After that welcome appearance as the messenger with the olive-branch, which was an unpromised favour of fortune, Tito had other commissions to fulfil of a more premeditated character. He paused at the Palazzo Vecchio, and awaited there the return of the Ten, who managed external and war affairs, that he might duly deliver to them the results of his private mission to Pisa, intended as a preliminary to an avowed embassy of which Bernardo Rucellai was to be the head, with the object of coming, if possible, to a pacific understanding with the Emperor Maximilian and the League.
Tito’s talents for diplomatic work had been well ascertained, and as he gave with fulness and precision the results of his inquiries and interviews, Bernardo del Nero, who was at that time one of the Ten, could not withhold his admiration. He would have withheld it if he could; for his original dislike of Tito had returned, and become stronger, since the sale of the library. Romola had never uttered a word to her godfather on the circumstances of the sale, and Bernardo had understood her silence as a prohibition to him to enter on the subject, but he felt sure that the breach of her father’s wish had been a blighting grief to her, and the old man’s observant eyes discerned other indications that her married life was not happy.
‘Ah,’ he said, inwardly, ‘that doubtless is the reason she has taken to listening to Fra Girolamo, and going amongst the Piagnoni, which I never expected from her. These women, if they are not happy, and have no children, must either take to folly or to some overstrained religion that makes them think they’ve got all heaven’s work on their shoulders. And as for my poor child Romola, it is as I always said — the cramming with Latin and Greek has left her as much a woman as if she had done nothing all day but prick her fingers with the needle. And this husband of hers, who gets employed everywhere, because he’s a tool with a smooth handle, I wish Tornabuoni and the rest may not find their fingers cut. Well, well, solco torto, sacco dritto — many a full sack comes from a crooked furrow; and he who will be captain of none but honest men will have small hire to pay.’
With this long-established conviction that there could be no moral sifting of political agents, the old Florentine abstained from all interference in Tito’s disfavour. Apart from what must be kept sacred and private for Romola’s sake, Bernardo had nothing direct to allege against the useful Greek, except that he was a Greek, and that he, Bernardo, did not like him; for the doubleness of feigning attachment to the popular government, while at heart a Medicean, was common to Tito with more than half the Medicean party. He only feigned with more skill than the rest: that was all. So Bernardo was simply cold to Tito, who returned the coldness with a scrupulous, distant respect. And it was still the notion in Florence that the old tie between Bernardo and Bardo made any service done to Romola’s husband an acceptable homage to her godfather.
After delivering himself of his charge at the Old Palace, Tito felt that the avowed official work of the day was done. He was tired and adust with long riding; but he did not go home. There were certain things in his scarsella and on his mind, from which he wished to free himself as soon as possible, but the opportunities must be found so skilfully that they must not seem to be sought. He walked from the Palazzo in a sauntering fashion towards the Piazza del Duomo. The procession was at an end now, but the bells were still ringing, and the people were moving about the streets restlessly, longing for some more definite vent to their joy. If the Frate could have stood up in the great Piazza and preached to them, they might have been satisfied, but now, in spite of the new discipline which declared Christ to be the special King of the Florentines and required all pleasures to be of a Christian sort, there was a secret longing in many of the youngsters who shouted ‘Viva Gesu!’ for a little vigorous stone-throwing in sign of thankfulness.
Tito, as he passed along, could not escape being recognised by some as the welcome bearer of the olive-branch, and could only rid himself of an inconvenient ovation, chiefly in the form of eager questions, by telling those who pressed on him that Meo di Sasso, the true messenger from Leghorn, must now be entering, and might certainly be met towards the Porta San Frediano. He could tell much more than Tito knew.
Freeing himself from importunities in this adroit manner, he made his way to the Piazza del Duomo, casting his long eyes round the space with an air of the utmost carelessness, but really seeking to detect some presence which might furnish him with one of his desired opportunities. The fact of the procession having terminated at the Duomo made it probable that there would be more than the usual concentration of loungers and talkers in the Piazza and round Nello’s shop. It was as he expected. There was a group leaning against the rails near the north gates of the Baptistery, so exactly what he sought, that he looked more indifferent than ever, and seemed to recognise the tallest member of the group entirely by chance as he had half passed him, just turning his head to give him a slight greeting, while he tossed the end of his becchetto over his left shoulder.
