Читать книгу The Banner of the Bull: Three Episodes in the Career of Cesare Borgia - Рафаэль Сабатини - Страница 6

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As the Nubian opened the door of the mage’s house to give egress to the Duke, he felt himself suddenly caught about the neck in the crook of a steely, strangling arm, whilst the shrill note of a whistle sounded almost in his very ear.

Instantly the hitherto silent and deserted street awoke to life. From out of doorways darted swift-footed men in answer to the Duke’s summons. Into the hands of two of these he delivered the writhing Nubian; to the others he issued a brief command.

“In!” he said, waving a hand down the passage. “In, and take him.” And upon that he stepped out into the street and so departed.

Later that evening word was brought him at the palace of how Messer Corvinus had been taken in the very act of mixing a drug.

“The antidote, no doubt,” said Cesare to the officer who bore him the information. “You would be just in time to save my experiment from being frustrated. A wicked, faithless, inconsiderate fellow, this Corvinus. Let him be kept in close confinement, guarded by men whom you can trust, until you hear from me again.”

Thereafter Cesare summoned a council of his officers—Corella the Venetian, Naldo the Forlivese, Ramiro de Lorqua, his lieutenant-general of Romagna, Della Volpe the one-eyed, and Lorenzo Castrocaro.

A tall, clean-limbed young man was this last, very proud in his bearing, very splendid in his apparel, with golden hair and handsome, dreamy eyes of a blue as dark as sapphires. Cesare held him in great regard, knowing him valiant, resourceful, and ambitious. To-night he regarded him with a fresh interest, in view of what at the magician’s he had overheard.

The Duke waved his officers to their seats about his council-board, and craved of Della Volpe, who was in charge of the siege operations, news of the fortress of San Leo.

The veteran’s swarthy face was gloomy. His single eye—he had lost the other in the Duke’s service—avoided his master’s penetrating glance. He sighed wearily.

“We make no progress,” he confessed, “nor can make any. San Leo is not a place to be carried by assault, as your magnificence well knows. It stands there upon its mountain-top like a monument upon a plinth, approached by a bridle-path offering no cover. And, for all that it is reported to be held by scarcely more than a score of men, a thousand cannot take it. There is no foothold at the summit for more than a dozen men at a time, and as for using guns against it, it were easier to mount a park of artillery upon a fiddle-string.”

“Yet until San Leo is ours we are not fully masters of Urbino,” said the Duke. “We cannot leave the place in the hands of Fioravanti.”

“We shall have to starve him out, then,” said Della Volpe.

“And that would take a year at least,” put in Corella, who had been gathering information. “They have great store of wheat and other victuals and they are watered by a well in the inner bailie of the fortress. With few mouths to feed, as they have, they can hold us in check for ever.”

“There is a rumour to-day,” said Della Volpe, “that the Lord Fioravanti is sick, and that it is feared he may not live.”

“Not a doubt but Venice will say I poisoned him,” said Cesare, sneering. “Still, even if he dies, it will be no gain to us. There is his castellan, Tolentino, to take his place; and Tolentino is the more obstinate of the two. We must consider some way to reduce them. Meanwhile, Taddeo, be vigilant, and hold the path against all.”

Della Volpe inclined his head.

“I have taken all my measures for that,” he said.

And now young Castrocaro stirred in his chair, leaning forward across the table.

“By your leave,” said he, “those measures may not suffice.”

Della Volpe frowned, rolled his single eye, which was preternaturally fierce, and scowled contemptuously upon this young cockerel whose pretence it seemed to be to teach that war-battered old captain the art of beleaguering.

“There is another way to reach San Leo,” Castrocaro explained; and drew himself upon the attention of all, particularly the Duke, in whose fine eyes there gleamed now an eager interest very unusual in him.

Castrocaro met with a confident smile this sudden and general alertness he had provoked.

“It is not,” he explained, “such a way by which a company can go, but sufficient to enable a bold man who is acquainted with it to bear messages, and, at need, even victuals into the fortress. Therefore, it will be necessary that Messer della Volpe surround the entire base of the rock if he would be sure that none shall slip through his lines.”

“You are certain of what you tell us?” quoth the Duke sharply.

“Certain!” echoed Castrocaro; and he smiled. “The way of which I speak lies mainly to the south of the rock. It is perilous even for a goat, yet it is practicable with care to one who knows it. Myself, as a boy, have made the ascent more often than I should have cared to tell my mother. In quest of an eagle’s nest I have more than once reached the little plateau that thrusts out under the very wall of the fortress on the southern side. Thence, to enter the castle, all that would be needed would be a rope and a grappling-hook; for the wall is extremely low just there—not more than twelve feet high.”

