The old knight answered: "It is true that I have always served Madona
Biatritz, who is of matchless worth. I might not, therefore, presume
to call myself any longer her servant were my honor stained in any
particular. Oh no, Messire de Vernoil, an oath is an oath. I have
this day sworn fealty to Guillaume de Baux."
Then after other talk Raimbaut dismissed the fierce-eyed little man.
The freebooter growled curses as he went. On a sudden he whistled,
like a person considering, and he began to chuckle.
Raimbaut said, more lately: "Zoraida left no wholesome legacy in you,
Makrisi." This Zoraida was a woman the knight had known in
Constantinople--a comely outlander who had killed herself because of
Sire Raimbaut's highflown avoidance of all womankind except the
mistress of his youth.
"Nay, save only in loving you too well, messire, was Zoraida a wise
woman, notably. . . . But this is outworn talk, the prattle of Cain's
babyhood. As matters were, you did not love Zoraida. So Zoraida died.
Such is the custom in my country."
"You trouble me, Makrisi. Your eyes are like blown coals. . . . Yet
you have served me long and faithfully. You know that mine was ever
the vocation of dealing honorably in battle among emperors, and of
spreading broadcast the rumor of my valor, and of achieving good by my
sword's labors. I have lived by warfare. Long, long ago, since I
derived no benefit from love, I cried farewell to it."
"Ay," said Makrisi. "Love makes a demi-god of all--just for an hour.
Such hours as follow we devote to the concoction of sleeping-draughts."
He laughed, and very harshly.
And Raimbaut did not sleep that night because this life of ours seemed
such a piece of tangle-work as he had not the skill to unravel. So he
devoted the wakeful hours to composition of a planh, lamenting vanished
youth and that Biatritz whom the years had stolen.
Then on the ensuing morning, after some talk about the new campaign,
Prince Guillaume de Baux leaned back in his high chair and said,
abruptly:
"In perfect candor, you puzzle your liege-lord. For you loathe me and
you still worship my sister-in-law, an unattainable princess. In these
two particulars you display such wisdom as would inevitably prompt you
to make an end of me. Yet, what the devil! you, the time-battered
vagabond, decline happiness and a kingdom to boot because of
yesterday's mummery in the cathedral! because of a mere promise given!
Yes, I have my spies in every rat-hole. I am aware that my barons hate
me, and hate Philibert almost as bitterly,--and that, in fine, a
majority of my barons would prefer to see you Prince in my unstable
place, on account of your praiseworthy molestations of heathenry. Oh,
yes, I understand my barons perfectly. I flatter myself I understand
everybody in Venaissin save you."
Raimbaut answered: "You and I are not alike."
"No, praise each and every Saint!" said the Prince of Orange, heartily.
"And yet, I am not sure----" He rose, for his sight had failed him so
that he could not distinctly see you except when he spoke with head
thrown back, as though he looked at you over a wall. "For instance, do
you understand that I hold Biatritz here as a prisoner, because her
dower-lands are necessary to me, and that I intend to marry her as soon
as Pope Innocent grants me a dispensation?"
"All Venaissin knows that. Yes, you have always gained everything
which you desired in this world, Guillaume. Yet it was at a price, I
think."
"I am no haggler. . . . But you have never comprehended me, not even in
the old days when we loved each other. For instance, do you
understand--slave of a spoken word!--what it must mean to me to know
that at this hour to-morrow there will be alive in Venaissin no person
whom I hate?"
Messire de Vaquieras reflected. His was never a rapid mind. "Why, no,
I do not know anything about hatred," he said, at last. "I think I
never hated any person."
Guillaume de Baux gave a half-frantic gesture. "Now, Heaven send you
troubadours a clearer understanding of what sort of world we live
in----!" He broke off short and growled, "And yet--sometimes I envy
you, Raimbaut!"
They rode then into the Square of St. Michel to witness the death of
Lovain. Guillaume took with him his two new mistresses and all his
by-blows, each magnificently clothed, as if they rode to a festival.
Afterward, before the doors of Lovain's burning house, a rope was
fastened under Lovain's armpits, and he was gently lowered into a pot
of boiling oil. His feet cooked first, and then the flesh of his legs,
and so on upward, while Lovain screamed. Guillaume in a loose robe of
green powdered with innumerable silver crescents, sat watching, under a
canopy woven very long ago in Tarshish, and cunningly embroidered with
the figures of peacocks and apes and men with eagles' heads. His hands
caressed each other meditatively.
It was on the afternoon of this day, the last of April, that Sire
Raimbaut came upon Madona Biatritz about a strange employment in the
Ladies' Court. There was then a well in the midst of this enclosure,
with a granite ledge around it carven with lilies; and upon this she
leaned, looking down into the water. In her lap was a rope of pearls,
which one by one she unthreaded and dropped into the well.
