"I cannot give it him," she said, the tears starting. "I entreat thee,
sir, ask him to let me go."
But the page intimated to her warningly she had best make no to-do.
There was only one law for the citizens of Milan: that was the tyranny
of the Visconti; let the one who encountered it only in the capricious
whim of the crazy Tisio be thankful.
"Hold it good fortune, it is naught but a bauble he demands," said the
page. "Give him the bracelet; he will drop it, forgotten, to-morrow. Ask
for me one day at the palace. I will restore it. But give it now, before
he grows angry. Thou hadst better."
Tisio's face was darkening.
"Make haste, make haste," cried the page impatiently, "or it will be
thee and thy bracelet both that will be carried off."
"My betrothed gave it to me," she murmured. "I cannot part with it."
"I will have it," repeated Tisio imperiously, with outstretched hand.
Graziosa's helpless tears were flowing; slowly she unclasped the
bracelet; the page took her treasure with an easy air, handed it to his
master, and turned the horses' heads toward home.
"Thou wilt be none the worse," he laughed, as they rode away. Tisio,
absorbed in his new toy, gave her neither look nor thought, for jewels,
gold ornaments of rare design, were the craze of this Visconti's crazy
brain.
Graziosa pressed her bare arm to her lips, and looked after them, the
tears of vexation streaming down. She thought of Ambrogio, the
painter-lover, whose gift it was: what would he say to find her bracelet
gone?
"Oh, if only Ambrogio had been here," she cried, "he would not have let
the Duke himself take it from me--but I--what could I do?--if only he is
not angry that I let it go."
She had not much faith in the page's words; besides, how dare she
venture to the Visconti's palace? Her tears flowed afresh; she picked up
the poor discarded lilies, all her pleasure gone. In the distance she
could see Tisio, still handling the bracelet with delight, and she
half-smiled, even through her tears, at so strange and pitiful a thing.
"It makes the poor crazy lord happy," she said softly, "but it breaks
_my_ heart to lose it." She watched Tisio disappear; then, her loss a
certainty, she turned with reluctant feet upon her errand.
Meanwhile Tisio, absorbed in his new spoil, rode toward the palace.
The projecting gables of the houses sent clear-cut shadows across his
path; the strong noonday sun blended the city into brilliant light and
shade, broken only by the vivid color of the drapery fluttering at some
unshaded window, or the sudden flash of pigeon's wings against the
golden air.
As they neared the great gate of the palace, a group of horsemen,
galloping noisily ahead of them, dashed into the vast courtyard and drew
rein with a fine clatter at the entrance steps.
Tisio, following, raised his head, and looked dully at them--a band of
his brother's soldiers, hired mercenaries; it was usual enough to meet
them both within and without the Visconti's abode. As he was
dismounting, the leader of the band addressed him familiarly.
"My lord hears thee not, sir," said the page, "his thoughts are with his
spoils."
The soldier laughed with a grimace.
It was the freedom of one whose services are valuable enough, even when
well paid, to permit him to bear himself with small respect to his
employers. For the mercenaries were a power; the transfer of their
services could ruin states and lose towns, and even Visconti had to pay
them well and concede license to their leaders; for upon them, to a
great extent, his sovereignty rested, and Alberic da Salluzzo could take
more liberties than any. He was a famous captain, noted for his skill in
wars and turbulence in peace, a man with no country and no honor,
endowed with dauntless courage and endurance, of vast rapacity and of
all the cruelty his age allowed.
Making no way for Tisio, and motioning curtly to his men, he strode up
the stairs, a stalwart figure, overdressed in splendid armor, and swung
into the antechamber of the Visconti's audience-room. It was deserted.
Alberic, astonished, paused on the threshold, looking around in
amazement for the crowd--courtiers, servants, seekers, soldiers--wont to
fill it.
Opposite was the closed door of the Visconti's room, but even Alberic
dare not knock there unannounced. He was turning away to seek
enlightenment, when a dark form he had passed unnoticed in the distant
shadows of the great room rose, and he recognized, as it advanced, the
secretary's stooping figure.
"What has happened here?" demanded the soldier.
"Is there need to ask?" answered Giannotto. "The Duke has had the room
cleared. He will see no one." Alberic half-laughed, and shrugged his
shoulders.
"The madness is on him at Count von Schulembourg's escape. Is that it?"
he asked. "But art even thou excluded?" he continued in surprise, for
Giannotto was the one man who could come and go unannounced, unbidden,
the one man who knew Visconti's secrets.
