Messer Beppo interrupted him with a laugh.
'The necessity is no more present now than it has ever been. Facino Cane will lie as much at your mercy to-morrow night as he has lain on any night in all these weeks of your inaction.'
'What do you say?' breathed Vignate. 'At our mercy?' The three of them stared at him.
'At your mercy. A bold stroke and it is done. The line drawn out on a periphery some eighteen miles in length is very tenuous. There are strong posts at Marengo, Aulara, Casalbagliano, and San Michele.'
'Yes, yes. This we know.'
'Marengo and San Michele have been weakened since yesterday, to strengthen the line from Aulara to Casalbagliano in view of the discovery that Alessandria has been fed from there. Aulara and Casalbagliano are the posts farthest from Pavone, which is the strongest post of all and Facino's quarters.'
Vignate's eyes began to kindle. He was sufficiently a soldier, after all, to perceive whither Messer Beppo was going. 'Yes, yes,' he muttered.
'Under cover of night a strong force could creep out by the northern gate, so as to be across the Tamaro at the outset, and going round by the river fall upon Pavone almost before an alarm could be raised. Before supports could be brought up you would have broken the force that is stationed there. The capture of Facino and his chief captains, who are with him, would be as certain as that the sun is rising now. After that, your besiegers would be a body without a head.'
Followed a silence. Vignate licked his thick lips as he sat huddled there considering.
'By God!' he said, and again, after further thought, 'By God!' He looked at his tall captain. The captain tightened his lips and nodded.
'It is well conceived,' he said.
'Well conceived!' cried Beppo on that note of ready laughter. 'No better conception is possible in your present pass. You snatch victory from defeat.'
His confidence inspired them visibly. Then Vignate asked a question:
'What is Facino's force at Pavone? Is it known?'
'Some four or five hundred men. No more. With half that number you could overpower them if you took them by surprise.'
'I do not run unnecessary risks. I'll take six hundred.'
'Your lordship has decided, then?' said the tall captain.
'What else, Rocco?'
Rocco fingered his bearded chin. 'It should succeed. I'd be easier if I were sure the enveloping movement could be made without giving the alarm.'
Unbidden the audacious Messer Beppo broke into their counsel.
'Aye, that's the difficulty. But it can be overcome. That is where I can serve you; I and my three hundred lances. I move them round during the day wide of the lines and bring up behind Pavone, at Pietramarazzi. At the concerted hour I push them forward, right up against Facino's rear, and at the moment that you attack in front I charge from behind, and the envelopment is made.'
'But how to know each other in the dark?' said Rocco. 'Your force and ours might come to grips, each supposing the other to be Facino's.'
'My men shall wear their shirts over their armour if yours will do the same.'
'Lord of Heaven!' said Vignate. 'You have it all thought out.'
'That is my way. That is how I succeed.'
Vignate heaved himself up. On his broad face it was to be read that he had made up his mind.
'Let it be to-night, then. There is no gain in delay, nor can our stomachs brook it. You are to be depended upon, Captain Farfalla?'
'If we come to terms,' said Beppo easily. 'I'm not in the business for the love of adventure.'
Vignate's countenance sobered from its elation. His eyes narrowed. He became the man of affairs. 'And your terms?' quoth he.
'A year's employment for myself and my condotta at a monthly stipend of fifteen thousand gold florins.'
'God of Heaven!' Vignate ejaculated. 'Is that all?' And he laughed scornfully.
'It is for your lordship to refuse.'
'It is for you to be reasonable. Fifteen thou ... Besides, I don't want your condotta for a year.'
'But I prefer the security of a year's employment. It is security for you, too, of a sort. You'll be well served.'
'Ten thousand florins for your assistance in this job,' said Vignate firmly.
'I'll be wishing you good morning,' said Messer Beppo as firmly. 'I know my value.'
'You take advantage of my urgent needs,' Vignate complained.
'And you forget what you already owe me for having risked my neck in coming here.'
After that they haggled for a full half-hour, and if guarantees of Messer Beppo's good faith had been lacking, they had it in the tenacity with which he clung to his demands.
At long length the Lord of Lodi yielded, but with an ill grace and with certain mental reservations notwithstanding the bond drawn up by his monkish secretary. With that parchment in his pocket, Messer Beppo went gaily to breakfast with the Lord Vignate, and thereafter took his leave, and slipped out of the city to carry to the Cardinal at Desana the news of the decision and to prepare for his own part in it.
It was a dazzling morning, all sign of the storm having been swept from the sky, and the air being left the cleaner for its passage.
Messer Beppo smiled as he walked, presumably because on such a morning it was good to live. He was still smiling when towards noon of that same day he strode unannounced into Facino's quarters at Pavone.
Facino was at dinner with his three captains, and the Countess faced her lord at the foot of the board. He looked up as the newcomer strode to the empty place at the table.
'You're late, Bellarion. We have been awaiting you and your report. Was there any attempt last night to put a victualling party across the lines?'
'There was,' said Bellarion.
'And you caught them?'
'We caught them. Yes. Nevertheless, the mule-train and the victuals won into Alessandria.'
They looked at him in wonder. Carmagnola scowled upon him. 'How, sir? And this in spite of your boast that you caught them?'
Bellarion fixed him with eyes that were red and rather bleary from lack of sleep.
'In spite of it,' he agreed. 'The fact is, that mule-train was conducted into Alessandria by myself.' And he sat down in the silence that followed.
'Do you say that you've been into Alessandria?'
'Into the very citadel. I had breakfast with the squat Lord of Lodi.'
'Will you explain yourself?' cried Facino.
Bellarion did so.
The sequel you already guess, and its telling need not keep us long.
That night Vignate and six hundred men, wearing their shirts over their armour, rode into as pretty an ambush about the village of Pavone as is to be found in the history of such operations. It was a clear night, and, although there was no moon, there was just light enough from the starflecked sky to make it ideal, from the point of view of either party, for the business in hand.
There was some rough fighting for perhaps a half-hour, and a good deal of blood was shed, for Vignate's men, infuriated at finding themselves trapped, fought viciously and invited hard knocks in return.
Bellarion in the handsome armour of Boucicault's gift, but without a headpiece, to which as yet he had been unable to accustom himself, held aloof from the furious scrimmage, just as he had held aloof from the jousts in Milan. He had a horror of personal violence and manhandling, which some contemporaries who detected it have accounted a grave flaw in his nature. Nevertheless, one blow at least for his side was forced upon him, and all things considered it was a singularly appropriate blow. It was towards the end of the fight, just as the followers of Vignate began to own defeat and throw down their weapons, that one man, all cased in armour and with a headpiece whose peaked vizor gave him the appearance of some monstrous bird, came charging furiously at the ring of enemies that confined him. He was through and over them in that terrific charge, and the way of escape was clear before him save for the aloof Bellarion, who of his own volition would have made no move to check that impetuous career. But the fool must needs drive straight at Bellarion through the gloom. Bellarion pulled his horse aside, and by that swerve avoided the couched lance which he suspected rather than saw. Then, rising in his stirrups as that impetuous knight rushed by, he crashed the mace with which he had armed himself upon the peaked vizor, and rolled his assailant from the saddle.
