"He who bleeds last bleeds longest," I paraphrased, and made a sweeping slash on my own account.
Gido had to spring all the way back to escape, and upon his face had dawned an expression of perplexed concern.
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.
4
No scientific treatment of the riposte in sword-play is to be found in any manual of the exercise before the late Seventeenth Century.
5
Lorenzo de Medici, who ruled with his brother Giuliano in Florence since 1469, was the true founder of Florentine greatness, and was a most benevolent despot until his death in 1492.