She came alone, and brought with her a little lute, an instrument which she played with some expertness. And she was gifted, too, in the making of little songs, which of late had been excessively concerned with unrequited love, despair, and death.
The Count, she informed Bellarion, had gone to the Castle, by which she meant, of course, the great fortress of Porta Giovia built and commonly inhabited by the late Duke. But he would be returning soon. And meanwhile, to beguile the tedium of his waiting, she would sing to him.
Singing to him Facino found her, and he was not to guess with what reluctance Bellarion had suffered her voice to substitute the voice of Dante Alighieri. Nor, in any case, was he at all concerned with that.
He came abruptly into the room from which the loggia opened, his manner a little pressed and feverish. And the suddenness of his entrance, acting upon a conscience not altogether at rest, cropped her song in mid-flight. The eyes she raised to his flushed and frowning face were startled and uneasy. Bellarion, who sat dreaming, holding the vellum-bound manuscript which was closed upon his forefinger, sprang up, with something in his manner of that confusion usually discernible in one suddenly recalled from dreams to his surroundings.
Facino strode out to the loggia, and there loosed his news at once.
'Buonterzo is moving. He left Parma at dawn yesterday, and is advancing towards Piacenza with an army fully four thousand strong.'
'Four thousand!' cried Bellarion. 'Then he is in greater strength than you even now.'
'Thanks to the French contingent and the communal militia, the odds do not perturb me. Buonterzo is welcome to the advantage. He'll need a greater when we meet. That will be in two days' time, in three at latest. For we march at midnight. All is in readiness. The men are resting between this and then. You had best do the same, Bellarion.'
Thus, with a complete change from his usual good-tempered, easy-going manner, already the commander rapping out his orders without waste of words, Facino delivered himself.
But now his Countess, who had risen when he announced the imminence of action, expressed her concern.
'Bellarion?' she cried. Her face was white to the lips, her rounded bosom heaving under its close-fitting sheath; there was dread in her eyes. 'Bellarion goes with you?'
Facino looked at her, and the lines between his brows grew deeper. It wounded him sharply that in this hour concern for another should so completely override concern for himself. Beyond that, however, his resentment did not go. He could think no evil where his Bice was concerned, and, indeed, Bellarion's eager interposition would have supplied the antidote had it been necessary.
'Why, madonna, you would not have me left behind! You would not have me miss such an occasion!' His cheeks were aglow; his eyes sparkled.
Facino laughed. 'You hear the lad? Would you be so cruel as to deny him?'
She recaptured betimes the wits which surprise had scattered, and prudently dissembled her dismay. On a more temperate note, from which all passion was excluded, she replied:
'He's such a child to be going to the wars!'
'A child! Pooh! Who would become master should begin early. At his age I was leader of a troop.'
He laughed again. But he was not to laugh later, when he recalled this trivial incident.
Shortly before midnight they rode out from the Palace of the old Broletto: Facino, attended by Bellarion for his esquire, a page bestriding a mule that was laden with his armour, and a half-dozen men-at-arms.
Facino was silent and pensive. His lady's farewells had lacked the tenderness he craved, and the Duke whose battles he went to fight had not even been present to speed him. He had left the palace to go forth upon this campaign, slinking away like a discharged lackey. The Duke, he had been told, was absent, and for all that he was well aware of the Duke's detestable pernoctations, he preferred to believe that this was merely another expression of that ill will which, despite all that he had done and all that it lay in his power to do, the Duke never failed to display towards him.
But as the little company rode in the bright moonlight down the borgo of Porta Giovia, out of a narrow side street emerged a bulky man, almost dragged along by three great hounds straining at the leash and yelping eagerly, their noses to the ground. A slender figure in a cloak followed after him, calling petulantly as he came:
'Not so fast, Squarcia! Body of God! Not so fast, I say. I am out of breath!'
There was no mistaking that strident voice. It was the Duke, himself, and close upon his heels came six armed lackeys to make a bodyguard.
Squarcia and his powerful hounds crossed the main street of the borgo, almost under the head of Facino's horse, the brawny huntsman panting and swearing as he went.
'I cannot hold them back, Lord Duke,' he answered. 'They're hot upon the scent, and strong as mules, devil take them!'
He vanished down the dark gulf of an alley. From the leader of the Duke's bodyguard came a challenge:
'Who goes there at this hour?'
Facino loosed a laugh that was full of bitterness.
'Facino Cane, Lord Duke, going to the wars.'
'It makes you laugh, eh?' The Duke approached him. He had missed the bitterness of the laughter, or else the meaning of that bitterness.
'Oh yes, it makes me laugh. I go to fight the battles of the Duke of Milan. It is my business and my pleasure. I leave you, Lord Duke, to yours.'
'Aye, aye! Bring me back the head of that rogue Buonterzo. Good fortune to you!'
'Your highness is gracious.'
'God be with you!' He moved on. 'That rogue Squarcia is getting too far ahead. Ho, there! Squarcia! Damn your vile soul! Not so fast!' The gloom of the alley absorbed him. His bodyguard followed.
Again Facino laughed. '"God be with me," says the Duke's magnificence. May the devil be with him. I wonder upon what foulness he is bent to-night, Bellarion.' He touched his horse with the spur. 'Forward!'
They came to the Castle of Porta Giovia, the vast fortress of Gian Galeazzo, built as much for the city's protection from without as for his own from the city. The drawbridge was lowered to receive them, and they rode into the great courtyard of San Donato, which was thronged with men-at-arms and bullock-carts laden with the necessaries of the campaign. Here, in the inner courtyard and in the great plain beyond the walls of both castle and city, the army of Facino was drawn up, marshalled by Carmagnola.
Facino rode through the castle, issuing brief orders here and there as he went, then, at the far end of the plain beyond, at the very head of the assembled forces, he took up his station attended by Bellarion, Beppo the page, and his little personal bodyguard. There he remained for close upon an hour, and in the moonlight, supplemented by a dozen flaring barrels of tar, he reviewed the army as it filed past and took the road south towards Melegnano.
The order of the going had been preconcerted between Facino and his lieutenant Carmagnola, and it was Carmagnola who led the vanguard, made up of five hundred mounted men of the civic militia of Milan and three hundred German infantry, a mixed force composed of Bavarians, Swabians, and Saxons, trailing the ponderous German pike which was fifteen feet in length. They were uniform at least in that all were stalwart, bearded men, and they sang as they marched, swinging vigorously to the rhythm of their outlandish song. They were commanded by a Swabian named Koenigshofen.
Next came de Cadillac with the French horse, of whom eight hundred rode in armour with lances erect, an imposing array of mounted steel which flashed ruddily in the flare from the tar barrels; the remaining two hundred made up a company of mounted arbalesters.
After the French came an incredibly long train of lumbering wagons drawn by oxen, and laden, some with the ordinary baggage of the army—tents, utensils, arms, munitions, and the like—and the others with mangonels and siege implements including a dozen cannon.
Finally came the rearguard composed of Facino's own condotta, increased by recent recruitings to twelve hundred men-at-arms and supplemented by three hundred Switzers under Werner von Stoffel, of whom a hundred were arbalesters and the remainder infantry armed with the short but terribly effective Swiss halbert.
