THE SIEGE OF ALESSANDRIA
Gabriello Maria Visconti's plans for the restoration of Ghibelline
authority suffered shipwreck, as was to be expected in a council mainly
composed of Guelphs.
The weapon placed in their hands by Gabriello Maria for his own defeat
was the Marquis Theodore's demand, as the price of his alliance, that he
should be supported in the attempt to recover Genoa to Montferrat.
Della Torre laughed the proposal to scorn. 'And thereby incur the
resentment of the King of France!' He developed that argument so
speciously that not even Facino, who was present, suspected that it did
not contain the true reason of della Torre's opposition.
In hiring a French contingent to strengthen the army which he had led
against Buonterzo, Facino had shown the uses that could be made of
Boucicault. What Facino had done della Torre could do, nominally on the
Duke's behalf. He could hire lances from Boucicault to set against
Facino himself when the need for this arose.
'Possibly,' ventured Gabriello, 'the surrender of Vercelli and certain
other guarantees would suffice to bring Montferrat into alliance.'
But della Torre desired no such alliance. 'Surrender Vercelli! We have
surrendered too much already. It is time we sought alliances that will
restore to Milan some of the fiefs of which she has been robbed.'
'And where,' Facino quietly asked him, 'will you find such allies?'
Della Torre hesitated. He knew as well as any man that policies may be
wrecked by premature disclosure. If his cherished scheme of alliance
with Malatesta of Rimini were suspected, Facino, forewarned, would arm
himself to frustrate it. He lowered his glance.
'I am not prepared to say where they may be found. But I am prepared to
say that they are not to be found in Theodore of Montferrat at the price
demanded by that Prince.'
Gabriello Maria was left to make what excuses he could to the Marquis
Theodore; and the Marquis Theodore received them in no pleasant manner.
He deemed himself slighted, and said so; hinting darkly that Milan
counted enemies enough already without wantonly seeking to add to them.
Thus in dudgeon he returned to Montferrat.
Della Torre's patient reticence was very shortly justified.
In the early days of June came an urgent and pitiful appeal from the
Duke's brother, Filippo Maria, Count of Pavia, for assistance against
the Vignati of Lodi, who were ravaging his territories and had seized
the city of Alessandria.
The Duke was in his closet with della Torre and Lonate when that letter
reached him. He scowled and frowned and grunted over the parchment
awhile, then tossed it to della Torre.
'A plague on him that wrote it! Can you read the scrawl, Antonio?'
Della Torre took it up. 'It is from your brother, highness; the Lord
Filippo Maria.'
'That skin of lard!' Gian Maria was contemptuous. 'If he remembers my
existence, he must be in need of something.'
Della Torre gravely read the letter aloud. The Prince guffawed once or
twice over a piteous phrase, meanwhile toying with the head of a great
mastiff that lay stretched at his feet.
He guffawed more heartily than ever at the end, the malice of his nature
finding amusement in the calamities of his brother. 'His Obesity of
Pavia is disturbed at last! Let the slothful hog exert himself, and
sweat away some of his monstrous bulk.'
'Do not laugh yet, my lord.' Della Torre's lean, crafty, swarthy face
was grave. 'I have ever warned you against the ambition of Vignate, and
that it would not be satisfied with the reconquest of Lodi. He is in
arms, not so much against your brother as against the house of
Visconti.'
'God's bones!' Goggle-eyed, the Duke stared at his adviser. Then to vent
unreasoning fury he rose and caught the dog a vicious kick which drove
it yelping from him. 'By Hell, am I to go in arms against Vignate? Is
that your counsel?'
'No less.'
'And this campaign against Buonterzo scarcely ended! Am I to have
nothing but wars and feuds and strife to distract my days? Am I to spend
all in quelling brigandage? By the Passion! I'd as soon be Duke of Hell
as reign in Milan.'
'In that case,' said della Torre, 'do nothing, and the rest may follow.'
'Devil take you, Antonio!' He caught up a hawk-lure from the table, and
set himself to strip it as he talked, scattering the feathers about the
room. 'Curb him, you say? Curb this damned thief of Lodi? How am I to
curb him? The French lances are gone back to Boucicault. The
parsimonious fathers of this miserly city were in haste to dismiss them.
