Читать книгу The Siege of Malta (St. Angelo) - S. Fowler Wright - Страница 17

Table of Contents

Francisco did as he had agreed, asking Antonio, when he got back, to tell him why he spoke of Venetia as he did, and promising that, if he said no more than he held for truth, there should be no quarrel thereon.

Having that pledge, Antonio told him enough, or too much, for it confirmed Francisco’s thought that he had confused her with another of a like manner or face, as it is easy for those to do who wander about, seeing many in diverse lands.

“Well,” Antonio said, “if I have, I have done her a great wrong, which I should be glad to regret. But you should ask it of her.”

In the later day, he had Del Monte’s letter, and went to him at once. Here he heard much the same talk that Angelica gave him before.

“Let her tell the truth,” the Commander said, “and, though it stink, I may bring her free. But if she lie, she may fall in too deep a pit for any rescue to reach, and if you are her true friend you must warn her of that, as I have intention to do. But it is you who should see her first.”

“I am her friend,” Francisco replied, “and too much so to believe that which is spoken to her dispraise, she being one (if I come through this war) whom I hope to wed. But I will tell her all that you say, for it is right she should know.”

“You may recall to her mind that I urged upon her that she should be artless without reserve, but I must tell you that they were words (as it seemed to me) that she was not grateful to hear.”

Francisco said nothing to that. But he became more urgent of heart that he should see Venetia himself, both that he might have the relief of assurance from her own lips, and because it seemed that so fair a face had few friends in that monkish hold.

Del Monte saw how she looked to him, and said less than he might, being a man of controlled speech, though he would have words enough for the right time, which he handled as he would handle a sword, using the point more than the edge.

He saw well what had been in Sir Oliver’s mind, which he would be glad to support. “Yet,” he reflected, “I must practise to bring her clear, putting that before all, for I have pledged my honour thereto. I know not how the steward died, as none will (except she) to the world’s end, and as to her, if she spoke in her sleep, she would be most likely to lie. For she is of that sort who should be hanged by one who would govern well (whether for the man’s death or another cause, it is no matter for that); in which he would act without malice to her, but as one orders a room.”

After that, he had another thought, seeing a plan by which he might protect her, and guide other things to a good end, if Sir Oliver would see it in his way, and could bring the Grand Master to that accord....

Francisco waited till the next day (having no choice), when Angelica met him again, giving him a pass by which he could see Venetia as much as he would, till she should be called to answer her charge; and it was not long from that hour before the key turned in the door of the chamber where she was held, and he was present to her.

The chamber was of a fair size, and, if its appointments were not rich, they were the best the jailer could do; for Francisco’s gold had spoken loudly enough, and Sir Oliver’s order that she should not be abused had played the same tune, so that the jailer could feel that he was obeying orders by the same means that his pouch swelled, which he was not always able to do.

But she was lodged in the common jail, which was not designed for those of the better sort. A Knight of the Order, or even a serving-brother, being accused either of light or heavy offence, would not have been harboured there, but in a dungeon or tower. The jail had common rooms for those whose purses were lean or bare, and these were noisome enough; and if men fought there for crusts at times, it would not be esteemed matter for scandal against the state, for why should true men be taxed that felons should be able to loose their belts?

But if we think that we live in a better day, we may observe that when Francisco entered the cell there was no jailer beside, nor partition to keep him from her whom he came to see.

The cruelties of those days were most largely of abstinence and neglect, or to a politic end, while those of our own jails are carefully planned to degrade the soul and torture the mind, and are enforced with a bitter and very tyrannous will.

A jail is seldom a place of comfort or peace, though there are few of the world’s best, from Christ Himself, who have not entered such doors, but the scrupulous cruelties of design that snatch at a man’s clothes, and forbid his speech, and beat him down to a servitude of routine, may be more merciless, as they are more deliberate, than those of dirt and neglect.

Francisco came to a room that was somewhat bare, and its walls were stone, and that only washed with a plain paint, at a time when it was the fashion to have them panelled in wood, or else patterned in paints, if not gay with a pictured scene, unless they might be draped with tapestry in a wealthy hall.

