IN THE CITADEL OF CESENA
I will not harass you at any further length with the feelings that were
mine as we sped northward towards Cesena. If you are a person of some
imagination and not destitute of human sympathy you will be able to
surmise them; if you are not—why then, my tale is not for you, and it
is more than probable that you will have wearied of it and flung it
aside long before you reach this page.
We rode so hard that by sunset Cesena was in sight, and ere night had
fallen we were within the walls of the citadel. It was when we had
dismounted and I stood in the courtyard between Ercole and another of
the soldiers that Ramiro again addressed me.
“Animal,” said he, “they tell me that I bear a name for harsh measures
and rough ways. You shall be a witness hereafter of how deeply I am
maligned. For instead of putting you to the question and loosening your
lying tongue with the rack, I am content to keep you a prisoner until
my men return with that which I suspect you to be hiding from me. But
if I then discover that you have sought to fool me, you shall flutter
from Ramiro del’ Orca’s flagstaff.”
He pointed up to the tower of the Castle, from which a beam protruded,
laden at that moment with a ghastly burden just discernible in the
thickening gloom. He named it well when he called it his “flagstaff,”
and the miserable banner of carrion that hung from it was a fitting
pennon for the ruthless Governor of Cesena. Worthy was he to have worn
the silver hauberk of Werner von Urslingen with its motto, “The enemy
of God, of pity and of mercy.”
Forbidding, black-browed men caught me with rough hands and dragged me
off to a dank, unlighted prison, as empty of furniture as it was full
of noisome smells. And there they left me to my ugly thoughts and my
deeply despondent mood what time the Governor of Cesena supped with his
officers in the hall of the Castle.
Ramiro drank deep that night as was his habit, and being overladen with
wine it entered his mind that in one of his dungeons lay Lazzaro
Biancomonte, who, at one time, had been known as Boccadoro, the
merriest Fool in Italy. In his drunkenness he grew merry, and when
Ramiro del’ Orca grew merry men crossed themselves and betook them to
their prayers. He would fain be amused, and to serve that end he
summoned one of his sbirri and bade the fellow drag Boccadoro from his
dungeon and fetch him into his presence.
When they came for me I turned cold with fear that Madonna was already
taken, and, by contrast with such a fear as that, the reflection that
he might carry out his threat to hang me from that black beam of his,
faded into insignificant proportions.
They ushered me into a great hall, not ill-furnished, the floor strewed
plentifully with rushes, and warmed by an enormous fire of blazing oak.
By the door stood two pikemen in armour, like a pair of statues; in the
centre of the floor was a heavy oaken board, laden now with flagons and
beakers, at which sat Ramiro with a pair of gossips so villainous to
look at, that the sight of them reminded me of the adage “God makes a
man and then accompanies him.”
The Governor made a hideous noise at sight of me, which I was
constrained to accept as an expression of horrid glee.
“Boccadoro,” said he, “do you recall that when last I had the honour of
being entertained by your pert tongue, I promised you that did you ever
cross my path again I would raise you to the dignity of Fool of my
Court of Cesena?”
Into what magniloquence does vanity betray us! His Court of Cesena! As
well might you describe a pig-sty as a bower of roses.
But his words, despite the unsavoury thing of which they seemed to hold
a promise, fell sweetly on my ear, inasmuch as for the time they
relieved my fears touching Madonna. It was not to advise me of her
capture that he had had me haled into his odious presence. I gathered
courage.
“Have you not fools enough already at Cesena?” I asked him.
A moment he looked as if he were inclining to anger. Then he burst into
a coarse laugh, and turned to one of his gossips.
“Did I not tell you, Lampugnani, that his wit was quick and
penetrating? Hear him, rogue. Already has he discerned your quality.”
He laughed consumedly at his own jest, and turning to me he pointed to
a crimson bundle on a chair beside me. “Take those garments,” he
roughly bade me. “Go dress yourself in them, then come you back and
entertain us.”
Without answering him, and already anticipating the nature of the
clothes he bade me don, I lifted one of the garments from the heap. It
was a foliated jester’s cap, with a bell hanging from every point,
which gave out a tinkling sound as I picked it up. I let it fall again
as though it had scorched me, the memory of what stood between Madonna
Paola and me rising like a warning spectre in my mind. I would not
again defile myself by the garb of folly; not again would I incur the
shame of playing the Fool for the amusement of others.