Clear and warm the weather was. Without, forests were quickening,
branch by branch, as though a green flame smoldered from one bough to
another. Violets peeped about the roots of trees, and all the world
was young again. But here was only stone beneath their feet; and about
them showed the high walls and the lead-sheathed towers and the
parapets and the sunk windows of Guillaume's chateau. There was no
color anywhere save gray; and Raimbaut and Biatritz were aging people
now. It seemed to him that they were the wraiths of those persons who
had loved each other at Montferrat; and that the walls about them and
the leaden devils who grinned from every waterspout and all those dark
and narrow windows were only part of some magic picture, such as a
sorceress may momentarily summon out of smoke-wreaths, as he had seen
Zoraida do very long ago.
This woman might have been a wraith in verity, for she was clothed
throughout in white, save for the ponderous gold girdle about her
middle. A white gorget framed the face which was so pinched and shrewd
and strange; and she peered into the well, smiling craftily.
"I was thinking death was like this well," said Biatritz, without any
cessation of her singular employment--"so dark that we may see nothing
clearly save one faint gleam which shows us, or which seems to show us,
where rest is. Yes, yes, this is that chaplet which you won in the
tournament at Montferrat when we were young. Pearls are the symbol of
tears, we read. But we had no time for reading then, no time for
anything except to be quite happy. . . . You saw this morning's work.
Raimbaut, were Satan to go mad he would be such a fiend as this
Guillaume de Baux who is our master!"
"Ay, the man is as cruel as my old opponent, Mourzoufle," Sire Raimbaut
answered, with a patient shrug. "It is a great mystery why such
persons should win all which they desire of this world. We can but
recognize that it is for some sufficient reason." Then he talked with
her concerning the aforementioned infamous emperor of the East, against
whom the old knight had fought, and of Enrico Dandolo and of King
Boniface, dead brother to Madona Biatritz, and of much remote,
outlandish adventuring oversea. Of Zoraida he did not speak. And
Biatritz, in turn, told him of that one child which she had borne her
husband, Prince Conrat--a son who died in infancy; and she spoke of
this dead baby, who living would have been their monarch, with a sweet
quietude that wrung the old knight's heart.
Thus these spent people sat and talked for a long while, the talk
veering anywhither just as chance directed. Blurred gusts of song and
laughter would come to them at times from the hall where Guillaume de
Baux drank with his courtiers, and these would break the tranquil flow
of speech. Then, unvexedly, the gentle voice of the speaker, were it
his or hers, would resume.
She said: "They laugh. We are not merry."
"No," he replied; "I am not often merry. There was a time when love
and its service kept me in continuous joy, as waters invest a fish. I
woke from a high dream. . . . And then, but for the fear of seeming
cowardly, I would have extinguished my life as men blow out a candle.
Vanity preserved me, sheer vanity!" He shrugged, spreading his hard
lean hands. "Belhs Cavaliers, I grudged my enemies the pleasure of
seeing me forgetful of valor and noble enterprises. And so, since
then, I have served Heaven, in default of you."
"I would not have it otherwise," she said, half as in wonder; "I would
not have you be quite sane like other men. And I believe," she
added--still with her wise smile--"you have derived a deal of comfort,
off and on, from being heart-broken."
He replied gravely: "A man may always, if he will but take the pains,
be tolerably content and rise in worth, and yet dispense with love. He
has only to guard himself against baseness, and concentrate his powers
on doing right. Thus, therefore, when fortune failed me, I persisted
in acting to the best of my ability. Though I had lost my lands and my
loved lady, I must hold fast to my own worth. Without a lady and
without acreage, it was yet in my power to live a cleanly and honorable
life; and I did not wish to make two evils out of one."
"Assuredly, I would not have you be quite sane like other men," she
repeated. "It would seem that you have somehow blundered through long
years, preserving always the ignorance of a child, and the blindness of
a child. I cannot understand how this is possible; nor can I keep from
smiling at your high-flown notions; and yet,--I envy you, Raimbaut."
Thus the afternoon passed, and the rule of Prince Guillaume was made
secure. His supper was worthily appointed, for Guillaume loved color
and music and beauty of every kind, and was on this, the day of his
triumph, in a prodigal humor. Many lackeys in scarlet brought in the
first course, to the sound of exultant drums and pipes, with a blast of
trumpets and a waving of banners, so that all hearts were uplifted, and
Guillaume jested with harsh laughter.
But Raimbaut de Vaquieras was not mirthful, for he was remembering a
boy whom he had known of very long ago. He was swayed by an odd fancy,
as the men sat over their wine, and jongleurs sang and performed tricks
for their diversion, that this boy, so frank and excellent, as yet
existed somewhere; and that the Raimbaut who moved these shriveled
hands before him, on the table there, was only a sad dream of what had
never been. It troubled him, too, to see how grossly these soldiers
ate, for, as a person of refinement, an associate of monarchs, Sire
Raimbaut when the dishes were passed picked up his meats between the
index- and the middle-finger of his left hand, and esteemed it infamous
manners to dip any other fingers into the gravy.
