O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 by Various

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Baldo came to the gate. The ghostly Arabian uttered:

"Peace be with you. I have here, under my robe, a packet for your
master."

"Good! Pass it over to me, unless it will turn my nose into a carrot,
or add a tail to my spine."

The foreigner, shaking his skull-like head, responded:

"I must give this packet into no hands but his."

So Baldo led the sorcerer to Cercamorte, and for a long while those
two talked together in private.

* * * * *

Next day Madonna Gemma noted that Lapo had on a new, short,
sleeveless surcoat, or vest, of whitish leather, trimmed on its
edges with vair, and laced down the sides with tinsel. In this
festive garment, so different from his usual attire, the grim tyrant
was ill at ease, secretly anxious, almost timid. Avoiding her eye,
he assumed an elaborate carelessness, like that of a boy who had
been up to some deviltry. Madonna Gemma soon found herself
connecting this change in him with the fancy white-leather vest.

In the hall, while passing a platter of figs, Foresto praised the
new garment obsequiously. He murmured:

"And what a fine skin it is made of! So soft, so delicate, so
lustrous in its finish! Is it pigskin, master? Ah, no; it is finer
than that. Kidskin? But a kid could not furnish a skin as large as
this one. No doubt it is made from some queer foreign animal,
perhaps from a beast of Greece or Arabia?"

While speaking these words, Foresto flashed one look, mournful and
eloquent, at Madonna Gemma, then softly withdrew from the hall.

She sat motionless, wave after wave of cold flowing in through her
limbs to her heart. She stared, as though at a basilisk, at Lapo's
new vest, in which she seemed to find the answer so long denied her.
The hall grew dusky; she heard a far-off cry, and when she meant to
flee, she fainted in her chair.

For a week Madonna Gemma did not rise from her bed. When finally she
did rise she refused to leave her room.

But suddenly Lapo Cercamorte was gayer than he had been since the
fall of Grangioia Castle. Every morning, when he had inquired after
Madonna Gemma's health, and had sent her all kinds of tidbits, he
went down to sit among his men, to play morra, to test swordblades,
to crack salty jokes, to let loose his husky guffaw. At times,
cocking his eye toward certain upper casements, he patted his fine
vest furtively, with a gleeful and mischievous grin. To Baldo, after
some mysterious nods and winks, he confided:

"Everything will be different when she is well again."

"No doubt," snarled old Baldo, scrubbing at his mail shirt viciously.
"Though I am not in your confidence, I agree that a nice day is
coming, a beautiful day--like a pig. Look you, Cercamorte, shake off
this strange spell of folly. Prepare for early trouble. Just as a
Venetian sailor can feel a storm of water brewing, so can I feel,
gathering far off, a storm of arrows. Do you notice that the crows
hereabouts have never been so thick? Perhaps, too, I have seen a face
peeping out of the woods, about the time that Foresto goes down to
pick berries."

"You chatter like an old woman at a fountain," said Lapo, still
caressing his vest with his palms. "I shall be quite happy soon--yes,
even before the Lombard league takes the field."

Baldo raised his shoulders, pressed his withered eyelids together,
and answered, in disgust:

"God pity you, Cercamorte! You are certainly changed these days.
Evidently your Arabian has given you a charm that turns men's brains
into goose-eggs."

Lapo stamped away angrily, yet he was soon smiling again.

And now his coarse locks were not unkempt, but cut square across
brow and neck. Every week he trimmed his fingernails; every day or so,
with a flush and a hangdog look, he drenched himself with perfume.
Even while wearing that garment--at thought of which Madonna Gemma,
isolate in her chamber, still shivered and moaned--Cercamorte
resembled one who prepares himself for a wedding, or gallant
rendezvous, that may take place any moment.

Sometimes, reeking with civet-oil, he crept to her door, eavesdropped,
pondered the quality of her sighs, stood hesitant, then stealthily
withdrew, grinding his teeth and wheezing:

"Not yet. Sweet saints in heaven, what a time it takes!"

He loathed his bed, because of the long hours of sleeplessness. He
no longer slept naked. At night, too, his body was encased in the
vest of whitish soft skin.

* * * * *

One morning a horseman in green and yellow scallops appeared before
the castle. It was Count Nicolotto Muti, elder brother of the
troubadour Raffaele.

Lapo, having arranged his features, came down to meet the count.
They kissed, and entered the keep with their arms round each other's
shoulders. Foresto brought in the guest-cup.

