Little Novels of Italy/The Duchess of Nona/Chapter 3
III
MARKET COVERT
They made Rome a day or two after that little tender and exchange of vows, having disembarked amid a crowd of clamorous Amilcares in rags—she could see some dear trait of him in each; trailed across the bleached marches (with the Sabine Hills like a blue hem beyond); caught the sun at Cervetri, and entered the dusty town by the Porta Cavalleggieri on one of those beaten white noons when the shadows look to be cut out of ebony, and the wicked old walls forbidden to keep still. The very dust seems alive, quivering and restless under heat. St. Peter's church, smothered in rush mats, was a-building, the marble blocks had the vivid force of lightning; two or three heretic friars were being hailed by the Ponte Sant' Angelo to a burning in the Vatican; Molly was almost blind, had a headache, a back-ache, and a heart-ache. Amilcare, who had fallen in with a party of lancers by the way, had ridden for a league or two in vehement converse with their lieutenant. To him there seemed more to say than ever to her. She felt hurt and wanted to cry.
At their inn they learned the news—that is, Amilcare learned it, for Molly was languishing upon a bed, forgotten and mercifully forgetting. Pretty news it was. Don Cesare, it appeared, had stabbed the Duke of Gandia, his brother, three nights ago, and thrown him into the Tiber. The body had only been fished out yesterday; it had nine wounds in it, including one in the throat big enough to put your fist in. It was a sieve, not a body: perforated! His Holiness? Ah, he could be heard even here, howling in the Vatican, like a bitch in an empty house. Don Cesare was in hiding, reported at Foligno. To-morrow there was to be a Holy Conclave—all the Cardinals. God knew what Alexander had or had not in his mind, the conscience-stricken old dog. It was known what he had not in his house, at least. Vannozza had been thrice refused admission; so also La Bella Lucrezia. Think of it!
This was very grave news to Amilcare's private ear. Cesare was his deadly enemy, the one man he honestly feared; the one man, consequently, he wanted to meet. He was still brooding over it when the broad-backed butcher they call Il Drudo slammed him on the back.
"Fortune is with you, Passavente—the slut! She gives you time to breathe. The Borgia had a sinking of the stomach; he hankered after a filling of Lombard sausage a little while since. Gandia cut in, and Cesare cut in, per Bacco! But mark my words, Amilcare, the appetite will return. You will have the Duke in your March before many days. Therefore my advice to you is—Avoid Foligno; fortify Nona."
Amilcare looked his man in the face. "And my advice to myself, Galeotto, is—Seek Foligno, and so fortify Nona. Addio." He went out like a man who has found his way.
"Now, what the devil did the fellow mean by that?" cried Il Drudo, with his thick fingers out.
"Devilry expresses it," said a sly secretary in black.
Molly in dreams, soft as a child and glossy with sleep, looked too beautiful for a disturbing hand to dare anything that night. It would have been the act of a brute, not Amilcare's act. In small things he was all gentleness. He crept into bed like a cat, fearful of waking her, and next morning contrived, by a fit of coughing, to waken her no more than half. The rest he did by methods equally adroit, until by imperceptible degrees she learned that Rome might give no ease to her feet. He had her in the saddle and all the baggage-mules away an hour after the sun.
Arrived at Foligno, he found that his great enemy was at sanctuary in the Convent of Olivet, biting his nails in a red fume there. Hidden behind spires of cypress, Olivet stood outside the walls, a sun-dyed white building deep under brown eaves. Cesare, it was reported, was quite alone with his moods, now consumed by fidgety remorse for what he might have lost in his brother's blood, now confident and inclined to blusterous hilarity, now shuddering under an obsession of nerves. In any guise he was dangerous, but worst of all when the black fit of suspicion was upon him. So he now seemed; for being told who waited upon him, he refused point-blank to see anybody. Amilcare, at the door, heard his "Vattene, vattene! Non seccami!" ("Out, out! Don't pester me!") rocking down the dim passages of the house; and Molly, whom this sudden new expedition had bereft of what wit she had, turned pale to hear the roaring beast.
"Ah, love, love, love, let us run away! I like not this empty place," whimpered the girl, holding her husband's arm; but he gently removed her hand, kissed it, and held it.
"Courage, dear one; I shall be by thy side. Much depends upon this adventure," he urged in fervent whispers, knowing how much to a tittle.
To the monk who came out, distended with Cesare's explosives, he addressed himself in a vernacular too fluid for Molly to catch up.
"I pray you, reverend brother, recommend me yet once more to the feet of his Resplendency, saying that not I alone supplicate his favours. Add that I have with me, to present, my most beautiful wife, that she may assure him with her own lips how very much she is his slave."
The pantomime of piteous beseeching hands, of eyebrows exquisitely arched, told more than his words. They showed to a hair's breadth how far he expected, how far was prepared, to tempt his customer. No pedlar before a doorful of girls' sidelong heads could more deftly have marketed his wares. The monk, too, sidled his head; he pursed his mouth, furrowed with a finger in his dewlap, tried to appraise the wares. But to allow this would have been to forestall the market.
"Ah, for love of the saints, go, my brother!" he was entreated, with gentle persistence; and so worked upon, he waddled away.
