The Shame of Motley | Page 5

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