IX

She went to the retired Torre della Tesoreria, where no one ever came save the Duke and herself. Taking the candle from Ricciardetto and bidding him await her at the entrance, she passed into a lofty hall, dark and cold as a cellar, sat down, drew forth the packet of letters and was about to read. But suddenly a strange and eerie gust of wind swept shrieking round the tower, howled in the chimney, invaded the room with an icy breath almost extinguishing the candle. There was a great hush; it seemed to her she could hear the distant music of the ball, the murmur of voices, the patter of dancing feet, the sound of iron fetters from the vaults below, where was the prison.

And at the same moment she felt a presence in the room with her: there, in the dark angle of the wall, with eyes fixed upon hers. An anguish of terror seized her soul. She felt she must not move, must not look. But it was unendurable, and she did look. He stood there, as once she had seen him before, a long, long, black figure, blacker than the investing darkness, his head bent, and shrouded in the cowl of a monk. She tried to scream, to call Ricciardetto, but her voice failed. She rose to flee and her legs refused to support her; she fell on her knees groaning:—

'Thou? Again? And wherefore?'

He raised his head slowly and threw back the cowl, and showed the visage of Gian Galeazzo Sforza, the murdered duke. The face had nothing in it corpse-like, nothing appalling, and he spoke gently and distinctly:

'Poor thing! Poor woman! Pardon me!'

He made a step towards her, and she felt a freezing and unearthly cold. She shrieked, and fell unconscious to the earth.

Ricciardetto heard the cry and ran to her succour. When he saw his beloved mistress stretched senseless, he too shrieked, rushed away along the dark galleries, where at long intervals sentries stood holding dim lanterns, then into the crowded guest-chambers seeking the Duke, and crying wildly:

'Help! Help!'

It was midnight, and the revelry was at its height. The modish dance called 'Fedeli Amanti' had just begun. In it lady and cavalier must pass under an arch upon which stood the Genius of Love blowing a trumpet; at its foot were judges; and when true lovers approached, the Genius greeted them with tender strains, and the judges smiled and applauded and let them pass; but the untrue were hindered, and the trumpet stunned them with terrible noise, the judges pelted them with hail of confetti, and the luckless couple, loudly bemocked, were forced to turn and flee.

The Duke, to sweetest strains like the cooing of doves, had just made his passage of the arch, when, the crowd parting in dismay to admit his approach, Ricciardetto hurled himself at his master, still shrieking his wild, 'Help! Help!'

Ludovico laid a hand upon his shoulder.

'What is it? What has happened?'

'The Duchess! She is dying! Help!'

'The Duchess is ill? Where? Speak, in the name of God!' cried the Duke.

'In the Torre della Tesoreria.'

The Duke rushed from the hall, his golden chain rattling, his hair flying.

The Genius of the arch of true lovers went on blowing his trumpet, but now the dancers left him and he stopped. Some had followed the Duke—in a moment the whole brilliant throng had scattered like a flock of frightened sheep. The arch was overthrown and trampled, the trumpeter nearly fell, was hustled, and sprained his ankle.

Some cried 'Fire!'

'I said it was madness to play with fire,' wailed the lady who had disapproved Leonardo's rotating planets; and others fainted.

'Calm yourselves, ladies. There is no fire!' said the seneschal.

'Then what is it?'

'The Duchess is indisposed.'

'Nay, she is dying! She has been poisoned!'

'Impossible! Her Grace was here but now. She was dancing!'

'But don't you see? Isabella of Arragon, to avenge her lord, has with slow poison——'

'Oh Dio! Dio!'

But in the next saloon the music continued, for there nothing was known of the disturbance. The dance 'Venus and Zephyr' was in progress, the smiling ladies leading their cavaliers by golden chains, and when these fell on their knees with lamentable sighs, placing their feet upon their necks. But a chamberlain now entered, waving his hand to the musicians.

'Silence! The Duchess is ill.'

There was an instant hush, save for one viol played by a deaf and purblind old man, which long continued to pour forth its plaintive quiverings.

The servants passed through the hall carrying a bed, long and narrow, with hard stuffing, and bars at sides and ends, kept from time immemorial in the wardrobes of the palace, and de rigueur for the birth of the princes of Milan. Strange and ill-omened seemed this portentous couch in the midst of the festivity, the lights, the crowds of gorgeous ladies. They looked from one to the others mysteriously.

''Tis from a fall or, mayhap, a fright,' said one of mature age. 'She should have swallowed at once the white of an egg in which were lengths of scarlet silk, cut small.'

From the upper room, meantime, (Ricciardetto being stationed in the adjoining closet) came such a terrible cry, that the page seized the arm of one of the women who were passing with warming-pans, baskets of linen, and so forth, and cried in an agony:—

'For God's sake, tell me what is the matter?'

She did not answer, and another, clearly the midwife, ordered him away.

''Tis no place for boys,' she said sternly.

