Part 25 (1/2)
Preoccupied as he was, he could not help pausing a moment in admiration as he came in front of the workshop. The wide doorway, standing at the truncated angle of a great block or ”isle” of houses, was surmounted by a loggia roofed with fluted tiles, and supported by stone columns with roughly carved capitals. Against the red light framed in by the outline of the fluted tiles and columns stood in black relief the grand figure of Niccolo, with his huge arms in rhythmic rise and fall, first hiding and then disclosing the profile of his firm mouth and powerful brow.
Two slighter ebony figures, one at the anvil, the other at the bellows, served to set off his superior ma.s.siveness.
t.i.to darkened the doorway with a very different outline, standing in silence, since it was useless to speak until Niccolo should deign to pause and notice him. That was not until the smith had beaten the head of an axe to the due sharpness of edge and dismissed it from his anvil.
But in the meantime t.i.to had satisfied himself by a glance round the shop that the object of which he was in search had not disappeared.
Niccolo gave an unceremonious but good-humoured nod as he turned from the anvil and rested his hammer on his hip.
”What is it, Messer t.i.to? Business?”
”a.s.suredly, Niccolo; else I should not have ventured to interrupt you when you are working out of hours, since I take that as a sign that your work is pressing.”
”I've been at the same work all day--making axes and spear-heads. And every fool that has pa.s.sed my shop has put his pumpkin-head in to say, 'Niccolo, wilt thou not come and see the King of France and his soldiers?' and I've answered, 'No: I don't want to see their faces--I want to see their backs.'”
”Are you making arms for the citizens, then, Niccolo, that they may have something better than rusty scythes and spits in case of an uproar?”
”We shall see. Arms are good, and Florence is likely to want them. The Frate tells us we shall get Pisa again, and I hold with the Frate; but I should be glad to know how the promise is to be fulfilled, if we don't get plenty of good weapons forged? The Frate sees a long way before him; that I believe. But he doesn't see birds caught with winking at them, as some of our people try to make out. He sees sense, and not nonsense. But you're a bit of a Medicean, Messer t.i.to Melema. Ebbene!
so I've been myself in my time, before the cask began to run sour.
What's your business?”
”Simply to know the price of that fine coat of mail I saw hanging up here the other day. I want to buy it for a certain personage who needs a protection of that sort under his doublet.”
”Let him come and buy it himself, then,” said Niccolo, bluntly. ”I'm rather nice about what I sell, and whom I sell to. I like to know who's my customer.”
”I know your scruples, Niccolo. But that is only defensive armour: it can hurt n.o.body.”
”True: but it may make the man who wears it feel himself all the safer if he should want to hurt somebody. No, no; it's not my own work; but it's fine work of Maso of Brescia; I should be loth for it to cover the heart of a scoundrel. I must know who is to wear it.”
”Well, then, to be plain with you, Niccolo mio, I want it myself,” said t.i.to, knowing it was useless to try persuasion. ”The fact is, I am likely to have a journey to take--and you know what journeying is in these times. You don't suspect _me_ of treason against the Republic?”
”No, I know no harm of you,” said Niccolo, in his blunt way again. ”But have you the money to pay for the coat? For you've pa.s.sed my shop often enough to know my sign: you've seen the burning account-books. I trust n.o.body. The price is twenty florins, and that's because it's second-hand. You're not likely to have so much money with you. Let it be till to-morrow.”
”I happen to have the money,” said t.i.to, who had been winning at play the day before, and had not emptied his purse. ”I'll carry the armour home with me.”
Niccolo reached down the finely-wrought coat, which fell together into little more than two handfuls.
”There, then,” he said, when the florins had been told down on his palm.
”Take the coat. It's made to cheat sword, or poniard, or arrow. But, for my part, I would never put such a thing on. It's like carrying fear about with one.”
Niccolo's words had an unpleasant intensity of meaning for t.i.to. But he smiled and said--
”Ah, Niccolo, we scholars are all cowards. Handling the pen doesn't thicken the arm as your hammer-wielding does. Addio!”
He folded the armour under his mantle, and hastened across the Ponte Rubaconte.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
THE YOUNG WIFE.