Acting upon my resolve, I went to wait for Cavalcanti in the little anteroom that communicated with his bedroom. My patience was tried, for he was singularly late in coming; fully an hour passed after all the sounds had died down in the castle and it was known that all had retired, and still there was no sign of him.
I asked one of the pages who lounged there waiting for their master, did he think my lord would be in the library, and the boy was conjecturing upon this unusual tardiness of Cavalcanti's in seeking his bed, when the door opened, and at last he appeared.
When he found me awaiting him, a certain eagerness seemed to light his face; a second's glance showed me that he was in the grip of some unusual agitation. He was pale, with a dull flush under the eyes, and the hand with which he waved away the pages shook, as did his voice when he bade them depart, saying that he desired to be alone with me awhile.
When the two slim lads had gone, he let himself fall wearily into a tall, carved chair that was placed near an ebony table with silver feet in the middle of the room.
But instead of unburdening himself as I fully expected, he looked at me, and—
“What is it, Agostino?” he inquired.
“I have thought,” I answered after a moment's hesitation, “of a means by which this unwelcome visit of Farnese's might be brought to an end.”
And with that I told him as delicately as was possible that I believed Madonna Bianca to be the lodestone that held him there, and that were she removed from his detestable attentions, Pagliano would cease to amuse him and he would go his ways.
There was no outburst such as I had almost looked for at the mere suggestion contained in my faltering words. He looked at me gravely and sadly out of that stern face of his.
“I would you had given me this advice two weeks ago,” he said. “But who was to have guessed that this pope's bastard would have so prolonged his visit? For the rest, however, you are mistaken, Agostino. It is not he who has dared to raise his eyes as you suppose to Bianca. Were such the case, I should have killed him with my hands were he twenty times the Duke of Parma. No, no. My Bianca is being honourably wooed by your cousin Cosimo.”
I looked at him, amazed. It could not be. I remembered Giuliana's words. Giuliana did not love me, and were it as he supposed she would have seen no cause to intervene. Rather might she have taken a malicious pleasure in witnessing my own discomfiture, in seeing the sweet maid to whom I had raised my eyes, snatched away from me by my cousin who already usurped so much that was my own.
“O, you must be mistaken,” I cried.
“Mistaken?” he echoed. He shook his head, smiling bitterly. “There is no possibility of mistake. I am just come from an interview with the Duke and his fine captain. Together they sought me out to ask my daughter's hand for Cosimo d'Anguissola.”
“And you?” I cried, for this thrust aside my every doubt.
“And I declined the honour,” he answered sternly, rising in his agitation. “I declined it in such terms as to leave them no doubt upon the irrevocable quality of my determination; and then this pestilential Duke had the effrontery to employ smiling menaces, to remind me that he had the power to compel folk to bend the knee to his will, to remind me that behind him he had the might of the Pontiff and even of the Holy Office. And when I defied him with the answer that I was a feudatory of the Emperor, he suggested that the Emperor himself must bow before the Court of the Inquisition.”
“My God!” I cried in liveliest fear.
“An idle threat!” he answered contemptuously, and set himself to stride the room, his hands clasped behind his broad back.
“What have I to do with the Holy Office?” he snorted. “But they had worse indignities for me, Agostino. They mocked me with a reminder that Giovanni d'Anguissola had been my firmest friend. They told me they knew it to have been my intention that my daughter should become the Lady of Mondolfo, and to cement the friendship by making one State of Pagliano, Mondolfo and Carmina. And they added that by wedding her to Cosimo d'Anguissola was the way to execute that plan, for Cosimo, Lord of Mondolfo already, should receive Carmina as a wedding-gift from the Duke.”
“Was such indeed your intention?” I asked scarce above a whisper, overawed as men are when they perceive precisely what their folly and wickedness have cost them.
He halted before me, and set one hand of his upon my shoulder, looking up into my face. “It has been my fondest dream, Agostino,” he said.
I groaned. “It is a dream that never can be realized now,” said I miserably.
“Never, indeed, if Cosimo d'Anguissola continues to be Lord of Mondolfo,” he answered, his keen, friendly eyes considering me.
I reddened and paled under his glance.
