He saw the scarlet flame of indignation overspread her face, he saw the anger kindle in her great dark eyes, and he waited calmly for the explosion. But the Lady Valeria was not explosive. Her rebuke was cold.
'Sir, you presume upon a messenger's office. You meddle in affairs that are not your concern.'
'Do you thank God for it,' said Bellarion, unabashed. 'It is time some one gave these things their proper names so as to remove all misconception. Do you know whither Barbaresco and these other fools are thrusting you, madonna? Straight into the hands of the strangler.'
Having conquered her anger once, she was not easily to be betrayed into it again.
'If that is all you have to tell me, sir, I will leave you. I'll not remain to hear my friends and peers maligned by a base knave to whom I speak by merest accident.'
'Not accident, madonna.' His tone was impressive. 'A base knave I may be. But base by birth alone. These others whom you trust and call your peers are base by nature. Ah, wait! It was no accident that brought me!' he cried, and this with a sincerity from which none could have suspected the violence he did to his beliefs. 'Ask yourself why I should come again to do more than is required of me, at some risk to myself? What are your affairs, or the affairs of the State of Montferrat, to me? You know what I am and what my aims. Why, then, should I tarry here? Because I cannot help myself. Because the will of Heaven has imposed itself upon me.'
His great earnestness, his very vehemence, which seemed to invest his simple utterances with a tone of inspiration, impressed her despite herself, as he intended that they should. Nor did she deceive him when she dissembled this in light derision.
'An archangel in a painter's smock!'
'By Saint Hilary, that is nearer the truth than you suppose it.'
She smiled, yet not entirely without sourness. 'You do not lack a good opinion of yourself.'
'You may come to share it when I've said all that's in my mind. I have told you, madonna, whither these crack-brained adventurers are thrusting you, so that they may advance themselves. Do you know the true import of the conspiracy? Do you know what they plan, these fools? The murder of the Marquis Theodore.'
She stared at him round-eyed, afraid. 'Murder?' she said in a voice of horror.
He smiled darkly. 'They had not told you, eh? I knew they dared not. Yet so indiscreet and rash are they that they betrayed it to me—to me of whom they know nothing save that I carried as an earnest of my good faith your broken half-ducat. What if I were just a scoundrel who would sell to the Marquis Theodore a piece of information for which he would no doubt pay handsomely? Do you still think that it was accident brought me to interfere in your concerns?'
'I can't believe you! I can't!' and again she breathed, aghast, that horrid word: 'Murder!'
'If they succeeded,' said Bellarion coldly, 'all would be well. Your uncle would have no more than his deserts, and you and your brother would be rid of an evil incubus. The notion does not shock me at all. What shocks me is that I see no chance of success for a plot conducted by such men with such inadequate resources. By joining them you can but advance the Regent's aims, which you believe to be the destruction of your brother. Let the attempt be made, and fail, or even let evidence be forthcoming of the conspiracy's existence and true purpose, and your brother is at the Regent's mercy. The people themselves might demand his outlawry or even his death for an attempt upon the life of a prince who has known how to make himself beloved.'
'But my brother is not in this,' she protested. 'He knows nothing of it.'
Bellarion smiled compassionately. 'Cui bono fuerit? That is the first question which the law will ask. Be warned, madonna! Dissociate yourself from these men while it is time or you may enable the Regent at a single stride to reach his ultimate ambition.'
The pallor of her face, the heave of her breast, were witnesses to her agitation. 'You would frighten me if I did not know how false is your main assumption: that they plot murder. They would never dare to do this thing without my sanction, and this they have never sought.'
'Because they intend to confront you with an accomplished fact. Oh, you may believe me, madonna. In the last twenty-four hours and chiefly from these men I have learnt much of the history of Montferrat. And I have learnt a deal of their own histories too. There is not one amongst them who is not reduced in circumstances, whose state has not been diminished by lack of fortune or lack of worth.'
But for this she had an answer, and she delivered it with a slow, wistful smile.
'You talk, sir, as if you contained all knowledge, and yet you have not learnt that the fortunate desire no change, but labour to uphold the state whence their prosperity is derived. Is it surprising, then, that I depend upon the unfortunate?'
'Say also the venal, those greedy of power and of possessions, whose only spur is interest; desperate gamblers who set their heads upon the board and your own and your brother's head with theirs. Almost they divided among themselves in their talk the offices of State. Barbaresco promised me that the ambition he perceived in me should be fully gratified. He assumed that I, too, had no aim but self-aggrandisement, simply because he could assume no other reason why a man should expose himself to risks. That told me all of him that I required to know.'
'Barbaresco is poor,' she answered. 'He has suffered wrongs. Once, in my father's time he was almost the greatest man in the State. My uncle has stripped him of his honours and almost of his possessions.'
'That is the best thing I have heard of the Marquis Theodore yet.'
She did not heed him, but went on: 'Can I desert him now? Can I ...' She checked and stiffened, seeming to grow taller. 'What am I saying? What am I thinking?' She laughed, and there was scorn of self in her laugh. 'What arts do you employ, you, an unknown man, a self-confessed starveling student, base and nameless, that upon no better warrant than your word I should even ask such a question?'
'What arts?' said he, and smiled in his turn, though without scorn. 'The art of pure reason based on truth. It is not to be resisted.'
'Not if based on truth. But yours is based on prejudice.'
'Is it prejudice that they are plotting murder?'
'They have been misled by their devotion ...'
'By their cupidity, madonna.'
'I will not suffer you to say that.' Anger flared up again in her, loyal anger on behalf of those she deemed her only friends in her great need. She checked it instantly, 'Sir, I perceive your interest, and I am grateful. If you would still do me a service, go, tell Messer Barbaresco from me that this plot of assassination must go no further. Impose it upon him as my absolute command. Tell him that I must be obeyed and that, rather than be a party to such an act, I would disclose the intention to the Marquis Theodore.'
'That is something, madonna. But if when you have slept upon it ...'
She interrupted him. 'Upon whatever course I may determine I shall find means to convey the same to my Lord Barbaresco. There will not be the need to trouble you again. For what you have done, sir, I shall remain grateful. So, go with God, Messer Bellarion.'
She was turning away when he arrested her.
'It is a little personal matter this. I am in need of five ducats.'
He saw the momentary frown, chased away by the beginnings of a smile.
'You are consistent in that you misunderstand me, though I have once reminded you that if I needed money for myself I could sell my information to the Regent. The five ducats are for Gobbo who lent me this smock and these tools of my pretended trade.' And he told her the exact circumstances.
She considered him more gently. 'You do not lack resource, sir?'
'It goes with intelligence, madonna,' he reminded her as an argument in favour of what he said. But she ignored it.
'And I am sorry that I ... You shall have ten ducats, unless your pride is above ...'
'Do you see pride in me?'
She looked him over with a certain haughty amusement. 'A monstrous pride, an overweening vanity in your acuteness.'
