Part 9

Shaking, but exultant in his evil little heart, he broke loose and led the way to a remote angle of the battlements, where the trunk of a great tower, like the drum of a hinge, connected the northern and eastern curtains. This was that same massy pile in whose bowels was situate the dreadful oubliette known as the 'Hermit's Cell': a grim, ironic title signifying deadness to the world, living entombment, utter abandonment and self-obliteration. It was delved fathoms deep; quarried out of the bed-rock; walled in further by a mountain of masonry. Tyranny sees an Enceladus in the least of its victims. On so exaggerated a scale of fear must the sum of its deeds be calculated.

Here the Provost-Marshal had his impregnable quarters. Looking down, one might see the huge blank bulge of the tower enter the pavement below unpierced but by an occasional loop or eyelet hole. Its only entrance, indeed, was from the rampart-walk; its direct approach by way of the flying stair-way, up which Bembo had seen the monk disappear. His heart burned in his breast as he thought of him. There was a fury in his blood, a sickness in his throat.

A sentry, lounging by the door, offered, as if by preconcert with Tassino, no bar to his entrance. But, when Cicada would have followed, he stayed him.

'Back, Fool!' he said shortly, opposing his halberd.

Cicada struggled a moment, and desisted.

'A murrain on thy tongue,' snapped he, 'that calls me one!'

The sentry laughed, and, having gained his point, produced a flask leisurely from his belt.

'What! art thou not a fool?' said he, unstoppering it, and preparing to drink.

'Understand, I have forsworn all liquor,' said Cicada, with a wry twinkle.

'So art thou certainly a fool,' said the sentry, eye and body guarding the doorway, as he raised the horn.

'Hist!' whispered Cicada, staying him: 'this remoteness--that damning gurgle--come! a ducat for a mouthful! Be quick, before he returns!'

The soldier, between cupidity and good-nature, laughed and handed over the flask. 'Done on that!' said he. But on the instant he roared out, as the other snatched and bolted with his property.

'How, thou bloody filcher! Give me back my wine!'

Cicada crowed and capered, dangling his spoil.

'Judas! for a dirty piece of silver to betray temperance!'

The sentry, with a furious oath, made at him. He dodged; eluded; finally, under the very hands of his pursuer, threw the flask into a corner, and, as the other dived for it, slipped by and disappeared into the tower. The soldier, cursing and panting in his wake, ran into the arms of an impassive figure--staggered, fell back, and saluted.

Messer Jacopo eyed the delinquent a long minute without a word. He had been silent witness, within the guard-room, of all the little scene, and was considering the penalty meet to such a breach of orders and discipline.

There had been something of pre-arrangement in this matter between him and Messer Tassino. The two were in a common accord as to the loss and inconvenience to be entailed upon themselves by any reform of existing institutions--comprehensively, as to the menace this stranger was to their interests. It would be well to demonstrate to him the unreality of his influence with Galeazzo. Let him see the starving monk, in evidence of his power's short limits. It was possible the sight might kill his presumption for ever: return him disillusioned to obscurity.

So his presence here had been procured, with orders to the sentry to debar the Fool. Jacopo wanted no shrewd cricket at the boy's side, to leaven the horror for him with his song of cheer. The full impressiveness of the awful scene must be allowed to overbear his soul in silence. This sentry had erred rather foolishly.

It abated nothing of the terror of the man that no sign of passion ever crossed his face, nor word his lips. He turned away, not having uttered a sound; and left the delinquent collapsed as under a heat-stroke.

'Now, let it be no worse than the strappado!' prayed the poor wretch to himself.

In the meanwhile, Cicada, swift, quivering, alert, was descending, like a gulped Jonah, into the bowels of the tower. He had no need to pick his path: the well-stairway, like a screw pinning the upper to the underworld, transmitted to him every whisper and shuffle of the footsteps he was pursuing. Sometimes, so deceptive were the echoes in that winding shaft, he fancied himself treading close upon the heels of the chase; yet each little loop-lighted landing found him, as he reached it, audibly no nearer. His mocking mouth was set grim; he dreaded, not for himself but for his darling, some nameless entrapping wickedness. 'If they design it,' he thought--'if they design it! Hell shall not hide them from me.'

