第96章 THE NIGHT OF HATE(1)

THE MURDER OF THE DUKE OF GANDIA

The Cardinal Vice-Chancellor took the packet proffered him by the fair-haired, scarlet-liveried page, and turned it over, considering it, the gentle, finely featured, almost ascetic face very thoughtful.

"It was brought, my lord, by a man in a mask, who will give no name.

He waits below," said the scarlet stripling.

"A man in a mask, eh? What mystery!"

The thoughtful brown eyes smiled, the fine hands broke the fragment of wax. A gold ring fell out and rolled some little way along the black and purple Eastern rug. The boy dived after it, and presented it to his lordship.

The ring bore an escutcheon, and the Cardinal found graven upon this escutcheon his own arms the Sforza lion and the flower of the quince.

Instantly those dark, thoughtful eyes of his grew keen as they flashed upon the page.

"Did you see the device?" he asked, a hint of steel under the silkiness of his voice.

"I saw nothing, my lord - a ring, no more. I did not even look."The Cardinal continued to ponder him for a long moment very searchingly.

"Go - bring this man," he said at last; and the boy departed, soon to reappear; holding aside the tapestry that masked the door to give passage to a man of middle height wrapped in a black cloak, his face under a shower of golden hair, covered from chin to brow by a black visor.

At a sign from the Cardinal the page departed. Then the man, coming forward, let fall his cloak, revealing a rich dress of close-fitting violet silk, sword and dagger hanging from his jewelled girdle; he plucked away the mask, and disclosed the handsome, weak face of Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro and Cotignola, the discarded husband of Madonna Lucrezia, Pope Alexander's daughter.

The Cardinal considered his nephew gravely, without surprise. He had expected at first no more than a messenger from the owner of that ring. But at sight of his figure and long, fair hair he had recognized Giovanni before the latter had removed his mask.

"I have always accounted you something mad," said the Cardinal softly. "But never mad enough for this. What brings you to Rome?""Necessity, my lord," replied the young tyrant. "The need to defend my honour, which is about to be destroyed.""And your life?" wondered his uncle. "Has that ceased to be of value?""Without honour it is nothing."

"A noble sentiment taught in every school. But for practical purposes - " The Cardinal shrugged.

Giovanni, however, paid no heed.

"Did you think, my lord, that I should tamely submit to be a derided, outcast husband, that I should take no vengeance upon, that villainous Pope for having made me a thing of scorn, a byword throughout Italy?" Livid hate writhed in his fair young face. "Did you think I should, indeed, remain in Pesaro, whither I fled before their threats to my life, and present no reckoning?""What is the reckoning you have in mind?" inquired his uncle, faintly ironical. "You'll not be intending to kill the Holy Father?""Kill him?" Giovanni laughed shortly, scornfully. "Do the dead suffer?""In hell, sometimes," said the Cardinal.

"Perhaps. But I want to be sure. I want sufferings that I can witness, sufferings that I can employ as balsam for my own wounded honour. I shall strike, even as he has stricken me - at his soul, not at his body. I shall wound him where he is most sensitive."Ascanio Sforza, towering tall and slender in his scarlet robes, shook his head slowly.

"All this is madness - madness! You were best away, best in Pesaro.

Indeed, you cannot safely show your face in Rome.""That is why I go masked. That is why I come to you, my lord, for shelter here until - ""Here?" The Cardinal was instantly alert. "Then you think I am as mad as yourself. Why, man, if so much as a whisper of your presence in Rome got abroad, this is the first place where they would look nor you. If you will have your way, if you are so set on the avenging of past wrongs and the preventing of future ones, it is not for me, your kinsman, to withstand you. But here in my palace you cannot stay, for your own safety's sake. That page who brought you, now; I would not swear he did not see the arms upon your ring. I pray that he did not. But if he did, your presence is known here already."Giovanni was perturbed.

"But if not here, where, then, in Rome should I be safe?""Nowhere, I think," answered the ironical Ascanio. "Though perhaps you might count yourself safe with Pico. Your common hate of the Holy Father should be a stout bond between you."Fate prompted the suggestion. Fate drove the Lord of Pesaro to act upon it, and to seek out Antonio Maria Pico, Count of Mirandola, in his palace by the river, where Pico, as Ascanio had foreseen, gave him a cordial welcome.

There he abode almost in hiding until the end of May, seldom issuing forth, and never without his mask - a matter this which excited no comment, for masked faces were common in the streets of Rome in the evening of the fifteenth century. In talk with Pico he set forth his intent, elaborating what already he had told the Cardinal Vice-Chancellor.

"He is a father - this Father of Fathers," he said once. "A tender, loving father whose life is in his children, who lives through them and for them. Deprive him of them, and his life would become empty, worthless, a living death. There is Giovanni, who is as the apple of his eye, whom he has created Duke of Gandia, Duke of Benevento, Prince of Sessa, Lord of Teano, and more besides. There is the Cardinal of Valencia, there is Giuffredo, Prince of Squillace, and there is my wife, Lucrezia, of whom he has robbed me. There is, you see, an ample heel to our Achilles. The question is, where shall we begin?""And also, how," Pico reminded him.

Fate was to answer both those questions, and that soon.

They went on June 1st - the Lord of Pesaro, with his host and his host's daughter, Antonia - to spend the day at Pico's vineyard in Trastevere. At the moment of setting out to return to Rome in the evening the Count was detained by his steward, newly returned from a journey with matters to communicate to him.