'I'll take ten ducats to convince you of my humility. I may yet need the other five in the service of your highness.'
'That service, sir, is at an end, or will be when you have conveyed my message to the Lord Barbaresco.'
Bellarion accepted his dismissal in the settled conviction that her highness was mistaken and would presently be glad to admit it.
She was right, you see, touching that vanity of his.
Bellarion and Barbaresco sat at supper, waited upon by an untidy and unclean old man who afforded all the service of that decayed establishment. The fare was frugal, more frugal far than the Convent of Cigliano had afforded out of Lent, and the wine was thin and sharp.
When the repast was done and the old servant, having lighted candles, had retired, Bellarion startled his host by the portentous gravity of his tone.
'My lord, you and I must talk. I told you that her highness sends no answer to your message, which is the truth, and all that you could expect, since there was no message and consequently could be no answer. I did not tell you, however, that she sends you a message which is in some sense an answer to certain suspicions that I voiced to her.'
Barbaresco's mouth fell open, and the stare of his blue eyes grew fixed. Clearly he was startled, and clearly paused to command himself before asking:
'Why did you not tell me this before?'
'I preferred to wait so as to make sure of not going supperless. It may, of course, offend you that I should have communicated my suspicions to her highness. But the poor lady was so downcast by your inaction, that to cheer her I ventured the opinion that you are perhaps not quite so aimless as you wish to appear.'
Whatever his convent education may have done for him, it does not seem—as you will long since have gathered—that it had inculcated a strict regard for exactitude. Dissimulation, I fear, was bred in the bones of him; although he would have answered any such charge by informing you that Plato had taught him to distinguish between the lie on the lips and the lie in the heart.
'Oh, but proceed! The opinion?' Barbaresco fiercely challenged him.
'You'll remember what Count Spigno said before you others checked him. The arbalester ... You remember.' Bellarion appeared to falter a little under the glare of those blue eyes and the fierce set of that heavy jaw. 'So I told her highness, to raise her drooping spirits, that one of these fine days her friends in Casale might cut the Gordian knot with a crossbow shaft.'
Barbaresco suggested by his attitude a mastiff crouching for a spring.
'Ah!' he commented. 'And she said?'
'The very contrary of what I expected. Where I looked for elation, I found only distress. It was in vain I pleaded with her that thus a consummation would speedily be reached; that if such a course had not yet been determined, it was precisely the course that I should advocate.'
'Oh! You pleaded that! And she?'
'She bade me tell you that if such a thing were indeed in your minds, you must dismiss it. That she would be no party to it. That sooner she would herself denounce the intention to the Marquis Theodore.'
'Body of God!' Barbaresco came to his feet, his great face purple, the veins of his temples standing forth like cords Whilst appearing unmoved, Bellarion braced his muscles for action.
The attack came. But only in words. Barbaresco heaped horrible and obscene abuse upon Bellarion's head. 'You infamous fool! You triple ass! You chattering ape!' With these, amongst other terms, the young man found himself bombarded. 'Get you back to her, and tell her, you numskulled baboon, that there was never any such intention.'
'But was there not?' Bellarion cried with almost shrill ingenuousness of tone. 'Yet Count Spigno ...'
'Devil take Count Spigno, fool. Heed me. Carry my message to her highness.'
'I carry no lies,' said Bellarion firmly, and rose with great dignity.
'Lies!' gurgled Barbaresco.
'Lies,' Bellarion insisted. 'Let us have done with them. To her highness I expressed as a suspicion what in my mind was a clear conviction. The words Count Spigno used, and your anxiety to silence him, could leave no doubt in any man of wit, and I am that, I hope, my lord. If you will have this message carried, you will first show me the ends you serve by its falsehood, and let me, who am in this thing as deep as any, be the judge of whether it is justified.'
Before this firmness the wrath went out of Barbaresco. Weakly he wrung his hands a moment, then sank sagging into his chair.
'If the others, if Cavalcanti or Casella, had known how much you had understood, you would never have left this house alive, lest you should do precisely what you have done.'
'But if it is on her behalf—hers and her brother's—that you plan this thing, why should you not take her feeling first? What else is right or fair?'
'Her feeling?' Barbaresco sneered, and Bellarion understood that the sneer was for himself. 'God deliver me from the weariness of reasoning with a fool. Our bolt would have been shot, and none could have guessed the hands that loosed it. Now you have made it known, and you need to be told what will happen if we were mad enough to go through with it. Why, the Princess Valeria would be our instant accuser. She would come forth at once and denounce us. That is the spirit of her; wilful, headstrong, and mawkish. And I am a fool to bid you go back to her and persuade her that you were mistaken. When the blow fell, she would see that what you had first told her was the truth, and our heads would pay.'
He set his elbows on the table, took his head in his hands, and fetched a groan from his great bulk. 'The ruin you have wrought! God! The ruin!'
'Ruin?' quoth Bellarion.
'Of all our hopes,' Barbaresco explained in petulance.
'Can't you see it? Can you understand nothing for yourself, animal, save the things you were better for not understanding? And can't you see that you have ruined yourself with us? With your face and shape and already close in the Lady Valeria's confidence as you are, there are no heights in the State to which you might not have climbed.'
'I had not thought of it,' said Bellarion, sighing.
'No, nor of me, nor of any of us. Of me!' The man's grief became passionate. 'At last I might have sloughed this beggary in which I live. And now ...' He banged the table in his sudden rage, and got to his feet again. 'That is what you have done. That is what you have wrecked by your silly babbling.'
'But surely, sir, by other means ...'
'There are no other means. Leastways, no other means at our command. Have we the money to levy troops? Oh, why do I waste my breath upon you? You'll tell the others to-morrow what you've done, and they shall tell you what they think of it.'
It was a course that had its perils. But if once in the stillness of the night Bellarion's shrewd wits counselled him to rise, dress, and begone, he stilled the coward counsel. It remained to be seen whether the other conspirators would be as easily intimidated as Barbaresco. To ascertain this, Bellarion determined to remain. The Lady Valeria's need of him was not yet done, he thought, though why the Lady Valeria's affairs should be the cause of his exposing himself to the chances of a blade between the ribs was perhaps more than he could satisfactorily have explained.
That the danger was very far from imaginary the next morning's conference showed him. Scarcely had the plotters realised the nature of Bellarion's activities than they were clamouring for his blood. Casella, the exile, breathing fire and slaughter, would have sprung upon him with dagger drawn, had not Barbaresco bodily interposed.
'Not in my house!' he roared. 'Not in my house!' his only concern being the matter of his own incrimination.
'Nor anywhere, unless you are bent on suicide,' Bellarion calmly warned them. He moved from behind Barbaresco, to confront them. 'You are forgetting that in my murder the Lady Valeria will see your answer. She will denounce you, sirs, not only for this, but for the intended murder of the Regent. Slay me, and you just as surely slay yourselves.' He permitted himself to smile as he looked upon their stricken faces. 'It's an interesting situation, known in chess as a stalemate.'
