of a gate near, and a long wall adjoining was glowering red in it, the
trails of the flowers showing like blood as they hung over it, spectral
and strange. It was a noble's summer palace, lit by Novara burning
yonder.
Mastino stopped his horse, that needed no checking, worn out by that
wild ride, and gazed before him at the flames, and slowly something of
reasoning power returned. He had ridden to meet Visconti, and Visconti
was here. He knew it--either of God or devil--knew it surely; and he
rode his horse on slowly, with the double burden, through the unguarded
gates, and came to a flight of steps unguarded too, leading up to a wide
balcony, overlooked by high, open, lighted windows. Here was the
place--unguarded. Here was Visconti, and the soul of Mastino suddenly
blazed into a white heat that for a moment blinded him.
Then he dismounted, and laid Isotta down, speaking the while to his
horse. The glow from the burning city wrapped them both and made the
fair dead face rosy. The tempest was over, and only a soft rain fell,
ceasing gradually. Mastino found a sheltered spot beneath the bushes,
and with a pitiful gentleness laid Isotta down and drew the hood about
her head.
"I will come back," he murmured, kissing her. Then he turned to the
steps with his naked dagger in his hand. He wore no armor; he was
bare-headed--he gave it no thought. He was here to slay Visconti. That
was God's fact.
Along the steps a soldier came lazily, and Mastino sprang on him and
strangled him before he could cry out, bearing the body noiselessly to
the ground. Then, listening, he heard from within the palace a laugh and
a voice--Visconti's. Della Scala looked round. How was he to get to him?
He must feel Visconti's blood run warm over his hands, and quickly.
"How it blazes! The soldiers will have poor spoil," said Visconti. "But
we will build another town, de Lana: we are rich enough."
"Outside the walls just now we found a ghastly thing," said a second
voice: "a human hand grasping tight a knot of scarlet ribbons--just the
hand, a beautiful hand."
"Your tales sicken me--I have always hated horrors," said Visconti.
Mastino crept along and found a door.
"I will get in here," he said within himself; and then within himself he
laughed, for it was opened.
The tapestry within was moved aside, and there was a glimpse of a white
sleeve and a delicate, ringed hand. The next moment the curtain was
torn, in a giant's grip, from its fastening, and Mastino, trampling it
under him, was upon them--in his madness staying to reckon on no odds.
Where was Visconti? Not far, for he himself, with his own hand, had
opened the door.
But from the red glare outside, the blaze within blinded Della Scala. He
looked round him for Visconti. Then a voice screamed: "Keep him off!"
and suddenly his eyes met the Duke's, and he strode forward. It seemed
almost done. Visconti, in wild fear, fell back before that terrible
face, staggering against the wall, his hand fumbling for his dagger, and
the men in the room scattered to right and left, as before an
apparition.
"Gentlemen!" shrieked Visconti, "you are ten to one: stop him! A fortune
for the one who slays him!"
But Mastino had him in his grip--almost: another moment----
But Visconti fell, and crouched along the wall, those reaching hands
above him; and a dozen swords leaped out: the soldiers flocked in from
the ante-room: there was a wild confusion.
"Slay him!" shrieked Visconti. But from Della Scala, as they closed on
him, came a yell that froze the marrow.
Ten to one! They needed to be. The place began to run with blood.
"Gian Visconti! Gian Visconti!"
Visconti rose by the wall again. "Kill him!" he gasped. "Kill him!" and
cowered away. He was not sure if that face or that figure, struggling
ever toward him, could be killed; that they were earthly, or that that
was the voice of a man that, with no sound of the human left in it,
called his name.
"Let them kill him!" screamed Visconti.
But de Lana did not move, he did not look round; neither did Visconti.
"Visconti! Visconti!" gasped the voice.... Ah!... There was a great
scuffling of feet, the dragging of a heavy body, and Mastino, an inert
mass upon the soldiers' arms, was forced back upon the balcony.
They let him fall there, and one heard him moan; but he was bleeding
from twenty wounds. They left him and closed the door.
Visconti looked round fearfully.
"Is he gone?" he said.
The great candelabra had been overturned and the room was in a
semi-gloom, broken only by the dim candles in their sconces and the
fitful flare from the city.
No one answered Visconti. The men drew breath in silence, and looked at
their wounds. How he had fought! A horror fell upon them.
"Is he dead?" asked Visconti, shaking like a leaf.
"There were fifteen men to kill him", said de Lana, and he wiped some
blood from his hand with a shiver.
No one else broke the silence, all stood still as if spell-bound; it was
a horrible, horrible thing, and they drew back from the door--afraid.
