Rafael Sabatini

“ The Prince, a handsome, resplendent figure, towered upon a magnificent charger with a groom trotting afoot at either of his stirrups. After him came a group of his personal familiars—his secretary, his venom-taster, his chaplain and his almoner, which last flung handfuls of silver coins at the mob to impress it with his master's munificence and to excite its acclamations of his illustrious person.
The good folk of Rimini who were scarcely recovered from the excitements of the pageantry of Cesare's State entry into the city were dazzled and dazed again by a spectacle of so much magnificence. ”

“ That jealousy of hers distorted her judgement of him, for she permitted herself judgement and applied to him the only canons that she knew, as if men of genius are to be judged by the standards that govern the lives of haberdashers and spice-merchants. Thus Venice became Cesare's most crafty, implacable enemy in Italy, and an enemy for whose hand no weapon was too vile.
Gladly would the Venetians have moved in arms against him, to attempt to crush this man who snatched the Romagna from under their covetous traders' eyes; but in view of the league with France they dared not. ”

“ Such a thing was Messer Paolo Capello, Orator of the Most Serene Republic, a servant chosen to forward the Venetian hatred of Cesare Borgia. Venice watched the Duke's growing power in Italy with ever-increasing dismay. She saw herself threatened by a serious rival in the peninsula, by one indeed who might come to eclipse her own resplendent glory, even if he did not encroach upon her mainland territories of which indeed she was by no means sure. ”

“ How should that have happened since, as he now reflected, he had never been in Sinibaldi's presence? It was odd, he thought; and his thoughts, having started upon such a train as this, made swift progress. He knew enough of the politics of his day to be aware of the feelings entertained for Cesare Borgia by all Venetians; and he was sufficiently equipped with worldly wisdom to know that a man who, like Ranieri, could fawn upon the Duke who had dethroned that Malatesta in whose favour and confidence he had so lately stood, was not a man to be trusted. ”

“ Indeed it was not until Alviano's sword blade was shivered in a powerful lunge that caught Graziani full in the middle of the body, that those gentlemen realized that the condottiero's head was the only part of him that was vulnerable. It was Sinibaldi who told them so, shouting it fiercely as he shouldered aside the now disarmed Alviano, and stepped into the place from which he thrust him. With death in his eyes the Prince now led the attack upon that man who made so desperate a defence without chance of breaking ground or lessening the number of his assailants. ”

“ Supported now by Barbo he sat up, and with his left hand smeared away some of the blood that almost blinded him, and looked dully at his antient, who grunted and swore to express the joyous reaction from his despair.
'I am alive, Barbo,' he said, though his voice came feebly. 'But, Body of God! you were no more than in time to find me so. Had you been a minute later you would have been too late for me—aye, and perhaps for the Duke too.' He smiled faintly. 'When I found that valour would no longer avail me I had recourse to craft. It is well to play the fox when you cannot play the lion. ”

“ And then in answer to that cry, by some unaccountable magic—as it seemed to the people—there in his stirrups stood the Duke himself, his head bare, his tawny hair glowing ruddily in the torch-light, his brazen voice dominating the din and confusion.
'It is murder!' he proclaimed, and added fiercely the question, 'Who has done this foul deed?' Then he flung an arm towards the corner house on his right. 'In there!' he shouted to his halberdiers who came thrusting towards him through the crowd. 'In, I say, and on your lives see that not a man escapes you. ”

“ To what black depths of villainy can man descend!'
Capello stared at the Duke, almost beginning to believe him sincere, so fervidly had he spoken. But, dull fellow though he was, he was not so dull as to be hoodwinked now, nor did the Duke intend it. Cesare desired him to know the truth, yet to know it unuttered.
The Orator saw clear at last. And, seeing clear, he no longer dared to speak the words that had been on his lips, lest by implication they should convict the dead Sinibaldi, and so bring Capello himself under the wrath of the Ten of Venice. ”