Suddenly the sounds below died away and ceased. He listened an instant; then went down again, turning and turning in a nightmare of blind horror. The walls grew dank and viscous to his palm. A stumble, and all might end for him hideously. Then, at the same moment, weak light and a weaker cry greeted him. He descended, still without pause--and shot into the glowing mouth of a tiny tunnel, where were the figures he sought.

They stood at a low grating in the wall, which was pierced into a subterranean chamber. The bars were thrown open, and through the aperture Tassino directed the light of a flaring torch he held upon a figure lying prostrate on the stones below. Cicada crept, and peered over his master's shoulder. The thing on the floor was grotesque, unnatural--a human skeleton emitting noises, heaving in its midst. That great bulk had become in its shrinkage a monstrous travesty of life. But existence still preyed upon its indissoluble vestments of flesh.

'He clings to life, for a monk,' whispered the Fool.

With the sound of his voice, Bernardo was sprung into a Fury. He lashed upon Cicada, tooth and claw:--

'Thou knew'st, and hid it from me in parables!'

'Inference, inference!' cried the Fool. 'I would have spared thee.'

'Spared _me_? Thus?'

'Ah! thy shame through wicked sophistries! He was foredoomed. Had I interfered, I had been lying myself there now, and you a loving servant the less.'

Bembo flung his arms abroad, as if sweeping all away from him.

'Love! Let pass!' he shrieked: 'Fiends are ye all, with whom to breathe is poison!' and he broke by them, and went flying and crying up into the daylight. He ran, without pause, by the walls, down the notched stairway, across the ward, and came with flaming colour into the buttery.

'Give me wine and bread!' he screamed of the steward there; and the man, in a flurry of wonder, obeyed him. Then away he raced again, his hands full, and never stopped until the sentry, a new one, at the tower door barred his progress. The way was private, quoth the man. He could let none past but by order.

'Of whom?' panted Bembo.

'Why, the Provost-Marshal.'

Then the boy tried wheedling.

'Dear soldier: thou art well cared for. There is one within perishes for a little bread.'

But the man was adamant.

'Where, then, is the Provost-Marshal?' cried the other in desperation.

Within or without--the sentry professed not to know. In any case, it was death to him to leave his post.

Bernardo put down his load on the battlements, and, turning, fled away again.

*CHAPTER X*

Bona sat amongst her maidens. They were all busy as spiders upon a loom of tapestry, spinning a symbolic web. The subject was as edifying as their talk over it was free. Their lips and fingers were perpetually at odds, weaving reputations and pulling them to pieces. Bona herself said little; but abstraction gave some indulgence to the smile with which she listened, or seemed to.

'Whither do her thoughts travel?' whispered one girl of another.

'Hush!' was the answer. 'Along the Piedmont Road with her lord, of course. What else would you?'

The first giggled.

'Nothing, indeed, if it left a chance for poor little me. But, alack! I fear her charity stops nearer home.'

'What then, insignificance? Would your presumption fly at an angel?'

'Yes, indeed, though it got a peck for its pains. (Mark the Caprona's ear pricked our way! She knows we are on the eternal subject.) Heigho! it will be something to share in this promised commonwealth of love, at least.'

She spoke loud enough for the little Catherine Sforza, sitting by her adopted mother, to hear her.

'Ehi, Carlina,' cried that pert youngster: 'What share do you expect for your small part?'

'I thought of Messer Bembo, Madonna,' answered Carlina demurely.

They crowed her down with enormous laughter.

'Nay, child,' said Catherine: 'there is to be no talk of exclusiveness in this Commonwealth. We are all to take alike--Mamma, and I, and the Countess of Casa Caprona, and whoever else subscribes to the Purification. For my part I shall be content with becoming very good; and I have hopes of myself. See the reformation in our dear Countess; and she was in his company but a day or two.'

'Peace, thou naughtiness!' cried Bona; while Beatrice's eyes burned dull fire; and a girl, one who worked near her, a soft and endearing little piety, looked up and choked in a panic, 'O Madonna!'

Catherine mimicked her:--

'O Biasia! Is the subject too tender for thy conscience? Alas, dear! but if thy only hope is in this Commonwealth? Angels are not monogamous.'

