It was a bright and sunshiny morning--considering the season of the year, more summer-like and warm than usual--and Leonora d'Orco sat in her beautiful little garden without covering for her head, and with her rich black hair in less trim array than usual, falling over her lovely neck and shoulders. Her eyes were fixed upon the fountain in its marble basin just before her, and there was something calm but melancholy in their gaze. She watched the water as it sprung bounding up, and then fell again in glittering drops, and presently the long, jetty eyelashes overflowed with tears.
"Poor unhappy girl!" she murmured: "the fountain of bright life is dried up for her--the gay and sparkling drops all spent. Oh Eloise--poor Eloise!"
One of her maids came out and stood by her side; but Leonora did not notice her, although the girl seemed anxious to tell her something. Her lady turned away her eyes. Below, at the distance of about half a mile, lay the city, with its dark walls and citadel strongly marked out in the clear light, and she saw a horseman riding up at headlong speed.
"Who is that coming, Carlotta?" asked Leonora. "It is not my father surely."
"Oh, no, signora," replied the girl. "It looks like the maestro. He will speak to you of what I was going to tell you."
"What were you going to tell?" asked Leonora with sudden eagerness.
"Oh! bad news, signora--nothing but bad news now," replied the girl: "they say--I don't know how true it is, but Marco told me--they say that the lord prefect was arrested last night by the Signor Ramiro's order, for poisoning his lady."
Leonora started up with a face as pale as death; but, after gazing on the girl for a moment with a wild look, she seated herself again and put her hand to her head.
Two minutes had hardly passed ere Leonardo was seen hurrying along the terrace, and the next moment he took her hand and kissed it.
"Pardon, dear lady, pardon my abruptness; but I have no time to lose."
"Speak! speak!" cried Leonardo, in a low but firm tone. "Let me hear all and quickly."
"The trial is over," said Leonora. "Your father would not preside; but his creatures have condemned him. No time was allowed to summon other witnesses. Some poison, concealed in the case of a portrait known to be Lorenzo's, was found in the unhappy lady's chamber; a girl called Giovanetta testified that her mistress and Friar Peter both told her that two papers--one of which she tried upon a dog who died instantly, and the other which her mistress took--were given to the countess by her husband. Some other small circumstances of suspicion appeared, and on this he was condemned, although there were numerous inconsistencies. He is innocent, believe me; but in two hours he will be done to death before the south gate, unless your father can be persuaded to respite him. There are many in the town that are sure of his innocence, but too few I fear--
"He is innocent! he is innocent!" cried Leonora, with her brow burning, and her cheek pale. "He is innocent as a babe. I will go down--I will return with you--I will see my father--I will save him or die with him."
"But, lady, they will let no one enter the town," said Leonardo; "they have trebled the sentries at the gates. All may come forth who will, but no one can return. So they told me as I passed; and, unless you have the key of the postern, as you once had, I fear--"
"I have--I have," said Leonora; "stay but one moment."
She flew into the house and was but an instant gone. Leonardo saw her hide something like a small vial in her bosom, but the large key was in her hand; and merely beckoning him to follow, she ran down the steps of the terrace, and through the garden toward the gate. Leonardo followed rapidly, merely saying to the girl----
"Send down my horse to the gate."
Leonora was at the postern first, however, but her hands so trembled she could not put the key in the lock. The painter took it from her, opened the little gate, and, passing in, she sped on towards the citadel. She did not observe that Leonardo was no longer with her; but, with frantic speed, and hair escaped from all its bindings, she sped on through the almost deserted streets till she reached the gates of the citadel.
"Where is my father?" she cried; "where is the Lord of Imola?"
"Why, lady," replied a man standing beside the sentinel, "he is not here; he is in the bishop's piazza, waiting till the execution is over. This is a terrible day, and will bring ruin on the city, I can see."
But ere his last words were uttered, Leonora was gone.
Ramiro d'Orco truly stood in the square before the bishop's palace, which was not two hundred yards from the south gate. His arms were crossed upon his chest; his head was held high, his brow contracted; his jaws so firmly set, that when he spoke, in answer to any of the lords and officers who surrounded him, the sounds issued from between his teeth, and his lips were hardly seen to move.
"Do you not think, my lord, this is very dangerous," said one; "do you remember he is the prefect?"
"He himself decided yesterday at this very hour, that no rank can shield a murderer from death," replied Ramiro d'Orco.
"He made no defence," said another, "but denied the competence of your court, declared the charge a lie, and appealed to the Pope and the King of France."
"He himself pronounced my court competent to all high justice, yesterday," said Ramiro, drily. "Let him appeal. When his head is off, they cannot put it on again. No more of this. He dies, if I live."
A short pause ensued, and then a man was seen running rapidly up the street which led toward the south gate.