The secretary smiled, the slow smile that men's lips learned in the
Visconti palace.
"It is best for the Duke to be alone, and for me that he should be," he
said. "The news that Count Conrad has escaped hath galled him much; it
came at a bad moment too, following on those parchments twice found
within the grounds"--he paused. "Thou wert sent to find the writer, or
the one who put them there; art thou successful?"
Alberic shook his head. "I return as I went. Beyond finding that doorway
forced in the wall, messer secretary, there is no token whatsoever of
how the Count escaped. But after so long a fast, messer," Alberic showed
his teeth, "it is not likely that it was alone."
"The one who aided him is he who inscribed those parchments?"
"'Twould seem so," answered Alberic. "We have searched anew among the
huts from which we drove Count Conrad's German dogs; on the threshold of
the largest there was--this."
He drew out of his breast a parchment, a long narrow strip, scrawled
across in irregular writing, and handed it to Giannotto.
"What does it say?" he asked.
Giannotto glanced at it hastily, his eyes on the Duke's door.
He read, "Della Scala lives!"
The captain whistled softly. "Now, thou may'st hand that to the Duke
instead of me," he said.
Giannotto searched the writing keenly. "Della Scala cannot live; 'tis
some trick of the Torriani."
Alberic laughed harshly. "Whate'er it be, I say _thou_ shalt have the
pleasure of showing it the Duke!"
"Nay, thou must speak of thy own failures, friend. Besides, the Duke
will need thee for his further orders. Count Conrad must be found, alive
or dead!"
"Was it his ghost attacked the walls last night?" asked Alberic; and not
wholly did he speak in jest.
The secretary cast uneasy looks across his shoulder at the ominously
shut door.
"It angered Visconti strangely," he whispered. "But it was a handful of
madmen. Wandering robbers from the hills! They were four at most, and
they tried to scale the walls of Milan!" He smiled in scorn.
"And yet," said Alberic, "they were almost on the ramparts ere they were
discovered, and when they were pursued, fled back into the night
silently, nor could we find from whence they came, nor any trace of
them."
"However that may be," said Giannotto, "the Duke hath dismissed even me,
and the delivery of this parchment had best wait till his black fit has
left him."
He raised the arras from the entrance that opened on the stairway, and
passed out of sight along the corridor, leaving Alberic standing in the
unguarded entrance of the deserted audience-room, undecided, the
parchment in his hand.
But he did not stand there long alone. One or two servants stole back to
their places, afraid to stay away; and presently, with slow steps and
vacant smile, there passed by him Tisio Visconti, followed by the page
who never left him.
"Thou, my lord?" cried Alberic. "Now, how would it be if I ask him to
hand this parchment over?" and he turned with a swaggering laugh to the
page.
The page shook his head, not comprehending. Tisio, unheeding, seated
himself in one of the great chairs, Graziosa's bracelet still between
his fingers.
"I will wait no longer," cried Alberic suddenly; "let the Duke summon
me."
But the next moment Alberic's swagger dropped, and he swung his plumed
hat low to the lady who, unattended, stole across the threshold.
It was Valentine Visconti.
Her breast was heaving; suppressed excitement showed in every movement;
it was not difficult for Alberic to read she had heard of Count Conrad's
rescue.
With a motion of the hand she bade him wait, and turned to her brother,
huddled in his chair, gazing blankly at the floor.
"Tisio!" she said, and her tone was very gentle. "What dost thou here?"
He looked up, and his dull face lit at sight of her.
"I wait for Gian," he said simply.
Valentine shuddered. "What wouldst thou see him for, Tisio?"
He smiled, and held out the bracelet. "To show him this."
The tears rushed to Valentine's eyes, but she remembered the captain and
turned to him.
"Thou carryest something here to give the Duke?" she asked.
"Another parchment, lady," said the captain. "But I fear my lord is in
no humor for its contents."
Valentine's eyes sparkled lightly. "Thou hast not the courage to present
it?"
"I confess, lady, I am waiting till I am obliged to," answered Alberic.
Valentine held out her hand. "Give me the paper; I will give it to my
brother!"
The captain hesitated.
