Graciosa was Balthazar's youngest child, a white, slim girl with violet
eyes and strange pale hair which had the color and glitter of stardust.
"Some day at court," her father often thought complacently, "she, too,
will make a good match." He was a necessitous lord, a smiling, supple
man who had already marketed two daughters to his advantage. But
Graciosa's time was not yet mature in the year of grace 1533, for the
girl was not quite sixteen. So Graciosa remained in Balthazar's big
cheerless house and was tutored in all needful accomplishments. She
was proficient in the making of preserves and unguents, could play the
harpsichord and the virginals acceptably, could embroider an altarcloth
to admiration, and, in spite of a trivial lameness in walking, could
dance a coranto or a saraband against any woman between two seas.
Now to the north of Balthazar's home stood a tall forest, overhanging
both the highway and the river whose windings the highway followed.
Graciosa was very often to be encountered upon the outskirts of these
woods. She loved the forest, whose tranquillity bred dreams, but was
already a woman in so far that she found it more interesting to watch
the highway. Sometimes it would be deserted save for small purple
butterflies which fluttered about as if in continuous indecision, and
rarely ascended more than a foot above the ground. But people passed
at intervals--as now a page, who was a notably fine fellow, clothed in
ash-colored gray, with slashed, puffed sleeves, and having a heron's
feather in his cap; or a Franciscan with his gown tucked up so that you
saw how the veins on his naked feet stood out like the carvings on a
vase; or a farmer leading a calf; or a gentleman in a mantle of
squirrel's fur riding beside a wonderful proud lady, whose tiny hat was
embroidered with pearls. It was all very interesting to watch, it was
like turning over the leaves of a book written in an unknown tongue and
guessing what the pictures meant, because these people were intent upon
their private avocations, in which you had no part, and you would never
see them any more.
Then destiny took a hand in the affair and Guido came. He reined his
gray horse at the sight of her sitting by the wayside and deferentially
inquired how far it might be to the nearest inn. Graciosa told him.
He thanked her and rode on. That was all, but the appraising glance of
this sedate and handsome burgher obscurely troubled the girl afterward.
Next day he came again. He was a jewel-merchant, he told her, and he
thought it within the stretch of possibility that my lord Balthazar's
daughter might wish to purchase some of his wares. She viewed them
with admiration, chaffered thriftily, and finally bought a topaz, dug
from Mount Zabarca, Guido assured her, which rendered its wearer immune
to terrors of any kind.
Very often afterward these two met on the outskirts of the forest as
Guido rode between the coast and the hill-country about his vocation.
Sometimes he laughingly offered her a bargain, on other days he paused
to exhibit a notable gem which he had procured for this or that wealthy
amateur. Count Eglamore, the young Duke's favorite yonder at court,
bought most of them, it seemed. "The nobles complain against this
upstart Eglamore very bitterly," said Guido, "but we merchants have no
quarrel with him. He buys too lavishly."
"I trust I shall not see Count Eglamore when I go to court," said
Graciosa, meditatively; "and, indeed, by that time, my father assures
me, some honest gentleman will have contrived to cut the throat of this
abominable Eglamore." Her father's people, it should be premised, had
been at bitter feud with the favorite ever since he detected and
punished the conspiracy of the Marquis of Cibo, their kinsman. Then
Graciosa continued: "Nevertheless, I shall see many beautiful sights
when I am taken to court. . . . And the Duke, too, you tell me, is an
amateur of gems."
"Eh, madonna, I wish that you could see his jewels," cried Guido,
growing fervent; and he lovingly catalogued a host of lapidary marvels.
"I hope that I shall see these wonderful jewels when I go to court,"
said Graciosa wistfully.
"Duke Alessandro," he returned, his dark eyes strangely mirthful, "is,
as I take it, a catholic lover of beauty in all its forms. So he will
show you his gems, very assuredly, and, worse still, he will make
verses in your honor. For it is a preposterous feature of Duke
Alessandro's character that he is always making songs."
"Oh, and such strange songs as they are, too, Guido. Who does not know
them?"
"I am not the best possible judge of his verses' merit," Guido
estimated, drily. "But I shall never understand how any singer at all
came to be locked in such a prison. I fancy that at times the paradox
puzzles even Duke Alessandro."
"And is he as handsome as people report?"
Then Guido laughed a little. "Tastes differ, of course. But I think
your father will assure you, madonna, that no duke possessing such a
zealous tax-collector as Count Eglamore was ever in his lifetime
considered of repulsive person."
