Ferrante

“ Ferrante's brows went up; his officers muttered their astonishment. He crossed to the table, and peered into the goblet. It was more than half full. He smiled thoughtfully. It was not the end he had expected, but it was very curious; it was most quaintly humorous in its way. The man had been fulminated by his terror; destroyed by his imagination.
As he stood there, considering the dead prelate, Ferrante gave utterance to his thoughts.
“Most strange,” said he, “how deadly a man's terrors may become. ”

“ And then, as Ferrante was resuming his seat, the Cardinal still watching him—Messer Annibale uttered a scream, clutched at his girdle as if to loosen it, and went over backwards, taking his chair with him. Chair and man crashed to the ground. Out of it rolled the nephew of the Cardinal-Count, and some little way along the floor; then he lay prone, his legs drawn under him, his contracted hands clawing at the tesselated floor, whilst his drawn mouth emitted scream after scream of anguish. ”

“ They were the outward manifestation of the delight that Ferrante took in this game of strategy he had set himself to play; this pitting of quick wits against the clumsy murderous plan of the Cardinal-Count. In anticipation, he was already relishing the deadly jest he had prepared.
“My message to you,” he began—and carelessly, abstractedly, as he spoke, he passed the goblet into his left hand, “is a message of good will. Had bloodshed been necessary ere Reggio di Monte had raised her gates to us——”
He broke off abruptly, staring at the Cardinal-Count. ”

“ Now Don Ferrante wished to harness his old horses before the gala carriage and have his old shopman take the place of coachman.
When Donna Micaela told him that it could not be, Don Ferrante began to weep. What would people think of him if he did not show himself on the Corso in the afternoon? That was the last thing a man of position denied himself. How could anyone know that he was a nobleman, if he did not drive up and down the street in the carriage of the old Alagonas? ”

“ Not so, it seemed, thought Cesare, for his glance quickened as it rested upon Ferrante, as though the condottiero's words had awakened in the Duke's mind some notion of the means by which the task he was imposing might be carried through.
“Be it so, then,” he said. “You shall have the guns. All will be ready for you by sunrise. ”

“ For Ferrante had encamped, meanwhile, in the valley; and in this matter he was effectively assisted by the forest to pursue the comedy of his pageant.
When the curtain of mist was rolled aside, Reggio had beheld on the wood's edge no more than a matter of a thousand men. But there was such constant coming and going, into and out of the forest, that it was clear the Duke had bivouacked his countless legions under the shelter of the trees, and that this matter of a thousand men or so was but an overflow—a supposition confirmed by the fact that there were no horses to be seen. ”

“ The problem was a tough one; and Ferrante waxed uneasy, lest, by failing satisfactorily to solve it, his opinions should lose the vast esteem in which it would seem that they were held by the Duke.
“Why, as to that, now,” said he reflectively, “Reggio di Monte is no such easy place to capture. It is pitched on a hill-top, like an eagle's nest, and boasts of its impregnability to assault.” He paused a moment. “Force will not crack that nut as soon as strategy.”
Cesare Borgia nodded. “That,” said he, “is why I sent for you.”
Ferrante was flattered; yet not unduly. ”

“ He tore aside the door-curtain with an angry hand, and in an angry voice he shouted for the men of Taddeo's foot.
The entire company had risen now, the Cardinal-Count among the rest, dismay and vexation overspreading his white face. “What would you do, my lord?” he asked. “This man has done no more than——”
“I have no concern with him,” Ferrante broke in rudely, facing the table again, and towering there, the very incarnation of wrath. “But if I am to sup with your Magnificence I'll not be served by swineherds and bathed in fish-stews. ”

“ Thus within six months of joining Cesare's army he found himself a full-blown captain with a condotta of horse under his control, admitted to the Duke's councils, and enjoying the confidence, and in some measure the friendship, of his master.
To have achieved so much in so little time augured well for the future. Ferrante felt that high destinies awaited him, and in this assurance he permitted himself the luxury of falling in love. ”

“ People will wonder and wonder. The Don Ferrante, who is a Sicilian prince and Spanish grandee, is that the same man who stood in a shop in Diamante and shouted at the teamsters? No, people will say, it cannot be the same. It is impossible for it to be the same. ”