Guillaume had left the Warriors' Hall. Philibert was drunk, and half
the men-at-arms were snoring among the rushes, when at the height of
their festivity Makrisi came. He plucked his master by the sleeve.
A swarthy, bearded Angevin was singing. His song was one of old Sire
Raimbaut's famous canzons in honor of Belhs Cavaliers. The knave was
singing blithely:
_Pus mos Belhs Cavaliers grazitz_
_E joys m'es lunhatz e faiditz,_
_Don no m' venra jamais conortz;_
_Fer qu'ees mayer l'ira e plus fortz--_
The Saracen had said nothing. He showed a jeweled dagger, and the
knight arose and followed him out of that uproarious hall. Raimbaut
was bitterly perturbed, though he did not know for what reason, as
Makrisi led him through dark corridors to the dull-gleaming arras of
Prince Guillaume's apartments. In this corridor was an iron lamp swung
from the ceiling, and now, as this lamp swayed slightly and burned low,
the tiny flame leaped clear of the wick and was extinguished, and
darkness rose about them.
Raimbaut said: "What do you want of me? Whose blood is on that knife?"
"Have you forgotten it is Walburga's Eve?" Makrisi said. Raimbaut did
not regret he could not see his servant's countenance. "Time was we
named it otherwise and praised another woman than a Saxon wench, but
let the new name stand. It is Walburga's Eve, that little, little hour
of evil! and all over the world surges the full tide of hell's desire,
and mischief is a-making now, apace, apace, apace. People moan in
their sleep, and many pillows are pricked by needles that have sewed a
shroud. Cry _Eman hetan_ now, messire! for there are those to-night
who find the big cathedrals of your red-roofed Christian towns no more
imposing than so many pimples on a butler's chin, because they ride so
high, so very high, in this brave moonlight. Full-tide, full-tide!"
Makrisi said, and his voice jangled like a bell as he drew aside the
curtain so that the old knight saw into the room beyond.
It was a place of many lights, which, when thus suddenly disclosed,
blinded him at first. Then Raimbaut perceived Guillaume lying a-sprawl
across an oaken chest. The Prince had fallen backward and lay in this
posture, glaring at the intruders with horrible eyes which did not move
and would not ever move again. His breast was crimson, for some one
had stabbed him. A woman stood above the corpse and lighted yet
another candle while Raimbaut de Vaquieras waited motionless. A hand
meant only to bestow caresses brushed a lock of hair from this woman's
eyes while he waited. The movements of this hand were not uncertain,
but only quivered somewhat, as a taut wire shivers in the wind, while
Raimbaut de Vaquieras waited motionless.
"I must have lights, I must have a host of candles to assure me past
any questioning that he is dead. The man is of deep cunning. I think
he is not dead even now." Lightly Biatritz touched the Prince's
breast. "Strange, that this wicked heart should be so tranquil when
there is murder here to make it glad! Nay, very certainly this
Guillaume de Baux will rise and laugh in his old fashion before he
speaks, and then I shall be afraid. But I am not afraid as yet. I am
afraid of nothing save the dark, for one cannot be merry in the dark."
Raimbaut said: "This is Belhs Cavaliers whom I have loved my whole
life through. Therefore I do not doubt. Pardieu, I do not even doubt,
who know she is of matchless worth."
"Wherein have I done wrong, Raimbaut?" She came to him with fluttering
hands. "Why, but look you, the man had laid an ambuscade in the marsh
and he meant to kill you there to-night as you rode for Vaquieras. He
told me of it, told me how it was for that end alone he lured you into
Venaissin----" Again she brushed the hair back from her forehead.
"Raimbaut, I spoke of God and knightly honor, and the man laughed. No,
I think it was a fiend who sat so long beside the window yonder, whence
one may see the marsh. There were no candles in the room. The
moonlight was upon his evil face, and I could think of nothing, of
nothing that has been since Adam's time, except our youth, Raimbaut.
And he smiled fixedly, like a white image, because my misery amused
him. Only, when I tried to go to you to warn you, he leaped up
stiffly, making a mewing noise. He caught me by the throat so that I
could not scream. Then while we struggled in the moonlight your
Makrisi came and stabbed him----"
"Nay, I but fetched this knife, messire." Makrisi seemed to love that
bloodied knife.
Biatritz proudly said: "The man lies, Raimbaut."
"What need to tell me that, Belhs Cavaliers?"
And the Saracen shrugged. "It is very true I lie," he said. "As among
friends, I may confess I killed the Prince. But for the rest, take
notice both of you, I mean to lie intrepidly."
Raimbaut remembered how his mother had given each of two lads an apple,
and he had clamored for Guillaume's, as children do, and Guillaume had
changed with him. It was a trivial happening to remember after fifty
years; but Guillaume was dead, and this hacked flesh was Raimbaut's
flesh in part, and the thought of Raimbaut would never trouble
Guillaume de Baux any more. In addition there was a fire of juniper
wood and frankincense upon the hearth, and the room smelt too cloyingly
of be-drugging sweetness. Then on the walls were tapestries which
depicted Merlin's Dream, so that everywhere recoiling women smiled with
bold eyes; and here their wantonness seemed out of place.