"Hush!--what was that?"
Visconti leaned forward fearfully.
"What was it?"
The sound of some one on the balcony. Visconti's face went livid.
"He is alive----"
A horrid shudder ran through them all. De Lana strove to speak and could
not.
"The door is not fastened," whispered Visconti, hoarsely. "Fasten the
door--some one!"
But no one moved, no one dared, for superstitious horror.
Something fell back from the door, then the sound of something that
dragged itself against it painfully, then a rattle at the unbolted door.
"He is not dead!" half screamed Visconti. "A town to the man who will go
out and slay him!"
No one moved.
"A half-dead man!" cried the Duke, "and no one will end his misery?"
They dared not.
"Hark! he will have the door open. De Lana, I command you----" He
pointed with a shaking hand, but de Lana only shook his head.
"There has too much been done already," he said, shudderingly.
The Duke looked round wildly.
"A town, a fortune to the one who will have compassion"; and with a
shrug and a grimace, a rough soldier stepped forward, his drawn sword in
his hand, and opening the door, pushed something back before him and
went out.
Gian breathed heavily, listening, but the next second the soldier was in
the room again, with altered face, and the door ajar behind him.
"I cannot," he gasped--"it's blind, struggling--it--does not look like a
man--I----"
"Shut the door!" yelled Visconti, and then fell back against de Lana,
shaking, for a livid face appeared, with dim eyes and a bare throat
streaked with blood. For one moment the ghastly apparition showed there,
then fell into the dark again.
There was a sickening pause. Visconti spoke first, looking around.
"Are we fools or women?--he came to murder me, and he is slain--what is
there in that? Go and see now if he be dead."
Some one went, fearfully.
"He lies very still, my lord; he is dead----"
The trembling pages had brought more lights, and light was life to
Visconti. He came forward and looked, a little nearer, on the figure in
the doorway, but very slowly, with de Lana between.
Mastino lay out straight, in a sudden up-flare from the burning city,
his arm flung over his face.
"He was a giant," whispered Visconti, fearfully. "And how dark!--I do
not remember him so dark----"
He looked over de Lana's shoulder at him.
The soldiers peered behind him. That man was Mastino della Scala
once!--it was strange even to their cold hearts.
He was dead--_dead_! Visconti's fear, the superstitious fear of a
righteous, God-sent vengeance, turned to a savage joy; still he was
afraid, still afraid.
He touched the body with the point of his gold shoe.
"Throw him into the garden," he said to the soldiers, showing his teeth.
Giannotto and de Lana exchanged a curious glance; the soldier set his
lips.
"Are you all traitors or cowards, that you do not heed me?" cried
Visconti, in a fury. "Throw, thrust, kick this thing into the
garden--let him lie there till the morning."
"My lord," said de Lana, with a dangerous look in his eyes, "he was a
Prince and a Scaliger!"
"He was my enemy--scorn for scorn! Throw Mastino della Scala from the
balcony--or----"
And half a dozen men came forward and lifted the prostrate body.
"Haste," said Visconti, his eyes on de Lana. "Throw him out of my
sight."
"Let them carry him down the steps, my lord," cried de Lana.
But Visconti turned on him, his face and hair glowing in the light of
the flames from Novara, his face fiendish.
"They shall do as I bid, or hang from the nearest tree! Now haste!" he
said again, as if he feared the dead might yet arise.
They carried the body to the edge of the steps and pushed it over,
crashing dully down the foliage that half overspread the marble.
Visconti stepped to the parapet and looked over.
"He said something as he fell," he whispered to himself. "I heard
him--but he must be dead now----"
He turned back into the room, breathing more freely.
"Now close the door again," he said, and watched while it was done.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
AN INSTRUMENT OF GOD
"How many, de Lana--how many?"
"Five--six or seven----"
"Hundreds!"
"Thousands, my lord!"
Visconti leaned forward in his chair in his excitement.
"Thousands?"
"The men from Magenta are come in, laden with plunder."
Visconti laughed.
"I said I would give them Lombardy to sack--and there are thousands of
prisoners?"
The scene was the summer palace, that same night. Visconti sat at the
head of a table in a room adjoining the one in which the tapestry was
torn and the floor still sticky with blood. It was a small apartment,
beautifully inlaid with mosaic, and now blazing with lights, and full of
a fine company of officers and nobles.
"Thousands--men, women, and children--some men of note, too, my lord;
the ransacking of palaces for miles----"
"And Novara?"
"Some beat the flames out still--they say half the place is saved."
