"Do you think these poor laths can save you from my vengeance, my Lord Gambara?" quoth he, with a chuckle horrible to hear.
My Lord Gambara! He mistook me for the Legate! In an instant I saw the reason of this. It was as Giuliana had conceived. The boy had run to warn him wherever he was—at Roncaglia, perhaps, a league away upon the road to Parma. And the boy's news was that my Lord the Governor had gone to Fifanti's house. The boy had never waited to see the Legate come forth again; but had obeyed his instructions to the letter, and it was Gambara whom Fifanti came to take red-handed and to kill as he had the right to do.
When he had espied my flying shape, the length of the corridor had lain between us, Fifanti was short-sighted, and since it was Gambara whom he expected to find, Gambara at once he concluded it to be who fled before him.
There was no villainy for which I was not ripe that night, it seemed. For no sooner did I perceive this error than I set myself to scheme how I might profit by it. Let Gambara by all means suffer in my place if the thing could be contrived. If not in fact, at least in intent, the Cardinal-legate had certainly sinned. If he was not in my place now, it was through the too great good fortune that attended him. Besides, Gambara would be in better case to protect himself from the consequences and from Fifanti's anger.
Thus cravenly I reasoned; and reasoning thus, I reached the window. If I could climb down to the garden, and then perhaps up again to my own chamber, I might get me to bed, what time Fifanti still hammered at that door. Meanwhile his voice came rasping through those slender timbers, as he mocked the Lord Cardinal he supposed me.
"You would not be warned, my lord, and yet I warned you enough. You would plant horns upon my head. Well, well! Do not complain if you are gored by them."
Then he laughed hideously. "This poor Astorre Fifanti is blind and a fool. He is to be sent packing on a journey to the Duke, devised to suit my Lord Cardinal's convenience. But you should have bethought you that suspicious husbands have a trick of pretending to depart whilst they remain."
Next his voice swelled up again in passion, and again the door was shaken.
"Will you open, then, or must I break down the door! There is no barrier in the world shall keep me from you, there is no power can save you. I have the right to kill you by every law of God and man. Shall I forgo that right?" He laughed snarlingly.
"Three hundred ducats yearly to recompense the hospitality I have given you—and six hundred later upon the coming of the Duke!" he mocked. "That was the price, my lord, of my hospitality—which was to include my wife's harlotry. Three hundred ducats! Ha! ha! Three hundred thousand million years in Hell! That is the price, my lord—the price that you shall pay, for I present the reckoning and enforce it. You shall be shriven in iron—you and your wanton after you.
"Shall I be caged for having shed a prelate's sacred blood? for having sent a prelate's soul to Hell with all its filth of sin upon it? Shall I? Speak, magnificent; out of the fullness of your theological knowledge inform me."
I had listened in a sort of fascination to that tirade of venomous mockery. But now I stirred, and pulled the casement open. I peered down into the darkness and hesitated. The wall was creeper-clad to the window's height; but I feared the frail tendrils of the clematis would never bear me. I hesitated. Then I resolved to jump. It was but little more than some twelve feet to the ground, and that was nothing to daunt an active lad of my own build, with the soft turf to land upon below. It should have been done without hesitation; for that moment's hesitation was my ruin.
Fifanti had heard the opening of the casement, and fearing that, after all, his prey might yet escape him, he suddenly charged the door like an infuriated bull, and borrowing from his rage a strength far greater than his usual he burst away the fastenings of that crazy door.
Into the room hurtled the doctor, to check and stand there blinking at me, too much surprised for a moment to grasp the situation.
When, at last, he understood, the returning flow of rage was overwhelming.
"You!" he gasped, and then his voice mounting—"You dog!" he screamed. "So it was you! You!"
He crouched and his little eyes, all blood-injected, peered at me with horrid malice. He grew cold again as he mastered his surprise. "You!" he repeated. "Blind fool that I have been! You! The walker in the ways of St. Augustine—in his early ways, I think. You saint in embryo, you postulant for holy orders! You shall be ordained this night—with this!" And he raised his sword so that little yellow runnels of light sped down the livid blade.
"I will ordain you into Hell, you hound!" And thereupon he leapt at me.
I sprang away from the window, urged by fear of him into a very sudden activity. As I crossed the room I had a glimpse of the white figure of Giuliana in the gloom of the passage, watching.
He came after me, snarling. I seized a stool and hurled it at him. He avoided it nimbly, and it went crashing through the half of the casement that was still closed.
And as he avoided it, grown suddenly cunning, he turned back towards the door to bar my exit should I attempt to lead him round the table.
We stood at gaze, the length of the little low-ceilinged chamber between us, both of us breathing hard.
Then I looked round for something with which to defend myself; for it was plain that he meant to have my life. By a great ill-chance it happened that the sword which I had worn upon that day when I went as Giuliana's escort into Piacenza was still standing in the very corner where I had set it down. Instinctively I sprang for it, and Fifanti, never suspecting my quest until he saw me with a naked iron in my hand, did nothing to prevent my reaching it.
Seeing me armed, he laughed. "Ho, ho! The saint-at-arms!" he mocked. "You'll be as skilled with weapons as with holiness!" And he advanced upon me in long stealthy strides. The width of the table was between us, and he smote at me across it. I parried, and cut back at him, for being armed now, I no more feared him than I should have feared a child. Little he knew of the swordcraft I had learnt from old Falcone, a thing which once learnt is never forgotten though lack of exercise may make us slow.
He cut at me again, and narrowly missed the lamp in his stroke. And now, I can most solemnly make oath that in the thing that followed there was no intent. It was over and done before I was conscious of the happening. I had acted purely upon instinct as men will in performing what they have been taught.
To ward his blow, I came almost unconsciously into that guard of Marozzo's which is known as the iron girdle. I parried and on the stroke I lunged, and so, taking the poor wretch entirely unawares, I sank the half of my iron into his vitals ere he or I had any thought that the thing was possible.
I saw his little eyes grow very wide, and the whole expression of his face become one of intense astonishment.
He moved his lips as if to speak, and then the sword clattered from his one hand, the lanthorn from his other; he sank forward quietly, still looking at me with the same surprised glance, and so came further on to my rigidly held blade, until his breast brought up against the quillons. For a moment he remained supported thus, by just that rigid arm of mine and the table against which his weight was leaning. Then I withdrew the blade, and in the same movement flung the weapon from me. Before the sword had rattled to the floor, his body had sunk down into a heap beyond the table, so that I could see no more than the yellow, egg-like top of his bald head.
Awhile I stood watching it, filled with an extraordinary curiosity and a queer awe. Very slowly was it that I began to realize the thing I had done. It might be that I had killed Fifanti. It might be. And slowly, gradually I grew cold with the thought and the apprehension of its horrid meaning.