Biasia blushed like a poppy; yet managed to stammer amidst the laughter: 'It is only that he,--that the subject, seems to me too sacred. He preaches heavenly love--the brotherhood of souls--in all else, one man one maid.'

Catherine very gravely got upon a stool, and paraphrased Messer Bembo, voice and manner:--

'I kiss thee, kind Madonna, for thine exposition. A man must put a fence about his desires, would he be happy. A sweet mate, a cot, beehives and a garden--he shall find all love's epitome in these. None can possess the world but in the abstract--a plea for universal brotherhood. What doth it profit me to own a palace, and live for all my needs' content in one room of it? Go to and join, and leave superfluous woman to the preacher.'

Some tittered, some applauded; Biasia hung her head, and would say no more. Bona cried, 'Come down, thou wickedness!' but indulgently, as if she half-dreaded attracting to herself the flicker of the little forked tongue.

'O!' cried Catherine, 'I grant you that, with an angel, the manner spices the lesson. I will tell you, girls, how he rebuked me yesterday on this same legend of reciprocity. "How could you take sport," says he, "of witnessing that poor Montano's punishment?" "Why, very well," says I, "seeing he was a man, and therefore my natural enemy." "How is man so?" says he. "He makes me bear his children for him," says I. "But I suppose he will be made to suffer _his_ share of the toil in this new Commonwealth of love." "You talk like a child," he says. "Then," says I, "I will sing like a woman," and I extemporised--very clever, you will admit.'

She pinched up her skirts, and put out a little foot, and chirruped, in no voice at all, but with a sauce of impudence:--

'"Love is give and take," says he, "Every gander knows-- Wear the prickle for my sake; For thine, I'll wear the rose."

"_Grazie_, kind and true," says I, "For that noble dower-- Only, between me and you, _I_ should like the flower."

"And hast thou not it?" cries St. Bernardo, interrupting me; and, would you believe it, swinging round his lute, his lips and his finger-tips join issue in the prettiest nonsense ever conceived for a poor wife's fooling. Wait, and I will recall it.'

She had the quickest wit and memory, and in a moment was chaunting:--

'"Whence did our bird-soft baby come? How learned to prattle of this for home?

Some sleepy nurse-angel let her stray, And she found herself in the world one day.

She heard nurse calling, and further fled: She hid herself in our cabbage bed.

There we came on her fast asleep, What could we do but take and keep,

Carry her in and up the stair? She would have died of cold out there.

She woke at once in a little fright; But Love beckoned her from the light.

Lure we had lit, for dear love fain; She had seen it shine through the window pane.

Lure we had kindled of flame and bliss, To catch such a little ghost-moth as this.

Ah, me! it shrivelled her pretty wing. Here she must stay, poor thing, poor thing!"'

She ended: 'Faith, St. Charming's lips make that daintiest setting to his fancies, that I could have kissed 'em while he improved his song with a homily' (she mimicked again the boy's manner, comically emphasised). '"Why," saith he, "would you grudge yourself that poignant privilege of your sex? would ye share the agony and halve the gain? What gift so careless in all the world makes such sweet possession? Furs, gowns, and trinkets pall; perishable things grow less by use; the diamond suffers by its larger peer. Only the gift of love, the wee babe, takes new delight of time; renews woman's best through herself; is a perpetual novelty, spring all the year round, flowers fresh burgeoning through faded blooms. To be sole warden of the quickening soul ye bore--you, you! to see the lamb-like heaven of its eyes cuddling to your bosom's fold--all thine, save the spent heat that cast it! O, rather be the mould than the turbulent metal it shapes! Go to, and thank God for labours yielding such reward. Go to, and be the mother of saints." Whereat I curtsied, and "Thank you, sir," says I, "for the offer, but my bed's already laid for me in Rome," and then----'

What more she might have quoted or invented none might say, for at the moment a wild figure burst into the chamber, and ran to its mistress, and entreated her with lips and hands.

'Give me thy gage--quick! There is one starves in the "Hermit's Cell," and they will not let me pass to him without. Thou art the Duke, thou art the Duke now. Give it me, in mercy, and avert God's vengeance from this wicked house!'