The Duke pondered the young soldier with very thoughtful eyes, in silence, for some moments.

“I shall further consider this,” he said at length. “Meanwhile, I thank you for the information. You have heard, Della Volpe. You will profit by what Castrocaro tells us, encircling the base entirely with your troops.”

Della Volpe bowed, and upon that the council rose.

Next morning Cesare Borgia summoned Castrocaro to his presence. He received the young condottiero in the noble library of the palace, a spacious chamber, its lofty ceiling gloriously frescoed by Mantegna, its walls hung with costly tapestries and cloth of gold, its shelves stocked with a priceless and imposing array of volumes, all in manuscript; for, although the new German invention of the printing press was already at work, by not a single vulgar production of that machine would Duke Guidobaldo have contaminated his cherished and marvellous collection.

At work at a table spread with papers sat the black-gowned figure of Agabito Gherardi, the Duke’s secretary.

“You have the acquaintance, have you not,” quoth Cesare, “of Madonna Bianca, the daughter of Fioravanti of San Leo?”

The young man, taken by surprise, flushed slightly despite his habitual self-possession, and his blue eyes, avoiding the Duke’s, considered the summer sky and the palace gardens through one of the windows that stood open to the broad marble balcony.

“I have that honour in some slight degree,” he answered; and Cesare considered from his air and tone that the magician’s golden elixir was scarcely needed here as urgently as Madonna Bianca opined, and that what still was wanting to enchant him the sorcery of her beauty might accomplish unaided, as the magician had supposed.

He smiled gently.

“You may improve that acquaintance, if you so desire.”

The young man threw back his head very haughtily.

“I do not understand your potency,” said he.

“You have my leave,” the Duke explained, “to convey in person to Madonna Bianca the news we have received that her father lies sick in San Leo.”

Still the young man held himself loftily upon the defensive, as a young lover will.

“To what end this, highness?” he inquired, his tone still haughty.

“Why, to what end but a Christian one, and”—the Duke slightly lowered his voice to a confidential tone, and smiled inscrutably—“a kindly purpose towards yourself. Still, if you disdain the latter, for the former any other messenger will serve.”

Ill at ease in his self-consciousness, a little mystified, yet well-content at heart, the condottiero bowed.

“I thank your highness,” he said. “Have I your leave to go?”

The Duke nodded.

“You will wait upon me on your return. I may have other commands for you,” he said, and so dismissed him.

An hour later came Castrocaro back to the palace library in great haste and some excitement to seek the duke again.

“My lord,” he cried, all in a trembling eagerness, “I have conveyed the message, and I am returned to crave a boon. Madonna Bianca besought of me in her affliction a written order to pass the lines of Della Volpe, that she might repair to her father.”

“And you?” cried the Duke sharply, his level brows drawn together by a sudden frown.

The young captain’s glance fell away. Obviously he was discouraged and abashed.

“I answered that I had no power to grant such an order, but—but that I would seek it of your highness; that I knew you would not desire to hold a daughter from her father’s side at such time.”

“You know a deal,” said Cesare sourly, “and you promise rashly. Precipitancy in making promises has never yet helped a man to greatness. Bear that in mind.”

“But she was in such sore affliction!” cried Messer Lorenzo, protesting.

“Aye!” said the duke drily. “And she used you so kindly, eyed you so fondly, gave you such sweet wine to drink, that you had no strength to resist her soft appeal.”

Cesare, watching his condottiero closely, observed the flicker of the young man’s eyelids at the mention of the wine, and was satisfied. But even more fully was he to have the assurance that he sought.

“Have I been spied upon?” quoth Messer Lorenzo hotly.

Cesare shrugged contemptuously, not deigning to reply.

“You have leave to go,” he said in curt dismissal.

But Messer Lorenzo was in a daring mood, and slow to obey.

“And the authority for Madonna Bianca to join her father?” he asked.

“There are good reasons why none should enter San Leo at present,” was the cold reply. “Since you lay such store by it, I regret the necessity to deny you. But in time of war necessity is inexorable.”

Chagrined and downcast, the condottiero bowed and withdrew. Having promised, and finding himself now unable to fulfil the promise made to her over that cup of wine which she had brought him with her own fair hands, he dared not present himself to her again. Instead he dispatched a page to her with the unwelcome news of the Duke’s refusal.

