The Shame of Motley

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This etext was produced by John Stuart Middleton

The Shame of Motley
Being the Memoir of Certain Transactions in the Life of Lazzaro
Biancomonte, of Biancomonte, sometime Fool of the Court of Pesaro.

by Rafael Sabatini

CONTENTS

PART I

FLOWER OF THE QUINCE

CHAPTER

I. THE CARDINAL OF VALENCIA

II. THE LIVERIES OF SANTAFIOR

III. MADONNA PAOLA

IV. THE COZENING OF RAMIRO

V. MADONNA'S INGRATITUDE

VI. FOOL'S LUCK

VII. THE SUMMONS FROM ROME

VIII. "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN"

IX. THE FOOL-AT-ARMS

X. THE FALL OF PESARO

PART II

THE OGRE OF CESENA

XI. MADONNA'S SUMMONS

XII. THE GOVERNOR OF CESENA

XIII. POISON

XIV. REQUIESCAT!

XV. AN ILL ENCOUNTER

XVI. IN THE CITADEL OF CESENA

XVII. THE SENESCHAL

XVIII. THE LETTER

XIX. DOOMED

XX. THE SUNSET

XXI. AVE CAESAR!

PART I

FLOWER OF THE QUINCE

CHAPTER I

THE CARDINAL OF VALENCIA

For three days I had been cooling my heels about the Vatican, vexed by
suspense. It fretted me that I should have been so lightly dealt with
after I had discharged the mission that had brought me all the way from
Pesaro, and I wondered how long it might be ere his Most Illustrious
Excellency the Cardinal of Valencia might see fit to offer me the
honourable employment with which Madonna Lucrezia had promised me that he
would reward the service I had rendered the House of Borgia by my
journey.

Three days were sped, yet nought had happened to signify that things
would shape the course by me so ardently desired; that the means would
be afforded me of mending my miserable ways, and repairing the wreck my
life had suffered on the shoals of Fate. True, I had been housed and
fed, and the comforts of indolence had been mine; but, for the rest, I
was still clothed in the livery of folly which I had worn on my arrival,
and, wherever I might roam, there followed ever at my heels a crowd of
underlings, seeking to have their tedium lightened by jests and capers,
and voting me--when their hopes proved barren--the sorriest Fool that had
ever worn the motley.

On that third day I speak of, my patience tried to its last strand, I had
beaten a lacquey with my hands, and fled from the cursed gibes his
fellows aimed at me, out into the misty gardens and the chill January
air, whose sting I could, perhaps, the better disregard by virtue of the
heat of indignation that consumed me. Was it ever to be so with me?
Could nothing lift the curse of folly from me, that I must ever be a
Fool, and worse, the sport of other fools?

It was there on one of the terraces crowning the splendid heights above
immortal Rome that Messer Gianluca found me. He greeted me courteously;
I answered with a snarl, deeming him come to pursue the plaguing from
which I had fled.

"His Most Illustrious Excellency the Cardinal of Valencia is asking for
you, Messer Boccadoro," he announced. And so despairing had been my mood
of ever hearing such a summons that, for a moment, I accounted it some
fresh jest of theirs. But the gravity of his fat countenance reassured
me.

"Let us go, then," I answered with alacrity, and so confident was I that
the interview to which he bade me was the first step along the road to
better fortune, that I permitted myself a momentary return to the Fool's
estate from which I thought myself on the point of being for ever freed.

"I shall use the interview to induce his Excellency to submit a tenth
beatitude to the approval of our Holy Father: Blessed are the bearers of
good tidings. Come on, Messer the seneschal."

I led the way, in my impatience forgetful of his great paunch and little
legs, so that he was sorely tried to keep pace with me. Yet who would
not have been in haste, urged by such a spur as had I? Here, then, was
the end of my shameful travesty. To-morrow a soldier's harness should
replace the motley of a jester; the name by which I should be known again
to men would be that of Lazzaro Biancomonte, and no longer Boccadoro--the
Fool of the golden mouth.

Thus much had Madonna Lucrezia's promises led me to expect, and it was
with a soul full of joyous expectation that I entered the great man's
closet.

He received me in a manner calculated to set me at my ease, and yet there
was about him a something that overawed me. Cesare Borgia, Cardinal of
Valencia, was then in his twenty-third year, for all that there hung
about him the semblance of a greater age, just as his cardinalitial robes
lent him the appearance of a height far above the middle stature that was
his own. His face was pale and framed in a silky auburn beard; his nose
was aquiline and strong; his eyes the keenest that I have ever seen; his
forehead lofty and intelligent. He seemed pervaded by an air of feverish
restlessness, something surpassing the vivida vis animi, something that
marked him to discerning eyes for a man of incessant action of body and
of mind.

