The Prisoners.
The sky was grey, but that made little difference in the Piazza del
Duomo, which was covered with its holiday sky of blue drapery, and its
constellations of yellow lilies and coats of arms. The sheaves of
banners were unfurled at the angles of the Baptistery, but there was no
carpet yet on the steps of the Duomo, for the marble was being trodden
by numerous feet that were not at all exceptional. It was the hour of
the Advent sermons, and the very same reasons which had flushed the
streets with holiday colour were reasons why the preaching in the Duomo
could least of all be dispensed with.
But not all the feet in the Piazza were hastening towards the steps.
People of high and low degree were moving to and fro with the brisk
pace of men who had errands before them; groups of talkers were thickly
scattered, some willing to be late for the sermon, and others content
not to hear it at all.
The expression on the faces of these apparent loungers was not that of
men who are enjoying the pleasant laziness of an opening holiday. Some
were in close and eager discussion; others were listening with keen
interest to a single spokesman, and yet from time to time turned round
with a scanning glance at any new passer-by. At the corner, looking
towards the Via de’ Cerretani—just where the artificial rainbow light
of the Piazza ceased, and the grey morning fell on the sombre stone
houses—there was a remarkable cluster of the working people, most of
them bearing on their dress or persons the signs of their daily labour,
and almost all of them carrying some weapon, or some tool which might
serve as a weapon upon occasion. Standing in the grey light of the
street, with bare brawny arms and soiled garments, they made all the
more striking the transition from the brightness of the Piazza. They
were listening to the thin notary, Ser Cioni, who had just paused on
his way to the Duomo. His biting words could get only a contemptuous
reception two years and a half before in the Mercato, but now he spoke
with the more complacent humour of a man whose party is uppermost, and
who is conscious of some influence with the people.
“Never talk to me,” he was saying, in his incisive voice, “never talk
to me of bloodthirsty Swiss or fierce French infantry: they might as
well be in the narrow passes of the mountains as in our streets; and
peasants have destroyed the finest armies of our condottieri in time
past, when they had once got them between steep precipices. I tell you,
Florentines need be afraid of no army in their own streets.”
“That’s true, Ser Cioni,” said a man whose arms and hands were
discoloured by crimson dye, which looked like blood-stains, and who had
a small hatchet stuck in his belt; “and those French cavaliers, who
came in squaring themselves in their smart doublets the other day, saw
a sample of the dinner we could serve up for them. I was carrying my
cloth in Ognissanti, when I saw my fine Messeri going by, looking round
as if they thought the houses of the Vespucci and the Agli a poor pick
of lodgings for them, and eyeing us Florentines, like top-knotted cocks
as they are, as if they pitied us because we didn’t know how to strut.
‘Yes, my fine _Galli_,’ says I, ‘stick out your stomachs; I’ve got a
meat-axe in my belt that will go inside you all the easier;’ when
presently the old cow lowed,[1] and I knew something had happened—no
matter what. So I threw my cloth in at the first doorway, and took hold
of my meat-axe and ran after my fine cavaliers towards the Vigna Nuova.
And, ‘What is it, Guccio?’ said I, when he came up with me. ‘I think
it’s the Medici coming back,’ said Guccio. _Bembè_! I expected so! And
up we reared a barricade, and the Frenchmen looked behind and saw
themselves in a trap; and up comes a good swarm of our _Ciompi_[2] and
one of them with a big scythe he had in his hand mowed off one of the
fine cavalier’s feathers:—it’s true! And the lasses peppered a few
stones down to frighten them. However, Piero de’ Medici wasn’t come
after all; and it was a pity; for we’d have left him neither legs nor
wings to go away with again.”
[1] “_La vacca muglia_” was the phrase for the sounding of the great
bell in the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio.
[2] The poorer artisans connected with the wool trade—wool-beaters,
carders, washers, etcetera.
“Well spoken, Oddo,” said a young butcher, with his knife at his belt;
“and it’s my belief Piero will be a good while before he wants to come
back, for he looked as frightened as a hunted chicken, when we hustled
and pelted him in the piazza. He’s a coward, else he might have made a
better stand when he’d got his horsemen. But we’ll swallow no Medici
any more, whatever else the French king wants to make us swallow.”
“But I like not those French cannon they talk of,” said Goro, none the
less fat for two years’ additional grievances. “San Giovanni defend us!
If Messer Domeneddio means so well by us as your Frate says he does,
Ser Cioni, why shouldn’t he have sent the French another way to
Naples?”
“Ay, Goro,” said the dyer; “that’s a question worth putting. Thou art
not such a pumpkin-head as I took thee for. Why, they might have gone
to Naples by Bologna, eh, Ser Cioni? or if they’d gone to Arezzo—we
wouldn’t have minded their going to Arezzo.”
“Fools! It will be for the good and glory of Florence,” Ser Cioni
began. But he was interrupted by the exclamation, “Look there!” which
burst from several voices at once, while the faces were all turned to a
party who were advancing along the Via de’ Cerretani.
