Читать книгу The Roman Tales - Стендаль (Мари-Анри Бейль), Susan Ashe - Страница 9

The Orsini, perennial rivals of the Colonna and pre-eminent in the villages around Rome, had managed to get the government courts to sentence to death a certain Baldassare Bandini, a rich farmer. Though most of the long list of misdeeds he was accused of would today be criminal offences, in 1559 they were usually regarded in a less severe light. Bandini was held six leagues from Albano in one of the Orsini castles in the mountains near Valmontone.

The chief of the Roman secret police, accompanied by a hundred and fifty of his men, travelled the highroad by night to fetch Bandini and take him to the Tordinona prison, in Rome. Bandini had appealed to Rome against his sentence. As he hailed from La Petrella, the Colonna stronghold, Bandini’s wife publicly confronted Fabrizio Colonna.

‘Are you going to let one of your faithful servants die?’ she demanded.

‘It is not God’s will that I should in any way fail in the respect I owe the decisions of the courts of my lord the pope,’ Colonna replied.

At once his soldiers and all his followers were ordered to meet near Valmontone, a small town built on a rocky outcrop whose ramparts were formed by an almost vertical precipice sixty to eighty feet high. It was in this town, belonging to the pope, that the Orsini partisans and government secret police had managed to capture Bandini. Among these partisans were Signor de’ Campireali and his son Fabio, who were distantly related to the Orsini. Giulio Branciforte and his father, however, had always been of the Colonna faction.

In circumstances where Prince Colonna felt unable to act openly he resorted to a simple ruse. Most of the rich Roman farmers, then as now, belonged to one or other group of penitents. The penitents always appeared in public with their heads covered by a hood that hid their faces and had holes for the eyes. When the Colonna forces did not want it known that they were involved in an exploit, they persuaded their adherents to join them wearing the penitent’s costume.

In due course, it transpired that the removal of Bandini, which had been the talk of the town for a fortnight, would take place on a Sunday. That day, at two o’clock in the morning, the governor of Valmontone had the tocsin rung in all the Faggiola forest villages. A large number of peasants obeyed the summons.

As each little group of armed peasants left their village and disappeared into the forest, their number was halved. Colonna’s partisans were making for the meeting place set up by Fabrizio. Their leaders seemed convinced there would be no fighting that day, and the men had been ordered to spread this rumour. Prince Fabrizio crossed the forest with a picked band of supporters mounted on half-broken colts from his stud farm. He made a cursory inspection of his various detachments of peasants but he did not speak to them. A single word might have given all away.

The prince, a tall, spare man of unusual strength and agility, was barely forty-five, but his hair and moustache were a striking white. This incongruous feature made him recognizable in places where he would have preferred to remain incognito. As soon as the peasants saw him they cried out, ‘Evviva Colonna!’, and pulled on their hoods. The prince himself wore his hood hanging round his neck so that he could slip it on the moment the enemy was sighted.

They did not have to wait long. The sun was rising as nearly a thousand men of the Orsini faction entered the forest three hundred yards from Fabrizio Colonna’s force, who threw themselves to the ground. After the Orsini advance guard passed, the prince mustered his men. He decided to attack Bandini’s escort a quarter of an hour after they entered the woods. Here the forest is strewn with boulders fifteen or twenty feet tall. These are lumps of lava, some old, some newer, which the chestnut canopy covers completely, almost cutting out the daylight. As these rockfalls, eroded by the weather, make the ground very rough, to spare the highroad from endless ups and downs the lava has been dug away and in places the road is three or four feet lower than the forest floor.

Around Fabrizio’s planned battle site was a grassy clearing crossed at one end by the main road. Thereafter the road re-entered the forest, which here was thick with brambles and thorn bushes, making the undergrowth all but impenetrable. Fabrizio placed his peasants a hundred yards into the forest on either side of the road. At a signal from him, each man drew on his hood and positioned himself behind a tree with his arquebus at the ready. The prince’s soldiers hid behind the trees nearest the road. The peasants had express orders not to fire until the soldiers fired, and the soldiers were not to fire until the enemy was twenty paces away. Fabrizio had twenty trees hastily felled, so that their branches completely blocked the narrow road. Captain Ranuccio, with five hundred men, shadowed the Orsini advance guard. Ranuccio had been ordered not to attack until he heard the first gunshots from the barrier of felled trunks.

When Fabrizio Colonna saw that his soldiers and peasants were well placed, each behind his tree and braced for battle, he left at a gallop with his mounted men, among them Giulio Branciforte. The prince took a path to the right of the main road, which led to the end of the clearing.

They had barely set off when a large troop of riders appeared on the road from Valmontone. It was the secret police and Orsini’s horsemen escorting Baldassare Bandini. In their midst rode the prisoner, surrounded by four executioners dressed in red. They had been ordered to put Bandini to death if they thought Colonna’s partisans might be about to rescue him.

