The Justice of the Duke, Page 2

  Gian Paolo had turned to his companions.

  "Do you remain here until it is done?" he bade them. Then he stepped out, and ran to meet the fellow, sword in hand. The door had closed again.

  "Betrayer, stand!"

  At that harsh challenge and the sight of that sword gleaming in such light as there was, the other man stepped back a pace and whipped out his own blade.

  "Who art thou?" he asked.

  "The man thou hast most foully wronged, Gian Paolo, Lord of Camerino."

  "Was it my fault—" the other began.

  "No more!" snarled the maddened Gian Paolo. Rage and disdain were choking him. "On guard!"

  And with the words his sword leapt forward a quivering tongue of death. The other parried, and would have staid to parley, but in the dark he had more than enough to do to fight, nor did he do that long. In one of his parries he missed the resistance of his opponent's blade. In the gloom he never saw the point come at him over his guard, knew nothing of it till it was in his throat, and little then. Yet, ere he fell, Gian Paolo had withdrawn the blade and passed it through his body twice. He lay on his back with his three wounds, his glazing eyes staring up at the stars he would never see again, whilst Gian Paolo went forward to knock upon the door with the hilt of his reeking sword.

  At the same time two figures crept from the thicket and advanced towards the fallen man. Gustavo da Trani stooped and put his hand to the fellow's heart.

  "Dead," said he in an emotionless, colourless voice.

  "And well he deserved his death," chuckled Malipiero, who could scarce realise the magnitude of this coincidence, nor sufficiently congratulate himself upon it.

  The door opened, and they saw Gian Paolo pass in, whereupon they set themselves to pace the alley where the dead body lay, whilst they awaited their master's return.

  After the gloom without Gian Paolo was half blinded by the brilliant light within. But as his sight grew clearer he found himself confronted by a tall man with a grave, dark countenance and a very martial bearing. To ask the man's name was his immediate impulse, but a second glance at his face removed the need.

  "Don Miguel?" he gasped, recognising Cesare Borgia's famous captain. "What make you here? I am seeking my wife."

  "Excellency," the other answered him, "she left Camerino this morning for her country house. Will you follow me, my lord? I have a message for you from the Duke of Romagna, my master."

  Like one in a dream Gian Paolo followed him into the chamber that once had been his study. Don Miguel closed the door, then, coming forward, told his tale.

  "My lord, you have been the victim of treachery; but not of the treachery you came hither to find. The traitor is that rogue Malipiero, a part of whose plot against you it was most foully to slander the fair name of Madonna your wife."

  "It is not true, then?" cried Gian Paolo. "You swear it is not true?"

  "I swear it readily, my lord. It is not true."

  A great sob burst from Gian Paolo's breast, and the tears coursed down his war-worn cheeks. What did it signify to him that he had been betrayed in other matters? What signified losses or reverses so that his Eulalia was true?

  A moment Don Miguel paused, then he gave Gian Paolo the details of Malipiero's plot to get him away from Fabriano, so that in his absence Cesare and his men might cut through the ungoverned ranks of the besiegers. Malipiero had intended to sell the service for gold, but, discovering that his son was under arrest for attempted assassination of the Duke, he sought to make that son's enlargement the price of the betrayal.

  "Yesterday morning," pursued the Captain, "his Highness sent for me, and gave me a safe-conduct for twenty men signed by Malipiero in your name. With that escort and one man whom the Duke entrusted to my keeping I rode ahead of you to Camerino. First I removed Madonna your wife, as I have told you. Then I established myself here, and sent a man of mine to meet you with messages that should confirm Malipiero's story."

  "Be these the methods of your Duke?" cried Gian Paolo wrathfully.

  "They were necessary steps in the accomplishment of his design, my lord," answered Don Miguel. "I waited this evening, with that individual whom Cesare had entrusted to me, until word was brought me that you were hiding in the garden. Then, in the Duke of Romagna's name, I bade the fellow go. He went, my lord, to meet your sword. I trust that he is dead."

  "Cesare Borgia shall account to me for having put upon me the slaying of an innocent man," exclaimed the Lord of Camerino, springing up.

  Don Miguel looked at him a moment. Then—"Come with me, Excellency," he said so impressively that without another word Gian Paolo followed him. In the hall he took a torch from an attendant, and with this he passed out of the house and led Gian Paolo down to the alley where the dead man lay and the living ones were pacing.

  At the sight of Cesare's captain Malipiero's cheeks went a shade paler. To see Don Miguel was to become uneasy. What did the fellow here? Don Miguel beckoned him at that moment.

  "Messer Malipiero," said he, "his Highness, the Duke of Romagna bids me say that, thanks to your betrayal of your master, he is now out of Fabriano and on his way to the army in the North. He bade you do the thing you proposed, and undertook that you and your son should find him deal justly with you. Yonder, Messer, will you find your payment, meted out to you by the hand of the very Lord of Camerino whom you betrayed." And he pointed to the body, lying so quietly there, at peace with all men and recking naught of ambition or of factions.

  With twitching lips and haggard face Malipiero stumbled toward that silent thing.

  Don Miguel flashed the light of his torch on the dead face, and Malipiero saw it, and fell on his knees beside the body of his only son. A peal of strident, horrid laughter burst from his ashen lips.

  "The justice of the Duke!" he screamed, and fainted.

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