"And is he young?"
"Why, as to that, he is about of an age with me, and in consequence old
enough to be far more sensible than either of us is ever likely to be,"
said Guido; and began to talk of other matters.
But presently Graciosa was questioning him again as to the court,
whither she was to go next year and enslave a marquis, or, at worst, an
opulent baron. Her thoughts turned toward the court's predominating
figure. "Tell me of Eglamore, Guido."
"Madonna, some say that Eglamore was a brewer's son. Others--and your
father's kinsmen in particular--insist that he was begot by a devil in
person, just as Merlin was, and Plato the philosopher, and puissant
Alexander. Nobody knows anything about his origin." Guido was sitting
upon the ground, his open pack between his knees. Between the thumb
and forefinger of each hand he held caressingly a string of pearls
which he inspected as he talked. "Nobody," he idly said, "nobody is
very eager to discuss Count Eglamore's origin now that Eglamore has
become indispensable to Duke Alessandro. Yes, it is thanks to Eglamore
that the Duke has ample leisure and needful privacy for the pursuit of
recreations which are reputed to be curious."
"I do not understand you, Guido." Graciosa was all wonder.
"It is perhaps as well," the merchant said, a trifle sadly. Then Guido
shrugged. "To be brief, madonna, business annoys the Duke. He finds
in this Eglamore an industrious person who affixes seals, draughts
proclamations, makes treaties, musters armies, devises pageants, and
collects revenues, upon the whole, quite as efficiently as Alessandro
would be capable of doing these things. So Alessandro makes verses and
amuses himself as his inclinations prompt, and Alessandro's people are
none the worse off on account of it."
"Heigho, I foresee that I shall never fall in love with the Duke,"
Graciosa declared. "It is unbefitting and it is a little cowardly for
a prince to shirk the duties of his station. Now, if I were Duke I
would grant my father a pension, and have Eglamore hanged, and purchase
a new gown of silvery green, in which I would be ravishingly beautiful,
and afterward-- Why, what would you do if you were Duke, Messer Guido?"
"What would I do if I were Duke?" he echoed. "What would I do if I
were a great lord instead of a tradesman? I think you know the answer,
madonna."
"Oh, you would make me your duchess, of course. That is quite
understood," said Graciosa, with the lightest of laughs. "But I was
speaking seriously, Guido."
Guido at that considered her intently for a half-minute. His
countenance was of portentous gravity, but in his eyes she seemed to
detect a lurking impishness.
"And it is not a serious matter that a peddler of crystals should have
dared to love a nobleman's daughter? You are perfectly right. That I
worship you is an affair which does not concern any person save myself
in any way whatsoever, although I think that knowledge of the fact
would put your father to the trouble of sharpening his dagger. . . .
Indeed, I am not certain that I worship you, for in order to adore
wholeheartedly, the idolater must believe his idol to be perfect. Now,
your nails are of an ugly shape, like that of little fans; your mouth
is too large; and I have long ago perceived that you are a trifle lame
in spite of your constant care to conceal the fact. I do not admire
these faults, for faults they are undoubtedly. Then, too, I know you
are vain and self-seeking, and look forward contentedly to the time
when your father will transfer his ownership of such physical
attractions as heaven gave you to that nobleman who offers the highest
price for them. It is true you have no choice in the matter, but you
will participate in a monstrous bargain, and I would prefer to have you
exhibit distaste for it." And with that he returned composedly to
inspection of his pearls.
"And to what end, Guido?" It was the first time Graciosa had
completely waived the reticence of a superior caste. You saw that the
child's parted lips were tremulous, and you divined her childish fits
of dreading that glittering, inevitable court-life shared with an
unimaginable husband.
But Guido only grumbled whimsically. "I am afraid that men do not
always love according to the strict laws of logic. I desire your
happiness above all things; yet to see you so abysmally untroubled by
anything that troubles me is another matter."
"But I am not untroubled, Guido----" she began swiftly. Graciosa broke
off in speech, shrugged, flashed a smile at him. "For I cannot fathom
you, Ser Guido, and that troubles me. Yes, I am very fond of you, and
yet I do not trust you. You tell me you love me greatly. It pleases
me to have you say this. You perceive I am very candid this morning,
Messer Guido. Yes, it pleases me, and I know that for the sake of
seeing me you daily endanger your life, for if my father heard of our
meetings he would have you killed. You would not incur such
hare-brained risks unless you cared very greatly; and yet, somehow, I
do not believe it is altogether for me you care."