"Who is this?" asked Ramiro d'Orco. "They have not called noon from the belfry yet, have they?"
"No, my lord," answered a young priest; "it wants half an hour of noon. But they have taken the prisoner down to the gate," he added, well comprehending what was going on in the heart of his lord. "I saw them pass as I came up a minute ago. But what has this fellow got in his arms?"
"He is one of the guards from the gates," said another; "and, by my life, I think they must have anticipated the hour, for that is a man's head he is carrying."
"No great evil," murmured Ramiro d'Orco; but a moment after a soldier reached the spot where they stood, and laid a bloody head at Ramiro's feet. All, however, remarked that the hair was somewhat grey, and the crown shaved.
"A pennon of horse from his Highness the Duke of Valentinois is at the gate, my lord, seeking admission," said the messenger, almost breathless. "We did not admit them, as your lordship had ordered the gates not to be opened; but the leader threw this head in through the wicket, saying that the duke had sent it to you for the love he bears you. It is Friar Peter's head, my lord; do you not see? and the officer says he confessed last night having poisoned the Countess Visconti. What are we to do?"
A murmur of horror ran through the little crowd around, and a look of relief and satisfaction at the timely intervention spread over almost every countenance except that of Ramiro d'Orco, whose brow had gathered into a deeper frown than ever.
"What are we to do with the lord prefect?" asked the man again.
"Hence, meddling fool!" exclaimed Ramiro d'Orco, stamping his foot upon the ground. "Strike off his head! The sentence of my court shall not be reversed. Strike off his head, I say! Wait no longer--'twill be noon ere you reach the gate again. Away! Then open the gates. But mark me, no delay, as you value your own life! Go fast, sirrah! Have your feet no strength?"
The soldier ran down the street in haste, and Ramiro turned his eyes from the pained and anxious countenances around him; but it was only to meet a sight that affected him still more.
"Oh! I would have been spared this!" he cried, as Leonora rushed toward him and cast herself at his feet.
"My lord--my father!" she exclaimed, stretching out her hands towards him, "spare him! spare him! He is innocent--you know he is innocent! Lose not a moment--send down the pardon--some gentleman run down. He pardons him. Be quick! oh be quick!"
"Hold, on your lives!" cried Ramiro d'Orco, in a voice of thunder. "Hence, girl. Take her away--some one take her away. He dies, if I live!"
"Then hear, Ramiro d'Orco!" cried Leonora, "send me to the block instead of him. I poisoned her more surely than he did. See, here is the poison. I am ready; take me to the block! I confess the crime. But hear me, lords and gentlemen all: Lorenzo Visconti is innocent--innocent of the death of his poor wife--innocent of the neglect and insult my father thinks he offered me, and for which, in truth, he does him to death; innocent of all offence, as this hard parent will find when we are both in our still graves."
"Ha! what is that?" exclaimed her father, gazing at her; "she raves--take her away!"
"I rave not. It is all true," cried Leonora; "so help me God, as he has explained all. Will you send the pardon now? Oh, speak! speak!"
"It is too late," said Ramiro, in a low and gloomy tone, pointing with his hand down the street.
Leonora turned and gazed, with her eyes almost starting from her head. Four men were carrying a bier with something stretched upon it, and a cloak thrown over all. Leonora sprung upon her feet, uttered a shriek that rung through the whole square, and then fell senseless on the ground.
A brief lapse of forgetfulness came to that wrung and agonized heart, and then she opened her eyes, but she closed them quickly again. She fancied she was in a dream. What was it she thought she saw? The face of Lorenzo Visconti bending over her; French soldiers all armed; the banners of the Church mingled with others she knew not. Oh, it was a dream--a deceitful dream!
"Let me take her, Lorenzo," said a voice she had not heard for years; "joy kills as well as sorrow. Leonora--cousin Leonora, it is De Vitry: wake up--wake up. Things are not so bad as they seemed. It was the corpse of a murdering villain you saw, justly condemned to death yesterday at this hour. Visconti is safe."
Leonora opened her eyes again, and found herself in the arms of De Vitry. She gazed anxiously round. There stood Lorenzo with his head uncovered, and his upper garment off; and a smile, like that of an angel, came upon her lips; but when he advanced a step towards her, she shrunk back in De Vitry's arms, murmuring, "Take me to my father! Oh! where is my father?" and, covering her eyes with her hands, she wept profusely.
"A litter is coming speedily from the inn there," said Leonardo da Vinci; "let me escort her, my lord. You have other matters to attend to just now, and she will be well in privacy for a time. Here comes Antonio with a litter."
