Eglamore looked up. She leaned now upon his shoulder, her face
brushing his as he knelt over the unconscious Duke; and Eglamore found
that at her dear touch all passion had gone out of him.
"Madonna," he said equably, "the Duke is not yet dead. It is
impossible to let him live. You may think he voiced only a caprice
just now. I think so too, but I know the man, and I know that all this
madman's whims are ruthless and irresistible. Living, Duke
Alessandro's appetites are merely whetted by opposition, so much so
that he finds no pleasures sufficiently piquant unless they have God's
interdiction as a sauce. Living, he will make of you his plaything,
and a little later his broken, soiled and castby plaything. It is
therefore necessary that I kill Duke Alessandro."
She parted from him, and he too rose to his feet.
"And afterward," she said quietly, "and afterward you must die just as
Tebaldeo died."
"That is the law, madonna. But whether Alessandro enters hell to-day
or later, I am a lost man."
"Oh, that is very true," she said. "A moment since you were Count
Eglamore, whom every person feared. Now there is not a beggar in the
kingdom who would change lots with you, for you are a friendless and
hunted man in peril of dreadful death. But even so, you are not
penniless, Count Eglamore, for these jewels here which formed part of
your masquerade are of great value, and there is a world outside. The
frontier is not two miles distant. You have only to escape into the
hill-country beyond the forest, and you need not kill Duke Alessandro
after all. I would have you go hence with hands as clean as possible."
"Perhaps I might escape." He found it quaint to note how calm she was
and how tranquilly his own thoughts ran. "But first the Duke must die,
because I dare not leave you to his mercy."
"How does that matter?" she returned. "You know very well that my
father intends to market me as best suits his interests. Here I am so
much merchandise. The Duke is as free as any other man to cry a
bargain." He would have spoken in protest, but Graciosa interrupted
wearily: "Oh, yes, it is to this end only that we daughters of Duke
Alessandro's vassals are nurtured, just as you told me--eh, how long
ago!--that such physical attractions as heaven accords us may be
marketed. And I do not see how a wedding can in any way ennoble the
transaction by causing it to profane a holy sacrament. Ah, no,
Balthazar's daughter was near attaining all that she had been taught to
desire, for a purchaser came and he bid lavishly. You know very well
that my father would have been delighted. But you must need upset the
bargain. 'No, I will not have it!' Count Eglamore must cry. It cost
you very highly to speak those words. I think it would have puzzled my
father to hear those words at which so many fertile lands, stout
castles, well-timbered woodlands, herds of cattle, gilded coaches,
liveries and curious tapestries, fine clothing and spiced foods, all
vanished like a puff of smoke. Ah, yes, my father would have thought
you mad."
"I had no choice," he said, and waved a little gesture of impotence.
He spoke as with difficulty, almost wearily. "I love you. It is a
theme on which I do not embroider. So long as I had thought to use you
as an instrument I could woo fluently enough. To-day I saw that you
were frightened and helpless--oh, quite helpless. And something
changed in me. I knew for the first time that I loved you and that I
was not clean as you are clean. What it was of passion and horror, of
despair and adoration and yearning, which struggled in my being then I
cannot tell you. It spurred me to such action as I took,--but it has
robbed me of sugared eloquence, it has left me chary of speech. It is
necessary that I climb very high because of my love for you, and upon
the heights there is silence."
And Graciosa meditated. "Here I am so much merchandise. Heigho, since
I cannot help it, since bought and sold I must be, one day or another,
at least I will go at a noble price. Yet I do not think I am quite
worth the value of these castles and lands and other things which you
gave up because of me, so that it will be necessary to make up the
difference, dear, by loving you very much."
And at that he touched her chin, gently and masterfully, for Graciosa
would have averted her face, and it seemed to Eglamore that he could
never have his fill of gazing on the radiant, shamed tenderness of
Graciosa's face. "Oh, my girl!" he whispered. "Oh, my wonderful,
worshiped, merry girl, whom God has fashioned with such loving care!
you who had only scorn to give me when I was a kingdom's master! and
would you go with me now that I am friendless and homeless?"
"But I shall always have a friend," she answered--"a friend who showed
me what Balthazar's daughter was and what love is. And I am vain
enough to believe I shall not ever be very far from home so long as I
am near to my friend's heart."
A mortal man could not but take her in his arms.
"Farewell, Duke Alessandro!" then said Eglamore; "farewell, poor clay
so plastic the least touch remodels you! I had a part in shaping you
so bestial; our age, too, had a part--our bright and cruel day, wherein
you were set too high. Yet for me it would perhaps have proved as easy
to have made a learned recluse of you, Alessandro, or a bloodless
saint, if to do that had been as patently profitable. For you and all
your kind are so much putty in the hands of circumspect fellows such as
I. But I stood by and let our poisoned age conform that putty into the
shape of a crazed beast, because it took that form as readily as any
other, and in taking it, best served my selfish ends. Now I must pay
for that sorry shaping, just as, I think, you too must pay some day.
And so, I cry farewell with loathing, but with compassion also!"
Then these two turned toward the hills, leaving Duke Alessandro where
he lay in the road, a very lamentable figure in much bloodied finery.
They turned toward the hills, and entered a forest whose ordering was
time's contemporary, and where there was no grandeur save that of the
trees.
But upon the summit of the nearest hill they paused and looked over a
restless welter of foliage that glittered in the sun, far down into the
highway. It bustled like an unroofed ant-hill, for the road was alive
with men who seemed from this distance very small. Duke Alessandro's
attendants had found him and were clustered in a hubbub about their
reviving master. Dwarfish Lorenzino de Medici was the most solicitous
among them.
Beyond was the broad river, seen as a ribbon of silver now, and on its
remoter bank the leaded roofs of a strong fortress glistened like a
child's new toy. Tilled fields showed here and there, no larger in
appearance than so many outspread handkerchiefs. Far down in the east
a small black smudge upon the pearl-colored and vaporous horizon was
all they could discern of a walled city filled with factories for the
working of hemp and furs and alum and silk and bitumen.
"It is a very rich and lovely land," said Eglamore--"this kingdom which
a half-hour since lay in the hollow of my hand." He viewed it for a
while, and not without pensiveness. Then he took Graciosa's hand and
looked into her face, and he laughed joyously.