When the last had marched away to be absorbed into the darkness, and the song of the Germans at the head of the column had faded out of earshot, muffled by the tramp of the rearguard, Facino with his little knot of personal attendants set out to follow.
Towards noon of the following day, with Melegnano well behind them, they came to a halt in the hamlet of Ospedaletto, having covered twenty-five miles in that first almost unbroken march. The pace was not one that could be maintained, nor would it have been maintained so long but that Facino was in haste to reach the south bank of the Po before Buonterzo could cross. Therefore, leaving the main army to rest at Ospedaletto, he pushed on with five hundred lances as far as Piacenza. With these at need he could hold the bridgehead, whilst waiting for the main army to join him on the morrow.
At Piacenza, however, there was still no sign of the enemy, and in the Scotti who held the city—one of the possessions wrested from the Duchy of Milan—Facino found an unexpected ally. Buonterzo had sent to demand passage of the Scotti. And the Scotti, with the true brigand instinct of their kind, had replied by offering him passage on terms. But Buonterzo, the greater brigand, had mocked the proposal, sending word back that, unless he were made free of the bridge, he would cross by force and clean up the town in passing. As a consequence, whilst Buonterzo's advance was retarded by the necessity of reaching Piacenza in full force, Facino was given free and unhindered passage by the Scotti, so that he might act as a buckler for them.
Having brought his army on the morrow safely across the Po, Facino assembled it on the left bank of the little river Nure. He destroyed the bridge by which the Æmilian Way crosses the stream at Pontenure, and sat down to await Buonterzo, who was now reported to be at Firenzuola, ten miles away.
Buonterzo, however, did not come directly on, but, quitting the Æmilian Way, struck south, and, crossing the shallow hills into the valley of the Nure, threatened thence to descend upon Facino's flank.
That was the beginning of a series of movements, of marchings and counter-marchings, which endured for a full week without ever bringing the armies in sight of each other. These manœuvres carried them gradually south, and their operations became a game of hide-and-seek among the hills.
At first it bewildered Bellarion that two commanders, each of whom had for aim the destruction of the other, should appear so sedulously to avoid an engagement. But in the end, he came to understand the spirit actuating them. Each fought with mercenary troops, and just as it is not the business of mercenaries to get themselves killed, neither is it their business to slay if slaughter can be avoided. They fought for profit, and whilst prisoners were profitable, since they yielded not only arms and horses, but also ransoms, dead men yielded nothing beyond their harness. Therefore they demanded that their commanders should lead them as nearly as possible into a position of such strategical advantage that the enemy, perceiving himself at their mercy, should have no choice but to surrender. To this general rule the only exception was afforded by the Swiss, who were indifferent to bloodshed. But of Swiss there were only a few on Facino's side, and none at all on Buonterzo's.
At the end of a week, after endless manœuvres, matters were very much as they had been at the beginning. Buonterzo had fallen back again on Firenzuola, hoping to draw Facino into open country, whilst Facino, refusing to be drawn, lay patiently at San Nicoló.
Three days Facino waited there, to be suddenly startled by the news that Buonterzo was at Aggazano, eight miles away. Suspecting here an attempt to slip past him and, by crossing perhaps at Stradella, to invade the territory of Milan, and also because he conceived that Buonterzo had placed himself in a disadvantageous position, leaving an opening for attack, Facino decided upon instant action.
In the best house of San Nicoló, which he had temporarily adopted for his quarters, Facino assembled on the morning of the 10th of May his chief officers, Francesco Busone of Carmagnola, Koenigshofen, the Swiss Werner von Stoffel, and the French commander de Cadillac.
In a small plain room on the ground floor, darkened by semi-closed shutters to exclude the too ardent sun, they were gathered, Bellarion with them, about the plain deal table at which Facino sat. On the table's white surface the condottiero with a stick of charcoal had drawn a map which if rough was fairly accurate of scale. In the past week Bellarion had seen and studied a half-dozen such charts and had come to read them readily.
Charcoal stick in hand, Facino expounded.
'Buonterzo lies here, and the speed at which he has moved from Firenzuola will constrain him to rest there, whatever his ultimate intention.'
Carmagnola interposed. He was a large young man, handsome, florid, and self-assured.
'He is too favourably placed for an attack from the plain. At Aggazano he holds the slopes, whence he can roll down like an avalanche.'
'You are interrupting me, Francesco.' Facino's voice was dry and cold. 'And you point out the obvious. It is not my intention to make a frontal attack; but merely to simulate one. Here is my plan: I divide the army into two battles. One of these, composed of the French horse, the civic militia, and Koenigshofen's pikes, you shall lead, Francesco, marching directly upon Aggazano, as if intending to attack. Thus you engage Buonterzo's attention, and pin him there. Meanwhile with the remainder of the forces I, myself, march up the valley of the Trebbia as far as Travo, and then, striking over the hills, descend thence upon Buonterzo's camp. That will be the moment of your simulated attack from the plain below to become real, so that whichever way Buonterzo turns, we are upon his rear.'
There was a murmur of approval from the four officers. Facino looked from one to another, smiling a little. 'No situation could be better suited for such a manœuvre.'
And now Bellarion, the chess-player and student of the art of war, greatly daring, yet entirely unconscious of it, presumed to advance a criticism.
'The weakness lies in the assumption that this situation will be maintained until action is joined.'
Carmagnola gasped, and with Koenigshofen and de Cadillac gave the young man a stare of haughty, angry amazement. Facino laughed outright, at so much impudence.
Werner von Stoffel, between whom and Bellarion a certain friendship had sprung up during the months they had spent together at Abbiategrasso, was the only one who spared his feelings, whilst Facino, having vented his scorn in laughter, condescended to explain.
'We ensure that by the speed of our onset, which will leave him no time to move. It is the need for rest that has made him take up this strong position. Its very strength is the trap in which we'll take him.' He rose, brushing the matter aside. 'Come! The details each of you can work out for himself. What imports is that we should move at once, leave camp and baggage so that we may march unhampered. Here speed is all.'
But Bellarion was so little abashed by their contempt that he actually returned to the attack.
'If I were in Buonterzo's place,' he said, 'I should have scouts along the heights from Rivergaro to Travo. Upon discovering your intentions from your movements, I should first descend upon Carmagnola's force, and, having routed it, I should come round and on, to engage your own. Thus the division of forces upon which you count for success might easily be made the cause of your ruin.'
Again there was a silence of amazement at this babe in warlike matters who thrust his opinions upon the notice of tried soldiers.
'Let us thank God,' said Carmagnola with stinging sarcasm, 'that you do not command Buonterzo's troops, or our overthrow would be assured.' And he led the rather cruel laughter, which at last silenced Bellarion.
The two battles into which the army was divided moved at dusk, leaving all baggage and even the cannon, of which Facino judged that he would have no need in operations of the character intended. Before midnight Carmagnola had reached his station within a mile of Aggazano, and Facino was at Travo, ready to breast the slopes at dawn, and from their summit descend upon Buonterzo's camp.
Meanwhile the forces rested, and Facino himself snatched a few hours' sleep in a green tent which had hurriedly been pitched for him.
