TWICE IN TIME

CHAPTER V The Gift of Guaracco

The first sentence of the letter astonished me beyond measure. The last had two effects, overwhelming and sudden in succession, like the two reports of a great double barreled gun.

For my primary impulse was to rejoice, to be glad and thankful. Why had I never realized that I loved Lisa? Thinking of her now—how could I help but love her? But my second reaction was one of horrified knowledge of what Guaracco meant by such a gift.

"Lisa, fair mistress," I said, "this letter—you know what it says?"

She nodded, and the living rose touched her ivory skin.

"It cannot be," I told her soberly.

"Cannot?" she repeated, no louder than a sigh. It might have been a protest, it might have been an agreement.

I overcame an impulse to fall on one knee before her, like any melodramatic courtier of that unrestrained age and land.

"Lisa," I said again, desperately choosing my words, "first of all, let me say that I am deeply moved by the mere thought of winning you. Guaracco appears to mean what he says, and you appear to be ready to consent." Watching her, I saw the trembling of her lips. "But I cannot take you at his hands, Lisa."

At last she looked me full in the face. She, too, began to comprehend.

"That subtle wizard, Guaracco," I went on, growing warm to the outrage he would wreak, "tries to rule us both by fear. He sees that he is not successful. We yield slowly, biding our time, for orders are orders until there comes strength for disobedience. And so he seeks to rule us by happiness. Confess it, Lisa. For a moment you, too, would have wanted love between us!"

She gave me her sweet little smile, with unparted lips, but shyness had covered her again and she did not answer me.

"We cannot, Lisa," I said earnestly. "It might be sweet, and for me at least, it would be the easiest course in the world. But Guaracco's touch upon our love—heaven forefend that we be obligated to him!"

"Eloquently said, Leo, my kinsman!"

It was the voice of Guaracco. I spun quickly around, ready to strike out at him. But he was not there. Only his laughter, like the whinnying of a very cunning and wicked horse was there, coming from the empty air of the room.

"Do not strive against nothingness, young hero," his words admonished me out of nowhere, "and do not anguish me by spurning my poor, tender ward. She loves you, Leo, and you have just shown that you love her."

Such words made it impossible for me to look at Lisa, and therefore I looked the harder for Guaracco. In the midst of his mockery, I located the direction of the sound. He spoke from the room's very center, and I moved in that direction.

At once he fell silent, but I had come to a pause at the point where the final syllable still echoed, almost in my ear. I glared around me, down, and upward.

A cluster of lamps hung just above my head, held by several twisted cords to the ceiling. Among the cupped sconces I spied what I suspected—a little open cone of metal, like a funnel. I am afraid that I swore aloud, even in Lisa's presence, when I saw and knew the fashion of Guaracco's ghostly speaking. But I also acted. With a single lunge and grasp I was upon the lamps, and pulled with all my strength. * * *

They came away and fell crashing, but not they alone. For with them came a copper tube that had been suspended from cords and concealed there. I tore it from its place in the ceiling. Beyond that ceiling, I knew, went another tube that went to the lips of Guaracco, in hiding. I cast the double handful of lamps upon the planks of the floor.

Once again Guaracco laughed, but this time from behind me in the room itself. Again I turned. A panel of the woodwork had swung outward, and the man himself stepped through, all black velvet and flaming beard and sneering smile.

"You are a quick one," he remarked. "I have fooled many a wise old grandfather with that trick."

I gathered myself to spring.

"Now nay, Leo," he warned me quickly. "Do nothing violent, nothing that you would not have set down as your last act on earth." His hand lifted, and in it was leveled a pistol, massively but knowingly made. I stared for a moment, forgetting my rage and protest at his villainous matchmaking. Surely pistols were not invented so early… .

"It is of my own manufacture," he informed me, as though he read my mind. "Though short, it throws a ball as hard and as deep as the longest arquebus in Christendom. Do not force me to shoot you, Kinsman." His lips writhed scornfully over the irony of our pretended relationship.

"Shoot if you will," I bade him. "I have said to Lisa, and I also say to you, that I shall not be led by love into your deeper hateful service."

He shook his rufous head with a great show of melancholy.

"Alas, young Cousin! You do great and undeserved wrong to Lisa and to me. Only this morning she was disposed to thank me for the thought, to scan by way of rehearsal the marriage service… . Ah, I have it!" He laughed aloud. "You do not think that a poor art student like yourself can support a wife and household." He held out his free hand, as warmly smiling as any indulgent father. "Take no further thought of it. I myself shall provide a suitable dowry for the bride."