"My sister tells me," he said in greeting, "that you are willing to take
service under me, Messer Biancomonte."

"Such was the hope that guided me to Rome, Most Excellent," I answered
him.

Surprise flashed into his eyes, and was gone as quickly as it had come.
His thin lips parted in a smile, whose meaning was inscrutable.

"As some reward for the safe delivery of the letter you brought me from
her?" he questioned mildly.

"Precisely, Illustrious," I answered in all frankness.

His open hand smote the table of wood-mosaics at which he sat.

"Praised be Heaven!" he cried. "You seem to promise that I shall have in
you a follower who deals in truth."

"Could your Excellency, to whom my real name is known, expect ought else
of one who bears it--however unworthily?"

There was amusement in his glance.

"Can you still swagger it, after having worn that livery for three
years?" he asked, and his lean forefinger pointed at my hideous motley of
red and black and yellow.

I flushed and hung my head, and--as if to mock that very expression of my
shame--the bells on my cap gave forth a silvery tinkle at the movement.

"Excellency, spare me," I murmured. "Did you know all my miserable story
you would be merciful. Did you know with what joy I turned my back on
the Court of Pesaro--"

"Aye," he broke in mockingly, "when Giovanni Sforza threatened to have
you hanged for the overboldness of your tongue. Not until then did it
occur to you to turn from the shameful life in which the best years of
your manhood were being wasted. There! Just now I commended your
truthfulness; but the truth that dwells in you is no more, it seems,
than the truth we may look for in the mouth of Folly. At heart, I fear,
you are a hypocrite, Messer Biancomonte; the worst form of hypocrite--a
hypocrite to your own self."

"Did your Excellency know all!" I cried.

"I know enough," he answered, with stern sorrow; "enough to make me
marvel that the son of Ettore Biancomonte of Biancomonte should play
the Fool to Costanzo Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Oh you will tell me that
you went there for revenge, to seek to right the wrong his father did
your father."

"It was, it was!" I cried, with heated vehemence. "Be flames everlasting
the dwelling of my soul if any other motive drove me to this shameful
trade."

There was a pause. His beautiful eyes flamed with a sudden light as
they rested on me. Then the lids drooped demurely, and he drew a deep
breath. But when he spoke there was scorn in his voice.

"And, no doubt, it was that same motive kept you there, at peace for
three whole years, in slothful ease, the motleyed Fool, jesting and
capering for his enemy's delectation--you, a man with the knightly memory
of your foully-wronged parent to cry hourly shame upon you. No doubt you
lacked the opportunity to bring the tyrant to account. Or was it that
you were content to let him make a mock of you so long as he housed and
fed you and clothed you in your garish livery of shame?

"Spare me, Excellency," I cried again. "Of your charity let my past be
done with. When he drove me forth with threats of hanging, from which
your gracious sister saved me, I turned my steps to Rome at her bidding
to--"

"To find honourable employment at my hands," he interrupted quietly.
Then suddenly rising, and speaking in a voice of thunder--"And what,
then, of your revenge?" he cried.

"It has been frustrated," I answered lamely. "Sufficient do I account
the ruin that already I have wrought in my life by the pursuit of that
phantom. I was trained to arms, my lord. Let me discard for good these
tawdry rags, and strap a soldier's harness to my back."

"How came you to journey hither thus?" he asked, suddenly turning the
subject.

"It was Madonna Lucrezia's wish. She held that my errand would be safer
so, for a Fool may travel unmolested."

He nodded that he understood, and paced the chamber with bowed head. For
a spell there was silence, broken only by the soft fall of his slippered
feet and the swish of his silken purple. At last he paused before me and
looked up into my face--for I was a good head taller than he was. His
fingers combed his auburn beard, and his beautiful eyes were full on
mine.

"That was a wise precaution of my sister's," he approved. "I will take a
lesson from her in the matter. I have employment for you, Messer
Biancomonte."

I bowed my head in token of my gratitude.

"You shall find me diligent and faithful, my lord," I promised him.

"I know it," he sniffed, "else should I not employ you."

He turned from me, and stepped back to his table. He took up a package,
fingered it a moment, then dropped it again, and shot me one of his quiet
glances.

"That is my answer to Madonna Lucrezia's letter," he said slowly, his
voice as smooth as silk, "and I desire that you shall carry it to Pesaro
for me, and deliver it safely and secretly into her hands."