Amilcare let fall a hearty sigh, and considered Molly with anxiety. He had not dared to say a word to her of what her entertainer was, or what her part should be. Premeditation might throw her out of balance, conscious art might exhibit her a scheming courtesan; just in her artlessness lay all her magic. No, no; he trusted her. She was still adorably English—witness her on the ship! He could see how she would do, how the sight would ravish him, lover as he was; for the rest, he must trust to his early calculations. Yes! he was ready to stake everything upon this move. The Borgia would be at her feet: so at his feet also. Oh, wise, wise Amilcare!
"His Eminence the Duke will receive your Lordship," said the returning monk, and turned once more to lead the way.
"My saint, my lamb, my meek burnished dove!" breathed Amilcare in a glow, and pressed her to his heart behind the frate's broad back.
Cesare, magnificently tawny in black velvet, was in a window, raking with a white hand at his beard, a prey evidently to cross-tides of fever. When his visitors were announced he looked sharply round; but Molly was hooded, her face deep in the shade. Of Passavente he had not the slightest concern. That hero was prostrate, bowing and chattering, and explaining with his hands.
Molly stayed twittering by the door, wonderful because she saw her King of Men cringing like a footboy before a shorter than himself. True, it was case of a duke; but she had not known such dealings in Wapping. There men doffed caps to my Lord or his Grace; they gave and took their due, but did not writhe on the floor. And then this particular duke's blockish inattention to what her lord was saying filled her with concern. There he leaned, and there he looked out of window at the twinkling acacias, and there he picked his beard. Amilcare's tact must have deserted him, since he could let this simple slave turn critic. But the part, in any case, was difficult. Presently the Duke threw him a hasty phrase, a sort of pish, man! which cut him off in the midst of a period, and walked towards Molly in the doorway. Amilcare flew before on tenterhooks. Cesare came graciously on—it was curious to see how his face had cleared. Molly dropped a curtsy, covering herself closer with a hand at the hood's tie. Cesare showed his teeth, held out both his hands. Passavente, with a displaying air full of alacrity and deference, unveiled his wife, and she went forward to greet his Grace.
She had been uncovered as by a dealer, but even so thrilled to feel his touch upon her shoulders, and showed herself blushing with the emotion, lovelier for love. Cesare was really startled to see how vividly beautiful she was; but, with more command of himself than the other trafficker, was careful not to show it. He smiled yet more sunnily; his words were some pleasant, friendly compliment. Molly, guessing it so, came nearer, took his open hands, and put up her face for his kiss. Cæsar Borgia took a deep breath before he accepted of the rest. Then he did kiss her, twice. He was ridiculously pleased, very much in confusion for a little while. Since he could say nothing and she had nothing to say, the pair of them stood hand-clasped, smiling, dim-eyed and red in the face, like two glad children—Amilcare, anxious mothering hen, clucking about them. The Duke, having recovered himself, murmured some courtesy, and led his captive to a seat in the window. His half-dozen English words and her six Italian, his readiness, her simplicity, put matters on a friendly footing: very soon Molly was chattering like a school-girl. Cesare was enchanted; he recovered his gaiety, forgot his bloody hands, his anxieties, schemes, fret at inaction. He ordered a meal to be served at once, kept Molly close to his side, heaped her plate, pledged her in wine. He went so far as to forget all common precautions and eat whatsoever was put before him.
Be sure Amilcare missed nothing. He saw all, perhaps more than all: he was used to deal with men. Thought he to himself, "Hey! If this was my house of Nona, amico, and the time six months hence, you would sleep where you supped." But Cesare had no thought of Amilcare until the end. Then he clapped him on the shoulder.
"My Passavente," he cried, "you have gone far on your pearl-fishing and dived deeper than most of us, but by our hope of salvation you have found a jewel of price! And ah, Madonna," he said, with his burning eyes on the girl, "you have brought the sun into Italy. You shall be called Principessa della Pace, who heal all sorrow and strife by the light of your face."
"I humbly thank your Grace," said Molly, very grateful; but Amilcare dropped upon one knee.
"Splendour," says he, "deign to visit our poor house in Nona, if you would learn what willing service is."
"My friend, be sure of me," said the Borgia, and meant it. "Do you bid me come, Princess?" His looks ate her up.
Molly hung her head. "I shall in all things serve your Grace," said she, with a curtsy. She kissed him again, and then Amilcare took her away.
The Borgia wrote sonnets that night.
"Mollavella, pearl of ladies," whispered her ardent husband, when they were on the North Road and in the thick of the violet Roman night, "never have I felt such joy in you as this day." He looked up at the massed company of the stars. "Fiery in all that galaxy, yonder I see my own star!" he cried in a transport. "Behold, it points us dead to the North. O Star, lit by a star! 'Tis you have set it burning clear, my glorious Princess."
"Dearest heart, I shall die of love," sighed swooning Molly, out of herself at such praise. "But indeed I have done little enough for you as yet."
"More than you think, or can dream," he answered, and spoke truly; for the girl saw nothing in their late visit but a civility done to a great lord.
"If the Duke comes to Nona, Amilcare, I will try to put him at his ease," she said after a little.
"Try, try, dear soul; it is all that I wish."
"He seemed not so to me when first we went to him, Amilcare."
Amilcare shrugged. "Eh, per la Madonna—!" he began, as who should say, "Being known for his brother's butcher, how should he be?" But he stayed in time. "He has many enemies," he added quietly.