Books: Love at Arms

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Perspiring, and with nerves unstrung, the courtier picked his way to a
table by the wall, and seated himself upon the coarse deal bench before
it, praying that he might be left its sole occupant.

On the opposite wall hung a blackened crucifix and a small holy-water
stoup that had been dry for a generation, and was now a receptacle for
dust and a withered sprig of rosemary. Immediately beneath this--in the
company of a couple of tatterdemalions worthy of him--sat the giant who
had mocked his escape from falling, and as Gonzaga took his seat he heard
the fellow's voice, guttural, bottle-thickened and contentious.

"And this wine, Luciano? Sangue della Madonna! Will you bring it before
dropping dead, pig?"

Gonzaga shuddered and would have crossed himself again for protection
against what seemed a very devil incarnate, but that the ruffian's blood-
shot eye was set upon him in a stony stare.

"I come, cavaliere, I come," cried the timid host, leaping to his feet,
and leaving the goat to burn while he ministered to the giant's
unquenchable thirst.

The title caused Gonzaga to start, and he bent his eyes again on the
man's face. He found it villainous of expression, inflamed and blotched;
the hair hung matted about a bullet head, and the eyes glared fiercely
from either side of a pendulous nose. Of the knightly rank by which the
taverner addressed him the fellow bore no outward signs. Arms he
carried, it is true; a sword and dagger at his belt, whilst beside him on
the table stood a rusty steel-cap. But these warlike tools served only
to give him the appearance of a roving masnadiero or a cut-throat for
hire. Presently abandoning the comtemplation of Gonzaga he turned to his
companions, and across to the listener floated a coarse and boasting tale
of a plunderous warfare in Sicily ten years agone. Gonzaga became
excited. It seemed indeed as if this were man who might be useful to
him. He made pretence to sip the wine Luciano had brought him, and
listened avidly to that swashbuckling story, from which it appeared that
this knave had once been better circumstanced and something of a leader.
Intently he listened, and wondered whether such men as he boasted he had
led in that campaign were still to be found and could be brought
together.

At the end of perhaps a half-hour the two companions of that thirsty
giant rose and took their leave of him. They cast a passing glance upon
Gonzaga, and were gone.

A little while he hesitated. The ruffian seemed to have lapsed into a
reverie, or else he slept with open eyes. Calling up his courage the
gallant rose at last and moved across the room. All unversed in tavern
ways was the magnificent Gonzaga, and he who at court, in ballroom or in
antechamber, was a very mirror of all the graces of a courtier, felt
awkward here and ill at ease.

At length, summoning his wits to his aid:

"Good sir," said he, with some timidity, "will you do me the honour to
share a flagon with me?"

The ruffian's eye, which but a moment back had looked vacuous and
melancholy, now quickened until it seemed ablaze. He raised his
bloodshot orbs and boldly encountered Gonzaga's uneasy glance. His lips
fell apart with an anticipatory smack, his back stiffened, and his head
was raised until his chin took on so haughty a tilt that Gonzaga feared
his proffered hospitality was on the point of suffering a scornful
rejection.

"Will I share a flagon?" gasped the fellow, as, being the sinner that he
was and knew himself to be, he might have gasped: "Will I go to Heaven?"
"Will I--will I----?" He paused, and pursed his lips. His eyebrows were
puckered and his expression grew mighty cunning as again he took stock of
this pretty fellow who offered flagons of wine to down-at-heel
adventurers like himself. He had all but asked what was to be required
of him in exchange for this, when suddenly he bethought him--with the
knavish philosophy adversity had taught him--that were he told for what
it was intended that the wine should bribe him, and did the business suit
him not, he should, in the confession of it, lose the wine; whilst did he
but hold his peace until he had drunk, it would be his thereafter to
please himself about the business when it came to be proposed.

He composed his rugged features into the rude semblance of a smile.

"Sweet young sir," he murmured, "sweet, gentle and most illustrious lord,
I would share a hogshead with such a nobleman as you."

"I am to take it that you will drink?" quoth Gonzaga, who had scarce
known what to make of the man's last words.

"Body of Bacchus! Yes. I'll drink with you gentile signorino, until
your purse be empty or the world run dry." And he leered a mixture of
mockery and satisfaction.

Gonzaga, still half uncertain of his ground, called the taverner and bade
him bring a flagon of his best. While Luciano was about the fetching of
the wine, constraint sat upon that oddly discordant pair.

"It is a chill night," commented Gonzaga presently, seating himself
opposite his swashbuckler.