Thereafter he behaved with knightly consideration. He got down from his horse, and relieved the fallen warrior of his helmet, so as to give him air, which presently revived him. By the usages of chivalry the man was Bellarion's prisoner.
The fight was over. Already men with lanterns were going over the meadow which had served for battle-ground; and into the village of Pavone, to the great alarm of its rustic inhabitants, the disarmed survivors of Vignate's force, amounting still to close upon five hundred, were being closely herded by Facino's men. Through this dense press Bellarion conducted his prisoner, in the charge of two Burgundians.
In the main room of Facino's quarters the two first confronted each other in the light. Bellarion laughed as he looked into that flat, swarthy countenance with the pouting lips that were frothing now with rage.
'You filthy, venal hound! You've sold yourself to the highest bidder! Had I known it was you, you might have slit my throat or ever I would have surrendered.'
Facino, in the chair to which his swathed leg confined him, and Carmagnola, who had come but a moment ago to report the engagement at an end, stared now at Bellarion's raging prisoner, in whom they recognised Vignate. And meanwhile Bellarion was answering him.
'I was never for sale, my lord. You are not discerning. I was my Lord Facino's man when I sought you this morning in Alessandria.'
Vignate looked at him, and incredulity was tempering the hate of his glance.
'It was a trick!' He could hardly believe that a man should have dared so much. 'You are not Farfalla, captain of fortune?'
'My name is Bellarion.'
'It's the name of a trickster, then, a cheat, a foul, treacherous hind, who imposed upon me with lies.' He looked past his captor at Facino, who was smiling. 'Is this how you fight, Facino?'
'Merciful God!' Facino laughed. 'Are you to prate of chivalry and knight-errantry, you faithless brigand! Count it against him, Bellarion, when you fix his ransom. He is your prisoner. If he were mine I'd not enlarge him under fifty thousand ducats. His people of Lodi should find the money, and so learn what it means to harbour such a tyrant.'
Savage eyes glowered at Facino. Pouting lips were twisted in vicious hate. 'Pray God, Facino, that you never fall prisoner of mine.'
Bellarion tapped his shoulder, and he tapped hard. 'I do not like you, Messer de Vignate. You're a fool, and the world is troubled already by too many of your kind. So little am I venal that from a sense of duty to mankind I might send your head to the Duke of Milan you betrayed, and so forgo the hundred thousand ducats ransom you're to pay to me.'
Vignate's mouth fell open.
'Say nothing more,' Bellarion admonished him. 'What you've said so far has already cost you fifty thousand ducats. Insolence is a costly luxury in a prisoner.' He turned to the attendant Burgundians. 'Take him above-stairs, strip off his armour, and bind him securely.'
'Why, you inhuman barbarian! I've surrendered to you. You have my word.'
'Your word!' Bellarion loosed a laugh that was like a blow in the face. 'Gian Galeazzo Visconti had your word, yet before he was cold you were in arms against his son. I'll trust my bonds rather than your word, my lord.' He waved them out, and as he turned, Facino and Carmagnola saw that he was quivering.
'Trickster and betrayer, eh! And to be called so by such a Judas!'
Thus he showed what had stirred him. Yet not quite all. They were not to guess that he could have borne the epithets with equanimity if they had not reminded him of other lips that had uttered them.
'Solace yourself with the ransom, boy. And you're not modest, faith! A hundred thousand! Well, well!' Facino laughed. 'You were in luck to take Vignate prisoner.'
'In luck, indeed,' Carmagnola curtly agreed. Then turned to face Facino. 'And so, my lord, the affair is happily concluded.'
'Concluded?' There was derision in Bellarion's interjection. 'Why, sir, the affair has not yet begun. This was no more than the prelude.'
'Prelude to what?'
'To the capture of Alessandria. It's to be taken before daylight.'
They stared at him, and Facino was frowning almost in displeasure.
'You said nothing of this.'
'I thought it would be clear. Why do I lure Vignate to make acamisadefrom Alessandria with six hundred men wearing their shirts over their arms, to be met here by another three hundred under Captain Farfalla similarly bedecked? Nine hundred horsemen, or thereabouts, with their shirts over their arms will ride back in triumph to Alessandria in the dim light of dawn. And the jubilant garrison will lift up its gates to receive them.'
'You intended that?' said Facino, when at last he found his voice.
'What else? Is it not a logical consummation? You should break your morning fast in Alessandria, my lord.'
Facino, the great captain, looked almost with reverence at this fledgling in the art of war.
'By God, boy! You should go far. At Travo you showed your natural talent for this game of arms. But this ...'
'Shall we come to details?' said Bellarion to remind them that time was precious.
Little, however, remained to be concerted. By Bellarion's contriving the entire condotta was waiting under arms. Facino offered Bellarion command of what he called the white-shirts, to be supported by Carmagnola with the main battle. Bellarion, however, thought that Carmagnola should lead the white-shirts.
'Theirs will be the honour of the affair,' Facino reminded him. 'I offer it to you as your due.'
'Let Messer Carmagnola have it. What fighting there may be will fall to the lot of the pretended returning camisaders when the garrison discovers the imposture. That is a business which Messer Carmagnola understands better than I do.'
'You are generous, sir,' said Carmagnola.
Bellarion looked sharply to see if he were sneering. But for once Carmagnola was obviously sincere.
As Bellarion had planned, so the thing fell out.
In the grey light of breaking day, creeping pallid and colourless as the moonstone over the meadows about Alessandria, the anxious watchers from the walls beheld a host approaching, whose white-shirts announced them for Vignate and his raiders. Down went drawbridge, up portcullis, to admit them. Over the timbers of the bridge they thundered, under the deep archway of the gatehouse they streamed, and the waiting soldiery of Vignate deafened the ears of the townsfolk with their cheers, which abruptly turned to cries of rage and fear. For the camisaders were amongst them, beating them down and back, breaking a way into the gatehouse, assuming possession of the machinery that controlled drawbridge and portcullis, and spreading themselves out into the square within to hold the approaches of the gate. Their true quality was at last revealed, and in the tall armoured man on the tall horse who led and directed them Francesco Busone of Carmagnola was recognised by many.
And now as the daylight grew, another host advanced upon the city, the main battle of Facino's army. This was followed by yet a third, a force detailed to escort the disarmed camisaders of Vignate who were being brought back prisoners.
When two hours later Facino broke his fast in the citadel, as Bellarion had promised him that he should, with his officers about him, and his Countess, her beauty all aglow, at the table's foot, there was already peace and order in the captured city.
