The Shame of Motley, Rafael Sabatini [english novels to improve english .TXT] 📗

If Madonna Paola did not achieve quite all that she had promised me so readily, yet she achieved more than from my acquaintance with the nature of Giovanni Sforza—and my knowledge of the deep malice he entertained for me—I should have dared to hope.

The Tyrant of Pesaro, as I was soon to learn, was greatly taken with this fair cousin of his, whom that morning he had beheld for the first time. And being taken with her, it may be that Giovanni listened the more readily to her intercessions on my poor behalf. Since it was she who begged this thing, he could not wholly refuse. But since he was Giovanni Sforza, he could not wholly grant. He promised her that my life, at least, should be secure, and that not only would he pardon me, but that he would have his own physician see to it that I was made sound again. For the time, that was enough, he thought. First let them bring me back to life. When that was achieved, it would be early enough to consider what course this life should take thereafter.

And she, knowing him not and finding him so kind and gracious, trusted that he would perform that which he tricked her into believing that he promised.

For some ten days I lay abed, feverish at first and later very weak from the great loss of blood I had sustained. But after the second day, when my fever had abated, I had some visitors, among whom was Madonna Paola, who bore me the news that her intercessions for me with the Lord of Pesaro were likely to bear fruit, and that I might look for my reinstatement. Yet, if I permitted myself to hope as she bade me; I did so none too fully.

My situation, bearing in mind how at once I had served and thwarted the ends of Cesare Borgia, was perplexing.

Another visitor I had was Messer Magistri—the pompous seneschal of Pesaro—who, after his own fashion, seemed to have a liking for me, and a certain pity. Here was my chance of discharging the true errand on which I was returned.

“I owe thanks,” said I, “to many circumstances for the sparing of my life; but above all people and all things do I owe thanks to our gracious Lady Lucrezia. Do you think, Messer Magistri, that she would consent to see me and permit me again to express the gratitude that fills my heart?”

Mosser Magistri thought that he could promise this, and consented to bear my message to her. Within the hour she was at my bedside and divining that, haply, I had news to give her of the letter I had born her brother, she dismissed Magistri who was in attendance.

Once we were alone her first words were of kindly concern for my condition, delivered in that sweet, musical voice that was by no means the least charm of a princess to whom Nature had been prodigal of gifts. For without going to that length of exaggerated praise which some have bestowed—for her own ear, and with an eye to profit—upon Madonna Lucrezia, yet were I less than truthful if I sought to belittle her ample claims to beauty. Some six years later than the time of which I write she was met on the occasion of her entry into Ferrara by a certain clown dressed in the scanty guise of the shepherd Paris, who proffered her the apple of beauty with the mean-souled flattery that since beholding her he had been forced to alter his old-time judgment in favour of Venus.

He lied, like the brazen, self-seeking adulator that he was, and for which he should have been soundly whipped. Her nose was a shade too long, her chin a shade too short to admit, even remotely, of such comparisons. Still, that she had a certain gracious beauty, as I have said, it is not mine to deny. There was an almost childish freshness in her face, an almost childish innocence in her fine gray eyes, and, above all, a golden and resplendent hair as brought to mind the tresses of God’s angels.

That fair child—for no more than a child was she—drew a chair to my bedside.

There she sate herself, whilst I thanked her for her concern on my behalf, and answered that I was doing well enough, and should be abroad again in a day or two.

“Brave lad,” she murmured, patting my hand, which lay upon the coverlet, as though she had been my sister and I anything but a Fool, “count me ever your friend hereafter, for what you have done for Madonna Paola. For although it was my own family you thwarted, yet you did so to serve one who is more to me than any family, more than any sister could be.”

“What I did, Madonna,” I answered, “I did with the better heart since it opened out a way that was barred me, solved me a riddle which my Lord, your Illustrious brother, set me—one that otherwise might well have overtaxed my wits.”

“Ah?” Her gray eyes fell on me in a swift and searching glance, a glance that revealed to the full their matchless beauty. Care seemed of a sudden to have aged her face. The question of her eyes needed no translation into words.

“The Lord Cardinal of Valencia entrusted me with a letter for you, in answer to your own,” I informed her, and from underneath my pillow I drew the package, which during Magistri’s absence I had abstracted from my boot that I might have it in readiness when she came.