“It’s Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and one of the French noblemen who are in his
house,” said Ser Cioni, in some contempt at this interruption. “He
pretends to look well satisfied—that deep Tornabuoni—but he’s a
Medicean in his heart: mind that.”
The advancing party was rather a brilliant one, for there was not only
the distinguished presence of Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and the splendid
costume of the Frenchman with his elaborately displayed white linen and
gorgeous embroidery; there were two other Florentines of high birth in
handsome dresses donned for the coming procession, and on the left-hand
of the Frenchman was a figure that was not to be eclipsed by any amount
of intention or brocade—a figure we have often seen before. He wore
nothing but black, for he was in mourning; but the black was presently
to be covered by a red mantle, for he too was to walk in procession as
Latin Secretary to the Ten. Tito Melema had become conspicuously
serviceable in the intercourse with the French guests, from his
familiarity with Southern Italy, and his readiness in the French
tongue, which he had spoken in his early youth; and he had paid more
than one visit to the French camp at Signa. The lustre of good fortune
was upon him; he was smiling, listening, and explaining, with his usual
graceful unpretentious ease, and only a very keen eye bent on studying
him could have marked a certain amount of change in him which was not
to be accounted for by the lapse of eighteen months. It was that change
which comes from the final departure of moral youthfulness—from the
distinct self-conscious adoption of a part in life. The lines of the
face were as soft as ever, the eyes as pellucid; but something was
gone—something as indefinable as the changes in the morning twilight.
The Frenchman was gathering instructions concerning ceremonial before
riding back to Signa, and now he was going to have a final survey of
the Piazza del Duomo, where the royal procession was to pause for
religious purposes. The distinguished party attracted the notice of all
eyes as it entered the piazza, but the gaze was not entirely cordial
and admiring; there were remarks not altogether allusive and mysterious
to the Frenchman’s hoof-shaped shoes—delicate flattery of royal
superfluity in toes; and there was no care that certain snarlings at
“Mediceans” should be strictly inaudible. But Lorenzo Tornabuoni
possessed that power of dissembling annoyance which is demanded in a
man who courts popularity, and Tito, besides his natural disposition to
overcome ill-will by good-humour, had the unimpassioned feeling of the
alien towards names and details that move the deepest passions of the
native.
Arrived where they could get a good oblique view of the Duomo, the
party paused. The festoons and devices placed over the central doorway
excited some demur, and Tornabuoni beckoned to Piero di Cosimo, who, as
was usual with him at this hour, was lounging in front of Nello’s shop.
There was soon an animated discussion, and it became highly amusing
from the Frenchman’s astonishment at Piero’s odd pungency of statement,
which Tito translated literally. Even snarling onlookers became
curious, and their faces began to wear the half-smiling,
half-humiliated expression of people who are not within hearing of the
joke which is producing infectious laughter. It was a delightful moment
for Tito, for he was the only one of the party who could have made so
amusing an interpreter, and without any disposition to triumphant
self-gratulation he revelled in the sense that he was an object of
liking—he basked in approving glances. The rainbow light fell about the
laughing group, and the grave church-goers had all disappeared within
the walls. It seemed as if the piazza had been decorated for a real
Florentine holiday.
Meanwhile in the grey light of the unadorned streets there were
on-comers who made no show of linen and brocade, and whose humour was
far from merry. Here, too, the French dress and hoofed shoes were
conspicuous, but they were being pressed upon by a larger and larger
number of non-admiring Florentines. In the van of the crowd were three
men in scanty clothing; each had his hands bound together by a cord,
and a rope was fastened round his neck and body, in such a way that he
who held the extremity of the rope might easily check any rebellious
movement by the threat of throttling. The men who held the ropes were
French soldiers, and by broken Italian phrases and strokes from the
knotted end of the rope, they from time to time stimulated their
prisoners to beg. Two of them were obedient, and to every Florentine
they had encountered had held out their bound hands and said in piteous
tones—
“For the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards
our ransom! We are Tuscans: we were made prisoners in Lunigiana.”
But the third man remained obstinately silent under all the strokes
from the knotted cord. He was very different in aspect from his two
fellow-prisoners. They were young and hardy, and, in the scant clothing
which the avarice of their captors had left them, looked like vulgar,
sturdy mendicants. But he had passed the boundary of old age, and could
hardly be less than four or five and sixty. His beard, which had grown
long in neglect, and the hair which fell thick and straight round his
baldness, were nearly white. His thickset figure was still firm and
upright, though emaciated, and seemed to express energy in spite of
age—an expression that was partly carried out in the dark eyes and
strong dark eyebrows, which had a strangely isolated intensity of
colour in the midst of his yellow, bloodless, deep-wrinkled face with
its lank grey hairs. And yet there was something fitful in the eyes
which contradicted the occasional flash of energy: after looking round
with quick fierceness at windows and faces, they fell again with a lost
and wandering look. But his lips were motionless, and he held his hands
resolutely down. He would not beg.
