Читать книгу The Fool Beloved - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 14

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It was morning, and so early that birds, near and far, were carolling their first glad welcome to this new day, while the young sun, low as yet, sent his level beams to light small fires in dewy grass and deck every flower and leaf with sparkling gems, making this fragrant garden a place of glory; and amid it all, a girl was culling flowers while she sang softly-sweet as any bird:

“The daisies and the violets

Have op’ed their pretty eyes

And to the young, new risen sun

Do breathe their fragrant sighs;

The throstle tunes his little pipe,

The lark doth sing full clear,

To call me from my drowsy bed

For that glad day is here——”

“Fiametta!” The singer hushed and clasping the new-gathered flowers to her bosom, turned to say, breathlessly:

“Ippolito ... my lord....” Tall, strong and eager with young life he came to meet her, then paused and thus for a space they stood to gaze glad-eyed on one another.

“Oh, Fiametta,” he murmured, “thou ’rt all golden loveliness, sweetly pure and fresh as this happy day-spring!”

“But,” sighed she, shaking lovely head, “we should not be thus glad the morn and I—and our noble Fortunio so lately and so—dreadfully—dead! And the Duchess, my poor Jenevra, so grief-stricken, and all the court in mourning! Oh, and I so heedless to sing!”

“So do I thank God for thee, Fiametta! Thou ’rt as these flowers and birds that bloom in beauty and sing thus joyfully because ’tis so their nature and therefore the will of God. Thou, like this fair world, art formed for joy.”

“And yet,” sighed she, “in this fair-seeming world is yet such wickedness that a noble gentleman dies and, as I hear, by—murder!”

“Ah, ’tis only too true!”

“But why should such as he that was so good die so cruelly?”

“For that Evil is ever at dagger-point with Good.”

“Shall evil then vanquish good?”

“Never—or this world would sink back to barbarian savagery. Thus in the end Good hath ever been victorious and ever will be.”

“Then why is our good Fortunio dead and buried?”

“Because Evil, being selfish, is forever intent on evil, while Good, heedless of self, giveth all care to the welfare of others. ’Twas thus and wherefore died my lord Fortunio.”

“I grieve that I saw so little of him, for he was seldom at home or here at court.”

“True! His life was spent fighting that others might live in joy of freedom.”

“But you, my lord, fought in battle beside him and so knew him well.”

“ ’Twas so my honour.”

“And saved his life, Ippolito!”

“Why now ... how dost know this?”

“The lord Gonzago told me how at peril of thy life thou——”

“But Gonzago was in none of the fighting.”

“Yet he spake me of it as he had seen——”

“Ha!” exclaimed Ippolito, frowning up at a lark that carolled above them. “Speak you often with him?”

“Indeed, my lord,” she answered, quick to heed this frown, “as often as I will.”

“So!” quoth Ippolito, frown deepening to scowl. “And how think you of this fine gentleman?”

“As do we all,” she replied, smiling behind her flowers, “that he is very grand gentleman and—splendidly handsome!”

“True!” said Ippolito, scornfully. “I hear he is greatly esteemed by you court ladies! ’Tis even said he presumes to pay amorous homage to our Duchess! Yet this I will not believe.”

“Oh, but ’tis verily so, my lord. And, ’twixt you and me, I think his wooing will not be in vain.”

“S’life, Madame! You never mean she will stoop to wed him?”

“And why not, prithee? He is of a noble house, and was also lord Fortunio’s dear friend.”

“God’s my life—here’s news! Whence had you it?”

“Why, everyone at court knoweth how he was lord Fortunio’s loved and trusted friend.”

“Though seldom in my lord’s company and by him never mentioned—this I know, for I was Fortunio’s esquire! So much for your court gossip! And now you tell me the Duchess will wed him——”

“Nay, my lord, I tell you no more than this: that of her many suitors he is not the least favoured.”

“And so I marvel!”

“At his good fortune?”

“At his audacity!”

“ ’Twould seem you have small liking for this fortunate gentleman?”

“I have none, Madame.”

“My lord, neither have I.”

“Oh then,” said Ippolito, his scowl vanishing, “away with him! Instead, tell me of thy most dear self.”

“Am I so dear, my lord?”

“Infinitely dear, dear lady. Since that blessed moment when my eyes beheld thee for what thou truly art.”

“Oh?” she murmured. “Now I pray thee ... what am I, my lord?”

“Nay, first thou must name me for what I so truly am.”

“Well, what art thou, my lord?”

“Thine own dear, most truly loving Ippolito. Nay, ask me so.” And, meekly submissive, she enquired:

“Most dear and loving Ippolito, what am I?”

“The one and only woman I shall ever love!” he replied fervently. “The dear memory I have so treasured in my heart, the woman for whom I fought and would have died, the woman for whom I hope to live, the woman shaped to fill these yearning arms of mine! So, Fiametta, let them be filled—at last. Wilt thou, my beloved?”

She hesitated, glanced swiftly up and around—then, swift and graceful as a fawn, leapt to the shelter of a tall yew hedge nearby and, turning there, slim fingers on ruddy, smiling lip, beckoned him beside her and, as he joined her, whispered:

“Hush—yonder cometh my lord Astorgio!”