"Young sir, your wits have lost their edge. The night is warm.

"I said," spluttered Gonzaga, who was unused to contradiction from his
inferiors, and wished now to assert himself, "that the night is chill."

"You lied, then," returned the other, with a fresh leer, "for, as I
answered you, the night is warm. Piaghe di Cristo! I am an ill man to
contradict, my pretty gallant, and if I say the night is warm, warm it
shall be though there be snow on Mount Vesuvius."

The courtier turned pink at that, and but for the arrival of the taverner
with the wine, it is possible he might have done an unconscionable
rashness. At sight of the red liquor the fury died out of the ruffler's
face.

"A long life, a long thirst, a long purse, and a short memory!" was his
toast, into whose cryptic meaning Gonzaga made no attempt to pry. As the
fellow set down his cup, and with his sleeve removed the moisture from
his unshorn mouth, "May I not learn," he inquired, "whose hospitality I
have the honour of enjoying?"

"Heard you ever of Romeo Gonzaga?"

"Of Gonzaga, yes; though of Romeo Gonzaga never. Are you he?"

Gonzaga bowed his head.

"A noble family yours," returned the swashbuckler, in a tone that implied
his own to be as good. "Let me name myself to you. I am Ercole
Fortemani," he said, with the proud air of one who announced himself an
emperor.

"A formidable name," said Gonzaga, in accents of surprise, "and it bears
a noble sound."

The great fellow turned on him in a sudden anger.

"Why that astonishment?" he blazed. "I tell you my name is both noble
and formidable, and you shall find me as formidable as I am noble.
Diavolo! Seems it incredible?"

"Said I so?" protested Gonzaga.

"You had been dead by now if you had, Messer Gonzaga. But you thought
so, and I may take leave to show you how bold a man it needs to think so
without suffering."

Ruffled as a turkey-cock, wounded in his pride and in his vanity, Ercole
hastened to enlighten Gonzaga on his personality.

"Learn, sir," he announced, "that I am Captain Ercole Fortemani. I held
that rank in the army of the Pope. I have served the Pisans and the
noble Baglioni of Perugia with honour and distinction. I have commanded
a hundred lances of Gianinoni's famous free-company. I have fought with
the French against the Spaniards, and with the Spaniards against the
French, and I have served the Borgia, who is plotting against both. I
have trailed a pike in the emperor's following, and I have held the rank
of captain, too, in the army of the King of Naples. Now, young sir, you
have learned something of me, and if my name is not written in letters of
fire from one end of Italy to the other, it is--Body of God!--because the
hands that hired me to the work garnered the glory of my deeds."

"A noble record," said Gonzaga, who had credulously absorbed that
catalogue of lies, "a very noble record."

"Not so," the other contradicted, for the lust of contradiction that was
a part of him. "A great record, if you will, to commend me to hireling
service. But you may not call the service of a hireling noble."

"It is a matter we will not quarrel over," said Gonzaga soothingly. The
man's ferocity was terrific.

"Who says that we shall not?" he demanded. "Who will baulk me if I have
a mind to quarrel over it? Answer me!" and he half rose from his seat,
moved by the anger into which he was lashing himself. "But patience!" he
broke off, subsiding on a sudden. "I take it, it was not out of regard
for my fine eyes, nor drawn by the elegance of my apparel"--and he raised
a corner of his tattered cloak--"nor yet because you wish to throw a
main with me, that you have sought my acquaintance, and called for this
wine. You require service of me?"

"You have guessed it."

"A prodigious discernment, by the Host!" He seemed to incline rather
tediously to irony. Then his face grew stern, and he lowered his voice
until it was no more than a growling whisper. "Heed me, Messer Gonzaga.
If the service you require be the slitting of a gullet or some kindred
foul business, which my seeming neediness leads you to suppose me ripe
for, let me counsel you, as you value your own skin, to leave the service
unmentioned, and get you gone."

In hasty, frantic, fearful protest were Gonzaga's hands outspread.

"Sir, sir--I--I could not have thought it of you," he spluttered, with
warmth, much of which was genuine, for it rejoiced him to see some
scruples still shining in the foul heap of this man's rascally existence.
A knave whose knavery knew no limits would hardly have suited his ends.
"I do need a service, but it is no dark-corner work. It is a
considerable enterprise, and one in which, I think, you should prove the
very man I need."

"Let me know more," quoth Ercole grandiloquently.

"I need first your word that should the undertaking prove unsuited to
you, or beyond you, you will respect the matter, and keep it secret."

"Body of Satan! No corpse was ever half so dumb as I shall be."