"Listen," Makrisi was saying; "listen, for the hour strikes. At last,
at last!" he cried, with a shrill whine of malice.
Raimbaut said, dully: "Oh, I do not understand----"
"And yet Zoraida loved you once! loved you as people love where I was
born!" The Saracen's voice had altered. His speech was like the
rustle of papers. "You did not love Zoraida. And so it came about
that upon Walburga's Eve, at midnight, Zoraida hanged herself beside
your doorway. Thus we love where I was born. . . . And I, I cut the
rope--with my left hand. I had my other arm about that frozen thing
which yesterday had been Zoraida, you understand, so that it might not
fall. And in the act a tear dropped from that dead woman's cheek and
wetted my forehead. Ice is not so cold as was that tear. . . . Ho,
that tear did not fall upon my forehead but on my heart, because I
loved that dancing-girl, Zoraida, as you do this princess here. I
think you will understand," Makrisi said, calmly as one who states a
maxim.
The Sire de Vaquieras replied, in the same tone: "I understand. You
have contrived my death?"
"Ey, messire, would that be adequate? I could have managed that any
hour within the last score of years. Oh no! for I have studied you
carefully. Oh no! instead, I have contrived this plight. For the
Prince of Orange is manifestly murdered. Who killed him?--why, Madona
Biatritz, and none other, for I will swear to it. I, I will swear to
it, who saw it done. Afterward both you and I must be questioned upon
the rack, as possibly concerned in the affair, and whether innocent or
guilty we must die very horribly. Such is the gentle custom of your
Christian country when a prince is murdered. That is not the point of
the jest, however. For first Sire Philibert will put this woman to the
Question by Water, until she confesses her confederates, until she
confesses that every baron whom Philibert distrusts was one of them.
Oh yes, assuredly they will thrust a hollow cane into the mouth of your
Biatritz, and they will pour water a little by a little through this
cane, until she confesses what they desire. Ha, Philibert will see to
this confession! And through this woman's torment he will rid himself
of every dangerous foe he has in Venaissin. You must stand by and wait
your turn. You must stand by, in fetters, and see this done--you, you,
my master!--you, who love this woman as I loved that dead Zoraida who
was not fair enough to please you!"
Raimbaut, trapped, impotent, cried out: "This is not possible----" And
for all that, he knew the Saracen to be foretelling the inevitable.
Makrisi went on, quietly: "After the Question men will parade her,
naked to the middle, through all Orange, until they reach the
Marketplace, where will be four horses. One of these horses they will
harness to each arm and leg of your Biatritz. Then they will beat
these horses. These will be strong horses. They will each run in a
different direction."
This infamy also was certain. Raimbaut foresaw what he must do. He
clutched the dagger which Makrisi fondled. "Belhs Cavaliers, this
fellow speaks the truth. Look now, the moon is old--is it not strange
to know it will outlive us?"
And Biatritz came close to Sire Raimbaut and said: "I understand. If I
leave this room alive it will purchase a hideous suffering for my poor
body, it will bring about the ruin of many brave and innocent
chevaliers. I know. I would perforce confess all that the masked men
bade me. I know, for in Prince Conrat's time I have seen persons who
had been put to the Question----" She shuddered; and she re-began,
without any agitation: "Give me the knife, Raimbaut."
"Pardieu! but I may not obey you for this once," he answered, "since we
are informed by those in holy orders that all such as lay violent hands
upon themselves must suffer eternally." Then, kneeling, he cried, in
an extremity of adoration: "Oh, I have served you all my life. You
may not now deny me this last service. And while I talk they dig your
grave! O blind men, making the new grave, take heed lest that grave be
too narrow, for already my heart is breaking in my body. I have drunk
too deep of sorrow. And yet I may not fail you, now that honor and
mercy and my love for you demand I kill you before I also die--in such
a fashion as this fellow speaks of."
She did not dispute this. How could she when it was an axiom in all
Courts of Love that Heaven held dominion in a lover's heart only as an
underling of the man's mistress?
And so she said, with a fond smile: "It is your demonstrable
privilege. I would not grant it, dear, were my weak hands as clean as
yours. Oh, but it is long you have loved me, and it is faithfully you
have served Heaven, and my heart too is breaking in my body now that
your service ends!"
And he demanded, wearily: "When we were boy and girl together what had
we said if any one had told us this would be the end?"
"We would have laughed. It is a long while since those children
laughed at Montferrat. . . . Not yet, not yet!" she said. "Ah, pity
me, tried champion, for even now I am almost afraid to die."
She leaned against the window yonder, shuddering, staring into the
night. Dawn had purged the east of stars. Day was at hand, the day
whose noon she might not hope to witness. She noted this incuriously.