"Let them plunder it!" cried Visconti. "Let them pick Novara bare! The
palace was burned?"
"To a cinder----"
"To a heap of ashes!" said another. "There is nothing but the bastion,
red hot----"
"As you should know, da Ribera," laughed the officer next him, "seeing
you tried to ride over it."
"And killed his horse," said another.
"And saved myself!" shouted da Ribera. "I look for a reward for that, my
lord--the saving of a valiant officer of yours----"
"Shall not be forgotten!" laughed Visconti. "Be paid by this
advice--remember burning towns are dangerous, as to his mortal cost a
certain great Frenchman found at Rouen, and several great Germans more
recently at Milan----"
"When they lay along the ramparts like flies, I have heard my
grandfather say, striving to loot in the midst of the very flames," said
de Lana, "like da Ribera here."
"Had I been in Milan, Barbarossa himself would have burned in the midst
of it," said Visconti, sweeping back the glass and silver before him.
"The town had weeks to prepare."
"Had you been there, Milan would not have burned at all, my lord!" said
a flattering voice.
"Maybe it would not. It was certainly before the Visconti's rule began,"
and he looked down the table with a smile at the dark face of Martin
della Torre.
"And now the plans, de Lana--Novara to Magenta, Magenta to Vercelli."
He swept the glasses still further back, and spread the parchment de
Lana handed him on the colored marble table.
"Vercelli--we hold Vercelli, de Lana?" The officers moved up closer,
leaning over the table.
"We hold Vercelli--and Magenta."
Visconti placed a silver goblet to keep the parchment down, and traced
the route with the point of his dagger.
"To Turin--to Cuneo--as near as we dare to the stiff-necked Genoese,
and we have circled Piedmont."
"And these same Genoese?"
"Let them keep quiet," said Visconti, sheathing his dagger and leaning
back, "and they may keep Genoa; we have larger game in view--the Empire.
From the walls of Novara the Alps are to be seen, from the walls of
Magenta they hide half the sky, from Turin one may touch them, and so we
go closer----"
"And hold the Empire in check," said de Lana, with excited eyes. "Ah, my
lord, it was almost worth it----"
Visconti turned to him sharply.
"What do you say, de Lana?"
There was a second's pause. This was the first, even vague, reference to
what had happened earlier that same night; it seemed weeks since, and
yet the sun had not risen on it.
Visconti looked at de Lana and laughed.
"Almost worth it--almost worth _what_, de Lana?"
The soldier, recovering himself, returned his glance.
"The extinction of four noble families, my lord."
"Did my lord do it?" cried another.
"Did he ask the d'Estes to burn Novara?"
"No," smiled Visconti. "But had they not, I had done it for them, as I
will burn Mantua, and the Gonzagas in it. We will have no seditious
spots in the Lombardy _I_ rule. There will be one capital and one
ruler," he added sternly. "The d'Estes knew enough to anticipate it."
De Lana was silent.
"And these prisoners, my lord?" asked da Ribera. "What of them?"
"They choke the camp," said another.
"They are partisans of Mastino della Scala, naturally," said Visconti.
It was the first time the name had been mentioned, and Visconti's eyes
flared to see that there was silence at it.
"Mastino della Scala, I said--they favored him."
"Yes, my lord; him, or the Estes."
"You will put them to the sword."
"All?"
"All!" shouted Visconti, half rising. "I will have no rebellious slaves
to groan over Della Scala's grave, and hatch me plots from the ashes of
their bones--we will raze the cities to the ground, and put them to the
sword. My triumph will need no prisoners to prove it--and see it done,
de Lana."
They quailed; their attitude acknowledged him the master.
"Spare the churches," said Visconti, "and see that all relics are
brought with due honor to Milan. Da Ribera, you ventured furthest into
Novara; saw you any churches?"
"One, my lord, is saved: the church of Santa Claire."
"We tried to rescue the monks----" struck in Martin della Torre. "They
refused our succor, and returned into the flames--screaming----"
He paused.
"What?" demanded Visconti.
"Somewhat about God's curse," answered della Torre. "Their execration
was not pleasant."
"Had you not been there, you had not heard it," said de Lana. "And a few
crazy----hark!"
There came a great noise from without, and the trampling of crowding
feet.
"Another company is joining us," remarked Visconti.
"The soldiers from Novara," said della Torre, and put his goblet down,
and de Lana turned expectantly to the door. Visconti, facing it, rose in
his seat as it was flung wide and a couple of scorched and bleeding
soldiers entered, followed by a trampling guard.
