Brazenhead in Milan/Chapter 10

HE tombs of Sant' Eustorgio stood or leaned at all angles, and stared like the bleached and derelict bones of a host long dead. Disconsolate kites, buzzards, ravens, and other reprobate birds flapped heavily above or, perching on cross or pinnacle, voiced after their fashion their discontent with the world as it was. The crazy Hic Jacets of the tombs coincided with these harsh-throated heralds of despair, and set Captain Brazenhead to stalk briskly about, himself like a long-necked bird of bad omen, if haply he might discover but one of his bond-slaves. Clinging to his arm was the now terrified Liperata, upon whose skirts dragged the child of slain Camus.

"I pin my faith to the Bilboan," said Brazenhead, "for he alone is fitted by his nature to inhabit so beastly a spot. His arm reaches to his knee-cap; he is, you may say, three-legged. No hyæna could be more at home in a graveyard than this fellow, who is, moreover, endeared to me by many ties. He owes me for his life, I owe him for his aunt. Certainly I pin my faith to him."

And he was justified. Far within the shade of an empty vault they came upon a crouched figure. His head was not visible, so deeply was it sunk between his knees. But by his arm—by the absence of one, and the presence of one—he could be recognised for the Bilboan.

"Ho, Barbary, awake!" cried Brazenhead, and stirred him with a thigh-bone which he happened to have in his hand. It was no ordinary thigh-bone, though its present possessor knew nothing of that. Being deprived of his sword, and missing the use of it, he had picked it up in his way through the cemetery. It had belonged to the philosopher Gnatho of Samothrace, who had devoted his life to demonstrating the indestructibility of matter, and had perished at the stake in the great days of Saint Ambrose, to whom matter was so little that he considered the punishment a light one. It was a curious circumstance that Captain Brazenhead was to be the instrument of Gnatho's vindication—if indeed those modern disciples of the sage are not nearer the mark when they affirm that he himself was his own instrument, and Captain Brazenhead the unconscious agent of his purpose.

But at the smart touch of the relic the Bilboan came leaping from the tomb and humbled himself at the feet of his lord. His uncouth mops and mows touched Captain Brazenhead in a quick spot.

"My faithful vassal," said he tenderly, "how is it with thee, man? Art thou alone faithful to thy Brazenhead? Is gratitude, then, so dear? Are memories so short? Where is Squarcialupo, that prick-eared Roman?"

"Gone, master, gone," said the Bilboan. "A gamester came this way and did beguile him."

The Captain was shocked. "How now? So sturdy a knave!"

"He promised him good wages," said the other. "Five sols Tournois per diem. I cried shame upon him, saying: 'Trust to our Lord's honour'; but he said your rate had been but three."

"It was four!" cried the Captain. "I pass you my word it was four!"

The Bilboan shrugged in despair. "Even so, said Squarcialupo, five was above your figure; and he went the day after you had brought him here."

Captain Brazenhead had expected as much. "He was a gallows knave, when all's said. But I hoped better things of Tranche-coupe. Now what of that Burgundian?"

"There came a funeral to this place," said the Bilboan, "on Saint Milo's day. They buried a certain notary, a warm man, but not near so warm as that heathen is, whose thigh-bone your honour now wears at your side, if all they tell me of his teaching is but half true. Now, to commit our notary to earth came a widow of his and ten children, if not more. Quite a company! Their lamentable cries did so move Tranche-coupe our friend that he brooded upon them day and night. The affair got upon his mind and wrought upon the young man's brain; so presently, moved by pity, he borrowed a suit of clothes from the gravedigger, and is but this morning gone to pay court to the relict of the notary. If he succeed, as I think lie will, from what he tells me, he will be fourth husband to a lady of substance and merit. I cannot blame him neither; for a widow, d'ye see, has experience in the comforting of mankind, and that counts for much with a young man of Tranche-coupe's years. No, no, I cannot blame him."