“Nor otherwise,” said I. “For Monna Bianca holds me in the contempt which I deserve. Better a thousand times that I should have remained out of this world to which you caused me to return—unless, indeed, my present torment is the expiation that is required of me unless, indeed, I was but brought back that I might pay with suffering for all the evil that I have wrought.”
He smiled a little. “Is it so with you? Why, then, you afflict yourself too soon, boy. You are over-hasty to judge. I am her father, and my little Bianca is a book in which I have studied deeply. I read her better than do you, Agostino. But we will talk of this again.”
He turned away to resume his pacing in the very moment in which he had fired me with such exalted hopes. “Meanwhile, there is this Farnese dog with his parcel of minions and harlots making a sty of my house. He threatens to remain until I come to what he terms a reasonable mind—until I consent to do his will and allow my daughter to marry his henchman; and he parted from me enjoining me to give the matter thought, and impudently assuring me that in Cosimo d'Anguissola—in that guelphic jackal—I had a husband worthy of Bianca de' Cavalcanti.”
He spoke it between his teeth, his eyes kindling angrily again.
“The remedy, my lord, is to send Bianca hence,” I said. “Let her seek shelter in a convent until Messer Pier Luigi shall have taken his departure. And if she is no longer here, Cosimo will have little inclination to linger.”
He flung back his head, and there was defiance in every line of his clear-cut face. “Never!” he snapped. “The thing could have been done two weeks ago, when they first came. It would have seemed that the step was determined before his coming, and that in my independence I would not alter my plans. But to do it now were to show fear of him; and that is not my way.
“Go, Agostino. Let me have the night to think. I know not how to act. But we will talk again to-morrow.”
It was best so; best leave it to the night to bring counsel, for we were face to face with grave issues which might need determining sword in hand.
That I slept little will be readily conceived. I plagued my mind with this matter of Cosimo's suit, thinking that I saw the ultimate intent—to bring Pagliano under the ducal sway by rendering master of it one who was devoted to Farnese.
And then, too, I would think of that other thing that Cavalcanti had said: that I had been hasty in my judgment of his daughter's mind. My hopes rose and tortured me with the suspense they held. Then came to me the awful thought that here there might be a measure of retribution, and that it might be intended as my punishment that Cosimo, whom I had unconsciously bested in my sinful passion, should best me now in this pure and holy love.
I was astir betimes, and out in the gardens before any, hoping, I think, that Bianca, too, might seek the early morning peace of that place, and that so we might have speech.
Instead, it was Giuliana who came to me. I had been pacing the terrace some ten minutes, inhaling the matutinal fragrance, drawing my hands through the cool dew that glistened upon the boxwood hedges, when I saw her issue from the loggia that opened to the gardens.
Upon her coming I turned to go within, and I would have passed her without a word, but that she put forth a hand to detain me.
“I was seeking you, Agostino,” she said in greeting.
“Having found me, Madonna, you will give me leave to go,” said I.
But she was resolutely barring my way. A slow smile parted her scarlet lips and broke over that ivory countenance that once I had deemed so lovely and now I loathed.
“I mind me another occasion in a garden betimes one morning when you were in no such haste to shun me.”
I crimsoned under her insolent regard. “Have you the courage to remember?” I exclaimed.
“Half the art of life is to harbour happy memories,” said she.
“Happy?” quoth I.
“Do you deny that we were happy on that morning?—it would be just about this time of year, two years ago. And what a change in you since then! Heigho! And yet men say that woman is inconstant!”
“I did not know you then,” I answered harshly.
“And do you know me now? Has womanhood no mysteries for you since you gathered wisdom in the wilderness?”
I looked at her with detestation in my eyes. The effrontery, the ease and insolence of her bearing, all confirmed my conviction of her utter shamelessness and heartlessness.
“The day after... after your husband died,” I said, “I saw you in a dell near Castel Guelfo with my Lord Gambara. In that hour I knew you.”
She bit her lip, then smiled again. “What would you?” answered she. “Through your folly and crime I was become an outcast. I went in danger of my life. You had basely deserted me. My Lord Gambara, more generous, offered me shelter and protection. I was not born for martyrdom and dungeons,” she added, and sighed with smiling plaintiveness. “Are you, of all men, the one to blame me?”