"From Novara?" asked the Duke.
They stopped short, saluting.
"From Novara! We have saved the library and the college, my lord, and
some three palaces."
"They would have burned the library!" cried Visconti, "sooner than it
should enrich Milan--the jealous fools!"
"Now, hark you"--he added to the soldiers--"every man bringing a book or
a gem or a picture, I reward; every man destroying one, I hang. Now,
which is he who saved the library?"
An officer pushed forward.
"This is he, my lord; one of my company."
"Take this from me," and Visconti handed the man his neck chain.
"And the prisoners, my lord?"
"What care I for the prisoners?--you will give no quarter, I say!"
The officer bowed, and drew a little book from his doublet, laying it on
the table.
"A monk gave me this for his life," he said. "And all Lombardy knows
your taste in books, my lord."
"Remember we league with the Pope," said Visconti, taking it up. "The
monk should have had his life without a bribe; now go, and heed what I
have said." He turned to de Lana: "Follow, and see if the flames be out;
'tis daylight."
The curtains were drawn away from the window, and the early light, fast
glowing into sunlight, and the fresh morning air, filled the heated
chamber.
The lamps flared pale, the gorgeous dresses and flushed, eager faces of
the men round the table, the glimmer of the gold and silver vessels
before them, showed in a garish contrast with the soft light.
"Seneca," said Visconti, turning over the volume the soldier had
brought. "Where is that knave Giannotto? Seneca, spoiled by interlining,
but still Seneca. Giannotto--I say!"
The secretary was not in the room, but the page dispatched soon brought
him. He stood in the doorway, blinking at the daylight, looking around
confused, and the company broke into laughter.
"Take this!" cried Visconti. "A Seneca on vellum, with some dolt's
comments; take it, Giannotto."
"There is a library being brought in below," said the secretary.
"Because we spared the church of Santa Claire, who must have been the
patron saint of poets--eh, de Lana?"
"Messer Francesco Petrarca found her so," said a noble laughing. "A
lucky day for him when he stepped inside the church of Santa Claire!"
"He had cause to thank her, doubtless----"
"If Messer Hugues had not," smiled Visconti.
"I know not, my lord; for a dull boor like that, he gathered some fame,
else never his."
"And the poet turned it to good account," said Visconti. "Methinks he
used his love for money-making; he coined the Lady Laure into good gold
pieces!"
"Now, my lord, is not that spite because Messer Petrarca left his
library to Venice?"
Visconti laughed.
"Let him leave his library where he pleased, he was a fine man of
business, say I."
"And a wearisome poet," said de Lana.
"O Fiametta!" said Visconti laughing. "Joanna! Naples and the blue sea!
These are thy patron saints, de Lana?"
"Nay, I like not that book of feeble love-making any better," replied
de Lana; "a Florentine dallying!"
"I doubt me if thou hast ever read it," said the Duke gayly.
"Alighieri is more to de Lana's mind," remarked da Ribera, pouring wine,
"and the fair daughter of old Folco. I myself used to sing Alighieri's
verses till I tired."
"Yourself or your audience, my friend?"
But Visconti looked at the speaker, frowning.
"You have mentioned Alighieri, forgetting who was his patron," whispered
della Torre.
"The court of Verona and Can' Gran' della Scala----"
"He recanted, my good lord; he died a Ghibelline," said da Ribera,
acting on the whisper.
"Mastino della Scala was a Ghibelline; we never quarreled over that,"
said Visconti easily. "But Mastino was no patron of poets like his
father." He leaned back in his chair and looked out of the window, where
above the beautiful fresh green of the garden faint smoke-wreaths
showed, the last of Novara.
"De Lana, you stood next; what did he say--as he went over?"
At the sudden brutal question, they started, and de Lana suppressed a
shudder.
"I did not hear--I thought--he was dead."
"I think you are still afraid of him," smiled Visconti. "I should like
to know what he said." And he looked round for Giannotto, who had shrunk
into a corner, and sat there gazing dully at the company.
"Did you hear, Giannotto?"
"I? How should I, my lord?" and the secretary shuffled uneasily.
"Ho! a sullen knave!" cried Visconti, then leaned forward and touched de
Lana on the arm.
"I hear more arrivals--hark!"
"What should this be?" asked da Ribera in surprise. "Not my Lord Arezzo
from Modena?"
"From Modena!" cried Visconti with sparkling eyes. "Is there success
there too?"