“Plague take him! What shall lure Sir Daintiness abroad at such hour?”

And pointing to her own lovely self, Fiametta whispered:

“Me! So let us to yon arbour lest he find us, for he is become my most persistent wooer!”

“So?” muttered Ippolito, fiercely.

“Even so!” she retorted, demurely. “He wooeth and sueth, moaneth and groaneth, peeketh and pineth; he wooeth by word, look and gesture, and of late—with sonnets.”

“Ha, a bombastical dandy prat!”

“A worthy gentleman, my lord, of vast wealth!”

“Ay, a prancing money-bag! He so rich to dower thee like a queen and I so poor can give thee but this beggarly Ippolito a very humble gentleman of small estate, yet one that might love thee right well with body and with soul—if such wonder might be!”

“Nay, thou poor gentleman,” she mocked tenderly, “the wonder is thine arms are empty still....” So saying, she turned and fled before him to the arbour, and in this fragrant bower his eager arms were filled at last. “My poor soldier!” she murmured, clinging to him.

“True, Fiametta, yet being thine—today the richest man in all this lovely world!” Thus for a while they forgot all save themselves until, roused by voices nearby, they peeped through their flowery screen and thus beheld Astorgio splendidly arrayed and so bejewelled that, like dewy flower and leaf, he sparkled with his every movement. Daintily he paced across the dewy turf with a young esquire behind to bear his embroidered cloak and long, bejemmed rapier.

“Ah—malediction!” he sighed plaintively. “And yet no sign of her, Luigi, no glimpse of this peerless she for whose beauteous sake I brave this dewy dampness, plague on’t! Neither sight nor sound, eh, Luigi?”

“Alas, no, my lord!”

“Oh, dis-traction! Am I then astir thus early, bereft of my downy bed’s voluptuous comfort and the sweet anodyne of slumberous content—and all, all to no purpose? Sweet Eros forbid! Tell me, Luigi, hast e’er known this tender pain called ‘love’?”

“No, my lord.”

“Luigi, if thou liest I forgive thee, if ’tis truth, then I condole. For love is a tormentuous joy, a bitter sweetness, a blissful agony, a fire that consumeth not. ’Tis malady of the heart and stomach; the one leapeth athrob, the other rebelleth, scorning all good. Yea, by my beard, I have of late eaten no more than mournful chameleon that liveth on thin air! And still she cometh not, Luigi, this she of shes that I wait and, waiting, yearn for—yet no sign of her?”

“Alas, none, my good lord!”

“Now this is strange and passing strange! For it hath been her sweet wont to walk here in sweet spring o’ day out-dawning beauteous dawn with dawn of her own beauty. So will I, schooling passion to patience, wait a while. Spread me my cloak on the bench yonder and there seated I shall for pastime read thee my latest love-inspired sonnet.”

“Your lordship honours me.”

“I do, Luigi; in faith I do. For that, though young, thou art gentleman of tutored taste and refin-ed ear.” Drawing a paper from his gorgeous bosom, he unfolded it, shook his head at it, sighed over it, and said:

“This day ere Phoebus peeped, I, by taper’s wistful beam writ to my lady these lines, to wit—hearken and perpend.”

Here, in full-throated voice, be-ringed hand gracefully aflourish, Astorgio read:

“ ‘When Phoebus young doth run to kiss shy Dawn

And sullen Night his mantle foldeth up,

Without thee, Fiametta, I’m forlorne ...’

And there, Luigi, there I stick! And that’s the pity on’t, for what there is of it is excellent. ‘When Phoebus young doth run to kiss shy Dawn’—’tis rarely sweet conceit, I think?”

“Quaint indeed, my lord, and rarely chaste!”

“I think so, Luigi! Ah, by my beard, ’tis truly so elegantly chaste it shall commend itself to every delicate ear! And again, this: ‘And sullen Night his mantle foldeth up.’ Here is yet another excellent concept! ’Tis line of absolute poesy save for the ultimate word—‘up’. ’Tis small word ‘up’ and should be none so hard to rhyme. And yet by this same small word I am confounded! Canst find me a just rhyme for ‘up’, Luigi?”

This elegant young esquire, little dreaming of the eyes that watched him, glanced askance at his master’s unconscious face with expression of contemptuous malevolence ere, bending supple back, he answered obsequiously:

“My lord, may I suggest ‘pup’?”

Astorgio started, recoiled, shuddered and exclaimed indignantly:

“No—no, you may not. Out upon your ‘pup’! A plague—a murrain on your ‘pup’——”

“Your gracious pardon, my lord. I did but adventure——”

“ ‘Pup’!” spluttered Astorgio. “As well give me such bawdy word as ‘tup’——”

“Oh, never, my good lord. Instead, may I with all humility propose ‘cup’?”

