The Ninth Man/Chapter 2

by Mary Heaton Vorse

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CHAPTER II

FOR three days he let us stew; under the mask of clemency, and of giving us time to learn the edict for which disobedience was the pain of death, Mazzaleone let suspense have its way with us. His heralds cried the edict out through the town; through each little street went the command that on the third day, that being a Friday, all of us, noble and simple, men and women, young and old, should walk before the loggia. And for this no explanation was given; the bare command stripped down to its bone, and nothing more, was the edict of Egidio Mazzaleone—and it seemed to us that it was as menacing and as lean as himself. Behind it we felt that terror was lurking. Some said he would butcher us one by one; others said that our leaders and great men only would be slaughtered before our eyes; and again there were those with higher imaginations who hinted at torture and burnings. That it meant no good to us none of us doubted.

Meantime not a house was thrown down nor occupied by the soldiers of Mazzaleone; all was left as it was found. The men-at-arms were as stern and yet as even as Mazzaleone himself. But there they were, the iron witnesses of our defeat, we who three times had been taken and three times had shaken off the yoke of Pisa—free men—and had more than once entered, victorious, through the gates of other cities, not counting the fortresses, the castelli, and intrenched strongholds—fiefs of the empire that we had made our own, one after another, forcing their nobles to become citizens of our own commune.

Now, while Mazzaleone's men patrolled us, we went about our business. The pot-houses were overrun and there was much quiet talking among the nobles. And, although we came and went unmolested, the people were not allowed to congregate in the streets or the piazza. He kept moving those who would stop to prattle, did Egidio Mazzaleone; and while we moved about we pondered upon the meaning of his edict until the hide of each one of us felt an uncomfortable itching, as though it already felt the prick of the sharpened sword.

The third day we had ceased to prattle so much; each man stayed more at home. The women wept and the men sat with their heads in their hands. A cold sort of fear plucked at the entrails of us, for it is one thing to go to your death smoking hot, your sword in your hand, and by chance have another man's sword thrust into you before you can at him, and another to march forth in the cold morning to have your throat slit.

In the morning of The Day we started forth early. I and a few of the other young scribes of the city had been sent for by Mazzaleone, and stood in the loggia to count the townsmen and tell their names—for what purpose I did not then know. It was a strange procession that came before our eyes—as odd a procession as ever any town witnessed, for there were our chief men and our nobles with their heads up; there were their ladies, and there were the poor of the town. Here a man who had missed a right hand for theft, and there an old woman hobbling on crutches, and children were there.

As I looked I saw that, spread like a mourning veil over the crowd, were those dressed in black, and I saw that it was our nobles who had been moved to do this, Mazzaleone sat in the loggia, his captains about him, and he saw it and smiled.

"This spectacle," I heard him say, "is more diverting and instructive than I thought."

And the captain behind him, to whom he spoke, answered:

"Small honor it seems to have taken such a town."

Indeed, as one looked down upon it it seemed that there were more old hags and women and children and pottering old men than aught else. Very different, indeed, from the time when all such were within-doors and our burghers and stout men-at-arms were out with their clanking swords by their sides.

So San Moglio walked along three abreast through a solid line of Mazzaleone's men. In the beginning, as they came close, I was told to count upon the ninth, and as the ninth came, small black ballots were given them, which they were told to keep. All came docilely. Pride made them come so in the case of our black-robed nobles; cold fear, some of our burghers.

 

IT WAS A STRANGE PROCESSION THAT CAME BEFORE OUR EYES

 

Only old Count Gervaise Deverti came protesting. It was he whom it had taken the commune three years to smoke out of his perch in Santa Croce, and during that time he sold his right in his castello for four thousand florins and later signed papers which were in my master's possession and which I saw with my own eyes, promising that he would not in any wise help his faithful vassals who fought for him three long years while he had sold and resold them. When no sign was left of Santa Croce, and his vassals came to live in the commonwealth, always he gave himself great airs at the resistance which he, solitary, had made against the town. With the bombast of his race he refused to go forth in the morning, whereupon the men of his own household trussed him up like an old turkey and brought him up squealing and gobbling.

He and a young Count Guido Mazzafini were all that made a disturbance that day. And for Guido it was a greater tragedy. He was a boy of sixteen, and his two brothers and his father had been killed in the fray, and when they led him forth he made resistance and blubbered with rage, and fought with the guards that held him. At the noise of him, Mazzaleone lifted his hand and said in his low voice that had the sound of a flicker of flame in it always:

"Stop the noise for me."

So they cut his throat, and the blood spouted up like that of a stuck pig. And they threw his body aside in the gutter. At that, though the house of Mazzafini was not beloved in the city, a murmur went through the crowd, the growl of a checked tiger, and at the same moment the short swords of Mazzaleone's men leaped forth from the scabbards and I could see them shining like the white hills above San Moglio when the sunlight strikes them.

At the glancing forth of the light of steel the murmur of our people died like distant thunder. All was tranquil again and the march went on as before, three by three, and each ninth man got his sinister ballot of black ebony. Then the heralds in the loggia gave tongue:

"Thus saith the most clement of conquerors, Mazzaleone! 'San Moglio shall go free for thirty days' time while he takes his much-needed rest among those who so warmly received him. Thirty days passed, he will depart and take no other toll of blood than this: Each ninth man shall designate secretly whom he wishes put to death in the public place. Thus shall San Moglio judge San Moglio.' "

There was silence. The simple and noble of the town stood as though death had struck them all. The heralds cried again—and again cried into the silence of our amazement. Then again, and still we moved not, we spoke not, but a sigh swept us like wind in the olives. And there was no sound but the heralds accompanied by men-at-arms making their way out to the four quarters of San Moglio.

Then suddenly a gray-haired hag, who to see better had climbed the wrought-iron fountain near the loggia, raised her lean arms above her head and laughed and laughed and still laughed. Revenge was in her laugh, and relief, and she waved her clenched fists in air and laughed her hideous relief and her hideous revenge, and then a very pandemonium of joy broke from that silent crowd.

Strangers embraced. The spell of fear was broken, so they shouted and howled together, except certain of our greatest, who slunk away ashamed, while in their hearts they echoed the words I heard Mazzaleone speak gently to one of his captains:

"The love of life, Hugolino, is a foul thing."