“I have not the right, I know,” I answered. “Nor do I blame you more than I blame myself. But since I blame myself most bitterly—since I despise and hate myself for what is past, you may judge what my feelings are for you. And judging them, I think it were well you gave me leave to go.”
“I came to speak of other than ourselves, Ser Agostino,” she answered, all unmoved still by my scorn, or leastways showing nothing of what emotions might be hers. “It is of that simpering daughter of my Lord of Pagliano.”
“There is nothing I could less desire to hear you talk upon,” said I.
“It is so very like a man to scorn the thing I could tell him after he has already heard it from me.”
“The thing you told me was false,” said I. “It was begotten of fear to see your own base interests thwarted. It is proven so by the circumstance that the Duke has sought the hand of Madonna Bianca for Cosimo d'Anguissola.”
“For Cosimo?” she cried, and I never saw her so serious and thoughtful. “For Cosimo? You are sure of this?” The urgency of her tone was such that it held me there and compelled my answer.
“I have it from my lord himself.”
She knit her brows, her eyes upon the ground; then slowly she raised them, and looked at me again, the same unusual seriousness and alertness in every line of her face.
“Why, by what dark ways does he burrow to his ends?” she mused.
And then her eyes grew lively, her expression cunning and vengeful. “I see it!” she exclaimed. “O, it is as clear as crystal. This is the Roman manner of using complaisant husbands.”
“Madonna!” I rebuked her angrily—angry to think that anyone should conceive that Bianca could be so abused.
“Gesu!” she returned with a shrug. “The thing is plain enough if you will but look at it. Here his excellency dares nothing, lest he should provoke the resentment of that uncompromising Lord of Pagliano. But once she is safely away—as Cosimo's wife...”
“Stop!” I cried, putting out a hand as if I would cover her mouth. Then collecting myself. “Do you suggest that Cosimo could lend himself to so infamous a compact?”
“Lend himself? That pander? You do not know your cousin. If you have any interest in this Madonna Bianca you will get her hence without delay, and see that Pier Luigi has no knowledge of the convent to which she is consigned. He enjoys the privileges of a papal offspring, and there is no sanctuary he will respect. So let the thing be done speedily and in secret.”
I looked at her between doubt and horror.
“Why should you mistrust me?” she asked, answering my look. “I have been frank with you. It is not you nor that white-faced ninny I would serve. You may both go hang for me, though I loved you once, Agostino.” And the sudden tenderness of tone and smile were infinitely mocking. “No, no, beloved, if I meddle in this at all, it is because my own interests are in peril.”
I shuddered at the cold, matter-of-fact tone in which she alluded to such interests as those which she could have in Pier Luigi.
“Ay, shrink and cringe, sir saint,” she sneered. “Having cast me off and taken up holiness, you have the right, of course.” And with that she moved past me, and down the terrace-steps without ever turning her head to look at me again. And that was the last I ever saw of her, as you shall find, though little was it to have been supposed so then.
I stood hesitating, half minded to go after her and question her more closely as to what she knew and what she did no more than surmise. But then I reflected that it mattered little. What really mattered was that her good advice should be acted upon without delay.
I went towards the house and in the loggia came face to face with Cosimo.
“Still pursuing the old love,” he greeted me, smiling and jerking his head in the direction of Giuliana. “We ever return to it in the end, they say; yet you had best have a care. It is not well to cross my Lord Pier Luigi in such matters; he can be a very jealous tyrant.”
I wondered was there some double meaning in the words. I made shift to pass on, leaving his taunt unanswered, when suddenly he stepped up to me and tapped my shoulder.
“One other thing, sweet cousin. You little deserve a warning at my hands. Yet you shall have it. Make haste to shake the dust of Pagliano from your feet. An evil is hanging over you here.”
I looked into his wickedly handsome face, and smiled coldly.
“It is a warning which in my turn I will give to you, you jackal,” said I, and watched the expression of his countenance grow set and frozen, the colour recede from it.
“What do you mean?” he growled, touched to suspicion of my knowledge by the term I had employed. “What things has that trull dared to...”
I cut in. “I mean, sir, to warn you. Do not drive me to do more.”