They think of nothing but ducats, may their souls perish! They think
more of ducats than of their duke.' Inconsequently, peevishly, he ranted
on, reducing the hawk-lure to rags the while, and showing the crafty
della Torre his opportunity.
'Vignate,' he said at last, when the Duke ceased, 'can be in no great
strength when all is reckoned. Facino's own condotta should fully
suffice to whip him out of Alessandria and back to Lodi.'
Gian Maria moved restlessly about the room.
'What if it should not? What if Facino should be broken by Vignate? What
then? Vignate will be at the gates of Milan.'
'He might be if we could not prepare for the eventuality.'
With a sudden curious eagerness Gian Maria glared at his mentor. 'Can
we? In God's name, can we? If we could ...' He checked. But the sudden
glow of hate and evil hope in his prominent pale eyes showed how he was
rising to the bait.
Della Torre judged the moment opportune. 'We can,' he answered firmly.
'How, man? How?'
'In alliance with Malatesta your highness would be strong enough to defy
all comers.'
'Malatesta!' The Duke leapt as if stung. But instantly he curbed
himself. The loose embryonic features tightened, reflecting the
concentration of the embryonic wicked mind within. 'Malatesta, eh?' His
tone was musing. He let himself drop once more into his broad armchair,
and sat there, cross-legged, pondering.
Della Torre moved softly to his side, and lowered his voice to an
impressive note.
'Indeed, your highness should consider whether you will not in any event
bring in Malatesta so soon as Facino has departed on this errand.'
The handsome, profligate Lonate, lounging, a listener by the window,
cleared up all ambiguity: 'And so make sure that this upstart does not
return to trouble you again.'
Gian Maria's head sank a little between his shoulders. Here was his
chance to rid himself for all time of the tyrannical tutelage of that
condottiero, made strong by popular support.
'You speak as if sure that Malatesta will come.'
Della Torre put his cards on the table at last. 'I am. I have his word
that he will accept a proposal of alliance from your highness.'
'You have his word!' The ever-ready suspicions of a weak mind were
stirring.
'I took his feeling against the hour when your potency might need a
friend.'
'And the price?'
Della Torre spread his hands. 'Malatesta has ambitions for his daughter.
If she were Duchess of Milan ...'
'Is that a condition?' The Duke's voice was sharp.
'A contingency only,' della Torre untruthfully assured him. 'Yet if
realised the alliance would be consolidated. It would become a family
affair.'
'Give me air! Let me think.' He rose, thrusting della Torre away by a
sweep of his thin arm.
Ungainly in his gaudy red and white, shuffling his feet as he went, he
crossed to the window where Lonate made way for him. There he stood a
moment looking out, whilst between Lonate and della Torre a look of
intelligence was flashed.
Suddenly the boy swung round again, and his grotesque countenance was
flushed. 'By God and His Saints! What thought does it ask?' He laughed,
slobberingly, at the picture in his mind of a Facino Cane ruined beyond
redemption. Nor could he perceive, poor fool, that he would be but
exchanging one yoke for another, probably heavier.
Still laughing, he dismissed della Torre and Lonate, and sent for
Facino. When the condottiero came, he was given Filippo Maria's letter,
which he spelled out with difficulty, being little more of a scholar
than the Duke.
'It is grave,' he said when he had reached the end.
'You mean that Vignate is to be feared?'
'Not so long as he is alone. But how long will he so continue? What if
he should be joined by Estorre Visconti and the other malcontents?
Singly they matter nothing. United they become formidable. And this bold
hostility of Vignate's may be the signal for a league.'
'What then?'
'Smash Vignate and drive him out of Alessandria before it becomes a
rallying-ground for your enemies.'
'About it, then,' rasped the Duke. 'You have the means.'
'With the Burgundians enlisted after Travo, my condotta stands at two
thousand three hundred men. If the civic militia is added ...'
'It is required for the city's defence against Estorre and the other
roving insurgents.'
Facino did not argue the matter.
'I'll do without it, then.'
