The Strolling Saint Part 62

"a.s.suredly," said Gonzaga shortly. "I may not take your word for its existence."

Cosimo plucked a parchment from the breast of his brown satin doublet, unfolded it, and advanced to lay it before Gonzaga, so that he stood near Galeotto--not more than an arm's length between them.

The Governor conned it; then pa.s.sed it to Galeotto. "It seems in order,"

he said.

Nevertheless, Galeotto studied it awhile; and then, still holding it, he looked at Cosimo, and the scarred face that hitherto had been so sombre now wore a smile.

"It is as irregular as the other," he said. "It is entirely worthless."

"Worthless?" quoth Cosimo, in an amazement that was almost scornful.

"But have I not already explained..."

"It sets forth here," cut in Galeotto with a.s.surance, "that the fief of Mondolfo and Carmina are confiscated from Agostino d'Anguissola. Now I submit to your excellency, and to your worthinesses," he added, turning aside, "that this confiscation is grotesque and impossible, since Mondolfo and Carmina never were the property of Agostino d'Anguissola, and could no more be taken from him than can a coat be taken from the back of a naked man--unless," he added, sneering, "a papal bull is capable of miracles."

Cosimo stared at him with round eyes, and I stared too, no glimmer of the enormous truth breaking yet upon my bewildered mind. In the court the silence was deathly until Gonzaga spoke.

"Do you say that Mondolfo and Carmina did not belong--that they never were the fiefs of Agostino d'Anguissola?" he asked.

"That is what I say," returned Galeotto, towering there, immense and formidable in his gleaming armour.

"To whom, then, did they belong?"

"They did and do belong to Giovanni d'Anguissola--Agostino's father."

Cosimo shrugged at this, and some of the dismay pa.s.sed from his countenance.

"What folly is this?" he cried. "Giovanni d'Anguissola died at Perugia eight years ago."

"That is what is generally believed, and what Giovanni d'Anguissola has left all to believe, even to his own priest-ridden wife, even to his own son, sitting there, lest had the world known the truth whilst Pier Luigi lived such a confiscation as this should, indeed, have been perpetrated.

"But he did not die at Perugia. At Perugia, Ser Cosimo, he took this scar which for thirteen years has served him for a mask." And he pointed to his own face.

I came to my feet, scarce believing what I heard. Galeotto was Giovanni d'Anguissola--my father! And my heart had never told me so!

In a flash I saw things that hitherto had been obscure, things that should have guided me to the truth had I but heeded their indications.

How, for instance, had I a.s.sumed that the Anguissola whom he had mentioned as one of the heads of the conspiracy against Pier Luigi could have been myself?

I stood swaying there, whilst his voice boomed out again.

"Now that I have sworn fealty to the Emperor in my true name, upon the hands of my Lord Gonzaga here; now that the Imperial aegis protects me from Pope and Pope's b.a.s.t.a.r.ds; now that I have accomplished my life's work, and broken the Pontifical sway in this Piacenza, I can stand forth again and resume the state that is my own.

"There stands my foster-brother, who has borne witness to my true ident.i.ty; there Falcone, who has been my equerry these thirty years; and there are the brothers Pallavicini, who tended me and sheltered me when I lay at the point of death from the wounds that disfigured me at Perugia."

"So, my Lord Cosimo, ere you can proceed further in this matter against my son, you will need to take your brief and your bull back to Rome and get them amended, for there is in Italy no Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina other than myself."

Cosimo fell back before him limp and trembling, his spirit broken by this shattering blow.

And then Gonzaga uttered words that might have heartened him. But after being hurled from what he accounted the pinnacle of success, he mistrusted now the crafty Lieutenant, saw that he had been played with as a mouse by this Imperial cat with the soft, deadly paws.

"We might waive the formalities in the interests of justice," purred the Lieutenant. "There is this memorial, my lord," he said, and tapped the doc.u.ment, his eyes upon my father.

"Since your excellency wishes the matter to be disposed of out of hand, it can, I think, be done," he said, and he looked again at Cosimo.

"You have said that this memorial is false, because the witnesses whose names are here cannot be admitted to testify."

Cosimo braced himself for a last effort. "Do you defy the Pope?" he thundered.

"If necessary," was the answer. "I have done so all my life."

Cosimo turned to Gonzaga. "It is not I who have branded this memorial false," he said, "but the Holy Father himself."

"The Emperor," said my father, "may opine that in this matter the Holy Father has been deluded by liars. There are other witnesses. There is myself, for one. This memorial contains nothing but what was imparted to me by the Lord of Pagliano on his death-bed, in the presence of his confessor."

"We cannot admit the confessor," Gonzaga thrust in.

"Give me leave, your excellency. It was not in his quality as confessor that Fra Gervasio heard the dying man depone. Cavalcanti's confession followed upon that. And there was in addition present the seneschal of Pagliano who is present here. Sufficient to establish this memorial alike before the Imperial and the Pontifical Courts.

"And I swear to G.o.d, as I stand here in His sight," he continued in a ringing voice, "that every word there set down is as spoken by Ettore Cavalcanti, Lord of Pagliano, some hours before he died; and so will those others swear. And I charge your excellency, as Caesar's vicegerent, to accept that memorial as an indictment of that caitiff Cosimo d'Anguissola, who lent himself to so foul and sacrilegious a deed--for it involved the defilement of the Sacrament of Marriage."

"In that you lie!" screamed Cosimo, crimson now with rage, the veins at his throat and brow swelling like ropes.

A silence followed. My father turned to Falcone, and held out his hand.

Falcone sprang to give him a heavy iron gauntlet. Holding this by the fingers, my father took a step towards Cosimo, and he was smiling, very calm again after his late furious mood.

"Be it so," he said. "Since you say that I lie, I do here challenge you to prove it upon my body."

And he crashed the iron glove straight into Cosimo's face so that the skin was broken, and blood flowed about the mouth, leaving the lower half of the visage crimson, the upper dead-white.

Gonzaga sat on, entirely unmoved, and waited, indifferent to the stir there was amid the Ten. For by the ancient laws of chivalry--however much they might be falling now into desuetude--if Cosimo took up the glove, the matter pa.s.sed beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, and all men must abide by the issue of the trial by battle.

For a long moment Cosimo hesitated. Then he saw ruin all about him.

He--who had come to this court so confidently--had walked into a trap.

He saw it now, and saw that the only loophole was the chance this combat offered him. He played the man in the end. He stooped and took up the glove.

"Upon your body, then--G.o.d helping me," he said.

Unable longer to control myself, I sprang to my father's side. I caught his arm.

"Let me! Father, let me!"

He looked into my face and smiled, and the steel-coloured eyes seemed moist and singularly soft.

"My son!" he said, and his voice was gentle and soothing as a woman's caress.

"My father!" I answered him, a knot in my throat.