We were quite alone. Behind us stretched the long, empty room, before us the empty gardens. He was without weapons as was I. But my manner was so fierce that he recoiled before me, in positive fear of my hands, I think.
I swung on my heel and pursued my way.
I went above to seek Cavalcanti, and found him newly risen. Wrapped in a gown of miniver, he received me with the news that having given the matter thought, he had determined to sacrifice his pride and remove Bianca not later than the morrow, as soon as he could arrange it. And to arrange it he would ride forth at once.
I offered to go with him, and that offer he accepted, whereafter I lounged in his antechamber waiting until he should be dressed, and considering whether to impart to him the further information I had that morning gleaned. In the end I decided not to do so, unable to bring myself to tell him that so much turpitude might possibly be plotting against Bianca. It was a statement that soiled her, so it seemed to me. Indeed I could scarcely bear to think of it.
Presently he came forth full-dressed, booted, and armed, and we went along the corridor and out upon the gallery. As side by side we were descending the steps, we caught sight of a singular group in the courtyard.
Six mounted men in black were drawn up there, and a little in the foreground a seventh, in a corselet of blackened steel and with a steel cap upon his head, stood by his horse in conversation with Farnese. In attendance upon the Duke were Cosimo and some three of his gentlemen.
We halted upon the steps, and I felt Cavalcanti's hand suddenly tighten upon my arm.
“What is it?” I asked innocently, entirely unalarmed. “These are familiars of the Holy Office,” he answered me, his tone very grave. In that moment the Duke, turning, espied us. He came towards the staircase to meet us, and his face, too, was very solemn.
We went down, I filled by a strange uneasiness, which I am sure was entirely shared by Cavalcanti.
“Evil tidings, my Lord of Pagliano,” said Farnese. “The Holy Office has sent to arrest the person of Agostino d'Anguissola, for whom it has been seeking for over a year.”
“For me?” I cried, stepping forward ahead of Cavalcanti. “What has the Holy Office to do with me?”
The leading familiar advanced. “If you are Agostino d'Anguissola, there is a charge of sacrilege against you, for which you are required to answer before the courts of the Holy Office in Rome.”
“Sacrilege?” I echoed, entirely bewildered—for my first thought had been that here might be something concerning the death of Fifanti, and that the dread tribunal of the Inquisition dealing with the matter secretly, there would be no disclosures to be feared by those who had evoked its power.
The thought was, after all, a foolish one; for the death of Fifanti was a matter that concerned the Ruota and the open courts, and those, as I well knew, did not dare to move against me, on Messer Gambara's account.
“Of what sacrilege can I be guilty?” I asked.
“The tribunal will inform you,” replied the familiar—a tall, sallow, elderly man.
“The tribunal will need, then, to await some other opportunity,” said Cavalcanti suddenly. “Messer d'Anguissola is my guest; and my guests are not so rudely plucked forth from Pagliano.”
The Duke drew away, and leaned upon the arm of Cosimo, watching. Behind me in the gallery I heard a rustle of feminine gowns; but I did not turn to look. My eyes were upon the stern sable figure of the familiar.
“You will not be so ill-advised, my lord,” he was saying, “as to compel us to use force.”
“You will not, I trust, be so ill-advised as to attempt it,” laughed Cavalcanti, tossing his great head. “I have five score men-at-arms within these walls, Messer Black-clothes.”
The familiar bowed. “That being so, the force for to-day is yours, as you say. But I would solemnly warn you not to employ it contumaciously against the officers of the Holy Office, nor to hinder them in the duty which they are here to perform, lest you render yourself the object of their just resentment.”
Cavalcanti took a step forward, his face purple with anger that this tipstaff ruffian should take such a tone with him. But in that instant I seized his arm.
“It is a trap!” I muttered in his ear. “Beware!”
I was no more than in time. I had surprised upon Farnese's mottled face a sly smile—the smile of the cat which sees the mouse come venturing from its lair. And I saw the smile perish—to confirm my suspicions—when at my whispered words Cavalcanti checked in his rashness.
Still holding him by the arm, I turned to the familiar.
“I shall surrender to you in a moment, sir,” said I. “Meanwhile, and you, gentlemen—give us leave apart.” And I drew the bewildered Cavalcanti aside and down the courtyard under the colonnade of the gallery.