“Why, ‘cup’ is a good word ... then we have ‘sup’ and yet these be out of place, and a good word out of place is worse than bad one in. ‘Up’, cup’, ‘sup’? Confusion! Here’s very plague of poesy! Oh, I’m in the birth-pangs of most rare, fair sonnetic concept and ’tis a pang doth out-pang all other. Let us to it again,—do thou hearken perfervidly then suggest and propound, now:

“ ‘When Phoebus young doth run to kiss shy Dawn

And sullen Night his mantle foldeth up——’ ”

“Ha—ha!” laughed a strange, sudden voice:

“ ‘One lieth dead by hand of friend foresworne

Ambition hath poured poison in the cup!’ ”

Even as these last words were uttered, out from the dense leafage nearby came a long, parti-coloured arm with hand grasping a fool’s bauble that now tapped Astorgio lightly on plumed bonnet.

“Male-diction!” he gasped, leaping to his slender legs. “What’s—here?”

“Jenevra!” cried this loud, strange voice. “Oh—beware!” Ensued a leafy rustling that became rapidly fainter and was gone; then as lord Astorgio and his esquire stared their surprise at one another, was sound of swift, light footsteps and, turning, they beheld the Duchess—Jenevra herself, who, with robe upheld in both hands, sped towards them, heedless of dignity but graceful as a deer.

“Where ... where,” she panted, “where ... is he? Who ... who cried my name?”

“Noble madonna, gracious lady,” answered Astorgio, sweeping off jewelled bonnet and falling to a knee, “I cannot tell——”

“Someone called me! Who was it; tell me ... who? Where ... what like was he?”

“Madame, ghost-like he came—so to vanish! I but glimpsed eyes amid the leafage yonder ... a visage fierce, black-avised, dark as face of Moor or Zingari! It spake, it peered, cried and was gone.”

“ ’Twas voice cried my name ... a warning and ... what beside?”

“Madame, it spake a rhyme to mine ode, a jingle fantastic——”

“Indeed,” said she, glancing about almost wildly, “ ’twas rhyme of death—and a poison cup. This I heard ... and yet more, one other word. Tell me, what was that word?”

“Lady, I heard none other.”

“Then are those jewel-hung ears of small avail. Thou,” she demanded, turning on the young esquire where he knelt, “did thine ears serve thee better to hear this voice that cried cried so loud—its every word?”

“Your grace, methought this voice broke upon your grace’s name, crying thus—‘Jenevra,’ and then ‘Beware!’ ”

“True!” she sighed. “And ... where stood this unknown speaker? Whence came and whither sped he? Speak, Astorgio.”

“Sweet and gracious nobility, yonder, peeped he—but whence coming or whither gone, this, alack, I know not and therefore cannot tell.”

“Why then,” said she, frowning, “tell me instead why you show thus splendid, my lord, gemmed and bedight as for some gay festival, and Fortunio, my loved friend, scarce cold in his grave, and I myself thus sober clad for his too-soon dying!” And with angry though graceful gesture she spread the clinging robe of midnight hue that, moulding her shapeliness, served but to enhance her vivid beauty. “No jewel have I my lord, nor garish broideries—while you are dazzling as the morn itself. Is it thus you show your grief?”

“Madame, most excellent lady, that dawnest upon my raptured sight like Grief beauteously personified,—of your grace I supplicate your belief that I grieve, have grieved and shall again though for the nonce, this little hour, I as lover—woo, and for this am I apparelled. Yet since grief is the fashion, I shall sorrow in sable anon, black as any crow, lady——”

“Enough, my lord! Go put on your mourning weeds and therewith do your best to show what sincerity you may. ... Oh, begone!”

Scornfully she turned and left him—in which moment she espied two figures stealing furtively away as if to escape her notice, whereat her anger flamed the hotter and she cried:

“Ippolito, Fiametta—stay! Now come you hither to me!” Mutely they obeyed and self-consciously made her their reverence while the Duchess, being young and therefore the more intolerant, looked from one to other with dark eyes aglow beneath close-drawn brows as she said and in bitter reproach:

“How can you so soon forget our grievous loss? Am I Fortunio’s only mourner? Is there none to truly sorrow for him? Ah, what base ingratitude! Oh, ’tis graceless forgetful world——”

“Nay, Madame,” Ippolito ventured, “not forgetful; I knew and loved him too well.”

“I, too, loved him!” sighed Fiametta.

“Yet each other more!” retorted the Duchess.

“Madame, dear Jenevra, I do confess it!” said Fiametta, demurely. “Is love now become a crime?”

“At such time, Fiametta, ’tis an impertinence! But—let it pass! Instead, tell me—did you see who it was cried my name hereabout a while since; did you see?”

“No, Madame!” they answered together.

“Having no eyes but for each other!” said the Duchess, sighing but disdainful. “As for my eyes, they are nigh blind with my long weeping.”

“Alas!” retorted Fiametta, tenderly. “And thy poor, pretty nose, Jenevra, thy lovely nose so pink, so——”

“Fiametta,” snapped the Duchess, with imperious gesture, “you may leave me! You also, my lord. I go now to my private garden yonder to be alone with my sorrow. Let it be known I am nowise to be disturbed!”