The walls were plain blue: the ceiling bare: the window darkened with heavy bars. The rushes on the floor were too few to soften the tread, and were not clean, having been there for a week, it being a time when rushes were not easy to get. But that, in this time of siege, could have been excused in a better place, and it was at least the best room in the jail, and better than those where the jailer must make his home.

Venetia rose up from a bed, being the place where she mostly was when she could not be active abroad; for she thought that it was so that she nursed the soft contours of youth, on which she depended to make her trade. But she was not soft in a woman’s way, being tireless to walk, or to ride or swim, if she should be roused by sufficient need.

Her hatred of Malta (which it would not be easy to overcall) came mostly from how she had been confined, after the first month that La Cerda had brought her there. To her mind, she had not been free from that hour. She had done no more than change jails, and each time for the worse till now, when she might be said to have moved a step up, from the narrow battery cell.

She was not meagrely clad, as we have seen her before, having procured (we may wonder how, but guess with some use of Francisco’s gold) a gown of daffodil green, long and slender and straight, being a colour that pleased the pale gold of her hair, and gave her a very simple and chaste allure, as of a madonna in bud.

She had the wary eyes of a cat as the key turned in the heavy door, which changed to a softer glance, as she heard Francisco’s voice before he appeared.

“If I am back in an hour’s time?” It was the turnkey who could be heard to enquire.

“You can come then, but you must be ready to wait if I am not done.”

The man agreed, and there was a sound of the clinking of coins. “I will knock twice,” he said, “before I open the door.” He wished it understood that he would not appear in a sudden way to the disconcerting of those who might be busy within.

“You are my good friend,” she said, “to come thus. I feared that I should be too closely confined, recalling what the Grand Master’s malice had said.” Her voice was soft, and her eyes added to her words, both in gratitude and appeal.

“I am ever your friend,” he replied, any doubt that may have been an undercurrent of trouble in his thoughts during the last day retreating now that her bodily presence possessed him again. “I would be more, if I might.”

What did he mean by that? How, she wondered, must this game be played in the best way? She owed much to him. Did he think the time for payment had come? They would be alone for the next hour. She had heard him provide for that. Did he think to play the steward’s part, for something better than he had got?

She put the thought aside, and then embraced it again as she considered that he might have taken La Cerda’s death to give him more freedom than his honour had permitted before.

He was of another world than that in which she had been bred to bend and cozen and lie, and she would have had some excuse if she had failed to sum his passion, his loyalty, his pride, his knowledge of his own code, and his inexperience of the baser ways of the world, to the total they truly made.

It showed the quality of quick perception, and of a wit that had raised her high from the gutter in which her childhood had sprawled and fought, that she could read one who was so far from herself in standards and ideals of life.

“There is little,” she said, “that you could not ask, having done so much.”

“It is nothing,” he said. “It has been pleasure to me.... I would ask nothing of right, which it were unknightly to do.... Yet ... when you have had time to forget ... I will hope that I can ask more at a better time.”

She held out a hand, which he kissed. His reticence wooed her as boldness would have been powerless to do. She came at that time to the threshold of love, which she could not cross, being held back by her own past, the rose of love having fallen in sundry mire.

She said: “You are good to me,” and her voice was sincere without need of the art which she would have found it easy to use. But her thoughts, now that she was sure that modesty was the best card to play from a lying pack, returned to that from which they were seldom far, since the Grand Master’s eyes had fallen upon her half-draped form in Francisco’s cell.

She asked: “But you will be bringing me news? Is it good? Will they let me through? The Chevalier Del Monte was here, and said I had done no more than the law supports, and it should give me quittance of that.”

“I have seen him, and had word from Sir Oliver Starkey as well. They speak to another point, and both are urgent that I should put it to your reply.

“I think it needless to do, but I must keep my word, as, except he be clear on this, Del Monte will not undertake your defence in the right way.

“I will tell you what Captain Antonio says, on which he is very sure, and which points to the same danger as they.

“It seems that he knew of a Genoese girl—he is Genoa born and bred—Maria Pezzo by name, of whom he has matter to tell, such as that she was jailed on a charge of robbing seamen who made resort to a house where she was one (he says) of a gang of evil repute.

“He says he knows that she was near to be hanged at another time, though little more than a child, her name being as bad as it was.

