CHAPTER VI. THE IRON GIRDLE
From the distance, drawing rapidly nearer and ringing sharply in thestillness of the night, came the clatter of a mule's hooves.
But, though heard, it was scarcely heard consciously, and it certainlywent unheeded until it was beneath the window and ceasing at the door.
Giuliana's fingers locked themselves upon my arm in a grip of fear.
"Who comes?" she asked, below her breath, fearfully. I sprang from thebed and crouched, listening, by the window, and so lost precious time.
Out of the darkness Giuliana's voice spoke again, hoarsely now andtrembling.
"It will be Astorre," she said, with conviction. "At this hour it canbe none else. I suspected when I saw him talking to that boy at the gatethis afternoon that he was setting a spy upon me, to warn him whereverhe was lurking, did the need arise."
"But how should the boy know...?" I began, when she interrupted mealmost impatiently.
"The boy saw Messer Gambara ride up. He waited for no more, but went atonce to warn Astorre. He has been long in coming," she added in the toneof one who is still searching for the exact explanation of the thingthat is happening. And then, suddenly and very urgently, "Go, go--goquickly!" she bade me.
As in the dark I was groping my way towards the door she spoke again:
"Why does he not knock? For what does he wait?" Immediately, fromthe stairs, came a terrific answer to her question--the unmistakable,slip-slopping footstep of the doctor.
I halted, and for an instant stood powerless to move. How he had enteredI could not guess, nor did I ever discover. Sufficient was the awfulfact that he was in.
I was ice-cold from head to foot. Then I was all on fire and gropingforward once more whilst those footsteps, sinister and menacing as thevery steps of Doom, came higher and nearer.
At last I found the door and wrenched it open. I stayed to close itafter me, and already at the end of the passage beat the reflection ofthe light Fifanti carried. A second I stood there hesitating which wayto turn. My first thought was to gain my own chamber. But to attempt itwere assuredly to run into his arms. So I turned, and went as swiftlyand stealthily as possible towards the library.
I was all but in when he turned the corner of the passage, and so caughtsight of me before I had closed the door.
I stood in the library, where the lamp still burned, sweating, panting,and trembling. For even as he had had a glimpse of me, so had I had aglimpse of him, and the sight was terrifying to one in my situation.
I had seen, his tall, gaunt figure bending forward in his eager, angryhaste. In one hand he carried a lanthorn; a naked sword in the other.His face was malign and ghastly, and his bald, egg-like head shoneyellow. The fleeting glimpse he had of me drew from him a sound betweena roar and a snarl, and with quickened feet he came slip-slopping downthe passage.
I had meant, I think, to play the fox: to seat myself at the table, abook before me, and feigning slumber, present the appearance of one whohad been overcome by weariness at his labours. But now all thoughtof that was at an end. I had been seen, and that I fled was all tooapparent. So that in every way I was betrayed.
The thing I did, I did upon instinct rather than reason; and this againwas not well done. I slammed the door, and turned the key, placingat least that poor barrier between myself and the man I had so deeplywronged, the man whom I had given the right to slay me. A second laterthe door shook as if a hurricane had smitten it. He had seized thehandle, and he was pulling at it frenziedly with a maniacal strength.
"Open!" he thundered, and fell to snarling and whimpering horribly."Open!"
Then, quite abruptly he became oddly calm. It was as if his rage grewcoldly purposeful; and the next words he uttered acted upon me as adagger-prod, and reawakened my mind from its momentary stupefaction.
"Do you think these poor laths can save you from my vengeance, my LordGambara?" quoth he, with a chuckle horrible to hear.
My Lord Gambara! He mistook me for the Legate! In an instant I saw thereason of this. It was as Giuliana had conceived. The boy had run towarn him wherever he was--at Roncaglia, perhaps, a league away upon theroad to Parma. And the boy's news was that my Lord the Governor hadgone to Fifanti's house. The boy had never waited to see the Legate comeforth again; but had obeyed his instructions to the letter, and it wasGambara whom Fifanti came to take red-handed and to kill as he had theright to do.
When he had espied my flying shape, the length of the corridor had lainbetween us, Fifanti was short-sighted, and since it was Gambara whom heexpected to find, Gambara at once he concluded it to be who fled beforehim.