Then Biatritz came to him, very strangely proud, and yet all tenderness.
"See, now, Raimbaut! because I have loved you as I have loved nothing
else in life, I will not be unworthy of your love. Strike and have
done."
Raimbaut de Vaquieras raised an already bloodied dagger. As emotion
goes, he was bankrupt. He had no longer any dread of hell, because he
thought that, a little later, nothing its shrewdest overseer could plan
would have the power to vex him. She, waiting, smiled. Makrisi,
seated, stretched his legs, put fingertips together with the air of an
attendant amateur. This was better than he had hoped. In such a
posture they heard a bustle of armored men, and when all turned, saw
how a sword protruded through the arras.
"Come out, Guillaume!" people were shouting. "Unkennel, dog! Out,
out, and die!" To such a heralding Mahi de Vernoil came into the room
with mincing steps such as the man affected in an hour of peril. He
first saw what a grisly burden the chest sustained. "Now, by the
Face!" he cried, "if he that cheated me of quieting this filth should
prove to be of gentle birth I will demand of him a duel to the death!"
The curtains were ripped from their hangings as he spoke, and behind
him the candlelight was reflected by the armor of many followers.
Then de Vernoil perceived Raimbaut de Vaquieras, and the spruce little
man bowed ceremoniously. All were still. Composedly, like a
lieutenant before his captain, Mahi narrated how these hunted remnants
of Lovain's army had, as a last cast, that night invaded the chateau,
and had found, thanks to the festival, its men-at-arms in uniform and
inefficient drunkenness. "My tres beau sire," Messire de Vernoil
ended, "will you or nill you, Venaissin is yours this morning. My
knaves have slain Philibert and his bewildered fellow-tipplers with
less effort than is needed to drown as many kittens."
And his followers cried, as upon a signal: "Hail, Prince of Orange!"
It was so like the wonder-working of a dream--this sudden and heroic
uproar--that old Raimbaut de Vaquieras stood reeling, near to intimacy
with fear for the first time. He waited thus, with both hands pressed
before his eyes. He waited thus for a long while, because he was not
used to find chance dealing kindlily with him. Later he saw that
Makrisi had vanished in the tumult, and that many people awaited his
speaking.
The lord of Venaissin began: "You have done me a great service, Messire
de Vemoil. As recompense, I give you what I may. I freely yield you
all my right in Venaissin. Oh no, kingcraft is not for me. I daily
see and hear of battles won, cities beleaguered, high towers
overthrown, and ancient citadels and new walls leveled with the dust.
I have conversed with many kings, the directors of these events, and
they were not happy people. Yes, yes, I have witnessed divers
happenings, for I am old. . . . I have found nothing which can serve
me in place of honor."
He turned to Dona Biatritz. It was as if they were alone. "Belhs
Cavaliers," he said, "I had sworn fealty to this Guillaume. He
violated his obligations; but that did not free me of mine. An oath is
an oath. I was, and am to-day, sworn to support his cause, and to
profit in any fashion by its overthrow would be an abominable action.
Nay, more, were any of his adherents alive it would be my manifest duty
to join them against our preserver, Messire de Vernoil. This necessity
is very happily spared me. I cannot, though, in honor hold any fief
under the supplanter of my liege-lord. I must, therefore, relinquish
Vaquieras and take eternal leave of Venaissin. I will not lose the
right to call myself your servant!" he cried out--"and that which is
noblest in the world must be served fittingly. And so, Belhs
Cavaliers, let us touch palms and bid farewell, and never in this life
speak face to face of trivial happenings which we two alone remember.
For naked of lands and gear I came to you--a prince's daughter--very
long ago, and as nakedly I now depart, so that I may retain the right
to say, 'All my life long I served my love of her according to my
abilities, wholeheartedly and with clean hands.'"
"Yes, yes! you must depart from Venaissin," said Dona Biatritz. A
capable woman, she had no sympathy with his exquisite points of honor,
and yet loved him all the more because of what seemed to her his
surpassing folly. She smiled, somewhat as mothers do in humoring an
unreasonable boy. "We will go to my nephew's court at Montferrat," she
said. "He will willingly provide for his old aunt and her husband.
And you may still make verses--at Montferrat, where we lived verses,
once, Raimbaut."
Now they gazed full upon each other. Thus they stayed, transfigured,
neither seeming old. Each had forgotten that unhappiness existed
anywhere in the whole world. The armored, blood-stained men about them
were of no more importance than were those wantons in the tapestry.
Without, dawn throbbed in heaven. Without, innumerable birds were
raising that glad, piercing, hurried morning-song which very anciently
caused Adam's primal waking, to behold his mate.
BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
"_A curious preference for the artificial should be mentioned as
characteristic of ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI'S poetry. For his century was
anything but artless; the great commonplaces that form the main stock
of human thought were no longer in their first flush, and he addressed
a people no longer childish. . . . Unquestionably his fancies were
fantastic, anti-natural, bordering on hallucination, and they betray a
desire for impossible novelty; but it is allowable to prefer them to
the sickly simplicity of those so-called poems that embroider with old
faded wools upon the canvas of worn-out truisms, trite, trivial and
idiotically sentimental patterns._"
Let me have dames and damsels richly clad
To feed and tend my mirth,
Singing by day and night to make me glad;
Let me have fruitful gardens of great girth
Fill'd with the strife of birds,
With water-springs, and beasts that house i' the earth.
Let me seem Solomon for lore of words,
Samson for strength, for beauty Absalom.
Knights as my serfs be given;
And as I will, let music go and come;
Till, when I will, I will to enter Heaven.
ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI.--_Madrigal, from D. G. Rossetti's version_.
BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
Graciosa was Balthazar's youngest child, a white, slim girl with violet
eyes and strange pale hair which had the color and glitter of stardust.
"Some day at court," her father often thought complacently, "she, too,
will make a good match." He was a necessitous lord, a smiling, supple
man who had already marketed two daughters to his advantage. But
Graciosa's time was not yet mature in the year of grace 1533, for the
girl was not quite sixteen. So Graciosa remained in Balthazar's big
cheerless house and was tutored in all needful accomplishments. She
was proficient in the making of preserves and unguents, could play the
harpsichord and the virginals acceptably, could embroider an altarcloth
to admiration, and, in spite of a trivial lameness in walking, could
dance a coranto or a saraband against any woman between two seas.
Now to the north of Balthazar's home stood a tall forest, overhanging
both the highway and the river whose windings the highway followed.
Graciosa was very often to be encountered upon the outskirts of these
woods. She loved the forest, whose tranquillity bred dreams, but was
already a woman in so far that she found it more interesting to watch
the highway. Sometimes it would be deserted save for small purple
butterflies which fluttered about as if in continuous indecision, and
rarely ascended more than a foot above the ground. But people passed
at intervals--as now a page, who was a notably fine fellow, clothed in
ash-colored gray, with slashed, puffed sleeves, and having a heron's
feather in his cap; or a Franciscan with his gown tucked up so that you
saw how the veins on his naked feet stood out like the carvings on a
vase; or a farmer leading a calf; or a gentleman in a mantle of
squirrel's fur riding beside a wonderful proud lady, whose tiny hat was
embroidered with pearls. It was all very interesting to watch, it was
like turning over the leaves of a book written in an unknown tongue and
guessing what the pictures meant, because these people were intent upon
their private avocations, in which you had no part, and you would never
see them any more.
Then destiny took a hand in the affair and Guido came. He reined his
gray horse at the sight of her sitting by the wayside and deferentially
inquired how far it might be to the nearest inn. Graciosa told him.
He thanked her and rode on. That was all, but the appraising glance of
this sedate and handsome burgher obscurely troubled the girl afterward.
Next day he came again. He was a jewel-merchant, he told her, and he
thought it within the stretch of possibility that my lord Balthazar's
daughter might wish to purchase some of his wares. She viewed them
with admiration, chaffered thriftily, and finally bought a topaz, dug
from Mount Zabarca, Guido assured her, which rendered its wearer immune
to terrors of any kind.
Very often afterward these two met on the outskirts of the forest as
Guido rode between the coast and the hill-country about his vocation.
Sometimes he laughingly offered her a bargain, on other days he paused
to exhibit a notable gem which he had procured for this or that wealthy
amateur. Count Eglamore, the young Duke's favorite yonder at court,
bought most of them, it seemed. "The nobles complain against this
upstart Eglamore very bitterly," said Guido, "but we merchants have no
quarrel with him. He buys too lavishly."
"I trust I shall not see Count Eglamore when I go to court," said
Graciosa, meditatively; "and, indeed, by that time, my father assures
me, some honest gentleman will have contrived to cut the throat of this
abominable Eglamore." Her father's people, it should be premised, had
been at bitter feud with the favorite ever since he detected and
punished the conspiracy of the Marquis of Cibo, their kinsman. Then
Graciosa continued: "Nevertheless, I shall see many beautiful sights
when I am taken to court. . . . And the Duke, too, you tell me, is an
amateur of gems."
"Eh, madonna, I wish that you could see his jewels," cried Guido,
growing fervent; and he lovingly catalogued a host of lapidary marvels.
"I hope that I shall see these wonderful jewels when I go to court,"
said Graciosa wistfully.
"Duke Alessandro," he returned, his dark eyes strangely mirthful, "is,
as I take it, a catholic lover of beauty in all its forms. So he will
show you his gems, very assuredly, and, worse still, he will make
verses in your honor. For it is a preposterous feature of Duke
Alessandro's character that he is always making songs."
"Oh, and such strange songs as they are, too, Guido. Who does not know
them?"
"I am not the best possible judge of his verses' merit," Guido
estimated, drily. "But I shall never understand how any singer at all
came to be locked in such a prison. I fancy that at times the paradox
puzzles even Duke Alessandro."
