The Shame of Motley by Rafael Sabatini (top romance novels TXT) 📕

lips, his glare fixed upon me and a faint colour kindling in his face. He saw how easy the thing might be. Perhaps he recalled that he had heard that I was skilled in arms—having spent my youth in the exercise of them, against the time when I might fling the challenge that had brought me to my Fool’s estate. Maybe he recalled how I had borne myself against long odds on that adventure with Madonna Paola, years ago. Just such a vanity as had spurred him to have me write him verses that he might pretend were of his own making, moved him now to grasp at my proposal. They would all think that Giovanni’s armour contained Giovanni himself. None would ever suspect Boccadoro the Fool within that shell of steel. His honour would be vindicated, and he would not lose the esteem of Madonna Paola. Indeed, if I returned covered with glory, that glory would be his; and if he elected to fly thereafter, he might do so without hurt to his fair name, for he would have amply proved his mettle and his courage.

In some such fashion I doubt not that the High and Mighty Giovanni Sforza reasoned during the seconds that we stood, face to face and eye to eye, in that room, the cries of the impatient ones below almost drowned in the roar of the multitude beyond.

At last he put out his hands to seize mine, and drawing me to the light he scanned my face, Heaven alone knowing what it was he sought there.

“If you do this,” said he, “Biancomonte shall be yours again, if it remains in my power to bestow it upon you now or at any future time. I swear it by my honour.”

“Swear it by your fear of Hell or by your hope of Heaven and the compact is made,” I answered, and so palsied was he and so fallen in spirit that he showed no resentment at the scorn of his honour my words implied, but there and then took the oath I that demanded.

“And now,” I urged, “help me to put on this armour of yours.”

Hurriedly I cast off my jester’s doublet and my head-dress with its jangling bells, and with a wild exultation, a joy so fierce as almost to bring tears to my eyes, I held my arms aloft whilst that poor craven strapped about my body the back and breast plates of his corselet. I, the Fool, stood there as arrogant as any knight, whilst with his noble hands the Lord of Pesaro, kneeling, made secure the greaves upon my legs, the sollerets with golden spurs, the cuissarts and the genouilleres. Then he rose up, and with hands that trembled in his eagerness, he put on my brassarts and shoulder-plates, whilst I, myself, drew on my gauntlets. Next he adjusted the gorget, and handed me, last of all, the helm, a splendid head-piece of black and gold, surmounted by the Sforza lion.

I took it from him and passed it over my head. Then ere I snapped down the visor and hid the face of Boccadoro, I bade him, unless he would render futile all this masquerade, to lock the door of his closet, and lie there concealed till my return. At that a sudden doubt assailed him.

“And what,” quoth he, “if you do not return?”

In the fever that had possessed me this was a thing that had not entered into my calculations, nor should it now. I laughed, and from the hollow of my helmet not a doubt but the sound must have seemed charged with mockery. I pointed to the cap and doublet I had shed.

“Why, then, Illustrious, it will but remain for you to complete the change.”

“Dog!” he cried; “beast, do you deride me?”

My answer was to point out towards the yard.

“They are clamouring,” said I. “They wax impatient. I had better go before they come for you.” As I spoke I selected a heavy mace for only weapon, and swinging it to my shoulder I stepped to the door. On the threshold he would have stayed me, purged by his fear of what might befall him did I not return. But I heeded him not.

“Fare you well, my Lord of Pesaro,” said I. “See that none penetrates to your closet. Make fast the door.”

“Stay!” he called after me. “Do you hear me? Stay!”

“Others will hear you if you commit this folly,” I called back to him. “Get you to cover.” And so I left him.

Below, in the courtyard, my coming was hailed by a great, enthusiastic clamour. They had all but abandoned hope of seeing the Lord Giovanni, so long had he been about his arming. As they brought forward my charger, I sought with my eyes Madonna Paola. I beheld her by her brother—who, it seemed, was not going with us—in the front rank of the spectators. Her cheeks were tinged with a slight flush of excitement, and her eyes glowed at the brave sight of armed men.

I mounted, and as I rode past her to take my place at the head of that company, I lowered my mace and bowed. She detained me a moment, setting her hand upon the glossy neck of my black charger.

“My Lord,” she said, in a low voice, intended for my ear alone, “this is a brave and gallant thing you do, and however slight may be your hope of prevailing, yet your honour will be safe-guarded by this act, and men will remember you with respect should it come to pass that a usurper shall possess anon your throne. Bear you that in mind to lend you a glad courage. I shall pray for you, my Lord, till you return.”