The Knight Bellarion rode alone in the hot glow of an August afternoon through the moist and fertile meadowland between Alessandria and San Michele. He was dejected by the sterility of worldly achievement and mourned the futility of all worldly endeavour. In endeavour, itself, as he had to admit from his own experience, there was a certain dynamic entertainment, affording an illusion of useful purpose. With achievement the illusion was dispelled. The purpose grasped was so much water in the hands. Man's greatest accomplishment was to produce change. Restlessness abode in him none the less because no one state could be shown to be better than another. The only good in life was study, because study was an endeavour that never reached fulfilment. It busied a man to the end of his days, and it aimed at the only true reality in all this world of shams and deceits.
Messer Bellarion conceived that in abandoning the road to Pavia and Master Chrysolaras he had missed his way in life. Nay, further, his first false step had been taken when driven by that heresy of his, rooted in ignorance and ridiculous, he had quitted the monastery at Cigliano. In conventual endeavour, after all, there was a definite purpose. There, mortal existence was regarded as no more than the antechamber to real life which lay in the hereafter; a brief novitiate wherein man might prepare his spirit for Eternity. By contrast with that definite, peaceful purpose, this world of blindly striving, struggling, ever-restless men, who addressed themselves to their span of mortal existence as if it were to endure forever, was no better, no more purposeful, and of no more merit in its ultimate achievement, than a clot of writhing earthworms.
Thus Messer Bellarion, riding by sparkling waters in the dappled shade of poplars standing stark against the polished azure of the summer sky, and the very beauty with which God had dressed the world made man's defilement of it the more execrable in his eyes.
Emerging from the screen of poplars, he emerged also from his gloomy reflections, dragged thence by the sight of a lady on a white horse that was gaily caparisoned in blue and silver. She was accompanied by a falconer and attended by two grooms whose liveries in the same colours announced them of the household of Messer Facino Cane, Count of Biandrate, and now by right of conquest and self-election Tyrant of Alessandria. For in accepting his tacit dismissal from the Duke of Milan, Facino had thrown off his allegiance to all Visconti and played now, at last, for his own strong hand.
Bellarion would have turned another way. It had become a habit with him whenever he espied the Countess. But the lady hailed him, consigning the hooded falcon on her wrist into the keeping of her falconer, who with the grooms fell back to a respectful distance as Bellarion, reluctantly obedient, approached.
'If you're for home, Bellarion, we'll ride together.'
Uncomfortable, he murmured a gratified assent that sounded as false as he intended that it should.
She looked at him sideways as they moved on together. She spoke of hawking. Here was fine open country for the sport. A flight could be followed for miles in any direction, moving almost as directly along the ground as the birds moved in the air above. Yet sport that day had been provokingly sluggish, and quarries had been sought in vain. It would be the heat, she opined, which kept the birds under cover.
In silence he jogged beside her, letting her prate, until at last she too fell silent. Then, after a spell, with a furtive sidelong glance from under her long lashes, she asked him a question in a small voice.
'You are angry with me, Bellarion?'
He was startled, but recovered instantly. 'That were a presumption, madonna.'
'In you it might be a condescension. You are so aloof these days. You have avoided me as persistently as I have sought you.'
'Could I suppose you sought me?'
'You might have seen.'
'If I had not deemed it wiser not to look.'
She sighed a little. 'You make it plain that it is not in you to forgive.'
'That does not describe me. I bear no malice to any living man or woman.'
'But what perfection! I wonder you could bear to stray from Heaven!' It was no more than an impulsive display of her claws. Instantly she withdrew them. 'No, no. Dear God, I do not mean to mock at you. But you're so cold, so placid! That is how you come to be the great soldier men are calling you. But it will not make men love you, Bellarion.'
Bellarion smiled. 'I don't remember to have sought men's love.'
'Nor women's, eh?'
'The fathers taught me to avoid it.'
'The fathers! The fathers!' Her mockery was afoot again. 'In God's name, why ever did you leave the fathers?'
'It was what I was asking myself when I came upon you.'
'And you found no answer when you saw me?'
'None, madonna.'
Her face whitened a little, and her breath came shorter.
'You're blunt!' she said, and uttered a little laugh that was hard and unpleasant.
He explained himself. 'You are my Lord Facino's wife.'
'Ah!' Her expression changed again. 'I knew we should have that. But if I were not? If I were not?' She faced him boldly, in a sudden eagerness that he deemed piteous.
The solemnity of his countenance increased. He looked straight before him. 'In all this idle world there is naught so idle as to consider what we might be if it were different.'
She had no answer for a while, and they rode a little way side by side in silence, her attendants following out of earshot.
'You'll forgive, I think, when I explain,' said she at last.
'Explain?' he asked her, mystified.
'That night in Milan ... the last time we spoke together. You thought I used you cruelly.'
'No more cruelly than I deserve to be used in a world where it is expected of a man that he shall be more sensible to beauty than to honour.'
'I knew it was honour made you harsh,' she said, and reached forth a hand to touch his own where it lay upon the pommel. 'I understood. I understand you better than you think, Bellarion. Could I have been angry with you then?'
'You seemed angry.'
'Seemed. That is the word. It was necessary to seem. You did not know that Facino was behind the arras that masked the little door.'
'I hoped that you did not.'
It was like a blow between the eyes. She snatched away her hand. Brows met over staring, glaring eyes and her nether lip was caught in sharp white teeth.
'You knew!' she gasped at last, and her voice held all the emotions.
'The arras quivered, and there was no air. That drew my eyes, and I saw the point of my lord's shoe protruding from the curtain's hem.'
Her face held more wickedness in that moment than he would have thought possible to find wed with so much perfection.
'When ... When did you see? Was it before you spoke to me as you did?'
'Your thoughts do me poor credit. If I had seen in time should I have been quite so plain and uncompromising in my words? I did not see until after I had spoken.'
The explanation nothing mollified her. 'Almost I hoped you'd say that the words you used, you used because you know of Facino's presence.'
After that, he thought, no tortuous vagaries of the human mind should ever again astonish him.
'You hoped I would confess myself a bloodless coward who uses a woman as a buckler against a husband's righteous wrath!'
As she made no answer, he continued: 'Each of us has been defrauded in his hopes. Mine were that you did not suspect Facino's presence, and that you spoke from a heart at last aroused to loyalty.'
It took her a moment fully to understand him. Then her face flamed scarlet, and unshed tears of humiliation and anger blurred her vision. But her voice, though it quivered a little, was derisive.
'You spare me nothing,' she said. 'You strip me naked in your brutal scorn, and then fling mud upon me. I have been your friend, Bellarion—aye, and more. But that is over now.'
'Madonna, if I have offended ...'
'Let be.' She became imperious. 'Listen now. You must not continue with my Lord Facino because where he goes thither must I go, too.'
'You ask me to take my dismissal from his service?' He was incredulous.
