Whether the warnings uttered to me were the outcome of mere superstition, or whether part of one of those ingenious conspiracies which he who lives among the suave Italians so often has to thwart, one fact remained—namely, that in the almost undecipherable record itself a further warning was plainly penned. And this, instead of creating fear and hesitation within me, only further aroused my curiosity.
I was determined to possess myself of the secret at all hazards.
The pale, tragic face of that dark-eyed woman whom I had discovered in the fat prior’s study, and whom I had afterwards seen in the noisy, crowded city, haunted me. Yes, there was a calm sweetness in that proud and beautiful countenance, Tuscan most certainly, and yet mystery and tragedy were written there but too plainly.
How I longed to question Father Bernardo about her; for, strange as it may appear to you, my reader, her strange, subtle influence seemed upon me, and I felt myself helplessly beneath a kind of spell which, even to this day, I cannot define.
In turning those vellum leaves listlessly, I paused and gazed across my half-darkened room, deep in thought. Outside, the cicala in the dusty tamarisks kept up their cricket-like song, and in the far distance from the blue hills came the clanging of a village bell. Beyond that all was quiet—the world was hushed and gasping beneath that summer heat that ripened the maize in the fields and the grapes and oranges in my garden.
But I was sick of it all—yes, heartily sick. Italy had charmed me once; but over my heart its white dust had accumulated, and I longed for the fresh, green fields of England, longed for my own friends and my own tongue. Nostalgia had seized me badly, and I was world-weary and homesick—longing now for the day of my departure.
Presently I returned again to the study of the ill-written script before me, half-fearful of the strange warning inscribed upon the page; but slowly, and with considerable difficulty, I deciphered it as follows:
“This be the causes following why that
I, Godfrey Lovel, have made
labour to write this secret record.
“First, immediately after my birth at Winchelsea, my father, Sir Richard Lovel, baron of the King’s Exchequer, died of plague, and my mother in brief time married my lord of Lincoln. The goode monks of Winchelsea learned me, but at fifteen I left their habit and religion, crossed unto France, and became a soldier of fortune with the army of the King of Navarre. Full many a strange adventure had I in those days of youth with the mercenary bande in Italy, untill, in the year of God’s grace 1495, I was in Pesaro, where I entered the service of my lord Don Giovanni Sforza and his lovely lady Donna Lucrezia, who was daughter of His Holiness the Pope. At firste I was made captain of my lord duke’s gentlemen-at-arms, but afterwardes my lady Lucrezia, of her gracious bounty, found me worthy to be her grace’s secretary. Furthermore, pleaseth it you to understand that in the palace of the Sforza Tyrant I saw that which was not a little to my discomforte; nevertheless I must be content recording it briefly.
“But now, as touching my own part, I most humbly beseech you to bare with me, for of a verity I saw and knew what no man did; and you, my reader, who make bold sufficient after my warning and admonition, will find herein a chronicle of fact that will astound you. God be thanked there are not such thynges done in England as in Italy under the red bull of the Borgias.