Colonna’s cavalry had just reached the edge of the clearing when the prince heard the first gunshots from the ambush he had set on the main road in front of the barricade. At once he and his cavalry charged towards the four executioners who surrounded Bandini.

The battle lasted but three-quarters of an hour. Taken by surprise, Orsini’s followers scattered in all directions. In Colonna’s advance guard, brave Captain Ranuccio was killed, a misfortune that had tragic consequences for Branciforte. As he fought his way towards the executioners, Giulio came face to face with Fabio Campireali.

Mounted on a foaming horse and clothed in a gilded giacca, Fabio shouted, ‘Who are these wretched creatures? Let’s slash their masks. Watch how I do it.’

A sword caught Giulio Branciforte across the forehead. The blow was so skilfully aimed that his hood slipped down and he was blinded by blood. So as to catch his breath and wipe his face, Giulio tugged his horse aside. Anxious to avoid an encounter with Elena’s brother, he had retreated a few paces when he received a sharp sword thrust to the chest. Thanks to his giacca the point did not penetrate, but he was momentarily winded. Almost at once he heard a cry in his ear.

‘Ti conosco, porco! Swine, I know you! This is how you earn the money to replace your rags.’

Sorely angered, Giulio forgot his first resolve and turning to Fabio he shouted, ‘Ed in mal punto tu venisti! You’ve come at a bad moment.’

Several exchanges of sword thrusts shredded the garments which covered their mail. Fabio’s armour was gilded and sumptuous, Giulio’s plain.

‘Fom what sewer did you scavenge that giacca?’ shouted Fabio.

Just then, Giulio saw his opportunity. Fabio’s splendid coat of mail was loose round his neck, and Giulio’s sword found a gap. Its point sank half a foot into Fabio’s throat, and a great jet of blood spurted out.

‘Impudent fellow,’ shouted Giulio, and he galloped towards the men in red, two of whom were still on horseback a hundred paces away. As he approached them, one fell, but just as Giulio reached the last remaining executioner, the man, finding himself surrounded by more than ten horsemen, fired his pistol point blank at the unfortunate Baltassare Bandini.

‘There’s no more we can do here, my friends,’ called out Branciforte. ‘Let’s carve up the cowardly police who ran off.’

His men followed him.

When half an hour later Giulio returned to Fabrizio, the prince addressed him for the first time ever. Giulio thought Prince Colonna would be greatly pleased by the victory, which was total and due entirely to his own skill, for Orsini had nearly three thousand men and Fabrizio only fifteen hundred. But Colonna was drunk with rage.

‘We have lost our true friend Ranuccio,’ he cried. ‘I have just laid my hand on his body. It’s already cold. Poor Baldassare Bandini is mortally wounded. So we’ve really lost. But the shade of brave Captain Ranuccio will appear before Pluto well accompanied. I’ve ordered all these prisoners, this scum, to be hanged from the trees. Do not fail in this, men!’

He galloped off to where the battle of the advance guard had taken place. With the remnants of Ranuccio’s band Giulio followed the prince, who found the body of the old soldier surrounded by more than fifty enemy dead. The prince dismounted and once more took Ranuccio’s hand. Weeping, Giulio did likewise.

‘You are very young,’ said the prince to Giulio, ‘but I see you are covered in blood. Your father was a brave man who was wounded more than twenty times in the service of the Colonna family. Take command of Ranuccio’s band and bear his body to our church in La Petrella. Remember, you may be set upon along the way.’

Giulio was not attacked but he stabbed to death one of his own soldiers who said he was too young to be a commander. This rash act passed censure because Giulio was still covered in Fabio’s blood. All along the road he found trees laden with hanged men. This repulsive sight, together with Ranuccio’s death – and above all Fabio’s – nearly drove Giulio mad. His only hope was that no one knew the name of Fabio’s killer.

Three days after the battle, Giulio returned to Albano. He told his friends that a high fever had kept him in Rome, where he’d spent the whole week in bed. But everywhere he was approached with marked respect. The most important people in the town were the first to greet him. Some rash persons went so far as to address him as Signor Capitano. On several occasions he passed by the Palazzo Campireali, which was completely closed up. But as the new young captain was shy about asking certain questions, it was not until midday that he brought himself to approach Scotti, who had always been kind to him. ‘Where are the Campireali?’ Giulio asked. ‘Their palazzo is locked up.’

‘My friend,’ replied the grief-stricken Scotti, ‘theirs is a name you must never utter. Your friends are convinced it was Fabio who sought your life and they will say this anywhere, but really he was the main hindrance to your marriage. His death leaves an extremely wealthy sister, who is in love with you. Add to this – and here indiscretion is to your advantage – that she loves you enough to make nightly trysts with you at your house. That means that you and she were husband and wife before the fateful battle.’

Seeing Giulio begin to weep, the old man fell silent.