In their baffled fury they turned upon Count Spigno, whose indiscretion had created this situation. Enzo Spigno, sitting there with a sneer on his white face, let the storm rage. When at last it abated, he expressed himself.
'Rather should you thank me for having tested the ground before we stand on it. For the rest, it is as I expected. It is an ill thing to be associated with a woman in these matters.'
'We did not bring her in,' said Barbaresco. 'It was she who appealed to me for assistance.'
'And now that we are ready to afford it her,' said Casella, 'she discovers that it is not of the sort she wishes. I say it is not hers to choose. Hopes have been raised in us, and we have laboured to fulfil them.'
How they all harped on that, thought Bellarion. How concerned was each with the profit that he hoped to wrest for himself, how enraged to see himself cheated of this profit. The Lady Valeria, the State, the boy who was being corrupted that he might be destroyed, these things were nothing to these men. Not once did he hear them mentioned now in the futile disorderly debate that followed, whilst he sat a little apart and almost forgotten.
At last it was Spigno, this Spigno whom they dubbed a fool—but who, after all, had more wit than all of them together—who discovered and made the counter-move.
'You there, Master Bellarion!' he called. 'Here is what you are to tell your lady in answer to her threat: We who have set our hands to this task of ridding the State of the Regent's thraldom will not draw back. We go forward with this thing as seems best to us, and we are not to be daunted by threats. Make it clear to this arrogant lady that she cannot betray us without at the same time betraying herself; that whatever fate she invokes upon us will certainly overtake her as well.'
'It may be that she has already perceived and weighed that danger,' said Bellarion.
'Aye, as a danger; but perhaps not as a certainty. And tell her also that she as certainly dooms her brother. Make her understand that it is not so easy to play with the souls of men as she supposes, and that here she has evoked forces which it is not within her power to lay again.' He turned to his associates. 'Be sure that when she perceives precisely where she stands, she will cease to trouble us with her qualms either now or when the thing is done.'
Bellarion had mockingly pronounced the situation interesting when by a shrewd presentment of it he had given pause to the murderous rage of the conspirators. Considering it later that day as he took the air along the river-brink, he was forced to confess it more disturbingly interesting even than he had shown it to be.
He had not been blind to that weakness in the Lady Valeria's position. But he had been foolishly complacent, like the skilful chess-player who, perceiving a strong move possible to his opponent, takes it for granted that the opponent himself will not perceive it.
It seemed to him that nothing remained but to resume his interrupted pilgrimage to Pavia, leaving the State of Montferrat and the Lady Valeria to settle their own affairs. But in that case, her own ruin must inevitably follow, precipitated by the action of those ruffians with whom she was allied, whether that action succeeded or failed.
Then he asked himself what to him were the affairs of Montferrat and its princess, that he should risk his life upon them.
He fetched a sigh. The Abbot had been right. There is no peace in this world outside a convent wall. Certainly there was no peace in Montferrat. Let him shake the dust of that place of unrest from his feet, and push on towards Pavia and the study of Greek.
And so, by olive grove and vineyard, he wandered on, assuring himself that it was towards Pavia that he now went, and repeating to himself that he would reach the Sesia before nightfall and seek shelter in some hamlet thereabouts.
Yet dusk saw him reëntering Casale by the Lombard Gate which faces eastwards. And this because he realised that the service he had shouldered was a burden not so lightly to be cast aside: if he forsook her now, the vision of her tawny head and wistful eyes would go with him to distract him with reproach.
The High and Mighty Marquis Theodore Paleologo, Regent of Montferrat, gave audience as was his gracious custom each Saturday to all who sought it, and received petitions from all who proffered them.
A fine man, this Marquis Theodore, standing fully six feet tall, of a good shape and soldierly carriage, despite his fifty years. His countenance was amiable and open with boldly chiselled features and healthily tanned skin. Affable of manner, accessible of person, he nowise suggested the schemer. The privilege of audience which he granted so freely was never abused, so that on the Saturday of this week with which we are dealing the attendance in the audience chamber was as usual of modest proportions. His highness came, attended by his Chancellor and his Captain of Justice, and followed by two secretaries; he made a leisurely progress through the chamber, pausing at every other step to receive this one, or to say a word to that one; and at the end of an hour departed again, one of his secretaries bearing away the single petition that had been proffered, and this by a tall, dark-haired young man who was vividly dressed in scarlet.
Within five minutes of the Regent's withdrawal, that same secretary returned in quest of the tall young man in red.
'Are you named Cane, sir?'
The tall young man bowed acknowledgment, and was ushered into a small, pleasant chamber, whose windows overlooked the gardens with which Bellarion had already made acquaintance. The secretary closed the door, and Bellarion found himself under the scrutiny of a pair of close-set pale eyes whose glance was crafty and penetrating. Cross-legged, the parti-coloured hose revealed by the fall of the rich gown of mulberry velvet, the Regent sat in a high-backed chair of leather wrought with stags' heads in red and gold, his left elbow resting upon a carved writing-pulpit.
Between hands that were long and fine, he held a parchment cylinder, in which Bellarion recognised the pretended petition he had proffered.
'Who are you, sir?' The voice was calm and level; the voice of a man who does not permit his accents to advertise his thoughts.
'My name is Bellarion Cane. I am the adoptive son of Bonifacio Cane, Count of Biandrate.'
Since he had found it necessary for his present purposes to adopt a father, Bellarion had thought it best to adopt one whose name must carry weight and at need afford protection. Therefore he had conferred this honour of paternity upon that great soldier, Facino Cane, who was ducal governor of Milan.
There was a flash of surprise from the eyes that conned him.
'You are Facino's son! You come from Milan, then?'
'No, my lord. From the Augustinian Convent at Cigliano, where my adoptive father left me some years ago whilst he was still in the service of Montferrat. It was hoped that I might take the habit. But a restlessness of spirit has urged me to prefer the world.' Thus he married pure truth to the single falsehood he had used, the extent of which was to clothe the obscure soldier who had befriended him with the identity of the famous soldier he had named.
'But why the world of Montferrat?'
'Chance determined that. I bore letters from my abbot to help me on my way. It was thus I made the acquaintance of the Lord Barbaresco, and his lordship becoming interested in me, and no doubt requiring me for certain services, desired me to remain. He urged that here was a path already open to my ambition, which if steadily pursued might lead to eminence.'
There was no falsehood in the statement. It was merely truth untruly told, truth unassailable under test, yet calculated to convey a false impression.
A thin smile parted the Prince's shaven lips. 'And when you had learnt sufficient, you found that a surer path to advancement might lie in the betrayal of these poor conspirators?'
'That, highness, is to set the unworthiest interpretation upon my motives.' Bellarion made a certain show in his tone and manner of offended dignity, such as might become the venal rascal he desired to be considered.
'You will not dispute that the course you have taken argues more intelligence than honesty or loyalty.'
