The Shame of Motley Part 16

"Dog!" he cried; "beast, do you deride me?"

My answer was to point out towards the yard.

"They are clamouring," said I. "They wax impatient. I had better go before they come for you." As I spoke I selected a heavy mace for only weapon, and swinging it to my shoulder I stepped to the door. On the threshold he would have stayed me, purged by his fear of what might befall him did I not return. But I heeded him not.

"Fare you well, my Lord of Pesaro," said I. "See that none penetrates to your closet. Make fast the door."

"Stay!" he called after me. "Do you hear me? Stay!"

"Others will hear you if you commit this folly," I called back to him.

"Get you to cover." And so I left him.

Below, in the courtyard, my coming was hailed by a great, enthusiastic clamour. They had all but abandoned hope of seeing the Lord Giovanni, so long had he been about his arming. As they brought forward my charger, I sought with my eyes Madonna Paola. I beheld her by her brother--who, it seemed, was not going with us--in the front rank of the spectators.

Her cheeks were tinged with a slight flush of excitement, and her eyes glowed at the brave sight of armed men.

I mounted, and as I rode past her to take my place at the head of that company, I lowered my mace and bowed. She detained me a moment, setting her hand upon the glossy neck of my black charger.

"My Lord," she said, in a low voice, intended for my ear alone, "this is a brave and gallant thing you do, and however slight may be your hope of prevailing, yet your honour will be safe-guarded by this act, and men will remember you with respect should it come to pa.s.s that a usurper shall possess anon your throne. Bear you that in mind to lend you a glad courage. I shall pray for you, my Lord, till you return."

I bowed, answering never a word lest my voice should betray me; and musing on the matter of the strange roads that lead to a woman's heart, I pa.s.sed on, to gain the van.

Two months ago, knowing Giovanni as he was, he had been detestable to her, and she contemplated with loathing the danger in which she stood of being allied to him by marriage. Since then he had made good use of a poor jester's mental gifts to incline her by the fervour of some verses to a kindlier frame of mind, and now, making good use of that same jester's courage, he completed her subjection by the display of it.

She was prepared to wed the Lord Giovanni with a glad heart and a proud willingness whensoever he should desire it.

But Giacomo was beside me now, and in the quadrangle a silence reigned, all waiting for my command. From without there came such a din as seemed to argue that all h.e.l.l was at the Castle gates. There were shouts of defiance and screams of abuse, whilst a constant rain of stones beat against the raised drawbridge.

They thought, no doubt, that Giovanni and his followers were at their prayers, cowering with terror. No notion had they of the armed force, some six score strong, that waited to pour down upon them. I briskly issued my command, and four men detached themselves and let down the bridge. It fell with a crash, and ere those without had well grasped the situation we had hurled ourselves across and into them with the force of a wedge, flinging them to right and to left as we crashed through with hideous slaughter. The bridge swung up again when the last of Giacomo's mercenaries was across, and we were shut out, in the midst of that fierce human maelstrom.

For some five minutes there raged such a brief, hot fight as will be remembered as long as Pesaro stands. No longer than that did it take for the crowd of citizens to realise that war was not their trade, and that they had better leave the fighting to Cesare Borgia's men; and so they fell away and left us a clear road to come at the men-at-arms. But already some forty of our saddles were empty, and the fight, though brief, had proved exhausting to many of us.

Before us, like an array of mirrors in the October sun, shone the serried ranks of the steel-cased Borgia soldiers, their lances in rest, waiting to receive us. Their leader, a gigantic man whose head was armed by no more than a pot of burnished steel, from which escaped the long red ringlets of his hair, was that same Ramiro del' Orca who had commanded the party pursuing Madonna Paola three years ago. He was, since, become the most redoubtable of Cesare's captains, and his name was, perhaps, the best hated in Italy for the grim stories that were connected with it.

As we rode on he backed to join the foremost rank of his soldiers, and his voice--a voice that Stentor might have envied--trumpeted a laugh at sight of us.

"Gesu!" he roared, so that I heard him above the thunder of our hoofs.

"What has come to Giovanni Sforza. Has he, perchance, become a man since Madonna Lucrezia divorced him? I will bear her the news of it, my good Giovanni--my living thunderbolt of Jove!"

His men echoed his boisterous mood, infected by it, and this, I argued, boded ill for the courage of those that followed me. Another moment and we had swept into them, and many there were who laughed no more, or went to laugh with those in h.e.l.l.

For myself I singled out the bl.u.s.tering Ramiro, and I let him know it by a swinging blow of my mace upon his morion. It was a most finely-tempered piece of steel, for my stroke made no impression on it, though Ramiro winced and raised his stout sword to return the compliment.

"Body of G.o.d!" he croaked, "you become a very G.o.d of war, Giovanni. To me, then, my l.u.s.ty Mars! We'll make a fight of it that poets shall sing of over winter fires. Look to yourself!"

His sword caught me a cunning, well-aimed blow on the side of my helm, and thence, glanced to my shoulder. But for the quality of Giovanni's head-piece of a truth there had been an end to the warring of a Fool.

I smote him back, a mighty blow upon his epauliere that sh.o.r.e the steel plate from his shoulder, and left him a vulnerable spot. At that he swore ferociously, and his bloodshot eyes grew wicked as the fiend's. A second time he essayed that side-long blow upon my helm, and with such force and ready address that he burst the fastening of my visor on the left, so that it swung down and left my beaver open.

