The words that passed between Bianca and me that evening in the
dining-room express all that can be said of our attitude to each other
during the months that followed. Daily we met, and the things which our
lips no longer dared to utter, our eyes expressed.
Days passed and grew to weeks, and these accumulated into months. The
autumn faded from gold to grey, and the winter came and laid the earth
to sleep, and then followed spring to awaken it once more.
None troubled us at Pagliano, and we began with some justice to consider
ourselves secure. Galeotto's memorial, not a doubt, had stirred up
matters; and Pier Luigi would be under orders from his father not to add
one more scandal to the many of his life by venturing to disturb Madonna
Bianca in her stronghold at Pagliano.
From time to time we were visited by Galeotto. It was well for him that
fatigue had overwhelmed him that day at Bologna, and so hindered him
from taking a hand with us in the doings of that hideous night, else he
might no longer have freedom to roam the State unchallenged as he did.
He told us of the new citadel the Duke was building in Piacenza, and
how for the purpose he was pulling down houses relentlessly to obtain
material and to clear himself a space, and how, further, he was widening
and strengthening the walls of the city.
“But I doubt,” he said one morning in that spring, “if he will live to
see the work completed. For we are resolved at last. There is no
need for an armed rising. Five score of my lances will be all that is
necessary. We are planning a surprise, and Ferrante Gonzaga is to be at
hand to support us with Imperial troops and to receive the State as the
Emperor's vicegerent when the hour strikes. It will strike soon,” he
added, “and this, too, shall be paid for with the rest.” And he touched
the black mourning gown that Bianca wore.
He rode away again that day, and he went north for a last interview with
the Emperor's Lieutenant, but promising to return before the blow was
struck to give me the opportunity to bear my share in it.
Spring turned to summer, and we waited, wandering in the gardens
together; reading together, playing at bowls or tennis, though the
latter game was not considered one for women, and sometimes exercising
the men-at-arms in the great inner bailey where they lodged. Twice we
rode out ahawking, accompanied by a strong escort, and returned without
mishap, though I would not consent to a third excursion, lest a rumour
having gone abroad, our enemies should lie in wait to trap us. I grew
strangely fearful of losing her who did not and who never might belong
to me.
And all this time my penance, as I regarded it, grew daily heavier to
bear. Long since I had ceased so much as to kiss her finger-tips. But
to kiss the very air she breathed was fraught with danger to my peace
of mind. And then one evening, as we paced the garden together, I had
a moment's madness, a moment in which my yearnings would no longer be
repressed. Without warning I swung about, caught her in my arms, and
crushed her to me.
I saw the sudden flicker of her eyelids, the one swift upward glance of
her blue eyes, and I beheld in them a yearning akin to my own, but also
a something of fear that gave me pause.
I put her from me. I knelt and kissed the hem of her mourning gown.
“Forgive me, sweet.” I besought her very humbly.
“My poor Agostino,” was all she answered me, what time her fingers
fluttered gently over my sable hair.
Thereafter I shunned her for a whole week, and was never in her company
save at meals under the eyes of our attendants.
At last, one day in the early part of September, on the very anniversary
of her father's death--the eighth of that month it was, and a
Thursday--came Galeotto with a considerable company of men-at-arms; and
that night he was gay and blithe as I had never seen him in these twelve
months past.
When we were alone, the cause of it, which already I suspected, at last
transpired.
“It is the hour,” he said very pregnantly. “His sands are swiftly
running out. To-morrow, Agostino, you ride with me to Piacenza. Falcone
shall remain here to captain the men in case any attempt should be made
upon Pagliano, which is not likely.”
And now he told us of the gay doings there had been in Piacenza for the
occasion of the visit of the Duke's son Ottavio--that same son-in-law of
the Emperor whom the latter befriended, yet not to the extent of giving
him the duchy in his father's place when that father should have gone to
answer for his sins.
Daily there had been jousts and tournaments and all manner of gaieties,
for which the Piacentini had been sweated until they could sweat no
more. Having fawned upon the people that they might help him to crush
the barons, Farnese was now crushing the people whose service he no
longer needed. Extortion had reduced them to poverty and despair and
their very houses were being pulled down to supply material for the new
citadel, the Duke recking little who might thus be left without a roof
over his head.