Bona had arisen, pale as death, pity and anguish pleading in her eyes.

'Alas! What say'st thou? Thou, not I, art the Duke.'

'Give it me,' demanded Bembo feverishly. 'Nay, quibble not, while he gasps out his agony--a monk--hear'st thou? A monk!'

She temporised a moment in her pain.

'There are black sheep in those flocks.'

'God forgive thee!'

'Alas! _thou_ wilt not. Indeed I have no talisman will open doors that my lord has shut.'

Beatrice, intent, with veiled eyes, from her place, bestirred herself with an indolent smile.

'Madonna forgets. Love laughs at locksmiths.'

The two women faced one another a minute. Some subtle emotion of antagonism, already born, waxed into a larger consciousness between them.

'How, Countess?' said Bona quietly.

'Madonna wears her bethrothal ring--a very _passepartout_. It is the talisman will serve her with monks and saints alike.'

A little flush mantled to the Duchess's brow. Standing erect a moment she slipped the ring from her finger, and held it out to Bernardo.

'It should be the pledge through love of Charity. Take it, in my lord's good name, whose jealous representative I remain. And when thou return'st it, may it be sanctified of new justice, child, against the prick of envy and slander and the spite of venomous tongues.'

She turned away stately and resumed her needle as Bernardo, with a cry of thanks, ran from the room. A minute or two later he appeared before the sentry on the ramparts and flourished his token. To his surprise the man hardly glanced at it as he stepped aside to let him pass. He thought on this with some shapeless foreboding, as he leapt like a chamois down the steeps of the tower, the food, which he had snatched up, in his hands. God pity him and his awakening! There are emotions too sacred for minuting. Let it suffice that Jacopo had proved too faithful a prophylactic to superstition. The wretched monk had not been allowed to justify his own prediction by dying of starvation. In that last interval, between the Parablist's going and coming, his throat had been cut.

A minute later Bernardo leapt like a madman from the tower. His face was ashy, his hands trembling. At the foot of the curtain he stumbled over a poor patch, prostrate and moaning.

'_I am thy Fool, and I shall never make thee smile again_.'

All quivering and unstrung, he threw himself on his knees by Cicada's side.

'Up!' he screamed, 'up! Get you out of this Sodom ere the Lord destroy it!'

The Fool bestirred himself, raising eyes full of a sombre, eager questioning.

'I am forgiven?' he gasped; but Bernardo only cried frenziedly, 'Up! up!'

*CHAPTER XI*

There was consternation in the castello, for its angel visitant had disappeared. The evening following upon the episode of the ring saw his quarters void of him, his household retinue troubled and anxious, and some others in the palace at least as perturbed. It was not alone that the individual sense of stewardship towards so rare a possession filled each and all with forebodings as to the penalty likely to be exacted should Galeazzo return to a knowledge of his loss; the loss itself of so sweet and cleansing a personality was blighting. Now, for the first time, perhaps, people recognised the real political significance of that creed which they had been inclined hitherto merely to pet and humour as the whimsey of a very engaging little propagandist. How sweet and expansive it was! how progressive by the right blossoming road of freedom! Where was their silver-tongued guide? And they flew and buzzed, agitated like a bee-swarm that has lost its queen.

But, while they scurried aimless, a rumour of the truth rose like a foul emanation, and, circulating among them, darkened men's brows and drove women to a whispering gossip of terror. So yet another of the Duke's inhumanities was at the root of this secession! By degrees the secret leaked out--of that living entombment, of the boy's interference, of his bloody forestalling by the executioner, of his flight, accompanied by his Fool, from the gates. And now he was gone, whither none knew; but of a certainty leaving the curse of his outraged suit on the house he had tried to woo from wickedness.

The story gained nothing in relief as it grew. Whispers of that free feminine bandying with their Parablist's name, of Catherine's childish mockery of a sacred sentiment, deepened the common gloom. It mattered nothing to the general opinion that this little vivacious Sforza had but echoed its own bantering mood. Every popular joke that spells disaster must have its scapegoat. And she was not liked. In the absence of her father there were even venturings of frowning looks her way, which, when she observed, the shrewd elfin creature did not forget.