Yet the door was left ajar for a moment, and looking into the disordered room he saw the suffering face of her whom he loved with his hopeless boy's love, her lips parted in a continuous groan.

He turned pale, and hid his face in his hands.

Beside him chattered a group of gossips each with her infallible recipe; snake's skin, a bath in a heated cauldron, decoctions of cochineal and of stag's antlers, the tying of her husband's berretto round the neck of the patient, and so forth.

The Duke entered hurriedly and sank upon a chair, clutching his head with his hands and weeping distractedly.

'Lord God! What torture!' he murmured. 'I cannot support it! I cannot! Ah Bice! Bice! And 'tis all my doing! mine!' Still echoed in his ears the furious cry with which she had greeted his approach.

'Go away! Go away! Go to your Lucrezia!'

One of the busybodies brought him a pewter plate piled with meat.

'Your Excellency will be pleased to eat it.'

'Good Lord, what are you giving me?'

'Wolf's flesh. 'Tis of great benefit to the wife in her labour, if the husband will eat the flesh of wolves.'

The Duke, submissive and self-denying, did his best to swallow the repulsive black substance, which was so hard as to stick in his throat, and the old woman gabbled as she bent over him:—

'Our Father which art in Heaven,

Seven wolves and the mate of one,

Blow the wind from us this even,

Praise Thy name, the storm is done!

Holy, Holy, Holy, in the name of the Trinity, one and eternal.

Let the word stand for ever! Amen.'

She was interrupted by Messer Luigi Marliani, the first of the court physicians, who came from the sick room, followed by his colleagues.

'Well? well?' asked Ludovico.

There was a silence; then Messer Luigi spoke.

'Your Excellency, we have done all that is possible. Now we must put our hope in the clemency of the Lord.'

'No! No!' cried the Duke seizing his hand, 'there must be some means! It is unendurable! Try something!'

The physicians exchanged glances like augurs, hoping thus to reassure him. Then Marliani, knitting his brows, said in Latin to the young doctor beside him:—

'Three ounces of river snails, with nutmeg and red coral,'

'A bleeding, perhaps?' suggested another, an old man, with a gentle and diffident face.

'I had thought of it,' said Marliani; 'but Mars is in Cancer and in the fourth house of the sun. And, further, to-day's date is an uneven number.'

The old man sighed, shook his head and forbore to urge his point. Various other loathsome medicaments were proposed, till the Duke could no longer contain himself. He turned furiously to the doctors.

'To the devil with all your science!' he exclaimed; 'she is dying, do you hear me? She is dying! and you have nothing better to propose than three ounces of snails and a plaster of cow's dung! Rascals, charlatans, fools! I will hang every one of you!'

He paced the room a prey to mortal anguish, listening to the sufferer's unceasing groans. Suddenly his eye fell on Leonardo and he drew him aside.

'Listen,' he cried wildly, 'Leonardo, you are master of great secrets. No, no, deny it not, I know. Ah, my God! my God!—that cry! What was I saying? Yes, yes! Help me, Leonardo! Do something! I would give my soul to succour her—even for a short space—only to still that cry!'

Leonardo would have replied; but the Duke, forgetting that he had appealed to him, hurried to meet the chaplain and two monks entering at that moment—

'At last! God be praised. What have you brought? Ah! a particle of the remains of St. Ambrose, the belt of St. Margaret—is she not the patroness of women in childbed?—and a hair of the Blessed Virgin! Ah, how I thank you! And surely your prayers——'

Following the monks he was entering the sick-chamber when the continual low groaning suddenly gave place to shrieks so appalling that, stopping his ears, he turned and fled, passing through the dark galleries like one possessed. He hurried to the chapel and cast himself on his knees before the most revered picture.

'Holy Mother of God,' he implored with clasped hands and streaming eyes, 'I have sinned—I have sinned horribly—I have slain an innocent youth—my lawful sovereign. O thou merciful Mediatress, have mercy upon me! Take my life—take my soul; but in pity, O Holy Mother, save Beatrice!'

Shreds of thoughts and senseless fancies crowded in his brain and stole his attention from his prayers. He remembered a story of a drowning sailor who had thought to buy salvation by the promise of a candle as big as the mast of a ship; and when asked how the wax for this colossus was to be provided, had answered: 'Hold your tongue; our present task is to get saved, and afterwards we'll get the Virgin to be content with a smaller candle.'

'Oh God, where are my thoughts!' cried the Duke bethinking himself. 'I must be going mad! God help me!' And he fell a-praying with renewed fervour; but now visions of Leonardo's crystal globes tormented him, and the tiresome chant of the gilded boy—

'Tornerà l'età dell' oro,

Cantiam tutti: "Viva il Moro!"'

Then all vanished, and he sank in a profound slumber. When he awoke he fancied but two or three minutes had elapsed. He left the chapel, and saw through the frosted window-pane the grey light of the winter's dawn.