that I am misshapen, hideous. I ask only a little grat.i.tude."

That word stopped his mouth, for he was about to curse her as a minister of Satan, but a touch of pity softened his anger and contempt.

"You know not what you ask," he said. "She would despise me, and I would abhor myself. Let me die without forfeiting her respect."

"_She!_" the dwarf sneered, and was suddenly silent. Her keen insight told her that if she betrayed to this strangely const.i.tuted man that the scheme had originated with her mistress he would loathe where he now pitied and every chance of success be lost.

"What were you about to say?" he asked.

"Only that you little know the love you slight. She would forgive you anything but desertion. Yours is a strange code of honour, that can win the affection of a n.o.ble lady and then throw it lightly away. I am going now. Once for all I ask, will you accept my offer?"

"And tempt that innocent soul to a life of perfidy and shame?--G.o.d send me death quickly and spare me such villainy as that."

"Your prayer will not be answered," she sneered. "Death will come, but not quickly,--unless you beat your brains out against the bars of your cage, and before that you will shriek and call for me, but I will not come. You have known how the women of the Medici love. Learn now how they hate."

Her footsteps died away and despair settled upon his heart. How long, how long, he asked himself, must he endure this agony before death would come to his release.

The dwarf had left food and water on the window-sill in plain sight but beyond his reach. He closed his eyes but the odour of the viands reached him and increased his faintness. The hours lagged on, and toward evening a light breeze sprang up and he fell into a troubled sleep which somewhat dulled his suffering. From this he was rudely awakened by the swaying and jolting of his cage, and he realised that it was being hauled hastily and not too gently into the tower.

Men dragged him from it, a physician gave him a reviving draught and a.s.sisted him down the staircase at whose foot he fell into the arms of the faithful Malespini.

"Is it she, who has rescued me?" he asked as the secretary seated him in a row-boat which shot toward the palace.

"Nay, you are released by the Grand Duke's orders," Malespini replied.

"I bring you great news, Signor. A gentleman has arrived from England who demands your safe return in the Queen's name. Even the Medici could not gainsay a summons signed 'Elizabeth' and emphasised by one of her Majesty's ships of war. Say naught of the hospitality just accorded you, I beseech you, until well out of Italy, else you may excite the English admiral who is the bearer of the Queen's message to some rash act, for he seems to me a man of short temper, and it were well that the Grand Duke in his chagrin were not tried too far."

"The English Admiral!" repeated the astonished Brandilancia,--"sent for me by Queen Elizabeth. It is not possible!" But, as the torchlight fell upon the gallant figure impatiently pacing the landing which they were approaching, he cried "Miracle of G.o.d! it is indeed Ess.e.x!"

"It is I, Will, of a surety," replied the other. "Did you think I would suffer you to die in the trap into which you had ventured for love of me? I have been consumed with anxiety, especially after the Grand Duke in answer to my importunity a.s.sured me that you left the Villa Medici months since and that he was ignorant of your whereabouts. I had quarrelled with the Queen when that news arrived, and she had ordered me to the Azores. I asked for an audience, but she would not receive me, and I left England determined to push on to Italy without her knowledge and rescue you _vi et armis_."

"You should not have done that, my good friend. Elizabeth has beheaded men for slighter disregard of her authority."

"I outran not my orders, Will, for I had scarcely left England when a swift sailing packet overtook me with letters from the Queen, one for the Grand Duke desiring your immediate return, the other my instructions to use all despatch in securing your person."

"But if you received no letter from me and had no speech with the Queen, I do not understand how her Majesty learned of my predicament."

"Through your wife, Will. When I returned to England from my expedition to Cadiz she sought me out, and demanded why I had not brought you.

Then, as the time pa.s.sed by at which I had told her she might expect you, it seems she grew wild with anxiety, and, journeying to London, laid the matter before the Queen, who admires your talent as a playwright and has herself some ambition in that direction. Anne, the artful wench, very tactfully persuaded her Majesty that, with you for a collaborator, she might write a comedy which would redound to her eternal fame. Therefore, our royal mistress bids you think of some plot which shall bring again upon the boards that arch-rogue, John Falstaff.

I am to bring you to Windsor Castle, where you are to prepare this masterpiece, at the Queen's dictation (Heaven save the mark!), in time for its presentation before the Court during the Twelfth Night festivities."

"And Anne, whom I thought so indifferent to my career, to my very existence, did this for me?"

"Yes, Will, 't is a good girl and a handsome, and one you have not treated overly well, as it seems to me; but you will make it all up over your Christmas pudding."

As he spoke the great clock of the palace slowly clanged midnight, and Brandilancia turned white and caught Ess.e.x's arm for support. "Would to G.o.d that I might go with you," he groaned; "would that I had never come to Italy upon your cursed business. I stand here a doubly perjured man.

How, I scarcely know (for I swear I set not about it cold-bloodedly), I have won the love of the peerless Marie de' Medici. For me she has discarded the King of France, and has promised to meet me at this spot and at this very hour and fly with me to El Dorado. I left her stricken to the heart by my misfortunes. If I desert her now her death will be upon my head. See you not the Gonzaga barge is approaching in which she promised to forsake the world with me."

"Make yourself easy on the score of my mistress," exclaimed Malespini.

"You have kept your appointment, but when she made hers she had no intention of keeping it with a man of your quality. Under a strange hallucination she has fancied all along that you were the King of France, and her fainting fit was occasioned by her dismay and humiliation on discovering that you were only the king of poets. I will not say that she did not find you agreeable. She was pleased when she learned that your friend had arrived in time to rescue you, and ere she left for Florence this afternoon bade me wish you _bon voyage_, and to thank you for much merry entertainment."

The Earl of Ess.e.x whistled softly, and an expression of infinite relief relaxed the contorted features of Brandilancia. "I have learned how the women of the Medici love," he murmured. "Thank G.o.d, our English women love in a different fashion."

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLONNA]

CHAPTER VIII

THE LADIES OF PALLIANO