"And is he as handsome as people report?"
Then Guido laughed a little. "Tastes differ, of course. But I think
your father will assure you, madonna, that no duke possessing such a
zealous tax-collector as Count Eglamore was ever in his lifetime
considered of repulsive person."
"And is he young?"
"Why, as to that, he is about of an age with me, and in consequence old
enough to be far more sensible than either of us is ever likely to be,"
said Guido; and began to talk of other matters.
But presently Graciosa was questioning him again as to the court,
whither she was to go next year and enslave a marquis, or, at worst, an
opulent baron. Her thoughts turned toward the court's predominating
figure. "Tell me of Eglamore, Guido."
"Madonna, some say that Eglamore was a brewer's son. Others--and your
father's kinsmen in particular--insist that he was begot by a devil in
person, just as Merlin was, and Plato the philosopher, and puissant
Alexander. Nobody knows anything about his origin." Guido was sitting
upon the ground, his open pack between his knees. Between the thumb
and forefinger of each hand he held caressingly a string of pearls
which he inspected as he talked. "Nobody," he idly said, "nobody is
very eager to discuss Count Eglamore's origin now that Eglamore has
become indispensable to Duke Alessandro. Yes, it is thanks to Eglamore
that the Duke has ample leisure and needful privacy for the pursuit of
recreations which are reputed to be curious."
"I do not understand you, Guido." Graciosa was all wonder.
"It is perhaps as well," the merchant said, a trifle sadly. Then Guido
shrugged. "To be brief, madonna, business annoys the Duke. He finds
in this Eglamore an industrious person who affixes seals, draughts
proclamations, makes treaties, musters armies, devises pageants, and
collects revenues, upon the whole, quite as efficiently as Alessandro
would be capable of doing these things. So Alessandro makes verses and
amuses himself as his inclinations prompt, and Alessandro's people are
none the worse off on account of it."
"Heigho, I foresee that I shall never fall in love with the Duke,"
Graciosa declared. "It is unbefitting and it is a little cowardly for
a prince to shirk the duties of his station. Now, if I were Duke I
would grant my father a pension, and have Eglamore hanged, and purchase
a new gown of silvery green, in which I would be ravishingly beautiful,
and afterward-- Why, what would you do if you were Duke, Messer Guido?"
"What would I do if I were Duke?" he echoed. "What would I do if I
were a great lord instead of a tradesman? I think you know the answer,
madonna."
"Oh, you would make me your duchess, of course. That is quite
understood," said Graciosa, with the lightest of laughs. "But I was
speaking seriously, Guido."
Guido at that considered her intently for a half-minute. His
countenance was of portentous gravity, but in his eyes she seemed to
detect a lurking impishness.
"And it is not a serious matter that a peddler of crystals should have
dared to love a nobleman's daughter? You are perfectly right. That I
worship you is an affair which does not concern any person save myself
in any way whatsoever, although I think that knowledge of the fact
would put your father to the trouble of sharpening his dagger. . . .
Indeed, I am not certain that I worship you, for in order to adore
wholeheartedly, the idolater must believe his idol to be perfect. Now,
your nails are of an ugly shape, like that of little fans; your mouth
is too large; and I have long ago perceived that you are a trifle lame
in spite of your constant care to conceal the fact. I do not admire
these faults, for faults they are undoubtedly. Then, too, I know you
are vain and self-seeking, and look forward contentedly to the time
when your father will transfer his ownership of such physical
attractions as heaven gave you to that nobleman who offers the highest
price for them. It is true you have no choice in the matter, but you
will participate in a monstrous bargain, and I would prefer to have you
exhibit distaste for it." And with that he returned composedly to
inspection of his pearls.
"And to what end, Guido?" It was the first time Graciosa had
completely waived the reticence of a superior caste. You saw that the
child's parted lips were tremulous, and you divined her childish fits
of dreading that glittering, inevitable court-life shared with an
unimaginable husband.
But Guido only grumbled whimsically. "I am afraid that men do not
always love according to the strict laws of logic. I desire your
happiness above all things; yet to see you so abysmally untroubled by
anything that troubles me is another matter."
"But I am not untroubled, Guido----" she began swiftly. Graciosa broke
off in speech, shrugged, flashed a smile at him. "For I cannot fathom
you, Ser Guido, and that troubles me. Yes, I am very fond of you, and
yet I do not trust you. You tell me you love me greatly. It pleases
me to have you say this. You perceive I am very candid this morning,
Messer Guido. Yes, it pleases me, and I know that for the sake of
seeing me you daily endanger your life, for if my father heard of our
meetings he would have you killed. You would not incur such
hare-brained risks unless you cared very greatly; and yet, somehow, I
do not believe it is altogether for me you care."
Then Guido was in train to protest an all-mastering and entirely candid
devotion, but he was interrupted.
