Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part four, chapter 10

On the afternoon of August 8, Blasco returned from Termini.

The castle had made itself at discretion, powerless to resist, and now the 300 defenders, without arms, surrounded by Spanish dragons and infantry, returned to the same city where they had entered four years earlier as triumphants.

Blasco ran straight to Gabriella's house.

The beautiful woman had not yet recovered from the deep concussion of that rat and lay in bed. The thing in Blasco, which ignored what had happened, brought no little wonder.

"Why didn't you warn me? What are you feeling? Bad, if I had known, I would have flown here by your side!"

She could not answer; she squeezed Blasco to herself, with a tremor for the whole person as if the fear of the danger course were renewed. She could not speak, because the joy of seeing her Blasco and renewed fear filled her heart with dismay.

Blasco was amazed at that silence, that silent and painful embrace.

"What do you have? Why don't you say anything?"

Then she said to him: "I was so sick, and I was afraid to lose you... to lose you... always!..."

"Can you think that?"

"Yes..."

A trembling ran for the whole person to renew the images that had tormented her for six days, and his arms held in a passionate rush the loved man, as if he had wanted to bark to him in order not to be detached from it anymore.

"You are a child," said Blasco caressing her; then jokingly filming: "And why did you lose me? Was it me who left you?"

That question removed Gabriella woman from embarrassment; she immediately answered:

"Yes, yes... you left me, to run after another woman more beautiful than me."

She thus shunned an investigation that she wanted to avoid and did not imagine opening in Blasco's heart a door shut by the will to forget. A shadow went down through his mind like a cloud on his face, and in that shadow he saw a thick grate, and behind it the stern and grievous face of Violante: Violant alone, lost in the large monastery, without love, without protection, driven by selfish will to sacrifice, like an innocent lamb; Violant, whom he himself had almost delivered to the knife of the sacrificers, for an aberration of his conscience, for a scrupulousness, or for an illusion of doing better and good; Violant, whom he had loved, as a sweet vision of pure and serene joy, as a dream, as something indefinable, of superhuman: A kidnapping, an enchantment of all life.

Why did Gabriella say the door of the newsstand dug into her heart, in which she had preserved the image of Violante? Why?

She perhaps felt the weight of that memory, raised her face and looked at Blasco.

"Did I displease you?" he asked tenderly.

"No," he replied, "no, but what an idea!..."

And they kept quiet for a moment. Did you think Gabriella had made a mistake? That you summoned some ghost you thought you forgot? He stood on his knees in the bed with his fine shirt in a mess and, holding Blasco's neck with his beautiful bare arms, trembling with suspicion and passion, with a shudder of jealousy in his words, asked him at the mouth of his mouth:

"Tell me that you love me alone, and that you will always love me... Tell me!..."

"Yes, yes, I love you alone!" answered Blasco, grasping this answer, like a rope of salvation, to come out of the waves of that painful vision.

Donna Gabriella had never written or mentioned anything about her dangerous adventure; coming out of the castle of St. Nicholas the masked man, she had told her:

"Mrs. Duchess, please don't write anything to Mr. Blasco and shut up even when he comes..."

She had looked at him with astonishment, and the masked man, smiling, had said,

"We're his best friends: and we have the pleasure and the good fortune to protect you and defend you... You've had the proof... Perhaps we should have come sooner, but the fault was not ours; on the other hand we arrived in time..."

"Oh, Lord, whoever you are and your companions, believe that I am most grateful to you. Please, however, have me accompanied to Termini..."

"What do you need to go to Termini?..."

"But don't you know that Blasco is badly wounded and dies?..."

"Blasco wounded? Will he die? But no!... Who told you that?"

"He wrote it to me..."

"That's not possible!..."

"I have your letter here... Look!

Treat her from the bust, she had given her to read to the masked man who, as soon as he had given you a look, had understood everything and had exclaimed:

"But do you not realize that this letter is false, and that it was written to lurk you in ambush?..."

"What do you say?"

"But it's obvious, dear God!... Blasco has nothing; I had his letters yesterday..."

"Ah!"

A lively joy had illuminated the face of woman Gabriella and looking at her savior had exclaimed:

"I recognize you, you are..."

"Shut up!... It does not matter that I am; it is enough for you to know that you have a faithful friend next to you, who will not fail to exercise the most accurate vigilance over you. I ask you, however, to keep everything quiet in Blasco; it is good that he does not know anything. As for the other, you have seen what lesson we have given him..."

Donna Gabriella had one last question:

"I believe you, but why didn't Blasco write to you?"

"This is a mystery that must be deciphered..."

"That letter I showed you also responds to something I had written to him... and uses the same phrases that Blasco uses..."

"Don't look anymore. It had to be cast on Blasco's letter, geese, of course, was intercepted by Emanuele... Leave it to me..."

He then told her how he could come to his aid, of course keeping what was to be silenced. A servant whom he had sent, as he did, to inquire in the neighborhood if the night had passed quiet, had told him that the Duchess was about to leave for Terms; and then he with some servants was mounted on horseback to reach her, fearing the streets infested by thieves. Almost near the gorge of St. Nicholas or Calatorre had met the two servants bound and accompanied by some malandrini: He recognized them, freed them, and knew everything from them. So he ran.

It was not necessary to add the reason for his recommendations, that is to let Blasco ignore everything.

"It would exacerbate the hatred between the two brothers, and I don't want to," Coriolano concluded; "it is necessary to instead that Emanuele recognizes and gives a decent and convenient state to his older brother, more worthy of him to gird the ducal crown."

"Oh yeah, that's right! Blasco deserves a kingdom!..."