With a cry of triumph he closed with me, and shortened his sword to stab me in the face. And then a second cry escaped him, for the countenance he beheld was not the countenance he had looked to see. Instead of the fair skin, the handsome features and the bearded mouth of the Lord Giovanni, he beheld a shaven face, a hooked nose and a complexion swarthy as the devil's.

"I know you, rogue," he roared. "By the Host! your valour seemed too fierce for Giovanni Sforza. You are Bocca--"

Exerting all the strength that I had been gradually collecting, I hurled him back with a force that almost drove him from the saddle, and rising in my stirrups I rained blow after blow upon his morion ere he could recover.

"Dog!" I muttered softly, "your knowledge shall be the death of you."

He drew away from me at last, and during the moments that I spent in readjusting my visor he sallied, and charged me again. His bl.u.s.tering was gone and his face grown pale, for such blows as mine could not have been without effect. Not a doubt of it but he was taken with amazement to find such fighting qualities in a Fool--an amazement that must have eclipsed even that of finding Boccadoro in the armour of Giovanni Sforza.

Again he swung his sword in that favourite stroke of his; but this time I caught the edge upon my mace, and ere he could recover I aimed a blow straight at his face. He lowered his head, like a bull on the point of charging, and so my blow descended again upon his morion, but with a force that rolled him, senseless, from the saddle.

Before I could take a breathing s.p.a.ce I was beset by, at least, a dozen of his followers who had stood at hand during the encounter, never doubting that victory must be ultimately with their invincible captain.

They drove me back foot by foot, fighting l.u.s.tily, and performing--it was said afterwards by the anxious ones that watched us from the Castle, among whom was Madonna Paola--such deeds of strength and prowess as never romancer sang of in his wildest flight of fancy.

My men had suffered sorely, but the brave Giacomo still held them together, fired by the example that I set him, until in the end the day was ours. Discouraged by the disabling of their captain, so soon as they had gathered him up our opponents thought of nothing but retreat; and retreat they did, hotly pursued by us, and never allowed to pause or slacken rein until we had hurled them out of the town of Pesaro, to get them back to Cesare Borgia with the tale of their ignominious discomfiture.

CHAPTER X. THE FALL OF PESARO

As we rode back through the town of Pesaro, some fifty men of the six score that had sallied from the Castle a half-hour ago, we found the streets well-nigh deserted, the rebellious citizens having fled back to the shelter of their homes, like rats to their burrows in time of peril.

As we advanced through the shambles that we had left about the Castle gates, it occurred to me that within the courtyard a crowd would be waiting to receive and welcome me, and it became necessary to devise some means of avoiding this reception. I beckoned Giacomo to my side.

"Let it be given out that I will speak to no man until I have rendered thanks to Heaven for this signal victory," I muttered to the unsuspecting Albanian. "Do you clear a way for me so soon a we are within."

He obeyed me so well that when the bridge had been let down, he preceded me with a couple of his men and gently but firmly pressed back those that would have approached--among the first of whom were Madonna Paola and her brother.

"Way!" he shouted. "Make way for the High and Mighty Lord of Pesaro!"

Thus I pa.s.sed through, my half-shattered visor sufficiently closed still to conceal my face, and in this manner I gained the door of the eastern wing and dismounted. Two or three attendants sprang forward, ready to go with me that they might a.s.sist me to disarm. But I waved them imperiously back, and mounted the stairs alone. Alone I crossed the ante-chamber, and tapped at the door of the Lord Giovanni's closet.

Instantly it opened, for he had watched my return and been awaiting me.

Hastily he drew me in and closed the door.

He was flushed with excitement and trembling like a leaf. Yet at the sight that I presented he lost some of his high colour, and recoiled to stare at my armour, battered, dinted, and splashed with browning stains, which loudly proclaimed the fray through which I had been.

He fell to praising my valour, to speaking of the great service I had rendered him, and of the grat.i.tude that he would ever entertain for me, all in terms of a fawning, cloying sweetness that disgusted me more than ever his cruelties had done. I took off my helmet whilst he spoke, and let it fall with a crash. The face I revealed to him was livid with fatigue, and blackened with the dust that had caked upon my sweat. He came forward again and helped hastily to strip off my harness, and when that was done he fetched a great silver basin and a ewer of embossed gold from which he poured me fragrant rose-water that I might wash.

Macerated sweet herbs he found me, lupin meal and gla.s.swort, the better that I might cleanse myself; and when, at last, I was refreshed by my ablutions, he poured me a goblet of a full-bodied golden wine that seemed to infuse fresh life into my veins. And all the time he spoke of the prowess I had shown, and lamented that all these years he should have had me at his Court and never guessed my worth.

At length I turned to resume my clothes. And since it must excite comment and perhaps arouse suspicion were I to appear in any but my jester's garish livery, I once more a.s.sumed my foliated cape, my cap and bells.

"Wear it yet for a little while," he said, "and thus complete the service you have done me. Presently you may doff it for all time, and resume your true estate. Biancomonte, as I promised you, shall be yours again. The Lord of Pesaro does not betray his word."

I smiled grimly at the pride of his utterance.

"It is an easy thing," said I, "freely to give that which is no longer ours."

He coloured with the anger that was ever ready.

"What shall that mean?" he asked.