The Shame of Motley - Rafael Sabatini (the two towers ebook TXT) 📗

However great the part that my mother—sainted woman that she was—may have played in my life, she nowise enters into the affairs of this chronicle, so that it would be an irrelevance and an impertinence to introduce her into these pages. Of the joy with which she welcomed me to the little home near Biancomonte, in which the earnings of Boccadoro the Fool had placed her, it could interest you but little to read in detail, nor could it interest you to know of the gentle patience with which she cheered and humoured me during the period that I sojourned there, tilling the little plot she owned, reaping and garnering like any born villano. With a woman’s quick intuition she guessed perhaps the canker that was eating at my heart, and with a mother’s blessed charity she sought to soothe and mitigate my pain.

It was during this period of my existence that the poetic gifts I had discovered myself possessed of whilst at Pesaro, burst into full bloom; and not a little relief did I find in the penning of those love-songs—the true expression of what was in my heart—which have since been given to the world under the title of Le Rime di Boccadoro. And what time I tended my mother’s land by day, and wrote by night of the feverish, despairing love that was consuming me, I waited for the call that, sooner or later, I knew must come. What prophetic instinct it was had rooted that certainty in my heart I do not pretend to say. Perhaps my hope was of such a strength that it assumed the form of certainty to solace the period of my hermitage. But that some day Madonna Paola’s messenger would arrive bringing me the Borgia ring, I was as confident as that some day I must die.

Two years went by, and we were in the Autumn of 1502, yet my faith knew no abating, my confidence was strong as ever. And, at last, that confidence was justified. One night of early October, as I sat at supper with my mother after the labours of the day, a sound of hoofs disturbed the peace of the silent night. It drew rapidly nearer, and long before the knock fell upon our door, I knew that it was the messenger from my lady.

My mother looked at me across the board, an expression of alarm overspreading her old face. “Who,” her eyes seemed to ask me, “was this horseman that rode so late?”

My hound rose from the hearth with a growl, and stood bristling, his eyes upon the door. White-haired old Silvio, the last remaining retainer of the House of Biancomonte, came forth from the kitchen, with inquiry and fear blending on his wrinkled, weather-beaten countenance.

And I, seeing all these signs of alarm, yet knowing what awaited me on the threshold, rose with a laugh, and in a bound had crossed the intervening space. I flung wide the door, and from the gloom without a man’s voice greeted me with a question.

“Is this the house of Messer Lazzaro Biancomonte?”

“I am that Lazzaro Biancomonte,” answered I. “What may your pleasure be?”

The stranger advanced until he came within the light. He was plainly dressed, and wore a jerkin of leather and long boots. From his air I judged him a servant or a courier. He doffed his hat respectfully, and held out his right hand in which something was gleaming yellow. It was the Borgia ring.

“Pesaro,” was all he said.

I took the ring and thanked him, then bade him enter and refresh himself ere he returned, and I called old Silvio to bring wine.

“I am not returning,” the man informed me. “I am a courier riding to Parma, whom Madonna charged with that message to you in passing.”

Nevertheless he consented to rest him awhile and sip the wine we set before him, and what time he did so I engaged him in talk, and led him to tell me what he knew of the trend of things at Pesaro, and what news there was of the Lord Giovanni. He had little enough to tell. Pesaro was flourishing and prospering under the Borgia dominion. Of the Lord Giovanni there was little news, saving that he was living under the protection of the Gonzagas in Mantua, and that so long as he was content to abide there the Borgias seemed disposed to give him peace.

Next I made him tell me what he knew of Filippo di Santafior and Madonna Paola. On this subject he was better informed. Madonna Paola was well and still lived with her brother at the Palace of Pesaro. The Lord Filippo was high in favour with the Borgias, and Cesare lately had been frequently his guest at Pesaro, whilst once, for a few days, the Lord Ignacio de Borgia had accompanied his illustrious cousin.

I flushed and paled at that piece of news, and the reason of her summons no longer asked conjecture. It was an easy thing for me, knowing what I knew, to fill in the details which the courier omitted in ignorance from the story.

The Lord Filippo, seeking his own advancement, had so urged his sister upon the notice of the Borgia family—perhaps even approached Cesare—in such a manner that it was again become a question of wedding her to Ignacio, who had, meanwhile, remained unmarried. I could read that opportunist’s motives as easily as if he had written them down for my instruction. Giovanni Sforza he accounted lost beyond redemption, and I could imagine how he had plied his wits to aid his sister to forget him, or else to remember him no longer with affection. Whether he had succeeded or not I could not say until I had seen her; but meanwhile, deeming ripe the soil of her heart for the new attachment that should redound so much to his own credit—now that the House of Borgia had risen to such splendid heights—he was driving her into this alliance with Ignacio.

Faithful to the very letter of the promise I had made her, I set out that same night, after embracing my poor, tearful mother, and promising to return as soon as might be. All night I rode, my soul now tortured with anxiety, now exalted at the supreme joy of seeing Madonna, which was so soon to be mine. I was at the gates of Pesaro before matins, and within the Palazzo Sforza ere its inmates had broken their fast.

The Lord Filippo welcomed me with a certain effusion, chiding me for my long absence and the ingratitude it had seemed to indicate, and never dreaming by what summons I was brought back.

“You are well-returned,” he told me in conclusion. “We shall need you soon, to write an epithalamium.”

“You are to be wed, Magnificent?” quoth I at last, at which he laughed consumedly.

“Nay, we shall need the song for my sister’s nuptials. She is to wed the Lord Ignacio Borgia, before Christmas.”

“A lofty theme,” I answered with humility, “and one that may well demand resources nobler than those of my