THE CHAMPION
Facino Cane took his ease at Abbiategrasso in those declining days of
1407 and zestfully devoted himself to the training and education of
Bellarion. It was the first rest the great soldier had known in ten
years, a rest he would never have taken but for the novel occupation
which Bellarion provided him. For Facino was of those who find no peace
in utter idleness. He was of a restless, active mind, and being no
scholar found no outlet for his energy save in physical directions. Here
at Abbiategrasso, away from turbulence, and able for the first time
since Gian Galeazzo's death to live without being perpetually on guard,
he confessed himself happier than he could remember to have been.
'If this were life,' he said to Bellarion one evening as they sauntered
through the parklands where the red deer grazed, 'a man might be
content.'
'Content,' said Bellarion, 'is stagnation. And man was not made for
that. I am coming to perceive it. The peace of the convent is as the
peace of the pasture to the ox.'
Facino smiled. 'Your education progresses.'
'I have left school,' said Bellarion. 'You relish this lull in your
activities, as a tired man relishes sleep. But no man would be glad to
sleep his life away.'
'Dear philosopher, you should write a book of such sayings for man's
entertainment and information.'
I think I'll wait until I am a little older. I may change my mind
again.'
It was not destined that the rest by which Facino was setting such store
should endure much longer. Rumours of trouble in Milan began to reach
them daily, and in the week before Christmas, on a morning when a
snowstorm kept them within doors about a great hissing fire in the main
hall, Facino wondered whether he should not be returning.
The bare suggestion seemed to anger his countess, who sat brooding in a
chair of brown walnut set at one of the corners of the hearth.
'I thought you said we should remain here until spring.' Her tone
revealed the petulance that was ever just under the surface of her
nature.
'I was not to know,' he answered her, 'that in the meantime the duchy
would go to pieces.'
'Why should you care? It is not your duchy. Though a man might have made
it so by this.'
'To make you a duchess, eh?' Facino smiled. His tone was quiet, but it
bore the least strain of bitterness. This was an old argument between
them, though Bellarion heard it now for the first time. 'There are
obstacles supplied by honour. Shall I enumerate them?'
'I know them by heart, your obstacles of honour.' She thrust out a lip
that was very full and red, suggesting the strong life within her. 'They
did not suffice to curb Pandolfo or Buonterzo, and they are at least as
well-born as you.'
'We will leave my birth out of the discussion, madonna.'
'Your reluctance to be reminded of it is natural enough,' she insisted
with malice.
He turned away, and moved across to one of the tall mullioned windows,
trailing his feet through the pine-needles and slim boughs of evergreens
with which the floor was strewn in place of rushes, unprocurable at this
season of the year. His thumbs were thrust into the golden girdle that
cinctured his trailing houppelande of crimson velvet edged with lynx
fur.
He stood a moment in silence, his broad square shoulders to the room,
looking out upon the wintry landscape.
'The snow is falling more heavily,' he said at last.
But even upon that her malice fastened. 'It will be falling still more
heavily in the hills about Bergamo where Pandolfo rules ...'
He span round to interrupt her, and his voice rasped with sarcasm.
'And not quite so heavily in the plain about Piacenza, where Ottone
Buonterzo is tyrant. If you please, madonna, we will change the
subject.'
'I do not please.'
'But I do.' His voice beat upwards to the tones that had reduced whole
squadrons to instant obedience.
The lady laughed, and none too tunefully. She drew her rich cloak of
ermine more closely about her shapely figure.
'And of course what you please is ever to be the law. We come when you
please, and we depart again as soon as you are tired of country
solitude.'
He stared at her frowning, a little puzzled. 'Why, Bice,' he said
slowly, 'I never before knew you attached to Abbiategrasso. You have
ever made a lament of being brought hither, and you deafened me with
your complaints three months ago when we left Milan.'
'Which, nevertheless, did not restrain you from forcing me to come.'
'That does not answer me.' He advanced towards her. 'What is this sudden
attachment to the place? Why this sudden reluctance to return to the
Milan you profess to love, the gaieties of the court in which you strain
to shine?'
