The Grand Cham (Lamb, Adventure magazine)/Chapter 4

ORANZI and Rudolfo were just disappearing within the gate of the Contarini house. A throng of gondoliers and servitors grouped on the steps that led from the tiles of the court to the door gave back with low bows. Just as ceremoniously a chamberlain, standing within the entrance, greeted them—as Michael observed.

He cast a swift glance around the court. It fronted a canal by which the guests were coming to the fête. In one corner some fiddlers and flute-players assisted by a bedraggled dancing bear were amusing the waiting servants and helping to empty a huge table of its meat and wine.

It was this music he had heard from the alleys in the rear of the establishment.

Near at hand a fat Turkish gymnast in a soiled silk khilat was making the commoners gape by balancing two swords, one above the other, on his forehead and squealing shrilly as if to call attention to his prowess.

From a window of the palace the low sound of a woman’s laugh floated out over the court. It was not a pleasant laugh, holding as it did a veiled note of discontent.

“That would be the new donna, my lord Contarini’s choice of a mistress,” observed one lackey in the throng about the sword-juggler to another.

“A red-headed she-fox,” mumbled a second who had had his share of red wine. “Grant I stumble not over her train”

“Or spill aught on her finery. ’Tis said she craves jewels as ye thirst for the flagon. She it was that coaxed my lord—who is made o’ drier stuff, wot—to have the voyager tell his tale.”

“Nay.” The lackey nodded solemnly over a tankard. “All Venice repeats that the riches of Cathay are found at last. Hide o’ the, ’twill do us no good, but Messer Rat-Face Soranzi has come running holding up his skirts like a woman”

Both laughed and Michael smiled at the description of the stout merchant with the thin face. He was ascending the steps confidently when the chamberlain stopped him at the door.

“I know not your face, signor. Were you bidden to the palace this evening?”

Michael halted, his foot on the top step. Looking down the long hall within, he could see groups of the guests, young men in short cloaks of every hue, wearing under these tight tunics of crimson velvet and gold cloth, elderly men in long fur mantles, women in the jeweled exuberance of dress and with the red-dyed hair that was a fad of the time.

The splendor of it caused him to gasp. Meanwhile the chamberlain was insolently eyeing Michael’s boots of soft leather and his ragged mantle.

“I have the freedom of the city,” murmured Michael, still intent on the spectacle within.

It was the turn of the worthy chamberlain to gape and seize his long staff in righteous wrath. A commoner sought entrance to the fête at the Palazzo Contarini!

In another moment the guardian of the gate would have shouted for the servitors to fling Michael into the canal. It was well, perhaps, for all concerned that a diversion occurred at this point.

A group of lackeys approached the door from within, hauling along a shrinking, stumbling figure in grotesquely striped attire. It was the figure of a hunchback wearing a jester’s cap.

Behind the lackeys and their captive strolled several courtiers, smiling expectantly.

“Give him to the bear to play with!” cried a servitor.

“Nay, set the dogs on him.”

“Aye—the dogs, the dogs!” cried the courtiers. “’Twill be better sport than bear-baiting itself.”

Michael saw that the craggy face of the jester was pale and that he winced at mention of the dogs. The anxious glance of the hunchback met his and then circled away as if vainly seeking some avenue of escape.

“Hold,” spoke up the chamberlain irresolutely, addressing the courtiers and ignoring Michael in the more pressing matter at hand. “This is good Bembo, my lord’s fool and favorite. Would you slay him, signori?”

“Verily is he a fool,” answered one of the young nobles carelessly, “and so must pay for his folly.”

“Not so. He is no man’s fool,” corrected another, “and so the dogs will have his limbs for their sport. ’Tis an ill-shapen thing, by the archangel!”

“Bembo,” whispered a lackey, “had the cursed luck to spill a dish of syrup of figs on the train of the donna, who is in a rage thereby. To appease her my lord has cast off the ill-begotten fool and my lady has bidden us make sport of him. The dogs—ho, the dogs!”

While one varlet ran eagerly out of the hall, evidently to fetch the dogs of the household, the courtiers dragged Bembo to the door and called the crowd below in the court to witness the coming spectacle.

A joyful shout went up and the servitors deserted both table and Turk to enjoy the more attractive spectacle of a human being worried by the teeth of animals. Michael had a swift recollection of his own torture at the hands of Bayezid’s men and the way in which the slaves thronged to watch his suffering.

His back stiffened and he swung his right arm gently at his side—the only movement of which it was capable. And he stood his ground at the head of the stairs, although the courtiers were pushing against him.

“Strip him,” counseled a rough voice from below—the same lackey who had commented upon the fiery temper of his mistress a moment ago. “The dogs will bite the fool more toothsomely if he be naked.”