I could do no more than stare at him. It seemed as if my mind were
stricken numb.

"Well?" he asked at last; and in his voice there was now a suggestion of
steel beneath the silk. "Do you hesitate?"

"And if I do," I answered, suddenly finding my voice, "I do no more than
might a bolder man. How can I, who am banned by punishment of death,
contrive to penetrate again into the Court of Pesaro and reach the Lady
Lucrezia?"

"That is a matter that I shall leave to the shrewd wit which all Italy
says is the heritage of Boccadoro, the Prince of Fools. Does the task
daunt you?" His glance and voice were alike harsh.

In very truth it did, and I told him so, but in the terms which the
shrewd wit he said was mine dictated.

"I hesitate, my lord, indeed; but more because I fear the frustration of
your own ends--whatever they may be--than because I dread to earn a
broken neck by again adventuring into Pesaro. Would not some other
messenger--unknown at the Court of Giovanni Sforza--be in better case to
acquit himself of such a task?

"Yes, if I had one I could trust," he answered frankly.

"I will be open with you, Biancomonte. There are such grave matters at
issue, there are such secrets confided to that paper, that I would not
for a kingdom, not for our Holy Father's triple crown, that they should
fall into alien hands."

He approached me again, and his slender hand, upon which the sacred
amethyst was glowing, fell lightly on my shoulder. He lowered his voice
"You are the man, the one man in Italy, whose interests are bound up with
mine in this; therefore are you the one man to whom I can entrust that
package."

"I?" I gasped in amazement--as well I might, for what interests had
Boccadoro, the Fool, in common with Cesare Borgia, Cardinal of Valencia?

"You," he answered vehemently, "you, Lazzaro Biancomonte of Biancomonte,
whose father Costanzo of Pesaro stripped of his domains. The matters in
those papers mean the ruin of the Lord of Pesaro. We are all but ripe to
strike at him from Rome and when we strike he shall be so disfigured by
the blow that all Italy shall hold its sides to laugh at the sorry figure
he will cut. I would not say so much to any other living man but you and
if I tell it you it is because I need your aid."

"The lion and mouse," I murmured.

"Why yes, if you will."

"And this man is the husband of your sister!" I exclaimed, almost
involuntarily.

"Does that imply a doubt of what I have said?" he flashed, his head
thrown back, his brows drawn suddenly together.

"No, no," I hastened to assure him. He smiled softly.

"Maddonna Lucrezia knows all--or nearly all. Of what else she may need to
learn, that letter will inform her. It is the last thread, the last knot
needed, before we can complete the net in which we are to hold that
tyrant? Now, will you bear the letter?"

Would I bear it? Dear God! To achieve the end in view I would have
spent my remaining days in motley, making sport for grooms and kitchen
wenches. Some such answer did I make him, and he smiled his
satisfaction.

"You shall journey as you are," he bade me. "I am guided by my sister,
assured that the coat of a Fool is stouter protection than the best
hauberk ever tempered. When you have done your errand come you back to
me, and you shall have employment better suited to one who bears the name
of Biancomonte."

"You may depend upon me in this, my lord," I promised gravely. "I shall
not fail you."

"It is well" said he; and those wondrous eyes of his rested again upon my
face. "How soon can you set out?"

"At once, my lord. Does not the by-word say that a fool makes little
preparation for a journey?"

He nodded, and moved to a coffer, a beautiful piece of Venetian work in
ultramarine and gold. From this he took a heavy bag.

"There," said he, "you will find the best of all travelling companions."
I thanked him, and set the bag on the crook of my left arm, and by its
weight I knew how true he was to the notorious splendour of his race.
"And this," said he, "is a talisman that may serve to help you out of any
evil plight, and open many a door that you may find locked." And he
handed me a signet ring on which was graven the steer that is the emblem
of the House of Borgia.

He raised aloft the hand on which was glistening the sacred amethyst--two
fingers crooked and two erect. Wondering what this should mean, I stared
inquiry.

"Kneel," he bade me. And realising what he would be about, I sank on to
my knees whilst he murmured the Apostolic benediction over my bowed head.
The rushes of the floor were the only witnesses of the smile that crept
to my lips at this sudden assumption of his churchly office by that most
worldly prince.

CHAPTER II

THE LIVERIES OF SANTAFIOR

Such preparations as I had to make were soon complete.