“He has gone mad,” said Galeotto, and laughed. “Pier Luigi could not
more effectively have played his part so as to serve our ends. The
nobles he alienated long ago, and now the very populace is incensed
against him and weary of his rapine. It is so bad with him that of late
he has remained shut in the citadel, and seldom ventures abroad, so as
to avoid the sight of the starving faces of the poor and the general
ruin that he is making of that fair city. He has given out that he is
ill. A little blood-letting will cure all his ills for ever.”
Upon the morrow Galeotto picked thirty of his men, and gave them
their orders. They were to depose their black liveries, and clad as
countryfolk, but armed as countryfolk would be for a long journey, they
were severally to repair afoot to Piacenza, and assemble there upon the
morning of Saturday at the time and place he indicated. They went, and
that afternoon we followed.
“You will come back to me, Agostino?” Bianca said to me at parting.
“I will come back,” I answered, and bowing I left her, my heart very
heavy.
But as we rode the prospect of the thing to do warmed me a little, and
I shook off my melancholy. Optimism coloured the world for me all of the
rosy hue of promise.
We slept in Piacenza that night, in a big house in the street that leads
to the Church of San Lazzaro, and there was a company of perhaps a
dozen assembled there, the principals being the brothers Pallavicini
of Cortemaggiore, who had been among the first to feel the iron hand of
Pier Luigi; there were also present Agostino Landi, and the head of the
house of Confalonieri.
We sat after supper about a long table of smooth brown oak, which
reflected as in a pool the beakers and flagons with which it was
charged, when suddenly Galeotto spun a coin upon the middle of it. It
fell flat presently, showing the ducal arms and the inscription of which
the abbreviation PLAC was a part.
Galeotto set his finger to it. “A year ago I warned him,” said he, “that
his fate was written there in that shortened word. To-morrow I shall
read the riddle for him.”
I did not understand the allusion and said so.
“Why,” he explained, not only to me but to others whose brows had also
been knit, “first 'Plac' stands for Placentia where he will meet his
doom; and then it contains the initials of the four chief movers in this
undertaking--Pallavicini, Landi, Anguissola, and Confalonieri.”
“You force the omen to come true when you give me a leader's rank in
this affair,” said I.
He smiled but did not answer, and returned the coin to his pocket.
And now the happening that is to be related is to be found elsewhere,
for it is a matter of which many men have written in different ways,
according to their feelings or to the hand that hired them to the
writing.
Soon after dawn Galeotto quitted us, each of us instructed how to act.
Later in the morning, as I was on my way to the castle, where we were
to assemble at noon, I saw Galeotto riding through the streets at
the Duke's side. He had been beyond the gates with Pier Luigi on an
inspection of the new fortress that was building. It appeared that once
more there was talk between the Duke and Galeotto of the latter's taking
service under him, and Galeotto made use of this circumstance to forward
his plans. He was, I think, the most self-contained and patient man that
it would have been possible to find for such an undertaking.
In addition to the condottiero, a couple of gentlemen on horseback
attended the Duke, and half a score of his Swiss lanzknechte in gleaming
corselets and steel morions, shouldering their formidable pikes, went
afoot to hedge his excellency.
The people fell back before that little company; the citizens doffed
their caps with the respect that is begotten of fear, but their air
was sullen and in the main they were silent, though here and there some
knave, with the craven adulation of those born to serve at all costs,
raised a feeble shout of “Duca!”
The Duke moved slowly at little more than a walking pace, for he was all
crippled again by the disease that ravaged him, and his face, handsome
in itself, was now repulsive to behold; it was a livid background for
the fiery pustules that mottled it, and under the sunken eyes there were
great brown stains of suffering.
I flattened myself against a wall in the shadow of a doorway lest he
should see me, for my height made me an easy mark in that crowd. But he
looked neither to right nor to left as he rode. Indeed, it was said
that he could no longer bear to meet the glances of the people he had
so grossly abused and outraged with deeds that are elsewhere abundantly
related, and with which I need not turn your stomachs here.
When they had gone by, I followed slowly in their wake towards the
castle. As I turned out of the fine road that Gambara had built, I
was joined by the brothers Pallavicini, a pair of resolute, grizzled
gentlemen, the elder of whom, as you will remember, was slightly lame.
With an odd sense of fitness they had dressed themselves in black. They
were accompanied by half a dozen of Galeotto's men, but these bore no
device by which they could be identified. We exchanged greetings, and
stepped out together across the open space of the Piazza della Citadella
towards the fortress.