Bellarion, however, too excited by the prospect of action to think of sleeping, and rendered uneasy by his apprehensions, paced by the river which murmured at that point over a broad shallow, its waters sadly shrunken by the recent drought. Here in his pacings he was joined by Stoffel.
'I did not laugh at you to-day,' the Swiss reminded him.
'I have to thank you for that courtesy,' said Bellarion gravely.
'Courtesy wasn't in my mind.'
A patriotic Swiss and an able soldier, Stoffel had the appearance of neither. He was of middle height and a gracefully slim figure which he dressed with elegance and care. His face was shaven, long and olive-skinned with a well-bridged nose and dark pensive eyes under straight black eyebrows. There was about him something mincing and delicate, but entirely pleasant, for with it all he was virile and intrepid.
'You voiced,' he said now, 'a possibility which should not have been left outside their calculations.'
'I have never seen a battle,' said Bellarion. 'But I do not need to see one to know that all strategy is bad which does not consider and provide for every likely counter-move that is discernible.'
'And the counter-move you suggested was discernible enough—at least, when you suggested it.'
Bellarion looked at the Swiss so far as the Swiss was visible in the faint radiance of that warm summer night.
'Thinking as you do, why did you not support me, Stoffel?'
'Carmagnola and de Cadillac are soldiers of repute, and so is even Koenigshofen, whilst I am but the captain of a small body of Swiss infantry whose office it is to carry out the duties imposed upon him. I do not give advice unasked, which is why even now I dare not suggest to Facino that he repair his omission to place scouts on the heights. He takes Buonterzo's vulnerability too much for granted.'
Bellarion smiled. 'Which is why you seek me; hoping that I will suggest it to him.'
'I think it would be well.'
Bellarion considered. 'We could do better, Stoffel. We could go up ourselves, and make observations.'
They came an hour or so later to the crest of the hill, and there remained on watch for some two hours until the light of dawn was strong enough to disclose to them in detail the slopes towards Aggazano. And what they saw in that cold grey light was the realisation, if not of the exact possibility Bellarion had voiced, at least of something very near akin. The difference lay in that, instead of moving first against Carmagnola and later against Facino, Buonterzo was beginning with the latter course. And Bellarion instantly perceived the advantages of this. Buonterzo could descend upon Facino from above in a position of enormous tactical advantage, and, having destroyed him, go round to meet Carmagnola on level terms of ground.
The order of the movements, however, was a detail of comparative unimportance. What mattered was that Buonterzo was actually moving to destroy severally the two battles into which Facino had divided his army. In the upland valley to the north, a couple of miles away, already breasting the gentle slopes towards the summit from which Bellarion and Stoffel observed them, swarmed the whole army of Ottone Buonterzo.
The watchers waited for no more. Down the hill again to Travo they raced and came breathless into the tent where Facino slept. Their news effectively awakened him. He wasted no time in futile raging, but, summoning his officers, issued orders instantly to marshal the men and march down the valley so as to go round to effect a reunion with Carmagnola's battle.
'It will never be effected that way.' said Bellarion quietly.
Facino scowled at him, dismissed the officers to their tasks, and, when only Stoffel remained, angrily demanded of Bellarion what the devil he meant by constantly intruding opinions that were not sought.
'If the last opinion I intruded had been weighed,' said Bellarion, 'you would not now be in this desperate case.'
'Desperate!' Facino almost exploded on the word. 'How is it desperate?'
'Come outside, my lord.'
To humour his self-sufficiency, to allow it to swell into a monstrous bubble which when fully swollen he would reduce to nothing by a single prick, Facino went with him from the tent, Stoffel gravely following. And in the open, by the river under that long line of shallow hills, Bellarion expounded the situation in the manner of a pedant lecturing a scholar.
'Already, by his present position, Buonterzo has driven the wedge too deeply between yourself and Carmagnola. A reunion of forces is no longer possible by marching down the valley. In less than an hour Buonterzo will command the heights, and observe your every movement. He will be at a centre, whence he can hurl his force along a radius to strike you at whatever point of the periphery you chance to occupy. And he will strike you with more than twice your numbers, falling upon your flank from a position of vantage which would still render him irresistible if he had half your strength. Your position, my lord, with the river on your other flank, is much as was the position of the Austrians at Morgarten when they were utterly broken by the Swiss.'
Facino's impatience and anger had gradually undergone a transmutation into wonder and dismay, and he knew not whether to be more dismayed because he had failed to perceive the situation for himself, or because it was pointed out to him by one whose knowledge of the art of war was all derived from books.
Without answering, he stood there brooding, chin in hand, striving to master his bitter vexation.
'If you had heeded me yesterday —' Bellarion was beginning, which was very human, but hardly generous, when Facino roughly cut him short.
'Peace!' he growled. 'What is done is done. We have to deal with what we find.' He turned to Stoffel. 'We must retreat across the river before Buonterzo thrusts us into it. There is a ford here above Travo at this height of water.'
'That,' ventured Stoffel, 'is but to increase our separation from Carmagnola.'
'Don't I know it?' roared Facino, now thoroughly in a rage with himself and all the world. 'Do you suppose I can perceive nothing? Let a messenger ride at once to Carmagnola, ordering him to fall back, and cross below Rivergaro. The river should be fordable just below the islands. Thus it is possible he might be able to rejoin me.'
'It should certainly be possible,' the Swiss agreed, 'if Buonterzo pursues us across the ford, intent upon delivering battle whilst the odds are so heavily in his favour.'
'I am counting upon that. We draw him on, refusing battle until Carmagnola is also across and in his rear. Thus we'll snatch victory from defeat.'
'But if he doesn't follow?' quoth Bellarion. And again, in spite of what had happened, Facino frowned his haughty impatience of this fledgling's presumption. Unintimidated, Bellarion went on: 'If you were in Buonterzo's place, would you follow, when, by remaining on this bank and marching down the valley, you might keep the two enemy battles apart so as to engage each at your convenience?'
'If Buonterzo were to do that, I should recross, and he would then have me upon his rear. After all, if his position has advantages, it has also disadvantages. However he turn he will be between two forces.'
'Which is no disadvantage to him unless the two can operate simultaneously, and this he can prevent once you have crossed the river by leaving a force to watch you and dispute your passage should you attempt to return. And for that a small force will suffice. With a hundred well-posted arbalesters I could hold that ford for a day against an enemy.'
'You could?' Facino almost laughed.
'I could, and I will if the plan commends itself to you.'
'What plan?'
It was a plan that had occurred to Bellarion even as they argued, inspired by the very arguments they had used. He had been conning the ground beyond the water, a line of shallow hills, with a grey limestone bluff crowned by a dense wood of lofty elms commanding the ford itself.