Coriolano, smiling at this exaggeration excusable in a woman in love, had then forced her to return to Palermo and she had obeyed, also because she felt ill.

And he didn't write anything, and he also kept quiet that he felt sick.

During those sick days the prince of Geraci had gone to visit her, but Gabriella had given strict orders not to receive anyone, except that he was the trusted waiter of the knight of Floresta. Her relatives, amazed to see her return so soon, had told that she had suddenly felt ill, and the fever that had taken her justified the pretext; and the men who had accompanied her, with a sum of money and with an oath, had undertaken not to let a word slip. What was not difficult to obtain from people to whom the same torture did not come to tear a confession.

So nothing had leaked from the side of woman Gabriella and nothing could leak from the side of Emanuele, because the good men he had recruited had disappeared, for fear of falling into the hands of justice or vengeance of the duke, and they had all the interest of not denouncing themselves for aggression and rat, telling that skill in which they had had the worst.

Emanuele didn't say a word. Whether because the grave evil from which he was taken had endangered his life, or by his own will, he had stubbornly refused to reveal what had happened to him or to make some distant allusion.

The light could come only from that mysterious letter of the Beati Paoli, who had filled the prince of Geraci with terror. But the light was very weak!

He had visited the prince of Carini, vicar general for the Val di Mazara, to have him read that letter, and to denounce the great crime that the sect had committed in the person of his nephew.

"As you see very illustrious Your Ladyship, the sect is far from extinguished, as you had believed; and now dare not only kill our children, but spread these principles of rebellion against our authority and our condition."

The prince of Carini was amazed. Of course it was necessary to investigate and provide, but it was necessary to have some actual news from Emanuele's own mouth. He did not suspect that it would be enough to ask Gabriella, his niece, to have the key to the mystery and to thank the Beati Paoli instead of punishing them.

But Emanuele didn't speak.

"I don't need justice!" he said: "a Duke of Motta can practice it for himself."

"Of course, he thought the prince his grandfather, he had to be under a woman." He knew Emanuele quite fired and did not make a great effort of intelligence to build a small drama of possible vengeance of offended husband. To prevent Emanuele, standing as he was in the idea of revenge, from running a greater danger, the prince could only see a means: let him leave for some time, and on his return marry him Violante, although it was not even better to hasten the marriage. He told the prince of Butera that he approved; the two grandparents, persuaded to do a fine thing, decided to celebrate the wedding on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate. As soon as he was restored, Emanuele would bring the engagement ring to Violante, in the monastery of St. Catherine, and leave.

"Send him to Naples or Rome," proposed the Prince of Butera; "we will recommend him to the ambassador of his Majesty. You are Great of Spain."

But Emanuele's recovery was slow.

During this time news had come from Messina of a riot of the people against the prince of Lardaria, and of the events of the siege of the citadel and the Fort Savior, still in the power of the Savoiards. Having to push the operations to escape Milazzo, the Viceroy Marquis de Lede requested the squadron that had been at the grip of Termini and Blasco had the order to leave.

"Oh, I won't let you leave alone," said Gabriella, with a firm tone. "I'll come too..."

"No, dear," said Blasco; "I would be afraid for you..."

"And I don't want to be here alone and far away. Do you understand the gentleman?... No, no, I'd be scared. You knew what I was afraid of!... Take me with you. You'll see, I won't bother you, I won't bother you... And you'll have a friend from near, who'll have every cure of you... I'll feel braver next to you..."

He had to give in.

The squadron left on the ground. The sea was not safe, after the battle of Messina, in which the Spanish ships attacked by those British had had had the worst.

England had suddenly taken action against Spain, which, aroused by the restless Cardinal Alberoni, put in perhaps the peace of Europe. It was very close to it. quadruple alliance; and while the English army, strong of twenty-eight ships under the orders of Admiral Bing, sailed from Naples to Sicily, Austrian regiments penetrated the citadel to the help of the Savoiards.

The British fleet had come to the Sea of the Faro without manifesting hostile intentions, but after an exchange of questions and answers it had declared that it had order to guarantee the neutrality of the peninsula and the maintenance of the peace pacts of Utrecht, which was equivalent to a declaration of hostility. And then the Spanish army came into action. It was strong of thirty-seven woods eight more than the English, but the Spaniards had 7142 men and 1038 cannons; the English of 9063 men and 1440 cannons; the number was on their side, as there was the greatest expertise. The Spanish army was commanded by Admiral Castagnedo, inept and unresolved, who let himself be attacked, defeated, later apologizing to accuse the British as assassins, fiuera de toda regla de milicia nacional. The Spanish ships escaped defeat in Palermo and the sea remained at the mercy of the enemies. Adventure you jails filled with militias, it was the same as having them captured by the British. Hence the order to start the Spanish troops on the way of land, longer, but safer.

The carmen who had to go on that road, and those who had to go to one of the countries between Palermo and Messina, took advantage of the favorable circumstance to travel safely, so that a kind of caravan outside the militia followed the squadron of footmen. So Gabriella's litter was not alone; and she did not need to be accompanied by servants. In fact, for no one to know where he was going, he rented a public litter, and he didn't lead with him that the trusted waitress.

In the house he made known and said that he was going to spend the autumn in his own land, at the castle of Brucato.

Thus, when Emanuele returned to be able to leave the house, yearning within himself for revenge and revenge, sought Matteo Lo Vecchio, he knew that Gabriella woman had left, arsed with anger.

"Party? Where? How?"

"It's clear that the lover wouldn't leave her here alone. She left with Mr. Blasco for Messina, where it will not be so easy neither in Vossignoria nor others to reach her."

"Oh, we'll see!..."

But he did not know what his grandfather and guardian had established on his account.