"Your arms cease to meet with aught else, Lord Visconti," said della
Torre. "I drink to your perfect triumph!" He raised his glass, red as a
huge ruby in the light, and Visconti, triumphant indeed when the leader
of a faction admitted it and deemed it politic to say so, drank to della
Torre standing.
There was a clatter of footsteps and the noise of a great entry.
"Silence!" said Visconti. "'Tis Arezzo, I hear his voice."
The door was again thrown wide, this time upon a splendid cavalier, clad
in magnificent armor, shining beneath his travel-stained scarlet cloak.
"Success rest upon your helm, Visconti, for Lombardy to Belluno is
yours!" He swept his cap off, and stood, flushed and panting, before the
eager, excited company, who rose to a man.
"Modena?" asked Visconti. "And Mantua?"
"Yours," said Guido d'Arezzo. "And of Ferrara I myself received the
keys, and rode post-haste to Milan, through a country that dared not
raise a finger, where even the nobles came uncovered to my stirrup; and
so from thence I followed you here--with these as proof of my success."
He stepped aside, showing a glimpse of the disordered room beyond, and
beckoned to one of the men behind him, taking two great standards from
him.
"This as a proof--the banner of the Gonzagas, the standard of the
d'Estes!" He dropped to one knee and laid them at Visconti's feet, both
bloodstained, torn to rags, the bearings beaten from their surface;
still, the flags that had floated from Modena and Mantua. The company
burst into wild shouts, mad with the intoxication of success, and
Visconti raised Arezzo and placed him beside him at the table, the
banners at his feet.
"Thou hast done splendidly," he cried. "On our side too there is
fortune--Mastino della Scala will trouble us no more!"
"Dead!" cried the general. "Dead!"
"He lies yonder in the garden." With smiling lips Visconti pointed
through the open window. "He was killed last night!"
"The last of the Scaligeri! Then Lombardy is yours indeed!"
"From Vercelli to Belluno!" cried de Lana.
"I shall not forget those who helped me," said Visconti, and called for
wine and himself served Arezzo. "I will prove I am no niggard to my
friends--your health, Arezzo!"
The name of the victorious captain was shouted down the table; only
Giannotto was silent, seated in the window-seat, and the Duke's eyes
fell on him.
"Give the rogue there some wine," he laughed. "Have no fears, Giannotto,
I will remember thee, there are palaces enough to loot. Thou shalt have
the pickings of one. Drink!" he added in a sterner tone, as the
secretary refused the wine with muttered excuses. "Take it, and warm thy
frozen blood, or we will find somewhat will do it better."
The secretary took the goblet, but so gripping the glass that the
slender stem snapped, and the liquid ran red over the black and white
floor, like a trail of fresh blood.
"The cellars are not so full that we can spare good wine," said da
Ribera.
But Visconti laughed, and pulling the map again toward him, pointed out
the march to Arezzo; and the secretary was forgotten, cowering in gloomy
aloofness.
Giannotto watched the scene with a dull interest, as if it were far away
and in no way belonging to him; he had had no sleep that night, and felt
dizzy and confused. He could not forget Mastino, slain last night, and
yet an eternity ago! and lying now out in the garden, marring the
perfect morning with the horror of his face.
Giannotto turned his back to the garden and fixed his eyes on the group
round the table.
They made a brilliant picture.
The background was mosaic, black and silver, gold and white, saints with
glittering haloes, warriors in shining armor, placid and dignified--a
splendid decoration; and against these the moving figures, brilliant in
color, scarlet mantles, doublets, purple and orange, glittering with
jewels, and laughter and talk--a riot of life and color. Slashed sleeves
and gorgeous tassels were laid on or swept across the many-tinted marble
table, on which there stood gold and silver goblets of curious shape,
and glasses, milk-white, azure, or painted, some delicate as
flower-bells, others with twisted stems clasped by a snake with emerald
eyes. And the center of it all was Visconti, leaning eagerly over the
map, with brocaded mantle thrown back.
"And so to Turin!" Giannotto heard him say through the confusion of
voices. "We march next to Magenta."
A dozen voices caught up the word. Giannotto watched them idly.
The sun, flooding the room, made the gold on the wall twinkle and glint,
and caught Arezzo's inlaid armor in points of light.
Visconti overturned one of the glasses, and drew on the table the plan
of Turin in spilled wine, de Lana leaning over eagerly.
Giannotto closed his eyes and leaned back. To his fevered senses the
scene seemed unreal, and the two torn banners resting against the wall
to add a touch of the horrible to the brilliancy and the triumph.
From Mantua and Modena--how much that meant! How many lives had been
flung aside in wild agony and despair to make way for those banners to
stand there!