'I beg it ... a favour, Bellarion. It is yourself have brought things to the pass where I may not meet you without humiliation. And continue daily to meet you I will not.' Her ready wicked temper flared up. 'You'll go, or else I swear ...'
'Swear nothing,' he thundered, very suddenly aroused. 'Threaten, and you bind me to Facino hand and foot.'
Instantly she was all soft and pleading. A fool she was. Nevertheless—indeed, perhaps because of it—she had a ready grasp of the weapons of her sex.
'Oh, Bellarion, I do not threaten. I implore ... I ...'
'Silence were your best agent now.' He was curt. 'I know your wishes, and ...' He broke off with a rough wave of his hand. 'Where should I go?' he asked, but the question was addressed to Fate and not to her. She answered it, however.
'Do you ask that, Bellarion? Why, in this past month since Alessandria fell your fame has gone out over the face of Italy. The credit for two such great victories as those of Travo and Alessandria is all your own, and the means by which you won them are on every man's tongue.'
'Aye! Facino is generous!' he said, and his tone was bitter.
'There's not a prince in Italy would not be glad to employ you.'
'In fact the world is full of places for those we would dismiss.'
After that they rode in silence until they were under the walls of the city.
'You'll go, Bellarion?'
'I am considering.' He was very grave, swayed between anger and a curious pity, and weighing other things besides.
In the courtyard of the citadel he held her stirrup for her. As she came to earth, and turned, standing very close to him, she put her little hand on his.
'You'll go, Bellarion, I know. For you are generous. This, then, is farewell. Be you fortunate!'
He bowed until his lips touched her hand in formal homage.
As he came upright again, he saw the square-shouldered figure of Facino in the Gothic doorway, and Facino's watching eyes, he thought, were narrow. That little thing was the last item in the scales of his decision.
Facino came to greet them. His manner was pleasant and hearty. He desired to know how the hawking had gone, how many pheasants his lady had brought back for supper, how far afield she had ridden, where Bellarion had joined her, and other similar facts of amiable commonplace inquiry. But Bellarion watching him perceived that his excessively ready smile never reached his eyes.
Throughout supper, which he took as usual in the company of his captains and his lady, Facino was silent and brooding, nor even showed great interest when Carmagnola told of the arrival of a large body of Ghibelline refugees from Milan to swell the forces which Facino was assembling against the coming struggle, whether defensive or offensive, with Malatesta and Duke Gian Maria.
Soon after the Countess had withdrawn, Facino gave his captains leave. Bellarion, however, still kept his place. His resolve was taken. That which the Countess claimed of him as a sacrifice to her lacerated vanity, he found his sense of duty to Facino claiming also, and his prudent, calculating wits confirming.
Facino raised heavy eyes from the contemplation of the board and leaned back in his chair. He looked old that night in the flickering candle-light. His first words betrayed the subject upon which his thoughts had been lingering.
'Ha, boy! I am glad to see the good relations between Bice and yourself. I had fancied a coolness between you lately.'
'I am the Countess's servant, as I am yours, my lord.'
'Aye, aye,' Facino grunted, and poured himself wine from a jug of beaten gold. 'She likes your company. She grudged you once, when I sent you on a mission to Genoa. I'm brought to think of it because I am about to repeat the offence.'
'You wish me to go to Boucicault for men?' Bellarion showed his surprise.
Facino looked at him quizzically. 'Why not? Do you think he will not come?'
'Oh, he'll come. He'll march on Milan with you to smash Malatesta, and afterwards he'll try to smash you in your turn, that he may remain sole master in the name of the King of France.'
'You include politics in your studies?'
'I use my wits.'
'To some purpose, boy. To some purpose. But I never mentioned Boucicault, nor thought of him. The men I need must be procured elsewhere. Where would you think of seeking them?'
And then Bellarion understood. Facino wanted him away, and desired him to understand it, which was why he had dragged in that allusion to the Countess. Facino was made reticent by his deep love for his unworthy lady; his need for her remained fiercely strong, however she might be disposed to stray.
Bellarion used his wits, you see, as he had lately boasted.
Why had Facino spied that night in Milan? Surely because in the relations between Bellarion and the Countess he had already perceived reason for uneasiness. That uneasiness his spying had temporarily allayed. Yet not so completely but that he continued watchful, and now, at the first sign of a renewal of that association, it took alarm. Though Facino might still be sure that he had nothing to avenge, he could be far from sure that he had nothing to avert.
A great sorrow welled up from Bellarion's heart. All that he now was, all that he possessed, his very life itself, he owed to Facino's boundless generosity. And in return he was become a thorn in Facino's flesh.
'Why, sir,' he said slowly, smiling a little as if in deprecation, 'this matter of levies has been lately in my thoughts. To be frank, I have been thinking of raising a condotta of my own.'
Facino sat bolt upright in his surprise. Clearly his first emotion was of displeasure.
'Oho! You grow proud?'
'I have my ambitions.'
'How long have you nursed this one? It's the first I hear of it.'
Blandly Bellarion looked across at him, and bland was his tone.
'I matured the conceit as I rode abroad to-day.'
'As you rode abroad?'
Facino's eyes were intently upon his face. It conserved its blandness. The condottiero's glance flickered and fell away. They understood each other.
'I wish you the luck that you deserve, Bellarion. You've done well by me. You've done very well. None knows it better than I. And it's right you should go, since you've the sense to see that it's best for ... you.'
The colour had faded from Bellarion's face, his eyes were very bright. He swallowed before he could trust himself to speak, to play the comedy out.
'You take it very well, sir—this desertion of you. But I'm your man for all my ambition.'
Thereafter they discussed his future. He was for the Cantons, he announced, to raise a body of Swiss, the finest infantry in the world, and Bellarion meant to depend on infantry. As a parting favour he begged for the loan of Stoffel, who would be useful to him as a sponsor to his compatriots of Uri and the Vierwaldstaetter. Facino promised him not only Stoffel himself, but fifty men of the Swiss cavalry Stoffel had latterly recruited, to be a nucleus of the condotta Bellarion went to raise.
They pledged each other in a final cup, and parted, Facino to seek his bed, Bellarion in quest of Stoffel.
Stoffel, having heard the proposal, at once engaged himself, protesting that the higher pay Bellarion offered him had no part in the decision.
'And as for men, there's not one of those who fought with you on the bluff above the Trebbia but will want to come.'
They numbered sixty when they were called up, and with Facino's consent they all went with Bellarion on the morrow. For, having decided upon departure, there was no reason to delay it.
Betimes in the morning Bellarion had business with a banker of Alessandria named Torella with whom Vignate's ransom was deposited in return for certain bills of exchange negotiable in Berne. Thereafter he went to take his leave of Facino, and to lay before him a suggestion, which was the fruit of long thinking in the stillness of a wakeful night. He was guilty, he knew, of a duplicity, of serving ends very different, indeed, from those that he pretended. But his conscience was at ease, because, although he might be using Facino as a tool for the performance of his ultimate secret aims, yet the immediate aims of Facino himself would certainly be advanced.
