TWICE IN TIME

Was this the best swordsman that the Medici could send against a raw student of the arts? I felt a little perplexity on my own account. Gido had the look and, with Verrocchio at least, the reputation of a seasoned fighter. Yet he was doing no more than enough to hold his own against my sword. He had missed a chance to riposte at my first attack, a moment later he had been foolishly open to my own riposte.

As our blades grated together again, I found the answer in my own semi-obscured memory. Riposte, that was it—or, rather, the lack of riposte. The movement, the counter-attack made when your opponent's thrust had been parried and he has not yet recovered, is in great measure instinctive. But in these Renaissance times it was not rationalized, was not yet made a definite pseudo-reflex of sword-play.[4] I, knowing the formal science of it, had a great advantage. I could win by it.

"Fight, you knave!" I taunted Gido, as my steel pressed against him. "I'll cut you into flitches like a pig"

Again he thrust wildly in his angry terror, and again I warded. And, with a quick straightening of my arm, I touched him before he could recover. My point snapped his bearded cheek, and a thread of gore showed. This time the onlookers cheered for me.

Gido retreated once more, two paces this time. His face frankly showed terror.

"He is a devil," he choked out. "He knows a secret thrust. Unfair!"

"I will show you my secret, drive it to your heart," I growled back, pressing forward after him. "Fight, man, or I will butcher you!"

He tried for a moment to oppose me, then fled again from my menacing point. Now that his nerve was gone, he could barely hold up his sword.

"I cannot stand against you," he mumbled wretchedly.

"Show him mercy," called Verrocchio to me, and I half lowered my weapon.

Gido saw, and struck. Only a quick recovery of my guard saved my life. I roared wordlessly, and sprang upon him. My first sweeping slash he parried, the second almost cut away his left arm. He staggered back and tried unsuccessfully to hold off my long point thrust, but I got home deep between his ribs. Pulling away, he ran, like a boy caught stealing fruit, and I after him.

He gained the gate that led to the street, leaning for a moment upon it. Half a dozen of the onlookers rushed to bar my way, pleading that I was already the winner, but my rage was up again. I struggled through their arms and after Gido.

He had gone through the gate, fallen through it. As I came into the street, with the throng at my heels, I almost trod upon my adversary. He lay sprawled across the curb and into the gutter, his sword under him, blood gushing from his mouth and drenching his black beard. He had only life enough to grope in his pierced bosom, pull forth a crucifix of silver, and try to kiss it.

* * *

The fight and the fury went out of me as I watched him die, for it was the first violent death I had ever witnessed. I looked around at the staring, scared faces, and saw among them that of the man whose sword I had snatched.

"Take back your weapon," I said to him, but he drew fearfully away from me.

Hoofs were thundering on the cobblestones. The knot of people pressed back to the front of the bottega, and let a little cloud of horsemen approach. A voice shouted commandingly, and there was a quick, orderly dismounting. One of the armored men stopped to gaze at the body.

"Gido!" he grunted. "And slain!"

"What?" demanded a voice from behind. "Gido, you say? Who slew him?"

Two men, richly dressed, had remained upon their superb horses. One of them reined in almost above me. He was a handsome dark youngster, no older than I, with abundant curls descending from under his plumed velvet coat to the shoulders of his plum-colored houppelande, or gown-like outer garment. His belt, gloves, and boots were embroidered with massy gold. He stared at the body of Gido, at me, and at the bloody sword I still held.

* * *

It was the other, sitting his steed just beyond, who had spoken. He was also young, tall, and rugged, with harpies blazoned richly upon the breast of his surcoat. His strong face, framed between sweeps of straight black hair, had broad, fiercely ugly features. Above the right corner of his mouth grew a wart. To me his appearance suggested something of my former life—a painting or statue.

"Gido," he said again. "My own peerless Gido— slane!"

Here upon me had ridden Lorenzo the Magnificent, absolute ruler of the city of Florence![5]

And now, the eyes of this great despot, prince in all but name, had fastened upon me. Bright, deadly intent flared from them, like fire from black flint.

"Is that the assassin?" he demanded. "Seize him, some of you."

I turned toward him.

"I am no assassin, Your Magnificence," I protested. "It was a fair fight, and this guardsman of yours forced—"

But as I began to speak, two of the men in mail and leather moved swiftly to my right elbow and my left. The iron gauntlet of one snatched away my sword, and the other man roughly caught my shoulder.

"Silence!" he growled in my ear. "Speak when you are spoken to."

Others of the party were busy questioning witnesses, who were many and unfriendly. Lorenzo de Medici, after favoring me with another long, searching look, turned away.

"Bring that fellow," he ordered my captors.