I bowed, answering never a word lest my voice should betray me; and musing on the matter of the strange roads that lead to a woman’s heart, I passed on, to gain the van.

Two months ago, knowing Giovanni as he was, he had been detestable to her, and she contemplated with loathing the danger in which she stood of being allied to him by marriage. Since then he had made good use of a poor jester’s mental gifts to incline her by the fervour of some verses to a kindlier frame of mind, and now, making good use of that same jester’s courage, he completed her subjection by the display of it. She was prepared to wed the Lord Giovanni with a glad heart and a proud willingness whensoever he should desire it.

But Giacomo was beside me now, and in the quadrangle a silence reigned, all waiting for my command. From without there came such a din as seemed to argue that all hell was at the Castle gates. There were shouts of defiance and screams of abuse, whilst a constant rain of stones beat against the raised drawbridge.

They thought, no doubt, that Giovanni and his followers were at their prayers, cowering with terror. No notion had they of the armed force, some six score strong, that waited to pour down upon them. I briskly issued my command, and four men detached themselves and let down the bridge. It fell with a crash, and ere those without had well grasped the situation we had hurled ourselves across and into them with the force of a wedge, flinging them to right and to left as we crashed through with hideous slaughter. The bridge swung up again when the last of Giacomo’s mercenaries was across, and we were shut out, in the midst of that fierce human maelstrom.

For some five minutes there raged such a brief, hot fight as will be remembered as long as Pesaro stands. No longer than that did it take for the crowd of citizens to realise that war was not their trade, and that they had better leave the fighting to Cesare Borgia’s men; and so they fell away and left us a clear road to come at the men-at-arms. But already some forty of our saddles were empty, and the fight, though brief, had proved exhausting to many of us.

Before us, like an array of mirrors in the October sun, shone the serried ranks of the steel-cased Borgia soldiers, their lances in rest, waiting to receive us. Their leader, a gigantic man whose head was armed by no more than a pot of burnished steel, from which escaped the long red ringlets of his hair, was that same Ramiro del’ Orca who had commanded the party pursuing Madonna Paola three years ago. He was, since, become the most redoubtable of Cesare’s captains, and his name was, perhaps, the best hated in Italy for the grim stories that were connected with it.

As we rode on he backed to join the foremost rank of his soldiers, and his voice—a voice that Stentor might have envied—trumpeted a laugh at sight of us.

“Gesu!” he roared, so that I heard him above the thunder of our hoofs. “What has come to Giovanni Sforza. Has he, perchance, become a man since Madonna Lucrezia divorced him? I will bear her the news of it, my good Giovanni—my living thunderbolt of Jove!”

His men echoed his boisterous mood, infected by it, and this, I argued, boded ill for the courage of those that followed me. Another moment and we had swept into them, and many there were who laughed no more, or went to laugh with those in Hell.

For myself I singled out the blustering Ramiro, and I let him know it by a swinging blow of my mace upon his morion. It was a most finely-tempered piece of steel, for my stroke made no impression on it, though Ramiro winced and raised his stout sword to return the compliment.

“Body of God!” he croaked, “you become a very god of war, Giovanni. To me, then, my lusty Mars! We’ll make a fight of it that poets shall sing of over winter fires. Look to yourself!”

His sword caught me a cunning, well-aimed blow on the side of my helm, and thence, glanced to my shoulder. But for the quality of Giovanni’s head-piece of a truth there had been an end to the warring of a Fool. I smote him back, a mighty blow upon his epauliere that shore the steel plate from his shoulder, and left him a vulnerable spot. At that he swore ferociously, and his bloodshot eyes grew wicked as the fiend’s. A second time he essayed that side-long blow upon my helm, and with such force and ready address that he burst the fastening of my visor on the left, so that it swung down and left my beaver open.

With a cry of triumph he closed with me, and shortened his sword to stab me in the face. And then a second cry escaped him, for the countenance he beheld was not the countenance he had looked to see. Instead of the fair skin, the handsome features and the bearded mouth of the Lord Giovanni, he beheld a shaven face, a hooked nose and a complexion swarthy as the devil’s.

“I know you, rogue,” he roared. “By the Host! your valour seemed too fierce for Giovanni Sforza. You are Bocca—”

Exerting all the strength that I had been gradually collecting, I hurled him back with a force that almost drove him from the saddle, and rising in my stirrups I rained blow after blow upon his morion ere he could recover.

“Dog!” I muttered softly, “your knowledge shall be the death of you.”

He drew away from me at last, and during the moments that I spent in readjusting my visor he sallied, and charged me again. His blustering was gone and his face grown pale, for such blows as mine could not have been without effect. Not a doubt of it but he was