He set out next day at early morning, and by nightfall, the half of that
march to Alessandria accomplished, he brought his army, wearied and
exhausted by the June heat, to rest under the red walls of Pavia.
To proceed straight against the very place which Vignate had seized and
held was a direct course of action in conflict with ideas which
Bellarion did not hesitate to lay before the war-experienced officers
composing Facino's council. He prefaced their exposition by laying down
the principle, a little didactically, that the surest way to defeat an
opponent is to assault him at the weakest point. So much Facino and his
officers would have conceded on the battle-ground itself. But
Bellarion's principle involved a wider range, including the enemy's
position before ever battle was joined so as to ensure that the
battle-ground itself should be the enemy's weakest point. The course he
now urged entailed an adoption of the strategy employed by the Athenians
against the Thebans in the Peloponnesian war, a strategy which Bellarion
so much admired and was so often to apply.
In its application now, instead of attacking Alessandria behind whose
walls the enemy lay in strength, he would have invaded Vignate's own
temporarily unguarded Tyranny of Lodi.
Facino laughed a little at his self-sufficiency, and, emboldened by
that, Carmagnola took it upon himself to put the fledgling down.
'It is in your nature, I think, to avoid the direct attack.' He sneered
as he spoke, having in mind the jousts at Milan and the manner in which
Bellarion had cheated him of the satisfaction upon which he counted.
'You forget, sir, that your knighthood places you under certain
obligations.'
'But not, I hope,' said Bellarion innocently, 'under the obligation of
being a fool.'
'Do you call me that?' Carmagnola's sudden suavity was in itself a
provocation.
'You boast yourself the champion of the direct attack. It is the method
of the bull. But I have never heard it argued from this that the bull is
intelligent even among animals.'
'So that now you compare me with a bull?' Carmagnola flushed a little,
conscious that Koenigshofen and Stoffel were smiling.
'Quiet!' growled Facino. 'We are not here to squabble among ourselves.
Your assumptions, Bellarion, sometimes become presumptions.'
'So you thought on the Trebbia.'
Facino brought his great fist down upon the table. 'In God's name! Will
you be pert? You interrupt me. Battering-ram tactics are not in my mind.
I choose a different method. But I attack Alessandria none the less,
because Vignate and his men are there.'
Discreetly Bellarion said no more, suppressing the argument that by
reducing unguarded Lodi and restoring it to the crown of Milan from
which it had been ravished, a moral effect might be produced of
far-reaching effect upon the fortunes of the duchy.
After a conference with Filippo Maria in his great castle of Pavia,
Facino resumed his march, his army now increased by six hundred Italian
mercenaries under a soldier of fortune named Giasone Trotta, whom
Filippo Maria had hired. He took with him a considerable train of siege
artillery, of mangonels, rimbaults, and cannon, to which the Count of
Pavia had materially added.
Nevertheless, he did not approach Alessandria within striking distance
of such weapons. He knew the strength to withstand assault of that
fortress-city, built some three hundred years before on the confines of
the Pavese and Montferrat to be a Guelphic stronghold in the struggle
between Church and Empire. Derisively then the Ghibellines had dubbed it
a fortress of straw. But astride of the river Tanaro, above its junction
with the Bormida, this Alessandria of Straw had successfully defied
them.
Facino proposed to employ the very strength of her strategic position
for the undoing of her present garrison if it showed fight. And
meanwhile he would hem the place about, so as to reduce it by
starvation.
Crossing the Po somewhere in the neighbourhood of Bassignana, he marched
up the left bank of the Tanaro to Pavone, a village in the plain by the
river just within three miles of Alessandria. There he took up his
quarters, and thence on a radius of some three miles he drew a cordon
throughout that low-lying, insalubrious land, intersected with
watercourses, where only rice-fields flourished. This cordon crossed the
two rivers just above their junction, swept thence to Marengo,
recrossing the Bormida, ran to Aulara in the south and on to
Casalbagliano in the West, just beyond which it crossed the Tanaro
again, and, by way of San Michele in the north, went on to complete the
circle at Pavone.
So swift had been the movement that the first intimation to the
Alessandrians that they were besieged was from those who, issuing from
the city on the morrow, were stopped at the lines and ordered to return.