'Buonterzo should be drawn to pursue you across the river, which might easily happen if you cross in full sight of his forces and with all the appearance of disorder. An army in flight is an almost irresistible lure to an overwhelming force. It was thus that Duke William of Normandy ensured his own ultimate victory at Senlac. The slopes across the water offer no difficulty to a pursuer, and the prospect of bringing you to an engagement before Carmagnola can rejoin you should prove too seductive. It should even render Buonterzo obstinate when he finds his passage disputed. And for this, as I have said, a hundred arbalesters will suffice. In the end he must either force a passage, or decide to abandon the attempt and go instead against Carmagnola first. But before either happens, if you act promptly, you may have rejoined Carmagnola by crossing to him at Rivergaro, and then come round the hills upon Buonterzo's rear, thus turning the tables upon him. Whether he is still here, attempting to cross, or whether he is marching off down the valley, he will be equally at your mercy if you are swift. And I will undertake to hold him until sunset with a hundred crossbowmen.'
Overwhelmed with amazement by that lucid exposition of a masterly plan, Facino stood and stared at him in silence. Gravely, at last, he asked him: 'And if you fail?'
'I shall still have held him long enough to enable you to extricate yourself from the trap in which you are now caught.'
Facino's bewildered glance sought the dark, comely face of Stoffel. He smiled grimly. 'Am I a fool, Stoffel, that a boy should instruct me in the art by which I have lived? And would you trust a hundred of your Swiss to this same boy?'
'With confidence.'
But still Facino hesitated. 'You realise, Bellarion, that if the passage is forced before I arrive, it will go very hard with you?'
Bellarion shrugged in silence. Facino thought he was not understood.
'Such an action as you propose will entail great slaughter, perhaps. Buonterzo will be impatient of that, and he may terribly avenge it.'
Bellarion smiled. 'He will have to cross first, and meanwhile I shall count upon his impatience and vindictiveness to hold him here when he should be elsewhere.'
The morning sunlight falling across the valley flashed on the arms of Buonterzo's vanguard, on the heights, even as Facino's rearguard went splashing through the ford, which at its deepest did not come above the bellies of the horses or the breasts of Bellarion's hundred Swiss, who, with arbalests above their heads, to keep the cords dry, were the last to cross.
From his eyrie Buonterzo saw the main body of Facino's army straggling in disorder over the shallow hill beyond the water, and, persuaded that he had to deal with a rabble disorganized by fear, he gave the order to pursue.
A squadron of horse came zigzagging down the hillside at speed, whilst a considerable body of infantry dropped more directly.
The last stragglers of the fugitive army had vanished from view when that cavalry gained the ford and entered the water. But before the head of the column had reached midstream there was a loud hum of arbalest cords, and fifty bolts came to empty nearly as many saddles. The column checked, and, whilst it hesitated, another fifty bolts from the enemy invisible in the woods that crowned the bluff dealt fresh destruction.
There was a deal of confusion after that, a deal of raging and splashing, some seeking to turn and retreat, others, behind, who had not been exposed to that murderous hail, clamouring to go on. So that by the time Bellarion's men had drawn their cords anew and set fresh bolts, the horsemen in the water had gone neither forward nor back. And now Bellarion let them have a full hundred in a single volley, and thereby threw them into such panic that there was an end to all hesitation. They turned about, those that were still able to do so, and, driving riderless horses before them and assisting wounded comrades to regain the shore, they floundered their way back.
The effect of this upon Buonterzo was precisely that upon which Bellarion in his almost uncanny knowledge of men had counted. He was filled with fury, which he expressed to those about him denouncing the action as insensate.
From the eminence on which he sat his horse he could see that over the shallow hills across the river the disorderly flight of Facino's troops continued, and, raging at the delay in the pursuit, Buonterzo rode down the hill with the remainder of his forces.
Excited officers met him below to deafen him with facts which he had already perceived. The ford was held against them by a party of crossbowmen, rendering impossible the pursuit his potency had commanded.
'I'll show you,' Buonterzo savagely promised them, and he ordered a hundred men into the village of Travo to bring thence every door and shutter the place contained.
Close upon three hours were spent in that measure of preparation. But Buonterzo counted upon speedily making up for that lost time once the bluff were cleared of those pestilential crossbowmen.
His preparations completed, Buonterzo launched the attack, sending a body of three hundred foot to lead it, each man bearing above his head one of the cumbrous improvised shields, and trailing after him his pike, attached now to his belt.
From the summit of the bluff Bellarion looked down upon what appeared to be a solid roof of timber thrusting forward across the stream. A troop of horse was preparing to follow as soon as the pikemen should have cleared the way. Bellarion drew two thirds of his men farther off along the river. Thus, whilst lengthening the range, rendering aim less certain and less effective, at least it enabled the arbalesters to shoot at the vulnerable flank of the advancing host.
The attack was fully two thirds of the way across the ford, which may have been some two hundred yards in width, before Bellarion's men were in their new positions. He ordered a volley of twenty bolts, so as to judge the range; and although only half of these took effect, yet the demoralisation created, in men who had been conceiving themselves invulnerably sheltered, was enough to arrest them. A second volley followed along the low line of exposed flank, and, being more effective than the first, flung the column into complete disorder.
Dead men lay awash where they had fallen; wounded men were plunging in the water, shouting to their comrades for help, what time their comrades cursed and raved, rousing the echoes of that normally peaceful valley, as they had been roused before when the horsemen found themselves in similar plight. Odd shutters and doors went floating down the stream, and the continuity of the improvised roof having been broken, those immediately behind the fallen found themselves exposed now in front as well as on the flank.
A mounted officer spurred through the water, shouting a command repeatedly as he came, and menacing the disordered ranks with his sword. At last his order was understood, and the timber shields were swung from overhead to cover the flank that was being assailed. That, thought Buonterzo, should checkmate the defenders of the ford, who with such foresight had shifted their position. But scarcely was the manœuvre executed when into them came a volley from the thirty men Bellarion had left at the head of the bluff in anticipation of just such a counter-movement. Because the range here was short, not a bolt of that volley failed to take effect, and by the impression it created of the ubiquity of this invisible opponent it completed the discomfiture of the assailants. They turned, flung away their shields, and went scrambling back out of range as fast as they could breast the water. To speed them came another volley at their flanks, which claimed some victims, whilst several men in their panic got into deep water and two or three were drowned.
Livid with rage and chagrin, Buonterzo watched this second repulse. He knew from his earlier observations and from the extent of the volleys that it was the work of a negligible contingent posted to cover Facino's retreat, and his wrath was deepened by the reflection that, as a result of this delay, Facino might, if not actually escape, at least compel him now to an arduous pursuit. No farther than that could Buonterzo see, in the blindness of his rage, precisely as Bellarion had calculated. And because he could see no farther, he stood obstinately firm in his resolve to put a strong force across the river.
The sun was mounting now towards noon, and already over four hours had been spent at that infernal ford. Yet realising, despite his impatience, that speed is seldom gained by hastiness, Buonterzo now deliberately considered the measures to be taken, and he sent men for a mile or more up and down streams to seek another passage. Another hour was lost in this exploration, which proved fruitless in the end. But meanwhile Buonterzo held in readiness a force of five hundred men-at-arms in full armour, commanded by an intrepid young knight named Varallo.
'You will cross in spite of any losses,' Buonterzo instructed him. 'I compute them to number less than two hundred men, and if you are resolute you will win over without difficulty. Their bolts will not take effect save at short range, and by then you will be upon them. You are to give no quarter and make no prisoners. Put every man in that wood to the sword.'