“ It was the Renaissance card which won the trick. With startling boldness, yet with consummate art, Lorenzo played the game of flattering Ferrante. No ordinary adulation, however, would have had success with the Neapolitan Phaleris. He was too strong-minded a man for anything of that kind. But to be hailed by the great Renaissance patron of the period, by one also who was himself one of the leading humanists, as a brother-humanist and a fellow-patron of learning, was a delicate incense to his vanity which he could not resist. ”

“ The manœvre of the foot was repeated with the horse, and after these came again more foot, more guns and baggage carts, and lastly more horse. For upwards of an hour did the fearsome pageant which Ferrante's cunning had devised to terrorise the defenders of Reggio continue to parade before the scared eyes of the watchers on the walls. For an hour and upwards did the Cardinal-Count himself observe those vast forces pouring over the summit of Monte Quarto in a never-ending torrent of steel-cased men and splendid horses, flashing and glittering in the morning sun that shone upon the heights. ”

“ Go up, and look at it, I beg.”
“What will take one place will take another,” said della Volpe.
“Always granting that that other is not Reggio,” put in Ferrante. “Go up; go up, and survey the town; and, ere you go, put off your armour, lest it glitter. When you have seen, perhaps you will have help to offer me.”
As they were departing, by no means in the best of moods, he stayed them.
“Can you make fogs, Messer Taddeo?” he asked.
“Fogs?” quoth Taddeo, bewildered.
“It is plain you cannot. Can you, Ramires?”
“Is it a jest?” quoth the Spaniard, with a great dignity. ”

“ Ferrante addressed himself—cap in hand, and bowing with the grace of the perfect courtier—to the mistress. “Madonna, you may pursue your way; yet suffer that I pursue it with you. Lojano is unpleasantly full of soldiers, and my escort may not come amiss.”
It was the dame who answered—quickly, as if to forestall her mistress—and Ferrante, hungering to hear the lady's voice, was angered.
“Sir,” said she, “it is not far. Madonna's brothers shall thank your Excellency.” ”

“ No one must ever know that I have had a hand in this affair."
"Words are useless," replied Ferrante, with an enthusiasm which he could ill conceal: "I have already fixed on the means which I shall employ. The life of that man has become more odious to me than it was before, since I shall not dare to see you again so long as he is alive. I shall await the signal of the reservoir flooding the street." He bowed abruptly and left the room. The Duchessa watched him go. ”

“ A crowd of men had surrounded them on their approach, and so hemmed them about that they had feared for their very lives and had been in no case to look round and take notice of the real extent of the Borgia forces. Thus they were hustled into Ferrante's presence.
Messer Annibale, the spokesman, looked from one to the other of the occupants of the tent, and blinked. Ferrante was seated, with Taddeo standing on one hand and Ramires on the other, both the lieutenants being armed at all points. ”

“ Then close the gates, and make yourself master of the palace.”
Ramires went out. The dozen men that had come to fill the place of lacqueys sprang to their pikes at a word from Ferrante.
“Sirs,” said he amiably to the company, “you will assemble at that end of the chamber—all save my lord, the Cardinal-Count.” And seeing a hand or two steal furtively to the breast of a doublet: “The man who bares a weapon,” he told them fiercely, “shall be strangled out of hand in the yard below. Be warned, sirs! I do not lack the means to constrain the unwilling!” ”

“ Even as she spoke, two burly Swiss swung into view, turning a corner of the street. They were singing lustily but tunelessly; for they were very drunk. Ferrante looked at them, and from them to the dame, a thought mockingly, for there was fear writ large on her broad face—fear lest he should take her at her word, and leave them.
“Woman,” said he, “you are a barque tossing between Scylla and Charybdis.” Then he stooped to add confidentially: “Courtesy, believe me, makes a good pilot.” And with that he led them past the noisy Swiss, and on with no more word spoken. ”