'I have come to prefer peace, if you must know, if you must have reason
for all things. Besides, the court is not gay these days. And I am
reminded there of what it might be; of what you might make it if you had
a spark of real spirit. There's not one of them, not Buonterzo, nor
Pandolfo, nor dal Verme, nor Appiano, who would not be Duke by now if he
had the chance accorded to you by the people's love.'
Bellarion marvelled to see him still curb himself before this display of
shameless cupidity.
'The people's love is mine, Bice, because the people believe me to be
honest and loyal. That faith would leave them the moment I became a
usurper, and I should have to rule by terror, with an iron hand, as --'
'So that you ruled ...' she was interrupting him, when he swept on:
'I should be as detested as is Gian Maria to-day. I should have wars on
my hands on every side, and the duchy would become a parade ground.'
'It was so in Gian Galeazzo's early days. Yet upon that he built the
greatness of Milan and his own. A nation prospers by victorious war.'
'To-day Milan is impoverished. Gian Maria's misrule has brought her
down. However you squeeze her citizens, you cannot make them yield what
they lack, the gold that will hire and furnish troops to defend her from
a general attack. But for that, would Pandolfo and Buonterzo and the
others have dared what they have dared? I have made you Countess of
Biandrate, my lady, and you'll rest content with that. My duty is to the
son of the man to whom I owe all that I have.'
'Until that same son hires some one to murder you. What loyalty does he
give you in return? How often has he not tried to shake you from the
saddle?'
'I am not concerned so much with what he is as with what I am.'
'Shall I tell you what you are?' She leaned towards him, contempt and
anger bringing ageing lines into her lovely white face.
'If it will ease you, lady, you may tell me what you think I am. A
woman's breath will neither make nor unmake me.'
'A fool, Facino!'
'My patience gives proof of that, I think. Do you thank God for it.'
And on that he wheeled and sauntered out of the long grey room.
She sat huddled in the chair, her elbows on her knees, her dark blue
eyes on the flames that leapt about the great sizzling logs. After a
while she spoke.
'Bellarion!'
There was no answer. She turned. The long, high-backed form on which he
had sat over against the wall was vacant. The room was empty. She
shrugged impatiently, and swung again to the fire.
'And he's a fool, too. A blind fool,' she informed the flames.
It was dinner-time when they returned together. The table was spread,
and the lackeys waited.
'When you have dined, madonna,' Facino quietly informed her, 'you will
prepare to leave. We return to Milan to-day.'
'To-day!' There was dismay in her voice. 'Oh! You do this to vex me, to
assert your mastership. You ...'
His raised hand interrupted her. It held a letter--a long parchment
document. He dismissed the servants, then briefly told her his news.
There was trouble in Milan, dire trouble. Estorre Visconti, Bernabó's
bastard, together with young Giovanni Carlo, Bernabó's grandson, were
harassing the city in the Ghibelline interest. In a recent raid Estorre
had fired the quarter about the Ticinese Gate. There was want in the
city, and this added to insecurity was rendering the citizens mutinous.
And now, to crown all, was news that, taking advantage of the distress
and unrest, Ottone Buonterzo was raising an army to invade the duchy.
'It is Gabriello who writes, and in the Duke's interest begs me to
return immediately and take command.'
'Command!' She laughed. 'And the faithful lackey runs to serve his
master. You deserve that Buonterzo should whip you again as he whipped
you a year ago. If he does, I have a notion who will be Duke of Milan.
He's a man, this Buonterzo.'
'When he's Duke of Milan, Bice, I shall be dead,' said Facino, smiling.
'So you may marry him then, become his duchess, and be taught how to
behave to a husband. Call the servants, Bellarion.'
They dined in haste, a brooding silence presiding over the meal, and
within an hour of dining they were ready to set out.
There was a mule litter for the Countess, horses for Facino and
Bellarion, a half-dozen mounted grooms, and a score of lances to serve
as escort. The company of a hundred Swiss, which Facino had taken with
him to Abbiategrasso, were to follow on the morrow under their own
captain, Werner von Stoffel, to guard the baggage which would be brought
in bullock-carts.
But at the last moment Facino, who, since rising from table had worn a
thoughtful, undecided air, drew Bellarion aside.
'Here's a commission for you, boy,' he said, and drew a letter from his
breast. 'Take ten lances for escort, and ride hard for Genoa with this
letter for Boucicault, who is Vicar there for the King of France.
