“This is the house, father,” muttered the Benedictine.
His companion, like himself, wore the black habit of the Order, and
his cowl so shrouded his face that little of that was visible but a
short white beard fringing a mouth and jaw of singular grimness.
The two stood before the door of a common dwelling situated in a block
of buildings near the Ponte Sisto, and almost under the shadow of the
Castle of the Capoferri. It was a June evening of the year 1504, and
already the seven hills of Rome were like seven burning kilns. The
heat radiated from them, even at midnight, would have sufficed a
reasonable land for its summer.
The door was opened to the low knock of the friar by a scared-looking
young girl. She wore a simple dress of green frieze, the bodice of
which, unlaced to the heat, had slipped about her shoulders. The light
of the lamp she carried rounded upon her full lower lip, and gave a
dusky mystery to her wide animal eyes. The older man, regarding the
child a moment, raised his hand and fondled her chin and neck,
deliberately, and like a privileged connoisseur.
“Balatrone’s daughter?” he asked.
The girl answered “Yes” with a motion of her lips. Taking him for the
prior of some great community, she never even thought of resenting his
caress.
“It may count to thy father for a score of indulgences,” said the
monk. “We shall see. Now take us to him.”
She went before, and they followed her into a little stifling chamber
looking on a small courtyard where a scrap of fountain tinkled. Tiny
as its voice was, it conveyed a thought of refreshment to the sick man
who lay on a couch against the wall beside.
The face of this man already bore the shadow of coming dissolution. He
had been fat once, and so recently that his skin had had no time to
adapt itself to the waste within, but hung in folds like wrinkled
tripe. His eyes had a haunted, pathetic look in them, for he had lived
his later time with a damning secret for company, and he dreaded
unspeakably the mortal moment which should find him still unrelieved
of its burden. Wherefore he had provisionally, and with a reservation
in favour of his own possible recovery, confided to his confessor
enough of the business to awaken that cleric’s lively interest, and to
send him off in search of one more fitted, by virtue of his canonical
rank and authority, to accept contrition and deliver judgment on a
momentous matter. The two lost no time in preliminaries.
“This is one, Balatrone,” said the friar, “endowed with the highest
gift for absolution. I am about to make known to him the substance of
the report you have committed to me.”
“_Bene, bene_,” said the sick man, nodding exhaustedly. “I ask the
good father to purge my soul.”
The “good father” mentioned had seated himself in an obscure corner,
his face bowed and concealed by his hood. The other monk took a
parchment from his bosom, and referred to it.
“These are the depositions,” he said softly, “of one Andrea Sfondrati,
late page to his Holiness Alexander VI. The man died recently under
suspicion of poison, and the document came into the hands of Balatrone
here.”
“I stole it from his chamber,” declared the patient, in a tremulous
but resolved voice, “after I had poisoned him. None but I and he knew
of its existence. It is all true. No alternative was left me.”
“Continue,” said the seated monk passionlessly. “Continue, brother. So
far this implies nothing beyond your province.”
The Benedictine, unperturbed, unfolded the parchment.
“The statement, Father,” he said, “covers the night of his late
Holiness’s mortal sickness, which in a few hours left the throne of
St. Peter vacant.” He glanced significantly towards the other, who
silently motioned him to proceed. “There were present with his
Holiness on that occasion,” he went on, “his son the Don Cesare Borgia
and his Eminence the Cardinal Adriano of Corneto. The narrator takes
up the tale at the moment when a certain dish was placed before his
Eminence during the feast served privately in his honour.”
He shifted, so as to get the light upon the document, and began to
read in a clear, low voice:
“‘We all knew well enough,’ says Sfondrati, ‘what was going to happen.
When I took the dish from Torelli at the door, I thought to myself,
“Here ensues a vacancy in the Sacred College.” There had been so much
purring and fondling, such solicitude about the Cardinal’s health,
such brotherly frankness, such plans for the morrow. That was the
Borgia way, the one they always followed by choice. Though they might
cut throats under provocation, to take a man by the hand, to praise
and flatter and applaud him, to caress his prosperous fatness, as it
were, while studying in his face the working of the poison they had
already insinuated into his belly--that was the sport of sports to
them. And this Cardinal had loggias and vineyards and much oil and
corn. He was a wealthy prince, a succulent mouthful, and it was his
turn to be swallowed. “How,” I thought, “can any one, not a credulous
ass, be brought to commit himself to these gloved tigers? Has not
Corneto heard, like the rest of us, of the Orsini, of Vitellozzo, of
Oliverotto, of brother Gandia and brother-in-law Biseglia, of Peroto,
the Holy Father’s little favourite, whose wisand was split by Cesare
as he clung screaming to the arms of his old patron? Has he not heard
of these and a hundred others; of the mysterious illnesses, of the
stabs in the dark, of the bodies tipped into the Tiber, of that
charcoal-burner, witness to Gandia’s murder, who excused himself for
not having reported the matter to the Governor on the ground that such
affairs had grown too common o’ nights to excite interest? Has he not
heard, in short, of these Spaniards their little ways, that he can
thus voluntarily venture himself within reach of their covetous grip?