Then Guido was in train to protest an all-mastering and entirely candid
devotion, but he was interrupted.
"Most women have these awkward intuitions," spoke a melodious voice,
and turning, Graciosa met the eyes of the intruder. This magnificent
young man had a proud and bloodless face which contrasted sharply with
his painted lips and cheeks. In the contour of his protruding mouth
showed plainly his negroid ancestry. His scanty beard, as well as his
frizzled hair, was the color of dead grass. He was sumptuously clothed
in white satin worked with silver, and around his cap was a gold chain
hung with diamonds. Now he handed his fringed riding-gloves to Guido
to hold.
"Yes, madonna, I suspect that Eglamore here cares greatly for the fact
that you are Lord Balthazar's daughter, and cousin to the late Marquis
of Cibo. For Cibo has many kinsmen at court who still resent the
circumstance that the matching of his wits against Eglamore's earned
for Cibo a deplorably public demise. So they conspire against Eglamore
with vexatious industry, as an upstart, as a nobody thrust over people
of proven descent, and Eglamore goes about in hourly apprehension of a
knife-thrust. If he could make a match with you, though, your
father--thrifty man!--would be easily appeased. Your cousins, those
proud, grumbling Castel-Franchi, Strossi and Valori, would not prove
over-obdurate toward a kinsman who, whatever his past indiscretions,
has so many pensions and offices at his disposal. Yes, honor would
permit a truce, and Eglamore could bind them to his interests within
ten days, and be rid of the necessity of sleeping in chain armor. . . .
Have I not unraveled the scheme correctly, Eglamore?"
"Your highness was never lacking in penetration," replied the other in
a dull voice. He stood motionless, holding the gloves, his shoulders a
little bowed as if under some physical load. His eyes were fixed upon
the ground. He divined the change in Graciosa's face and did not care
to see it.
"And so you are Count Eglamore," said Graciosa in a sort of whisper.
"That is very strange. I had thought you were my friend, Guido. But I
forget. I must not call you Guido any longer." She gave a little
shiver here. He stayed motionless and did not look at her. "I have
often wondered what manner of man you were. So it was you--whose hand
I touched just now--you who poisoned Duke Cosmo, you who had the good
cardinal assassinated, you who betrayed the brave lord of Faenza! Oh,
yes, they openly accuse you of every imaginable crime--this patient
Eglamore, this reptile who has crept into his power through filthy
passages. It is very strange you should be capable of so much
wickedness, for to me you seem only a sullen lackey."
He winced and raised his eyes at this. His face remained
expressionless. He knew these accusations at least to be demonstrable
lies, for as it happened he had never found his advancement to hinge
upon the commission of the crimes named. But even so, the past was a
cemetery he did not care to have revivified.
"And it was you who detected the Marquis of Cibo's conspiracy.
Tebaldeo was my cousin, Count Eglamore, and I loved him. We were
reared together. We used to play here in these woods, and I remember
how Tebaldeo once fetched me a wren's nest from that maple yonder. I
stood just here. I was weeping because I was afraid he would fall. If
he had fallen and been killed, it would have been the luckier for him,"
Graciosa sighed. "They say that he conspired. I do not know. I only
know that by your orders, Count Eglamore, my playmate Tebaldeo was
fastened upon a Saint Andrew's cross and his arms and legs were each
broken in two places with an iron bar. Then your servants took
Tebaldeo, still living, and laid him upon a carriage-wheel which was
hung upon a pivot. The upper edge of this wheel was cut with very fine
teeth like those of a saw, so that his agony might be complete.
Tebaldeo's poor mangled legs were folded beneath his body so that his
heels touched the back of his head, they tell me. In such a posture he
died very slowly while the wheel turned very slowly there in the sunlit
market-place, and flies buzzed greedily about him, and the shopkeepers
took holiday in order to watch Tebaldeo die--the same Tebaldeo who once
fetched me a wren's nest from yonder maple."
Eglamore spoke now. "I gave orders for the Marquis of Cibo's
execution. I did not devise the manner of his death. The punishment
for Cibo's crime was long ago fixed by our laws. Cibo plotted to kill
the Duke. Cibo confessed as much."
But the girl waved this aside. "And then you plan this masquerade.
