should be a servant and not a master when a youth has reached a certain age. And now when you return—I have been painting this picture while I hunted for you—you will enter a new life. Yonder is Perugia. I have friends in that city who will welcome you. You shall have your journeys to Rome to see the great life there. You shall enter the world as a gentleman should do.”
Tizzo had started to break out into grateful speech, when the Englishman said, calmly but loudly, “My friends, I have heard what Messer Luigi has to say. It is my right to be heard also.”
“My lord,” said Falcone, “I have a right of many years over this young gentleman.”
“Messer Luigi,” said the Englishman, “I have a still greater right.”
“A greater right?” exclaimed Falcone.
“We have pledged our right hands together,” said the baron.
“A handshake—” began Falcone.
“In my country,” answered the Englishman, “it is as binding as a holy oath sworn on a fragment of the true cross. We have pledged ourselves to one another; and he owes me ten years of his life.”
“In the name of God,” said Falcone, “how could this be? What have you seen in such a complete stranger, Tizzo?”
“I have seen—” said Tizzo. He paused and added: “I have seen the way down a beautiful road—by the light of his sword.”
“But this means nothing,” said Falcone. “These are only words. Have you given a solemn promise?”
“I have given a solemn promise,” said Tizzo, glancing down at his right hand.
“I shall release you from it,” said the baron suddenly.
“Ha!” said Falcone. “That is a very gentle offer. Do you hear, Tizzo?”
“I release him from it,” said the Englishman, “but still I have something to offer him. Messer Luigi, it happens that I also am a man without a son who bears my name. Like you, I understand certain things about loneliness. We do not need to talk about this any more.
“But I should like to match what I have to offer against what you propose to give him.”
“Ah?” said Falcone. “Let us hear.”
“You offer him,” said the Englishman, “an old affection, wealth, an excellent name, a great house, many powerful friends. Am I right?”
“I offer him all of those things,” agreed the Italian.
“As for me,” said the baron, “the home of my fathers is a blackened heap of stones; my kin and my friends are dead at the hands of our enemies in my country; my wealth is the gold that I carry in this purse and the sword in my scabbard.”
“Well?” asked Falcone.
“In spite of that,” said the Englishman, “I have something to offer—to a redheaded man.”
Tizzo started a little and glanced sharply at the baron.
Melrose went on: “I offer you, Tizzo, danger, battle, suspicion, confusion, wild riding, uneasy nights—and a certain trick with the sword. I offer that. Is it enough?”
Falcone smiled. “Well said!” he answered. “You have a great heart, my lord, and you know something of the matters that make the blood of a young man warmer. But—what is your answer, Tizzo?”
Tizzo, turning slowly from the Englishman to Falcone, looked him fairly in the eye.
He said: “Signore, I shall keep you in my heart as a father. But this man is my master, and I must follow him!”
CHAPTER 4
They had a day, said the baron, to get to a certain crossroads and they spent much of the next morning finding an excellent horse and some armor for Tizzo. Speed, said the baron, rather than hard fighting was apt to be the greatest requisite in the work that lay before them, therefore he had fitted Tizzo only with a good steel breastplate and a cap of the finest steel also which fitted on under the flow of his big hat. He carried, furthermore, a short, straight dagger which could be of value in hand to hand encounters and whose thin blade could be driven home through the bars of a visor or the eyeholes. He had taken, also, of his own choice, a short-handled woodsman’s ax. This amazed the Englishman. He tried it himself, but the broad blade unbalanced his grasp.
“How can you handle a weight like that, Tizzo?” he asked. “You lack the shoulder and the hand to manage it.”
Tizzo, with his careless laughter, loosened the ax from its place at his saddle bow and swung it about his head, cleaving this way and that. The thing became a feather. It whirled and danced. It swayed to this side and that as though parrying showers of blows—and all of this while in the grasp of a single hand.
“Practice will make even a bear dance!” said Tizzo. And then gripping the handle of the ax in both hands, he struck a thick branch from a tree under which the road passed at that moment. The big bough fell with a rustling sound to the highway, and Tizzo rode on, still laughing; but the baron paused a moment to examine the depth and the cleanness of the wound and to try the hardness of the wood with his dagger point.
“God help the head that trusts its helmet against your ax, Tizzo,” he said. “A battle ax is a thing I have used, but a woodsman’s ax never.”
“If a battle ax were swung for half a day to fell trees,” said Tizzo, “the strongest knight would begin to curse it. But a woodsman will know the balance of his ax as you know the balance of your sword, and the hours he works teaches him to manage it like nothing. I’ve seen them fighting with axes too, and using them to ward as well as to strike. So I spent some time with them every day for years.”
They came in sight now of a fork in the road, and as they drew closer a carriage drawn by four horses swung out of a small wood and waited for them.
“There are our friends,” said the baron. “Inside that coach is the lad we’re taking to a safer home than the one he’s been in. His name is Tomaso, and that’s enough for you to know about him. Except that to take him safely and deliver him will bring us a good, handsome sum of money for our purses.”
“I shall ask no questions,” agreed Tizzo, delighted by this touch of mystery.
About the coach, which was heavy enough to need the stronger of the four horses to pull it over the rutted, unsurfaced roads, there were grouped a number of armed men, two on the driver’s seat and two as postillions, while another pair stood at the heads of their horses. And each one of the six, it seemed to Tizzo, looked a more complete villain than the other. They were half fine and half in tatters, with a good weight of armor and weapons on every man of the lot.
A slender lad in a very plain black doublet and hose with a red cap on his head was another matter.
“Tomaso, I’ve told you to keep inside the carriage,” said the baron angrily, as he rode up.
“What