There was no villainy for which I was not ripe that night, it seemed.For no sooner did I perceive this error than I set myself to scheme howI might profit by it. Let Gambara by all means suffer in my place ifthe thing could be contrived. If not in fact, at least in intent, theCardinal-legate had certainly sinned. If he was not in my place now,it was through the too great good fortune that attended him. Besides,Gambara would be in better case to protect himself from the consequencesand from Fifanti's anger.
Thus cravenly I reasoned; and reasoning thus, I reached the window. IfI could climb down to the garden, and then perhaps up again to my ownchamber, I might get me to bed, what time Fifanti still hammered at thatdoor. Meanwhile his voice came rasping through those slender timbers, ashe mocked the Lord Cardinal he supposed me.
"You would not be warned, my lord, and yet I warned you enough. Youwould plant horns upon my head. Well, well! Do not complain if you aregored by them."
Then he laughed hideously. "This poor Astorre Fifanti is blind and afool. He is to be sent packing on a journey to the Duke, devised to suitmy Lord Cardinal's convenience. But you should have bethought you thatsuspicious husbands have a trick of pretending to depart whilst theyremain."
Next his voice swelled up again in passion, and again the door wasshaken.
"Will you open, then, or must I break down the door! There is no barrierin the world shall keep me from you, there is no power can save you. Ihave the right to kill you by every law of God and man. Shall I forgothat right?" He laughed snarlingly.
"Three hundred ducats yearly to recompense the hospitality I have givenyou--and six hundred later upon the coming of the Duke!" he mocked."That was the price, my lord, of my hospitality--which was to includemy wife's harlotry. Three hundred ducats! Ha! ha! Three hundred thousandmillion years in Hell! That is the price, my lord--the price that youshall pay, for I present the reckoning and enforce it. You shall beshriven in iron--you and your wanton after you.
"Shall I be caged for having shed a prelate's sacred blood? for havingsent a prelate's soul to Hell with all its filth of sin upon it? ShallI? Speak, magnificent; out of the fullness of your theological knowledgeinform me."
I had listened in a sort of fascination to that tirade of venomousmockery. But now I stirred, and pulled the casement open. I peereddown into the darkness and hesitated. The wall was creeper-clad to thewindow's height; but I feared the frail tendrils of the clematis wouldnever bear me. I hesitated. Then I resolved to jump. It was but littlemore than some twelve feet to the ground, and that was nothing to dauntan active lad of my own build, with the soft turf to land upon below. Itshould have been done without hesitation; for that moment's hesitationwas my ruin.
Fifanti had heard the opening of the casement, and fearing that, afterall, his prey might yet escape him, he suddenly charged the door like aninfuriated bull, and borrowing from his rage a strength far greater thanhis usual he burst away the fastenings of that crazy door.
Into the room hurtled the doctor, to check and stand there blinking atme, too much surprised for a moment to grasp the situation.
When, at last, he understood, the returning flow of rage wasoverwhelming.
"You!" he gasped, and then his voice mounting--"You dog!" he screamed."So it was you! You!"
He crouched and his little eyes, all blood-injected, peered at me withhorrid malice. He grew cold again as he mastere
d his surprise. "You!" herepeated. "Blind fool that I have been! You! The walker in the waysof St. Augustine--in his early ways, I think. You saint in embryo, youpostulant for holy orders! You shall be ordained this night--with this!"And he raised his sword so that little yellow runnels of light sped downthe livid blade.
"I will ordain you into Hell, you hound!" And thereupon he leapt at me.
I sprang away from the window, urged by fear of him into a very suddenactivity. As I crossed the room I had a glimpse of the white figure ofGiuliana in the gloom of the passage, watching.
He came after me, snarling. I seized a stool and hurled it at him. Heavoided it nimbly, and it went crashing through the half of the casementthat was still closed.
And as he avoided it, grown suddenly cunning, he turned back towards thedoor to bar my exit should I attempt to lead him round the table.
We stood at gaze, the length of the little low-ceilinged chamber betweenus, both of us breathing hard.