An ineffective volley rained on breastplate and helmet at the outset, and, encouraged by this ineffectiveness, Varallo urged forward his men-at-arms. Thus he brought them steadily within a range whereat arbalest bolt could pierce their protecting steel plates. But Bellarion, whose error in prematurely loosing the first volley was the fruit of inexperience, took no chances thereafter. He ordered his men to aim at the horses.
The result was a momentary check when a half-score of stricken chargers reared and plunged and screamed in pain and terror, and flung off as many riders to drown helplessly in their armour, weighed down by it and unable to regain their feet.
But Varallo, himself scatheless, urged them on with a voice of brass, and brought them after that momentary pause of confusion to the far bank. Here another dozen horses were brought down, and two or three men directly slain by bolts before Varallo had marshalled them and led them charging up and round the shallow hill, where the ascent was easy to the wood that crowned the bluff.
The whole of Buonterzo's army straggling along the left bank of the river cheered them lustily on, and the dominant cry that rang out clearly and boldly was 'No quarter!'
That cry rang in the ears of Facino Cane, as he mounted the hilltop above and behind Buonterzo's force. He had made such good speed, acting upon Bellarion's plan, that crossing at Rivergaro he had joined Carmagnola, whom he met between there and Agazzano, and sweeping on, round, and up he had completed a circuit of some twelve miles in a bare five hours.
And here below him, at his mercy now, the strategic position of that day's dawn completely reversed, lay Buonterzo's army, held in check there by the skill and gallantry of Bellarion and his hundred Swiss. But it was clear that he had arrived barely in time to command victory, and possible that he had arrived too late to save Bellarion.
Instantly he ordered Cadillac to cleave through, and cross in a forlorn attempt to rescue the party in the wood from the slaughter obviously intended. And down the hill like an avalanche went the French horse upon an enemy too stricken by surprise to take even such scant measures of defence as the ground afforded.
Over and through them went de Cadillac, riding down scores, and hurling hundreds into the river. Through the ford his horses plunged and staggered at almost reckless speed, to turn Varallo's five hundred, who, emerging from the wood, found themselves cut off by a force of twice their strength. Back into the wood they plunged and through it, with de Cadillac following. Out again beyond they rode, and down the slope to the plain at breakneck speed. For a mile and more de Cadillac pursued them. Then, bethinking him that after all his force amounted to one third of Facino's entire army, and that his presence might be required on the main scene of action, he turned his men and rode back.
They came again by way of the wood, and along the main path running through it they found nigh upon a score of Swiss dead, all deliberately butchered, and one who still lived despite his appalling wounds, whom they brought back with them.
By the time they regained the ford, the famous Battle of Travo—as it is known to history—was all but over.
The wide breach made in Buonterzo's ranks by de Cadillac's charge was never healed. Perceiving the danger that was upon them from Facino's main army, the two broken ends of that long line went off in opposite directions, one up the valley and the other down, and it must be confessed that Buonterzo, realising the hopelessness of the position in which he had been surprised, himself led the flight of the latter and more numerous part of his army. It may have been his hope to reach the open plains beyond Rivergaro and there reform his men and make a stand that should yet retrieve the fortunes of the day. But Facino himself with his own condotta of twelve hundred men took a converging line along the heights, to head Buonterzo off at the proper moment. When he judged the moment to have arrived, Facino wheeled his long line and charged downhill upon men who were afforded in that narrow place no opportunity of assuming a proper formation.
Buonterzo and some two hundred horse, by desperate spurring, eluded the charge. The remainder amounting to upwards of a thousand men were rolled over, broken, and hemmed about, so that finally they threw down their arms and surrendered before they were even summoned to do so.
Meanwhile Koenigshofen, with the third battle into which the army had been so swiftly divided, dealt similarly with the fugitives who had attempted to ascend the valley.
Two thousand prisoners, fifteen hundred horses, a hundred baggage-carts well laden, a score of cannon besides some tons of armour and arms, was the booty that fell to Facino Cane at Travo. Of the prisoners five hundred Burgundian men-at-arms were taken into his own service. A thousand others were stripped of arms, armour, and horses, whilst the remainder, among whom were many officers and knights of condition, were held for ransom.
The battle was over, but Facino had gone off in pursuit of Buonterzo; and Carmagnola, assuming command, ordered the army to follow. They came upon their leader towards evening between Rivergaro and Piacenza, where he had abandoned the pursuit, Buonterzo having crossed the river below the islands.
Carmagnola, flushed and exultant, gave him news of the completeness of the victory and the richness of the booty.
'And Bellarion?' quoth Facino, his dark eyes grave.
De Cadillac told of the bodies in the wood; Stoffel with sorrow on his long swarthy face repeated the tale of the wounded Swiss who had since died. The fellow had reported that the men-at-arms who rode in amongst them shouting 'No quarter!' had spared no single life. There could be no doubt that Bellarion had perished with the rest.
Facino's chin sank to his breast, and the lines deepened in his face.
'It was his victory,' he said, slowly, sorrowfully. 'His was the mind that conceived the plan which turned disaster into success. His the gallantry and self-sacrifice that made the plan possible.' He turned to Stoffel who more than any other there had been Bellarion's friend. 'Take what men you need for the task, and go back to recover me his body. Bring it to Milan. The whole nation shall do honour to his ashes and his memory.'
There are men to whom death has brought a glory that would never have been theirs in life. An instance of that is afforded by the history of Bellarion at this stage.
Honest, loyal, and incapable of jealousy or other kindred meanness, Facino must have given Bellarion a due measure of credit for the victory over Buonterzo if Bellarion had ridden back to Milan beside him. But that he would have given him, as he did, a credit so full as to make the achievement entirely Bellarion's, could hardly be expected of human nature or of Facino's. A living man so extolled would completely have eclipsed the worth of Facino himself; besides which to the man who in achieving lays down his life, we can afford to be more generous—because it is less costly—than to the man who survives his achievement.
Never, perhaps, in its entire history had the Ambrosian city been moved to such a delirium of joy as that in which it now hailed the return of the victorious condottiero who had put an end to the grim menace overhanging a people already distracted by internal feuds.
News of the victory had preceded Facino, who reached Milan ahead of his army two days after Buonterzo's rout.
It had uplifted the hearts of all, from the meanest scavenger to the Duke, himself. And yet the first words Gian Maria addressed to Facino in the audience chamber of the Broletto, before the assembled court, were words of censure.
'You return with the work half done. You should have pursued Buonterzo to Parma and invested the city. This was your chance to restore it to the crown of Milan. My father would have demanded a stern account of you for this failure to garner the fruits of victory.'
Facino flushed to the temples. His jaw was thrust forward as he looked the Duke boldly and scathingly between the eyes.
'Your father, Lord Prince, would have been beside me on the battle-field to direct the operations that were to preserve his crown. Had your highness followed his illustrious example there would be no occasion now for a reproach that must recoil upon yourself. It would better become your highness to return thanks for a victory purchased at great sacrifice.'
The goggle eyes looked at him balefully until their glance faltered as usual under the dominance of the condottiero's will, the dominance which Gian Maria so bitterly resented. Ungracefully the slender yet awkward body sprawled in the great gilded chair, red leg thrown over white one.