'Your highness reproaches me with lack of loyalty to traitors?'
'What was their treason to you? What loyalty do you owe to me? You have but looked to see where lies your profit. Well, well, you are worthy to be the son, adoptive or natural, of that rascal Facino. You follow closely in his footsteps, and if you survive the perils of the journey you may go as far.'
'Highness! I came to serve you ...'
'Silence!' The pleasant voice was scarcely raised. 'I am speaking. I understand your service perfectly. I know something of men, and if I choose to use you, it is because your hope of profit may keep you loyal, and because I shall know how to detect disloyalty and how to punish it. You engage, sir, in a service full of perils.' The Regent seemed faintly to sneer. 'But you have thrust yourself willingly into it. It will test you sternly and at every step. If you survive the tests, if you conquer the natural baseness and dishonesty of your nature, you shall have no cause to complain of my generosity.'
Bellarion flushed despite himself under the cold contempt of that level voice and the amused contempt of those calm, pale eyes.
'The quality of my service should lead your highness to amend your judgment.'
'Is it at fault? Will you tell me, then, whence springs the regard out of which you betray to me the aims and names of these men who have befriended you?'
Bellarion threw back his head and in his bold dark eyes was kindled a flame of indignation. Inwardly he was a little uneasy to find the Regent accepting his word so readily and upon such slight examination.
'Your highness,' he choked, 'will give me leave to go.'
But his highness smiled, savouring his power to torture souls where lesser tyrants could torture only bodies.
'When I have done with you. You came at your own pleasure. You abide at mine. Now tell me, sir: Besides the names you have here set down of these men who seek my life, do you know of any others who work in concert with them?'
'I know that there are others whom they are labouring to seduce. Who these others are I cannot say, nor, with submission, need it matter to your highness. These are the leaders. Once these are crushed, the others will be without direction.'
'A seven-headed hydra, of which these are the heads. If I lop off these heads ...' He paused. 'Yes, yes. But have you heard none others named in these councils?' He leaned forward a little, his eyes intent upon Bellarion's face. 'None who are nearer to me? Think well, Master Bellarion, and be not afraid to name names, however great.'
Bellarion perceived here, almost by instinct, the peril of too great a reticence.
'Since they profess to labour on behalf of the Marquis Gian Giacomo, it is natural they should name him. But I have never heard it asserted that he has knowledge of their plot.'
'Nor any other?' The Marquis was singularly insistent. 'Nor any other?' he repeated.
Bellarion showed a blank face. 'Why? What other?'
'Nay, sir, I am asking you.'
'No, highness,' he slowly answered. 'I recall the mention of no other.'
The Prince sank back into his chair, his searching eyes never quitting the young man's face. Then he committed what in a man so subtle was a monstrous indiscretion, giving Bellarion the explanation that he lacked.
'You are not deep enough in their confidence yet. Return to their councils, and keep me informed of all that transpires in them. Be diligent, and you shall find me generous.'
Bellarion was genuinely aghast. 'Your highness will delay to strike when by delay you may imperil ...?'
He was sternly silenced. 'Is your counsel sought? You understand what I require of you. You have leave to go.'
'But, highness! To return amongst them now, after openly coming here to you, will not be without its danger.'
The regent did not share his alarm. He smiled again.
'You have chosen a path of peril as I told you. But I will help you. I discover that I have letters from Facino humbly soliciting my protection for his adoptive son whilst in Casale. It is a petition I cannot disregard. Facino is a great lord in Milan these days. My court shall be advised of it, and it will not be considered strange that I make you free of the palace. You will persuade your confederates that you avail yourself of my hospitality so that you may abuse it in their interests. That should satisfy them, and I shall look to see you here this evening. Now go with God.'
Bellarion stumbled out distracted. Nothing had gone as he intended after that too promising beginning. Perhaps had he not disclosed himself as Facino Cane's adoptive son, he would not have supplied the Regent with a pretence that should render plausible his comings and goings. But the necessity for that disclosure was undeniable. His conduct had been dictated by the conviction that he could do for the Lady Valeria what she could not without self-betrayal do for herself. Confidently he had counted upon instant action of the Regent to crush the conspirators, and so make the Princess safe from the net in which their crazy ambitions would entangle her. Instead he had made the discovery—from the single indiscretion of the Regent—that the Marquis Theodore was already fully aware of the existence of the conspiracy and of the identity of some, if not all, of the chief conspirators. That was why he had so readily accepted Bellarion's tale. The disclosure agreed so completely with the Regent's knowledge that he had no cause to doubt Bellarion's veracity. And finding him true in these most intimate details, he readily believed true the rest of his story and the specious account of his own intervention in the affair. Possibly Bellarion's name was already known to him as that of one of the plotters who met at Barbaresco's house.
Far, then, from achieving his real purpose, all that Bellarion had accomplished was to offer himself as another and apparently singularly apt instrument for the Regent's dark purposes.
It was a perturbed Bellarion, a Bellarion who perceived in what dangerous waters he was swimming, who came back that noontide to Barbaresco's house.
They were very gay that night at the hospitable court of the Marquis Theodore. A comedy was performed early in the evening, a comedy which Fra Serafino in his chronicle describes as lascivious, by which he may mean no more than playful. Thereafter there was some dancing in the long hall, of which the Regent himself set the example, leading forth the ugly but graceful young Princess of Morea.
His nephew, the Marquis Gian Giacomo, followed with the Countess of Ronsecco, who would have declined the honour if she had dared, for the boy's cheeks were flushed, his eyes glazed, his step uncertain, and his speech noisy and incoherent. And there were few who smiled as they observed the drunken antics of their future prince. Once, indeed, the Regent paused, grave and concerned of countenance, to whisper an admonition. The boy answered him with a bray of insolent laughter, and flung away, dragging the pretty countess with him. It was plain to all that the gentle, knightly Regent found it beyond his power to control his unruly, degenerate nephew.
Amongst the few who dared to smile was Messer Castruccio da Fenestrella, radiant in a suit of cloth of gold, who stood watching the mischief he had made. For it was he who had first secretly challenged Gian Giacomo to a drinking-bout during supper, and afterwards urged him to dance with the pretty wife of stiff-necked Ronsecco.
Awhile he stood looking on. Then, wearying of the entertainment, he sauntered off to join a group apart of which the Lady Valeria was the centre. Her ladies, Dionara and Isotta, were with her, the pedant Corsario, looking even less pedantic than his habit, and a half-dozen gallants who among them made all the chatter. Her highness was pale, and there was a frown between her eyes that so wistfully followed her unseemly brother, inattentive of those about her, some of whom from the kindliest motives sought to distract her attention. Her cheeks warmed a little at the approach of Castruccio, who moved into the group with easy, insolent grace.
'My lord is gay to-night,' he informed them lightly. None answered him. He looked at them with his flickering, shifty eyes, a sneering smile on his lips. 'So are not you,' he informed them. 'You need enlivening.' He thrust forward to the Princess, and bowed. 'Will your highness dance?'
