The Chronicles of Count Antonio

by Anthony Hope

Then a thing that seemed strange happened. For Antonio gave a sudden cry of pain. And behold, he had set his foot on the point of a dagger that was on the ground near to the Lady Venusta; and the dagger ran deep into his foot, for it was resting on a stone and the point sloped upwards, so that he trod full and with all his weight on the point; and he sank back on the ground with the dagger in his foot. How came the dagger there? How came it to rest against the stone? None could tell then, though it seems plain to him that considers now. None then thought that the lady who fled to Antonio as though he were her lover, and lavished tears and sighs on him, had placed it there. Nor that honest Luigi, who made such moan of his carelessness in dropping his poniard, had taken more pains over the losing of his weapon than most men over the preservation of theirs. Luigi cursed himself, and the lady cried out on fate; and Count Antonio consoled both of them, saying that the wound would soon be well, and that it was too light a matter for a lady to dim her bright eyes for the sake of it.

Yet light as the matter was, it was enough for Venusta's purpose and for the scheme of Duke Valentine. For Count Antonio could neither mount his horse nor go afoot to Venusta's house in Rilano; and, if the jewels were to be saved and the lady's tears dried (mightily, she declared with pretty self-reproach, was she ashamed to think of the jewels beside Antonio's hurt, but yet they were dear to her), then Tommasino must go in his place to Rilano.

"And take all save Bena and two more," said Antonio. "For the Duke will not come here if he goes to Rilano."

"I," said Bena, "am neither nurse nor physician nor woman. Let Martolo stay; he says there is already too much blood on his conscience; and let me go, for there is not so much as I could bear on mine, and maybe we shall have a chance of an encounter with the foreguard of the Duke."

But Venusta said to Antonio, "Let both of these men go, and let Luigi stay. For he is a clever fellow, and will aid me in tending your wound."

"So be it," said Antonio. "Let Luigi and the two youngest stay; and do the rest of you go, and return as speedily as you may. And the Lady Venusta shall, of her great goodness, dress my wound, which pains me more than such a trifle should."

Thus the whole band, saving Luigi and two youths, rode off early in the morning with Tommasino, their intent being to reach Rilano and get clear of it again before the Duke came thither from the city: and Venusta sent no message to the Duke, seeing that all had fallen out most prosperously and as had been arranged between them. For the Duke was not in truth minded to go at all to Rilano; but at earliest dawn, before Tommasino had set forth, the Lord Lorenzo left the city with a hundred pikemen; more he would not take, fearing to be delayed if his troop were too large; and he made a great circuit, avoiding Rilano and the country adjacent to it. So that by mid-day Tommasino was come with thirty-and-four men (the whole strength of the band except the three with Antonio) to Rilano, and, meeting with no resistance, entered Venusta's house, and took all that was precious in it, and loaded their horses with the rich tapestries and the choicest of the furnishings; and then, having regaled themselves with good cheer, started in the afternoon to ride back to the cave, Tommasino and Bena grumbling to one another because they had chanced on no fighting, but not daring to tarry by reason of Antonio's orders.

But their lamentations were without need; for when they came to the pass of Mount Agnino, there at the entrance of the road which led up to the cave, by the side of the river, was encamped a force of eighty pikemen under the Lieutenant of the Guard. Thus skilfully had the Lord Lorenzo performed his duty, and cut off Tommasino and his company from all access to the cave; and now he himself was gone with twenty men up the mountain path, to take Antonio according to the scheme of the Duke and the Lady Venusta. But Bena and Tommasino were sore aghast, and said to one another, "There is treachery. What are we to do?" For the eighty of the Duke's men were posted strongly, and it was a great hazard to attack them. Yet this risk they would have run, for they were ready rather to die than to sit there idle while Antonio was taken; and in all likelihood they would have died, had the Lieutenant obeyed the orders which Lorenzo had given him and rested where he was, covered by the hill and the river. But the Lieutenant was a young man, of hot temper and impetuous, and to his mistaken pride it seemed as though it were cowardice for eighty men to shrink from attacking thirty-and-five, and for the Duke's Guards to play for advantage in a contest with a band of robbers. Moreover Tommasino's men taunted his men, crying to them to come down and fight like men in the open. Therefore, counting on a sure victory and the pardon it would gain, about three o'clock in the afternoon he cried, "Let us have at these rascals!" and to Tommasino's great joy, his troop remounted their horses and made ready to charge from their position. Then Tommasino said, "We are all ready to face the enemy for my lord and cousin's sake. But I have need now of those who will run away for his sake."

Then he laid his plans that when the Lieutenant's troop charged, his men should not stand their ground. And five men he placed on one extremity of his line, Bena at their head; and four others with himself he posted at the other extremity; also he spread out his line very wide, so that it stretched on either side beyond the line of the Lieutenant. And he bade the twenty-and-five in the centre not abide the onset, but turn and flee at a gallop, trusting to the speed of their horses for escape. And he made them fling away all that they had brought from the Lady Venusta's house, that they might ride the lighter.

"And I pray God," said he, "that you will escape alive; but if you do not, it is only what your oath to my lord constrains you to. But you and I, Bena, with our men, will ride, not back towards the plain, but on towards the hills, and it may be that we shall thus get ahead of the Lieutenant; and once we are ahead of him in the hilly ground, he will not catch us before we come to the cave."