Nicolotto Muti was a thin, calm politician, elegant in his manners
and speech, his lips always wearing a sympathetic smile. By the
fireplace, after chatting of this and that, he remarked, with his
hand affectionately on Cercamorte's knee:

"I am trying to find trace of my little Raffaele, who has vanished
like a mist. It is said that he was last seen in this neighbourhood.
Can you tell me anything?"

Lapo, his face expressionless, took thought, then carefully answered:

"Muti, because we are friends as well as allies I will answer you
honestly. Returning from my visit with you, I found him in this hall,
plucking a harp and singing love-songs to my wife. I say frankly
that if he had not been your brother I should have cut off his hands
and his tongue. Instead, I escorted him to the forest, and set him
on the home road. I admit that before I parted from him I preached
him a sermon on the duties of boys toward the friends of their
families. Nay, fearing that he might not relate his adventure to you,
in that discourse I somewhat pounded the pulpit. Well, yes, I
confess that I gave him a little spanking."

Count Nicolotto, without showing any surprise, or losing his fixed
smile, declared:

"Dear comrade, it was a young man, not a child, whom you chastised
in that way. In another instance, as of course you know, such an
action would have been a grievous insult to all his relatives.
Besides, I am sure that he meant no more than homage to your lady--a
compliment common enough in these modern times, and honourably
reflected upon the husband. However, I can understand the feelings
of one who has been too much in the field to learn those innocent
new gallantries. Indeed, I presume that I should thank you for what
you believed to be a generous forbearance. But all this does not
find me my brother."

And with a sad, gentle smile Count Nicolotto closed his frosty eyes.

Cercamorte, despite all this cooing, received an impression of enmity.
As always when danger threatened, he became still and wary, much
more resourceful than ordinarily, as if perils were needed to render
him complete. Smoothing his vest with his fingers that were
flattened from so much sword-work, Lapo said:

"I feel now that I may have been wrong to put such shame upon him.
On account of it, no doubt, he has sought retirement. Or maybe he
has journeyed abroad, say to Provence, a land free from such
out-of-date bunglers as I."

Nicolotto Muti made a deprecatory gesture, then rose with a rustle
of his green and yellow scallops, from which was shaken a fragrance
of attar.

"My good friend, let us hope so."

It was Foresto who, in the courtyard held Muti's stirrup, and
secretly pressed into the visitor's hand a pellet of parchment. For
Foresto could write excellent Latin.

No sooner had Count Nicolotto regained his strong town than a
shocking rumour spread round--Lapo Cercamorte had made Raffaele
Muti's skin into a vest, with which to drive his wife mad.

In those petty Guelph courts, wherever the tender lore of Provence
had sanctified the love of troubadour for great lady, the noblemen
cried out in fury; the noblewomen, transformed into tigresses,
demanded Lapo's death. Old Grangioia and his three sons arrived at
the Muti fortress raving for sudden vengeance. There they were
joined by others, rich troubadours, backed by many lances, whose
rage could not have been hotter had Lapo, that "wild beast in human
form," defaced the Holy Sepulchre. At last the Marquis Azzo was
forced to reflect:

"Cercamorte has served me well, but if I keep them from him our
league may be torn asunder. Let them have him. But he will die hard."

Round the Big Hornets' Nest the crows were thicker than ever.

* * * * *

One cold, foggy evening Lapo Cercamorte at last pushed open his
wife's chamber door. Madonna Gemma was alone, wrapped in a fur-lined
mantle, warming her hands over an earthen pot full of embers.
Standing awkwardly before her, Lapo perceived that her beauty was
fading away in this unhappy solitude. On her countenance was no
trace of that which he had hoped to see. He swore softly, cast down
from feverish expectancy into bewilderment.

"No," he said, at length, his voice huskier than usual, "this cannot
continue. You are a flower transplanted into a dungeon, and dying on
the stalk. One cannot refashion the past. The future remains.
Perhaps you would flourish again if I sent you back to your father?"

He went to the casement with a heavy step, and stared through a rent
in the oiled linen at the mist, which clung round the castle like a
pall.