“My lord, be wise for Bianca's sake,” I implored him. “I am assured that here is nothing but a trap baited for you. Do not gorge their bait as your valour urges you. Defeat them, my lord, by circumspection. Do you not see that if you resist the Holy Office, they can issue a ban against you, and that against such a ban not even the Emperor can defend you? Indeed, if they told him that his feudatory, the Lord of Pagliano, had been guilty of contumaciously thwarting the ends of the Holy Inquisition, that bigot Charles V would be the first to deliver you over to the ghastly practices of that tribunal. It should not need, my lord, that I should tell you this.”
“My God!” he groaned in utter misery. “But you, Agostino?”
“There is nothing against me,” I answered impatiently. “What sacrilege have I ever committed? The thing is a trumped-up business, conceived with a foul purpose by Messer Pier Luigi there. Courage, then, and self-restraint; and thus we shall foil their aims. Come, my lord, I will ride to Rome with them. And do not doubt that I shall return very soon.”
He looked at me with eyes that were full of trouble, indecision in every line of a face that was wont to look so resolute. He knew himself between the sword and the wall.
“I would that Galeotto were here!” cried that man usually so self-reliant. “What will he say to me when he comes? You were a sacred charge, boy.”
“Say to him that I will be returning shortly—which must be true. Come, then. You may serve me this way. The other way you will but have to endure ultimate arrest, and so leave Bianca at their mercy, which is precisely what they seek.”
He braced himself at the thought of Bianca. We turned, and in silence we paced back, quite leisurely as if entirely at our ease, for all that Cavalcanti's face had grown very haggard.
“I yield me, sir,” I said to the familiar.
“A wise decision,” sneered the Duke.
“I trust you'll find it so, my lord,” I answered, sneering too.
They led forward a horse for me, and when I had embraced Cavalcanti, I mounted and my funereal escort closed about me. We rode across the courtyard under the startled eyes of the folk of Pagliano, for the familiars of the Holy Office were dread and fearful objects even to the stoutest-hearted man. As we neared the gateway a shrill cry rang out on the morning air:
“Agostino!”
Fear and tenderness and pain were all blent in that cry.
I swung round in the saddle to behold the white form of Bianca, standing in the gallery with parted lips and startled eyes that were gazing after me, her arms outheld. And then, even as I looked, she crumpled and sank with a little moan into the arms of the ladies who were with her.
I looked at Pier Luigi and from the depths of my heart I cursed him, and I prayed that the day might not be far distant when he should be made to pay for all the sins of his recreant life.
And then, as we rode out into the open country, my thoughts were turned to tenderer matters, and it came to me that when all was done, that cry of Bianca's made it worth while to have been seized by the talons of the Holy Office.
And now, that you may understand to the full the thing that happened, it is necessary that I should relate it here in its proper sequence, although that must entail my own withdrawal for a time from pages upon which too long I have intruded my own doings and thoughts and feelings.
I set it down as it was told to me later by those who bore their share in it, and particularly by Falcone, who, as you shall learn, came to be a witness of all, and retailed to me the affair with the greatest detail of what this one said and how that one looked.
I reached Rome on the fourth day after my setting out with my grim escort, and on that same day, at much the same hour as that in which the door of my dungeon in Sant' Angelo closed upon me, Galeotto rode into the courtyard of Pagliano on his return from his treasonable journey.
He was attended only by Falcone, and it so chanced that his arrival was witnessed by Farnese, who with various members of his suite was lounging in the gallery at the time.
Surprise was mutual at the encounter; for Galeotto had known nothing of the Duke's sojourn at Pagliano, believing him to be still at Parma, whilst the Duke as little suspected that of the five score men-at-arms garrisoned in Pagliano, three score lances were of Galeotto's free company.
But at sight of this condottiero, whose true aims he was far from suspecting, and whose services he was eager to enlist, the Duke heaved himself up from his seat and went down the staircase shouting greetings to the soldier, and playfully calling him Galeotto in its double sense, and craving to know where he had been hiding himself this while.