And Bernardo returned not that night, nor during all the following day was he heard of. Inquiries were set on foot, scouts unleashed, the sbirri warned: he remained undiscovered.

Messer Carlo Lanti went about his business with a brow of thunder. Once, on the second day, traversing, dark in cogitation, a lonely corner of the castle enceinte, he came upon a figure which, as it were some apparition of his thoughts suddenly materialised, shocked him to a stand. The walls in this place met in a sunless, abysmal wedge; and, gathered into the hollow between, the waters of the canal, welling through subterranean conduits, made a deep head for the moat. And here, gazing down at her reflection, it seemed, in that black stone-framed mirror, stood Beatrice.

She was plainly conscious, for all her deep abstraction of the moment before, of his approach, yet neither spoke nor so much as turned her head as he came and stood beside her. It must have been some startle more than human that had found her nerves responsive to its shock. Her languor and indolence seemed impregnable, insensate, revealing no token of the passion within. Like the warm, rich pastures which sleep over swelling fires, the placid glow of her cheek and bosom appeared never so fruitful in desire as when most threatening an outburst. Carlo, for all his rage of suspicion, could not but be conscious of that appeal to his senses. He frowned, and shifted, and grunted, while she stood tranquilly facing him and fanning herself without a word. At length he broke silence:--

'I had wished to see thee alone'--he stared fixedly and significantly at the water, struggling to bully himself into brutality--'Nay, by God and St. Ambrose,' he burst out, 'I believe we are well met in this place!'

Not a tremor shook her.

'Alone?' she murmured sleepily. 'Why not? there was not used to be this ceremony between us.'

'I have done with all that,' he cried fiercely. 'I see thee now--myself, at least, in the true light. Harlot! wouldst have turned my hand against the angel that revealed thee! Where is he? Hast struck surer the second time? I know thee--and if----'

He seized her wrist and turned her to the water. She did not resist or cry out, though her cheek flushed in the pain of his cruel clutch.

'Know me!' she said. 'Didst thou ever know me? Only as the bull knows the soft heifer--the nearest to his needs. _Thou_ hast done with me--_thou_! I tell thee, if Fate had made a sacrament of thy passion, yielding the visible sign, I had brought hither the monstrous pledge and drowned it like a dog. Do we so treat what we love? I am not guilty of Bernardo's death, if that is what you mean.'

He let her go, and retreated a step, glaring at her. Her blood ebbed and flowed as tranquilly as her low voice had stabbed.

'This--to my face!' he gasped. Then he broke into furious laughter. 'Art well requited, if it is the truth. Love him! But, dead or alive, he will not love thee--that saint--a wife dishonoured.'

'O noble bull--thou king of beasts!' she murmured.

'Why should I be generous?' he snarled. 'Have I reason to spare thee? Yet I will be generous, an thou art guiltless of this, Beatrice. I have loved thee, after my fashion.'

'Thou hast. Ah! If I might sponge away that memory!'

'Well, I would fain do the same for his sake.'

'Dog!'

'What!'

'Barest thou talk of love?--thou, who hast rolled me in thine arms, and waked from sated ecstasy to call me murderess!'

'Had I not provocation, then? Faith, you bewilder me!'

'Poor, stupid brute!'

'Stupid I may be, yet not so blind as woman's folly. Hast borne me once, Beatrice. Well, it is past: I ask nothing of it but thy trust.'

'_My trust!_'

'Ay, when I warn thee. This saint is not for thee. O, I am wide awake! Stupid? like enough; but when a wife, the queenliest, parts with her betrothal ring----'

She made a quick, involuntary gesture, stepping forward; then as suddenly checked herself, with a soft, mocking laugh.

'O this bull!' she cried huskily--'this precisian of the new cult! Not for me, quotha, but for another--a saint to all but the highest bidder!'

'Not for you nor any one,' he said savagely.

'What! not Bona either?' she said. 'Be warned by me, rather. Yours is no wit for this encounter. Love is a coil, dear chuck; no battering-ram. Not for me nor any? Maybe; but the game is in the strife. Go, find your saint: I know nothing of him.'

'No, nor shall. Be warned, I say.'

'Well, you have said it, and more than once.'

He hesitated, ground his teeth, clapped his hands together, and turning, left her.