Or does he throw up the game in despair, and yield his money-bags
incontinent to the Vatican exchequer?”
“‘I judged his Eminence wrongly, as the sequel will show; but the
belief was in me at the moment, and pretty contemptuously, that the
man was a fool.
“‘Well, I took the dish, I say, from Torelli, and Nicandro took it
from me. We were supping in the garden-house, in Apollo’s bower, for
the month was August; and Nicandro was our Ganymede and little Lisetta
our Hebe. They made a pretty couple, and may have shared something
less than a shirt between them. Nicandro placed the dish before his
Eminence. It was confetti of creamed fruit, and a perfume like
ambrosia rose from it. I had never seen the handsome, devilish face of
Don Cesare look more gentle and ingratiatory than it did at that
moment. Its expression put to rebuke the Holy Father’s, which was as
sick and flabby as a skinned calf’s. The old devil had not the nerve
of his whelp--that is the truth. The dish was placed before his
Eminence, I say, and its fellow before each of the other two.’”
“He was the very maestro of confetti, that cook,” broke out the sick
man feebly from his couch. “His designs in gilt and coloured sugar
were sheer masterpieces!”
The monk glanced dumbly at him a moment, then continued his reading:
“‘Lisette hung over the Cardinal, with the flagon of wine in her hand.
Her bosom pressed his neck; she laid her cheek upon his bald head,
and, so standing, filled his glass. But Corneto put neither his hand
to the dish nor his lips to the beaker. Instead he rose, and so
suddenly, that he bruised the child’s lips.
“‘“Blood!” said Cæsar softly, and with a smile. “That is a harsh
retort on love, Prince.”
“‘Then, in one instant, I recognised that I had misjudged his
Eminence, that he knew or guessed, and that a crisis was upon us. His
eyes were like black glass in stone; he looked into the black, excited
eyes of his host. The two white, black-eyed faces, the one awful, the
other wet and piteous, opposed each other.
“‘“Is it your will, Borgia, that I eat of this dish?” he said.
“‘The Pope strove to reply, and no word could he articulate. But his
son answered for him: “What distemper is this, Corneto? Come, rally
thee, man, nor leave the feast uncrowned. One effort more; see, we
will give thee the lead!”
“‘He ate himself, and made his father eat. When the two were finished,
the Cardinal addressed the Pope. “God forgive thee, Borgia,” he said,
“and prosper thy design for all its worth.” And he, in his turn, ate
of his sweet, and flung the dish from him. “_Consummatum est_,” he
said. “I have my peace to make with Heaven. I crave your Holiness’s
permission to withdraw.”
“‘Now Don Cesare rose laughing, and rallying their guest for his weak
stomach, saw him for a distance through the gardens and then himself
returned. And there were we, the frightened witnesses, whispering half
tearful now the thing was done, yet dreading that he should see and
resent our tremors.
“‘But the Pope sat staring with a ghastly face; and Don Cesare sat
down beside him, and the two fell murmuring together. And suddenly, in
one moment, his Holiness uttered a mortal cry: “Corneto, I am
poisoned! He hath retorted on us with our own!”
“‘It was true. The Cardinal, well foreseeing his fate, had prevailed,
by bribes and prayers and promises, over the conscience of his
Holiness’s cook, and had induced the man to serve to his masters the
poison intended for himself. The Borgia took the Borgia’s own
prescription, and died that night in torture. Cæsar hung between hell
and earth awhile, and presently escaped. This is all true as I record
it.’”
The monk ceased reading, and looked towards the couch. For a little no
sound broke the stillness but the faint gasping of the patient and the
noisome droning of a fly about the room.
“Balatrone?” whispered the Benedictine.
“I was that cook!” cried the dying man in a fearful voice. “Sfondrati
read my secret, and recorded it, and bled me with it till he ruined
me. I had to poison him to still his tongue and secure the record.”
The seated monk arose, and came with a fierce stride to the bed.
“Thou hast killed a Pope,” he said. “Yield up the secret of that
poison--the Borgia death.”
“Absolve me first.”
“None but a Pope can do that.”
“Then I must take it with me to the grave.”
“Hark ye, fellow--I am Julius; I am the Pope.”
“It is his Holiness indeed, Balatrone,” cried the friar.
The man screamed and writhed.
“It is the foam of swine, poisoned with arsenic and then whipped to
frenzy. Absolve me, Holy Father, absolve me!”
“Ha!” exclaimed the Pontiff, in the voice of a long-covetous man
satisfied.