Although it was agreed that I was to travel in the motley, yet, in my
lately-born shame of that apparel, I decided that I would conceal it as
best might be, revealing it only should the need arise. Moreover, it was
incumbent that I should afford myself more protection against the
inclement January night than that of my foliated cape, my crested cap and
silken hose. So, a black cloak, heavy and ample, a broad-brimmed hat,
and a pair of riding boots of untanned leather were my further equipment.
In the lining of one of those boots I concealed the Lord Cesare's
package; his money--some twenty ducats--I carried in a belt about my
waist, and his ring I set boldly on my finger.

Few moments did it need me to make ready, yet fewer, it seems, would the
Borgia impatience have had me employ; for scarce was I booted when
someone knocked at my door. I opened, and there entered a very mountain
of a man, whose corselet flashed back the yellow light of my tapers, as
might have done a mirror, and whose harsh voice barked out to ask if I
was ready.

I had had some former acquaintance with this fellow, having first met him
during the previous year, on the occasion of the Court of Pesaro's
sojourn at Rome. His name was Ramiro del' Orca, and throughout the Papal
army it stood synonymous for masterfulness and grim brutality. He was,
as I have said, an enormous man, of prodigious bodily strength, heavy,
yet of good proportions. Of his face one gathered the impression of a
blazing furnace. His cheeks and nose were of a vivid red, and still more
fiery was the hair, now hidden 'neath his morion, and the beard that
tapered to a dagger's point. His very eyes kept tune with the red
harmony of his ferocious countenance, for the whites were ever bloodshot
as a drunkard's--which, with no want of truth, men said he was.

"Come," grunted that fiery, self-sufficient vassal, "be stirring, sir
Fool. I have orders to see you to the gates. There is a horse ready
saddled for you. It is the Lord Cardinal's parting gift. Resolve me
now, which will be the greater ass--the one that rides, or the one that
is ridden?"

"O monstrous riddle!" I exclaimed, as I took up my cloak and hat. "Who
am I that I should solve it?"

"It baffles you, sir Fool?" quoth he.

"In very truth it does." I ruefully wagged my head so that my bells set
up a jangle. "For the rider is a man and the ridden a horse. But," I
pursued, in that back-biting strain, which is the very essence of the
jester's wit, "were you to make a trio of us, including Messer Ramiro
del' Orca, Captain in the army of his Holiness, no doubt would then
afflict me. I should never hesitate which of the three to pronounce the
ass."

"What shall that mean?" he asked, with darkening brows.

"That its meaning proves obscure to you confirms the verdict I was
hinting at," I taunted him. "For asses are notoriously of dull
perceptions." Then stepping forward briskly: "Come, sir," I sharply
urged him, "whilst we engage upon this pretty play of wit, his
Excellency's business waits, which is an ill thing. Where is this horse
you spoke of?"

He showed me his strong, white teeth in a very evil smile.

"Were it not for that same business--" he began.

"You would do fine things, I am assured," I interrupted him.

"Would I not?" he snarled. "By the Host! I should be wringing your pert
neck, or laying bare your bones with a thong of bullock-hide, you ill
conditioned Fool!"

I looked at him with pleasant, smiling eyes.

"You confirm the opinion that is popularly held of you," said I.

"What may that be?" quoth he, his eyes very evil. "In Rome, I'm told,
they call you hangman."

He growled in his throat like an angered cur, and his hands were jerked
to the level of his breast, the fingers bending talon-wise.

"Body of God!" he muttered fiercely, "I'll teach one fool, at least--"

"Let us cease these pleasantries, I entreat you," I laughed. "Saints
defend me! If your mood incline to raillery you'll find your match in
some lad of the stables. As for me, I have not the time, had I the will,
to engage you further. Let me remind you that I would be gone."

The reminder was well-timed. He bethought him of the journey I must go,
on which he was charged to see me safely started.

"Come on, then," he growled, in a white heat of passion that was only
curbed by the consideration of that slender, pale young cardinal, his
master.

Still, some of his rage he vented in roughly taking me by the collar of
my doublet, and dragging the almost headlong from the room, and so a-down
a flight of steps out into the courtyard. Meet treatment for a Fool--a
treatment to which time might have inured me; for had I not for three
years already been exposed to rough usage of this kind at the hands of
every man above the rank of groom? And had I once rebelled in act as I
did in soul, and used the strength wherewith God endowed me to punish my
ill-users, a whip would have reminded me into what sorry slavery had I
sold myself when I put on the motley.

It had been snowing for the past hour, and the ground was white in the
courtyard when we descended.