Even poor wretched Lisa exclaimed in disgust at his evil humor, and I started forward suddenly, coming so close to Guaracco that I found the hard muzzle of his pistol digging into the pit of my stomach.

"Back," he commanded, with quiet menace. "Back, I say, at once… . That is better. What fantastic objection have you to raise this time?"

"You add money to beauty and love in the effort to buy me!" I cried in new disgust. "Dowry! A bribe to marriage! Oh, you are infamous! Surely we are living in the last days of the world!" I flung wide my arms, as though in invitation of a shot. "Kill me, Guaracco! You said once that you would kill me if I disobeyed you. Well, I disobey, and with my last breath I do name you a sorry scoundrel!"

He shook his head, and moved back.

"No," he demurred gently. "Perhaps, after all, the fault was mine. I was too abrupt for your dainty nature, Leo." He turned his eyes, but not his head, toward the unhappy Lisa where she sat in mute and woeful confusion. "Forgive this ungallant fellow my child. Perhaps another time—"

"There shall be no other time," I said flatly. "I refuse, once and for all."

"Then go," Guaracco bade me, and he simulated a bored yawn. "You have disappointed me, and shamed Lisa. Return to your labors among the arts, and when your heart is cooler we shall talk again. Go." * * *

I went, and my nature was more fiery hot than the waxing sun overhead.

Guaracco had spoken this much truth. I had brought shame to Lisa. Apparently she had been ready to accept me as a mate, and whether this was a Guaracco's hypnotic suggestion or not made little difference in the way my reaction must have affected her. She had come to meet me, hoping to hear my praises and pledges, to stand with me before a priest.

Undoubtedly she understood my refusal to be her lover, but could I not have been more kindly toward her? Could I not have said, parenthetically, that it was in reality Guaracco I refused, and that on some happier occasion—like many a man leaving a stormy scene, I was aware of folly a score of things I should have said and done.

I was also aware that I loved Lisa. No getting away from that, even when I tried to say that it was all Guaracco's adroit suggestion, that he may have hypnotized me as well as Lisa, from the first day he had introduced us to each other.

Conjectures about it were only the more disturbing. Finally, I gave up the struggle against my new realization. I loved Lisa, and probably I had lost her. There was nothing I could do about it, I told myself as I drew near to the bottega, turned my footsteps to enter at the door.

A final glow of rage swelled all through me. I yearned wildly for an opportunity to catch Guaracco off guard, to strike and throttle him. A mood, rare in me, made my heart and body thirst for violent action.

As Fate would have it, violent action was about to be provided for my needs.

A horseman came cantering along the street. His horse, a handsome gray, spurned a loose stone from its place among the cobbles. Another moment, and the beast had stumbled and fallen, throwing its rider headlong.

A crowd of strolling pedestrians within view of the mishap all hurried close, myself among them. My hand went out to lift the sprawling man, but with a grunt and an oath he had scrambled to his feet and was tugging at the bridle of his horse. It would not rise.

"The beast is hurt," I suggested.

"Not this devil-begotten nag," growled the rider. He dragged on the bridle again, then kicked the animal's gray ribs with his sharp-toed boot.

Harshness to animals has never pleased me and, as I have said, my anger was ready to rise at anything. I shouted an immediate and strong protest. The man turned upon me. He was tall and sturdy, with a forked black beard and two square front teeth showing under a short upper lip. He wore a long sword under his cloak of brown silk, and had the look of a touch customer.

"Do not meddle between me and my horseflesh," he snapped, and once more heaved at the bridle.

The injured horse struggled up at last, driving the little crowd back on all sides, and the master laughed shortly.

"Did I not say he was unhurt? Belly of Bacchus, it was his careless foot that threw us—curse it and him!"

He clutched the bit of the poor beast, and struck it across the face with his riding whip.

"Stop that!" I shouted, and caught his arm. He tried to pull loose, but I was as strong as he. A moment later he had released the horse, which a passerby seized by the reins, and cut at me with the whip. My left hand lashed out, as quick as impulse. It smote solidly on those two front teeth, and the man-at-arms staggered back with a roar.

I would have struck again, perhaps stretching him on the cobbles, had not Andrea Verrocchio himself, running from his door, thrown his arms around me. Meanwhile, the black-bearded man had whipped out his sword and, swearing in a blood-curdling manner, was struggling to throw off two voluble peacemakers and get at me.

"Have you gone mad, boy?" Verrocchio panted in my ear. "That is Gido, the first swordsman of the Lorenzo's palace guard!"