It was della Torre, tall and dark at his master's side, who came to the Duke's assistance. 'You are a bold man, Lord Count, so to address your prince.'
'Bold, aye!' growled the Duke, encouraged by that support. 'Body of God! Bold to recklessness. One of these days ...' He broke off, the coarse lips curling in a sneer. 'But you spoke of sacrifices?' The cunning that lighted his brutishness fastened upon that. It boded, he hoped, a tale of losses that should dim the lustre of this popular idol's achievement.
Facino rendered his accounts, and it was then that he proclaimed Bellarion's part; he related how Bellarion's wit had devised the whole plan which had reversed the positions on the Trebbia, and he spoke sorrowfully of how Bellarion and his hundred Swiss had laid down their lives to make Facino's victory certain.
'I commend his memory to your highness and to the people of Milan.'
If the narrative did not deeply move Gian Maria, at least it moved the courtiers present, and more deeply still the people of Milan when it reached them later.
The outcome was that after a Te Deum for the victory, the city put on mourning for the martyred hero to whom the victory was due; and Facino commanded a Requiem to be sung in Saint Ambrose for this Salvator Patriæ, whose name, unknown yesterday, was by now on every man's lips. His origin, rearing, and personal endowments were the sole subjects of discussion. The tale of the dogs was recalled by the few who had ever heard of it and now widely diffused as an instance of miraculous powers which disposed men almost to canonise Bellarion.
Meanwhile, however, Facino returning exacerbated from that audience was confronted by his lady, white-faced and distraught.
'You sent him to his death!' was the furious accusation with which she greeted him.
He checked aghast both at the words and the tone. 'I sent him to his death!'
'You knew to what you exposed him when you sent him to hold that ford.'
'I did not send him. Himself he desired to go; himself proposed it.'
'A boy who did not know the risk he ran!'
The memory of the protest she had made against Bellarion's going rose suddenly invested with new meaning. Roughly, violently, he caught her by the wrist. His face suddenly inflamed was close to her own, the veins of his brow standing out like cords.
'A boy, you say. Was that what you found him, lady?'
Scared, but defiant, she asked him: 'What else?'
'What else? Your concern suggests that you discovered he's a man. What was Bellarion to you?'
For once he so terrified her that every sense but that of self-preservation abandoned her on the instant.
'To me?' she faltered. 'To me?'
'Aye, to you. Answer me.' There was death in his voice, and in the brutal crushing grip upon her wrist.
'What should he have been, Facino?' She was almost whimpering. 'What lewdness are you dreaming?'
'I am dreaming nothing, madam. I am asking.'
White-lipped she answered him. 'He was as a son to me.' In her affright she fell to weeping, yet could be glad of the ready tears that helped her to play the part so suddenly assumed. 'I have no child of my own. And so I took him to my empty mother's breast.'
The plaint, the veiled reproach, overlaid the preposterous falsehood. After all, if she was not old enough to be Bellarion's mother, at least she was his senior by ten years.
Facino loosed his grip, and fell back, a little abashed and ashamed.
'What else could you have supposed him to me?' she was complaining. 'Not ... not, surely, that I had taken him for my lover?'
'No,' he lied lamely. 'I was not suspecting that.'
'What then?' she insisted, playing out her part.
He stood looking at her with feverish eyes. 'I don't know,' he cried out at last. 'You distract me, Bice!' and he stamped out.
But the suspicion was as a poison that had entered his veins, and it was a moody, silent Facino who sat beside his lady at the State supper given on the following night in the old Broletto Palace. It was a banquet of welcome to the Regent of Montferrat, his nephew the Marquis Gian Giacomo, and his niece the Princess Valeria, whose visit was the result of certain recent machinations on the part of Gabriello Maria.
Gabriello Maria had lately been exercised by the fundamental weakness of Gian Maria's position, and he feared lest the victor in the conflict between Facino and Buonterzo might, in either case, become a menace to the Duchy. No less was he exercised by the ascendancy which was being obtained in Milan by the Guelphs under della Torre, an ascendancy so great that already there were rumours of a possible marriage between the Duke and the daughter of Malatesta of Rimini, who was regarded as the leader of the Guelphic party in Italy. Now Gabriello, if weak and amiable, was at least sincere in his desire to serve his brother as in his desire to make secure his own position as ducal governor. For himself and his brother he could see nothing but ultimate disaster from too great a Guelphic ascendancy.
Therefore, had he proposed an alliance between Gian Maria and his father's old ally and friend, the Ghibelline Prince of Montferrat. Gian Maria's jealous fear of Facino's popularity had favourably disposed him, and letters had been sent to Aliprandi, the Orator of Milan at Casale.
Theodore, on his side, anxious to restore to Montferrat the cities of Vercelli and Alessandria which had been wrested from it by the all-conquering Gian Galeazzo, and having also an eye upon the lordship of Genoa, once an appanage of the crown of Montferrat, had conceived that the restoration of the former should be a condition of the treaty of alliance which might ultimately lead to the reconquest of the latter.
Accordingly he had made haste, in response, to come in person to Milan that he might settle the terms of the treaty with the Duke. With him he had brought his niece and the nephew on whose behalf he ruled, who were included in Gabriello's invitation. Gabriello's aim in this last detail was to avert the threatened Malatesta marriage. A marriage between the Duke and the Princess of Montferrat might be made by Theodore an absolute condition of that same treaty, if his ambition for his niece were properly fired.
At the banquet that night, Gabriello watched his brother, who sat with Theodore on his right and the Princess Valeria on his left, for signs from which he might calculate the chances of bringing the secret part of his scheme to a successful issue. And signs were not wanting to encourage him. It was mainly to the Princess that Gian Maria addressed himself. His glance devoured the white beauty of her face with its crown of red-gold hair; his pale goggle eyes leered into the depths of her own which were so dark and inscrutable, and he discoursed the while, loud and almost incessantly, in an obvious desire to dazzle and to please.
And perhaps because the lady remained unmoved, serenely calm, a little absent almost, and seldom condescending even to smile at his gross sallies, he was piqued into greater efforts for her entertainment, until at last he blundered upon a topic which obviously commanded her attention. It was the topic of the hour.
'There sits Facino Cane, Count of Biandrate,' he informed her. 'That square-faced fellow yonder, beside the dark lady who is his countess. An overrated upstart, all puffed up with pride in an achievement not his own.'
The phrase drew the attention of the Marquis Theodore.
'But if not his own, whose, then, the achievement, highness?'
'Why a fledgling's, one whom he claims for his adoptive son.' The adjective was stressed with sarcasm. 'A fellow named Bellarion.'
'Bellarion, eh?' The Regent betrayed interest. So, too did the Princess. For the first time she faced her odious host. Meanwhile Gian Maria ran on, his loud voice audible even to Facino, as he no doubt intended.
'The truth is that by his rashness Facino was all but outfought, when this Bellarion showed him a trick by which he might turn the tables on Buonterzo.'
'A trick?' said she, in an odd voice, and Gian Maria, overjoyed to have won at last her attention, related in detail the strategy by which Facino's victory had been snatched.