"Nor I," said Captain Brazenhead, constricting the muscles of his arm and looking benignantly down upon Liperata. "No, nor I, by Cock. But I am vexed," he added, "and something put about—for I had reckoned upon his cross-bow arm for an adventure at Pavia before long. There shun me two men by whom I had hoped to win a score. Tush! And the Egyptian"

"Master," said the Bilboan darkly, "come we now to the Egyptian, against whom I would have warned you before had I seen you here or known how to come at you. That dark-skinned rogue, that snake-tongue, who got the better of your Honour once in a horse-deal, has now done you the scurviest turn of all. For not content with the slaughter of Signior Camus, your colleague, he has dressed himself out in his livery, and with the murdered man's vizor to cover his own false face, is engaged at this hour in slaughtering three hundred Anabaptists in the presence of the Duke's grace of Milan, and his consort, and his daughter, and all his court."

At this intelligence Captain Brazenhead smote himself on his forehead and said "It was very well." Those who knew him would have read the oracle for a bad sign, because he really meant it. Its deep-mouthed tones rang the passing-bell for the Egyptian.

"Come," said Captain Brazenhead sternly to the Bilboan, "I shall need thee. Come." So saying, he led the way back to the Castle of Milan.

Walking through a desert city into a desert stronghold, it came upon him as a providence of supernatural powers that all lay so snug—"at the mercy of any man of his hands." A sombre cheer illumined his burnt face; he put his arm around the waist of Liperata and pressed her to his heart. With the other arm free, he flourished the thigh-bone of Gnatho, the Philosopher. "All may yet be done; all may fall out still for the best. By the Sacred Places of Jerusalem, I see my way! Forward!"

It was very much the hero, it was de son naturel, to overlook the exiguity of his little force. True, the great Sforza was far away. That right hand of Milan, with the flower of the Lombard host, was warring in Umbria, it was believed, engaged just now in the leaguer of Perugia. Even so, it needs a mind cast in a Paladin's mould to compass the sack of Milan with a one-armed man, a young widow, and an unbreeched boy for attacking party. But Captain Brazenhead would never perish of dry-rot in the brain. If great schemes, great enthusiasms had been all, he might have realised that grandiose conception of Castruccio's, who, having Lucca under his hand, saw his way to the tyranny of all Italy.

More sanguine than Castruccio himself, the swelling thought held him in thrall as he led his band into the Hall of Audience, which was in the shape of a basilica of three aisles. These aisles were marked by columns of the Doric order, grey and serried. In the apse of the noble chamber, upon its degrees, stood the Throne of Milan—empty. To stride forward, mount the steps, seat himself in that chair of State, place Liperata upon his left hand, made but short work for a man whose brain was on fire. He bade the child go up himself by a column; and then, in the clear voice of a man who has a vision, commanded the Bilboan to proclaim him Duke of Milan. We may call that burning your ships—or we may call it high treason—or both. The question is, had Captain Brazenhead, or had he not, the quick sprite Destiny by the tail? Now, Captain Brazenhead thought that he had.

"Salomon, by the grace of God, Duke of Milan, Marquess of Pavia, Lord of Monza, Como, Bergamo and Brescia, Tyrant of Verona, Piacenza and the Borrommean Isles" was called by the herald and acclaimed by the populace; and a reign, the shortest but most eventful in the annals of the Lombard State, was peacefully ushered in. Not trumpets pealed its opening, nor the clash of lifted swords, nor pikes tossing like reeds in a wind. The piping of an unbreeched child calling for his mother was all the acclamation, and the fevered agitation of his legs, as he pattered up and down the pavement, all the commotion of a scene which needed perhaps but a little more bustle to have been memorable by Corio and the other court historians of the Houses of Viscounti and Sforza, who, as things were, and for reasons of their own, passed it over.