She sighed as she took it, and a wistful smile invested the corners of her mouth.

“I had hoped he would have found better employment for you,” she said.

“His Excellency promised that he would more fitly employ me in the future did I discharge this errand with secrecy and despatch. But by aiding Madonna Paola I have burned my boats against returning to claim the redemption of that promise; though had it not been for Madonna Paola and what I did, I scarce know how I should have penetrated here to you.”

She broke the seal, and rising crossed to the window, where she stood reading the letter, her back toward me. Presently I heard a stifled sob. The letter was crushed in her hand. Then moments passed ere she confronted me once more. But her manner as all changed; she was agitated and preoccupied, and for all that she forced herself to talk of me and my affairs, her mind was clearly elsewhere. At last she left me, nor did I see her again during the time I was confined to my bed.

On the eleventh day I rose, and the weather being mild and spring-like, I was permitted by my grave-faced doctor to take the air a little on the terrace that overlooks the sea. I found no garments but some suits of motley, and so, in despite of my repugnance now to reassume that garb, I had no choice but to array myself in one of these. I selected the least garish one—a suit of black and yellow stripes, with hose that was half black, half yellow, too; and so, leaning upon the crutch they had left me, I crept forth into the sunlight, the very ghost of the man that I had been a fortnight ago.

I found a stone seat in a sheltered corner looking southward towards Ancona, and there I rested me and breathed the strong invigorating air of the Adriatic. The snows were gone, and between me and the wall some twenty paces off—there was a stretch of soft, green turf.

I had brought with me a book that Madonna Lucrezia had sent me while I was yet abed. It was a manuscript collection of Spanish odes, with the proverbs of one Domenico Lopez—all very proper nourishment for a jester’s mind. The odes seemed to possess a certain quaintness, and among the proverbs there were many that were new to me in framing and in substance. Moreover, I was glad of this means of improving my acquaintance with the tongue of Spain, and I was soon absorbed. So absorbed, indeed, as never to hear the footsteps of the Lord Giovanni, when presently he approached me unattended, nor to guess at his presence until his shadow fell athwart my page. I raised my eyes, and seeing who it was I made shift to get on my feet; but he commanded me to remain seated, commenting sympathetically upon my weak condition.

He asked me what I read, and when I had told him, a thin smile fluttered across his white face.

“You choose your reading with rare judgment,” said he. “Read on, and prime your mind with fresh humour, prepare yourself with new conceits for our amusement against the time when health shall be more fully restored you.”

It was in such words as these that he intimated to me that I was pardoned, and reinstated—as the Fool of the Court of Pesaro. That was to be the sum of his clemency. We were precisely where we had been. Once before had he granted me my life on condition that I should amuse him; he did no more than repeat that mercy now. I stared at him in wonder, open-mouthed, whereit he laughed.

“You are agreeably surprised, my Boccadoro?” said he, his fingers straying to his beard as was his custom. “My clemency is no more than you deserve in return for the service you have rendered to the House of Sforza.” And he patted my head as though I had been one of his dogs that had borne itself bravely in the chase.

I answered nothing. I sat there as if I had been a part of the stone from which my seat was hewn, for I lacked the strength to rise and strangle him as he deserved—moreover, I was bound by an oath, which it would have damned my soul to break, never to raise my hand against him.

And then, before he could say more, two ladies issued from the doorway on my right. They were Madonna Lucrezia and Madonna Paola. Upon espying me they hastened forward with expressions of pleased surprise at seeing me risen and out, and when I would have got to my feet they stayed me as Giovanni had done. Madonna Paola’s words seemed addressed to heaven rather than to me, for they were words of thanksgiving for this recovery of my strength.

“I have no thanks,” she ended warmly, “that can match the deeds by which you earned them, Messer Biancomonte.”

My eyes drifting to Giovanni’s face surprised its sudden darkening.

“Madonna Paola,” said he, in an icy voice, “you have uttered a name that must not be heard within my walls of Pesaro, if you would prove yourself the friend of Boccadoro. To remind me of his true identity is to remind me of that which counts not in his favour.”

She turned to regard him, a mild surprise in her blue eyes.

“But, my lord, you promised—” she began.

“I promised,” he interposed, with an easy smile and manner never so deprecatory, “that I would pardon him, grant him his life and restore him to