'There is a service I can perhaps do you as I go,' said Bellarion at parting. 'You are levying men, my lord, which is a heavy drain upon your own resources.'
'Prisoners like Vignate don't fall into the hands of each of us.'
'Have you thought, instead, of seeking alliances?'
Facino was disposed to be hilarious. 'With whom? With the dogs that are baying and snarling round Milan? With Estorre and Gian Carlo and the like?'
'There's Theodore of Montferrat,' said Bellarion quietly.
'So there is, the crafty fox, and the price he'll want for his alliance.'
'You might find it convenient to pay it. Like myself, the Marquis Theodore has ambitions. He covets Vercelli and the lordship of Genoa. Vercelli would be in the day's work in a war on Milan.'
'So it would. We might begin hostilities by occupying it. But Genoa, now ...'
'Genoa can wait until your own work is done. On those terms Montferrat comes in with you.'
'Ha! God's life! You're omniscient.'
'Not quite. But I know a great deal. I know, for instance, that Theodore went to Milan at Gabriello's invitation to offer alliance to Gian Maria on those terms. He left in dudgeon, affronted by Gian Maria's refusal. He's as vindictive as he's ambitious. Your proposal now might tickle both emotions.'
This was sound sense, and Facino admitted it emphatically.
'Shall I go by way of Montferrat and negotiate the alliance for you with Messer Theodore?'
'You'll leave me in your debt if you succeed.'
'That is what Theodore will say when I propose it to him.'
'You're sanguine.'
'I'm certain. So certain that I'll impose a condition. Messer Theodore shall send the Marquis Gian Giacomo to you to be your esquire. You'll need an esquire in my place.'
'And what the devil am I to do with Gian Giacomo?'
'Make a man of him, and hold him as a guarantee. Theodore grows old and accidents often happen on a campaign. If he should die before it's convenient, you'll have the sovereign of Montferrat beside you to continue the alliance.'
'By God! You look ahead!'
'In the hope of seeing something some day. I've said that the Regent Theodore has his ambitions. Ambitious men are reluctant to relinquish power, and in a year's time the Marquis Gian Giacomo will be of age to succeed. Have a care of him when he's with you.'
Facino looked at him and blew out his cheeks. 'You're bewildering sometimes. You seem to say a hundred things at once. And your thoughts aren't always nice.'
Bellarion sighed. 'My thoughts are coloured by the things they dwell on.'
The Knight Bellarion contrasted the manner of his departure from Casale a year ago with the manner of his return, and took satisfaction in it. There was more worldliness in his heart than he suspected.
He rode, superbly mounted on a tall grey horse, with Stoffel at his side a little way ahead of the troop of sixty mounted arbalesters, all well equipped and trim in vizorless steel caps and metal-studded leather hacketons, their leader rearing a lance from which fluttered a bannerol bearing Bellarion's device, on a field azure the dog's head argent. The rear was brought up by a string of pack-mules, laden with tents and equipment of the company.
Clearly this tall young knight was a person of consequence, and as a person of consequence he found himself entreated in Casale.
The Regent's reception of him admirably blended the condescension proper to his own rank with the deference due to Bellarion's. The Regent, you'll remember, had been in Milan at the time of Bellarion's leap to fame and honour, and that was all that he chose now to remember of Facino Cane's adoptive son. He had heard also—as all Italy had heard by now—of how Alessandria had been taken and his present deference was a reflection of true respect for one who displayed such shining abilities of military leadership. By no word or sign did he betray recollection of the young man's activities in Casale a year ago. A tactful gentleman this Regent of Montferrat. His court, he professed, was honoured by this visit of the illustrious son of an illustrious sire, and he hoped that in the peace of Montferrat, Messer Bellarion would rest him awhile from his late glorious labours.
'You may yet count me a disturber of that peace, Lord Marquis. I come on an embassy from my Lord of Biandrate.'
'Its purport?'
'The aims wherein your highness failed in Milan might find support in Alessandria.'
Theodore took a deep breath.
'Well, well,' said he. 'We will talk of it when you have dined. Our first anxiety is for your comfort.'
Bellarion understood that he had said enough. What Theodore really needed was time in which to weigh the proposal he perceived before they came to a discussion of it.
They dined below in a small room contiguous to the great hall, a cool, pleasant room whose doors stood wide to those spacious sunlit gardens into which Bellarion had fled when the Podestà's men pursued him. They were an intimate family party: the Princess Valeria, the Marquis Gian Giacomo, his tutor Corsario, and his gentleman, the shifty-eyed young Lord of Fenestrella. The year that was sped had brought little change to the court of Casale; yet some little change a shrewd eye might observe. The Marquis, now in his seventeenth year, had aged materially. He stood some inches taller, he was thinner and of a leaden pallor. His manner was restless, his eyes dull, his mouth sullen. The Regent might be proceeding slowly, but he proceeded surely. No need for the risk of violent measures against one who was obligingly killing himself by the profligacy so liberally supplied him.
The Princess, too, was slighter and paler than when last Bellarion had seen her. A greater wistfulness haunted her dark eyes; a listlessness born of dejection hung about her.
But when Bellarion, conducted by her uncle, had stood unexpectedly before her, straight as a lance, tall and assured, the pallor had been swept from her face, the languor from her expression. Her lips had tightened and her eyes had blazed upon this liar and murderer to whose treachery she assigned the ruin of her hopes.
The Regent, observing these signs, made haste to present the visitor to the young Marquis in terms that should ensure a preservation of the peace.
'Giacomo, this is the Knight Bellarion Cane. He comes to us as the envoy of his illustrious father, the Count of Biandrate, for whose sake as for his own you will do him honour.'
The youth looked at him languidly. 'Give you welcome, sir,' he said without enthusiasm, and wearily proffered his princely hand, which Bellarion dutifully kissed.
The Princess made him a stiff, unsmiling inclination of her head in acknowledgment of his low bow. Fenestrella was jocosely familiar, Corsario absurdly dignified.
It was an uncomfortable meal. Fenestrella, having recognized Bellarion for the prisoner in the Podestà's court a year ago, was beginning to recall the incident when the Regent headed him off, and swung the talk to the famous seizure of Alessandria, rehearsing the details of the affair: how Bellarion disguised as a muleteer had entered the besieged city, and how pretending himself next a captain of fortune he had proposed thecamisadein which subsequently he had trapped Vignate; and how thereafter with his own men in the shirts of the camisaders he had surprised the city.
'Trick upon trick,' said the Princess in a colourless voice, speaking now for the first time.
'Just that,' Bellarion agreed shamelessly.
'Surely something more,' Theodore protested. 'Never was stratagem more boldly conceived or more neatly executed. A great feat of leadership, Ser Bellarion, deserving the renown it has procured you.'