"Since thou hast not the courage," she added almost with a laugh. All
Gian's orders had not availed to prevent some whisper reaching Valentine
of his evil humor and the cause of it: Conrad's escape, the threatening
parchments; the hint that Della Scala lived. Alberic, glancing at her,
saw a triumph and a malice in the lady's glance that made him doubly
feel he did not care just then to wait Visconti's coming. But still he
hesitated; the Duke might vent on him his fury with his sister.
"This business will not wait," cried Valentine, "give me the parchment
to deliver, or knock at yonder door and hand it to the Duke yourself."
But the captain of the mercenaries bent low, shook his head with a
significant gesture, and, handing over the fatal missive, bowed himself
away. Valentine turned again to Tisio's page.
"Take thy lord away," she said. "The Duke may not be best pleased to see
him here."
But Tisio would not go. Valentine, bending over him, stroked his hands
tenderly, then breaking from him, leaned against the wall in sudden woe.
"All of us crazed," she cried bitterly. "All of us, surely; wretched
people that we are!"
Then, at the sight of the parchment she held, her former mood returned.
Conrad was alive! He had vowed devotion. He would return to her rescue.
She would live to be free; to come and go outside the Visconti palace,
outside Milan, out yonder in the world. She leaned back against the
arras a moment, dizzy at the thought of so much joy, and her courage
rose high, her eyes danced.
"The Duke must have this parchment," she said; "and since Alberic da
Salluzzo does not care to seek an audience for it, why, Tisio, thou
shalt see me give it. The Duke loves not an interruption when he is
angry," she added, with a soft laugh. "But 'tis my duty to show him
this."
And she advanced toward the ominously closed door.
The page looked uneasy. He had no wish to face Visconti in his fury. Yet
well he knew he dared not leave his charge.
Valentine tapped at the door with gentle fingers.
"Gian!" she called.
"Lady, this is madness!" cried the page, startled into speech.
She looked over her shoulder.
"I am also a Visconti, boy," she said. "Why should I fear the Duke?"
"Gian!" she called again, her beautiful head close to the dark panels.
"I have something here of great moment. Why let everyone know thou art
so moved? Gian! Thou makest thyself a mock; dost thou _fear_ Count
Conrad, that his escape moves thee so?"
A pause: then with a smile Valentine stepped back a pace or two into the
chamber.
"The Duke comes!" she said, and the page turned pale.
The inner door opened as smoothly as silently, and Visconti stood there
looking at the trio. He was dressed in purple velvet, but his doublet
was tumbled, the fine lace frills at his wrists were torn to rags, his
eyes strained wide open, and for a moment, as it was with any who
encountered it, his expression gave his sister pause. But again she
remembered Conrad lived, and she held out the parchment. "I thought it
well to give you this," she said.
Gian advanced and took it in silence. But those torn ruffles, that
disordered doublet, had their meanings, and the look in those wide eyes,
as he turned them on her, quelled the mockery in hers, spite of herself.
"Begone!" he said, "and do not usurp another's office again. Leave me."
"With thine own thoughts, brother?" she said softly, facing him.
"Be careful," he answered; "thou shouldst know my humors, and that 'tis
dangerous to cross them. Remember it only suits my purpose that thou
shouldst live!"
At this Tisio, as if half-comprehending the threat, rose, and his
brother's eyes fell on him.
"Thou too! What dost thou about my doors? hast thou come too to dare me
with thy folly?"
His eyes blazed, his hands worked. Tisio, dazed and affrighted, let fall
Graziosa's bracelet.
The page stooped to recover it.
"What hast thou there?" cried Visconti with sudden change of tone; and
the page, quivering for his life, handed the bracelet on bent knee.
Visconti studied it one second, then, with a sound of fury that sent the
boy crouching back against the wall, control left him. His eyes lighted
on Tisio, and in maniacal fury he seized him by the shoulder and shook
him as though he were a rag.
"How camest thou by this?" he yelled. "How came this bracelet in the
Visconti palace? Answer me!"
Tisio whimpered, but had no reply, till, with a shout, Visconti flung
him from him with such force that, save for Valentine, he would have
fallen; then he turned upon the page who knelt by, trembling.
"Answer me!" he cried furiously. "Answer! Where got the fool this?" He
held the bracelet out. And the sight of those torn ruffles around his
long white hands made the boy's hair rise.
"Indeed, my lord," he gasped, "a girl, whom my Lord Tisio--met by the
western gate----"
"Gave it him!" shrieked Visconti. "Ah, the three of thee shall pay
dearly for this hour's trifling with me!"
