Rafael Sabatini

“ Men turned about and scanned one another with eyes that flashed fiercely through their eye-holes, as though their glances would have burned their way through the silk that screened their neighbors’ countenances. It seemed to Gismondi in that moment of panic that the entire company stared at him ”

“ As it is I can only hope that we are not yet betrayed. But this I know: that the man who became possessed of the secret of our plot sits here among us now.”
Again there was that rustling stir, and several voices spoke, harsh and hot with threats of what should be the fate of this rash spy. Gismondi gnawed his lip in silence, waiting and wondering, the strength all oozing from him. ”

“ Three paces within the room the captain came to a halt and surveyed them with eyes that smiled grimly from a bearded face. “Sirs,” said he, “resistance will be idle. I have fifty men with me.”
The president advanced with a firm step. “What may be your will with us?” quoth he, a fine arrogance in his voice.
“The will of his Highness the Duke of Valentinois,” was the man’s answer, “to whom your plot is known in its every detail.” ”

“ Our forgetfulness shall be your wage. Fail me or refuse the task and the hoist shall extract confession from you, and the hangman make an end of you. The choice is yours,” he ended, his tone most amiable.
Gismondi stared and stared into that beautiful young face, so mockingly impassive. His terror gave way to a dull rage, and but for the presence of that captain in steel he might not have curbed his impulse to attempt upon the duke to anticipate the work of Messer Crespi’s friends. ”

“ What though in falling the dying man had cursed him? It is true that Benvenuto’s superstitious soul had quaked under the awful malediction from those writhing lips, but only for an instant. He was as nimble with spiritual as with lethal tools, and to avert his victim’s curse he had crossed himself devoutly, and devoutly breathed a prayer to our Lady of Loreto, whose ardent votary he had ever been. ”

“ There was a mist before his eyes, and his heart was thumping horridly at the base of his throat with a violence that seemed to shake him in his chair at each pulsation, and he marveled that the boom of it did not draw the attention of his neighbor.
“Asti!” came the voice from across the chamber, and another figure rose and went apart, passing the returning Ancona on the way. Bologna followed Asti, and now Gismondi began to realize that the president was taking them alphabetically, and he wondered how many more there might be ere Forli was called, for Crespi he knew was from Forli. ”

“ Yet, following his instructions, Gismondi answered not until the question was repeated: “Warmer for whom? A corpse might find it warm enough.”
“A corpse shall find it so ere the winter’s done,” Gismondi answered, at which the guardian of that place stood aside, and bade him go forward to the house. Already others were advancing from the gate; but Gismondi stayed not to look at them. ”

“ The host of the Sole received him with all deference, and since the common room was thronged with Borgian soldiery, for the Duke of Valentinois was in the town, he set a room apart for Messer Gismondi’s convenience. There for an hour the rascal pored over those documents, mastering the details of a plot aimed at the very life of the Lord Cesare Borgia himself—details that the Lord Cesare should pay for handsomely. ”

“ If die I must I claim by right of birth the ax.”
“By right of birth,” the captain mused, and smiled. “Indeed, your very birthright, so it seems. Come, sirs.”
But others stormed with interruptions, and one there was who called upon his fellows to draw what steel they carried and die with weapons in their hands.
Gismondi, apart, with folded arms, watched them and grinned behind his vizor. It was with him an hour of exultation in the revulsion from his recent terrors. He wondered to what length of folly these rash fools would go. He thought he might witness a pretty fight ”

“ Easy therefore in mind and conscience he got him down into the snow, all trampled and slushy where their horses had circled in the fight, and having tethered his own beast he fetched Messer Crespi’s a cruel cut across the hams that sent it off at the gallop in the direction of Forli. Next he applied himself to the garnering of the spoil. The dead gallant was richly arrayed ”