We crossed the drawbridge, and entered unchallenged by the guard. People
were wont to come and go, and to approach the Duke it was necessary
to pass the guard in the ante-chamber above, whose business it was to
question all comers.
Moreover the only guard set consisted of a couple of Swiss who lounged
in the gateway, the garrison being all at dinner, a circumstance upon
which Galeotto had calculated in appointing noon as the hour for the
striking of the blow.
We crossed the quadrangle, and passing under a second archway came
into the inner bailey as we had been bidden. Here we were met by
Confalonieri, who also had half a dozen men with him. He greeted us, and
issued his orders sharply.
“You, Ser Agostino, are to come with us, whilst you others are to remain
here until Messer Landi arrives with the remainder of our forces. He
should have a score of men with him, and they will cut down the guard
when they enter. The moment that is done let a pistol-shot be discharged
as the signal to us above, and proceed immediately to take up the bridge
and overpower the Swiss who should still be at table. Landi has his
orders and knows how to act.”
The Pallavicini briefly spoke their assents, and Confalonieri, taking
me by the arm, led me quickly above-stairs, his half-dozen men following
close upon our heels. Upon none was there any sign of armour. But every
man wore a shirt of mail under his doublet or jerkin.
We entered the ante-chamber--a fine, lofty apartment, richly hung and
richly furnished. It was empty of courtiers, for all were gone to dine
with the captain of the guard, who had been married upon that very
morning and was giving a banquet in honour of the event, as Galeotto had
informed himself when he appointed the day.
Over by a window sat four of the Swiss--the entire guard--about a table
playing at dice, their lances deposited in an angle of the wall.
Watching their game--for which he had lingered after accompanying the
Duke thus far--stood the tall, broad-shouldered figure of Galeotto. He
turned as we entered, and gave us an indifferent glance as if we were of
no interest to him, then returned his attention to the dicers.
One or two of the Swiss looked up at us casually. The dice rattled
merrily, and there came from the players little splutters of laughter
and deep guttural, German oaths.
At the room's far end, by the curtains that masked the door of the
chamber where Farnese sat at dinner, stood an usher in black velvet,
staff in hand, who took no more interest in us than did the Swiss.
We sauntered over to the dicers' table, and in placing ourselves the
better to watch their game, we so contrived that we entirely hemmed them
into the embrasure, whilst Confalonieri himself stood with his back to
the pikes, an effective barrier between the men and their weapons.
We remained thus for some moments whilst the game went on, and we
laughed with the winners and swore with the losers, as if our hearts
were entirely in the dicing and we had not another thought in the world.
Suddenly a pistol-shot crackled below, and startled the Swiss, who
looked at one another. One burly fellow whom they named Hubli held the
dice-box poised for a throw that was never made.
Across the courtyard below men were running with drawn swords, shouting
as they ran, and hurled themselves through the doorway leading to the
quarters where the Swiss were at table. This the guards saw through the
open window, and they stared, muttering German oaths to express their
deep bewilderment.
And then there came a creak of winches and a grinding of chains to
inform us that the bridge was being taken up. At last those four
lanzknechte looked at us.
“Beim blute Gottes!” swore Hubli. “Was giebt es?”
Our set faces, showing no faintest trace of surprise, quickened their
alarm, and this became flavoured by suspicion when they perceived at
last how closely we pressed about them.
“Continue your game,” said Confalonieri quietly, “it will be best for
you.”
The great blonde fellow Hubli flung down the dice-box and heaved himself
up truculently to face the speaker who stood between him and the lances.
Instantly Confalonieri stabbed him, and he sank back into his chair with
a cry, intensest surprise in his blue eyes, so sudden and unlooked-for
had the action been.
Galeotto had already left the group about the table, and with a blow of
his great hand he felled the usher who sought to bar his passage to
the Duke's chamber. He tore down the curtains, and he was wrapping
and entangling the fellow in the folds of them when I came to his aid
followed by Confalonieri, whose six men remained to hold the three sound
and the one wounded Swiss in check.
And now from below there rose such a din of steel on steel, of shouts
and screams and curses, that it behoved us to make haste.
Bidding us follow him, Galeotto flung open the door. At table sat
Farnese with two of his gentlemen, one of whom was the Marquis
Sforza-Fogliani, the other a doctor of canon law named Copallati.
Alarm was already written on their faces. At sight of Galeotto--“Ah! You
are still here!” cried Farnese. “What is taking place below? Have the
Swiss fallen to fighting among themselves?”