She did not look at him. Her eyes were fixed, and their glance went beyond him and was of such intensity that Messer Castruccio turned to seek the object of that curious contemplation.
Down the hall came striding Messer Aliprandi, the Orator of Milan, and with him a tall, black-haired young man, in a suit of red that was more conspicuous than suitable of fashion to the place or the occasion. Into the group about the Princess they came, whilst the exquisite Castruccio eyed this unfashionable young man with frank contempt, bearing his pomander-ball to his nostrils, as if to protect his olfactory organs from possible offence.
Messer Aliprandi, trimly bearded, elegant in his furred gown, and suavely mannered, bowed low before the Lady Valeria.
'Permit me, highness, to present Messer Bellarion Cane, the son of my good friend Facino Cane of Biandrate.'
It was the Marquis Theodore, who had requested the Orator of Milan—as was proper, seeing that by reason of his paternity Bellarion was to be regarded as Milanese—to present his assumed compatriot to her highness.
Bellarion, modelling himself upon Aliprandi, executed his bow with grace.
As Fra Serafino truthfully says of him: 'He learnt manners and customs and all things so quickly that he might aptly be termed a fluid in the jug of any circumstance.'
The Lady Valeria inclined her head with no more trace of recognition in her face than there was in Bellarion's own.
'You are welcome, sir,' she said with formal graciousness, and then turned to Aliprandi. 'I did not know that the Count of Biandrate had a son.'
'Nor did I, madonna, until this moment. It was the Marquis Theodore who made him known to me.' She fancied in Aliprandi's tone something that seemed to disclaim responsibility. But she turned affably to the newcomer, and Bellarion marvelled at the ease with which she dissembled.
'I knew the Count of Biandrate well when I was a child, and I hold his memory very dear. He was in my father's service once, as you will know. I rejoice in the greatness he has since achieved. It should make a brave tale.'
'Per aspera ad astrais ever a brave tale,' Bellarion answered soberly. 'Too often it isper astra ad aspera, if I may judge by what I have read.'
'You shall tell me of your father, sir. I have often wished to hear the story of his advancement.'
'To command, highness.' He bowed again.
The others drew closer, expecting entertainment. But Bellarion, who had no such entertainment to bestow, nor knew of Facino's life more than a fragment of what was known to all the world, extricated himself as adroitly as he could.
'I am no practised troubadour or story-singer. And this tale of a journey to the stars should be told under the stars.'
'Why, so it shall, then. They shine brightly enough. You shall show me Facino's and perhaps your own.' She rose and commanded her ladies to attend her.
Castruccio fetched a sigh of relief.
'Give thanks,' he said audibly to those about him, 'for Heaven's mercy which has spared you this weariness.'
The door at the end of the hall stood open to the terrace and the moonlight. Thither the Princess conducted Bellarion, her ladies in close attendance.
Approaching the threshold they came upon the Marquis Gian Giacomo, reeling clumsily beside the Countess of Ronsecco, who was almost on the point of tears. He paused in his caperings that he might ogle his sister.
'Where do you go, Valeria? And who's this long-shanks?'
She approached him. 'You are tired, Giannino, and the Countess, too, is tired. You would be better resting awhile.'
'Indeed, highness!' cried the young Countess, eagerly thankful.
But the Marquis was not at all of his sister's wise opinion.
'Tired? Resting! You're childish, Valeria. Always childish. Childish and meddlesome. Poking your long nose into everything. Some day you'll poke it into something that'll sting it. And what will it look like when it's stung? Have you thought of that?' He laughed derisively, and caught the Countess by the arm. 'Let's leave long-nose and long-shanks. Ha! Ha!' His idiotic laughter shrilled up. He was ravished by his own humour. He let his voice ring out that all might hear and share the enjoyment of his comical conceit. 'Long-nose and long-shanks! Long-nose and long-shanks!
'Said she to him, your long-shanks I adore.Said he to her, your long-nose I deplore.'
'Said she to him, your long-shanks I adore.Said he to her, your long-nose I deplore.'
Screaming with laughter he plunged forward to resume the dance, trod upon one of his trailing, exaggerated sleeves, tripped himself, and went sprawling on the tessellated floor, his laughter louder and more idiotic than ever. A dozen ran to lift him.
The Princess tapped Bellarion sharply on the arm with her fan of ostrich-plumes. Her face was like graven stone.
'Come,' she commanded, and passed out ahead of him.
On the terrace she signed to her ladies to fall behind whilst with her companion she moved beyond earshot along the marble balustrade, whose moonlit pallor was here and there splashed by the black tide of trailing plants.
'Now, sir,' she invited in a voice of ice, 'will you explain this new identity and your presence here?'
He answered in calm, level tones: 'My presence explains itself when I tell you that my identity is accepted by his highness the Regent. The son of Facino Cane is not to be denied the hospitality of the Court of Montferrat.'
'Then why did you lie to me when ...'
'No, no. This is the lie. This false identity was as necessary to gain admission here as was the painter's smock I wore yesterday: another lie.'
'You ask me to believe that you ...' Indignation choked her. 'My senses tell me what you are; an agent sent to work my ruin.'
'Your senses tell you either more or less, or else you would not now be here.'
And then it was as if the bonds of her self-control were suddenly snapped by the strain they sought to bear. 'Oh, God!' she cried out. 'I am near distraction. My brother ...' She broke off on something akin to a sob.
Outwardly Bellarion remained calm. 'Shall we take one thing at a time? Else we shall never be done. And I should not remain here too long with you.'
'Why not? You have the sanction of my dear uncle, who sends you.'
'Even so.' He lowered his voice to a whisper. 'It is your uncle is my dupe, not you.'
'That is what I expected you to say.'
'You had best leave inference until you have heard me out. Inference, highness, as I have shown you once already, is not your strength.'
If she resented his words and the tone he took, she gave no expression to it. Standing rigidly against the marble balustrade, she looked away from him and down that moonlit garden with its inky shadows and tall yew hedges that were sharp black silhouettes against the faintly irradiated sky.
Briefly, swiftly, lucidly, Bellarion told her how her message had been received by the conspirators.
'You thought to checkmate them. But they perceived the move you have overlooked, whereby they checkmate you. This proves what already I have told you: that they serve none but themselves. You and your brother are but the instruments with which they go to work. There was only one way to frustrate them; one only way to serve and save you. That way I sought.'
She interrupted him there. 'You sought? You sought?' Her voice held bewilderment, unbelief, and even some anger. 'Why should you desire to save or serve me? If I could believe you, I must account you impertinent. You were a messenger, no more.'
'Was I no more when I disclosed to you the true aims of these men and the perils of your association with them?'
'Aye, you were more,' she said bitterly. 'But what were you?'
'Your servant, madonna,' he answered simply.
'Ah, yes. I had forgotten. My servant. Sent by Providence, was it not?'
