Romance of Roman Villas Part 22

Murat sprang up instantly.

"Paulette, is it you?"

"It is I. O mon Dieu; how you have changed! but we heard you were killed. Thank G.o.d, that is not true."

"I am beaten, which is worse," he said bitterly. "You were right, you see, quite right, all is lost--why do you not say 'I told you so'?"

"No," she exclaimed, "all is not lost. Go at once to Napoleon, confess your error, and atone for it."

"He will never forgive me," Murat replied; "and why should he, with his army of three hundred thousand men and an Imperial Guard of forty thousand chosen veterans? What have I to offer him? My troops have deserted me. I have nothing to fight with and nothing for which to fight."

"My brother needs you," the Princess insisted. "He may have soldiers enough, but he knows there is no such leader of cavalry in all the world as you, and he is about to engage in a crucial struggle with Wellington.

You have your marvellous leaders.h.i.+p to offer. You say you have nothing to fight for. Think of your honour, and of Caroline."

"Ah! I had forgotten her, poor child. I will do as you say, Paulette.

You have the brains of your family in your little head. Perhaps that is the reason the good G.o.d made Caroline more attractive. Well, one more fight for her sake, and she shall thank you for it. I shall get to Naples in some way, then by sea to Ma.r.s.eilles, and then to Napoleon."

"Good!" cried the Princess. "Did you find your horse in the stables? I gave orders to have him well cared for until you claimed him. I have brought a disguise and arms and money. Now, off with you, for I can waste no more time. Ah! how much we have already wasted, Joachim, in this mad pursuit of ambition, when only love was worth the while. My sister will rejoice to retire with you to private life and to know of my happiness, for Camillo is waiting for me at Rome, and all the cruel misunderstanding is over!"

Thus ended Celio Benvoglio's dragon-service, for the Prince, forced either to overhear or interrupt the foregoing conversation, had fortunately chosen the former alternative. And here, perchance, should the story end, for the after-history of Joachim Murat is a tragical addendum to that happy denouement.

Pauline overestimated her brother's magnanimity, Napoleon coldly refused the profferred services of his brother-in-law, confessing afterwards that this implacability lost him the battle of Waterloo, for Ney could not equal Murat in his skilful manoeuvring of horse.

Murat, desperate, took refuge in Corsica, where he raised a little band of two hundred and fifty men, and landed near Naples, believing that his old troops would rally to his standard. Indifferent, or perhaps unable to help him, they abandoned him to his fate.

He faced his executioners with unbandaged eyes and himself gave the order to fire.

According to the account of an eye-witness, he first kissed the miniature of his wife, which he carried within the case of his watch, and with the request, "Spare my face," directed the aim of the soldiers to his breast.

Their firmness did not equal his own, and he was obliged to twice give the command before it was obeyed.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VII

THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE BRANDISHED LANCE

I

THE QUEST

Robert Devreux, Earl of Ess.e.x, was in one of his worst moods as he strode the deck of his flag-s.h.i.+p in Cadiz Bay on a certain June morning in 1596.

And yet this favourite of Fortune stood then at the summit of his career, having by a brilliant a.s.sault taken the city for England, while a letter whose seal he had just broken a.s.sured him of the doting infatuation of England's Queen.

It was precisely this letter, as he now explained to his friend, which occasioned his dissatisfaction.

"You will not refuse me, Will," he pleaded, "since I can not undertake the quest, you must go in my stead. These papers contain negotiations of such delicacy that Henry of Navarre dared not send them overland through France, and my word is pledged to him to deliver them personally into the hands of the Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici, at his villa in Rome.

"When I met the King at Boulogne, on our first night out, this seemed an easy thing to do, for I had reason to believe that our cruise would extend to Italy. But now in the hour of my victory, when I have sacked Cadiz, I open the Queen's letter (which was not to be read until the accomplishment of that task), and find that, instead of being permitted to proceed, I must first sail at once for England; and all forsooth because of her love and impatience to reward the valour of her favourite! Can such a summons be disregarded? a.s.suredly not; but my honour and the fate of the Protestant cause in France hang upon your decision.