From information obtained from these, in many cases under threat of
torture, it became clear that the populous city was indifferently
victualled, and unequal, therefore, to a protracted resistance. And this
was confirmed during the first week by the desperate efforts made by
Vignate, who was raging like a trapped wolf in Alessandria. Four times
he attempted to break out in force. But within the outer circle, and
close to the city so as to keep it under observation, Facino had drawn a
ring of scouts, whose warning in each case enabled him to concentrate
promptly at the point assailed. The advantage lay with Facino in these
engagements, since the cavalry upon which Vignate chiefly depended found
it impossible to operate successfully in those swampy plains. Over
ground into which the horses sank to their fetlocks at every stride, a
cavalry charge was a _brutum fulmen_. Horses were piked by
Koenigshofen's foot, and formations smashed and hurled back by an enemy
upon whom their impact was no more than a spent blow.
If they escaped it was because Facino would make no prisoners. He would
not willingly relieve Alessandria of a single mouth that would help to
eat up its power of endurance. For the same reason he enjoined it upon
his officers that they should be as sparing as possible of life.
'That is to say, of human life,' said Bellarion, raising his voice in
council for the first time since last rebuked.
They looked at him, not understanding.
'What other life is in question?' asked Carmagnola.
'There are the horses. If allowed to survive, they may be eaten in the
last extremity.'
They acted upon that reminder when Vignate made his next sally. Facino
did not wait as hitherto to receive the charge upon his pikes, but raked
the enemy ranks, during their leisurely advance and again during their
subsequent retreat with low-aimed arbalest bolts which slew only horses.
Whether Vignate perceived the reason, or whether he came to realise that
the ground was not suitable for cavalry, his fourth sally, to the north
in the direction of San Michele, was made on foot. He had some two
thousand men in his following, and had they been lightly armed and
properly led it is probable that they would have broken through, for the
opposing force was materially less. But Vignate, unaccustomed to
handling infantry, committed the error of the French at Agincourt. He
employed dismounted men-at-arms in all the panoply in which normally
they rode to battle. Their fate was similar to that of the French on
that earlier occasion. Toiling over the clammy ground in their heavy
armour, their advance became leaden-footed, and by the time they reached
Facino's lines they were exhausted men easily repulsed, and as glad as
they were surprised to escape death or capture.
After that failure, three representatives of the Commune of Alessandria,
accompanied by one of Vignate's captains, presented themselves at
Facino's quarters in the house of the Curate of Pavone, temporarily
appropriated by the condottiero.
They were ushered into a plain yellow-washed room, bare of all
decoration save that of a crudely painted wooden crucifix which hung
upon the wall above a straight-backed wooden settle. An oblong table of
common pine stood before this settle; a writing-pulpit, also of pine,
placed under one of the two windows by which the place was lighted, and
four rough stools and a shallow armchair completed the furniture.
The only gentle touch about that harsh interior was supplied by the
sweet-smelling lemon verbena and rosemary mingled in the fresh rushes
with which the floor was copiously strewn to dissemble its earthen
nudity.
Carmagnola, showily dressed as usual in blue and crimson, with
marvellously variegated hose and a jewelled caul confining his flaxen
hair, had appropriated the armchair, and his gorgeous presence seemed to
fill the place. Stoffel, Koenigshofen, Giasone Trotta, and Vougeois, who
commanded the Burgundians, occupied the stools and afforded him a sober
background. Bellarion leaned upon the edge of the settle, where Facino
sat alone, square-faced and stern, whilst the envoys invited him to
offer terms for the surrender of the city.
'The Lord Count of Pavia,' he told them, 'does not desire to mulct too
heavily those of his Alessandrian subjects who have remained loyal. He
realises the constraint of which they may have been the victims, and he
will rest content with a payment of fifty thousand florins to indemnify
him for the expenses of this expedition.' The envoys breathed more
freely. But Facino had not yet done. 'For myself I shall require another
fifty thousand florins for distribution among my followers, to ransom
the city from pillage.'
The envoys were aghast. 'One hundred thousand gold florins!' cried one.
'My lord, it will ...'