"Can you ride?" I was asked, and when I nodded, the gray horse of Gido, the same over which we had quarrelled, was led forward. I mounted, and one of the men-at-arms caught the bridle reins in the crook of his arm. The other sidled his horse against me.

"Come," he said, "you are going to prison. If you try to escape, if you but move as though to leave us"—his voice grew harder still—"my sword will shed your tripes upon the street."

CHAPTER VII Lorenzo the Magnificent

Lorenzo and his handsome companion had ridden on. Behind him rode his retinue, one of them with Gido's limp body across his saddlebow. I myself, on the gray, with the two guards, brought up the rear.

As we departed, I glanced back at the bottega. The crowd was moving and murmuring, and in its midst stood Andrea Verrocchio, staring after me through his spectacles.

We had not ridden much more than two miles, and had made few turns, before our little procession entered a great paved yard before a white stone palace. A groom appeared to lead away the horses of Lorenzo and his companion, while the soldiers rode around to a guard-house at the rear, leading me with them.

Through a small barred door, I was ushered into the palace building, then through a hallway in which stood a sentry in breastplate and steel cap. Finally I was escorted into a small room, finished in great rough stones and with a single iron-latticed window. It had one stool, no carpet and no table.

"Await here your punishment," one of my captors bade me, and I was locked in.

I waited. There was nothing to do but think, and nothing to think but doleful thoughts. My victory over the bully swordsman, mingled as it was of luck and knowledge from another century, had brought me not fame but disaster. Lorenzo de Medici himself had seen fit to notice me, and with anger. I knew well that this scion of a great and unscrupulous race had the power of life and death in Florence, and that in my case the power of death was more apt to be exercised than the power of life.

To be sure, I had been drawn on first, had fought only in self-defense. But what judge would hear me? Lorenzo, who through me had lost a valued servant. What jury would ponder my case? No jury. I might not be allowed to speak in my own defense, even. A nod, a word, and I would be condemned to death, with nobody to question or to mourn.

Nobody? What about Lisa? But I had to put her from my mind.

Thus I mused, in the blackest of humors, until a faint stirring sound at the window made me lift my eyes. A small, childlike face hung there—the face of the deceptively handsome dwarf of Guaracco.

He cautioned me to silence with a tiny finger on his lips, then, with the utmost suppleness and skill, thrust his wisp of a body between the iron bars. How even so small a creature could do it, I have no idea; but in two seconds he stood in front of me, smoothing out the wrinkles of his little surcoat.

"What do you here?" I demanded.

"It was easy," he chuckled. "By a vine I swung from the street and over the wall. In a tuft of brambles I lurked, until the sentry walked by. I am here with a message from Ser Guaracco, your master and mine."

"Well?" I prompted, a faint hope wakening in me. Guaracco had claimed some influence. Perhaps he was bestirring himself on my behalf.

"The message," said the dwarf, "is this: Hanging is an easy death and a swift."

"Hanging?" I echoed. "I am to be hanged?"

"Perhaps." The little head wagged wisely. "That is the punishment for brawlers, and killers in hot blood. But there are other punishments." He smiled up impudently. "A witch, a devil's apostle, for instance, may be burned at the stake. By comparison, a sorry end."

I grew ironic myself. "Your riddles become easy to read, imp," I said. "Ser Guaracco is anxious that I make no claims of coming to him miraculously—that I say nothing of being nourished and ordered to assist him in his intrigues."

"They breed quick minds where you come from," said the dwarf.

"Go back," I told him. "Back, and say that I know his selfish reason, but that his advice is good. I will not involve him in my ruin. Better to hang than to burn."

* * *

The little fellow nodded quickly, turned and wriggled out between the bars like a lizard.

Time wore on, and I felt weary and hungry. Finally, pushing my stool back so that I could lean in the corner, I dozed off. A rough voice awakened me.

"God's wounds, knave, you do slumber at the very lip of death! Rise and come with me. Lorenzo the Magnificent has sent for you."

I got to my feet and rubbed my eyes. Night had come, and I walked out of my dark cell toward the light held at the open door. Two men in steel-mounted leather waited, a bristle-bearded captain and a lanky swordsman with a scarred cheek.

Between them I walked away into a long hall, around a corner, across an open courtyard—it was a clear, starry night overhead—and into a building beyond. A sentry challenged us in the arras-hung vestibule we entered. At an explanatory word from the bearded captain, we waved me through a curtained doorway.

The room in which we came to a halt was not spacious, but lofty, and lighted by no less than eight lamps on tables and brackets, or hung by chains from the groined ceding. The walls were frescoed with scenes and figures of Grecian mythology, and the floor was richly carpeted.

