THE RETURN
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 the _camisade_ in 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.