“ It is not wise to threaten us, excellency—not even for an envoy of the Most Serene.' And he smiled upon the Venetian, but with such a smile that Sinibaldi quailed and lost on the instant much of his fine arrogance—as many another bold fellow had done when face to face with the young Duke of Valentinois. ”

“ My heart had told me.'
'Do not alarm yourself, Madonna, I implore you. There is not the cause,' he assured her, and no voice could have been more soothing. 'The Prince Sinibaldi is below, awaiting my pleasure. But I have no pleasure, Princess, that is not your pleasure. Your husband's life is in your own hands. ”

“ I will not trouble your magnificence with my personal feelings. They matter nothing. I am an envoy, and just as I know and expect what is due to me, so do I know and fulfil—what is due from me. These fools should have considered that more fully. Since they did not ...'
'God give us patience!' broke in the Duke. 'Will you go over that again? This is mere oratory, sir. Your tale, sir—your tale. Let the facts plead for you.'
Sinibaldi inclined his head with dignity.
'Indeed, your highness is right—as ever. To my tale then. Where was I? Ah, yes! ”

“ The first citizens about the streets of Rimini upon the morrow beheld in the pale wintry light of that November 2—appropriately the Day of the Dead—five bodies dangling limply from the balcony of the house whence the bolts had been shot—the justice of the Duke of Valentinois upon the murderers of Prince Sinibaldi! ”

“ Thus you see Graziani's doubts becoming suspicions; and very soon those suspicions grew to certainty. He scented treason in the proposal that Sinibaldi was to make him. If he went, he would most probably walk into a trap from which there might be no withdrawal; for when traitors reveal themselves they cannot for their own lives' sake spare the life of one who, being invited, refuses to become a party to that treason. Already Graziani saw himself in fancy with a hole in his heart, his limp body floating seaward down the Marecchia on the ebbing tide. ”

“ I HE who is great shall never lack for enemies. He has to reckon first with lesser great ones, whose ambitions he thwarts by his own success, outstripping and overshadowing them; and he has to reckon further with those insignificant parasites of humanity who, themselves utterly unproductive of aught that shall benefit their race, destitute alike of the wit to conceive for themselves or the energy and capacity to execute the conceptions of their betters, writhe in the secret consciousness of their utter worthlessness and spit the venom of their malice at him who has achieved renown. ”

“ Ranieri's house, he bethought him, was conveniently situated for such measures.
But if these forebodings urged him to forget his promise to wait upon Prince Sinibaldi, yet ambition whispered to him that after all he might be the loser through perceiving shadows where there was no real substance. Venice was in need of condottieri; the Republic was wealthy and paid her servants well; in her service the chances of promotion might be more rapid than in Cesare Borgia's, since already almost every captain of fortune in Italy was serving under the banner of the Duke. ”

“ There was never a man more versed than he in the uses of ambiguity.
He had employed it now so as to produce in her the maximum of terror—so as to convey to her a suggestion that he asked the maximum price. Thus when he made clear his real meaning, there would be reaction from her worst dread, and in that reaction he would trap her. The great sacrifice he demanded, would be dwarfed in her view by relief, would seem small by comparison with the sacrifice his ambiguity had led her to fancy he required. ”

“ Valentino!' rang the cry, and Sinibaldi was perhaps the only one in the cavalcade who remarked that the cry arose in a measure as he himself came into view, that it was at himself—travestied in Cesare's barbaric splendour—that the people looked as they shouted and waved their caps. And so it was, for there were few indeed in those lines of sightseers who perceived that the tall man in the tiger-skin mantle and scarlet and miniver bonnet riding that sumptuously caparisoned horse—the most splendid figure in all that splendid cavalcade—was not the Duke of Valentinois whom they acclaimed ”