At our appearance there was a movement of serving-men and a fall of
hoofs, muffled by the snow. Some held torches that cast a ruddy glare
upon the all-encompassing whiteness, and a groom was leading forward the
horse that was destined to bear me. I donned my broad-brimmed hat, and
wrapped my cloak about me. Some murmurs of farewell caught my ears, from
those minions with whom I had herded during my three days at the Vatican.
Then Messer del' Orca thrust me forward.

"Mount, Fool, and be off," he rasped.

I mounted, and turned to him. He was a surly dog; if ever surly dog wore
human shape, and the shape was the only human thing about Captain Ramiro.

"Brother, farewell," I simpered.

"No brother of yours, Fool," snarled he.

"True--my cousin only. The fool of art is no brother to the fool of
nature."

"A whip!" he roared to his grooms. "Fetch me a whip."

I left him calling for it, as I urged my nag across the snow and over the
narrow drawbridge. Beyond, I stayed a moment to look over my shoulder.
They stood gazing after me, a group of some half-dozen men, looking black
against the whiteness of the ground. Behind them rose the brown walls of
the rocca illumined by the flare of torches, from which the smell of
rosin reached my nostrils as I paused. I waved my hat to them in token
of farewell, and digging my spurless heels into the flanks of my horse, I
ambled down through the biting wind and drifting snow, into the town.

The streets were deserted and dark, save for the ray that here fell from
a window, and there stole through the chink of a door to glow upon the
snow in earnest of the snug warmth within. Silence reigned, broken only
by the moan of the wind under the eaves, for although it was no more than
approaching the second hour of night, yet who but the wight whom
necessity compelled would be abroad in such weather?

All night I rode despite that weather's foulness--a foulness that might
have given pause to one whose haste to bear a letter was less attuned to
his own supreme desires.

Betimes next morning I paused at a small locanda on the road to Magliano,
and there I broke my fast and took some rest. My horse had suffered by
the journey more than had I, and I would have taken a fresh one at
Magliano, but there was none to be had--so they told me--this side of
Narni, wherefore I was forced to set out once more upon that poor jaded
beast that had carried me all night.

It was high noon when I came, at last, to Narni, the last league of the
journey accomplished at a walk, for my nag could go no faster. Here I
paused to dine, but here, again, they told me that no horses might be
had. And so, leading by the bridle the animal I dared no longer ride,
lest I should kill it outright, I entered the territory of Urbino on
foot, and trudged wearily amain through the snow that was some inches
deep by now. In this miserable fashion I covered the seven leagues, or
so, to Spoleto, where I arrived exhausted as night was falling.

There, at the Osteria del Sole, I supped and lay. I found a company of
gentlemen in the common-room, who upon espying my motley--when I had
thrown off my sodden cloak and hat--pressed me, willy-nilly, into amusing
them. And so I spent the night at my Fool's trade, giving them
drolleries from the works of Boccacci and Sacchetti--the horn-books of
all jesters.

I obtained a fresh horse next morning, and I set out betimes, intending
to travel with a better speed. The snow was thick and soft at first, but
as I approached the hills it grew more crisp. Overhead the sky was of an
unbroken blue, and for all that the air was sharp there was warmth in the
sunshine. All day I rode hard, and never rested until towards nightfall
I found myself on the spurs of the Apennines in the neighborhood of
Gualdo, the better half of my journey well-accomplished. The weather had
changed again at sunset. It was snowing anew, and the north wind was
howling like a choir of the damned.

Before me gleamed the lights of a little wayside tavern, and since it
might suit me better to lie there than to journey on to Gualdo, I drew
rein before that humble door, and got down from my wearied horse.
Despite the early hour the door was already barred, for the bedding of
travellers formed no part of the traffic of so lowly a house as this
nameless, wayside wine-shop. Theirs was a trade that ended with the
daylight. Nevertheless I was assured they could be made to find me a rag
of straw to lie on, and so I knocked boldly with my whip.

The taverner who opened for me, and stood a moment surveying me by the
light of the torch he held aloft, was a slim, mild-mannered man, not
over-clean. Behind him surged the figure of his wife; just such a woman
as you might look to find the mate of such a man: broad and tall of frame
and most scurvily cross-grained of face. It may well be that had he
bidden me welcome, she had driven me back into the night; but since he
made some demur when I asked for lodging, and protested that in his house
was but accommodation too rude to offer my magnificence, the woman thrust
him aside, and loudly bade me enter.

I obeyed her readily, hat on head and cloak about me, lest my interests
should suffer were my trade disclosed. I bade the man see to my horse,
and then escorted by the woman, I made my way to the single room above,
which, in obedience to my demand, she made haste to set at my
convenience.

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