BARON DI MARTINI, a distant relative of the Prince—or if the rumor was true, a half-brother—greeted us cordially.
“Can you imagine, signore, two young scatterbrains going about the city unattended? I did not know about it until half an hour ago, and I have just sent some servants in search of them. I am really grateful to you, signore, for having saved them from much unpleasantness.”
A lackey removed the cloaks of the youths. One of them embraced the Baron. “What!” he exclaimed, “dressed as a boy, Antonia? What does this mean?”
“It is la Festa del Grillo, uncle! Summer! On such a day surely I may have a fling at life…”
The Baron laughed.
How had I been so unobservant? The handsome youth was a girl! The scoundrels that accosted them suspected aright. Nevertheless, there was in the slim, graceful figure, a touch of something that justified the boyish mummery.
“Uncle,” said the other, “we have invited these gentlemen to be our guests.”
“Splendid, Antonio,” the uncle remarked.
Antonio, slim and impetuous, was evidently a boy. However it imposed no strain upon the imagination to regard him as a girl in disguise. Without being effeminate he still had that first bloom of childhood, which is either sexless or epicene.
“Is it proper really,” I asked, “to intrude upon you in this fashion?”
“I insist, signor, you must be my guests,” the Baron replied.
“I asked the young gentlemen—or as I notice now—the signor and the signorina, whether they were quite certain they were not inviting…most sinister characters.”
“Sinister characters!” the uncle laughed. “I do not think a gentleman can ever disguise himself.”
“It was easy for the signorina to masquerade as a lad.”
Antonia clapped her hands. “I am so glad I deceived you.”
“You ought to see me dressed as a woman,” Antonio interjected.
“Oh yes, he is wonderful!” exclaimed Antonia. “He should have been a woman…and I a man, really.”
“Silence, woman,” the boy commanded gravely, “or I shall presently chastise you.”
Antonia laughed. “You should have heard him threaten the three scoundrels that were annoying us, Uncle. ‘It is fortunate for you that we left our swords at home. Stand aside, let us pass, or tomorrow you shall swing from the gibbet.’ ”
Everybody laughed.
“Really, signor, these young scatterbrains are keen at reading faces. They take after their mother, my sister, a remarkable woman. May her soul rest in peace!”
“We hesitated to accept your invitation because we are strangers in Florence and have no wish to transgress upon your kindness. I am Count de Cartaphile of Provence.”
“Count de Cartaphile!” the Baron exclaimed. “A descendant of Count de Cartaphile who single-handed slew a regiment of infidels and captured the Holy Sepulchre almost alone?”
I nodded.
“What a fortunate coincidence, children!”
Antonio and Antonia looked at me with new interest.
“What an honor, Count…and what a delightful surprise! I am writing the history of the Crusades. How often I have spoken to my nephew and to my niece about the exploits of your ancestor, and his companion, the Red Knight! I once wrote to you to Provence but evidently my message, entrusted to a wandering scholar, failed to reach its destination. You must be our guest, Count—as long as you remain in Florence.”
“Yes, yes,” the children insisted.
I promised to stay overnight.
Baron di Martini showed me the garden and orchard which surrounded the castle. Kotikokura walked behind us between two large dogs, black as charcoal.
“The more I read about the chivalrous deeds of Count de Cartaphile and the Red Knight, the more fascinating those two characters become.”
We walked in silence for a while in a deluge of flowers.
“Do you think it really possible, Baron, for two knights such as the Count de Cartaphile and the Red Knight—single-handed—to capture the Holy Sepulchre from a thousand defenders?”
I looked at him quizzically.
He nodded. “Sheer physical strength is not enough. Your ancestor may have known the secret word that enlists invisible powers. Both he and the Red Knight, too, undoubtedly called angels in armor to help. The hosts of Heaven were their retinue.”
“I am familiar with these legends. Our family chronicle tells that the Red Knight appeared in several places at once…”
“Space and time,” the Baron replied, “are not subject to immutable laws. Their limitations are more elastic…”
“Are you,” I asked, “a mathematician as well as a historian?”
“Why?”
“In my youth, I had a friend—a distinguished Arabian mathematician—who resembled you very much, Baron, and I often noticed that those who resemble each other physically have much in common mentally.”
“Our thoughts shape our features, no doubt.”
“Or, perhaps, our features shape our thoughts…”
“Truth,” the Baron replied, “is an equation permitting of many solutions and it is sometimes difficult to draw a clear line of division. Even sex and personality are not always defined. Human character, too, may be a double equation. The unknown quantity may stand for both good and evil.”
“You are indeed a philosopher.”
“My nephew and niece,” the Baron continued, “are a double equation. They look alike and they think the same thoughts. You can substitute one for the other…”
“Remarkable children,” I added.
“And very lovely. But there they are, whispering to each other. I am quite certain they are conspiring to keep you with us beyond tomorrow.”
Antonio and Antonia advanced toward us.
“How delicate is youth!” I said.
“Nothing,” the Baron added, “surpasses the loveliness of spring. I wish I could keep them from growing older! Before long I shall lose them. Each will go and lose himself in the labyrinth of love and life…”
“Worse still, perhaps…they will lose each other!”
Antonia and Antonio raced toward us. Each offered me a rose.
The boy’s rose was white, hers red. My face flushed. I was a little embarrassed, a pleasurable sensation. ‘How many centuries have passed Cartaphilus,’ I thought, ‘since you have last blushed! You are still young… It is well.’
“You are too kind,” I said, at loss for words.
“Without you, Count, we might be dead…”Antonia remarked archly.
“You exaggerate your peril.”
“No, no, Count,” the Baron interposed. “You do not know the Florentines. Art and crime both flourish within our walls.”
“Count,” said the girl, “you must know many stories…”
“Tell us one,” said the boy.
“A story!” the girl repeated.
“They still are children,” the Baron remarked, “even if they pretend to be grown up.”
Kotikokura ran, the dogs after him, barking lustily.
“It is strange, Count—those two dogs, ordinarily ferocious toward strangers, have become from the first moment inseparable companions of your man.” “He is a lover of animals, Baron, and animals, no doubt, scent his affection at once.”
Antonio and Antonia, on either side of me, we walked slowly through the garden. The delicate pressure of their arms—one barely heavier than the other—delighted me. It was like the warm pulsation of the heart of a bird.
The Baron, summoned by the Prince on business of state, apologized for his absence and asked the scatterbrains—as he was pleased to call the children whenever he was most affectionate—to entertain me.
We were sitting in a corner of the enormous reception hall, whose walls had been frescoed by the old masters of Florence, Antonio on my right, Antonia on my left. Kotikokura sat opposite us, a dog on either side of him.
I raised the chin of Antonio with my forefinger, then that of Antonia, and looked into their eyes.