Galeotto returned no answer, but advanced slowly into the room; and
now Farnese's eyes went past him and fastened upon me, and I saw
them suddenly dilate; beyond me they went and met the cold glance of
Confalonieri, that other gentleman he had so grievously wronged and whom
he had stripped of the last rag of his possessions and his rights. The
sun coming through the window caught the steel that Confalonieri still
carried in his hands; its glint drew the eyes of the Duke, and he must
have seen that the baron's sleeve was bloody.
He rose, leaning heavily upon the table.
“What does this mean?” he demanded in a quavering voice, and his face
had turned grey with apprehension.
“It means,” Galeotto answered him, firmly and coldly, “that your rule
in Piacenza is at an end, that the Pontifical sway is broken in these
States, and that beyond the Po Ferrante Gonzaga waits with an army to
take possession here in the Emperor's name. Finally, my Lord Duke, it
means that the Devil's patience is to be rewarded, and that he is at
last to have you who have so faithfully served him upon earth.”
Farnese made a gurgling sound and put a jewelled hand to his throat
as if he choked. He was all in green velvet, and every button of
his doublet was a brilliant of price; and that gay raiment by its
incongruity seemed to heighten the tragedy of the moment.
Of his gentlemen the doctor sat frozen with terror in his high-backed
seat, clutching the arms of it so that his knuckles showed white
as marble. In like case were the two attendant servants, who hung
motionless by the buffet. But Sforza-Fogliani, a man of some spirit for
all his effeminate appearance, leapt to his feet and set a hand to his
weapons.
Instantly Confalonieri's sword flashed from its sheath. He had passed
his dagger into his left hand.
“On your life, my Lord Marquis, do not meddle here,” he warned him in a
voice that was like a trumpet-call.
And before that ferocious aspect and those naked weapons Sforza-Fogliani
stood checked and intimidated.
I too had drawn my poniard, determined that Farnese should fall to my
steel in settlement of the score that lay between us. He saw the act,
and if possible his fears were increased, for he knew that the wrongs he
had done me were personal matters between us for which it was not likely
I should prove forgiving.
“Mercy!” he gasped, and held out supplicating hands to Galeotto.
“Mercy?” I echoed, and laughed fiercely. “What mercy would you have
shown me against whom you set the Holy Office, but that you could sell
my life at a price that was merciless? What mercy would you have shown
to the daughter of Cavalcanti when she lay in your foul power? What
mercy did you show her father who died by your hand? What mercy did you
show the unfortunate Giuliana whom you strangled in her bed? What mercy
did you ever show to any that you dare ask now for mercy?”
He looked at me with dazed eyes, and from me to Galeotto. He shuddered
and turned a greenish hue. His knees were loosened by terror, and he
sank back into the chair from which he had risen.
“At least... at least,” he gasped, “let me have a priest to shrive me. Do
not... do not let me die with all my sins upon me!”
In that moment there came from the ante-chamber the sound of swiftly
moving feet, and the clash of steel mingling with cries. The sound
heartened him. He conceived that someone came to his assistance. He
raised his voice in a desperate screech:
“To me! To me! Help!”
As he shouted I sprang towards him, to find my passage suddenly barred
by Galeotto's arm. He shot it out, and my breast came against it
as against a rod of iron. It threw me out of balance, and ere I had
recovered it had thrust me back again.
“Back there!” said Galeotto's brazen voice. “This affair is mine. Mine
are the older wrongs and the greater.”
With that he stepped behind the Duke's chair, and Farnese in a fresh
spurt of panic came to his feet. Galeotto locked an arm about his neck
and pulled his head back. Into his ear he muttered words that I could
not overhear, but it was matter that stilled Farnese's last struggle.
Only the Duke's eyes moved, rolling in his head as he sought to look
upon the face of the man who spoke to him. And in that moment Galeotto
wrenched his victim's head still farther back, laying entirely bare the
long brown throat, across which he swiftly drew his dagger.
Copallati screamed and covered his face with his hands; Sforza-Fogliani,
white to the lips, looked on like a man entranced.
There was a screech from Farnese that ended in a gurgle, and suddenly
the blood spurted from his neck as from a fountain. Galeotto let him go.
He dropped to his chair and fell forward against the table, drenching it
in blood. Thence he went over sideways and toppled to the floor, where
he lay twitching, a huddle of arms and legs, the head lolling sideways,
the eyes vitreous, and blood, blood, blood all about him.