'And a hundred thousand florins,' said Valeria.
So, they knew that, too, reflected Bellarion.
Fenestrella laughed. 'You set a monstrous value on the Lord Vignate.'
'I hoped his people of Lodi, who had to find the gold, would afterwards ask themselves if it was worth while to retain a tyrant quite so costly.'
'Sir, I have done you wrong,' the Princess confessed. 'I judged you swayed by the thought of enriching yourself.'
He affected to miss the sarcasm. 'Your highness would have done me wrong if you had left that out.'
Valeria alone did not smile at that. Her brown eyes were hard as they held his gaze.
'It was Messer Carmagnola, they tell me, who led the charge into the city. That is a gallant knight, ever to be found where knocks are to be taken.'
'True,' said Bellarion. 'It's all he's fit for. An ox of a man.'
'That is your view of a straightforward, honest fighter?'
'Perhaps I am prejudiced in favour of the weapon of intelligence.'
She leaned forward a little to dispute with him. All were interested and only Theodore uneasy.
'It is surely necessary even in the lists. I remember at a tournament in Milan the valour and address of this knight Carmagnola. He bore off the palm that day. But, then, you were not present. You had a fever, or was it an ague?'
'Most likely an ague; I always shiver at the thought of a personal encounter.'
The Regent led the laugh, and now even Valeria smiled, but it was a smile of purest scorn.
Bellarion remained solemn. 'Why do you laugh, sirs? It is no more than true.'
'True!' cried Fenestrella. 'And it was you unhorsed Vignate!'
'That was an accident. I slid aside when he rode at me. He overshot his aim and I took advantage of the moment.'
Valeria's eyes were still upon him, almost incredulous in their glance. Oh, he was utterly without shame. He retorted upon her with the truth; but it was by making the truth sound like a mockery that he defeated her. She looked away at last, nor spoke to him again.
Delivered from her attacks, Bellarion addressed himself to the young Marquis, and by way of polite inquiry into his studies asked him how he liked Virgil.
'Virgilio?' quoth the boy, mildly surprised. 'You know Virgilio, do you? Bah, he's a thieving rogue, but very good with dogs.'
'I mean the poet, my lord.'
'Poet? What poet? Poets are a weariness. Valeria reads me their writings sometimes. God knows why, for there's no sense in them.'
'If you read them to yourself, you might ...'
'Read them to myself? Read? God's bones, sir! You take me for a clerk! Read!' He laughed the notion contemptuously away, and buried his face in his cup.
'His highness is a backward scholar,' Corsario deprecated.
'We do not thrust learning upon him,' Theodore explained. 'He is not very strong.'
Valeria's lip quivered. Bellarion perceived that it was with difficulty she kept silent.
'Why, you know best, sir,' he lightly said, and changed his subject.
Thereafter the talk was all of trivial things until the meal was done. After the Princess had withdrawn and the young Marquis and Fenestrella had begged leave to go, the Regent dismissed Messer Corsario and the servants, but retained his guest to the last.
'I will not keep you now, sir. You'll need to rest. But before we separate you may think it well to tell me briefly what my Lord Facino proposes. Thus I may consider it until we come to talk of it more fully this evening.'
Bellarion, who knew, perhaps as few men knew, the depth of Theodore's craft, foresaw a very pretty duel in which he would have need of all his wits.
'Briefly, then,' said he, 'your highness desires the recovery of Vercelli and similarly the restoration of the lordship of Genoa. Alone you are not in strength to gratify your aims. My Lord Facino, on the other hand, is avowedly in arms against the Duke of Milan. He is in sufficient strength to stand successfully on the defensive. But his desire is to take the offensive, drive out Malatesta, and bring the Duke to terms. An alliance with your highness would enable each of you to achieve his ends.'
The Regent took a turn in the room before he spoke. He came at last, to stand before Bellarion, his back to the Gothic doorway and the sunlight beyond, graceful and tall and so athletically spare that a boy of twenty might have envied him his figure. He looked at Bellarion with those pale, close-set eyes which to the discerning belied the studiedly benign expression of his handsome, shaven face.
'What guarantees does the Lord of Biandrate offer?' he asked quietly.
'Guarantees?' echoed Bellarion, and nothing in his blank face betrayed how his heart had leapt at the Regent's utterance of that word.
'Guarantees that when I shall have done my part, he will do his.'
Calm, passionless, and indifferent he might show himself. But if underneath that well-managed mask he did not seethe with eagerness, spurred on by ambition and vindictiveness, then Bellarion knew nothing. If he paused to ask for guarantees, it was because he so ardently desired the thing Facino offered that he would take no risk of being cheated.
Bellarion smiled ingenuously. 'My Lord Facino proposes to open the campaign by placing you in possession of Vercelli. That is better than a guarantee. It is payment in advance.'
A momentary gleam in the pale eyes was instantly suppressed.
'Part payment,' said the Regent's emotionless voice. 'And then?'
'Of necessity, to consolidate your possession, the next movement must be against Milan itself.'
Slowly the Regent inclined his head.
'I will consider,' he said gravely. 'I will summon the Council to deliberate with me and we will weigh the means at our command. Meanwhile, whatever my ultimate decision, I am honoured by the proposal.'
Thus calm, correct, displaying no eagerness, leaving it almost in doubt whether the consideration was due to inclination or merely to deference for Facino, the Regent quitted the matter. 'You will need rest, sir.' He summoned his chamberlain to whom he entrusted his guest, assured the latter that all within the Palace and City of Casale were at his orders, and ceremoniously took his leave.
The golden light of eventide lay on the terraced palace gardens, on the white temple mirrored in the placid lake, on granite balustrades where roses trailed, on tall, trim boxwood hedges that were centuries old, and on smooth emerald lawns where peacocks sauntered.
Thither the Princess Valeria, trimly sheathed in russet, and her ladies Isotta and Dionara, in formally stiff brocades, had come to take the air, and thither came sauntering also the Knight Bellarion and the pedant Corsario.
The knight was discoursing Lucretius to the pedant, and the pedant did not trouble to conceal his boredom. He had no great love of letters, but displayed a considerable knowledge of Apuleius and Petronius, and smirkingly quoted lewdnesses now from the 'Golden Ass,' now from 'Trimalchio's Supper.'
Bellarion forsook Lucretius and became a sympathetic listener, displaying a flattering wonder at Messer Corsario's learning. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the upper terrace where the Princess lingered.
Presently he ventured a contradiction. Messer Corsario was at fault, he swore. The line he quoted was not from Petronius, but from Horace. Corsario insisted, the dispute grew heated.
'But the lines are verses,' said Bellarion, 'and "Trimalchio's Supper" is in prose.'
'True. But verses occur in it.' Corsario kept his patience with difficulty in the face of such irritating mistaken assurance.