You plan to make me care for you so greatly that even when I know you
to be Count Eglamore I must still care for you. You plan to marry me,
so as to placate Tebaldeo's kinsmen, so as to bind them to your
interests. It was a fine bold stroke of policy, I know, to use me as a
stepping-stone to safety--but was it fair to me?" Her voice rose now a
little. She seemed to plead with him. "Look you, Count Eglamore, I
was a child only yesterday. I have never loved any man. But you have
loved many women, I know, and long experience has taught you many ways
of moving a woman's heart. Oh, was it fair, was it worth while, to
match your skill against my ignorance? Think how unhappy I would be if
even now I loved you, and how I would loathe myself. . . . But I am
getting angry over nothing. Nothing has happened except that I have
dreamed in idle moments of a brave and comely lover who held his head
so high that all other women envied me, and now I have awakened."
Meanwhile, it was with tears in his eyes that the young man in white
had listened to her quiet talk, for you could nowhere have found a
nature more readily sensitive than his to all the beauty and wonder
which life, as if it were haphazardly, produces every day. He pitied
this betrayed child quite ineffably, because in her sorrow she was so
pretty.
So he spoke consolingly. "Fie, Donna Graciosa, you must not be too
harsh with Eglamore. It is his nature to scheme, and he weaves his
plots as inevitably as the spider does her web. Believe me, it is
wiser to forget the rascal--as I do--until there is need of him; and I
think you will have no more need to consider Eglamore's trickeries, for
you are very beautiful, Graciosa."
He had drawn closer to the girl, and he brought a cloying odor of
frangipani, bergamot and vervain. His nostrils quivered, his face had
taken on an odd pinched look, for all that he smiled as over some
occult jest. Graciosa was a little frightened by his bearing, which
was both furtive and predatory.
"Oh, do not be offended, for I have some rights to say what I desire in
these parts. For, _Dei gratia_, I am the overlord of these parts,
Graciosa--a neglected prince who wondered over the frequent absences of
his chief counselor and secretly set spies upon him. Eglamore here
will attest as much. Or if you cannot believe poor Eglamore any
longer, I shall have other witnesses within the half-hour. Oh, yes,
they are to meet me here at noon--some twenty crop-haired stalwart
cut-throats. They will come riding upon beautiful broad-chested horses
covered with red velvet trappings that are hung with little silver
bells which jingle delightfully. They will come very soon, and then we
will ride back to court."
Duke Alessandro touched his big painted mouth with his forefinger as if
in fantastic mimicry of a man imparting a confidence.
"I think that I shall take you with me, Graciosa, for you are very
beautiful. You are as slim as a lily and more white, and your eyes are
two purple mirrors in each of which I see a tiny image of Duke
Alessandro. The woman I loved yesterday was a big splendid wench with
cheeks like apples. It is not desirable that women should be so large.
All women should be little creatures that fear you. They should have
thin, plaintive voices, and in shrinking from you be as slight to the
touch as a cobweb. It is not possible to love a woman ardently unless
you comprehend how easy it would be to murder her."
"God, God!" said Count Eglamore, very softly, for he was familiar with
the look which had now come into Duke Alessandro's face. Indeed, all
persons about court were quick to notice this odd pinched look, like
that of a traveler nipped at by frosts, and people at court became
obsequious within the instant in dealing with the fortunate woman who
had aroused this look, Count Eglamore remembered.
And the girl did not speak at all, but stood motionless, staring in
bewildered, pitiable, childlike fashion, and the color had ebbed from
her countenance.
Alessandro was frankly pleased. "You fear me, do you not, Graciosa?
See, now, when I touch your hand it is soft and cold as a serpent's
skin, and you shudder. I am very tired of women who love me, of all
women with bold, hungry eyes. To you my touch will always be a
martyrdom, you will always loathe me, and therefore I shall not weary
of you for a long while. Come, Graciosa. Your father shall have all
the wealth and state that even his greedy imaginings can devise, so
long as you can contrive to loathe me. We will find you a suitable
husband. You shall have flattery and titles, gold and fine glass, soft
stuffs and superb palaces such as are your beauty's due henceforward."
He glanced at the peddler's pack, and shrugged. "So Eglamore has been
wooing you with jewels! You must see mine, dear Graciosa. It is not
merely an affair of possessing, as some emperors do, all the four kinds
of sapphires, the twelve kinds of emeralds, the three kinds of rubies,
and many extraordinary pearls, diamonds, cymophanes, beryls, green
peridots, tyanos, sandrastra, and fiery cinnamon-stones"--he enumerated
them with the tender voice of their lover--"for the value of these may
at least be estimated. Oh, no, I have in my possession gems which have
not their fellows in any other collection, gems which have not even a
name and the value of which is incalculable--strange jewels that were
shot from inaccessible mountain peaks by means of slings, jewels
engendered by the thunder, jewels taken from the heart of the Arabian
deer, jewels cut from the brain of a toad and the eyes of serpents, and
even jewels that are authentically known to have fallen from the moon.