'A trick, as your highness said,' was her comment. 'Not a deed of arms in which there was a cause for pride.'
Gian Maria stared at her in surprise, whilst Theodore laughed aloud.
'My niece is romantic. She reads the poets, and from them conceives of war as a joyous joust, or a game of chivalry, with equal chances and a straightforward encounter.'
'Why, then,' laughed the Duke, 'the tale should please you, madonna, of how with a hundred men this rascal held the ford against Buonterzo's army for as long as the trick's success demanded.'
'He did that?' she asked, incredulous.
'He did more. He laid down his life in doing it. He and his hundred were massacred in cold blood. That is why on Wednesday, at Saint Ambrose, a Requiem Mass is to be sung for him who in the eyes of my people deserves a place in the Calendar beside Saint George.'
His aim in this high praise was less to bestow laurels upon Bellarion than to strip them from Facino. 'And I am not sure that the people are wrong.Vox populi, vox Dei. This Bellarion was oddly gifted, oddly guarded.' In illustration of this he passed on to relate that incident which had come to be known by then in Milan as 'The Miracle of the Dogs.' He told the tale without any shame at the part he had played, without any apparent sense that to hunt human beings with hounds was other than a proper sport for a prince.
As she listened, she was conscious only of horror of this monstrous boy, so that the flesh of her arm shrank under the touch of his short, broad-jewelled paw, from which the finger-nails had been all but entirely gnawed. Anon, however, in the solitude of the handsome chamber assigned to her, she came to recall and weigh the things the Duke had said.
This Bellarion had laid down his life in the selfless service of adoptive father and country, like a hero and a martyr. She could understand that in one of whom her knowledge was what it was of Bellarion as little as she could understand the miracle of the dogs.
That Requiem Mass at Saint Ambrose's for the repose of the soul of Bellarion was never sung. And this because, whilst the bells were solemnly tolling in summons to the faithful, Messer Bellarion, himself, very much in the flesh, and accompanied by Werner von Stoffel, who had been sent to recover his body, marched into the city of Milan by the Ticinese Gate at the head of some seventy Swiss arbalesters, the survivors of his hundred.
There was some delay in admitting them. When that dusty company came in sight, swinging rhythmically along, in steel caps and metal-studded leather tunics, crossbows shouldered, the officer of the gate assumed them to be one of the marauding bands which were continually harassing the city by their incursions.
By the time that Bellarion had succeeded in persuading him of his identity, rumour had already sped before him with the amazing news. Hence, in a measure as he penetrated further into the city, the greater was his difficulty in advancing through the crowd which turned out to meet him and to make him acquainted with the fame to which his supposed death had hoisted him.
In the square before the cathedral, the crowd was so dense that he could hardly proceed at all. The bells had ceased. For news of his coming had reached Saint Ambrose, and the intended service was naturally abandoned. This Bellarion deplored, for a sermon on his virtues would have afforded him an entertainment vouchsafed to few men.
At last he gained the Broletto and the courtyard of the Arrengo, which was thronged almost as densely as the square outside. Thronged, too, were the windows overlooking it, and in the loggia on the right Bellarion perceived the Duke himself, standing between the tall, black, saturnine della Torre and the scarlet Archbishop of Milan, and, beside the Archbishop, the Countess Beatrice, a noble lady sheathed in white samite with black hair fitting as close and regularly to her pale face as a cap of ebony. She was leaning forward, one hand upon the parapet, the other waving a scarf in greeting.
Bellarion savoured the moment critically, like an epicure in life's phenomena. Fra Serafino rightly described the event as one of those many friendly contrivings of Fortune, as a result of which he came ultimately to be known as Bellarion the Fortunate.
Similarly he savoured the moment when he stood before the Duke and his assembled court in the great frescoed chamber known as the Hall of Galeazzo, named after that son of Matteo Visconti who was bornad cantu galli.
Facino, himself, had fetched him thither from the court of the Arrengo, and he stood now dusty and travel-stained, in steel cap and leather tunic, still leaning upon the eight-foot halbert which had served him as a staff. Calm and unabashed under the eyes of that glittering throng, he rendered his account of this fresh miracle—as it was deemed—to which he owed his preservation. And the account was as simple as that which had explained to Facino the miracle of the dogs.
When Buonterzo's men-at-arms had forced the passage of the ford, Bellarion had been on the lower part of the bluff with some two thirds of his band. He had climbed at once to the summit, so as to conduct the thirty men he had left there to the shelter on the southern slope. But he came too late. The vindictive soldiers of Buonterzo were already pursuing odd survivors through the trees to the cry of 'No quarter!' To succour them being impossible, Bellarion conceived it his duty to save the men who were still with him. Midway down the wooded farther slope he had discovered, at a spot where the descent fell abruptly to a ledge, a cave whose entrance was overgrown and dissembled by a tangle of wild vine and jessamine. Thither he now led them at the double. The cave burrowed deeply into the limestone rock.
'We replaced,' he related, 'the trailing plants which our entrance had disturbed, and retired into the depths of the cave to await events, just as the first of the horsemen topped the summit. From the edge of the wood they surveyed the plain below. Seeing it empty, they must have supposed that those they had caught and slain composed the entire company which had harassed them. They turned, and rode back, only to return again almost at once, their force enormously increased as it seemed to us who could judge only by sounds.
'I realise now that in reality they were in flight before the French cavalry which had been sent across to rescue us.
'For an hour or more after their passage we remained in our concealment. At last I sent forth a scout, who reported a great body of cavalry advancing from the Nure. This we still assumed to be Buonterzo's horse brought back by news of Facino's real movements. For another two hours we remained in our cave, and then at last I climbed to the summit of the bluff, whence I could survey the farther bank of the Trebbia. To my amazement I found it empty, and then I became aware of men moving among the trees near at hand, and presently found myself face to face with Werner von Stoffel, who told me of the battle fought and won whilst we had lain in hiding.'
He went on to tell them how they had crossed the river and pushed on to Travo in a famished state. They found the village half wrecked by the furious tide of war that had swept over it. Yet some food they obtained, and towards evening they set out again so as to overtake Facino's army. But at San Giorgio, which they reached late at night, and where they were constrained to lie, they found that Facino had not gone that way, and that, therefore, they were upon the wrong road. Next morning, consequently, they decided to make their own way back to Milan.
They crossed the Po at Piacenza, only to find themselves detained by the Scotti for having marched into the town without permission. The Scotti knew of the battle fought, but not of its ultimate issue. Buonterzo was in flight; but he might rally. And so, for two days Bellarion and his little band were kept in Piacenza until it was definitely known there that Buonterzo's rout was complete. Then, at last, his departure was permitted, since to have detained him longer must provoke the resentment of the victorious Facino.
'We have made haste on the march since,' he concluded, 'and I rejoice to have arrived at least in time to prevent a Requiem, which would have been rendered a mockery by my obstinate tenacity to life.'
Thus, on a note of laughter, he closed a narrative that was a model of lucid brevity and elegant, Tuscan delivery.