"Most women have these awkward intuitions," spoke a melodious voice,
and turning, Graciosa met the eyes of the intruder. This magnificent
young man had a proud and bloodless face which contrasted sharply with
his painted lips and cheeks. In the contour of his protruding mouth
showed plainly his negroid ancestry. His scanty beard, as well as his
frizzled hair, was the color of dead grass. He was sumptuously clothed
in white satin worked with silver, and around his cap was a gold chain
hung with diamonds. Now he handed his fringed riding-gloves to Guido
to hold.
"Yes, madonna, I suspect that Eglamore here cares greatly for the fact
that you are Lord Balthazar's daughter, and cousin to the late Marquis
of Cibo. For Cibo has many kinsmen at court who still resent the
circumstance that the matching of his wits against Eglamore's earned
for Cibo a deplorably public demise. So they conspire against Eglamore
with vexatious industry, as an upstart, as a nobody thrust over people
of proven descent, and Eglamore goes about in hourly apprehension of a
knife-thrust. If he could make a match with you, though, your
father--thrifty man!--would be easily appeased. Your cousins, those
proud, grumbling Castel-Franchi, Strossi and Valori, would not prove
over-obdurate toward a kinsman who, whatever his past indiscretions,
has so many pensions and offices at his disposal. Yes, honor would
permit a truce, and Eglamore could bind them to his interests within
ten days, and be rid of the necessity of sleeping in chain armor. . . .
Have I not unraveled the scheme correctly, Eglamore?"
"Your highness was never lacking in penetration," replied the other in
a dull voice. He stood motionless, holding the gloves, his shoulders a
little bowed as if under some physical load. His eyes were fixed upon
the ground. He divined the change in Graciosa's face and did not care
to see it.
"And so you are Count Eglamore," said Graciosa in a sort of whisper.
"That is very strange. I had thought you were my friend, Guido. But I
forget. I must not call you Guido any longer." She gave a little
shiver here. He stayed motionless and did not look at her. "I have
often wondered what manner of man you were. So it was you--whose hand
I touched just now--you who poisoned Duke Cosmo, you who had the good
cardinal assassinated, you who betrayed the brave lord of Faenza! Oh,
yes, they openly accuse you of every imaginable crime--this patient
Eglamore, this reptile who has crept into his power through filthy
passages. It is very strange you should be capable of so much
wickedness, for to me you seem only a sullen lackey."
He winced and raised his eyes at this. His face remained
expressionless. He knew these accusations at least to be demonstrable
lies, for as it happened he had never found his advancement to hinge
upon the commission of the crimes named. But even so, the past was a
cemetery he did not care to have revivified.
"And it was you who detected the Marquis of Cibo's conspiracy.
Tebaldeo was my cousin, Count Eglamore, and I loved him. We were
reared together. We used to play here in these woods, and I remember
how Tebaldeo once fetched me a wren's nest from that maple yonder. I
stood just here. I was weeping because I was afraid he would fall. If
he had fallen and been killed, it would have been the luckier for him,"
Graciosa sighed. "They say that he conspired. I do not know. I only
know that by your orders, Count Eglamore, my playmate Tebaldeo was
fastened upon a Saint Andrew's cross and his arms and legs were each
broken in two places with an iron bar. Then your servants took
Tebaldeo, still living, and laid him upon a carriage-wheel which was
hung upon a pivot. The upper edge of this wheel was cut with very fine
teeth like those of a saw, so that his agony might be complete.
Tebaldeo's poor mangled legs were folded beneath his body so that his
heels touched the back of his head, they tell me. In such a posture he
died very slowly while the wheel turned very slowly there in the sunlit
market-place, and flies buzzed greedily about him, and the shopkeepers
took holiday in order to watch Tebaldeo die--the same Tebaldeo who once
fetched me a wren's nest from yonder maple."
Eglamore spoke now. "I gave orders for the Marquis of Cibo's
execution. I did not devise the manner of his death. The punishment
for Cibo's crime was long ago fixed by our laws. Cibo plotted to kill
the Duke. Cibo confessed as much."
But the girl waved this aside. "And then you plan this masquerade.
You plan to make me care for you so greatly that even when I know you
to be Count Eglamore I must still care for you. You plan to marry me,
so as to placate Tebaldeo's kinsmen, so as to bind them to your
interests. It was a fine bold stroke of policy, I know, to use me as a
stepping-stone to safety--but was it fair to me?" Her voice rose now a
little. She seemed to plead with him. "Look you, Count Eglamore, I
was a child only yesterday. I have never loved any man. But you have
loved many women, I know, and long experience has taught you many ways
of moving a woman's heart. Oh, was it fair, was it worth while, to
match your skill against my ignorance? Think how unhappy I would be if
even now I loved you, and how I would loathe myself. . . . But I am
getting angry over nothing. Nothing has happened except that I have
dreamed in idle moments of a brave and comely lover who held his head
so high that all other women envied me, and now I have awakened." |
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