Deliver it in person, and at need supplement it. Listen: It is to
request from him the hire of a thousand French lances. I have offered
him a fair price in this letter. But he's a greedy fellow, and may
require more. You have authority, at need, to pledge my word for twice
the sum stated. I am taking no risks this time with Buonterzo. But do
not let Boucicault suspect that we are menaced, or he will adapt the
price to our need. Let him suppose that I require the men for a punitive
expedition against some of the rebellious Milanese fiefs.'
Bellarion asked a question or two, and then professed himself not only
ready, but honoured by the trust reposed in him.
They embraced, and parted, Facino to mount and ride away, Bellarion to
await the groom who was to fetch his horse and Werner von Stoffel who
was to detail the men for his special escort.
As Facino gave the word to ride, the Countess thrust her head between
the leather curtains of her litter.
'Where is Bellarion?'
'He does not ride with us.'
'He doesn't ...? You are leaving him at Abbiate?'
'No. But I have other work for him. I am sending him on a mission.'
'Other work?' Her usually sleepy eyes grew wide awake and round. 'What
work?'
'Nothing that will imperil him.' He spurred his horse forward to avoid
further questions. 'Push on there!'
They reached Milan as dusk was falling, and the snow had ceased. They
entered by Porta Nuova, and went at a trot through the slush and filth
of the borgo. But miraculously the word of Facino's coming ran ahead.
They found the great square thronged with people who had turned out to
acclaim him.
Never yet since Gian Galeazzo's death had it happened to Facino to enter
Milan unacclaimed. But never yet had he received so terrific a
manifestation of affection and good will as this. It expressed reaction
from the terror sown by a rumour lately current that even Facino had at
last forsaken Gian Maria's service, leaving the people at the mercy of
their maniacal Duke and of such men as della Torre and Lonate as well as
of the enemies now known to be rising against them. Facino was the
people's only hope. In war he had proved himself a bulwark. In peace he
had been no less their champion, for he had known how to curb the
savagery of his master, and how to bring some order out of the chaos
into which Gian Maria's misrule was plunging the duchy.
His presence now in the very hour of crisis, in one of the darkest hours
which Gian Maria's dark reign had provided for them, uplifted them on
wings of confidence to exaggerated heights of hope.
As the thunders of the acclamations rolled across the great square to
the Old Broletto, from one of whose windows the Duke looked down upon
his people, Facino, bareheaded, his fulvid hair tossed by the breeze,
his square-cut, shaven face looking oddly youthful for his fifty years,
smiled and nodded, whilst his Countess, drawing back the curtains of her
litter, showed herself too, and for Facino's sake was acclaimed with
him.
As the little troop reached the gateway, Facino raised his eyes and met
the glance of the Duke at the window above. Its malevolence dashed the
glow from his spirit. And he had a glimpse of the swarthy, saturnine
countenance of della Torre, who was looking over Gian Maria's shoulder.
They rode under the gloomy archway and the jagged teeth of the
portcullis, across the Court of the Arrengo and into the Court of Saint
Gotthard. Here they drew up, and it was a gentleman of Milan and a
Guelph, one of the Aliprandi, who ran forward to hold the stirrup of
Facino the Ghibelline champion.
Facino went in his turn to assist his Countess to alight. She leaned on
his arm more heavily than was necessary. She raised her eyes to his, and
he saw that they were aswim in tears. In a subdued but none the less
vehement voice she spoke to him.
'You saw! You heard! And yet you doubt. You hesitate.'
'I neither doubt nor hesitate,' he quietly answered. 'I know where my
path lies, and I follow it.'
She made a noise in her throat. 'And at the window? Gian Maria and that
other. Did you see them?'
'I saw. I am not afraid. It would need more courage than theirs to
express in deed their hatred. Besides, their need of me is too urgent.'
'One day it may not be so.'
'Let us leave that day until it dawn.'
'Then it will be too late. This is your hour. Have they not told you
so?'
'They have told me nothing that I did not know already--those in the
streets and those at the window. Come, madonna.'
And the Countess, raging as she stepped beside him, from between her
teeth cursed the day when she had mated with a man old enough to be her
father who at the same time was a fool.