I have no such reasons, and am proud to be the humble means of restoring a stirring page to the volume of Lombard story. It would be my wish to enlarge upon the events of the twenty-five minutes following the proclamation (and its reception by the populace) which I have just related, and I am sure it would be the reader's; but materials are wanting. Cætera desunt, as the chroniclers say. I believe that the Civil List was established, provision made for the Duchess-elect Liperata, and the tax on beer, spruce, cider, perry, wine, mead, and all fermented liquors, abolished. The marriage-laws were standardised, I gather: but for such high matters space fails me.

Now, the issuing of these important and far-reaching reforms took up the better part of five-and-twenty minutes; and immediately after, just as the new Duke, feeling the vein leap within him, was about to deliver an apologue upon Equity, a confused murmuring afar aff [sic], the noise of a great tumult without the house, made itself heard. It was for all the world like the sound of a mighty flood, gathered in the mountains, and sweeping its way irresistible over the plain. All heard it, some shook; the Duke paused in the act to speak. His mouth was open, his eyes were fixed; but no rhapsody came forth. Quite otherwise.

"Did I name Equity?" he said. "Here Cometh our little affair. Equity's bane this wall be—a more ancient practice. Haste thee, Bilboan, and draw thy blade." This was all very well; but the Bilboan, no better than his master, had no blade.

Duke Brazenhead saw his penury and was not long amending it. With his trusty bone in hand he attacked the throne where his Duchess yet sat, and was not long in knocking off a fluted column of marble and mosaic, of the kind known as opus alexandrinum. It was of the length of a man's forearm, as sharp at the angles as if it had just left the mason's yard. "Arm thee, friend," he said, "with this emblem until thou hast a better for thy prowess." Descending then into the hall, he caught up the child, and returned and set him upon his mother's knee. "Stay you there, mother and son," he bade them. "I fight for hearth and home this day." Accompanied by the Bilboan, he took the middle aisle of the basilica and stood there, a superb figure of a man, masked, hairy, bristling, his scarlet cloak thrown over his left arm, and in his restless right hand the avenging limb of Gnatho of Samothrace. The Bilboan, true to his nature, crouched, peering forward. He bent himself at the knees, as an athlete does at the starting-point—but so far that he could easily scratch his ankle with his forefinger; and he did so more than once.

The uproar in their hearing, who waited, neared, swelled, and became a din~a riot of broken clamour. You could hear now and again the name of the late Duke thrown up: "Visconti! Visconti!" you heard; but that cry was drowned in outland curses, and names unknown to Italy held the air. Sooner than was convenient, the noise of countless running feet blotted out all others. It became evident that a host was at hand.

"It is the Anabaptists," said the Bilboan, scratching his foot.

"Aye," said his master. "They drive back Milan. Now we have it in the nose. Be thou ready."

The doors were pushed open wide; a few scared servants, varlets and maids of the pantry and kitchen, came first—old tirewomen, old bedeswomen, a priest, and a limping page whose ankle was bound up—running helter-skelter for protection. Regardless, in their terror, of the stern figures in mid-hall, they pelted by them, and gaining the daïs, crouched at the knees of the mother and child on the throne. There was no marvel in their mistake. They saw a miracle—and felt it, when Monna Liperata, heavenly mildness beaming from her eyes, put out her hand and laid it upon the head of the nearest. The heart of Duke Brazenhead leaped in his body, and warm tears flooded his eyes as he witnessed this fair sight. "As God liveth, I have that for which to fight this day."

Close upon these stragglers, however, came the halberdiers of Visconti, a mere handful of striped men backing into the hall, disputing the passage with them who pursued. In their midst, white and slavering at the lips, tottered he who but that morning had been Lord and Tyrant of Milan; beside him his Duchess walked, a goddess, though she was too portly to be fair; and with her came Bianca, her only daughter, mater pulchra filia pulchrior. Royally these two advanced up the hall; and behind them, blocking up the great entry, was a thicket of pikes, staves, scythes, and bills, the snatched-up weapons of the wholly frantic and partially naked persons of the Anabaptists. The battling of this shaggy host at the doors, where without order or judgment all tried to enter at once, gave a moment's respite to the pursuers.

