Surely, surely . . . by the sheer triumph of living he would escape death and live for love and clean labor.
"Ah! madam," he said, "I know now that you lie no more. Yet tell me why you lied so long and carefully, not only to the Duke, but to me, who would have helped you?"
"Lest you should pretend to love me against your will," she replied, her words falling singly upon his ear like the tears of one who rarely weeps or makes confession.
It seemed to Pietro that night as if sunlight and not starlight poured into the Duke's Court, and that the people of his mosaic frescos, the gods and nymphs and heroes of his making, had come to life, and were none other than the great company who had travelled down the Stairway behind the European Maximilian a year since. At the foot of the first flight he took the Duchess in his arms again for an instant, and then swept her down the steps. In the shadow the litter waited. He swung her into it and walked at its head, with his sword ready for service. Through the first court and through the second they went without bar or hindrance, and not even a curious head peeped out from the casements. In the Guards' Court there was neither drinking nor song. In the shadows, as before, Pietro knew that steel lurked, but no sound or movement stirred the armed dummies that stood there.
And now the little procession was upon the Great Gate. A man strode out and challenged it, and Pietro knew De Budry, and, as he thundered out the word, stood on his guard. The blood in his head surged no more; his spine seemed a shaft of frozen steel, and his eyes followed every movement of De Budry like a cat. The Duke-Marshal strode to the litter and stretched out his hand to the curtains. But D'Aranti's blade was there first, gleaming like a silver bar athwart the puce hangings.
De Budry laughed outright.
"Summer heat makes hot blood and desperate lovers, as I told you at supper," he said, grinning, "If you prefer to carry your baggage in the litter and travel afoot yourself, I will not make it cause for quarrel, D'Aranti. Good night."
The flat of Pietro's sword was ready for a challenging blow in the Duke's face, but the Duchess had parted her curtains, and her hand was upon his arm ere he could swing it upward.
"Brother," she said, leaning out,—"brother, the dogs of the town sleep lightly. Do not forget it. When they awake, God may help you, but no man's hand will be of any use to keep them from your throat."
Brother and sister measured one another for an instant before the Duke-Marshal fell back a few paces, fingering his beard and mouth.
"Good night, D'Aranti," he said, jauntily. But the grin upon his face had faded.
"Good night, Duke," replied the painter. "Your jests mean nothing to her Grace. For she knows that a man possessed of great treasure will cherish it and carry it so—in secret state all his life through"—he pointed to the litter,—"nor grudge one throb of the pains of the pilgrimage."
The great gates swung back and the litter passed through. Behind it, on the threshold, D'Aranti's blade answered the salute of De Budry's. Upon that the gates clanged, and the painter headed the procession once more as it threaded the sleeping town and skirted the lake, setting its face for the place at the westward gate of the mountain spurs, where by triple rite of lover's ring and blessed water and holy book Pietro d'Aranti should take his Duchess to wife.
When dawn came down upon the Stairway of Honor, a white peregrine, trailing the fragment of a broken chain, rose over that side of the castle crag which slopes to Italy. It screamed as if fearful still of the leash which should draw it back. Three times it rose, flapping above the roof of the Duchess's wing, and thrice alighted upon the turret at the end. Suddenly it rose steadily, to circle, and circle, and circle in a great spiral, till the cloud currents on high caught it and set its flight southward.