De Vitry lifted her in his stalwart arms, and placed her, as tenderly as if she had been an infant, in the sort of covered bier then commonly used in Italy by ladies too feeble or too timid to travel on horseback. Leonardo drew the curtains round; but, leaning his hand upon the woodwork, he walked on by her side, while four stout bearers carried her on toward the gate leading to the villa. Twice Leonora drew back the curtain and looked out. Once she asked, "Where is my father? Is this all true, signor maestro, or am I dreaming still?"
"Your father is at the citadel waiting for the French and Roman lords," replied Leonardo. "All is real, my child, and happy is it that it is so; for both Antonio and I had nearly been too late. The number of men we could introduce last night was too small; and, had you not left the postern key in my hands, the Lord of Vitry and the French forces could hardly have entered ere the axe had fallen."
Leonora shuddered and let fall the curtain; but after a moment or two she looked out again on the other side, saying--
"Oh! good Antonio, is that you? Surely I saw him--surely I saw your lord."
"Yes, dear lady, you saw him safe," replied Antonio; "we were preparing to force the gate; but we should have been too late had not the maestro brought round the French forces from the other side of the town and let us in."
"God be praised!" murmured Leonora; "but oh, Antonio, does any one believe him guilty still? If they do, that will kill him by a sharper death than that of the axe.
"No one does--no one can," replied Antonio. "Mardocchi--that is, Father Peter--made full confession last night of the darkest and most damnable plot that ever was hatched. I could not tell the Duke of Valentinois all, for there were many things I could not discover; but when I showed him plainly that Mardocchi had betrayed some of his most terrible secrets, he had him put to the torture; and then the bloody-minded knave confessed the whole, filling up all the gaps that my tale had left. The duke showed no reverence for his shaved head, but struck it off, and sent it to Imola, with his whole evidence written down by the Dominican who was there present. No, no, lady, no one can entertain even a suspicion now."
"Thank God for that also," said Leonora, in a low tone. "Oh, this has been a terrible day."
Again she let fall the curtain of the litter; and the bearers moved slowly up the hill. They carried her along the terrace to her own saloon; but when they stopped, and Leonardo would have aided her to descend, they found her sound asleep.
Tired nature, exhausted with the conflict of passions, had given way, and slumber had sealed her eyes at the first touch of returning peace. There was a sweet, well-contented smile upon her lips, but Leonardo marked a bright red spot upon her cheek, and calling her maids to her, he himself stayed at the villa till she awoke. The burning fever was already upon her; her words were incoherent, her pulse beating terribly. For fourteen days Leonora d'Orco hung between life and death; and happy was it, perhaps, that anything occurred to place a veil between her eyes and the last terrible act of the drama in which she herself had borne so conspicuous a part.
Every one at all acquainted with Italian history knows what followed; how Cæsar Borgia, about four days after the events last recorded had taken place, commanded the personal attendance of Ramiro d'Orco on his terrible and treacherous march to Senegaglia; how Ramiro found himself compelled to obey, both by the presence of the French and the papal troops in his capital, and by fear lest his machinations against Lorenzo Visconti should be too closely investigated; and how his dead body was found one morning out in two pieces, in the marketplace of Bologna. None knew how he died, or by whose command; and Leonora never suspected that he had suffered a violent death.
That he was dead they told her as soon as she could bear such tidings; and under the escort of De Vitry and his forces she joined Bianca Maria and returned, after some months, to the Milanese. At the end of some fifteen or sixteen months, Lorenzo Visconti and Leonora d'Orco cast off the garb of mourning, and united their fates for ever. It was on the day when she reached her twenty-first birthday; and if the reader will look back through this veracious history, he will see that few so young have ever gone through such varied and terrible griefs and trials; nor will he wonder that, while I say Leonora d'Orco was at last happy, I add, that a shade of melancholy mingled with her joy, and that the dark cloud of memory still hung over the past, forming a sombre background to the sparkling sunshine of the present.
Footnote 1: Paul Jovius describes these guns--the embryo musket--amongst the arms of the Swiss infantry, which did such good service in the campaign against Naples. They were at first looked upon with great contempt by the men-at-arms.
Footnote 2: The facts alleged against Alexander by the cardinal were, unfortunately, only too notorious, and the letters produced were the authentic letters of Borgia and Bajazet. They are still extant and authenticated by the Apostolic notary. In one from the pope to the sultan he demands "ut placeat sibi(Bajazet)quam citius mittera. nobis ducatos quadraginta millia in auro venetos, pro annata anni praesentis, quae finiet ultimo die novembris," and Bajazet sweetly suggests to his Christian ally, "dictum Gem(Zizim)levare facere ex augustiis istius mundi et transferri ejus animam in alterum saeculum ubi meliorem habebit quietem," promising him three hundred thousand ducats as soon as the corpse is delivered to his (Bajazet's) agents.
Footnote 3: The Kings of France always claimed to be such, and the bishop flattered the monarch's pride by the allusion.