"Excellent! Can you find me a score of stout fellows to form a bodyguard
and a garrison, who, in return for good quarters--perchance for some
weeks--and payment at four times the ordinary mercenaries' rate, will be
willing to take some risk, and chance even a brush with the Duke's
forces?"

Ercole blew out his mottled cheeks until Gonzaga feared that he would
burst them.

"It's outlawry!" he roared, when he had found his voice. "Outlawry, or
I'm a fool."

"Why, yes," confessed Gonzaga. "It is outlaw matter of a kind. But the
risk is slender."

"Can you tell me no more?"

"I dare not."

Ercole emptied his wine-cup at a draught and splashed the dregs on to the
floor. Then, setting down the empty vessel, he sat steeped in thought
awhile. Growing impatient:

"Well," cried Gonzaga at last, "can you help me? Can you find the men?"

"If you were to tell me more of the nature of this service you require, I
might find a hundred with ease."

"As I have said--I need but a score."

Ercole looked mighty grave, and thoughtfully rubbed his long nose.

"It might be done," said he, after a pause. "But we shall have to look
for desperate knaves; men who are already under a ban, and to whom it
will matter little to have another item added to their indebtedness to
the law should they fall into its talons. How soon shall you require
this forlorn company?"

"By to-morrow night."

"I wonder----" mused Ercole. He was counting on his fingers, and
appeared to have lapsed into mental calculations. "I could get half-a-
score or a dozen within a couple of hours. But a score----" Again he
paused, and again he fell to thinking. At last, more briskly: "Let us
hear what pay you offer me, to thrust myself thus blindfolded into this
business of yours as leader of the company you require?" he asked
suddenly.

Gonzaga's face fell at that. Then he suddenly stiffened, and put on an
expression of haughtiness.

"It is my intent to lead this company myself," he loftily informed the
ruffler.

"Body of God!" gasped Ercole, upon whose mind intruded a grotesque
picture of such a company as he would assemble, being led by this mincing
carpet-knight. Then recollecting himself: "If that be so," said he, "you
had best, yourself, enrol it. Felicissima notte!" And he waved him a
farewell across the table.

Here was a poser for Gonzaga. How was he to go about such a business as
that? It was beyond his powers. Thus much he protested frankly.

"Now attend to me, young sir," was the other's answer. "The matter
stands thus: If I can repair to certain friends of mine with the
information that an affair is afoot, the particulars of which I may not
give them, but in which I am to lead them myself, sharing such risk as
there may be, I do not doubt but that by this time to-morrow I can have a
score of them enrolled--such is their confidence in Ercole Fortemani.
But if I take them to enter a service unknown, under a leader equally
unknown, the forming of such a company would be a mighty tedious matter."

This was an argument to the force of which Gonzaga could not remain
insensible. After a moment's consideration, he offered Ercole fifty gold
florins in earnest of good faith and the promise of pay, thereafter, at
the rate of twenty gold florins a month for as long as he should need his
services and Ercole, who in all his free-lancing days had never earned
the tenth of such a sum, was ready to fall upon this most noble
gentleman's neck, and weep for very joy and brotherly affection.

The matter being settled, Gonzaga produced a heavy bag which gave forth a
jangle mighty pleasant to the ears of Fortemani, and let it drop with a
chink upon the table.

"There are a hundred florins for the equipment of this company. I do not
wish to have a regiment of out-at-elbow tatterdemalions at my heels."
And his eye swept in an uncomplimentary manner over Ercole's apparel.
"See that you dress them fittingly."

"It shall be done, Magnificent," answered Ercole, with a show of such
respect as he had not hitherto manifested. "And arms?"

"Give them pikes and arquebuses, if you will; but nothing more. The
place we are bound for is well stocked with armour--but even that may not
be required."

"May not be required?" echoed the more and more astonished swashbuckler.
Were they to be paid on so lordly a scale, clothed and fed, to induce
them upon a business that might carry no fighting with it? Surely he had
never sold himself into a more likely or promising service, and that
night he dreamt in his sleep that he was become a gentleman's steward,
and that at his heels marched an endless company of lacqueys in
flamboyant liveries. On the morrow he awoke to the persuasion that at
last, of a truth, was his fortune made, and that hereafter there would be
no more piketrailing for his war-worn old arms.