"My lord took it," cried the page, half-wild with terror. "He took it,
my lord; she wept to give it."
"She wept to give it," said Visconti slowly.
There was a pause. When he spoke again, his tone was calmer.
"Then he shall be slain for taking it," he said, flashing a look on
Tisio, who, huddled in the chair, moaned with distress as he leaned
against his sister.
"Shame! Calm thyself!" cried Valentine. "What has Tisio done? is this
the first ornament he has liked and taken? Have they not orders to let
him have his pleasure?"
"Mark me," returned Visconti. "Take care thou dost not make my dislike
overrule my ambition--the pair of thee hold your lives solely at my
pleasure."
He turned to the page.
"Go, and take thy fool with thee, and keep from my sight."
With a white face the wretched page rose and helped Tisio to his feet.
At a whisper from his sister he went meekly, Visconti's mad eyes on him
the while.
A terrible silence fell.
Valentine steadied herself against the arras. She was thankful to see
Tisio go--alive. To ask why the jewel Tisio had fondled had so angered
Gian was beyond her daring. "He is possessed," she murmured to herself.
With an unpleasant laugh Visconti turned to her.
"Didst thou urge him to flaunt me with this?" he asked.
"Flaunt thee?" said Valentine. "How should I know a toy like that could
rouse such fury?"
The Duke looked at her keenly, and crushed the bracelet together in his
hand.
"As I say, thou darest me far because thou art worth something to my
plans--but I have the power, and I keep it."
She was silent, and he turned to pass back into his own room. But at the
same moment Giannotto spoke. He had entered unobserved, and drew near
his master with an obsequious movement.
But Visconti met him with a snarl.
"I will see no one! Did I not say so? Take care, Giannotto, lest I see
_thee_ too often."
The secretary paled, but kept his composure. He had learned that to
shrink before Visconti only served to arouse him the more.
"I would merely say, my lord," he remarked, "Alberic da Salluzzo awaits
further orders."
"Hath he found the Count?" flashed Visconti.
"My lord, no; nor trace of him, unless these parchments be one."
"Thou hast another there?"
Giannotto, bowing low, handed Visconti a packet. His head was bent, his
eyes downcast, and the smile that flickered over his thin lips unseen.
"This, my lord, was brought in by one of Alberic's men--found an hour
since outside the gates of Count Conrad's villa."
It was sealed, and inscribed with the Visconti's name.
Visconti seized it, and Giannotto, stepping back, watched furtively his
furious face.
Gian looked at the packet. There was no attempt to disguise the writing.
It was the same as that upon the parchment Valentine had given him with
its brief threat: "Della Scala lives," and the seal of it was the Ladder
of the Scaligeri. Long Visconti fingered it in silence, then remembering
he was not alone, glanced wrathfully up to see that Valentine was
watching him with a faint smile of scorn, and that Giannotto, for all
his downcast head, waited with eyes keen with expectation. But Visconti
curbed himself. To have the mastery of others he must keep the mastery
of himself.
"Giannotto," he said, and the secretary started as if a whip had touched
him, "thou wilt see to it that Da Salluzzo searches Milan and all
Lombardy--that he spares neither treasure nor blood--and that he brings
to me dead, or living, Count Conrad von Schulembourg, and the writer of
these parchments."
With an obeisance Giannotto went, in silence, and Visconti slowly broke
the seal of the packet. Then he turned to Valentine.
"Art thou waiting to see if it contains a message from thy Conrad?" he
said fiercely. "Have no fear! Thou shalt see his head ere night."
She shuddered before the taunt, and turned to leave him. It was always
the same; let her meet Visconti with never so high courage, she left him
quelled, discomfited, dismayed.
"Go!" shouted Visconti, in sudden fury, and she stayed no longer to
question or defy.
Carrying the half-opened packet and the parchment, Visconti re-entered
his private room. It was dark and silent; no sound from within or
without broke its deserted gloom.
He was alone, nor was he like to be disturbed. Seating himself, not
without a furtive glance over his shoulder, he looked at the writing
again, the writing and the seal, then opened the packet.
A roll of parchment, close writ, strangely stained in places a reddish
brown, fell with a rattle on the floor. Visconti started back, he stared
at it, uttered a hoarse sound, stooped and picked it up. The parchment
was inscribed with poetry. Here and there among the stains a line was
readable.
"Perchance thou wouldst not dare to turn----"
His glance caught the words. He looked around with wild eyes.