When Bellarion laughed his assertion to scorn, he went off in a pet to fetch the book, so that he might finally silence and shame this ignorant disputant. Bellarion took his way to the terrace above, where the Princess Valeria sauntered.
She observed his approach with stern eyes; and when he bowed before her she addressed him in terms that made of the difference in their ranks a gulf between them.
'I do not think, sir, that I sent for you.'
He preserved an unruffled calm, but his answering assertion sounded foolish in his own ears.
'Madonna, I would give much to persuade you that I am your servant.'
'Your methods do not change, sir. But why should they? Are they not the methods that have brought you fame?'
'Will you give your ladies leave a moment, while I speak two words with you. Messer Corsario will not be absent long. I have sent him off on a fool's errand, and it may be difficult to make another opportunity.'
For a long moment she hesitated. Then, swayed, perhaps, by her very mistrust of him, she waved her ladies back with her fan.
'Not in that direction, highness,' he said quickly, 'but in that. So they will be in line with us, and any one looking from the Palace will not perceive the distance separating us, but imagine us together.'
She smiled a little in disdainful amusement. But she gave the order.
'How well equipped you are!' she said.
'I came into the world, madonna, with nothing but my wits. I must do what I can with them.' Abruptly, for there was no time to lose, he plunged into the business. 'I desire to give you a word of warning in season, lest, with your great talent for misunderstanding, you should be made uneasy by what I hope to do. If I succeed in that which brings me, your brother will be sent hence to-morrow, or the next day, to my Lord Facino's care at Alessandria.'
That turned her white. 'O God! What now? What villainy is meant?'
'To remove him from the Regent's reach, to place him somewhere where he will be safe until the time comes for his own succession. To this end am I labouring.'
'You are labouring? You! It is a trap! A trap to ... to ...' She was starkly terrified.
'If it were that, why should I tell you? Your foreknowledge will no more assist than it can hinder. I do this in your service. I am here to propose an alliance between my Lord Facino and Montferrat. This alliance was suggested by me for two purposes: to serve Facino's immediate needs, and to ensure the Regent's ultimate ruin. It may be delayed; but it will come, just as surely as death comes to each of us. To make your brother safe while we wait, I shall impose it as a condition of the alliance that the Marquis Gian Giacomo goes to Facino as a hostage.'
'Ah! Now I begin to understand.'
'By which you mean that you begin to misunderstand. I have persuaded Facino that the Marquis will serve as a hostage for the Regent's good behaviour, and the Regent shall be made to believe that this is our sole purpose. But the real aim is as I have told you: to make your brother safe. By Facino he will be trained in all those things which it imports that a prince should learn; he will be made to forsake the habits and pursuits by which he is now being disgraced and ruined. Lady, for your peace of mind believe me!' He was emphatic, earnest, solemn.
'Believe you?' she cried out in mental torture. 'I have cause to do that, have I not? My past dealings with you—indeed, all that is known of you, bear witness to your truth and candour. By falsehood, trickery, and treachery you have raised yourself to where you stand to-day. And you ask me to believe you ... Why ... why should you do this? Why? That is the only test. What profit do you look to make?'
He looked at her with pain and misery in his dark eyes.
'If in this thing there were any design to hurt your brother, I ask you again, madonna, why should I stand here to tell you what I am about to attempt?'
'Why do you tell me at all?'
'To relieve you from anxiety if I succeed in removing him. To let you know if I should fail of the attempt, of the earnest desire, to serve you, although you make it very hard.'
Messer Corsario was hurrying towards them, a volume in his hands.
She stood there, silent, stricken, not knowing what to believe, desiring hungrily to trust Bellarion, yet restrained by every known action in his past.
'If I live, madonna,' he said quietly, lowering his voice to a murmur, 'you shall yet ask me to forgive your cruel unbelief.'
Then he turned to meet Corsario's chuckling triumph, and to submit that the pedant should convict him of error.
'Not so great a scholar as he believes himself, this Messer Bellarion,' Corsario noisily informed the Princess. And then to Bellarion, himself: 'You'll dispute with soldiers, sir, in future, who lack the learning and the means to put you right. Here are the lines; here in "Trimalchio's Supper," as I said. See for yourself.'
Bellarion saw. He simulated confusion. 'My apologies, Messer Corsario, for having given you the trouble to fetch the book. You win the trick.'
It was an inauspicious word. To Valeria it was clear that the trick had lain in temporarily removing Messer Corsario's inconvenient presence, and that trick Bellarion had won.
She moved away now with her ladies who had drawn close upon Corsario's approach, and Bellarion was left to endure the pedant's ineffable company until supper-time.
Later that night Theodore carried him off to his own closet to discuss in private and in greater detail the terms of the proposed alliance.
His highness had considered and had taken his resolve now that he was prepared to enter into a treaty. He looked for a clear expression of satisfaction. But Bellarion disappointed him.
'Your highness speaks, of course, with the full concurrence of your Council?'
'My Council?' The Regent frowned over the question.
'Where the issues are so grave, my Lord Facino will require to be sure that all the terms of the treaty are approved by your Council, so that there may be no going back.'
'In that case, sir,' he was answered a little frostily, 'you had better attend in person before the Council to-morrow, and satisfy yourself.'
That was precisely what Bellarion desired, and having won the point, whose importance the shrewd Theodore was far from suspecting, Bellarion had no more to say on the subject that evening.
In the morning he attended before the Council of Five, the Reggimento, as it was called, of Montferrat. At the head of the council-table the Marquis Theodore was enthroned in a chair of State flanked by a secretary on either hand. Below these sat the councillors, three on one side and two on the other, all of them important nobles of Montferrat, and one of them, a white-bearded man of venerable aspect, the head of that great house of Carreto, which once had disputed with the Paleologi the sovereignty of the State.
When the purpose for which Bellarion came had been formally restated, there was a brief announcement of the resources at Montferrat's disposal and a demand that the occupation of Vercelli should be the first step of the alliance.
When at last Bellarion was categorically informed that Montferrat was prepared to throw her resources into an alliance which they thanked the Count of Biandrate for proposing, Bellarion rose to felicitate the members of the Council upon their decision in terms calculated to fan their smouldering ardour into a roaring blaze. The restoration to Montferrat of Vercelli, the subsequent conquest of Genoa were not, indeed, to be the end in view, but merely a beginning. The two provinces of High and Low Montferrat into which the State at present was divided should be united by the conquest of the territory now lying between. Thus fortified, there would be nothing to prevent Montferrat from pushing her frontiers northward to the Alps and southward to the sea. Then, indeed, might she at last resuscitate and realise her old ambitions. Established not merely as the equal but as the superior of neighbouring Savoy, with Milan crumbling into ruins on her eastward frontiers, it was for Montferrat to assume the lordship of Northern Italy.
It went to their heads, and when Bellarion resumed his seat it was they who now pressed the alliance. No longer asking him what means Facino brought to it, they boasted and exaggerated the importance of those which they could offer.
