Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (best summer reads .txt) 📗

It wanted three hours of midnight, when Albornoz, resuming his character of gallant, despatched to the Signora Cesarini the following billet.

“Your commands are obeyed. Rienzi will receive an examination on his faith. It is well that he should be prepared. It may suit your purpose, as to which I am so faintly enlightened, to appear to the prisoner what you are—the obtainer of this grace. See how implicitly one noble heart can trust another! I send by the bearer an order that will admit one of your servitors to the prisoner’s cell. Be it, if you will, your task to announce to him the new crisis of his fate. Ah! madam, may fortune be as favourable to me, and grant me the same intercessor—from thy lips my sentence is to come.”

As Albornoz finished this epistle, he summoned his confidential attendant, a Spanish gentleman, who saw nothing in his noble birth that should prevent his fulfilling the various hests of the Cardinal.

“Alvarez,” said he, “these to the Signora Cesarini by another hand; thou art unknown to her household. Repair to the state tower; this to the Governor admits thee. Mark who is admitted to the prisoner Cola di Rienzi: Know his name, examine whence he comes. Be keen, Alvarez. Learn by what motive the Cesarini interests herself in the prisoner’s fate. All too of herself, birth, fortunes, lineage, would be welcome intelligence. Thou comprehendest me? It is well. One caution—thou hast no mission from, no connexion with, me. Thou art an officer of the prison, or of the Pope,—what thou wilt. Give me the rosary; light the lamp before the crucifix; place yon hair-shirt beneath those arms. I would have it appear as if meant to be hidden! Tell Gomez that the Dominican preacher is to be admitted.”

“Those friars have zeal,” continued the Cardinal to himself, as, after executing his orders, Alvarez withdrew. “They would burn a man—but only on the Bible? They are worth conciliating, if the triple crown be really worth the winning; were it mine, I would add the eagle’s plume to it.”

And plunged into the aspiring future, this bold man forgot even the object of his passion. In real life, after a certain age, ambitious men love indeed; but it is only as an interlude. And indeed with most men, life has more absorbing though not more frequent concerns than those of love. Love is the business of the idle, but the idleness of the busy.

The Cesarini was alone when the Cardinal’s messenger arrived, and he was scarcely dismissed with a few lines, expressive of a gratitude which seemed to bear down all those guards with which the coldness of the Signora usually fenced her pride, before the page Angelo was summoned to her presence.

The room was dark with the shades of the gathering night when the youth entered, and he discerned but dimly the outline of the Signora’s stately form; but by the tone of her voice, he perceived that she was deeply agitated.

“Angelo,” said she, as he approached, “Angelo—” and her voice failed her. She paused as for breath and again proceeded. “You alone have served us faithfully; you alone shared our escape, our wanderings, our exile—you alone know my secret—you of my train alone are Roman!—Roman! it was once a great name. Angelo, the name has fallen; but it is only because the nature of the Roman Race fell first. Haughty they are, but fickle; fierce, but dastard; vehement in promise, but rotten in their faith. You are a Roman, and though I have proved your truth, your very birth makes me afraid of falsehood.”

“Madam,” said the page; “I was but a child when you admitted me of your service, and I am yet only on the verge of manhood. But boy though I yet be, I would brave the stoutest lance of knight, or freebooter, in defence of the faith of Angelo Villani, to his liege Lady and his native land.”

“Alas! alas!” said the Signora, bitterly, “such have been the words of thousands of thy race. What have been their deeds? But I will trust thee, as I have trusted ever. I know that thou art covetous of honour, that thou hast youth’s comely and bright ambition.”

“I am an orphan and a bastard,” said Angelo, bluntly! “And circumstance stings me sharply on to action; I would win my own name.”

“Thou shalt,” said the Signora. “We shall live yet to reward thee. And now be quick. Bring hither one of thy page’s suits,—mantle and head-gear. Quick, I say, and whisper not to a soul what I have asked of thee.”