A huge, black bureau, fitted with many drawers, stood in one corner of
the room. Visconti, the parchment in his shaking fingers, went to it,
still with glances around, and drew out drawer after drawer, till he had
found the thing he sought. It was among neat piles of parchments,
annotated in Giannotto's clear, good hand.
Visconti turned them over hastily, till he came upon a document hung
with the seals of Verona, a cartel of defiance, neatly endorsed in a
clerkly hand, and signed in large, bold writing, "Mastino della Scala."
Eagerly he turned to the cover of the packet, and laid the two writings
side by side. They were the same.
Visconti leaned against the black chest, breathing heavily, his face not
good to look on in its white devilry.
"He lives! Della Scala lives!" he cried, and struck at himself in his
rage. Then his gaze came back to the blood-stained parchment crumpled in
his hand.
"And this--? and this--where got he this? The parchment that I read from
on the road that day; the parchment that I thought was left at Brescia,
in that----"
The words died away on his lips. In a sudden paroxysm of something more
than fury, Visconti drove it down among the others within the drawer,
and locked and double-locked it in.
The day was fading; in that dull chamber the light fled early and
entered late. Visconti glanced again stealthily at the dark arras, faint
in the dusk. He strained his ears listening; the air was full of voices,
far away, pleading, for the most part, yet some so near and threatening,
Visconti held his ears. They died away as they had come, but to Visconti
the silence was more terrible.
"Giannotto!" he called. "Lights! It grows dark----"
He listened; he heard those sighs again, then suddenly the sound of
flying feet, hurrying, hurrying; with a scream of horror Visconti rushed
up the steps, calling wildly for lights.
The huge door swung open at his desperate push, then, falling to behind
him, shook the tapestry; as it fell into place again a long sighing
filled the empty room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FOR A LADY'S GIFT
Tomaso Ligozzi sat in a corner of the ruined hut, with enthralled face,
listening to Count Conrad, who lounged against the wooden table
opposite. It was five days since Conrad's rescue. He had made a recovery
the more rapid that no leech had been there to meddle with him. Left to
the simplest nursing, the barest needful nourishment, and the vigor of
his own constitution, Conrad had rallied, till now, in almost full
health, no trace was left of the hollow-faced, emaciated figure
Francisco had carried into safety.
The morning after the rescue, it was decided that the hut was no longer
a safe shelter; and, carefully destroying all traces of their
habitation, the three, under Francisco's leadership, helping Conrad
between them, betook themselves to a thicket near. There, in his
solitary prowlings to and fro, Francisco had discovered a deep cave
underneath a sand-bank, the entrance well overgrown with boughs and
bushes. Here, not without discomfort, they hid till Conrad should be fit
to travel, and comforted themselves for the wretched exchange when they
heard the shouts of Alberic's men.
Francisco was disappointed in his new ally. Count Conrad showed a
levity, a forgetfulness of injury, that chimed badly with his own deep
purposes. Tomaso was his chief reliance; his plan was to secure horses,
by fair means or foul, and, as soon as Conrad could sit the saddle, to
depart for Ferrara. So far Francisco's stealthy and cautious maneuvers
to possess himself of what he needed had been unsuccessful; but at last
he had come upon the track of something possible, and to-day, with
Vittore to help him, he had departed to bring back with him the horses
for their flight.
Twice between dawn and noon had Alberic's men scoured their
neighborhood. Two, indeed, had come so near the hiding-place that their
talk was plain. They spoke of the parchment found the day before and of
the Visconti's fury.
It seemed fairly sure that for many hours at least the soldiery would
not return, as they could scarce confine their search to the one spot
only; so, before Francisco's departure, 'twas arranged between him and
Tomaso that their rendezvous at sundown should be the ruined hut where
they had first had shelter, there being no means of horsemen treading
the thick brushwood around the sand-cave, and the hut affording
opportunities of space and movement.
After a weary day and the second visit of the search party, which
alarmed them as to the heat of Visconti's pursuit, but reassured them
also as to returning to the hut, Tomaso and Conrad reached it an hour
before sundown and prepared to wait.
At first keenly anxious, straining for every sound, as time went on,
unconsciously they grew more at ease, and Conrad beguiled Tomaso with
his talk.
At last, with a sudden sigh, Conrad broke off, and lapsed into silence.
Tomaso sat alert, looking through the open door.
"Francisco is long," said Conrad after a while.