'You are bitter, lady,' said Bellarion.
'Am I?' She turned at last to look at him. But his face was no more than a faint white blur. 'Perhaps I find you too sweet to be real.'
He sighed. 'The rest of my tale will hardly change that opinion. Is it worth while continuing?' He spoke without any heat, a little wistfully.
'It should be entertaining if not convincing.'
'For your entertainment, then: what you could not do without destroying yourself was easily possible to me.' And he told her of his pretended petition, giving the Regent the names of those who plotted against his life.
He saw her clutch her breast, caught the gasp of dread and dismay that broke from her lips.
'You betrayed them!'
'Was it not what you announced that you would do if they did not abandon their plan of murder? I was your deputy, no more. When I presented myself as Facino Cane's adopted son I was readily believed—because the Regent cared little whether it were true or not, since in me he perceived the very agent that he needed.'
'Ah, now at last we have something that does not strain belief.'
'Will it strain belief that the Regent was already fully informed of this conspiracy?'
'What!'
'Why else should he have trusted or believed me? Of his own knowledge he knew that what I told him was true.'
'He knew and he held his hand?' Again the question was made scornful by unbelief.
'Because he lacked evidence that you, and, through you, your brother, were parties to the plot. What to him are Barbaresco's shabby crew? It is the Marquis Gian Giacomo who must be removed in such a manner as not to impair the Lord Regent's credit. To gather evidence am I now sent.'
She tore an ostrich-plume from her fan in her momentary passion.
'You do not hesitate to confess how you betray each in turn; Barbaresco to the Regent; the Regent to me; and now, no doubt, me to the Regent.'
'As for the last, madonna, to betray you I need not now be here. I could have supplied the Regent with all the evidence he needs against you at the same time that I supplied the evidence against the others.'
She was silent, turning it over in her mind. And because her mind was acute, she saw the proof his words afforded. But because afraid, she mistrusted proof.
'It may be part of the trap,' she complained. 'If it were not, why should you remain after denouncing my friends? The aims you pretend would have been fully served by that.'
His answer was prompt and complete.
'If I had departed, you would never have known the answer of those men whom you trust, nor would you have known that there is a Judas amongst them already. It was necessary to warn you.'
'Yes,' she said slowly. 'I see, I think.' And then in sudden revolt against the conviction he was forcing upon her, and in tones which if low were vehement to the point of fierceness: 'Necessary!' she cried, echoing the word he had used. 'Necessary! How was it necessary? Whence this necessity of yours? A week ago you did not know me. Yet for me, who am nothing to you, whose service carries no reward, you pretend yourself prepared to labour and to take risks involving even your very life. That is what you ask me to believe. You suppose me mad, I think.'
As she faced him now, she fancied that a smile broke upon that face so indistinctly seen. His voice, as he answered her, was very soft.
'It is not mad to believe in madness. Madness exists, madonna. Set me down as suffering from it. The air of the world is proving too strong and heady, perhaps, for one bred in cloisters. It has intoxicated me, I think.'
She laughed chillingly. 'For once you offer an explanation that goes a little lame. Your invention is failing, sir.'
'Nay, lady; my understanding,' he answered sadly.
She set a hand upon his arm. He felt it quivering there, which surprised him almost as much as the change in her voice, now suddenly halting and unsteady.
'Messer Bellarion, if my suspicions wound you, set them down to my distraction. It is so easy, so dangerously easy, to believe what we desire to believe.'
'I know,' he said gently. 'Yet when you've slept on what I've said, you'll find that your safety lies in trusting me.'
'Safety! Am I concerned with safety only? To-night you saw my brother...'
'I saw. If that is Messer Castruccio's work ...'
'Castruccio is but a tool. Come, sir. We talk in vain.' She began to move along the terrace towards her waiting ladies. Suddenly she paused. 'I must trust you, Ser Bellarion. I must or I shall go mad in this ugly tangle. I'll take the risk. If you are not true, if you win my trust only to abuse it and work the evil will of the Regent, then God will surely punish you.'
'I think so, too,' he breathed.
'Tell me now,' she questioned, 'what shall you say to my uncle?'
'Why, that I have talked with you fruitlessly; that either you have no knowledge of Barbaresco or else you withheld it from me.'
'Shall you come again?'
'If you desire it. The way is open now. But what remains to do?'
'You may discover that.' Thus she conveyed that, having resolved to give him her trust, she gave it without stint.
They came back into the hall, where stiff and formally Bellarion made his valedictory bow, then went to take his leave of the Regent.
The Regent disengaged himself from the group of which he was the centre, and, taking Bellarion by the arm, drew him apart a little.
'I have made a sounding,' Bellarion informed him. 'Either she mistrusts me, or else she knows nothing of Barbaresco.'
'Be sure of the former, sir,' said the Regent softly. 'Procure credentials from Barbaresco, and try again. It should be easy, so.'
At Barbaresco's a surprise awaited Messer Bellarion. The whole company of plotters swarmed about him as he entered the long dusty room of the mezzanine, and he found himself gripped at once between the fierce Casella and the reckless Spigno. He did not like their looks, nor those of any man present. Least of all did he like the looks of Barbaresco who confronted him, oily and falsely suave of manner.
'Where have you been, Master Bellarion?'
He realised that he had need of his wits.
He looked round with surprise and contempt in his stare.
'Oh, yes, you're conspirators to the life,' he told them. 'You see a spy in every neighbour, a betrayal in every act. Oh, you have eyes; but no wit to inform your vision. God help those who trust you! God help you all!' He wrenched at the arms that held him. 'Let me go, fools.'
Barbaresco licked his lips. His right hand was held behind his back. Stealthily almost he came a step nearer, so that he was very close.
'Not until you tell us where you have been. Not then, unless you tell us more.'
Bellarion's sneer became more marked; but no fear showed in his glance. 'Where I have been, you know. Hence these tragical airs. I've been to court.'
'To what end, Bellarion?' Barbaresco softly questioned. The others preserved a frozen, watchful silence.
'To betray you, of course.' He was boldly ironical. 'Having done so, I return so that you may slit my throat.'
Spigno laughed, and released the arm he held.
'I for one am answered. I told you from the first I did not believe it.'
Casella, however, hung on fiercely. 'I'll need a clear answer before I ...'
'Give me air, man,' cried Bellarion impatiently, and wrenched his arm free. 'No need to maul me. I'll not run. There are seven of you to prevent me, and reflection may cool your humours. Reflect, for instance, that, if I were for running, I should not have come back.'
'You tell us what you would not or did not do. We ask you what you did,' Barbaresco insisted.
'I'll tell you yet another thing I would not have done if my aim had been betrayal. I should not have gone openly to court so that you might hear of my presence there.'
'The very argument I employed,' Spigno reminded them, with something of Bellarion's own scorn in his manner now. 'Let the boy tell his tale.'
