Part 3 (1/2)
”Animal,” was the retort--for true courtesy commend me to a lacquey!--”it is not our wish to pursue the road as far as Gualdo, else had we not stopped at this kennel of yours.”
I scarce know what it can have been that moved me to act as I then did, for, in the truth, the manner of that rascal of a groom was little prepossessing, and his master, I doubted, could be little better that he left the fellow to hector it thus over that wretched tavern oaf. But I stepped forward.
”Did you say that you were journeying to Cagli?” questioned I.
He eyed me sourly, suspicion writ athwart his round, ill-favoured face, But my motley was hidden from his sight. My cloak, my hat and boots allowed naught of my true condition to appear, and might as well have covered a lordling as a jester. Yet his inveterate surliness the rascal could not wholly conquer.
”What may be the purpose of your question?” he growled.
”To serve your master, whoever he may be,” I answered him serenely, ”although it is a service I do not press upon him. I, too, am journeying to Cagli, and like yourselves, I am in haste and go the shorter way across the hills, with which I am well acquainted. If it so please you to follow me your need of a guide may thus be satisfied.”
It was the tone to take if I would be respected. Had I proposed that we should journey in company I should not have earned me the half of the deference which was accorded to my haughtily granted leave that they might follow me if they so chose.
With marked submission did he give me thanks in his master's name.
I mounted and set out, and at my heels came now the litter and its escort. Thus did we quit the plain and breast the slopes, where the snow grew deeper and firmer underfoot as we advanced. And as I went, still plaguing my mind to devise a means by which I might penetrate to the Court of Pesaro, little did I dream that the matter was being solved for me--the solution having begun with my offer to guide that company across the hills.
CHAPTER III. MADONNA PAOLA
We gained the heights in the forenoon, and there we dismounted and paused awhile to breathe our horses ere we took the path that was to lead us down to Cagli. The air was sharp and cold, for all that overhead was spread a cloudless, cobalt dome of sky, and the sun poured down its light upon the wide expanse of snow-clad earth, of a whiteness so dazzling as to be hurtful to the sight.
Hitherto I had ridden stolidly ahead, as unheeding of that following company as if I had been unconscious of its existence. But now that we paused, their fat, white-faced leader, whose name was Giacopo, approached me and sought to draw me into conversation. I yielded readily enough, for I scented a mystery about that closely-curtained litter, and mysteries are ever provoking to such a mind as mine. For all that it might profit me naught to learn who rode there, and why with all this haste, yet these were matters, I confess, on which my curiosity was aroused.
”Are you journeying beyond Cagli?” I asked him presently, in an idle tone.
He c.o.c.ked his head, and eyed me aslant, the suspicion in his eyes confirming the existence of the mystery I scented.
”Yes,” he answered, after a pause. ”We hope to reach Urbino before night. And you? Are you journeying far?”
”That far, at least,” I answered him, emulating the caution he had shown.
And then, ere more might pa.s.s between us, the leather curtains of the litter were sharply drawn aside. At the sound I turned my head, and so far was the vision different from that which--for no reason that I can give--I had expected, that I was stricken with surprise and wonder. A lady--a very child, indeed--had leapt nimbly to the ground ere any of those grooms could offer her a.s.sistance.
She was, I thought, the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen, and to one who had read the famous work of Messer Firenzuola on feminine beauty it might seem, at first, that here stood the incarnation of that writer's catalogue of womanly perfections. She was of a good shape and stature, despite her tender years; her face was oval, delicately featured and of an ivory pallor. Her eyes--blue as the heavens overhead--were not of the colour most approved by Firenzuola, nor was her hair of the golden brown which that arbiter commends. Had Firenzuola seen her, it may well be that he had altered or modified his views. She was sumptuously arrayed in a loose-sleeved camorra of grey velvet that was heavy with costly furs; above the lenza of fine linen on her head gleamed the gold thread of a jewelled net, and at her waist a girdle of surpa.s.sing richness, all set with gems, glowed like a thing of fire in the bright suns.h.i.+ne.
She took a deep breath of the sharp, invigorating air, then looked about her, and espying me in conversation with Giacopo she approached us across the gleaming snow.
”Is this,” she inquired, and her sweet, melodious voice was a perfect match to the graceful charm of her whole presence, ”the traveller who so kindly consented to fill for us the office of a guide?”
Giacopo answered briefly that I was that man.
”I am in your debt, sir,” she protested, with an odd earnestness. ”You do not know how great a service you have rendered me. But if at any time Paola Sforza di Santafior may be able to discharge this obligation, you shall find me very willing.”
White-faced, black-browed Giacopo scowled at this proclamation of her ident.i.ty.
I made her a low bow, and answered coldly, brusquely almost, for I hated the very name of Sforza, and every living thing that bore it.
”Madonna, you overrate my service. It so chanced that I was travelling this way.”