He raised his hand for silence. 'That as regards the Commune of
Alessandria. Now, as concerns the Lord Vignate, who has so rashly
ventured upon this aggression. He is allowed until noon to-morrow to
march out of Alessandria with his entire following, but leaving behind
all arms, armour, horses, bullocks, and war material of whatsoever kind.
Further, he will enter into a bond for one hundred thousand florins, to
be paid either by himself personally or by the Commune of Lodi to the
Lord Count of Pavia's city of Alessandria, to indemnify the latter for
the damages sustained by this occupation. And my Lord Vignate will
further submit to the occupation of the city of Lodi by an army of not
more than two thousand men, who will be housed and fed and salaried at
the city of Lodi's charges until the indemnity is paid. With the further
condition that if payment is not made within one month, the occupying
army shall take it by putting the city to sack.'
The officer sent by Vignate, a stiff, black-bearded fellow named
Corsana, flushed indignantly. 'These terms are very harsh,' he
complained.
'Salutary, my friend,' Facino corrected him. 'They are intended to show
the Lord Vignate that brigandage is not always ultimately profitable.'
'You think he will agree?' The man's air was truculent. The three
councillors looked scared.
Facino smiled grimly. 'If he has an alternative, let him take advantage
of it. But let him understand that the offer of these terms is for
twenty-four hours only. After that I shall not let him off so lightly.'
'Lightly!' cried Corsano in anger, and would have added more but that
Facino cropped the intention.
'You have leave to go.' Thus, royally, Facino dismissed them.
They did not return within the twenty-four hours, nor as day followed
day did Vignate make any further sign. Time began to hang heavily on the
hands of the besiegers, and Facino's irritation grew daily, particularly
when an attack of the gout came to imprison him in the cheerless house
of the Curate of Pavone.
One evening a fortnight after the parley and nearly a month after the
commencement of the siege, as Facino sat at supper with his officers,
all save Stoffel, who was posted at Casalbagliano, the condottiero, who
was growing impatient of small things, inveighed against the quality of
the food.
It was Giasone Trotta, to whose riders fell the task of provisioning the
army, who answered him. 'Faith! If the siege endures much longer, it is
we who will be starved by it. My men have almost cleaned up the
countryside for a good ten miles in every direction.'
It was a jocular exaggeration, but it provoked an explosion from Facino.
'God confound me if I understand how they hold out. With two thousand
ravenous soldiers in the place, a week should have brought them to
starvation.'
Koenigshofen thoughtfully stroked his square red beard. 'It's colossally
mysterious,' said he.
'Mysterious, aye! That's what plagues me. They must be fed from
outside.'
'That is quite impossible!' Carmagnola was emphatic. As Facino's
lieutenant, it fell to his duty to see that the cordon was properly
maintained.
'Yet what is the alternative,' wondered Bellarion, 'unless they are
eating one another?'
Carmagnola's blue eyes flashed upon him almost malevolently for this
further reflection upon his vigilance.
'You set me riddles,' he said disdainfully.
'And you're not good at riddles, Francesco,' drawled Bellarion, meeting
malice with malice. 'I should have remembered it.'
Carmagnola heaved himself up. 'Now, by the Bones of God, what do you
mean?'
The ears of the ill-humoured Facino had caught a distant sound. 'Quiet,
you bellowing calf!' he snapped. 'Listen! Listen! Who comes at that
breakneck speed?'
It was a hot, breathless night of July, and the windows stood wide to
invite a cooling draught. As the four men, so bidden, grew attentive,
they caught from the distance the beat of galloping hooves.
'It's not from Alessandria,' said Koenigshofen.
'No, no,' grunted Facino, and thereafter they listened in silence.
There was no reason for it save such colour as men's imaginings will
give a sound breaking the deathly stillness of a hot dark night, yet
each conceived and perhaps intercommunicated a feeling that these hooves
approaching so rapidly were harbingers of portents.
Carmagnola went to the door as two riders clattered down the village
street, and, seeing the tall figure silhouetted against the light from
within, they slackened pace.
'The Lord Facino Cane of Biandrate? Where is he quartered?'
'Here!' roared Carmagnola, and at the single word the horses were pulled
up with a rasping of hooves that struck fire from the ground.