They muttered among themselves. Bellarion crossed the room under their black looks, moving with the fearless air of a man strong in the sense of his own integrity. He slid into a chair.
'There is nothing to tell that is not self-evident already. I went to carry your message to the Princess Valeria; to point out to her the position of checkmate in which you hold her; to make her realize that being committed to this enterprise, she cannot now either draw back or dictate to us the means by which our aims are to be reached. All this, I rejoice to tell you, I have happily accomplished.'
Again it was Barbaresco who was their spokesman. 'All this we may believe when you tell us why you chose to go to court to do it, and how, being what you represent yourself to be, you succeeded in gaining admission.'
'God give me patience with you, dear Saint Thomas!' said Bellarion, sighing. 'I went to court because the argument I foresaw with the Princess was hardly one to be conducted furtively behind a hedge. It threatened to be protracted. Besides, for furtive dealing, sirs, bold and open approaches are best when they are possible. They were possible to me. It happens, sirs, that I am indeed the adoptive son of Facino Cane, and I perceived how I might use that identity to present myself at court and there move freely.'
A dozen questions rained upon him. He answered them all in a phrase.
'The Ambassador of Milan, Messer Aliprandi, was there to sponsor me.'
There was a silence, broken at last by Barbaresco. 'Aliprandi may have been your sponsor there. He cannot be your sponsor here, and you know it.'
'Aye,' growled white-haired Lungo. 'An impudent tale!'
'And a lame one,' added Casella. 'If you had this means of going to court, why did you wait so long to seize it?'
'Other ways were open on former occasions. You forget that Madonna Valeria was not expecting me; the garden-gate would not be ajar. And I could not this time go as a painter, which was the disguise I adopted on the last occasion. Besides, it is too expensive. It cost me five ducats.'
Again their questions came together, for it was the first they had heard of the disguise which he had used. He told them at last the story. And he saw that it pleased them.
'Why did you not tell us this before?' quoth one.
Bellarion shrugged. 'Is it important? So that I was your Mercury, did it matter in what shape I went? Why should I trouble you with trivial things? Besides, let me remind you—since you can't perceive it for yourselves—that if I had betrayed you to the Marquis Theodore, the Captain of Justice would now be here in my place.'
'That, at least, is not to be denied,' said Spigno, and in his vehemence carried two or three others with him.
But the fierce Casella was not of those, nor Lungo, nor Barbaresco.
The latter least of all, for a sudden memory had stirred in him. His blue eyes narrowed until they were almost hidden in his great red cheeks.
'How does it happen that none at court recognized in you the palace amanuensis?'
Bellarion perceived his danger, and learnt the lesson that a lie may become a clumsy obstacle to trip a man. But of the apprehension he suddenly felt, no trace revealed itself upon his countenance.
'It is possible some did. What then? Neither identity contradicts the other. And remember, pray, that Messer Aliprandi was there to avouch me.'
'But he cannot avouch you here,' Barbaresco said again, and sternly asked: 'Who can?'
Bellarion looked at him, and from him to the others who seemed to await almost in breathlessness his answer.
'Do you demand of me proof that I am the adoptive son of Facino Cane?' he asked.
'So much do we demand it that unless you can afford it your sands are run, my cockerel,' Casella answered him, his fingers on his dagger as he spoke.
It was a case for bold measures if he would gain time. Given this, he knew that all things may become possible, and there was one particular thing his shrewd calculations accounted probable here if only he could induce them to postpone until to-morrow the slitting of his throat.
'So be it. From here to Cigliano it is no more than a day's ride on a good horse. Let one of you go ask the Abbot of the Grazie the name of him Facino left in the convent's care.'
'A name?' cried Casella, sneering. 'Is that all the proof?'
'All if the man who goes is a fool. If not he may obtain from the Abbot a minute description of this Bellarion. If more is needed I'll give you a note of the clothes I wore and the gear and money with which I left the Grazie that you may obtain confirmation of that, too.'
But Barbaresco was impatient. 'Even so, what shall all this prove? It cannot prove you true. It cannot prove that you are not a spy sent hither to betray and sell us.'
'No,' Bellarion agreed. 'But it will prove that the identity on which I won to court is what I represent it, and that will be something as a beginning. The rest—if there is more—can surely wait.'
'And meanwhile ...?' Casella was beginning.
'Meanwhile I am in your hands. You're never so blood-thirsty that you cannot postpone murdering me until you've verified my tale?'
That was what they fell to discussing among themselves there in his very presence, affording him all the excitement of watching the ball of his fate tossed this way and that among the disputants.
In the end the game might have gone against him but for Count Spigno, who laboured Bellarion's own argument that if he had betrayed them he would never have incurred the risk of returning amongst them.
In the end they deprived Bellarion of the dagger which was his only weapon, and then Barbaresco, Casella, and Spigno jointly conducted him above-stairs to a shabby chamber under the roof. It had no windows, whence an evasion might be attempted, and was lighted by a glazed oblong some ten feet overhead at the highest part of the sharply sloping ceiling. It contained no furniture, nor indeed anything beyond some straw and sacking in a corner which he was bidden to regard as his bed for that night and probably for the next.
They pinioned his wrists behind him for greater safety, and Casella bade him be thankful that the cord was not being tightened about his neck instead. Upon that they went out, taking the light with them, locking the door, and leaving him a prisoner in the dark.
He stood listening to their footsteps receding down the stairs, then he looked up at the oblong of moonlight in his ceiling. If the glass were removed, there would be room for a man to pass through and gain the roof. But considering the slope of it, the passage might as easily lead to a broken neck as to liberty, and in any case he had neither the power nor the means to reach it.
He squatted upon the meagre bedding, with his chin almost upon his knees, in an attitude of extreme discomfort, making something in the nature of an assessment of his mental and emotional equipment. Seen now from the point of view of cold reason to which danger had sharply brought him, his career since leaving the peace of the Grazie a week ago seemed fantastic and incredible. Destiny had made sport with him. Sentimentality had led him by the nose. He had mixed himself in the affairs of a state through which he was no more than a wayfarer, because moved to interest in the fortunes of a young woman of exalted station who would probably dismiss his memory with a sigh when she came to learn how his throat had been cut by the self-seeking fools with whom so recklessly she had associated herself. It was, he supposed, a manifestation of that romantic and unreasonable phenomenon known as chivalry. If he extricated himself alive from this predicament, he would see to it that whatever follies he committed in the future, chivalry would certainly not be found amongst them. Experience had cured him of any leanings in that direction. It had also inspired doubts of the infallibility of his syllogism on the subject of evil. He suspected a flaw in it somewhere. For evil most certainly existed. His respect for the value of experience was rapidly increasing.