Conscientiously he set about enrolling the company, for, in his way, this
Ercole Fortemani was a conscientious man--boisterous and unruly if you
will; a rogue, in his way, with scant respect for property; not above
cogging dice or even filching a purse upon occasion when hard driven by
necessity--for all that he was gently born and had held honourable
employment; a drunkard by long habit, and a swaggering brawler upon the
merest provocation. But for all that, riotous and dishonest though he
might be in the general commerce of life, yet to the hand that hired him
he strove--not always successfully, perhaps, but, at least, always
earnestly--to be loyal.

CHAPTER IX

THE "TRATTA DI CORDE"

Whilst the bustle of preparation went on briskly in Urbino, Gian Maria,
on his side, was rapidly disposing of affairs in Babbiano, that he might
return to the nuptials for which he was impatient. But he had chanced
upon a deeper tangle than he had reckoned with, and more to do than he
had looked for.

On the day of his departure from Urbino, he had ridden as far as Cagli,
and halted at the house of the noble Messer Valdicampo. This had been
placed at his disposal, and there he proposed to lie the night. They had
supped--the Duke, de' Alvari, Gismondo Santi, Messér Valdicampo, his wife
and two daughters, and a couple of friends, potential citizens of Cagli,
whom he had invited, that they might witness the honour that was being
done his house. It waxed late, and the torpor that ensues upon the
generous gratification of appetite was settling upon the company when
Armstadt--Gian Maria's Swiss captain--entered and approached his master
with the air of a man who is the bearer of news. He halted a pace or two
from the Duke's high-backed chair, and stood eyeing Gian Maria in stupid
patience.

"Well, fool?" growled the Duke, turning his head.

The Swiss approached another step. "They have brought him, Highness," he
said in a confidential whisper.

"Am I a wizard that I must read your thoughts?" hectored Gian Maria.
"Who has brought whom?"

Armstadt eyed the company in hesitation. Then, stepping close to the
Duke, he murmured in his ear:

"The men I left behind have brought the fool--Ser Peppe."

A sudden brightening of the eye showed that Gian Maria understood.
Without apology to the board, he turned and whispered back to his captain
to have the fellow taken to his chamber, there to await him. "Let a
couple of your knaves be in attendance, and do you come too, Martino."

Martin bowed, and withdrew, whereupon Gian Maria found grace to crave his
host's pardon, with the explanation that the man had brought him news he
had been expecting. Valdicampo, who for the honour of having a Duke
sleep beneath his roof would have stomached improprieties far more
flagrant, belittled the matter and dismissed it. And presently Gian
Maria rose with the announcement that he had far to journey on the
morrow, and so, with his host's good leave, would be abed.

Valdicampo, himself, then played the part of chamberlain, and taking up
one of the large candle branches, he lighted the Duke to his apartments.
He would have carried his good offices, and his candles, as far as Gian
Maria's very bed-chamber, but that in the ante-room his Highness, as
politely as might be, bade him set down the lights and leave him.

The Duke remained standing for a moment, deliberating whether to afford
knowledge to Alvari and Santi--who had followed him and stood awaiting
his commands--of what he was about to do. In the end he decided that he
would act alone and upon his sole discretion. So he dismissed them.

When they had gone and he was quite alone, he clapped his hands together,
and in answer to that summons the door of his bedroom opened, revealing
Martin Armstadt on the threshold.

"He is there?" inquired the Duke.

"Awaiting your Highness," answered the Swiss, and he held the door for
Gian Maria to enter.

The bedchamber apportioned the Duke in the Palazzo Valdicampo was a noble
and lofty room, in the midst of which loomed the great carved bed of
honour, with its upright pillars and funereal canopy.

On the overmantel stood two five-armed sconces with lighted tapers. Yet
Gian Maria did not seem to deem that there was light enough for such
purpose as he entertained, for he bade Martin fetch him the candelabra
that had been left behind. Then he turned his attention to the group
standing by the window, where the light from the overmantel fell full
upon it.

This consisted of three men, two being mercenaries of Armstadt's guard,
in corselet and morion, and the third, who stood captive between, the
unfortunate Ser Peppe. The fool's face was paler than its wont, whilst
the usual roguery had passed from his eyes and his mouth, fear having
taken possession of its room. He met the Duke's cruel glance with one of
alarm and piteous entreaty.

Having assured himself that Peppe had no weapons, and that his arms were
pinioned behind him, Gian Maria bade the two guards withdraw, but hold
themselves in readiness in the ante-chamber with Armstadt. Then he
turned to Peppe with a scowl on his low brow.

"You are not so merry as you were this morning, fool," he scoffed.

Peppino squirmed a little, but his nature, schooled by the long habit of
jest, prompted a bold whimsicality in his reply.