“The second time was not more than three years ago, when Doria’s galleys were in the port, as he could find men from the fleet here who would witness, and would know her again (which he does not propose to do). He says that she escaped by defect of proof, as was publicly shown, but that, indeed, she bought herself out of the jail by ways he does not scruple to say.

“All this would be naught to us, but that he will have it that you are this girl of his own slums, which he should perceive that you could not be.

“Sir Oliver may have the same talk, or may not, but he is plain that there will be challenge of who you are, and he has warned Del Monte, who says that, let the truth be what it may, if it be told, he has good hope he can bring you off, but he will be cast down by a lie.

“You will forgive that I tell you this, for it is right that you should know what is proposed, that we may be equal to its repulse.”

Venetia listened, and there was no sign on her face of the thoughts she had. She saw that she must choose now, either to show what she had been, and to expose the falsehood of that which she had told to him and to La Cerda before, or she must be hardy in a denial which must be sustained when the trial came, lest she come to worse wreck even than the sore back that she had feared since La Cerda had proved too weak to be her defence among these knights where (as she would have said) the manhood was hard to find.

Had it been no more than Antonio’s tale, she thought that she might have beaten it down, but there were the two years between the flight from Genoa, and when she came to La Cerda’s bed, and what—if she could only guess!—might be known of them ... ? There was the merchant who was robbed and slain in Turin. Her hands, in fact, had been clean of that, but she had been in the house, plying the same trade, even in the next room when they choked his scream, and afterwards they had given her fifty ducats to keep her still.... It was by that gold she had made advance. But she knew that three had been hanged for that deed (after a time on the wheel), and that another was wanted, who was not unlike to herself....

“You would think,” she said, “that none would believe such tales, which it is wicked to tell. As to Genoa, I was never there in my life days. It is their malice to bring me down, which they cannot do, except they be armed with lies.

“But I will not say that I am not in a new fear, for it is always a simpler thing to propose a lie than to prove that it is untrue. And how am I to do that, we being sieged here as we are?”

Francisco saw some reason in that, but he thought he saw also a way out which she might have missed.

“As to that,” he said, “I know not what tale Sir Oliver may have got, but if it be this of which Captain Antonio talks, there should be a confident way. For the Grand Master would not practise to bring you down with a false word, nor would Sir Oliver be a party thereto; and if Captain Antonio will find those seamen he says he can, and they will say (as they must) that Maria Pezzo was different from you, we shall have witness that might be put to Sir Oliver himself before the trial be held, and he would see that he had been wrongly led.”

Venetia listened to this, and must look more pleased than she felt. Yet she let a doubt be seen.

“So it would. It is well thought.... But what if Sir Oliver have a quite different lie? We should know that first, and I suppose that we must not move in this till Del Monte have consented thereto. He will see me here to-morrow at matin hour, and I will tell him what Captain Antonio would be able to do.”

“So it shall be, if you will.... But the time goes.”

He was reluctant to have delay, but he saw that, if she wished Del Monte to be told first, as having her defence in his hands, it was a wish he could not deny.

She turned the talk after that into other ways, becoming soft of glances and voice, but yet holding him off with his own words: “We will say more at a better time.”

He understood that she would give him her love when the charge of murder would be lifted from off her name. He was not likely to give faith to Antonio’s tales, judging her both with the blindness of love and as he found her to be.

But she was doing no more than to maintain a position which it could be no profit to lose, though she had ceased to hope it would be her gain. She wanted to think well, which she could not do till he should be gone.

When he left, she lay unmoving for a time which lengthened to hours, her fingers knitted behind her head. Her eyes were distant and hard, and over them at times there came a shadow of fear, and, at others a smile dimpled her face, and passed as a little wind may ruffle a quiet lake, and pass quickly away.

She rose at last, as one throwing off doubt, like a cloak on a summer day. She looked round the room, and said aloud: “Well, there is little to leave,” as though there were some comfort in that; and then, more to herself: “I suppose I may come to harbour at last, but the road is long.”

She did not think that the harbour for such as she was most often the hangman’s cart, for she had courage to meet her need. She had a thing to do now which she had done before in a Genoese jail, when she had been younger and less assured, and she did not expect to fail.

