IV

Sitting in his high-backed armchair, Ludovico Sforza softly stroked his smooth-shaved chin with a white and well-kept hand. His handsome face wore that expression of perfect candour which is acquired by past masters in political trickery; his high-bridged aquiline nose, and subtly writhen lips recalled his father Francesco, the great Condottiere; though if Francesco were, as the poets said, at once lion and fox, Ludovico was merely fox. He was attired in pale blue silk, puffed and embroidered; his smooth hair covered ears and brow like a wig, and a gold chain dangled on his breast; in word and gesture he was uniformly courteous and urbane.

'Have you certain intelligence, Messer Bartolomeo, of the departure of the French army from Lyons?'

'None, your Excellency. Every evening they say "to-morrow," every morning they say "to-night." The king wastes himself in unwarlike amusements.'

'Who is his first favourite?'

'Many names are mentioned, the taste of his Majesty is variable.'

'Write to Count Belgioioso that I send him thirty—no—forty or fifty thousand ducats to spend in new donatives, let him spare nothing. We must draw this king out of Lyons by golden chains. And, Bartolomeo—but repeat this not—it were well to send his Majesty the portraits of some of our fairest ladies. By the way, is the letter ready?'

'It is, Signore.'

'Show it to me.'

Il Moro rubbed his white hands for pleasure. Every time he contemplated his huge web of policy, he felt an agreeable stirring at heart; he loved the dangerous game. Nor did he blame himself for having summoned the foreigners, the northern barbarians, into Italy; his enemies had forced him to this extreme measure, chiefly the consort of Gian Galeazzo, Isabella of Aragon, who openly accused him of having usurped the throne of his nephew. Yet it had not been till her father, Alfonso of Naples, had intervened, threatening war and dethronement, that Ludovico had appealed to Charles VIII. King of France.

'Inscrutable are thy ways, O Lord!' thought the duke piously, while his secretary searched for the letter in a pile of papers; 'the salvation of my kingdom, of Italy, perhaps of all Europe, is in the hands of this abortion of nature, this libertine, this witless boy, whom they name the Most Christian King of France; before whom we, the heirs of the glory of the Sforzas, must crouch, and creep, and play the pander. But such are politics; he who hunts with wolves must howl with them.'

He read over the letter, which seemed to him sufficiently well expressed.

'May the Lord bless thy crusading army, O most Christian,' so it ran; 'the gates of Ausonia stand open to thee. Hesitate not to enter in triumph, a new Hannibal! The peoples of Italy yearn to bow beneath thy gentle yoke, O anointed of the Most High....'

So far the duke had read when a humpbacked, bald, old man looked in at the door. Ludovico smiled, but motioned to him to wait. The head vanished, and the door closed again softly; but the secretary saw he had lost his master's attention. Messer Bartolomeo therefore concluded the letter and went out. The duke cautiously stepped to the door on the tips of his toes, and called softly—

'Bernardo! Hist! Bernardo!'

'Here, my lord.' And the court poet, Bernardo Bellincioni, advanced with an air of mystery and servility, and he would have fallen on his knees to kiss the duke's hand: the latter, however, restrained him.

'Well? Well?'

'All is right, my lord.'

'Is she brought to bed?'

'Last night saw her released from her burden.'

'Felicitously? Or shall I send my physician?'

'Nay, the mother is doing perfectly.'

'Glory be to God! And the child?'

'Perfect.'

'Male or female?'

'A man-child. And with a voice—! Fair hair as his mother's; but the eyes black, burning and quick like those of your Grace. The princely blood shows itself. A little Hercules! Madonna Cecilia is beside herself with joy; and bade me inquire the name that will please your Excellency.'

'I have considered that. We will call him Caesar. What think you of that?'

''Tis a fine name; well mouthing, and ancient. Cesare Sforza! A name meant for a hero.'

'Well now—about the husband?'

'The illustrious Count Bergamini is good and courteous as ever.'

'Admirable man!' cried the duke.

'Your Excellency will permit me to pronounce him a man of rare virtue. Such men are to seek nowadays. If the gout permit, he would desire to sup with your Worship, to testify to his respect.'