We will select the rarest, and have a pair of slippers encrusted with
them, in which you shall dance for me."
"Highness," cried Eglamore, with anger and terror at odds in his
breast, "Highness, I love this girl!"
"Ah, then you cannot ever be her husband," Duke Alessandro returned.
"You would have suited otherwise. No, no, we must seek out some other
person of discretion. It will all be very amusing, for I think that
she is now quite innocent, as pure as the high angels are. See,
Eglamore, she cannot speak, she stays still as a lark that has been
taken in a snare. It will be very marvelous to make her as I
am. . . ." He meditated, as, obscurely aware of opposition, his
shoulders twitched fretfully, and momentarily his eyes lightened like
the glare of a cannon through its smoke. "You made a beast of me, some
long-faced people say. Beware lest the beast turn and rend you."
Count Eglamore plucked aimlessly at his chin. Then he laughed as a dog
yelps. He dropped the gloves which he had held till this,
deliberately, as if the act were a rite. His shoulders straightened
and purpose seemed to flow into the man. "No," he said quietly, "I
will not have it. It was not altogether I who made a brain-sick beast
of you, my prince; but even so, I have never been too nice to profit by
your vices. I have taken my thrifty toll of abomination, I have stood
by contentedly, not urging you on, yet never trying to stay you, as you
waded deeper and ever deeper into the filth of your debaucheries,
because meanwhile you left me so much power. Yes, in some part it is
my own handiwork which is my ruin. I accept it. Nevertheless, you
shall not harm this child."
"I venture to remind you, Eglamore, that I am still the master of this
duchy." Alessandro was languidly amused, and had begun to regard his
adversary with real curiosity.
"Oh, yes, but that is nothing to me. At court you are the master. At
court I have seen mothers raise the veil from their daughters' faces,
with smiles that were more loathsome than the grimaces of a fiend,
because you happened to be passing. But here in these woods, your
highness, I see only the woman I love and the man who has insulted her."
"This is very admirable fooling," the Duke considered. "So all the
world is changed and Pandarus is transformed into Hector? These are
sonorous words, Eglamore, but with what deeds do you propose to back
them?"
"By killing you, your highness."
"So!" said the Duke. "The farce ascends in interest." He drew with a
flourish, with actual animation, for sottish, debauched and
power-crazed as this man was, he came of a race to whom danger was a
cordial. "Very luckily a sword forms part of your disguise, so let us
amuse ourselves. It is always diverting to kill, and if by any chance
you kill me I shall at least be rid of the intolerable knowledge that
to-morrow will be just like to-day." The Duke descended blithely into
the level road and placed himself on guard.
Then both men silently went about the business in hand. Both were
oddly calm, almost as if preoccupied by some more important matter to
be settled later. The two swords clashed, gleamed rigidly for an
instant, and then their rapid interplay, so far as vision went, melted
into a flickering snarl of silver, for the sun was high and each man's
shadow was huddled under him. Then Eglamore thrust savagely and in the
act trod the edge of a puddle, and fell ignominiously prostrate. His
sword was wrenched ten feet from him, for the Duke had parried
skilfully. Eglamore lay thus at Alessandro's mercy.
"Well, well!" the Duke cried petulantly, "and am I to be kept waiting
forever? You were a thought quicker in obeying my caprices yesterday.
Get up, you muddy lout, and let us kill each other with some pretension
of adroitness."
Eglamore rose, and, sobbing, caught up his sword and rushed toward the
Duke in an agony of shame and rage. His attack now was that of a
frenzied animal, quite careless of defense and desirous only of murder.
Twice the Duke wounded him, but it was Alessandro who drew backward,
composedly hindering the brutal onslaught he was powerless to check.
Then Eglamore ran him through the chest and gave vent to a strangled,
growling cry as Alessandro fell. Eglamore wrenched his sword free and
grasped it by the blade so that he might stab the Duke again and again.
He meant to hack the abominable flesh, to slash and mutilate that
haughty mask of infamy, but Graciosa clutched his weapon by the hilt.