“Aye, aye, strip him!” the cry went up.

“Stay,” said Michael gravely to the courtiers. “The man is a cripple, wherefore would it be small honor to you, messires, to make game of him.”

“Blood of the saints!” A young fellow with a face like a woman made response. “By the splendor of heaven, what have we here?”

The chamberlain saw an opportunity to please the nobles. “A man, my lord of Mocenigo,” he informed loudly, “who claims the freedom of the city and so the liberty to attend the fête of my lord Contarini.”

The jester’s lined face had brightened at Michael’s words, but now he appeared hopeless once more. Not so Mocenigo, who scented a finer jest, even, than the tormenting of Bembo.

“He does not look like a lack-wit, this burgher-sailor,” he vouchsafed, wrinkling his nose, “but—phah—methinks he is foul of the sea.”

They stared at Michael, the crowd below pushing and elbowing to gain a better view. A gentleman laughed and the lackeys guffawed. That a common sailor, or so they thought, should have construed the freedom of the city as an invitation to the fête!

A distant snarling and barking sounded from within the palace, plainly to be heard now that the fiddlers had ceased playing in order to watch the spectacle.

“Throw them both to the dogs; strip them both,” called a lackey from the rear of the throng.

But Michael’s glance had sought out the courtier who had laughed, and his gray eyes were very hard. Seeing his set face, those nearest him with the exception of the slightly intoxicated Mocenigo, gave back slightly.

“No need to fetch the dogs, my good cur,” Michael smiled at the man who had laughed. “The pack is here and—till now—in full cry.”

There was an exclamation at this and a rustling of feet. The servitors sensed a quarrel and realized from the way Michael spoke that he was a Frenchman of good blood. Whereupon they discreetly waited for the quarrel to be taken up by their betters.

“’Od’s death!” swore the courtier who had laughed, making however no move forward. “Seize him, ye varlets, and hale him into the lagoon.”

The lackeys nearest Michael advanced obediently, but without enthusiasm. Baiting a victim lost its savor when the prey showed fight. Then one of them cried out shrilly:

“Ho, this is Master Bearn who conquered the Turks in the Orient. Not an hour since he overcame Pietro Rudolfo in the street with his sword.”

A silence fell on the group at the head of the stairs. The servants remembered that they were unarmed and retreated promptly. Bembo looked up again with hope in his wavering eves.

Michael, standing his ground with his left hand at his belt, reflected that Rudolfo must have a reputation here.

Muttering something about looking to the dogs, the man who had laughed slipped away, accompanied by his fellows. Mocenigo swore roundly after them and clutched uncertainly at his sword.

At once Michael stepped forward, gripping the other’s wrist and wrenching downward as the young noble started to free blade from its scabbard. The weapon clattered to the tiled floor and Mocenigo’s right hand was helpless in Michael’s left.

Now the courtier was no younger than the seaman, but his smooth face made a strong contrast with Michael’s brown countenance wherein the skin was drawn taut over jutting bones and deep lines ran from nose to mouth.

Mocenigo, flushed, made no struggle, knowing that his strength was overmatched; instead he waited with a dangerous quiet for Michael to strike or taunt or reach for a weapon. He did not know that the Breton had but one useful arm.

“You are no coward,” grunted Michael, “but you carry your wine badly, my lord. The cups make a man quarrelsome.”

With that he released Mocenigo, picked up the latter’s weapon, handed it to him and turned his back. The courtier handled his blade irresolutely, staring at the seaman’s back.

“Close the door,” Michael was instructing the chamberlain, who—seeing that Mocenigo made no move—obeyed, thus shutting out the curious throng in the court.

“You were best away from here, Bembo,” said Michael quickly to the jester. “Some side postern; this is your chance.”

When Bembo had vanished from the hall he wheeled on the gazing Mocenigo. “This mocking of a fool ill beseems your chivalry my lord.”

At this the young courtier flushed more deeply than before, and sheathed his sword covertly. “’Od’s blood, signor, you are a strange man and a ready one. I was in the wrong and I apologize.” He bowed gracefully. “Surely you are of gentle blood in France?”

“Nay, signor—my mother was of gentlefolk, but I am a commoner, without land or till.”

Michael nodded affably to the perplexed chamberlain.

“Now that I am here, announce me to your master. In the haste of the moment I forgot to say that he bade me come to the fête.”

But when the three sought Contarini they found him and the circle of his friends seated, listening to the tale of the voyager. Only one of the listeners noticed Michael’s entry into the audience chamber in the rear of the assemblage and that one was Pietro Rudolfo.