“May it please your Excellency to excuse me,” I answered in a firm
tone. “I have made a vow never again to put on motley.”
He eyed me sardonically for a moment, as if enjoying in anticipation
the pleasure of compelling me against my will. He sat back in his chair
and threw one heavily-booted leg across the other.
“In the Citadel of Cesena,” said he, “we fear neither God nor Devil,
and vows are as water to us—things we cannot stomach. It does not
please me to excuse you.”
I may have paled a little before the sinister smile with which he
accompanied his words, but I stood my ground boldly.
“It is not,” said I, “a question of what a vow may be to you and yours,
but of what a vow is to me. It is a thing I cannot break.”
“Sangue di Cristo!” he snarled, “we will break it for you, then—that or
your bones. Resolve yourself, beast, the motley or the rack—or yet, if
you prefer it, there is the cord yonder.” And he pointed to the far end
of the chamber where some ropes were hanging from a pulley, the
implements of the ghastly torture of the cord. Of such a nature was
this monster that he made a torture-chamber of his dining-hall.
“Let the rogue make acquaintance with it,” laughed Lampugnani, showing
a mouthful of yellow teeth behind the black beard that bushed his lips.
“I’ll swear his dancing would afford us more amusement than his quips.
Swing him up, Illustrious.”
But the Illustrious seemed to ponder the matter.
“You shall have five minutes in which to decide,” he informed me
presently. “They say that I am cruel. Behold how patient is my
clemency. Five minutes shall you have where many another would hang you
out of hand for bearding him as you have done me.”
“You may begin at once,” said I. “neither five minutes nor five years
will alter my determination.”
His brow grew black with anger. “We shall see,” was all he said.
There was a silence now in which we waited, a storm of thoughts
battling in my mind. Presently Ramiro caught up one of the flagons and
applied it to his cup. It proved empty, and in a gust of passion he
hurled it against the wall where it burst into a thousand pieces.
Clearly he was very angry, and it taxed my wits to account for the
little measure of patience he was showing me.
“Beppo!” he called. A page lounging by the buffet sprang to attention.
He was a slender, rather delicate lad, fair of hair and blue of eyes,
not more than twelve years of age. An elderly man who stood beside
him—one Mariani, the seneschal of Cesena—stepped forward also,
solicitude in his glance.
“Bring me wine,” bawled the ogre. “Must I tell you what I need? If you
do not put those eyes of yours to better service, I’ll have them
plucked from your empty head. Bestir, animal.”
The old man caught up a beaker from the buffet and handed it to the
boy.
“Here, my son,” said he. “Hasten to his Excellency.”
The lad took the beaker from his father’s hands, and trembling in his
fear of Ramiro’s anger, he sprang forward to serve him. In his haste
the poor youth slipped in some grease that had clung to the rushes. In
seeking to recover himself he tripped over the feet of one of the
halberdiers that guarded me, and measured his length upon the floor at
Ramiro’s feet, flooding the Governor’s legs with the wine he carried.
How shall I tell you of the horror that was the sequel?
For just one instant Ramiro looked down at the sprawling lad, his eyes
glowing like a madman’s. Then suddenly he rose, stooped, and set one
hand to the boy’s belt, the other to the collar of his jerkin. Feeling
himself lifted, and knowing whose were the dread hands that held him,
poor Beppo uttered a single scream of terror. Then Ramiro swung him
round with an ease that displayed the man’s prodigious strength. For
just a second he seemed to hesitate how to dispose of the human bundle
that he held. Then, as if suddenly taking his resolve, that devil
hurled the lad across the little intervening space, straight into the
heart of the blazing fire.
Beppo hurtled against the logs with a sickening crash, and a thousand
sparks leapt up and vanished in the cavern of the chimney. Ramiro
wheeled sharply about, and snatching the pike from the hands of one of
my guards, he pinned down the poor body of the boy to make sure of his
victim’s entire destruction.
Away by the buffet old Mariani looked on with a face as grey as ashes,
his eyes protruding in horror at the thing they witnessed. One glimpse
I had of him, and I scarce know which was the sight that sickened me
more, the fathers anguish or the twitching limbs of the burning child.