"The circumstances are scarcely as propitious--to me. Your Highness,
though, seems in excellent goodhumour."

Gian Maria looked at him angrily a moment. He was a slow-witted man, and
he could devise no ready answer, no such cutting gibe as it would have
pleasured him to administer. He walked leisurely to the fire-place, and
leant his elbow on the overmantel.

"Your humour led you into saying some things for which I should be
merciful if I had you whipped."

"And, by the same reasoning, charitable if you had me hanged," returned
the fool dryly, a pale smile on his lips.

"Ah! You acknowledge it?" cried Gian Maria, never seeing the irony
intended. "But I am a very clement prince, fool."

"Proverbially clement," the jester protested, but he did not succeed this
time in excluding the sarcasm from his voice.

Gian Maria shot him a furious glance.

"Are you mocking me, animal? Keep your venomous tongue in bounds, or
I'll have you deprived of it."

Peppe's face turned grey at the threat, as well it might--for what should
such a one as he do in the world without a tongue?

Seeing him dumb and stricken, the Duke continued:

"Now, for all that you deserve a hanging for your insolence, I am willing
that you should come by no hurt so that you answer truthfully such
questions as I have for you."

Peppino's grotesque figure was doubled in a bow.

"I await your questions, glorious lord," he answered.

"You spoke----" the Duke hesitated a moment, writhing inwardly at the
memory of the exact words in which the fool had spoken. "You spoke this
morning of one whom the Lady Valentina had met."

The fear seemed to increase on the jester's face. "Yes," he answered, in
a choking voice.

"Where did she meet this knight you spoke of, and in such wondrous words
of praise described to me?"

"In the woods at Acquasparta, where the river Metauro is no better than a
brook. Some two leagues this side of Sant' Angelo."

"Sant' Angelo!" echoed Gian Maria, starting at the very mention of the
place where the late conspiracy against him had been hatched. "And when
was this?"

"On the Wednesday before Easter, as Monna Valentina was journeying from
Santa Sofia to Urbino."

No word spake the Duke in answer. He stood still, his head bowed, and
his thoughts running again on that conspiracy. The mountain fight in
which Masuccio had been killed had taken place on the Tuesday night, and
the conviction--scant though the evidence might be--grew upon him that
this man was one of the conspirators who had escaped.

"How came your lady to speak with this man--was he known to her?" he
inquired at last.

"No, Highness; but he was wounded, and so aroused her compassion. She
sought to minister to his hurt."

"Wounded?" cried Gian Maria, in a shout. "Now, by God, it is as I
suspected. I'll swear he got that wound the night before at Sant'
Angelo. What was his name, fool? Tell me that, and you shall go free."

For just a second the hunchback seemed to hesitate. He stood in awesome
fear of Gian Maria, of whose cruelties some ghastly tales were told. But
in greater fear he stood of the eternal damnation he might earn did he
break the oath he had plighted not to divulge that knight's identity.

"Alas!" he sighed, "I would it might be mine to earn my freedom at so
light a price; yet it is one that ignorance will not let me pay. I do
not know his name."

The Duke looked at him searchingly and suspiciously.

Dull though he was by nature, eagerness seemed now to have set a cunning
edge upon his wits, and suspicion had led him to observe the fool's
momentary hesitation.

"Of what appearance was he? Describe him to me. How was he dressed?
What was the manner of his face?"

"Again, Lord Duke, I cannot answer you. I had but the most fleeting
glimpse of him."

The Duke's sallow countenance grew very evil-looking, and an ugly smile
twisted his lip and laid bare his strong white teeth.

"So fleeting that no memory of him is left you?" quoth he.

"Precisely, Highness."

"You lie, you filth," Gian Maria thundered in a towering rage. "It was
but this morning that you said his height was splendid, his countenance
noble, his manner princely, his speech courtly, and--I know not what
besides. Yet now you tell me--you tell me--that your glimpse of him was
so fleeting that you cannot describe him. You know his name, rogue, and
I will have it from you, or else----"

"Indeed, indeed, most noble lord, be not incensed----" the fool began, in
fearful protestation. But the Duke interrupted him.

"Incensed?" he echoed, his eyes dilating in a sort of horror at the
notion. "Do you dare impute to me the mortal sin of choler? I am not
incensed; there is no anger in me." He crossed himself, as if to
exorcise the evil mood if it indeed existed, and devotedly bowing his
head and folding his hands--"Libera me a malo, Domine!" he murmured
audibly. Then, with a greater fierceness than before--"Now," he
demanded, "will you tell me his name?"

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