"Madonna," he continued, more harshly than ever, in order that she
might not rejoice at his pain, "I ask pardon for the poorness of my
house. Even had my sword made me wealthy I should not have known how
to provide appointments pleasing to a delicate woman. My manners also,
as I have learned since our meeting, are unsuitable. The camps were
my school and few ladies came into them. It was not strange that
when Raffaele Muti presented himself you should have found him more
to your taste. But if on my sudden return I did what I did, and thus
prevented him from boasting up and down Lombardy of another conquest,
it was because I had regard not only for my honour, but for yours.
So I am not asking your pardon on that score."

Lowering her face toward the red embers, she whispered:

"A beast believes all men to be beasts."

"Kiss of Judas! Are women really trapped, then, by that gibberish?
Madonna, these miaowing troubadours have concocted a world that they
themselves will not live in. Have I not sat swigging in tents with
great nobles, and heard all the truth about it? Those fellows always
have, besides the lady that they pretend to worship as inviolate, a
dozen others with whom the harp-twanging stage is stale."

"All false, every word," Madonna Gemma answered.

"Because ladies choose to think so the game goes on. Well, Madonna,
remember this. From the moment when I first saw you I, at least, did
you no dishonour, but married you promptly, and sought your
satisfaction by the means that I possessed. I was not unaware that
few wives come to their husbands with affection. Certainly I did not
expect affection from you at the first, but hoped that it might ensue.
So even Lapo Cercamorte became a flabby fool, when he met one in
comparison with whom all other women seemed mawkish. Since it was
such a fit of drivelling, let us put an end to it. At sunrise the
horses will be ready. Good night."

Leaving her beside the dying embers, he went out upon the ramparts.
The fog was impenetrable; one could not even see the light in the
sorcerer's window.

"Damned Arabian!" growled Lapo, brandishing his fist. He sat down
beside the gate-tower, and rested his chin on his hands.

"How cold it is," he thought, "how lonely and dismal! Warfare is
what I need. Dear Lord, let me soon be killing men briskly, and
warming myself in the burning streets of Ferrara. That is what I was
begotten for. I have been lost in a maze."

Dawn approached, and Lapo was still dozing beside the gate-tower.

With the first hint of light the sentinel challenged; voices
answered outside the gate. It was old Grangioia and his sons,
calling up that they had come to visit their daughter.

"Well arrived," Lapo grunted, his brain and body sluggish from the
chill. He ordered the gate swung open.

Too late, as they rode into the courtyard, he saw that there were
nearly a score of them, all with their helmets on. Then in the fog
he heard a noise like an avalanche of ice--the clatter of countless
steel-clad men scrambling up the hillside.

While running along the wall, Lapo Cercamorte noted that the
horsemen were hanging back, content to hold the gate till reinforced.
On each side of the courtyard his soldiers were tumbling out of
their barracks and fleeing toward the keep, that inner stronghold
which was now their only haven. Dropping at last from the ramparts,
he joined this retreat. But on gaining the keep he found with him
only some thirty of his men; the rest had been caught in their beds.

Old Baldo gave him a coat of mail. Young Foresto brought him his
sword and shield. Climbing the keep-wall, Cercamorte squinted down
into the murky courtyard. That whole place now swarmed with his foes.

Arrows began to fly. A round object sailed through the air and
landed in the keep; it was the head of the Arabian.

"Who are these people?" asked Baldo, while rapidly shooting at them
with a bow. "There seem to be many knights; half the shields carry
devices. Ai! they have fired the barracks. Now we shall make them out."

The flames leaped up in great sheets, producing the effect of an
infernal noon. The masses in the courtyard, inhuman-looking in their
ponderous, barrel-shaped helmets, surged forward at the keep with a
thunderous outcry:

"Grangioia! Grangioia! Havoc on Cercamorte!"

"Muti! Muti! Havoc on Cercamorte!"

"God and the Monfalcone!"

"Strike for Zaladino! Havoc on Cercamorte!"

Lapo bared his teeth at them. "By the Five Wounds! half of Lombardy
seems to be here. Well, my Baldo, before they make an end of us
shall we show them some little tricks?"

"You have said it, Cercamorte. One more good scuffle, with a parade
of all our talent."

The assailants tried beams against the keep gate; the defenders shot
them down or hurled rocks upon their heads. But on the wall of the
keep Cercamorte's half-clad men fell sprawling, abristle with
feathered shafts. A beam reached the gate and shook it on its hinges.
Lapo, one ear shot away, drew his surviving soldiers back into the
hall.

He ordered torches stuck into all the wall-rings, and ranged his men
on the dais. Behind them, in the doorway leading to the upper
chambers and the high tower, he saw his wife, wild-looking, and
whiter than her robe.