The condottiero swung down from his saddle unaided—a thing which he could do even when full-armed—and stood before Farnese, a grim, dust-stained figure, with a curious smile twisting his scarred face.
“Why,” said he, in answer, “I have been upon business that concerns your magnificence somewhat closely.”
And with Falcone at his heels he advanced, the horses relinquished to the grooms who had hastened forward.
“Upon business that concerns me?” quoth the Duke, intrigued.
“Why, yes,” said Galeotto, who stood now face to face with Farnese at the foot of the steps up which the Duke's attendants were straggling. “I have been recruiting forces, and since one of these days your magnificence is to give me occupation, you will see that the matter concerns you.”
Above leaned Cavalcanti, his face grey and haggard, without the heart to relish the wicked humour of Galeotto that could make jests for his own entertainment. True there was also Falcone to overhear, appreciate, and grin under cover of his great brown hand.
“Does this mean that you are come to your senses on the score of a stipend, Ser Galeotto?” quoth the Duke.
“I am not a trader out of the Giudecca to haggle over my wares,” replied the burly condottiero. “But I nothing doubt that your magnificence and I will come to an understanding at the last.”
“Five thousand ducats yearly is my offer,” said Farnese, “provided that you bring three hundred lances.”
“Ah, well!” said Galeotto softly, “you may come to regret one of these days, highness, that you did not think well to pay me the price I ask.”
“Regret?” quoth the Duke, with a frown of displeasure at so much frankness.
“When you see me engaged in the service of some other,” Galeotto explained. “You need a condottiero, my lord; and you may come to need one even more than you do now.”
“I have the Lord of Mondolfo,” said the Duke.
Galeotto stared at him with round eyes. “The Lord of Mondolfo?” quoth he, intentionally uncomprehending.
“You have not heard? Why, here he stands.” And he waved a jewelled hand towards Cosimo, a handsome figure in green and blue, standing nearest to Farnese.
Galeotto looked at this Anguissola, and his brow grew very black.
“So,” he said slowly, “you are the Lord of Mondolfo, eh? I think you are very brave.”
“I trust my valour will not be lacking when the proof of it is needed,” answered Cosimo haughtily, feeling the other's unfriendly mood and responding to it.
“It cannot,” said Galeotto, “since you have the courage to assume that title, for the lordship of Mondolfo is an unlucky one to bear, Ser Cosimo. Giovanni d'Anguissola was unhappy in all things, and his was a truly miserable end. His father before him was poisoned by his best friend, and as for the last who legitimately bore that title—why, none can say that the poor lad was fortunate.”
“The last who legitimately bore that title?” cried Cosimo, very ruffled. “I think, sir, it is your aim to affront me.”
“And what is more,” continued the condottiero, as if Cosimo had not spoken, “not only are the lords of Mondolfo unlucky in themselves, but they are a source of ill luck to those they serve. Giovanni's father had but taken service with Cesare Borgia when the latter's ruin came at the hands of Pope Julius II. What Giovanni's own friendship cost his friends none knows better than your highness. So that, when all is said, I think you had better look about you for another condottiero, magnificent.”
The magnificent stood gnawing his beard and brooding darkly, for he was a grossly superstitious fellow who studied omens and dabbled in horoscopes, divinations, and the like. And he was struck by the thing that Galeotto said. He looked at Cosimo darkly. But Cosimo laughed.
“Who believes such old wives' tales? Not I, for one.”
“The more fool you!” snapped the Duke.
“Indeed, indeed,” Galeotto applauded. “A disbelief in omens can but spring from an ignorance of such matters. You should study them, Messer Cosimo. I have done so, and I tell you that the lordship of Mondolfo is unlucky to all dark-complexioned men. And when such a man has a mole under the left ear as you have—in itself a sign of death by hanging—it is well to avoid all risks.”
“Now that is very strange!” muttered the Duke, much struck by this whittling down of Cosimo's chances, whilst Cosimo shrugged impatiently and smiled contemptuously. “You seem to be greatly versed in these matters, Ser Galeotto,” added Farnese.
“He who would succeed in whatever he may undertake should qualify to read all signs,” said Galeotto sententiously. “I have sought this knowledge.”
“Do you see aught in me that you can read?” inquired the Duke in all seriousness.