"Since it means so much," replied the other, "a.s.suredly I will not fail you. But why may I not do this under my own name, as your authorised messenger?"

"Because the Grand Duke expects the Earl of Ess.e.x, the accredited deputy of the King of France. The deputy of a deputy would have no prestige with him, and would not even be admitted as guest at the villa. And it is with its lady, mark you, that your true errand lies.

"These negotiations have to do with the marriage of Henry of Navarre to the Grand Duke's niece Marie de' Medici. Ferdinando will make and break treaties as suits his advantage. The lady's heart must be gained, she must be made so ardently to desire this marriage that she will refuse all other suitors. In short you must woo and win her for the King of France. For such a task you have every qualification. You possess a knowledge of the Italian language and the understanding of its temperament and character which comes from sympathy. The Italians will not need to know that you bear the name of Brandilancia to recognise that you are the embodiment of the type of chivalry dreamed of by their poets. Beware, however, of receiving or giving too much love, for report hath it that the heiress of the Medici is surpa.s.singly beautiful."

Brandilancia smiled somewhat bitterly. "You should know," he said, "that my heart is in England and though my love should remain forever unrequited, it can never be given to another."

"An excellent safeguard, in the present business," the Earl replied cheerily, "so here are all objections overcome, and may you have many a merry experience to recount when next we meet in England."

Hand met hand upon that compact, and while one Earl of Ess.e.x pursued his homeward course another in a swift sailing pinnace flew eastward bound upon adventures of which the archives of the English Admiralty preserve no record.

As the young adventurer Brandilancia, who was to play the part of the true Ess.e.x, rode up the hill crowned by the Villa Medici he was struck by the resemblance of the ma.s.sive retaining walls to those of some medieval fortress. As such they had served in ancient days, holding the villa safe in their protecting embrace from any uprising of the populace of Rome, while on the side toward the Campagna they had withstood more than one siege of the Goths. But high aloft, near the summit of this cliff of natural rock and hewn stone the inhospitable windowless expanse was broken by a row of arched openings, and silhouetted against the dark void of one of these he caught a glimpse of a face framed in golden hair.

Though so far above him the lady, who had been gazing down the road from sheer ennui, had noticed the graceful figure of the cavalier, and had watched his approach until he halted with upturned face beneath her window. At that instant a little fan opening as it fell, dropped from her hand and fluttered in the light breeze, like a bird with a broken wing, beyond the road and into the ravine at its side.

Instantly Brandilancia sprang from his horse and, vaulting over the low embankment, clambered down the incline. A smiling contadina, who was beating out her linen on the margin of a basin of water, a.s.sisted him in his search, but having found the fan she was so curious in regard to its donor that Brandilancia endeavoured to divert her attention by plying her with questions concerning the locality. From her replies he learned that the was.h.i.+ng pool was fed from an old aqueduct which pa.s.sed under the Villa Medici on its way to supply the fountains of Rome.

"See, Signor," she said, pointing out a nail-studded oaken door concealed in the angle of a huge abutment, "they say that if that door were not bolted on the inside one might enter the tunnel which brings the water through the hill from its source miles away. There is a legend, too, that a Roman princess who lived up yonder, centuries ago, betrayed the secret to the barbarians, who came through the tunnel and sacked Rome."

Brandilancia paid little heed to this information, not dreaming that he would one day be indebted to it for escape from the villa which he was now so blithely entering. Climbing back to the roadway he waved the fan above his head and was greeted by a light clapping of hands from the lofty window. Who could the lady be? He would ascertain in time, and until he did so it was pleasant to reflect that some one within the villa was interested in his coming and had wafted him this welcome.