But there were two among the courtly crowd who did not laugh. One was Francesco Busone of Carmagnola, Facino's handsome, swaggering lieutenant, who looked sourly upon this triumph of an upstart in whom he had already feared a rival. The other was the Princess Valeria, who, herself unseen in that concourse, discovered in this narrative only an impudent confession of trickery from one whom she had known as a base trickster. Almost she suspected him of having deliberately contrived that men should believe him dead to the end that by this sensational resurrection he should establish himself as the hero of the hour.
Gabriello Maria, elegant and debonair, came to shake him by the hand, and after Gabriello came the Duke with della Torre, to praise him almost fawningly as the Victor of Travo.
'That title, Lord Duke, belongs to none but my Lord Facino.'
'Modesty, sir,' said della Torre, 'is a garment that becomes a hero.'
'If my Lord Facino did not wear it, sir, you could not lie under your present error. He must have magnified to his own cost my little achievement.'
But they would not have him elude their flattery, and when at last they had done with him he was constrained to run the gauntlet of the sycophantic court, which must fawn upon a man whom the Duke approved. And here to his surprise he found the Marquis Theodore, who used him very civilly and with no least allusion to their past association.
At last Bellarion escaped, and sought the apartments of Facino. There he found the Countess alone. She rose from her seat in the loggia when he entered, and came towards him so light and eagerly that she seemed almost to drift across the floor.
'Bellarion!'
There was a flush on her usually pale cheeks, a glitter in her bright slanting eyes, and she came holding out both hands in welcome.
'Bellarion!' she cried again, and her voice throbbed like the plucked chords of a lute.
Instantly he grew uneasy. 'Madonna!' He bowed stiffly, took one of her proffered hands, and bore it formally to his lips. 'To command!'
'Bellarion!' This time that melodious voice was pitched reproachfully. She seized him by his leather-clad arms, and held him so, confronting him.
'Do you know that I have mourned you dead? That I thought my heart would break? That my own life seemed to have gone out with yours? Yet all that you can say to me now—in such an hour as this—so cold and formally is "to command"! Of what are you made, Bellarion?'
'And of what are you made, madonna?' Roughly almost, he disengaged himself from her grip. He was very angry, and anger was a rare emotion in his cold, calculating nature. 'O God! Is there no loyalty in all this world? Below, there was the Duke to nauseate me with flattery which was no more than base disloyalty to my lord. I escape from it to meet here a disloyalty which wounds me infinitely more.'
She had fallen back a little, and momentarily turned aside. Suddenly she faced him again, breathless and very white. Her long narrow eyes seemed to grow longer and narrower. Her expression was not nice.
'Why, what are you assuming?' There was now no music in her voice. It was harshly metallic. 'Has soldiering made you fatuous by chance?' She laughed unpleasantly, as upon a sudden scorn-provoking revelation. 'I see! I see! You thought that I ...! You thought ...! Why, you fool! You poor, vain fool! Shall I tell Facino what you thought, and how you have dared to insult me with it?'
He stood bewildered, aghast, and indignant. He sought to recall her exact expressions. 'You used words, madonna ...' he was beginning hotly when suddenly he checked, and when he resumed the indignation had all gone out of him. 'What you have said is very just. I am a fool, of course. You will give me leave?'
He made to go, but she had not yet done with him.
'I used words, you say. What words? What words that could warrant your assumptions? I said that I had mourned you. It is true. As a mother might have mourned you. But you ... You could think ...' She swung past him, towards the open loggia. 'Go, sir. Go wait elsewhere for my lord.'
He departed without another word, not indeed to await Facino, whom he did not see again until the morrow, a day which for him was very full.
Betimes he was sought by the Lord Gabriello Maria, who came at the request of the Commune of Milan to conduct him to the Ragione Palace, there to receive the thanks of the representatives of the people.
'I desire no thanks, and I deserve none.' His manner was almost sullen.
'You'll receive them none the less. To disregard the invitation were ungracious.'
And so the Lord Gabriello carried off Bellarion, the son of nobody, to the homage of the city. In the Communal Palace he listened to a recital by the President of his shining virtues and still more shining services, in token of their appreciation of which the fathers of the Ambrosian city announced that they had voted him the handsome sum of ten thousand gold florins. In other words, they had divided between himself and Facino the sum they had been intending to award the latter for delivering the city from the menace of Buonterzo.
After that, and in compliance with the request of the Council, the rather bewildered Bellarion was conducted by his noble escort to receive the accolade of knighthood. Empanoplied for the ceremony in the suit of black armour which had been Boucicault's gift to him, he was conducted into the court of the Arrengo, where Gian Maria in red and white attended by the nobility of Milan awaited him. But it was Facino, very grave and solemn, who claimed the right to bestow the accolade upon one who had so signally and loyally served him as an esquire. And when Bellarion rose from his knees, it was the Countess of Biandrate, at her husband's bidding, who came to buckle the gold spurs to the heels of the new knight.
For arms, when invited to choose a device, he announced that he would adopt a variant of Facino's own: a dog's head argent on a field azure.
At the conclusion a herald proclaimed a joust to be held in the Castle of Porta Giovia on the morrow when the knight Bellarion would be given opportunity of proving publicly how well he deserved the honour to which he had acceded.
It was a prospect which he did not relish. He knew himself without skill at arms, in which he had served only an elementary apprenticeship during those days at Abbiategrasso.
Nor did it increase his courage that Carmagnola should come swaggering towards him, his florid countenance wreathed in smiles of simulated friendliness, to claim for the morrow the honour of running a course and breaking a lance with his new brother-knight.
He smiled, nevertheless, as falsely as Carmagnola himself.
'You honour me, Ser Francesco. I will do my endeavour.'
He noted the gleam in Carmagnola's eyes, and went, so soon as he was free, in quest of Stoffel, with whom his friendship had ripened during their journey from Travo.
'Tell me, Werner, have you ever seen Carmagnola in the tilt-yard?'
'Once, a year ago, in the Castle of Porta Giovia.'
'Ha! A great hulking bull of a man.'
'You describe him. He charges like a bull. He bore off the prize that day against all comers. The Lord of Genestra had his thigh broken by him.'
'So, so!' said Bellarion, very thoughtful. 'It's my neck he means to break to-morrow. I read it in his smile.'
'A swaggerer,' said Stoffel. 'He'll take a heavy fall one day.'
'Unfortunately that day is not to-morrow.'
'Are you to ride against him, then?' There was concern in Stoffel's voice.
'So he believes. But I don't. I have a feeling that to-morrow I shall not be in case to ride against any one. I have a fever coming on: the result of hardships suffered on the way from Travo. Nature will compel me, I suspect, to keep my bed to-morrow.'
Stoffel considered him with grave eyes. 'Are you afraid?'
'What else?'
'And you confess it?'
'It asks courage. Which shows that whilst afraid I am not a coward. Life is full of paradox, I find.'
Stoffel laughed. 'No need to protest your courage to me. I remember Travo.'
'There I had a chance to succeed. Here I have none. And who accepts such odds is not a brave man, but a fool. I don't like broken bones; and still less a broken reputation. I mean to keep what I've won against the day when I may need it. Reputation, Stoffel, is a delicate bubble, easily pricked. To be unhorsed in the lists is no proper fate for a hero.'
'You're a calculating rogue!'