Thus the treaty came there and then to be drawn up, article by article. The secretaries' pens spluttered and scratched over their parchments, and throughout it seemed to the Regent and his gleeful councillors that they were getting the better of the bargain.
But at the end, when all was done, and the documents complete, Messer Bellarion had a word to say which was as cold water on the white heat to which he had wrought their enthusiasm.
'There remains only the question of a guarantee from you to my Lord Facino.'
'Guarantee!' They echoed the word in a tone which clearly said they did not relish it. The Regent went further.
'Guarantee of what, sir?'
'That Montferrat will fulfil her part of the undertaking.'
'My God, sir! Do you imply a doubt of our honour?'
'It is no question of honour, highness; but of a bargain whose terms are clearly to be set forth to avoid subsequent disputes on either side. Does the word "guarantee" offend your highness? Surely not. For it was your highness who first used that word between us.'
The councillors looked at the Regent. The Regent remembered, and was uncomfortable.
'Yesterday your highness asked me what guarantees my Lord Facino would give that he would fulfil his part. I did not cry out in wounded honour, but at once conceded that the immediate occupation of Vercelli should be your guarantee. Why, then, sirs, should it give rise to heat in you if on my lord's behalf I ask a return in kind, something tangible to back the assurance that when Vercelli is occupied you will march with my Lord Facino against Milan as he may deem best?'
'But unless we do that,' said the Regent impatiently, 'there can follow no conquest of Genoa for us.'
'If there did not, you would still be in possession of Vercelli and that is a great deal. Counsels of supineness might desire you to rest content with that.'
'Should we heed them, do you suppose?' said the Marquis of Carreto.
'I do not. Nor will my lord. But suppositions cannot be enough for him.'
This interruption where all had flowed so smoothly was clearly fretting them. Another interposed: 'Would it not be well, highness, to hear what guarantees my Lord of Biandrate will require?'
And Theodore assenting, Bellarion spoke to anxious ears.
'It is in the nature of a hostage, and one that will cover various eventualities. If, for instance, the Marquis Gian Giacomo should come to the throne before these enterprises are concluded, it is conceivable that he might decline to be bound by your undertakings. If there were no other reasons—and they will be plain enough to your excellencies—that one alone would justify my lord in asking, as he does, that the person of the Marquis of Montferrat be delivered into his care as a hostage for the fulfilment of this treaty.'
Theodore, betrayed into a violent start, sat now pale and thoughtful, commanding his countenance by an effort. Another in his place would have raged and stormed and said upon impulse things from which he might not afterwards retreat. But Theodore Paleologo was no creature of impulse. He weighed and weighed again this thing, and allowed his councillors to babble, listening the while.
They were hostile, of course, to the proposal. It had no precedent, they said. Whereupon Bellarion smothered them in precedents culled from the history of the last thousand years. Retreating from that assertion, then, they became defiant, and assured him that precedent or no precedent they would never lend themselves to any such course.
The Regent still said nothing, and whilst vaguely suspicious he wondered whether the emphatic refusal of the councillors was based upon some suspicion of himself. Had they, by any chance, despite his caution, been harbouring mistrust of his relations with his nephew, and did they think that this proposal of Facino's was some part of his own scheming, covering some design nefarious to the boy?
One of them turned to him now: 'Your highness says no word to this.' And the others with one voice demanded his own pronouncement. He stirred. His face was grave.
'I am as stricken as are you. My opinion, sirs, you have already expressed for me.'
Bellarion, smiling a little, as one who is entirely mystified, now answered them.
'Sirs, suffer me to say that your heat fills me with wonder. My Lord Facino had expected of you that the proposal would be welcome.'
'Welcome?' cried Carreto.
'To view life in a foreign court and camp is acknowledged to be of all steps the most important in the education of a future prince. This is now offered to the Lord Gian Giacomo in such a way that two objects would simultaneously be served.'
The simple statement, so simply uttered, gave pause to their opposition.
'But if harm should befall him while in Facino's hands?' cried one.
'Can you suppose, sirs, that my Lord Facino, himself, would dread the consequences of such a disaster less than you? Can you suppose that any measure would be neglected that could make for the safety and well-being of the Marquis?'
He thought they wavered a little, reassured by his words.
'However, sirs, since you feel so strongly,' he continued, 'my Lord Facino would be very far from wishing me to insist.' One of them drew a breath of relief. The others, if he could judge their countenances, moved in apprehension. The Regent remained inscrutable. 'It remains, sirs,' Bellarion ended, 'for you to propose an alternative guarantee.'
'Time will be lost in submitting it to my Lord Facino,' Carreto deplored, and the others by their nods, and one or two by words, showed the returning eagerness to seal this treaty which meant so much to Montferrat.
'Oh, no,' Bellarion reassured them. 'I am empowered to determine. We have no time to lose. If this treaty is not concluded by to-morrow, my orders are to assume that no alliance is possible and continue my journey to the Cantons to levy there the troops we need.'
They looked at one another blankly, and at last the Regent asked a question.
'Did the Count of Biandrate, himself, suggest no alternative against our refusing him this particular guarantee?'
'It did not occur to him that you would refuse. And, frankly, sirs, in refusing that which himself he has suggested, it would be courteous to supply your reasons, lest he regard it as a reflection upon himself.'
'The reason, sir, you have already been afforded,' Theodore answered. 'We are reluctant to expose our future sovereign to the perils of a campaign.'
'That assumes perils which could not exist for him. But I am perhaps presuming. I accept your reason, highness. It is idle to debate further upon a matter which is decided.'
'Quite idle,' Theodore agreed with him. 'That guarantee we cannot give.'
'And yet ...' began the Marquis of Carreto.
The Regent interrupted him, for once he was without suavity.
'There is "no and yet" to that,' he snapped.
Again the councillors looked at one another. They were growing uneasy. The immediate benefits, and the future glory of Montferrat which had been painted for them, were beginning to dissolve under their eyes like a mirage.
In the awkward pause that followed, Bellarion guessed their minds. He rose.
'In this matter of determining the guarantee, you will prefer, no doubt, to deliberate without me.' He bowed in leave-taking. Then paused.
'It would be a sad thing, indeed, if a treaty so mutually desirable and so rich in promise to Montferrat should fail for no good reason.' He bowed again. 'To command, sirs.'
One of the secretaries came to hold the door for him, and he passed out. An echo of the Babel that was loosed in that room on his departure reached him before he had gone a dozen paces. He smiled quietly as he sought his own apartments. He warmly approved himself. It had been shrewd of him to keep back all hint of the hostage until he stood before the Council. If he had breathed a suggestion of it in his preliminary talks with the Regent, he would have been dismissed at once. Now, however, Messer Theodore was committed to a battle in which his own conscience would fight against him, weakening him by fear of discovery of his true aims.