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

That valorous bearing that the Lord Giovanni showed whilst, with Madonna Paola’s glance upon him, his fear of seeming afraid was greater than his actual fear of our assailants, he cast aside like a mantle once he was within the walls of his Castle, and under the eyes of none save the page and myself, for I followed idly at a respectful distance.

He stood irresolute and livid of countenance, his eagerness to arm and to lead his mercenaries and his knights all departed out of him. It was that curiosity of mine to see the sequel to his stout words that had led me to follow him, and what I saw was, after all, no more than I might have looked for—the proof that his big talk of sallying forth to battle was but so much acting. Yet it must have been acting of such a quality as to have deceived even his very self.

Now, however, by the main steps, he halted in the cool gloom of the gallery, and I saw that fear had caught his heart in an icy grip and was squeezing it empty. In his irresolution he turned about, and his gloomy eye fell upon me loitering in the porch. At that he turned to the page who followed in obedience to his command.

“Begone!” he growled at the lad, “I will have Boccadoro, there, to help me arm.” And with a poor attempt at mirth—“The act is a madness,” he muttered, “and so it is fitting that folly should put on my armour for it. Come with me, you,” he bade me, and I, obediently, gladly, went forward and up the wide stone staircase after him, leaving the page to speculate as he listed on the matter of his abrupt dismissal.

I read the Lord Giovanni’s motives, as clearly as if they had been written for me by his own hand. The opinion in which I might hold him was to him a matter of so small account that he little cared that I should be the witness of the weakness which he feared was about to overcome him—nay, which had overcome him already. Was I not the one man in Pesaro who already knew his true nature, as revealed by that matter of the verses which I had written, and of which he had assumed the authorship? He had no shame before me, for I already knew the very worst of him, and he was confident that I would not talk lest he should destroy me at my first word. And yet, there was more than that in his motive for choosing me to go with him in that hour, as I was to learn once we were closeted in his chamber.

“Boccadoro,” he cried, “can you not find me some way out of this?” Under his beard I saw the quiver of his lips as he put the question.

“Out of this?” I echoed, scarce understanding him at first.

“Aye, man—out of this Castle, out of Pesaro. Bestir those wits of yours. Is there no way in which it might be done, no disguise under which I might escape?”

“Escape?” quoth I, looking at him, and endeavouring to keep from my eyes the contempt that was in my heart. Dear God! Had revenge been all I sought of him, how I might have gloated over his miserable downfall!

“Do not stand there staring with those hollow eyes,” he cried, anger and fear blending horridly in his voice and rendering shrill its pitch. “Find me a way. Come, knave, find me a way, or I’ll have you broken on the wheel. Set your wits to save that long, lean body from destruction. Think, I bid you.”

He was moving restlessly as he spoke, swayed by the agitation of terror that possessed him like a devil. I looked at him now without dissembling my scorn. Even in such an hour as this the habit of hectoring cruelty remained him.

“What shall it avail me to think?” I asked him in a voice that was as cold and steady as his was hot and quavering. “Were you a bird I might suggest flight across the sea to you. But you are a man, a very human, a very mortal man, although your father made you Lord of Pesaro.”

Even as I was speaking, the thunder of the besiegers reached our ears— such a dull roar it was as that of a stormy sea in winter time. Maddened by his terror he stood over me now, his eyes flashing wildly in his white face.

“Another word in such a tone,” he rasped, his fingers on his dagger, “and I’ll make an end of you. I need your help, animal!”

I shook my head, my glance meeting his without fear. I was of twice his strength, we were alone, and the hour was one that levelled ranks. Had he made the least attempt to carry out his threat, had he but drawn an inch of the steel he fingered, I think I should have slain him with my hands without fear or thought of consequences.

“I have no help for you such as you need,” I answered him. “I am but the Fool of Pesaro. Whoever looked to a Fool for miracles?”

“But here is death,” he almost moaned.

“Lord of Pesaro,” I reminded him, “your mercenaries are under arms by your command, and your knights are joining them. They wait for the fulfilment of your promise to lead them out against the enemy. Shall you fail them in such an hour as this?”

He sank, limp as an empty scabbard, to a chair.

“I dare not go. It is death,” he answered miserably.

“And what but death is it to remain here?” I asked, torturing him with more zest than ever he had experienced over the agonies of some poor victim on the rack. “In bearing yourself gallantly there lies a slender chance for you. Your people seeing you in arms and ready to defend them may yet be moved to a return of loyalty.”

“A fig for their loyalty,” was his peevish, craven answer. “What shall it avail me when I’m slain!”

God! was there ever such a coward as this, such a weak-souled, water-hearted dastard?

“But you may not be slain,” I urged him. And then I sounded a fresh note. “Bethink you of Madonna Paola and of the brave things you promised her.”

He flushed a little, then paled again, then sat very still. Shame had touched him at last, yet its grip was not enough to make a man of him. A moment he remained irresolute, whilst that shame fought a hard battle with his fears.

But those fears proved stronger in the end, and his shame was overthrown by them.

“I dare not,” he gasped, his slender, delicate hands clutching at the arms of his chair. “Heaven knows I am not skilled in the use of arms.”

“It asks no skill,” I assured him. “Put on your armour, take a sword and lay about you. The most ignorant scullion in your kitchens could perform it given that he had the spirit.”

He moistened his lips with his tongue, and his eyes looked dead as a snake’s. Suddenly he rose and took a step towards the armour that was piled about a great leathern chair. Then he paused and turned to me once more.

“Help me to put it on,” he said in a voice that he strove to render steady. Yet scarcely had I reached the pile and taken up the breastplate, when he recoiled again from the task. He broke into a torrent of blasphemy.

“I will not sacrifice myself,” he almost screamed. “Jesus! not I. I will find a way out of this. I will live to return with an army and regain my throne.”

“A most wise purpose. But, meanwhile, your men are waiting for you; Madonna Paola di Santafior is waiting for you, and—hark!—the bellowing crowd is waiting for you.”

“They wait in vain,” he snarled. “Who cares for them? The Lord of Pesaro am I.”

“Care you, then, nothing for them? Will you have your name written in history as that of a coward who would not lift his sword to strike one blow for honour’s sake ere he was driven out like a beast by the mere sound of voices?

That touched him. His vanity rose in arms.

“Take up that corselet,” he commanded hoarsely. I did his bidding, and, without a word, he raised his arms that I might fit it to his breast. Yet in the instant that I turned me to pick up the back-piece, a crash resounded through the chamber. He had hurled the breastplate to the ground jn a fresh access of terror-rage. He strode towards me, his eyes glittering like a madman’s.

“Go you!” he cried, and with outstretched arms he pointed wildly across the courtyard. “You are very ready with your counsels. Let me behold your deeds, Do you put on the armour and go out to fight those animals.”

He raved, he ranted, he scarce knew what he said or did, and yet the words he uttered sank deep into my heart, and a sudden, wild ambition swelled my bosom.

“Lord of Pesaro,” I cried, in a voice so compelling that it sobered him, “if I do this thing what shall be my reward?”

He stared at me stupidly for a moment. Then he laughed in a silly, crackling fashion.

“Eh?” he queried. “Gesu!” And he passed a hand over his damp brow, and threw back the hair that cumbered it. “What is the thing that you would do, Fool?”

“Why, the thing you bade me,” I answered firmly. “Put on your armour, and shut down the visor so that all shall think it is the Lord Giovanni, Tyrant of Pesaro, who rides. If I do this thing, and put to rout the rabble and the fifty men that Cesare Borgia has sent, what shall be my reward?”

He watched me with twitching