“ The door crashed inwards under the fierce blows of halberds, and the soldiers went in to take the assassins, whilst Cesare pushed on towards the open square before the citadel, all pouring after him, courtiers, grooms and people, in a vociferous disorder.
Before the citadel Cesare drew rein, and his halberdiers cleared a space, and with their long pikes held horizontally formed a barrier against the surging human tide. Other men-at-arms coming presently down the street clove through the press, flinging the mob in waves on either side of them. ”

“ Be content,' he added, observing the fresh panic that stared at him from her blue eyes—for she suddenly bethought her of what manner of peace it was Cesare's wont to make with his enemies. 'He shall be treated by me with all honour. I shall endeavour by friendliness to win him from these traitors who have seduced him.'
'It is so—it is so!' she exclaimed, seizing with avidity upon that excuse which he so generously implied for the man who would have contrived his murder. ”

“ Excess of preparation has gone near to undoing us. We could have contrived excellently without that fool,' and he jerked a thumb towards Graziani, 'as I told your excellency. And we shall contrive no less excellently without him as it is. But contrive we must, else, I say again, we are dead men—all of us.' And upon that he went through the window and down into the water, after the others, with a thudding splash.
With fingers that haste made clumsy, Sinibaldi tugged at the buttons of his doublet, hampered by having tucked his sword under his arm. ”

“ As her agent in this sinister affair she employed a patrician who held the interests of Venice very dear; a man who was bold, resolute and resourceful, and whose hatred of the Duke of Valentinois was notoriously so intense as to seem an almost personal matter. This man—the Prince Marcantonio Sinibaldi—she dispatched to Rimini as her envoy-extraordinary for the express purpose, ostensibly, of conveying her lying felicitations to the Duke upon his conquest. ”

“ About this litter swarmed a host of pages, all of them lads of patrician estate, in the livery of the Republic.
There were mounted Nubian swordsmen in magnificent barbaric garments, very terrifying of aspect; there were some dozen turbaned Moorish slaves on foot, and finally there was a company of a score of arbalesters on horseback as a bodyguard of honour for the splendid Prince himself. ”

“ Fortunately for them, however, it was flowing; and so it bore them upwards towards the Bridge of Augustus, where they were able unseen to effect a landing—all save Pietro Corvo, the mute, who was drowned, and Sinibaldi, who remained behind.
Like Graziani, Sinibaldi too wore a shirt of mail beneath his doublet, as a precaution proper in one who engaged in such hazardous methods of underground warfare. It was indeed an almost inveterate habit with him. Less impetuous than those others, he paused to calculate his chances, and bethought him that it was odds this armour would sink him in the flood. ”

“ And it was a crafty tale, most cunningly conceived, and based as all convincing tales should be upon actualities. It was, in fact, precisely such a tale as Graziani might have told had he been there to speak, and being therefore true—though not true of Sinibaldi—would bear testing and should carry conviction.
'I was bidden, Magnificent, in secret to-night to a meeting held at the house of my Lord Ranieri, whose guest it happens that I have been since my coming to Rimini. I went urged by the promise that a matter of life and death was to be dealt with, which concerned me closely. ”

“ It was possible that in this business there might be no more than the Lord Ranieri had stated. He would go. Only a coward would remain absent out of fears for which grounds were not clearly apparent. But only a fool would neglect to take his measures for retreat or rescue in case his suspicions should be proved by the event well-founded.
Therefore when on the stroke of the first hour of night Captain Graziani presented himself at the Ranieri Palace, he had ambushed a half-score of men about the street under the command of his faithful antient Barbo. ”

“ Graziani gave them back look for look, but of them all the only one whose face he knew was Galeazzo Sforza of Catignola, whom he had seen at Pesaro; for it was this Galeazzo himself who in his brother's stead had surrendered the place to Cesare Borgia. The captain's glance was next arrested by Pietro Corvo, the Forlivese who once had practised magic in Urbino. The fellow detached from this patrician group as he must, for that matter, detach from any group in which he might chance to find himself. ”