Galeotto considered him a moment without any trace in his eyes of the wicked mockery that filled his soul. “Why,” he answered slowly, “not in your own person, magnificent—leastways, not upon so brief a glance. But since you ask me, I have lately been considering the new coinage of your highness.”
“Yes, yes!” exclaimed the Duke, all eagerness, whilst several of his followers came crowding nearer—for all the world is interested in omens. “What do you read there?”
“Your fate, I think.”
“My fate?”
“Have you a coin upon you?”
Farnese produced a gold ducat, fire-new from the mint. The condottiero took it and placed his finger upon the four letters P L A C—the abbreviation of “Placentia” in the inscription.
“P—L—A—C,” he spelled. “That contains your fate, magnificent, and you may read it for yourself.” And he returned the coin to the Duke, who stared at the letters foolishly and then at this reader of omens.
“But what is the meaning of PLAC?” he asked, and he had paled a little with excitement.
“I have a feeling that it is a sign. I cannot say more. I can but point it out to you, my lord, and leave the deciphering of it to yourself, who are more skilled than most men in such matters. Have I your excellency's leave to go doff this dusty garb?” he concluded.
“Ay, go, sir,” answered the Duke abstractedly, puzzling now with knitted brows over the coin that bore his image.
“Come, Falcone,” said Galeotto, and with his equerry at his heels he set his foot on the first step.
Cosimo leaned forward, a sneer on his white hawk-face, “I trust, Ser Galeotto, that you are a better condottiero than a charlatan.”
“And you, sir,” said Galeotto, smiling his sweetest in return, “are, I trust, a better charlatan than a condottiero.”
He went up the stairs, the gaudy throng making way before him, and he came at last to the top, where stood the Lord of Pagliano awaiting him, a great trouble in his eyes. They clasped hands in silence, and Cavalcanti went in person to lead his guest to his apartments.
“You have not a happy air,” said Galeotto as they went. “And, Body of God! it is no matter for marvel considering the company you keep. How long has the Farnese beast been here?”
“His visit is now in its third week,” said Cavalcanti, answering mechanically.
Galeotto swore in sheer surprise. “By the Host! And what keeps him?”
Cavalcanti shrugged and let his arms fall to his sides. To Galeotto this proud, stern baron seemed most oddly dispirited.
“I see that we must talk,” he said. “Things are speeding well and swiftly now,” he added, dropping his voice. “But more of that presently. I have much to tell you.”
When they had reached the chamber that was Galeotto's, and the doors were closed and Falcone was unbuckling his master's spurs—“Now for my news,” said the condottiero. “But first, to spare me repetitions, let us have Agostino here. Where is he?”
The look on Cavalcanti's face caused Galeotto to throw up his head like a spirited animal that scents danger.
“Where is he?” he repeated, and old Falcone's fingers fell idle upon the buckle on which they were engaged.
Cavalcanti's answer was a groan. He flung his long arms to the ceiling, as if invoking Heaven's aid; then he let them fall again heavily, all strength gone out of them.
Galeotto stood an instant looking at him and turning very white. Suddenly he stepped forward, leaving Falcone upon his knees.
“What is this?” he said, his voice a rumble of thunder. “Where is the boy? I say.”
The Lord of Pagliano could not meet the gaze of those steel coloured eyes.
“O God!” he groaned. “How shall I tell you?”
“Is he dead?” asked Galeotto, his voice hard.
“No, no—not dead. But... But...” The plight of one usually so strong, so full of mastery and arrogance, was pitiful.
“But what?” demanded the condottiero. “Gesu! Am I a woman, or a man without sorrows, that you need to stand hesitating? Whatever it may be, speak, then, and tell me.”
“He is in the clutches of the Holy Office,” answered Cavalcanti miserably.
Galeotto looked at him, his pallor increasing. Then he sat down suddenly, and, elbows on knees, he took his head in his hands and spoke no word for a spell, during which time Falcone, still kneeling, looked from one to the other in an agony of apprehension and impatience to hear more.
Neither noticed the presence of the equerry; nor would it have mattered if they had, for he was trusty as steel, and they had no secrets from him.
At last, having gained some measure of self-control, Galeotto begged to know what had happened, and Cavalcanti related the event.