Yet in this matter Cesare Borgia was oddly inconsistent. For scarcely had Castrocaro left his presence than he turned to his white-faced secretary.

“Write me three lines to Della Volpe,” said he, “ordering that if Madonna Bianca de’ Fioravanti should attempt to steal through his lines and gain San Leo, he is to offer her no hindrance.”

Agabito’s round, pale countenance reflected his amazement at this order. But Cesare, surveying him, smiled inscrutably for all reply, and, from his knowledge of his master and that smile, Agabito perceived that Cesare was embarked upon one of those tortuous, subtle courses whose goal none could perceive until it had been reached. He bent to his task, and his pen scratched and spluttered briskly. Very soon a messenger bearing the order was on his way to Della Volpe’s camp.

That very night Madonna Bianca considerately did what the Duke expected of her. She slipped past the Borgia sentinels in the dark, and she was in San Leo by morning, though in Urbino none knew of this but Cesare, who had word of it privately from Della Volpe. Her palace by the Zoccolanti remained opened as if inhabited by her, but to all who came to seek her it was said that she was in ill-health and kept her chamber. And amongst these was Lorenzo Castrocaro, who, upon being denied admittance on this plea, concluded that she was angry with him for having failed to do as he had promised, and thereafter grew oddly silent and morose.

Two days after her flight came news of Fioravanti’s death in the grim fortress he defended, and Castrocaro was dispatched by the duke to Cesena on a mission which might well have been entrusted to a less-important officer. It was ten days later when his immediate return was ordered, and, in view of the terms of that order, he went, upon reaching Urbino, all dust-laden as he was, into the Duke’s presence with the dispatches that he bore.

Valentinois sat in council at the time, and Della Volpe from the lines under San Leo was in attendance.

“You are very opportunely returned,” was his greeting of Messer Lorenzo, and he thrust aside, as of no consequence, the dispatches which the latter brought. “We are met here to consider this resistance of San Leo, which is being conducted now by Tolentino with all the firmness that was Fioravanti’s. We must make an end; and you, Messer Lorenzo, are the man to accomplish it.”

“I?” cried the young soldier.

“Sit,” Cesare bade him, and obediently Castrocaro took a chair at the table. “Listen. You are to understand that I am not commanding you to do this thing, for I command no valued officer of mine so greatly to imperil his life. I but show you what is our need—what might be done by one who has your knowledge and whose heart is stout enough to bid him take the risk which the thing entails.”

The condottiero nodded his understanding, his blue eyes set upon the Duke’s calm face.

“You told us here,” Cesare continued, “of a perilous way into San Leo which is known to few, and to yourself amongst those few. You said that if a man were to gain the plateau on the southern side of the rock’s summit he might, with a rope and a grappling-hook, effect an entrance. Now, if a man were to do this at dead of night, choosing his time wisely so as to take the sentry unawares, stab that sentry, and thereafter reach the gates and loose the bars, the rest would be an easy task. Della Volpe’s troops would, meanwhile, have crept up by the bridle-path to await the signal, upon which they would pour forth against the unbarred gate, and so San Leo might be reduced at last with little loss of life.”

Messer Lorenzo considered for some moments, the Duke watching him.

“It is shrewd,” he said, approvingly. “It is shrewd and easy, and likely to succeed, provided the man who goes is one who knows the rock and the fortress itself.”

“Provided that, of course,” said Cesare; and he looked steadily at the young man.

Messer Lorenzo bore that look a moment with the self-possession that was natural to him. Then, translating its quiet significance:

“I will go,” he said quietly, “and, Heaven helping me, I will succeed.”

“You have counted the cost of failure?” said Cesare.

“It needs no counting. It is plain enough. A rope and a beam from the castle wall, or a leap from the rock itself.”

“Then, since who gambles should know not only what he may chance to lose, but also the stake he stands to win,” said the Duke, “let me say that if you succeed I’ll give you the governorship of the fortress with a stipend of ten thousand ducats.”

Messer Lorenzo flushed in his agreeable surprise. His eyes sparkled and his tone rang with youth’s ready confidence in its own powers.

“I will not fail,” he promised. “When do I make the attempt?”

“To-morrow night, since you have resolved. See that you rest betwixt this and then to fit you for the fatigue of such an enterprise. And so, sirs, let us hope that we have found at last a solution to this riddle of San Leo.”