"Go back, Madonna. It is only your family calling with some of their
friends. I entered Grangioia Castle abruptly; now it is tit for tat."

The crone brought two helmets, which Lapo and Baldo put on. Then,
drawing their long swords, they awaited the onset.

The keep gate yielded, and into the hall came rushing a wave of
peaked and painted shields. But before the dais the wave paused,
since in it were those who could not forego the joy of taunting Lapo
Cercamorte before killing him. So suddenly, all his antagonists
contemplated him in silence, as he crouched above them with his
sword and shield half raised, his very armour seeming to emanate
force, cunning, and peril.

"Foul monster!" a muffled voice shouted. "Now you come to your death!"

"Now we will give your carcass to the wild beasts, your brothers!"

"Let my daughter pass through," bawled old Grangioia; then,
receiving no response, struck clumsily at Lapo.

With a twist of his sword Lapo disarmed the old man, calling out:
"Keep off, kinsman! I will not shed Grangioia blood unless you force
me to it. Let Muti come forward. Or yonder gentleman dressed up in
the white eagles of Este, which should hide their heads with their
wings, so long and faithfully have I served them."

But none was ignorant of Cercamorte's prowess; so, after a moment of
seething, they all came at him together.

The swordblades rose and fell so swiftly that they seemed to be arcs
of light; the deafening clangour was pierced by the howls of the
dying. The dais turned red--men slipped on it; Cercamorte's sword
caught them; they did not rise. He seemed indeed to wield more
swords than one, so terrible was his fighting. At his back stood
Baldo, his helmet caved in, his mail shirt in ribbons, his abdomen
slashed open. Both at once they saw that all their men were down.
Hewing to right and left they broke through, gained the tower
staircase, and locked the door behind them.

* * * * *

On the dark stairway they leaned against the wall, their helmets off,
gasping for breath, while the enemy hammered the door.

"How is it with you?" puffed Lapo, putting his arm round Baldo's neck.

"They have wrecked my belly for me. I am finished."

Lapo Cercamorte hung his head and sobbed, "My old Baldo, my comrade,
it is my folly that has killed you."

"No, no. It was only that I had survived too many tussles; then all
at once our Lord recalled my case to his mind. But we have had some
high times together, eh?"

Lapo, weeping aloud from remorse, patted Baldo's shoulder and kissed
his withered cheek. Lamplight flooded the staircase; it was Foresto
softly descending. The rays illuminated Madonna Gemma, who all the
while had been standing close beside them.

"Lady," said Baldo, feebly, "can you spare me a bit of your veil?
Before the door falls I must climb these steps, and that would be
easier if I could first bind in my entrails."

They led him upstairs, Lapo on one side, Madonna Gemma on the other,
and Foresto lighting the way. They came to the topmost chamber in
the high tower--the last room of all.

Here Cercamorte kept his treasures--his scraps of looted finery, the
weapons taken from fallen knights, the garrison's surplus of arms.
When he had locked the door and with Foresto's slow help braced some
pike-shafts against it, he tried to make Baldo lie down.

The old man vowed profanely that he would die on his feet. Shambling
to the casement niche, he gaped forth at the dawn. Below him a
frosty world was emerging from the mist. He saw the ring of the
ramparts, and in the courtyard the barrack ruins smouldering. Beyond,
the hillside also smoked, with shredding vapours; and at the foot of
the hill he observed a strange sight--the small figure of a man in
tunic and hood, feylike amid the mist, that danced and made gestures
of joy. Baldo, clinging to the casement-sill on bending legs,
summoned Cercamorte to look at the dancing figure.

"What is it, Lapo? A devil?"

"One of our guests, no doubt," said Cercamorte, dashing the tears
from his eyes. "Hark! the door at the foot of the staircase has
fallen. Now we come to our parting, old friend."

"Give me a bow and an arrow," cried Baldo, with a rattle in his
throat. "Whoever that zany is, he shall not dance at our funeral.
Just one more shot, my Lapo. You shall see that I still have it in me."

Cercamorte could not deny him this last whim. He found and strung a
bow, and chose a Ghibelline war-arrow. Behind them, young Foresto
drew in his breath with a hiss, laid his hand on his dagger, and
turned the colour of clay. Old Baldo raised the bow, put all his
remaining strength into the draw, and uttered a cracking shout of
bliss. The mannikin no longer danced; but toward him, from the
hillside, some men in steel were running. Baldo, sinking back into
Cercamorte's arms, at last allowed himself to be laid down.

