VII
About noon they rode in at the gates of Fano. The houses were alive with Cæsar's courtiers, captains, and troopers. Two rooms in the best situation had been assigned to the ducal engineer; he offered one of them to his travelling companion, who in such a crowd might have had difficulty in procuring a lodging.
Machiavelli presented himself at once at the palace, and when he returned he brought important news.
Don Ramiro de Lorqua, who had been governing in the duke's name, had been executed. On Christmas day the people had found the headless corpse wallowing on the ground in a pool of blood, an axe beside it, the ghastly head stuck on a spear.
'The cause of the execution is unknown,' said Messer Niccolò, 'but 'tis the talk of the whole town. Let us go together and listen to the conjectures of the rabble. 'Tis an opportunity to study the natural laws of politics.'
Before the old cathedral of San Fortunato a crowd was expecting the coming forth of the duke, who was about to review his troops. Leonardo and Machiavelli joined the throng in which but one subject was being discussed.
'I can make nothing of it,' said a young workman with a dull, good-natured face. 'I thought Don Ramiro had been loved and enriched above all the court.'
'The very reason of his chastisement,' replied a respectable shopkeeper, dressed in a squirrel pelisse; 'Don Ramiro has been deceiving our duke. He has oppressed, imprisoned, plundered the people. Before his lord he wore sheep's clothing; he fancied things hid were not things forbid. But his hour came; the sovereign's patience was exhausted, and for the good of the people he did not spare his friend; he cut off his head without trial, without hesitation, without delay, as a warning to others. Now they see how terrible is the duke's wrath, how impartial his justice. He puts down the mighty from their seats and exalteth them of low degree.'
'Reges eos in virga ferrea,' declaimed a monk. 'Thou rulest them with a rod of iron.'
'Ay, ay! They need an iron rod, the sons of dogs, the oppressors of the people!'
'He knows when to pardon, and when to strike.'
'We want no better sovereign.'
'Truly,' said a peasant, 'the Lord has at last had pity on Romagna. Before, there was flaying both of the living and of the dead and the taxes were our starvation. The last pair of oxen in our stalls had to go! But since the Duke Valentino came we have been able to breathe. May the Lord keep him in health!'
'And the judges!' said the shopkeeper; 'their delay used to eat one's very heart! 'Tis different now.'
'He has protected the orphan and consoled the widow,' put in the monk.
'He is merciful. 'Tis not to be denied he is merciful to the people.'
'He gives offence to none.'
'O Santo Iddio!' murmured a feeble old woman, beside herself with admiration; 'may the Blessed Virgin preserve to us our father, our benefactor, our bright sun!'
'Do you hear them?' whispered Machiavelli. 'Vox populi vox dei. I have always said one must be in the plains to see the mountains; one must be among the people to know the sovereign. I'd like to get them here, those folk who call the duke a tyrant! These things are hid from the wise and prudent, but revealed unto the simple.'
Martial music was heard and the crowd was astir.
'He comes! Look!'
They stood on tiptoe and craned their necks, curious heads were thrust from windows, women and girls, their eyes full of love, ran out on the balconies and loggie to see their hero, Cesare bello e biondo—'Cæsar, the blond and beautiful.' It was rare good luck, for he hardly ever showed himself to the people.
The musicians walked first, making a deafening clatter of kettledrums in time with the heavy tread of the soldiers. Next came the duke's Romagnole guard, all picked and handsome men, carrying halberts three cubits long. They wore cuirasses, and helmets of steel, and their garments were parti-coloured, the right side yellow, the left red. Niccolò could not admire enough this truly Roman array. After the guard came equerries and pages, in clothes of unsurpassed splendour; camisoles of gold brocade, mantles of pounce velvet with gold-embroidered slashings, their scabbards and belts of snakes' scales, with knobs representing the seven heads of the viper vomiting poison—the cognisance of the Borgias. Embroidered on their breasts was the word, 'Cæsar.' They were followed by the bodyguard, Albanian stradiotes, with curved yataghans. Then Bartolomeo Capranica, the Maestro del Campo, carried the naked sword of the Gonfaloniere of the Roman Church. After him came the ruler of Romagna himself, Cæsar Borgia, Duke of Valentinois. He was mounted on a black Barbary stallion, with a diamond sun on its headband: he wore a pale blue silk mantle with the white lilies of France embroidered in pearls, and a corselet wrought into the gaping mouth of a lion. His helmet was a dragon, with scales, wings, and fins of wrought brass, resounding at every movement.
At this time Cæsar Borgia was six and twenty; his face had grown thin and worn since Leonardo had seen him at Louis XII.'s court at Milan. His features were sharper, and his eyes, with their glow like polished steel, were graver and more impenetrable. His hair and pointed beard had darkened; his long nose seemed more aquiline. Complete serenity still reigned upon his impassive face; only now there was a look of still more strenuous daring, of terrifying keenness, like the edge of a bared and sharpened sword.
The duke was followed by his artillery, the best in Italy. Brass culverins, falconets, iron mortars firing stones—drawn by oxen, their heavy chariots rolling along with a dull roar and mixing with the voices of the trumpets and kettledrums. In the glow of the setting sun, cannon, cuirasses, helmets, spears, flashed lightning; Cæsar was riding in the imperial purple of a conqueror, straight towards the immense blood-red sun.
The crowd gazed at the hero in silence, holding its breath, wishing, yet fearing, to greet him with applause, in an ecstasy of admiration akin to terror. Tears flowed down the cheeks of the old beggar woman, and she murmured:—
'Holy saints! Holy mother! The Lord has permitted me to see his face! O, our beauteous sun!'
The flashing sword entrusted to Cæsar by the pope was the fiery glaive of the archangel Michael himself.
Leonardo smiled, seeing on Machiavelli's face the very same look of artless enthusiasm.