The jailer came in the next hour, bringing the evening meal, which was better than most men had who were free in that time of siege, for there was a promise of gold from Francisco’s purse, which he did not intend to miss by any grumbling from her. He had had more now than he should have asked, and as to that which was still to come, he judged that Don Francisco would keep faith, but would not be easy to overbear.

She looked at fish, and a steaming stew, a plate of grapes, and a half-bottle of wine.

“Well,” he asked, “are you pleased?”

“It is well enough,” she replied; “but you will suppose that I have drunk better vintage than that.”

“It is good wine,” he grumbled; “you are sore to please.”

“It is well enough,” she said again. She looked at the man’s heavy sensual face in a more familiar way that she had done until then. “I may have other needs.”

“Then you must tell other than me.” He turned away. He had done enough. It was not she who gave out the gold.

“No,” she said, “there is no haste. It is you I must tell. I must have silks bought in the town at an early hour, before Del Monte shall see me here.”

He stood hesitating. There might be profit in this, if he would go to trouble enough.

“You should know,” he said, “that you must pay first. It is the law of the jail. Can you do that?”

“I do not say but I might.... But I have to talk of another thing. Should I have bugs in the bed at the price Don Francisco has paid?”

Anger swelled the veins in the heavy face. Was this a device to cheat him of what was to come, unless he should now dance to her tune?

“There are none such. That I swear,” he said in a truculent way. And, indeed, it was a good bed, and the linen sheets were fragrant and clean, beside that it had blankets of wool.

“But if I itch where they bite? I will show you this.”

She put a foot on the bed, drawing up her gown to show the inner side of a thigh that was smoothly slender, but rounded well. For a moment’s glimpse, she may have shown above that, and his eyes were greedy of what they saw.

He said: “I see naught. There is naught to see.” But he came closer, seeing all that he could, at which she flicked the skirt down.

“You may not see,” she said, “but I feel.” And then: “But there need be no trouble for that. If you get me that which I need, I will pay you all in a good way.”

He stood looking at her with heavy lustful eyes, still uncertain what she might mean, and unwilling to show his hope till he were made sure. Besides that, he was half afraid, remembering the accusation that brought her there. But he did not think she would wish to have another dead man laid to her door, with no more than the same excuse.

“You must pay first,” he said; “it is the rule of the jail, and after that I will get you the silks.”

“Why so I will,” she said, “I am in the humour for that. If you will come back at a later hour—and you must bring wine of a better vintage than this.”

He looked at her now in a coarse way, seeing her for what she was, or perhaps less.

“Why,” he said, “he that was here, did he not feed you full for this time?”

“He did naught but to kiss my hand. But you will know how to deal in a better way.”

He was doubtful still, like a wasp that hovers over a candied snare, but he could not resist.

“I will be back,” he said, “when the cells are locked, and we shall not be disturbed by any knocks on the outer gate.”

He went to his rounds. He would return at an hour when the common rooms would be closed and every prisoner locked away in his own cell till the next day.

After that, there would be two besides himself to keep ward through the night, but the first watch would be his, and they would sleep, unless they were roused by the bell.

She called after him as he went: “You will bring better wine? It is on that that our bargain hangs....”

The next morning, Del Monte saw Sir Oliver at an early hour. He said: “I have looked at this on all sides, and I have a proposal to make. If you take her tale to be true (which you have no witness to overset) I may bring her off; and if you probe her past, I may do it or not, but there is one thing that is sure, I must call Don Francisco in her defence, and Don Garcio also, of whom she tells me that which it is not my business to know, except so far as it may be needful for her relief. But I know you do not want them called at this time.

“Now it seems to me that we each have something with which to trade. Why will you not be agreed to remand her now, till the siege is through? She will do no harm in a prison cell, and you can set her free at the end (as you must now, if I bring her off) when the Turks are gone. You can say now that there is more witness which you must sift, and I will agree for her side, and it will be forgotten amid the thunder of greater things.... I came to put this to you, before I see her again.”

“Which,” Sir Oliver said with a smile, “I am assured that you will not do. She has resolved this for us both, having escaped in the night, none knoweth how; but there is cause to think that she is now in the Turkish lines.”