“ His men-at-arms drove the gentlemen of Reggio out of the chamber and out of the palace, of which Ferrante remained in full possession. And ere they sought their beds he explained to his mystified lieutenants how he had juggled the affair, how fooled the Cardinal-Count for the second time that day.
“And now he sits there,” he ended, smiling, “with a cup of wine before him that is as wholesome and innocent as the milk he suckled in his infancy, yet believing it poisoned he dares not touch it; sooner will he suffer agonies of hunger and of thirst ”

“ Ferrante's sneer grew broader. “An excellent plan, Messer Taddeo, but for one tiling which you have overlooked.”
“And what may that be?” challenged the truculent veteran.
“That they are not all stone-deaf in Reggio, and therefore that a thousand men winding about a hard mountain road would be heard before they were half way up. Then, Messer Taddeo, we shall have as pretty a shower of rocks and boiling pitch to greet us as ever rained on a parcel of fools.”
Taddeo was angry, and he had the support of Ramires, whilst Orsini—as became his youth—stood neutral. ”

“ Mockery smouldered in his eyes and curled his strong lips as he broke the awful silence.
“It seems, my lord of Reggio,” said he, “that here is some mistake. Your seneschal has lacked the care that is so necessary when it is proposed to serve the guests with poisoned wine. It seems that you have been caught in your own toils.”
An effeminate youth across the board, who had no doubt drunk freely, uttered a piercing scream, and fell forward in a swoon. Ferrante smiled inwardly to see his plans thus furthered by the terror of a fool.
“Ramires,” said he quietly, “send up a score of men. ”

“ Annibale hesitated a moment; but the point raised by Ferrante was a just one, and being moreover impressed by the calm assurance of these officers, he formally made offer of surrender in the lord of Reggio's name, subject to safe-conduct being granted to Reggio's defenders, one and all.
“That is to say, you accept the offer made you by the Duke's Highness. It is well.” He turned to Orsini. “Set it down.” he commanded. Then to the ambassadors: “Is there aught else?” he asked. ”

“ The Sienese announced, in 1477, the alliance between Ferrante and Sixtus IV., with which they themselves were associated, by driving a chariot round the city, with ‘one clad as the goddess of peace standing on a hauberk and other arms.’ [970]
At the Venetian festivals the processions, not on land but on water, were marvellous in their fantastic splendour. The sailing of the Bucentaur to meet the Princess of Ferrara in the year 1491 (p. 136) seems to have been something belonging to fairyland. ”

“ This had indeed been planned out long before by his mother, for the Marchesa had lived long enough in the Colonna palace to fall under its spell and she had marked the Colonna heiress as a suitable parti for Ferrante.
Therefore at the great reconciliation between the Emperor and the Pope which took place at Bologna, where Clement crowned Charles, and they parcelled out to their favourites the dignities of Italy, Ferrante Gonzaga besought the hand of Fenice in recognition of the services of his house. ”

“ Hither Piero, terrified at the disaffection in Florence, hastened, and acceded to Charles’ demands. He promised a sum of money; he surrendered four of the most important cities: Sarzana, Pietra-Santa, Pisa, and Leghorn. These humiliating concessions still further irritated the Florentines. On Piero’s return to Florence (November 8) the citizens rushed to arms, and he was forced to fly in disguise to Venice. The defection of Florence threatened the position of Ferrante in the Romagna and opened the way to Rome. Thither therefore Ferrante retired. ”

“ Will you undertake it with that?”
“Since you can spare no more, that must suffice,” said Ferrante, with a fine show of confidence in his own powers to achieve the impossible.
“Very well,” said the Duke. “You will take your own condotta of horse; Ramires shall lead it for you; della Volpe shall command your foot, and Fabio Orsini shall act as your lientenant. Are you content with these officers?
Content with them! Two—Diego Ramires and Taddeo della Volpe—were among the most famous condottieri in Cesare's train. And they were to serve under him! His fortunes soared on giant pinions. ”

“ The duchess, deeply touched, offered to conceal him at Parma if he would swear to her that for the moment he would not exercise his functions in the town, and above all that he would not carry out any of the death sentences which he declared he had in petto.
“And if I am hanged as the result of my imprudence,” said Ferrante seriously, “all those wretches who do the people so much harm will live for years and years, and whose fault will that be? ”