At a table of polished ebony with inlaid borders and figures of ivory, sat Lorenzo de Medici, in a magnificent dove-gray houppelande with furred neck and wrists. His ugly face was toward us. Beside him was stationed a scribe or secretary, in the hooded gown of a monk, busy with pen and ink.

But, standing before the table with back toward us, was a long, spare man with a red pate. He could be none but Guaracco. And he was speaking as we entered, in the gentle, plausible manner he could affect so well.

"Magnificence," he was saying smoothly, "if to be related to the young man is a crime, I must plead guilty. It is true that I arranged for his education, as Ser Andrea Verrocchio testified before you just now. But concerning this butchery of your poor servant, I must say that I have no reaction save surprise and sorrow."

He was clearing his skirts of me then.

Lorenzo leaned back in his chair of state. It was a square-made armchair of massive carved wood.

"I wonder, I wonder," the ruler of Florence almost crooned. His eyes probed Guaracco like sharp points, and if anything could unsettle the sorcerer-scientist's aplomb, it would be such a regard. "It is possible," continued Lorenzo, "that you assigned him to the task of murdering Gido? But here is the young man himself. His story may be revealing."

The captain who had brought me now thrust me forward with a push of thick knuckles in my back. Lorenzo's eyes met mine, and I returned him as level a stare as possible.

"Stand aside, Guarracco," commanded Lorenzo. "Now, young man, your name?"

"Leo Thrasher," I replied.

"Leo—what?"

And Lorenzo shook his head over my surname, which all Italians have found difficult. The clerk, pen in hand, asked me how to spell it.

"A barbarous cognomen, which bespeaks the barbarous fellow," remarked Lorenzo sententiously. "What defense have you to offer?"

"Only that I did not murder your guardsman, but killed him in a fair fight," I made respectful reply.

* * *

Guaracco, standing against the wall, gave me a little nod of approval and drew in his lips, as though to council prudence.

Lorenzo turned and took several sheets of writing from his monkish companion.

"According to the testimony of others, you were the aggressor," said he. "You interfered, and struck him after he had fallen from his horse."

"He flogged the beast cruelly," I protested. "I used my bare fist upon him, and he drew his sword. I say, I but defended myself."

"Do not contradict His Magnificence," the middle-aged clerk cautioned me bleakly.

"And do not traduce the name of poor dead Gido," added Lorenzo. His eyes still raked me. "I have lost a good servant in him."

"Perhaps," I said, on sudden inspiration, "I can make good his loss."

"How?" exclaimed Lorenzo, and his black eyes narrowed. "As a swordsman in my guard? But Gido had conquered hundreds."

"I conquered Gido," I reminded him, despite the fact that Guaracco was signaling again for prudence. Lorenzo saw those signals, and turned in his chair.

"Ha, Guaracco, by the bones of the saints! I do begin to understand it. You'll have planned that this creature of yours might rise on the dead shoulders of his victim, and be taken into my service as an invincible blade. Then, being near me, and myself unguarded—"

"As heaven is my judge, this is not my doing!" exclaimed Guaracco, unstrung at last.

I spoke again, to save myself and him, too.

"If I cannot be trusted to guard Your Magnificence, I have other worthy gifts." I thought a moment, marshaling what latter-day science my memory still retained. "I can build bridges. I can make war machines of various kinds. I can show you how to destroy fortresses—"

"Indeed?" broke in Lorenzo. "How came you by all this knowledge? More of Guaracco's doing, I make no doubt. He is whispered to be a sorcerer." Another of his darted sidelong looks made the tall man shake violently. "You, too, young man? Death is the severe penalty for black magic."

I recognized defeat, and shrugged my shoulders in exasperation.

"I shall not weary you with further pleas, Your Magnificence," I said. "Call me wizard as well as murderer. I am neither, but you are determined to destroy me. As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb."

The captain at my elbow made a motion as though to drag me away, but Lorenzo lilted one long, white hand, with a many-jeweled ring upon the forefinger.

"Wait! Tell me—what was that you said?"

"I said, as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb."

"Hanged for a sheep as for a—" A grin came, slowly, as if it did not well know the way to that rugged face. It made Lorenzo strangely handsome. "Neatly said, my Bacchus!" He spoke to the clerk. "Write that down. Here we have one gift that was never won from yonder dull Guaracco."

I was stunned at the zest with which he repeated the cliché.

"Why, Your Magnificence!" I said, wonderingly, "it is but a saying, a handful of old words."

"Yet the thought is new, a new thing under the sun. Say on, Leo the Witty. If you are an assassin set to kill me, your tongue is as tempered as your sword."

* * *

He called the phrase new and, of course, it was. The Fifteenth Century had never heard it before. Every cliche must have been devastating in its time.