Captain Brazenhead—to call him still by his familiar name—had pity upon the fallen and abject prince, and more than pity—high admiration, indeed—for the persons of the two noble ladies of his household. "Open ranks!" he bade the Bilboan; "open ranks, messmate, and let in this jerking wretch. He was a king this morning," he added pitifully, "and shall sleep in a bed for aught I care." The Bilboan dutifully stood aside, and the hunchback, blind with panic, crawled on all fours up the degrees of his ancient throne, and seeing there a fair woman seated, with a golden-headed child on her lap, stumbled forward with a cry to her feet, clutched at her knees, and buried his face in her striped petticoat. There, throughout the carnage to ensue, he stayed.

But Captain Brazenhead bowed courtly to the Duchess and her daughter. "Ladies," he said, "suffer a soldier, and trust in the clemency of a prince. By your leave, noble ladies, by your leave." So said, he turned to face the throne with them, and taking a hand of each, escorted them with high-stepping gallantry up the steps of the throne. "Be seated, ladies, beside my family, and be sure that for you, no less than for them, I shall play the man this day." The ladies, who may be pardoned for not knowing, nor caring, what all this might be about, sat beside Liperata on the throne, and saw Captain Brazenhead swoop into the fray, like a sea-eagle into a school of mackerel in a shallow. He had poised on the edge of the daïs but for a minute. That had sufficed him to see how matters stood. Viscounti's guards were ranged before him; the Bilboan still crouched in mid-hall. Opposite to him raged and bayed the furious host. With a voice like the blast of a trumpet he had signalled for the contest. "Salt and water en avant!" he had cried. "The Anabaptists are at ye, hounds! Rally for the Faith!" That bone which erstwhile had stood up stiffly for the indestructibility of matter whistled above his head. "You that love order and good baptism, follow me." The Guard rallied and formed a wedge. Led by such a prince, they clove the Anabaptists' ranks, and men dropped like cornstalks heavy in the ear to right and left.

Such battle he had never yet dreamed of—even he, to whom long odds were as a draught of wine—as this, wherein he, the Bilboan, and ten of Visconti's bodyguard faced three hundred fanatics stung by terror into frenzy. Hot-eyed, half-naked, giant men they were—Bulgarians, Croats, and Serbs—red in the beard and flat in the bone, hairy-chested, crying uncouth shibboleths of their own, outraged in every sense, and bent upon outrage. They howled, wept, gnashed their teeth; they thrust and smote, clubbed at their oppressors; but to little purpose. Cut into halves by the wedge of the Lombards, hampered by the pillars of the hall, they impeded each other. In sheaves they fell, or backing in panic at each onrush of the foe they trampled and tumbled over upon the other. Like the uneasy gleams of the sun upon broken water, here and there glided a red figure urging them to effort.

Where, then, was the Egyptian, if not there? Whose was that evil-whispering spirit, if not his? Captain Brazenhead, roaring in the press as he mowed, cried upon him: "Come out, thou horse-coper, thou black thief of Lutterworth! Come out and meet me." But there was no response, save some glancing of the red figure, and no means of getting at that save through the massed Anabaptists about the door. But that caitiff's hours were numbered, and his tale is nearly told. Marked down at last by his incensed adversary, where he stood egging on his dupes to their hopeless task, he was from that moment a doomed man. For Captain Brazenhead, seizing a dead Anabaptist by neck and ankles, lifted him up on high and hurled him with all his force at the Egyptian. The two heads, that of the dead and that of the living, met in horrid shock. That of the Anabaptist stood the strain, but the Egyptian's was split open, as when a man with his finger and fist smashes a walnut. The rogue went down, and was trampled out of recognition by the feet of his flying friends.