Two legs and two arms protruded from the blaze and writhed and wriggled
horribly what time the flames peeled the garments from them and licked
the flesh from the bones. At length they fell still and sank down into
the white heat of the logs, a hideous, pungent odour spreading through
the chamber. From the old man by the buffet, who had stood spellbound
during this ghastly scene, there broke at last an anguished cry.
“Mercy, my lord, mercy!”
The Governor of Cesena straightened himself from his task, pulled the
pike from the flames, and restored it to the man-at-arms. Then turning
to Mariani:
“Fetch me wine,” he bade him curtly, as he seated himself once more
upon the chair from which he had risen to perform that deed of ghastly
ruthlessness.
A torch spluttered suddenly in its sconce, and the fierce hissing of
the fire—like some monster licking its chops over a bloody meal—were
the only sounds that disturbed the stillness that ensued.
Every man there, including Ramiro’s table companions, was white to the
lips; for accustomed though they might be to horrors in that brigand’s
nest, this was a horror that surpassed anything they had ever
witnessed. The silence irked Messer Ramiro. He looked round from under
his shaggy brows, and he spluttered out an oath.
“Will you bring me this wine, pig?” he growled at the almost senseless
Mariani, and in his air and voice there was a promise of such terrific
things that the old man put aside his horror to make room for his
fears, and mechanically seizing another flagon he hurried forward to
minister to the wants of his fearful lord.
Ramiro eyed him with cynical amusement.
“Your hand shakes, Mariani,” he derided him. “Are you cold? Go warm
yourself,” he added, with a brutal laugh and a jerk of his thumb
towards the fire.
My eyes have looked upon some gruesome sights, and I have heard such
tales of ruthless cruelty as you would deem almost passing possibility.
I have read of the awful doings of the Lord Bernabo Visconti at Milan
in the olden time, but I believe that compared with this monster of
Cesena that same Bernabo was no worse than a sucking dove. How it
befell that men permitted him to live, how it was that none bethought
him to put poison in his wine or a knife in his back, is something that
I shall never wholly understand. Could it be that these robbers of whom
he made a hedge for his protection were no better than himself, or was
it that the man’s terrific brutality was on such a scale that it filled
them with an almost supernatural awe of him? To men better versed than
am I in the mysterious ways of human nature do I leave the answering of
these questions.
The ogre turned his bloodshot eyes upon me, as with his hand he
caressed his tawny beard. He seemed to have cooled a little now, and to
have regained some mastery of his drunken self. Old Mariani tottered
back to his buffet, and stood leaning against it, his eyes wandering,
with the look of a man demented, to the fire that had devoured his
child. There, indeed, if he escaped the madness with which the
poignancy of his grief was threatening him, was a tool that might turn
its edge against this inhuman monster, this devil, this bloody carnifex
of a Governor.
“Chance,” said Ramiro, “has designed that you should see something of
how we deal with clumsy knaves at Cesena, Boccadoro. To disobedient
ones I can assure you that we are not half so merciful. There is no
such short shrift for them. You have had more than the time I promised
you for reflection. The garments await you yonder. Let us know—”
The door opened suddenly, and a servant entered.
“A courier from the Lord Vitellozzo Vitelli, Tyrant of Città di
Castello,” he announced, unwittingly breaking in upon Ramiro’s words,
“with urgent messages for the high and Mighty Governor of Cesena.”
On the instant Ramiro rose, the expression of his face changing from
cynical amusement to sober concern, the task upon which he was engaged
forgotten.
“Admit him instantly,” he commanded. And whilst he waited he paced the
chamber in long strides, his chin thrust slightly forward, suggestive
of deep thought. And during that pause, I, too, was thinking. Not
indeed of him, nor vainly speculating upon such matters as might be
involved in the message, the announcement of which seemed so deeply to
engage his mind, but chiefly of my own and Madonna Paola’s concerns.
It was not fear of what I had seen that now sent my thoughts into a new
channel and inspired me with the wisdom of obeying Ramiro del’ Orca’s
behest that I should don the hateful motley and play the Fool for his
diversion. It was not that I feared death; it was that I feared what
the consequences of my death might be to Paola di Santafior.
However desperate a position may seem, unlooked-for loopholes often
present themselves, and so long as we live and have sound limbs to aid
us to seize such opportunities as may offer, it is a weak thing utterly
to abandon hope.