He shifted his position, stretched himself out, and lay on his side, contemplating the patch of moonlight on the floor, and speculating upon his chances of winning out of this death-trap. Of these he took an optimistic view. The assistance upon which Bellarion chiefly counted was that of the traitor amongst the conspirators, whom he strove vainly to identify in the light of their behaviour that evening. Spigno had been the only one who by advocating Bellarion's cause had procured him this respite. Yet Spigno was one of the first to spring upon him dagger in hand, on his return from court. But the traitor, whoever he might be, would probably report the event to the Marquis Theodore, and the Marquis should take steps directly or indirectly to procure the release of one whom he must now regard as a valuable agent.
That, thought Bellarion, was the probability. Meanwhile he would remember that probabilities are by no means certainties, and he would be watchful for an opportunity to help himself.
On these reflections he must have fallen asleep, and he must have slept for some time, for, when suddenly he awakened, the patch of moonlight was gone from the floor. That was his first conscious observation; his second what that something was stirring near at hand. He raised himself on his elbow, an operation by no means easy with pinioned wrists, and turned his head in the direction of the sound, to perceive a faint but increasing rhomb of light from the direction of the doorway, and to understand with the next heartbeat that the door was being slowly and stealthily pushed open.
That was, he afterwards confessed, his first real acquaintance with the emotion of fear; fear that roughened his skin and chilled his spine; fear inspired by the instantaneous conviction that here came some one to murder him as he lay there bound and helpless.
The suspense was but of seconds, yet in those seconds Bellarion seemed to live an age as he watched that slowly widening gap and the faint light which increased in area but hardly in illumination. Then the shadowy form of a man slipped through, darkly discernible in the faint glow from the veiled light he carried.
Very softly came his voice: 'Sh! Quiet! Make no sound!'
The note of warning partially calmed the tumult of Bellarion's heart, which was thudding in his throat as if to suffocate him.
As quietly as it had been opened the door was closed again, a thin and partially translucent mantle was pulled from the lantern it had been muffling, and the light beating through the horn panes was reflected from the floor and walls upon the lean, aquiline features of Count Spigno.
Bellarion uttered something that sounded like a chuckle.
'I was expecting you,' said he.
Spigno set the lantern on the floor, and came forward. 'No need to talk,' he muttered. 'Roll over so that I can free your hands.' He drew his dagger and with it cut Bellarion's bonds.
'Take off your shoes. Make haste.'
Bellarion squatted upon his bedding, and with blundering fingers, still numb from the thong, he removed his footgear. His wits worked briskly, and it was not at all upon the subject of his escape that they were busy. Despite his late resolves, and although still far from being out of peril, with the chance of salvation no more than in sight, he was already at his knight-errantry again.
He stood up at last, and Spigno was whispering urgently.
'Wait! We must not go together. Give me five minutes to win clear; then follow.'
Bellarion considered him, and his eyes were very grave.
'But when my evasion is discovered ...' he was beginning.
Spigno impatiently broke in, explaining hurriedly.
'I am the last they will suspect. The others are all here to-night. But I pleaded urgent reasons why I could not remain. I made a pretence of departing; then hid below until all were asleep. They will be at each other's throats in the morning over this.' He smiled darkly in satisfaction of his cunning. 'I'll take the light. You know your way about this house better than I do. Tread softly when you come.'
He was turning to take up the lantern when Bellarion arrested him.
'You'll wait for me outside?'
'To what end? Nay, now. There is no purpose in that.'
'Let me come with you, then. If I should stumble in the dark they'll be upon me.'
'Take care that you do not.'
'At least leave me your dagger since you take the light.'
'Here, then.' Spigno unsheathed and surrendered the weapon to him.
Bellarion gripped the hilt. With very sombre eyes he considered the Count. Then the latter turned aside again for the lantern.
'A moment,' said Bellarion.
'What now?'
Impatiently Spigno faced once more the queer glance of those dark eyes, and in that moment Bellarion stabbed him.
It was a swift, hard-driven, merciful stroke that found the unfortunate man's heart and quenched his life before he had time to realise that it was threatened.
Without a sound he reeled back under the blow. Bellarion's left arm went round his shoulders to ease him to the ground. But Spigno's limbs sagged under him. He sank through Bellarion's embrace like an empty sack, and then rolled over sideways.
The murderer choked back a sob. His legs were trembling like empty hose with which the wind makes sport. His face was leaden-hued and his sight was blurred by tears. He went down on his knees beside the dead count, turned him on his back, straightened out the twitching limbs, and folded the arms across the breast. Nor did he rise when this was done.
In slaying Count Spigno, he had performed a necessary act; necessary in the service to which he had dedicated himself. Thus at a blow he had shattered the instrument upon which the Marquis Theodore was depending to encompass his nephew's ruin; and the discovery to-morrow of Spigno's death and Bellarion's own evasion, in circumstances of unfathomable mystery, must strike such terror into the hearts of the conspirators that there would probably be an end to the plotting which served no purpose but to advance the Regent's schemes.
Yet, despite these heartening reflections, Bellarion could not shake off his horror. He had done murder, and he had done it in cold blood, deliberate and calculatingly. Worse than all—his convent rearing asserting itself here—he had sent a man unshriven to confront his Maker. He hoped that the unexpectedness with which Spigno's doom had overtaken him would be weighed in the balance against the sins which death had surprised upon him.
That is why he remained on his knees and with joined hands prayed fervently and passionately for the repose of the soul which he had despatched to judgment. So intent was he that he took no heed of the precious time that was meanwhile speeding. For perhaps a quarter of an hour he continued there in prayer, then crossing himself he rose at last and gave thought to his own escape.
Thrusting his shoes into his belt and muffling the lantern as Spigno had muffled it, he set out, the naked dagger in his right hand.
A stair creaked under his step and then another, and each time he checked and caught his breath, listening intently. Once he fancied that he heard a movement below, and the sound so alarmed him that it was some moments before he could proceed.
He gained the floor below in safety, and rounding the balusters continued his cautious descent towards the mezzanine, where, as he knew, Barbaresco slept. Midway down he heard that sound again, this time unmistakably the sound of some one moving in the passage to the right, in the direction of Barbaresco's room. He stopped abruptly, and thrust the muffled lantern behind him, so that the faint glow of it might not beat downwards upon the gloom to betray him. He was conscious of pulses drumming in his temples, for shaken by the night's events he was now become an easy prey to fear.
Suddenly to his increasing horror, another, stronger light fell along the passage. It grew steadily as he watched it, and with it came a sound of softly shod feet, a mutter in a voice that he knew for Barbaresco's, and an answering mutter in the high-pitched voice of Barbaresco's old servant.
His first impulse was to turn and flee upwards, back the way he had come. But thus he would be rushing into a trap, which would be closed by Barbaresco's guests, who slept most probably above.
Then, bracing himself for whatever fate might send, he bounded boldly and swiftly forward, no longer troubling to tread lightly. His aim was to round the stairs and thereafter trust to speed to complete the descent and gain the street. But the noise he made brought Barbaresco hurrying forward, and at the foot of that flight they confronted each other, Bellarion's way barred by the gentleman of Casale who loosed at sight of him a roar that roused the house.