He heard a choke behind him, and turned to find the girl close by. His
face softened. “What, little Hebe,” he said. “Wouldst like to come and
serve the wine to Papa Julius? But, wait.”
He turned, with hand uplifted, to give the blessing; but Balatrone was
dead.
“DEAD MAN’S PLACK”
Elfrida, wife of Athelwold, the King’s favourite, and daughter and
heiress to Olgar Earl of Devonshire, was a beauty of the true Helena
complexion. To see her, for most men, was to covet; to possess her,
for the one, was to wear a crown of exquisite thorns. The orchard
needs most watching when the fruit is ripe, and Elfrida hung at
perpetual ripeness, maddening to parched lips without. The keeper of
this garden of sweet things might hardly enjoy it for his fear of
robbers. And the worst of it was that, to maintain so ravishing a
possession in its perfection, no warning as to its own irresistible
witchery must be so much as hinted to it, lest the blue innocence of
two of the most lovely wondering eyes in the world should be impaired
thereby, and self-consciousness usurp in them the place of
_naïveté_. Gazing into those artless depths, if one had the
privilege, one presently recognised in their little floating motes and
shadows the souls of the many who had drowned themselves therein. Was
Elfrida conscious of the tragic secrets hidden away under those azure
waters? Her husband at least thought her the most loving, the most
unsophisticated, the most trustworthy of wives; and if the wish was
very particularly the father to the thought, the thought was none the
less for that sincere.
One noon the young wife sat, yawning and a little _ennuyé_, in her
bower of the Thanage house by Harewood Forest in Hampshire. Athelwold
was with the Court at Winchester, and time hung heavy on her hands.
She leaned back in her seat, listlessly conning the crumpled figure of
Daukin, the Earl’s clerk or bookesman, as he squatted on his stool
monotonously mouthing the Canons of Eusebius from an illuminated
manuscript--the light literature of England when Dunstan was Primate.
Like many ethereal women, Elfrida found a fascination in the deformed
and grotesque. She petted little harsh Daukin; and he, while he took
his full sardonic change of the licence allowed him, for ever in
spirit kissed the beautiful feet that trampled on his soul. So, he
thought, must feel the writhing, adoring, hopeless serpent under
Mary’s feet in the chapel.
She broke in upon his reading, suddenly and irrelevantly.
“Will our lord return this night, think you, Master Bookesman?”
The dwarf, closing the manuscript, accepted grimly the moral of his
own eloquence.
“Will a star shoot out of the east?” he said. “I’ll tell thee when the
night hath come and gone.”
“Nay, say that you think he will--say it, say it!”
“The King loves the Earl, lady, and thou desirest him. Which passion
shall pull the stronger?”
“Do not _I_ love him, thou toad?”
“Well, then, pull, and in double harness; so, belike, the King, that
holds to him, shall be drawn too.”
“I do not desire the King.”
“God give him strength to bear it!”
She laughed musically: “Insolent!” and so fell into thought.
“Thou knowest, Daukin,” she said presently, “I have never been to
Court--nor desired it indeed. Of what complexion is the King?”
“Hot.”
“Is he not very young?”
“He hath learned to lisp and help himself to what he wants. The young
husbands in his suite observe discretion.”
“Poor husbands! O, Daukin, O, waly me, how the day loiters! If my love
could draw so strong, I’d e’en take the worser for the better’s sake.”
“Which first?”
“Peace, fool!”
“Well, the comfort is the King’s heard of thee, and heard enough to
satisfy him, it seems. He’ll not trouble thee with a visit.”
“He has not heard.”
“What! Did he not use his influence with the Earl thy father to
promote this match?”
“Aye, on grounds of policy and fortune. Thank Heaven I am not
beautiful!”
“It listens and will record.”
She sighed: “Alack, a doleful day! O, I wish my lord would come!”
A bugle sounding without answered on her word. There was a thud of
racing hoofs, a sudden turmoil in the court, a mingling of many
voices, servile or peremptory. Elfrida rose ecstatic, clasping her
hands.
“’Tis he himself!” she cried, and advancing, as the curtain parted,
almost ran into the arms of her husband Athelwold.
He was tall, sinewy, pale-haired and lashed. His tunic of fine
cramasie was torn, his gold garters trailed; he looked like a man in
the last extreme of haste and agitation. He took the wondering beauty
in his arms, and gazed into her face, searchingly, passionately.
“Wife,” he said, “I have something of wild urgency for thy ear. I must
speak it ere my blood cools. Tell me that thy heart is mine?”
“Athelwold! What questions!”
“Tell it, tell it!”
“Am I not thy wife?”
“Priests’ business. I speak of love.”
“Why, did I not swear to love thee?”
“Elfrida, thy love’s my heaven; without it--hell. Hear my confession.
There’s no moment to lose.”
“Thou strange husband!”
