IN an apartment richly furnished, the floor covered with striped and
spotted skins of animals, a lady sat with her arms extended before her,
and her hands half clenched. The agitation of her face corresponded with
this attitude: she was pale and red by turns; and her foot restless.
Presently the curtain was drawn by a domestic.
The lady's brow flushed.
The maid said, in an awe-struck whisper, "Altezza, the man is here."
The lady bade her admit him, and snatched up a little black mask and put
it on; and in a moment her colour was gone, and the contrast between her
black mask and her marble cheeks was strange and fearful.
A man entered bowing and scraping. It was such a figure as crowds seem
made of; short hair, roundish head, plain, but decent clothes; features
neither comely nor forbidding. Nothing to remark in him but a singularly
restless eye.
After a profusion of bows he stood opposite the lady, and awaited her
pleasure.
"They have told you for what you are wanted."
"Yes, signora."
"Did those who spoke to you agree as to what you are to receive?"
"Yes, signora. 'Tis the full price; and purchases the greater vendetta:
unless of your benevolence you choose to content yourself with the
lesser."
"I understand you not," said the lady.
"Ah; this is the signora's first. The lesser vendetta, lady, is the
death of the body only. We watch our man come out of a church; or take
him in an innocent hour; and so deal with him. In the greater vendetta
we watch him, and catch him hot from some unrepented sin, and so slay
his soul as well as his body. But this vendetta is not so run upon now
as it was a few years ago."
"Man, silence me his tongue, and let his treasonable heart beat no more.
But his soul I have no feud with."
"So be it, signora. He who spoke to me knew not the man, nor his name,
nor his abode. From whom shall I learn these?"
"From myself."
At this the man, with the first symptoms of anxiety he had shown,
entreated her to be cautious, and particular in this part of the
business.
"Fear me not," said she. "Listen. It is a young man, tall of stature,
and auburn hair, and dark-blue eyes, and an honest face, would deceive a
saint. He lives in the Via Claudia, at the corner house; the glover's.
In that house there lodge but three males: he, and a painter short of
stature and dark visaged, and a young, slim boy. He that hath betrayed
me is a stranger, fair; and taller than thou art."
The bravo listened with all his ears. "It is enough," said he. "Stay,
signora, haunteth he any secret place where I may deal with him?"
"My spy doth report me he hath of late frequented the banks of Tiber
after dusk; doubtless to meet his light o' love, who calls me her rival;
even there slay him! and let my rival come and find him; the smooth,
heartless, insolent traitor."
"Be calm, signora. He will betray no more ladies."
"I know not that. He weareth a sword, and can use it. He is young and
resolute."
"Neither will avail him."
"Are ye so sure of your hand? What are your weapons?"
The bravo showed her a steel gauntlet. "We strike with such force we
needs must guard our hand. This is our mallet." He then undid his
doublet, and gave her a glimpse of a coat of mail beneath, and finally
laid his glittering stiletto on the table with a flourish.
The lady shuddered at first, but presently took it up in her white hand
and tried its point against her finger.
"Beware, madam," said the bravo.
"What, is it poisoned?"
"Saints forbid! We steal no lives. We take them with steel point, not
drugs. But 'tis newly ground, and I feared for the signora's white
skin."
"His skin is as white as mine," said she, with a sudden gleam of pity.
It lasted but a moment. "But his heart is black as soot. Say, do I not
well to remove a traitor that slanders me?"
"The signora will settle that with her confessor. I am but a tool in
noble hands; like my stiletto."
The princess appeared not to hear the speaker. "Oh, how I could have
loved him; to the death; as now I hate him. Fool! he will learn to
trifle with princes; to spurn them and fawn on them and prefer the scum
of the town to them, and make them a by-word." She looked up; "why
loiter'st thou here? haste thee, revenge me."
"It is customary to pay half the price beforehand, signora."
"Ah I forgot; thy revenge is bought. Here is more than half," and she
pushed a bag across the table to him. "When the blow is struck, come for
the rest."
"You will soon see me again, signora."
And he retired bowing and scraping.
The princess, burning with jealousy, mortified pride, and dread of
exposure (for till she knew Gerard no public stain had fallen on her),
sat where he left her, masked, with her arms straight out before her,
and the nails of her clenched hand nipping the table.
So sat the fabled sphynx: so sits a tigress.
Yet there crept a chill upon her now that the assassin was gone. And
moody misgivings heaved within her, precursors of vain remorse. Gerard
and Margaret were before their age. This was your true mediæval. Proud,
amorous, vindictive, generous, foolish, cunning, impulsive,
unprincipled: and ignorant as dirt.
Power is the curse of such a creature.
Forced to do her own crimes, the weakness of her nerves would have
balanced the violence of her passions, and her bark been worse than her
bite. But power gives a feeble, furious, woman, male instruments. And
the effect is as terrible as the combination is unnatural.
* * * * *
In this instance it whetted an assassin's dagger for a poor forlorn
wretch just meditating suicide.