“What could I do? What could I do?” he cried when he had finished.
“You let them take him?” said Galeotto, like a man who repeats the thing he has been told, because he cannot credit it. “You let them take him?”
“What alternative had I?” groaned Cavalcanti, his face ashen and seared with pain.
“There is that between us, Ettore, that... that will not let me credit this, even though you tell it me.”
And now the wretched Lord of Pagliano began to use the very arguments that I had used to him. He spoke of Cosimo's suit of his daughter, and how the Duke sought to constrain him to consent to the alliance. He urged that in this matter of the Holy Office was a trap set for him to place him in Farnese's power.
“A trap?” roared the condottiero, leaping up. “What trap? Where is this trap? You had five score men-at-arms under your orders here—three score of them my own men, each one of whom would have laid down his life for me, and you allowed the boy to be taken hence by six rascals from the Holy Office, intimidated by a paltry score of troopers that rode with this filthy Duke!”
“Nay, nay—not that,” the other protested. “Had I dared to raise a finger I should have brought myself within the reach of the Inquisition without benefiting Agostino. That was the trap, as Agostino himself perceived. It was he himself who urged me not to intervene, but to let them take him hence, since there was no possible charge which the Holy Office could prefer against him.”
“No charge!” cried Galeotto, with a withering scorn. “Did villainy ever want for invention? And this trap? Body of God, Ettore, am I to account you a fool after all these years? What trap was there that could be sprung upon you as things stood? Why, man, the game was in your hands entirely. Here was this Farnese in your power. What better hostage than that could you have held? You had but to whistle your war-dogs to heel and seize his person, demanding of the Pope his father a plenary absolution and indemnity for yourself and for Agostino from any prosecutions of the Holy Office ere you surrendered him. And had they attempted to employ force against you, you could have held them in check by threatening to hang the Duke unless the parchments you demanded were signed and delivered to you. My God, Ettore! Must I tell you this?”
Cavalcanti sank to a seat and took his head in his hands.
“You are right,” he said. “I deserve all your reproaches. I have been a fool. Worse—I have wanted for courage.” And then, suddenly, he reared his head again, and his glance kindled. “But it is not yet too late,” he cried, and started up. “It is still time!”
“Time!” sneered Galeotto. “Why, the boy is in their hands. It is hostage for hostage now, a very different matter. He is lost—irretrievably lost!” he ended, groaning. “We can but avenge him. To save him is beyond our power.”
“No,” said Cavalcanti. “It is not. I am a dolt, a dotard; and I have been the cause of it. Then I shall pay the price.”
“What price?” quoth the condottiero, pondering the other with an eye that held no faintest gleam of hope.
“Within an hour you shall have in your hands the necessary papers to set Agostino at liberty; and you shall carry them yourself to Rome. It is the amend I owe you. It shall be made.”
“But how is it possible?”
“It is possible, and it shall be done. And when it is done you may count upon me to the last breath to help you to pull down this pestilential Duke in ruin.”
He strode to the door, his step firm once more and his face set, though it was very grey. “I will leave you now. But you may count upon the fulfilment of my promise.”
He went out, leaving Galeotto and Falcone alone, and the condottiero flung himself into a chair and sat there moodily, deep in thought, still in his dusty garments and with no thought for changing them. Falcone stood by the window, looking out upon the gardens and not daring to intrude upon his master's mood.
Thus Cavalcanti found them a hour later when he returned. He brought a parchment, to which was appended a great seal bearing the Pontifical arms. He thrust it into Galeotto's hand.
“There,” he said, “is the discharge of the debt which through my weakness and folly I have incurred.”
Galeotto looked at the parchment, then at Cavalcanti, and then at the parchment once more. It was a papal bull of plenary pardon and indemnity to me.
“How came you by this?” he asked, astonished.
“Is not Farnese the Pope's son?” quoth Cavalcanti scornfully.
“But upon what terms was it conceded? If it involves your honour, your life, or your liberty, here's to make an end of it.” And he held it across in his hands as if to tear it, looking up at the Lord of Pagliano.
“It involves none of these,” the latter answered steadily. “You had best set out at once. The Holy Office can be swift to act.”