“When I first saw thee in thy father’s house I saw my destiny. Such
immortal beauty, child--God, I was just man! Forgive the mad cunning
jealousy that would deceive thee even in thyself. ‘I must possess,’ I
thought, ‘this immortal thing or die.’ I bid for thy rank, thy
fortune, in pretence, the King upholding my suit. His interest turned
the scale, and we were wed. Elfrida, wife, dear love--I wronged the
King in all; I was no more at first than his deputy for thy hand.”
A little spot of white had come to her cheek; but she smiled on him,
not stirring.
“How, Athelwold?”
“I must confess it,” he said. “Edgar had heard speak of this lovely
Devon rose; and, toying, only half-inclined, with a thought of
matrimony, sent me, on some feigned mission, to discover if the lady’s
beauty really matched her nobility--in which case----”
“Yes, Athelwold?”
He held her convulsively. “O, forgive me, Elfrida, that I made thee
Queen of love, not England! Thy wealth, thy name, I told him, were the
charms that gilded servile eyes--enough, perhaps, for such as I, but
for him, lacking the first and best of recommendations. And he
believed me, and yielded thee to me. And now, and now”--he held her
from him, his chest heaving, his voice breaking--“my sin hath found me
out--some one hath betrayed me--and he is coming in person to put my
report to the proof. Feigning to prepare for his visit, I fled but in
time to forestall him by a few hours. Ah, love! all is lost unless
thou lovest me.”
She answered quite softly: “What am I to do, Athelwold?”
“Do, be, anything but Elfrida. Dress slovenly, speak rudely, soil and
discredit thine own perfection.”
“Substitute another for thy lady.”
They both started, and fell apart. The dwarf, forgotten by the one,
unnoticed by the other, had risen from his stool. The Thane’s hand
whipped furiously to his sword-hilt.
“Nay,” said the girl, interposing--“Daukin is my dog; Daukin loves me;
Daukin shall speak.”
“Let the Thane,” said the dwarf, cool and caustic, “seek his couch on
pretence of fever, and let Alse, the cookmaid, receive the King. We be
all devoted servants of our house. A little persuasion, a little
guile, and the thing is carried.”
“I will go instruct the wench,” said Elfrida hurriedly.
She seemed charmed with the idea. She drove her lord to his hiding,
with a peremptory laughing injunction that he was not to issue
therefrom until summoned by herself; she refused to linger a moment by
his side in her excitement. Her eyes had never looked so
heavenly-bright and blue.
At eve came the King, with a little brilliant retinue.
But Alse did not receive him. Instead there advanced and knelt at his
feet one of the most radiant young beauties his eyes had ever
encountered. The violet Saxon hood fell back from her face as she
raised it, revealing a sun of little curls bound by a golden fillet.
The slender lifted hands, the bright parted lips, most of all the
eyes, blue as lazulite and wide with innocence, seemed all as if posed
for a picture of Love’s ecstasy. The King, young, and lustful, and
handsome, with his strong, clean-cut face, stood the speechless one.
“Welcome, lord King,” she said in a half-articulate voice, like a
child murmuring a lesson.
He raised and kissed her. “Welcome, wife of Athelwold!” he said, and
let out a sigh like a man restored from drowning.
But apart stood the dwarf, amazed and sorrowful.
“She hath deceived us,” he thought. “What is to be the end?”
That night was spent in feasting; and in the morning came Elfrida to
her husband’s couch. Worn with fatigue and anxiety--since she had
given orders that none was to approach him--he had fallen asleep at
last.
“Up, up, my Thane!” she cried. “The King is bent on hunting, and
awaits thee in the court. Say nothing. All goes well.”
She would not linger, lest, as she whispered, she should risk
discovery; but, running from him, sought her bower. There listening, a
hand upon her bosom, she heard the chase ride forth; and presently the
dwarf stole in to her.
“Thou hast done it,” he said. “The King will kill him.”
She began: “Dog! Thou darest----” but, checking herself, put her hands
a moment to her face, then went up and down, up and down, like one
distracted.
“Well, he wronged the King,” said Daukin.
She stopped before him, and his soul struggled against the fascination
of the blue waters.
“What was that to his wrong of me?” she said passionately; and, as he
gazed, he saw the waters brim. “O, Daukin!” she wept; “cannot _you_
understand me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And love me still?”
“I can love the truth,” he said, with a heart-broken sigh. “I have
found it at last in the depths I have studied so long.”
When the King returned, the sternness of his white face belied his
uttered commiseration. The Thane, he told his lady, had stumbled on
his own boar-spear, and met with a mortal hurt.
“Long live the Queen!” said Daukin.
Edgar started, and his hand went to his dagger. Elfrida stumbled
forward.
“No,” she said, in a weak voice, “it is my dog, lord King. I will not
have him killed because he barks.”