CHAPTER XI.
HOW, AND FOR WHAT EXQUISITE REASONS, CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD RENOUNCED THE THRONE OF MILAN.
Folding his ragged doublet about his bleeding breast, Captain Brazenhead turned his face towards the daïs, where Liperata sat chaste and still, like some fair-haired Madonna of the North. Not upon her only must he look, but he must frown upon the huddled figure of Duke Visconti, and consider what was to be done with him and his. Great and weighty thoughts contended within him as he stood, deep-breathing and deep-pondering, there. At his feet, very contentedly, sat the Bilboan, dabbing his wounds with a rag. Such of Visconti's bodyguard as remained alive waited upon his words.
He was master; he ruled in Milan. At a word from him the writhen little tyrant would be extinguished, and that which he had greatly dreamed would come to pass. Power of life and limb over men, cities, armies, were his at a word; more than all these as hinting at these and more, the waiting eyes of citizens, the waiting steps of legions, the held breath of neighbouring states attendant upon his motions. To a man of great ideas and imagination winged the temptation to say that one word. Death, was not, you would say, to have been resisted. Death to Visconti! and all Lombardy fell crumbling at his feet.
And yet not only did he not say it, but he knew that he could not. And why? Because he was so made that he could not take life in cold blood. There was one reason. This pitiful, blood-gluttonous, writhen man—whom to kill were to honour above his deserts—must then go free. He might be chained, caged, hidden away within walls; but he could not be slain, because Brazenhead, with everything to gain, could not be angry with him. He could deplore him, despise him, spurn, spit upon him, but treat him as hateworthy he could not for all Milan and its subject cities.
Assume Viscounti chained and put away, what was to hinder him then? "By my soul," said he to himself, "when I am Duke of Milan, I must wive; for I must get me a dynasty, d'ye see?" He eyed Visconti's tall daughter as he spoke, and could not deny her merits. "Thou and I, fair dame! O propitious Lucina!" And then he looked at Liperata, where she chastely sat, a mild young goddess. By her side Bianca Visconti showed the termagant, revealed the shrew; yes, but in every feature, in every mould, in carriage, gesture, and regard, there shone a duchess, the mother of dukes to come.
At this crisis in the affairs of Milan, Bianca, Liperata, and the subduer of them all—the Bilboan limped up to his master, plucked him by the sleeve, and, as the hero stooped to him, whispered hoarsely in his ear. The hushed auditory could make little of the message, which was in the Spanish tongue; but at one word, out of many, two persons started. These were Bianca Visconti and he who proposed to raise her to a throne. At that one word their looks encountered. Some say the word was Sforza.
Captain Brazenhead. at any rate, paused; for once in his life he showed timidity. "She is nothing to me beside that mouse in the throne. A man must be snug, d'ye see? Give me my comforts, and I'll cry you quittance of your strapping ladies. See me at my ease, having well supped, slippers on my feet, plying the toothpick; what do I need then, ha? Why, a dove-eyed, ministering, kiss-me-quick lass to sit on my knee and work the whisk to keep the flies away, what time I sleep off my drink. 'Tis so, by Cock; for men are so made that they carry a maid's heart by storm and waste the world until they have it; and after that they look to have done with the matter. All must be solace afterwards; and the woman wooed before wedlock must thereafter woo until the end of days. Men are so made, there's no denying, and I more than most.
"But Madame Bianca there—lo, you! where is my ease? Where would she hide my slippers? Would she flick away flies? Not so; but 'My lord, I pray you fan my face against this heat.' 'My lord, I would have you sing me lullaby.' 'Carry you the child, my lord, while my women tie my hair.' 'Get up, my lord, get up, and snuff the candle; I vow 'tis your turn.' Why, a pest upon it, how should a man find force to lead armies afield, or preside in council-chambers, or beard the envoys of foreign princes, if his rest is to be broken, his pride humbled, his courage frittered off him like cheese off a grater? Yet thus, and not otherwise, must that man suffer who has Madame Bianca to wife. Yet it comports not with my honour to lead any less a lady to the throne of Milan. Zounds, but I'll none of your thrones, then, at such a price. And yet wathal—and yet—oho, Madame Bianca, I see thee the mother of the dukes my sons!
"A proof, a proof!" he cried. "I'll put all to the proof. Mark you me, Bilboan, how I go a-wooing in my own fashion." Followed by the eyes of his crouching ally, still busy with his sores, he trod impetuously forward to the daïs.
There from below he accosted Bianca Visconti, daughter of Dukes.
"Lady, I am Master of Milan, and like you well enough. Come now, shall we make a match of it? Will you be a soldier's wife?"
The lady's eyes shone steely blue. The lady's cheeks flushed high.
"Yes, sir. That is my fixed intention," she said.
Captain Brazenhead set his right foot upon the second degree of the daïs.
"Well and good, then, mistress," said he. "Gird me on that forepiece with your belt. It was torn in the fray, and you would not have your husband go barefoot."
Madame Bianca recoiled as if a hornet had stung her.
"Hound!" said she, "do you dare?"
But Liperata slipped from the throne and ran and knelt by the great foot. She took her kerchief from her fair hair and bound the torn forepiece closely to the instep with that. Captain Brazenhead stooped and lifted her in his arms. High in air she swung, like a feather caught in a tree.
"Behold, behold the wife for a soldier!" cried her taker. He lowered her and kissed her twice. Mounting then the throne, he stirred the Duke with his bound foot.
"Ho, there Milan," he said, "take heart, if thou canst find it. Thy foes are all dead or fled, and as for thy throne, I renounce it with a flick of the finger, as I assumed it with the same. Fortune send thy state bolder tyrants than thee. As for you, mistress," and he turned his face to Madame Bianca, "if you will be a soldier's wife, disdain not to serve him who bleeds. For I care not who the man may be, with him it will never be 'Leave to love thee is my hire' So, fare you heartily well, mistress, and the soldier, your husband. As for me, I am suited here."
So said, he handed Liperata from the daïs, and put the child upon his shoulder. Whistling to the Bilboan, he strode leisurely down the hall over the writhen bodies of the dead and dying, and was seen no more in Milan for that time.
Curiously enough, Sforza entered the city next day at the head of his victorious army, and shortly afterwards married Visconti's daughter. His regrets at not meeting Captain Brazenhead must have been many and bitter. What were Captain Brazenhead's feelings we have no means of knowing; but I understand that he heard of the entry from a lodging he had in Cremona where, under the name of Damœtas, a shepherd, he was then dwelling with the fair Liperata. From these subsequent events, I assume, the curious legend must have arisen that among the many Spanish words whispered in his ear by the Bilboan, while all Milan lay humble at his feet, was the Italian word Sforza.
THE END.