Then I looked round for something with which to defend myself; forit was plain that he meant to have my life. By a great ill-chance ithappened that the sword which I had worn upon that day when I went asGiuliana's escort into Piacenza was still standing in the very cornerwhere I had set it down. Instinctively I sprang for it, and Fifanti,never suspecting my quest until he saw me with a naked iron in my hand,did nothing to prevent my reaching it.
Seeing me armed, he laughed. "Ho, ho! The saint-at-arms!" he mocked."You'll be as skilled with weapons as with holiness!" And he advancedupon me in long stealthy strides. The width of the table was between us,and he smote at me across it. I parried, and cut back at him, for beingarmed now, I no more feared him than I should have feared a child.Little he knew of the swordcraft I had learnt from old Falcone, a thingwhich once learnt is never forgotten though lack of exercise may make usslow.
He cut at me again, and narrowly missed the lamp in his stroke. And now,I can most solemnly make oath that in the thing that followed there wasno intent. It was over and done before I was conscious of the happening.I had acted purely upon instinct as men will in performing what theyhave been taught.
To ward his blow, I came almost unconsciously into that guard ofMarozzo's which is known as the iron girdle. I parried and on the strokeI lunged, and so, taking the poor wretch entirely unawares, I sank thehalf of my iron into his vitals ere he or I had any thought that thething was possible.
I saw his little eyes grow very wide, and the whole expression of hisface become one of intense astonishment.
He moved his lips as if to speak, and then the sword clattered from hisone hand, the lanthorn from his other; he sank forward quietly, stilllooking at me with the same surprised glance, and so came further on tomy rigidly held blade, until his breast brought up against the quillons.For a moment he remained supported thus, by just that rigid arm of mineand the table against which his weight was leaning. Then I withdrew theblade, and in the same movement flung the weapon from me. Before thesword had rattled to the floor, his body had sunk down into a heapbeyond the table, so that I could see no more than the yellow, egg-liketop of his bald head.
Awhile I stood watching it, filled with an extraordinary curiosity anda queer awe. Very slowly was it that I began to realize the thing I haddone. It might be that I had killed Fifanti. It might be. And slowly,gradually I grew cold with the thought and the apprehension of itshorrid meaning.
Then from the passage came a stifled scream, and Giuliana staggeredforward, one hand holding flimsy draperies to her heaving bosom, theother at her mouth, which had grown hideously loose and uncontrolled.Her glowing copper hair, all unbound, fell about her shoulders like amantle.
Behind her with ashen face and trembling limbs came old Busio. Hewas groaning and ringing his hands. Thus I saw the pair of them creepforward to approach Fifanti, who had made no sound since my sword hadgone through him.
But Fifanti was no longer there to heed them--the faithful servant andthe unfaithful wife. All that remained, huddled there at the foot of thetable, was a heap of bleeding flesh and shabby garments.
It was Giuliana who gave me the information. With a courage that wasalmost stupendous she looked down into his face, then up into mine,which I doubt not was as livid.
"You have killed him," she whispered. "He is dead."
He was dead and I had killed him! My lips moved.
"He would have killed me," I answered in a strangled voice, and knewthat what I said was a sort of lie to cloak the foulness of my deed.
Old Busio uttered a long, croaking wail, and went down on his kneesbeside the master he had served so long--the master who would never moreneed servant in this world.
It was upon the wings of that pitiful cry that the full understandingof the thing I had done was borne in upon my soul. I bowed my head, andtook my face in my hands. I saw myself in that moment for what I was. Iaccounted myself wholly and irrevocably damned, Be God never so clement,surely here was something for which even His illimitable clemency couldfind no pardon.
I had come to Fifanti's house as a student of humanities and divinities;all that I had learnt there had been devilries culminating in thishour's work. And all through no fault of that poor, mean, ugly pedant,who indeed had been my victim--whom I had robbed of honour and of life.
Never man felt self-horror as I felt it then, self-loathing andself-contempt. And then, whilst the burden of it all, the horror ofit all was full upon me, a soft hand touched my shoulder, and a soft,quivering voice murmured urgently in my ear:
"Agostino, we must go; we must go."
I plucked away my hands, and showed her a countenance before which sheshrank in fear.
"We?" I snarled at her. "We?" I repeated still more fiercely, and droveher back before me as if I had done her a bodily hurt.
