A RECRUIT.
IN THE TOWN of San Martino in Campo, where the growing forces of Giovan Paolo were gathered, there arrived a rumor which spread like wildfire that four people on mule-back were coming, and that two of them were Lady Beatrice and Tizzo; a third was the famous English warrior, the Baron of Melrose. The whole town buzzed with the wildest excitement, and the four on mule-back arrived with Giovan Paolo in person rushing his horse up to them.
Men saw him lift his sister off the mule and embrace her.
The whole camp went wild with excitement and joyous expectation, because of late the news had not been cheerful in the least. Word had come that the lord of Camerino was marching a strong force to assist the traitors who held Perugia. Perhaps he would be strong enough to attack Giovan Paolo in the open field!
These rumors had mixed, in the last day, with word that the Lady Beatrice was missing from the camp, that Giovan Paolo was half-mad with anxiety, and that Tizzo, the right hand of Giovan Paolo in war, had disappeared on some strange mission. It was said that he had gone, actually, into the city of Perugia itself, but this was generally disbelieved because not even a Tizzo would have been capable of such folly. However, his return rushed a warm confidence into the breast of every man in the camp. San Martino’s bells rang out a frantic welcome, and the cheering made a gay thunder in the sky.
But Tizzo, before long, was standing in the fine quarters of Giovan Paolo, who had taken over the villa of a rich merchant.
He on one side of the table, big Henry of Melrose on the other, attacked a great roast of veal with their knives and fingers and drank plentifully of good red wine. Lady Beatrice, still in her boyish costume, walked up and down the room eating, with all the hungry abandon of a true boy, some bits of cold chicken and stopping at the table to sip wine. While Giovan Paolo, work thrust aside for the moment, enriched his eyes with the picture before him.
There was another member of the group, for a short time, and that was the carter, Alfredo, son of Lorenzo. He, dusty cap in hand, blinked his one eye at Giovan Paolo and was unable to name the reward he expected. He could only say: “Another pair of mules would be a blessing to the four who now work for me, your highness!”
“You shall have ten pairs of mules,” said Giovan Paolo.
“No, in the name of God!” cried Alfredo. “For where should I put ten pairs in my shed?”
“You shall have larger quarters!” exclaimed Giovan Paolo.
Alfredo shook his head, saying: “Too big a bite of good fortune may choke me. Let me swallow happiness morsel by morsel, my lord. But when Perugia is retaken—”
“Are you sure that we shall retake it, Alfredo?” asked Giovan Paolo.
“The wisdom of your lordship will surround it,” said Alfredo, “and the fire of Tizzo will burn a way through the gates. Oh, yes, Perugia will be yours again, and soon! But when it is taken, if I could have the honor of running at the side of Tizzo and watching the ax of his honor at work on the heads of traitors, I would have something that would keep me in talk whenever I sat down to a cup of wine, so long as I live.”
“You shall not run beside me; you shall ride on the finest warhorse in the camp. What else will you have, Alfredo?” said Tizzo.
“Leave to go away for a little while and catch my breath,” said Alfredo.
“So!” said Giovan Paolo, when the carter had gone. “I felt like a one-armed man — I felt like poor young della Penna, Tizzo, when you were gone from me. But why did you go, Beatrice?”
“Because,” said the girl, “I had to see Tizzo again if only to tell him that his brain is as wild and as dizzy as the color of his hair.”
“My lord of Melrose,” said Giovan Paolo, “now that you have come to us, you will always be welcome. Your strength will make itself felt when we storm the city. But tell me only one thing: Why did you let Tizzo go this long time without telling him that he is your flesh and blood?”
“Because like a fool I thought that the time had not yet come,” said the Englishman. “What had the boy got from me? A chance to win hard knocks in the world, only! But I hoped that before long I would be able to give him a house and lands and fine horses and a whole armory of axes and swords and spears and everything else that he prizes most in the world. When I could, one day, take him into that paradise and say: ‘Tizzo, all this is yours; it is your father who gives it!’ Then, when I could do that, I felt that he might incline to forgive me. But, as I said before, I was a fool.”
“Nothing is folly that has a glorious ending,” answered Giovan Paolo. “When you have eaten, Tizzo, tell me what you have done.”
“No, Giovan Paolo. I’ll simply tell you what to do. Have your scouts, every day, sharpen their eyes when they ride towards Perugia, and above all, let them look towards the tower of the house of Antonio Bardi. For, one day, many flags will appear on that house, and one of them will be red. In whatever direction that red flag is placed, be sure that the same night the gate towards which it is set will be in the hands of our friends and will be opened. The Lady Atlanta, Luigi Falcone, Bardi, have all been drawn into a pact. They will act for you.”
“Have you done that?” cried Giovan Paolo. “Then, if only the time comes before the lord of Camerino has advanced his men to the rescue of the “She had to come,” said Tizzo, “in order to show me the trap I was entering, and spring it by throwing herself into danger; she had to come in order to save my father and myself in the first great moment of danger; she had to come in order with her fine wit to have us both carried safely again out of the town.” town, we have still one chance in three of conquering Perugia!”
THE lord of Camerino, in fact, did not advance suddenly to the relief of the city of Perugia. He was gathering a strong force, and it was plain that his thought was actually to meet Giovan Paolo in the field and beat him out of it with sheer numbers. Merely to throw his forces into the city was not to his taste.
And so a few days intervened which were a priceless gift to Henry of Melrose, among the rest. For, every day, he was twenty hours in bed, and four hours on horseback or exercising gingerly with weapons, feeling his way back to a strength which grew momently. And this same leisure time was used by young Tizzo in adoring his Lady Beatrice, in drinking wine with boon companions — for the entire camp was his companion — in playing dice, in riding races against the other youngsters on their finest horses, in fencing, wrestling, running, leaping, practicing with his great blue-bladed ax, in twanging a harp and composing songs to his own music, in the reading of a curious old Greek manuscript which Giovan Paolo, knowing his taste, had presented to him, in thumbing out little models of clay — for one day he swore that he would, be a sculptor like that great broken-nosed genius, Michaelangelo — in sleeping, eating, laughing, laboring, and filling every day to the brim with his abundant activities. For every me-monet his flame-blue eyes were open, they were employed with the first object or the first thought that came his way.
Lady Beatrice said to him: “Do you love me, Tizzo?”
He answered: “Love you? No! Love is no word for it. I love your beauty and hate your smallness; I worship your dignity and despise your arrogance; I adore and I detest you. I revere and I scorn you. If you were an inch taller I should spend all my days on my knees giving up offerings to your beauty. If you were a shade more gentle, I should perish from the greatness of my devotion. If you had not the claws of a cat as well as the velvet grace of one, I should die, instantly, because my heart would burst with joy. Therefore, never change, Beatrice!”
“If there were ten of me,” said the Lady Beatrice, “I might be enough to keep a tenth part of your thoughts for the tenth part of a year. But as it is, you must be off every moment to some other diversion. Where are you going now, you dizzy-wit?”
“I must keep an appointment, my love,” said Tizzo. “Beatrice, I must go at once to see Giovan Paolo. He wishes to speak with me on a matter of the greatest importance, an affair of the attack, and I am late for the appointment already!”
But when, five minutes later, Beatrice saw her brother horsed and riding out with a train of companions to train the infantry in pike drill, there was no sign of Tizzo. She said nothing. She was not over bitter. It was perhaps because she understood him so well that she feared so much the future, and yet she could not be angry with him more than five minutes together.