‘Let’s go to the inn,’ said Giulio.

Scotti followed. They were given a room, which they entered and locked, and Giulio asked permission to tell the old man everything that had happened the previous week.

When the long story ended, the old man said, ‘I can see by your tears that none of what you did was premeditated. But Fabio’s death is nonetheless a disastrous accident for you. Elena must tell her mother that you have been married for a long time.’

Giulio did not reply, which the old man put down to a praiseworthy discretion. Absorbed in deep thought, the young man wondered whether Elena would be too upset by her brother’s death to appreciate Giulio’s own grief. He cursed what had happened.

Then at Giulio’s request, the old man recounted all that had taken place in Albano on the day of the battle. Although Fabio had been killed at half-past six in the morning, more than six leagues from Albano, by nine o’clock his death was already known. Towards midday old Campireali had been seen weeping, supported by his servants, on his way to the Capuchin monastery. Shortly after, three of the good fathers, mounted on the best Campireali steeds and followed by many servants, were journeying to the village of Ciampi, near where the battle took place. Old Campireali had insisted on following, but he had been persuaded not to because Fabrizio Colonna was furious – no one knew exactly why – and might well harm him if he were captured.

That evening, towards midnight, all Faggiola forest seemed ablaze. It was the monks and the poor people of Albano, carrying lighted brands, going to meet young Fabio’s corpse.

‘I will not hide from you’, went on the old man, dropping his voice as if afraid of being overheard, ‘that the road leading to Valmontone and Ciampi …’

‘Well?’ said Giulio.

‘Well, this road passes in front of your house, and it is said that when Fabio’s body reached that point blood spurted from his fearful wound.’

‘Terrible, terrible!’ cried Giulio, starting to his feet.

‘Calm yourself, my friend,’ said the old man. ‘You must see that you need to know everything. I think you may have come back too soon. If you would do me the honour of asking my advice, I would add, Captain, that you should stay away from Albano for at least a month. I don’t have to tell you that it would not be wise for you to be seen in Rome either. No one yet knows what the Holy Father will do to Prince Colonna. It is thought that he will uphold Fabrizio’s claim that he only heard of the battle of Ciampi by rumour. But the governor of Rome, who is one of the Orsini camp, is furious and would like nothing better than to hang some of Fabrizio’s soldiers, at which the prince can hardly complain since he swears he had no involvement in the battle. I shall go further and take the liberty of giving you military advice. You are well liked in Albano, otherwise you would not be safe here. You’ve been walking about the town for several hours. One of Orsini’s men might think he was being insulted or that it would be easy to get his hands on a fine reward. Old Campireali has said a thousand times that he’ll give his best land to the man who kills you. You ought to send some of the soldiers in your house down to Albano.’

‘I have no soldiers in my house.’

‘In that case, Captain, you are mad. This inn has a garden. We’ll leave that way and cut across the vineyard. I’ll come with you; I am old and unarmed. But, if we meet any enemies I’ll speak to them and that should gain you some time.’

Giulio was in despair. What madness had he in mind? After learning that the Palazzo Campireali was empty and all its inhabitants had left for Rome, he had decided to go back to see the garden where he’d enjoyed so many trysts with Elena. He even hoped to revisit her room, where he’d been welcomed when Elena’s mother was away. He needed to steady himself to face her anger by seeing once more the places where she’d been so tender to him.

Branciforte and the old man met no enemies as they followed the little paths that cut through the vineyard and climbed towards the lake.

Giulio wanted to hear again the details of Fabio’s funeral. Escorted by many priests, the body of the young man had been taken to Rome and buried in the family vault at the Monastery of Sant’ Onofrio, on the summit of the Janiculum. On the eve of the ceremony, strangely, Elena had been taken back to the Convent of the Visitation in Castro. This confirmed the rumours that she had been secretly married to the soldier of fortune who’d had the ill luck to kill her brother.

When he neared his house, Giulio met the corporal of his company and four of his soldiers. They told him that their late captain never left the forest without taking some of his men with him. Prince Colonna often said that if anyone wanted to get himself killed through recklessness he must first tender his resignation so as not to oblige the prince to avenge a death.

Giulio Branciforte now understood the justice of this remark, which previously had been obscure to him. Hitherto he had thought that war consisted solely of fighting courageously. There and then he obeyed the prince’s orders, only allowing himself time to embrace the wise old man who had been kind enough to see him home.

A few days later, half crazed with melancholy, Giulio returned to the Palazzo Campireali. At dusk, he and three soldiers, disguised as Neapolitan merchants, entered Albano. He went alone to Scotti’s house, where he learned that Elena was still in the Convent of Castro. Her father, who thought she was married to his son’s murderer, had sworn never to see her again. He had not even looked at her while escorting her to the convent. Conversely, her mother’s affection had further increased, and she often left Rome to spend a day or two with her daughter.