O, I should have imagined--had I had time in which to imagineanything--that already I had descended to the very bottom of the pit ofinfamy. But it seems that one more downward step remained me; and thatstep I took. Not by act, nor yet by speech, but just by thought.
For without the manliness to take the whole blame of this great crimeupon myself, I must in my soul and mind fling the burden of it upon her.Like Adam of old, I blamed the woman, and charged her in my thoughtswith having tempted me. Charging her thus, I loathed her as the cause ofall this sin that had engulfed me; loathed her in that moment as a thingunclean and hideous; loathed her with a completeness of loathing such asI had never experienced before for any fellow-creature.
Instead of beholding in her one whom I had dragged with me into my pitof sin and whom it was incumbent upon my manhood thenceforth to shelterand protect from the consequences of my own iniquity, I attributed toher the blame of all that had befallen.
To-day I know that in so doing I did no more than justice. But it wasnot justly done. I had then no such knowledge as I have to-day by whichto correct my judgment. The worst I had the right to think of her inthat hour was that her guilt was something less than mine. In thinkingotherwise was it that I took that last step to the very bottom of thehell that I had myself created for myself that night.
The rest was as nothing by comparison. I have said that it was not byact or speech that I added to the sum of my iniquities; and yet it wasby both. First, in that fiercely echoed "We?" that I hurled at her tostrike her from me; then in my precipitate flight alone.
How I stumbled from that room I scarcely know. The events of the timethat followed immediately upon Fifanti's death are all blurred as theimpressions of a sick man's dream.
I dimly remember that as she backed away from me until her shoulderstouched the wall, that as she stood so, all white and lovely as anysnare that Satan ever devised for man's ruin, staring at me with mutelypleading eyes, I staggered forward, avoiding the sight of that dreadfulhuddle on the floor, over which Busio was weeping foolishly.
As I stepped a sudden moisture struck my stockinged feet. Its natureI knew by instinct upon the instant, and filled by it with a suddenunreasoning terror, I dashed with a loud cry fr
om the room.
Along the passage and down the dark stairs I plunged until I reachedthe door of the house. It stood open and I went heedlessly forth. Fromoverhead I heard Giuliana calling me in a voice that held a note ofdespair. But I never checked in my headlong career.
Fifanti's mule, I have since reflected, was tethered near the steps. Isaw the beast, but it conveyed no meaning to my mind, which I think wasnumbed. I sped past it and on, through the gate, round the road by thePo, under the walls of the city, and so away into the open country.
Without cap, without doublet, without shoes, just in my trunks and shirtand hose, as I was, I ran, heading by instinct for home as heads theanimal that has been overtaken by danger whilst abroad. Never sincePhidippides, the Athenian courier, do I believe that any man had run asdesperately and doggedly as I ran that night.
By dawn, having in some three hours put twenty miles or so betweenmyself and Piacenza, I staggered exhausted and with cut and bleedingfeet through the open door of a peasant's house.
The family, sat at breakfast in the stone-flagged room into which Istumbled. I halted under their astonished eyes.
"I am the Lord of Mondolfo," I panted hoarsely, "and I need a beast tocarry me home."
The head of that considerable family, a grizzled, suntanned peasant,rose from his seat and pondered my condition with a glance that wasladen with mistrust.
"The Lord of Mondolfo--you, thus?" quoth he. "Now, by Bacchus, I am thePope of Rome!"
But his wife, more tender-hearted, saw in my disorder cause for pityrather than irony.
"Poor lad!" she murmured, as I staggered and fell into a chair, unablelonger to retain my feet. She rose immediately, and came hurryingtowards me with a basin of goat's milk. The draught refreshed my body asher gentle words of comfort soothed my troubled soul. Seated there, herstout arm about my shoulders, my head pillowed upon her ample, motherlybreast, I was very near to tears, loosened in my overwrought state bythe sweet touch of sympathy, for which may God reward her.
I rested in that place awhile. Three hours I slept upon a litter ofstraw in an outhouse; whereupon, strengthened by my repose, I renewed myclaim to be the Lord of Mondolfo and my demand for a horse to carry meto my fortress.
Still doubting me too much to trust me alone with any beast of his, thepeasant nevertheless fetched out a couple of mules and set out with mefor Mondolfo.
BOOK III. THE WILDERNESS