Through the door filtered the rising tumult of the enemy.

Lapo Cercamorte's blood-smeared visage turned business-like. Before
grasping his sword, he bent to rub his palms on the grit of the
pavement. While he was stooping, young Foresto unsheathed his dagger,
made a catlike step, and stabbed at his master's neck. But quicker
than Foresto was Madonna Gemma, who, with a deer's leap, imprisoned
his arms from behind. Cercamorte discovered them thus, struggling
fiercely in silence.

"Stand aside," he said to her, and, when he had struck Foresto down,
"Thank you for that, Madonna. With such spirit to help me, I might
have had worthy sons. Well, here they come, and this door is a
flimsy thing. Get yourself into the casement niche, away from the
swing of my blade."

A red trickle was running down his legs; he was standing in a red
pool.

It began again, the splitting of panels, the cracking of hinges. The
door was giving; now only the pike-shafts held it. Then came a pause.
From far down the staircase a murmur of amazement swept upward; a
babble of talk ensued. Silence fell. Cercamorte let out a harsh laugh.

"What new device is this? Does it need so much chicanery to finish
one man?"

Time passed, and there was no sound except a long clattering from
the courtyard. Of a sudden a new voice called through the broken door:

"Open, Cercamorte. I am one man alone."

"Come in without ceremony. Here am I, waiting to embrace you."

"I am Ercole Azzanera, the Marquis Azzo's cousin, and your true
friend. I swear on my honour that I stand here alone with sheathed
sword."

Lapo kicked the pike-shafts away, and, as the door fell inward,
jumped back on guard. At the threshold, unhelmeted, stood the knight
whose long surcoat was covered with the white eagles of Este. He
spoke as follows:

"Cercamorte, this array came up against you because it was published
that you had killed and flayed Raffaele Muti, and, out of jealous
malignancy, were wearing his skin as a vest. But just now a
marvellous thing has happened, for at the foot of the hill Raffaele
Muti has been found, freshly slain by a wandered arrow. Save for
that wound his skin is without flaw. Moreover, he lived and breathed
but a moment ago. So the whole tale was false, and this war against
you outrageous. All the gentlemen who came here have gone away in
great amazement and shame, leaving me to ask pardon for what they
have done. Forgive them, Cercamorte, in the name of Christ, for they
believed themselves to be performing a proper deed."

And when Lapo found no reply in his head, Ercole Azzanera, with a
humble bow, descended from the high tower and followed the others
away.

Lapo Cercamorte sat down on a stool. "All my good men," he murmured,
"and my dear gossip, Baldo! My castle rushed by so shabby a ruse; my
name a laughing-stock! And the Marquis Azzo gave them my house as
one gives a child a leaden gimcrack to stamp on. All because of this
damned vest, this silly talisman which was to gain me her love. 'In
the name of Christ,' says my friend, Ercole Azzanera. By the Same!
If I live I will go away to the heathen, for there is no more
pleasure in Christendom."

So he sat for a while, maundering dismally, then stood up and made
for the door. He reeled. He sank down with a clash. Madonna Gemma,
stealing out from the casement niche, knelt beside him, peered into
his face, and ran like the wind down the staircase. In the hall,
with lifted robe she sped over the corpses of Cercamorte's soldiers,
seeking wine and water. These obtained, she flew back to Lapo. There
the crone found her. Between them those two dragged him down to
Madonna Gemma's chamber, stripped him, tended his wounds, and
hoisted him into the bed.

Flat on his back, Cercamorte fought over all his battles. He
quarrelled with Baldo. Again he pondered anxiously outside of
Madonna Gemma's door. He instructed the Arabian to fashion him a
charm that would overspread his ugly face with comeliness, change
his uncouthness into geniality. He insisted on wearing the vest, the
under side of which was scribbled with magical signs.

Madonna Gemma sat by the bed all day, and lay beside him at night.
On rising, she attired herself in a vermilion gown over which she
drew a white jacket of Eastern silk embroidered with nightingales.
Into her golden tresses she braided the necklaces that he had
offered her. Her tapering milky fingers sparkled with rings. Her
former beauty had not returned--another, greater beauty had taken
its place.

A day came when he recognized her face. Leaning down like a flower
of paradise, she kissed his lips.

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