Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookan Maria's signal. The Duke continued to eye him with that same astonished look, what time he turned over in his mind the news he had gathered. Then conviction of the truth sank into his mind. It was the Lord of Aquila who was the idol of the Babbianians. What, then, more natural than that the conspirators should have sought to place him on the throne they proposed to wrest from Gian Maria? He dubbed himself a fool that he had not guessed so much before. "Let him down," he curtly bade his men. "Then take him hence, and let him go with God. He has served his purpose." Gently they lowered him, but when his feet touched the ground he was unable to stand. His legs doubled under him, and he lay--a little crook-backed heap--upon the rushes of the floor. His senses had deserted him. At a sign from Armstadt the two men picked him up and carried him out between them. Gian Maria moved across the room to a tapestried priedieu, and knelt down before an ivory crucifix to render thanks to God for the signal light of grace, by which He had vouchsafed to show the Duke his enemy. Thereafter, drawing from the breast of his doublet a chaplet of gold and amber beads, he piously discharged his nightly devotions. CHAPTER X. THE BRAYING OF AN ASS When on the morrow, towards the twenty-second hour, the High and Mighty Gian Maria Sforza rode into his capital at Babbiano, he found the city in violent turmoil, occasioned, as he rightly guessed, by the ominous presence of Caesar Borgia's envoy. A dense and sullen crowd met him at the Porta Romana, and preserved a profound silence as he rode into the city, accompanied by Alvari and Santi, and surrounded by his escort of twenty spears in full armour. There was a threat in that silence more ominous than any vociferations, and very white was the Duke's face as he darted scowls of impotent anger this way and that. But there was worse to come. As they rode up the Borgo dell' Annunziata the crowd thickened, and the silence was now replaced by a storm of hooting and angry cries. The people became menacing, and by Armstadt's orders--the Duke was by now too paralysed with fear to issue any--the men-at-arms lowered their pikes in order to open a way, whilst one or two of the populace, who were thrust too near the cavalcade by the surging human tide, went down and were trampled under foot. Satirical voices asked the Duke derisively was he wed, and where might be his uncle-in-law's spears that were to protect them against the Borgia. Some demanded to know whither the last outrageous levy of taxes was gone, and where was the army it should have served to raise. To this, others replied for the Duke, suggesting a score of vile uses to which the money had been put. Then, of a sudden, a cry of "Murderer!" arose, followed by angry demands that he should restore life to the valiant Ferrabraccio, to Amerini, the people's friend, and to those others whom he had lately butchered, or else follow them in death. Lastly the name of the Count of Aquila rang wildly in his ears, provoking a storm of "Evviva! Live Francesco del Falco!" and one persistent voice, sounding loudly above the others, styled him already "il Duca Francesco." At that the blood mounted to Gian Maria's brain, and a wave of anger beat back the fear from his heart. He rose in his stirrups, his eyes ablaze with the jealous wrath that possessed him. "Ser Martino!" he roared hoarsely to his captain. "Couch lances and go through them at the gallop!" The burly Swiss hesitated, brave man though he was. Alvaro de' Alvari and Gismondo Santi looked at each other in alarm, and the intrepid old statesman, in whose heart no pang of fear had been awakened by the rabble's threatening bay, changed colour as he heard that order given. "Highness," he implored the Duke, "You cannot mean this." "Not mean it?" flashed back Gian Maria, his eye travelling from Santi to the hesitating captain. "Fool!" he blazed at the latter. "Brute beast, for what do you wait? Did you not hear me?" Without a second's delay the captain now raised his sword, and his deep, guttural voice barked an order to his men which brought their lances below the horizontal. The mob, too, had heard that fierce command, and awakening to their peril, those nearest the cavalcade would have fallen back but that the others, pressing tightly from behind, held them in the death-tide that now swept by with clattering arms and hoarse cries. Shrieks filled the air where lately threats had been loudly tossed. But some there were in that crowd that would be no passive witnesses of this butchery. Half the stones of the borgo went after that cavalcade, and fell in a persistent shower upon them, rattling like giant hail upon their armour, dinting many a steel-cap to its wearer's sore discomfort. The Duke himself was struck twice, and on Santi's unprotected scalp an ugly wound was opened from which the blood flowed in profusion to dye his snowy locks. In this undignified manner they reached, at last, the Palazzo Ducale, leaving a trail of dead and maimed to mark the way by which they had come. In a white heat of passion Gian Maria sought his apartments, and came not forth again until, some two hours later, the presence was announced him of the emissary from Caesar Borgia, Duke of Valentinois, who sought an audience. Still beside himself, and boiling with wrath at the indignities he had received, Gian Maria--in no mood for an interview that would have demanded coolness and presence of mind from a keener brain than his--received the envoy, a gloomy, priestly-faced Spaniard, in the throne-room of the Palace. The Duke was attended by Alvari, Santi, and Fabrizio da Lodi, whilst his mother, Caterina Colonna, occupied a chair of crimson velvet on which the Sforza lion was wrought in gold. The interview was brief, and marked by a rudeness at its close that contrasted sharply with the ceremoniousness of its inception. It soon became clear that the ambassador's true mission was to pick a quarrel with Babbiano on his master's behalf, to the end that the Borgia might be afforded a sound pretext for invading the Duchy. He demanded, at first politely and calmly, and later--when denied--with arrogant insistance, that Gian Maria should provide the Duke of Valentinois with a hundred lances--equivalent to five hundred men--as some contribution on his part towards the stand which Caesar Borgia meant to make against the impending French invasion. Gian Maria never heeded the restraining words which Lodi whispered in his ear, urging him to temporise, and to put off this messenger until the alliance with the house of Urbino should be complete and their position strengthened sufficiently to permit them to brave the anger of Caesar Borgia. But neither this nor the wrathful, meaning glances which his cunning mother bent upon him served to curb him. He obeyed only the voice of his headstrong mood, never dreaming of the consequences with which he might be visited. "You will bear |