The Countess Cecilia of whom they spoke had long been Ludovico's mistress. But Beatrice, his bride, daughter of Ercole d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, having discovered the amour, became furiously jealous; and by threats of return to her paternal home, she induced her lord not only to swear better observance of his conjugal fidelity, but also to bestow Cecilia in wedlock. The husband selected by Ludovico was the ancient and complaisant Count Bergamini.

Bellincioni, taking a small paper from his pocket, presented it to the duke. It was a sonnet in honour of the newly born:—

'Thou weepest, Phœbus! Why this silver rain?

Because this day upon the amazèd skies,

Lo! I have seen a second sun arise,

Before whose splendours all my glories wane.'

'This is a tale for laughter!' 'Nay, for pain,

Truth suffers no derision from the wise.'

'Then tell me more, and still my loud surprise,

That queries whence this newer king shall reign.'

'The offspring of a Moor, he makes his nest

In sweet Cecilia's arms—I saw his light

Shine through the brooding feathers of her love;

Now, must I hide me in the cloudy west,

Eclipsed by one more radiant and more bright,

Who shall greater God than Phœbus prove.'

The duke bestowed a silver piece upon the poet.

'Bernardo, let it not slip your memory that Saturday is the birthday of the duchess.'

Bellincioni hastily fumbled in the folds of his courtly but threadbare raiment, and from some recess therein drew forth a whole sheaf of tumbled papers; and among grandiloquent odes on the death of Madonna Angelina's falcon, and the disorder of Signor Paravicino's dappled Hungarian mare, found the verses required.

'Here be three for my lord to choose from,' he said. 'I vow by the sacred footprints of Pegasus, you will be content.'

In those times sovereigns used their court poets as musical instruments, to serenade not their mistresses only, but also their wives; fashion demanded that between husband and wife at least platonic love should be assumed.

The duke ran through the verses curiously; though he could not himself string two lines together. In the first sonnet he found two lines to his taste, where the husband turns to his wife with these words:—

'Where thy light spittle falls, flowers gem the earth

As dews of spring bring violets to birth.'

In the second the poet, comparing Madonna Beatrice with the goddess Diana, asserted that boars and stags felt happiness in falling by the hand of so fair a huntress. The third poem pleased Il Moro better than all the rest. It was put into the mouth of Dante, who prays that God may permit him to return to earth, since there he would once more find his Beatrice in the person of the Duchess of Milan.

'O great Jove!' cried Alighieri, 'since thou hast again given her to the earth that she may gladden it with the light of love, permit me also to be with her, and to see him whose felicity she is, and whose life she maketh most proud and glad.'

Il Moro graciously slapped the poet on his back, and promised him some scarlet Florentine cloth at ten soldi the braccio for his winter cloak. Bernardo, by no means satisfied, made many bowings and bendings, and obtained at last the promise of some fox skin linings. He explained that his furs had become by long wear as hairless and transparent as vermicelli drying in the sun.

'Last winter,' he continued, 'I was so cold that I was ready to burn not only my own staircase but the wooden shoes of St. Francis.'

The duke laughed, and promised him firewood, and Bellincioni instantly improvised a laudatory quatrain.

'When to thy servants thou dost promise bread

Like God thou giv'st them heavenly manna,

For which great Phœbus and the choir of nine

Chant, noble Moor, to thee Hosanna.'

'You seem in the vein to-day, Bernardo. Hearken, I require yet another poem.'

'Erotic?'

'Ay; and impassioned.'

'For the duchess?'

'By no means. But, beware you speak not of this!'

'My lord is pleased to insult me. Have I ever——'

'Not yet.'

'I am dumb as any fish,' and he blinked his eyes obsequiously and mysteriously. 'Impassioned? That I understand. But of what kind? Grateful? Imploring?'

'The last.'

The poet drew his brows together with an air of grave solicitude.

'Wedded?'

'A maid.'

'Good. But I shall need the name.'

'What on earth matters the name?'

'Can't do imploring without the name.'

'Madonna Lucrezia.—You have nothing ready?'

'Truly, my lord, I have; but something fresh would please better. Permit me the seclusion of the next apartment; 'twill be the affair of a moment. Already I feel the rhymes crawling in my head.'

Just then a page announced 'Messer Leonardo da Vinci,' and Bellincioni disappeared through one door as Leonardo entered at the other.