Was it, then, not better to submit to the shame of the motley once
again for a little time, when by so doing I might perhaps live to work
my own salvation, and Madonna’s should she suffer capture, rather than
stubbornly to invite him to put me to death out of a feeling of false
pride?
The very resolve seemed to lend me strength and to revive the hope that
lay moribund in my breast. And then, scarce was it taken, when the door
again opened, and a man, who was splashed from head to foot with mud,
in earnest of how hard he had ridden, was ushered in.
He advanced to Meser Ramiro, bowed and presented a package. Ramiro
broke the seal, and standing with his back to the fire, immediately in
the light shed by one of the wax torches, he read the letter. Then his
eyes wandered to the man who had brought it, and to me it seemed that
they dwelt particularly upon the hat the courier was holding in his
hand.
“Take this good fellow to the kitchen,” he bade the servant that had
introduced him, “let him be fed and rested.” Then, turning to the man,
himself, “I shall require you to set out at daybreak with my answer,”
he said; and so, with a wave of the hand, he dismissed him. As the
messenger departed Ramiro returned to the table, filled himself a cup
of wine and drank.
“What says the Lord Vitelli?” Lampugnani ventured to ask him.
“If he knew you,” answered Ramiro, with a scowl, “he would counsel me
to strangle some of the over-inquisitive rascals that surround me.”
“Over-inquisitive?” echoed Lampugnani boldly. “Body of God! It were
enough to wake the curiosity of an ecstatic hermit to have a
mud-splashed courier from Citta di Castello at Cesena three times
within one little week.”
Ramiro looked at him, and by his glance it was plain to see that the
words had jarred his temper. Whatever it was that Vitelli wrote to
Ramiro, this gentleman was not minded to divulge it.
“If you have supped, Lampugnani,” said the Governor slowly, his eyes
upon his offending officer, “perhaps you will find some duty to perform
ere you seek your bed.”
Lampugnani turned crimson, and for a moment seemed to hesitate. Then he
rose. He was a man of choleric aspect, and that he served under Ramiro
del’ Orca was as much a danger to the Governor as to himself. He had
not the air of one whom it was wise to threaten in however veiled a
manner.
“Shall I fetch you this fellow’s hat ere I sleep?” he inquired, with
contemptuous insolence.
Not a word did Ramiro answer him, but his glance fastened upon
Lampugnani with an expression before which that impudent ruffian
lowered his own bold eyes. Thus for a moment; then with an awkward
laugh to cover the intimidation that he felt, Lampugnani walked heavily
from the room and banged the door after him.
There was about it all a strangeness that set my wits to work in a
mighty busy fashion. That work suffered interruption by the harsh voice
of Ramiro.
“Are you resolved, Boccadoro?” he growled at me. “Have you decided for
the motley or the cord?”
Instantly I fell into the part I was to play.
“Did I choose the latter,” said I, with an assumption of sudden
airiness and such a grimace as was part and parcel of my old-time
trade, “then were I truly worthy of the former, for I should have
proved myself, indeed, a fool. Yet if I choose the former, I pray that
you’ll not follow the same course of reasoning, and hold me worthy of
the latter.”
When he had understood its subtleties; for his wits were of a quality
that would have disgraced a calf, he roared at the conceit, and
seemingly thrown into a better humour by the promise of more such
entertainment, he bade my guards release me, and urged me to assume the
motley without more delay.
What time I was obeying him my mind was returning to that matter of
Lampugnani’s words, and it is not difficult to understand how I should
arrive at the only possible conclusion they suggested. The hats of the
other messengers from Vitelli, that the officer had mentioned, had been
brought to Ramiro. The reason for this that at once arose in my mind
was that within the messenger’s hat there was a second and more secret
communication for the Governor.
This secrecy and Ramiro’s display of anger at seeing a hint of it
betrayed by Lampugnani struck me, not unnaturally, as suspicious. What
were these hidden communications that passed between Vitellozzo Vitelli
and the Governor of Cesena? It was a matter of which I could not
pretend to offer a solution, but, nevertheless, it was one, I thought,
that promised to repay investigation.
Ramiro grew impatient, and my reflections suffered interruption by his
rough command that I should hasten. One of the men-at-arms helped me to
truss my points, and when that was done I stepped forward—Boccadoro the
Fool once more.