This sight had been witnessed by the Florentines with growing
exasperation. Many standing at their doors or passing quietly along had
at once given money—some in half-automatic response to an appeal in the
name of God, others in that unquestioning awe of the French soldiery
which had been created by the reports of their cruel warfare, and on
which the French themselves counted as a guarantee of immunity in their
acts of insolence. But as the group had proceeded farther into the
heart of the city, that compliance had gradually disappeared, and the
soldiers found themselves escorted by a gathering troop of men and
boys, who kept up a chorus of exclamations sufficiently intelligible to
foreign ears without any interpreter. The soldiers themselves began to
dislike their position, for, with a strong inclination to use their
weapons, they were checked by the necessity for keeping a secure hold
on their prisoners, and they were now hurrying along in the hope of
finding shelter in a hostelry.
“French dogs!”
“Bullock-feet!”
“Snatch their pikes from them!”
“Cut the cords and make them run for their prisoners. They’ll run as
fast as geese—don’t you see they’re web-footed?” These were the cries
which the soldiers vaguely understood to be jeers, and probably
threats. But every one seemed disposed to give invitations of this
spirited kind rather than to act upon them.
“Santiddio! here’s a sight!” said the dyer, as soon as he had divined
the meaning of the advancing tumult, “and the fools do nothing but
hoot. Come along!” he added, snatching his axe from his belt, and
running to join the crowd, followed by the butcher and all the rest of
his companions, except Goro, who hastily retreated up a narrow passage.
The sight of the dyer, running forward with blood-red arms and axe
uplifted, and with his cluster of rough companions behind him, had a
stimulating effect on the crowd. Not that he did anything else than
pass beyond the soldiers and thrust himself well among his
fellow-citizens, flourishing his axe; but he served as a stirring
symbol of street-fighting, like the waving of a well-known gonfalon.
And the first sign that fire was ready to burst out was something as
rapid as a little leaping tongue of flame: it was an act of the
conjuror’s impish lad Lollo, who was dancing and jeering in front of
the ingenuous boys that made the majority of the crowd. Lollo had no
great compassion for the prisoners, but being conscious of an excellent
knife which was his unfailing companion, it had seemed to him from the
first that to jump forward, cut a rope, and leap back again before the
soldier who held it could use his weapon, would be an amusing and
dexterous piece of mischief. And now, when the people began to hoot and
jostle more vigorously, Lollo felt that his moment was come—he was
close to the eldest prisoner: in an instant he had cut the cord.
“Run, old one!” he piped in the prisoner’s ear, as soon as the cord was
in two; and himself set the example of running as if he were helped
along with wings, like a scared fowl.
The prisoner’s sensations were not too slow for him to seize the
opportunity: the idea of escape had been continually present with him,
and he had gathered fresh hope from the temper of the crowd. He ran at
once; but his speed would hardly have sufficed for him if the
Florentines had not instantaneously rushed between him and his captor.
He ran on into the piazza, but he quickly heard the tramp of feet
behind him, for the other two prisoners had been released, and the
soldiers were struggling and fighting their way after them, in such
tardigrade fashion as their hoof-shaped shoes would allow—impeded, but
not very resolutely attacked, by the people. One of the two younger
prisoners turned up the Borgo di San Lorenzo, and thus made a partial
diversion of the hubbub; but the main struggle was still towards the
piazza, where all eyes were turned on it with alarmed curiosity. The
cause could not be precisely guessed, for the French dress was screened
by the impeding crowd.
“An escape of prisoners,” said Lorenzo Tornabuoni, as he and his party
turned round just against the steps of the Duomo, and saw a prisoner
rushing by them. “The people are not content with having emptied the
Bargello the other day. If there is no other authority in sight they
must fall on the sbirri and secure freedom to thieves. Ah! there is a
French soldier: that is more serious.”
The soldier he saw was struggling along on the north side of the
piazza, but the object of his pursuit had taken the other direction.
That object was the eldest prisoner, who had wheeled round the
Baptistery and was running towards the Duomo, determined to take refuge
in that sanctuary rather than trust to his speed. But in mounting the
steps, his foot received a shock; he was precipitated towards the group
of signori, whose backs were turned to him, and was only able to
recover his balance as he clutched one of them by the arm.
It was Tito Melema who felt that clutch. He turned his head, and saw
the face of his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close to his own.
The two men looked at each other, silent as death: Baldassarre, with
dark fierceness and a tightening grip of the soiled worn hands on the
velvet-clad arm; Tito, with cheeks and lips all bloodless, fascinated
by terror. It seemed a long while to them—it was but a moment.
The first sound Tito heard was the short laugh of Piero di Cosimo, who
stood close by him and was the only person that could see his face.
“Ha, ha! I know what a ghost should be now.”
“This is another escaped prisoner,” said Lorenzo Tornabuoni. “Who is
he, I wonder?”
“_Some madman, surely_,” said Tito.
He hardly knew how the words had come to his lips: there are moments
when our passions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and
wonder. They carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in one instant
does the work of long premeditation.
The two men had not taken their eyes off each other, and it seemed to
Tito, when he had spoken, that some magical poison had darted from
Baldassarre’s eyes, and that he felt it rushing through his veins. But
the next instant the grasp on his arm had relaxed, and Baldassarre had
disappeared within the church.