The Chronicles of Count Antonio. Hope Anthony

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СКАЧАТЬ to wait for power till youth were gone was not a bold man's part, and that to contrive the child's death, leaving his father alive, was but to double the risk without halving the guilt. Thus was Paul induced to dwell on the death of both father and son, and to say to himself that if the father went first the son would easily follow, and that with one cunning and courageous stroke the path to the throne might be cleared.

      While Paul pondered on these designs, there came about the events which drove Count Antonio from the Court; and no sooner was he gone and declared in open disobedience and contumacy against the Duke, than Paul, seeking a handle for his plans, seemed to find one in Antonio. Here was a man driven from his house (which the Duke had burnt), despoiled of his revenues, bereft of his love, proclaimed a free mark for whosoever would serve the Duke by slaying him. Where could be a better man for the purposes of a malcontent prince? And the more was Paul inclined to use Antonio from the fact that he had shown favour to Antonio, and been wont to seek his society; so that Antonio, failing to pierce the dark depths of his heart, was loyally devoted to him, and had returned an answer full of gratitude and friendship to the secret messages in which Paul had sent him condolence on the mishap that had befallen him.

      Now in the beginning of the second year of Count Antonio's outlawry, His Highness was most mightily incensed against him, not merely because he had so won the affection of the country-folk that none would betray his hiding-place either for threats or for reward, but most chiefly by reason of a certain act which was in truth more of Tommasino's doing than of Antonio's. For Tommasino, meeting one of the Duke's farmers of taxes, had lightened him of his fat bag of money, saying that he would himself assume the honour of delivering what was fairly due to His Highness, and had upon that scattered three-fourths of the spoil among the poor, and sent the beggarly remnant privily by night to the gate of the city, with a writing, "There is honour among thieves; who, then, may call Princes thieves?" And this writing had been read by many, and the report of it, spreading through the city, had made men laugh. Therefore the Duke had sworn that by no means should Antonio gain pardon save by delivering that insolent young robber to the hands of justice. Thus he was highly pleased when his brother sought him in the garden (for he sat in his wonted place under the wall by the fish-pond) and bade him listen to a plan whereby the outlaws should be brought to punishment. The Duke took his little son upon his knees and prayed his brother to tell his device.

      "You could not bring me a sweeter gift than the head of Tommasino," said he, stroking the child's curls; and the child shrank closer into his arms, for the child did not love Paul but feared him.

      "Antonio knows that I love Your Highness," said Paul, seating himself on the seat by the Duke, "but he knows also that I am his friend, and a friend to the Lady Lucia, and a man of tender heart. Would it seem to him deep treachery if I should go privately to him and tell him how that on a certain day you would go forth with your guard to camp in the spurs of Mount Agnino, leaving the city desolate, and that on the night of that day I could contrive that Lucia should come secretly to the gate, and that it should be opened for her, so that by a sudden descent she might be seized and carried safe to his hiding-place before aid could come from Your Highness?"

      "But what should the truth be?" asked Valentine.

      "The truth should be that while part of the Guard went to the spurs of the Mount, the rest should lie in ambush close inside the city gates and dash out on Antonio and his company."

      "It is well, if he will believe."

      Then Paul laid his finger on his brother's arm. "As the clock in the tower of the cathedral strikes three on the morning of the 15th of the month, do you, dear brother, be in your summer-house at the corner of the garden yonder; and I will come thither and tell you if he has believed and if he has come. For by then I shall have learnt from him his mind: and we two will straightway go rouse the guards and lead the men to their appointed station, and when he approaches the gate we can lay hands on him."

      "How can you come to him? For we do not know where he is hid."

      "Alas, there is not a rogue of a peasant that cannot take a letter to him!"

      "Yet when I question them, aye, though I beat them, they know nothing!" cried Valentine in chagrin. "Truly, the sooner we lay him by the heels, the better for our security."

      "Shall it be, then, as I say, my lord?"

      "So let it be," said the Duke. "I will await you in the summer-house."

      Paul, perceiving that his brother had no suspicions of him, and would await him in the summer-house, held his task to be already half done. For his plan was that he and Antonio should come together to the summer-house, but that Antonio should lie hid till Paul had spoken to the Duke; then Paul should go out on pretext of bidding the guard make ready the ambush, and leave the Duke alone with Antonio. Antonio then, suddenly springing forth, should slay the Duke; while Paul – and when he thought on this, he smiled to himself – would so contrive that a body of men should bar Antonio's escape, and straightway kill him. Thus should he be quit both of his brother and of Antonio, and no man would live who knew how the deed was contrived. "And then," said he, "I doubt whether the poor child, bereft of all parental care, will long escape the manifold perils of infancy."

      Thus he schemed; and when he had made all sure, and noised about the Duke's intentions touching his going to the spurs of Mount Agnino, he himself set forth alone on his horse to seek Antonio. He rode till he reached the entrance of the pass leading to the recesses of the hills. There he dismounted, and sat down on the ground; and this was at noon on the 13th day of the month. He had not long been sitting, when a face peered from behind a wall of moss-covered rock that fronted him, and Paul cried, "Is it a friend?"

      "A friend of whom mean you, my lord?" came from the rock.

      "Of whom else than of Count Antonio?" cried Paul.

      A silence followed and a delay; then two men stole cautiously from behind the rock, and in one of them Paul knew the man they called Bena, who had been of the Duke's Guard. The men, knowing Paul, bowed low to him, and asked him his pleasure, and he commanded them to bring him to Antonio. They wondered, knowing not whether he came from the Duke or despite the Duke; but he was urgent in his commands, and at length they tied a scarf over his eyes, and set him on his horse, and led the horse. Thus they went for an hour. Then they prayed him to dismount, saying that the horse could go no farther; and though Paul's eyes saw nothing, he heard the whinnying and smelt the smell of horses.

      "Here are your stables then," said he, and dismounted with a laugh.

      Then Bena took him by the hand, and the other guided his feet, and climbing up steep paths, over boulders and through little water-courses, they went, till at length Bena cried, "We are at home, my lord;" and Paul, tearing off his bandage, found himself on a small level spot, ringed round with stunted wind-beaten firs; and three huts stood in the middle of the space, and before one of the huts sat Tommasino, composing a sonnet to a pretty peasant girl whom he had chanced to meet that day; for Tommasino had ever a hospitable heart. But seeing Paul, Tommasino left his sonnet, and with a cry of wonder sprang to meet him; and Paul took him by both hands and saluted him. That night and the morning that followed, Paul abode with Antonio, eating the good cheer and drinking the good wine that Tommasino, who had charged himself with the care of such matters, put before him. Whence they came from, Paul asked not; nor did Tommasino say more than that they were offerings to Count Antonio – but whether offerings of free-will or necessity, he said not. And during this time Paul spoke much with Antonio privily and apart, persuading him of his friendship, and telling most pitiful things of the harshness shown by Valentine his brother to the Lady Lucia, and how the lady grew pale, and peaked and pined, so that the physicians knit their brows over her and the women said no drugs would patch a broken heart. Thus he inflamed Antonio's mind with a great rage against the Duke, so that he fell to counting the men he had and wondering whether there were force to go openly against the city. But in sorrow Paul answered that the pikemen СКАЧАТЬ