He had need of hospitality for he was faint from the ride from Ostia in the heat of an Italian June. The beautiful gardens glowed in dazzling suns.h.i.+ne which the scintillating jets of the fountains reflected and intensified. The statues seemed to shrink from the blinding light into their niches in the great square-cut hedges, and the tessellated pavement was hot beneath his tread.

Every detail of the antique relievi which the facade of the palace had been designed to display was brought out by the intense illumination. In its lavish ornamentation and elegant proportions the building suggested a carved ivory cabinet, but one rifled of its jewels, for except for the keeper of the gate-lodge, to whom he had tossed his bridle, he had met no guards. The great doorway stood invitingly open, but Brandilancia hesitated to enter and looked about for some means of announcing his presence.

"Is the villa under some enchantment?" he asked himself. "If so some imp or sprite should lurk hereabouts and now make its appearance."

As if in answer to this mental question a peal of elfish laughter greeted his ear,--a mirthless, falsetto cackle, like that of a parrot, and half hidden behind one of the great marble lions in the shade of the loggia he discerned a grotesque little creature, with the figure of a child and a woman's face, old in its expression of slyness and malignity.

Brandilancia started, although he knew that it was the custom of Italian princes to maintain dwarfs in their households. This woman, probably a dependent, was dressed like a princess. Her dress though soiled was of stiff brocade embroidered with gold thread, and the high lace ruff, which made her swarthy complexion darker by contrast with its whiteness, was edged with seed pearls.

"Come in, my lord," she croaked. "The Grand Duke regretted that, obliged to be temporarily in Florence, he could not receive you, but awaiting his return the villa is at your service, and the Grand d.u.c.h.ess and the Signorina will endeavour to make the time pa.s.s pleasantly."

He followed her, wondering as to her position. "How did you know me?" he asked. "You are expected," she replied, "and no one but an Englishman would have called at the hour of the siesta. Shall I show your wors.h.i.+p to your own room, or will you await the ladies in the library?" His hand was on the little fan, and he was striving to frame some question whose answer would enlighten him as to the giver, but the dwarf's last word caught his ear, and acted like the scent of spirits upon a man thirsting for drink.

"To the library, by all means," he replied eagerly, and, as the heavy portieres were drawn aside, the tiny creature at his side and even the golden-haired woman who had greeted his coming so graciously were for the moment clean forgotten, for he comprehended that one of his dearest hopes, long thwarted but never entirely relinquished, the hidden personal motive which had been the determining factor in his acceptance of this mission, was now about to be realised. The immense room from floor to cornice was walled with books: the writings of the fathers of the church--huge folios hasped in bra.s.s and ornamented with priceless illuminations--side by side with pagan literature, Greek ma.n.u.scripts, and volumes of the Roman cla.s.sics, while all the new harvest of the Italian Renaissance, in every department then known, had been carefully garnered. But high above the marshalled works of the poets, which his fingers lingeringly caressed as he pa.s.sed them by, Brandilancia had detected a row of small volumes, and a thrill of triumphant delight shot through his frame as he climbed the step-ladder and with eager fingers plucked them from their niches.

For here were the novelli of Boccaccio, Masaccio, and Bandello, of Giraldi Cinthio and Ser Giovanni Fiorentino and of many another writer of romantic tales of whimsical gaiety, of intrigue, or of tragedy, and Brandilancia was a playwright gifted with a most exceptional genius for adaptation. He had read a few of these tales and had realised that they contained admirable material for dramatisation, but now by a turn of the wheel of Fortune the entire inexhaustible mine of absorbing plot of piquant situation and contrasting characters, slightly sketched but waiting only the touch of genius to spring into life, lay open before him.

With a sigh of supreme satisfaction he sank into the nearest chair and read like one under the influence of some hypnotic spell.

The secretary of the Grand Duke entered the library, shuffled about noisily, coughed, and even addressed him, but the reader was unconscious of his presence.