Rafael Sabatini

“ Beltrame laughed, and Angelo understood. The Neapolitan wore a shirt of mail—one of those meshes so much in fashion then, so fine that your two hands might encompass and conceal it, and yet so finely tempered as to be proof against the stoutest stroke of sword or dagger.
The poet twisted the rose to a corner of his mouth, that he might have freedom to speak, what time with his dagger and the stump that remained him, he made the best defence he could against the other's furious charge.
“Coward!” he cried in a fury of reproach. “Oh, craven hound! Assassin! Ah ... Gesù!” ”

“ It will make a sweet thought to die on, if God wills that I should die. Have you no fear, Beltrame?”
“Fear?” snorted the stalwart Neapolitan.
“Men say the gods love a lover.”
“Not a doubt but they'll love you well enough to take you to their bosom.”
On that they crossed the street, and skirting the Braschi Palace, they descended a narrow lane where the shadows made night, to emerge again into the twilight of an open square. And as they went Angelo's poetic soul, not be restrained even by the matter that impended, suggested an opening line for a sonnet on a lover dying. ”

“ The latter attempted to greet Lavinia with a smile and Angelo with a scowl at one and the same time; finding the performance impossible, he was feeling foolish and therefore increasingly angry, when, suddenly, a diversion was created.
A brisk step rang through the chamber, to the martial jingle of spurs. Men were falling back and a way was opening of itself before some new-comer, who must be of importance to command so much by his mere presence. A curious silence, too, was creeping over all.
Beltrame turned, and craned his neck. ”

“ She stared at the Neapolitan's brooding face, alarmed an instant; then, dissembling this, she laughed, “Why, Ser Beltrame, are you angry—and for the matter of a rose? There are still many in the garden.”
“In the garden, yes. But the one I coveted, the one I begged of you but a moment since—that one is gone,” he reproached her.
“And I am to blame if Ser Angelo is rude and violent?” quoth she, striving to keep the matter in the realm of jest. “You were witness that I did not give him the flower. He took it without permission; seized it with ruthless force.” ”

“ The Pope shook his great head, and smiled tolerantly upon all this heat.
“Let us pray, then,” he lisped, “that you do not find him. The writer of those verses gives much promise.”
“He does, Holiness. He gives great promise of a sudden death from suffocation.”
The Pope's smile wavered nothing in its benignity. “You should follow my own ensample, Cesare, of contempt for these scribblers.” ”

“ And planted in my heart a crimson rose.”
“'A laurel green' the poet has it,” Beltrame corrected him.
“Petrarca, yes. But I——”
The Neapolitan's right hand fell heavily on Angelo's shoulder, and stayed him.
“We'll keep to the master's words, by your leave, dear Angelo,” he laughed; and his laugh was evil and unpleasant. Angelo stared at him, the smile of ecstasy fading from his lips. “I'll play at Cupid,” explained Beltrame, with a sneer, “and here's my laurel for the purpose.” He tapped his sword-hilt, nodding darkly. “It shall be red anon, as a compromise to your own poetic fancy.” ”

“ And then Lavinia, to create a diversion from this talk which was not plain to her, but which seemed laden with much menace, playfully smote Angelo's cheek with that rose of hers, saying that she did it to punish his excessive pertness.
“Such punishment,” said he, “is an encouragement to wickedness.” And as he spoke his hands closed over the rose, and his eyes smiled hardily upon the lady of his adoration, with never a thought or care for his rival's presence.
Beltrame flushed darkly under his tan, and his brows came together as he looked on. ”

“ It was, indeed, Angelo's too-fluent pen which, in the interval of singing the thousand beauties of Lavinia Fregosi, had composed that bitter pasquinade wherein was ridiculed—somewhat late in the day, it is true—Cesare Borgia's transition from the Cardinalitial purple to the steel and leather of a condottiero.
That Beltrame should comment upon his slight agitation was disturbing now to Angelo. He very readily assumed that the Neapolitan's suspicions were not only definite, but founded upon some evidence of which he must have become possessed. ”

“ But first, Beltrame——”
“Come, then,” the Neapolitan bade him, harshly interrupting the appeal he guessed was on the point of following. Then he laughed his evil laugh again. “'Angel' are you named; an angel does Monna Lavinia account you. It is high time I made an angel of you in earnest.”
“And just as surely as you are a devil, just so surely shall you sup in hell this night,” returned Angelo as he strode on beside the other.
But as they went the poet's eyes grew troubled. His spurt of anger spent, the folly of the thing appalled him. He must attempt to avert it. ”

“ Although in his seventy-second year, he retained a vigour that was miraculous, and seemed a man still in his very prime. There was a fire in the dark, Spanish eyes—eyes that still retained much of that erstwhile dangerous magnetism whereof Gasparino da Verano wrote so eloquently some years ago—a ring in the rich voice and an upright carriage in the tall, full figure that argued much youth still lingering in this amazing septuagenarian. ”