Yet the tall, broad-shouldered personage greeted in that slight way looked like one who had considerable claims. He wore a richly-embroidered tunic, with a great show of linen, after the newest French mode, and at his belt there hung a sword and poniard of fine workmanship. His hat, with a red plume in it, seemed a scornful protest against the gravity of Florentine costume, which had been exaggerated to the utmost under the influence of the Piagnoni. Certain undefinable indications of youth made the breadth of his face and the large diameter of his waist appear the more emphatically a stamp of coarseness, and his eyes had that rude desecrating stare at all men and things which to a refined mind is as intolerable as a bad odour or a flaring light.
He and his companions, also young men dressed expensively and wearing arms, were exchanging jokes with that sort of ostentatious laughter which implies a desire to prove that the laughter is not mortified though some people might suspect it. There were good reasons for such a suspicion; for this broad-shouldered man with the red feather was Dolfo Spini, leader of the Compagnacci, or Evil Companions — that is to say, of all the dissolute young men belonging to the old aristocratic party, enemies of the Mediceans, enemies of the popular government, but still more bitter enemies of Savonarola. Dolfo Spini, heir of the great house with the loggia, over the bridge of the Santa Trinita, had organised these young men into an armed band, as sworn champions of extravagant suppers and all the pleasant sins of the flesh, against reforming pietists who threatened to make the world chaste and temperate to so intolerable a degree that there would soon be no reason for living, except the extreme unpleasantness of the alternative. Up to this very morning he had been loudly declaring that Florence was given up to famine and ruin entirely through its blind adherence to the advice of the Frate, and that there could be no salvation for Florence but in joining the League and driving the Frate out of the city — sending him to Rome, in fact, whither he ought to have gone long ago in obedience to the summons of the Pope. It was suspected, therefore, that Messer Dolfo Spini’s heart was not aglow with pure joy at the unexpected succours which had come in apparent fulfilment of the Frate’s prediction, and the laughter, which was ringing out afresh as Tito joined the group at Nello’s door, did not serve to dissipate the suspicion. For leaning against the door-post in the centre of the group was a close-shaven, keen-eyed personage, named Niccolo Macchiavelli, who, young as he was, had penetrated all the small secrets of egoism.
‘Messer Dolfo’s head,’ he was saying, ‘is more of a pumpkin than I thought. I measure men’s dulness by the devices they trust for deceiving others. Your dullest animal of all is he who grins and says he doesn’t mind just after he has had his shins kicked. If I were a trifle duller, now,’ he went on, smiling as the circle opened to admit Tito, ‘I should pretend to be fond of this Melema, who has got a secretaryship that would exactly suit me — as if Latin ill-paid could love better Latin that’s better paid! Melema, you are a pestiferously clever fellow, very much in my way, and I’m sorry to hear you’ve had another piece of good-luck to-day.’
‘Questionable luck, Niccolo,’ said Tito, touching him on the shoulder in a friendly way; ‘I have got nothing by it yet but being laid hold of and breathed upon by wool-beaters, when I am as soiled and battered with riding as a tabellario (letter-carrier) from Bologna.’
‘Ah! you want a touch of my art, Messer Oratore,’ said Nello, who had come forward at the sound of Tito’s voice; ‘your chin, I perceive, has yesterday’s crop upon it. Come, come — consign yourself to the priest of all the Muses. Sandro, quick with the lather!’
‘In truth, Nello, that is just what I most desire at this moment,’ said Tito, seating himself; ‘and that was why I turned my steps towards thy shop, instead of going home at once, when I had done my business at the Palazzo.’
‘Yes, indeed, it is not fitting that you should present yourself to Madonna Romola with a rusty chin and a tangled zazzera. Nothing that is not dainty ought to approach the Florentine lily; though I see her constantly going about like a sunbeam amongst the rags that line our corners — if indeed she is not more like a moonbeam now, for I thought yesterday, when I met her, that she looked as pale and worn as that fainting Madonna of Fra Giovanni’s. You must see to it, my bel erudito: she keeps too many fasts and vigils in your absence.’
Tito gave a melancholy shrug. ‘It is too true, Nello. She has been depriving herself of half her proper food every day during this famine. But what can I do? Her mind has been set all aflame. A husband’s influence is powerless against the Frate’s.’
‘As every other influence is likely to be, that of the Holy Father included,’ said Domenico Cennini, one of the group at the door, who had turned in with Tito. ‘I don’t know whether you have gathered anything at Pisa about the way the wind sits at Rome, Melema?&rs............