“Sir,” gulped Gonzaga, as they were descending from the battlements,
“you will end by having us all hanged. Was that a way to address a
prince?”
Valentina frowned that he should dare rebuke her knight. But Francesco
only laughed.
“By St. Paul! How would you have had me address him?” he inquired.
“Would you have had me use cajolery with him--the lout? Would you
have had me plead mercy from him, and beg him, in honeyed words, to be
patient with a wilful lady? Let be, Messer Gonzaga, we shall weather it
yet, never doubt it.”
“Messer Gonzaga's courage seems of a quality that wanes as the need for
it increases,” said Valentina.
“You are confounding courage, Madonna, with foolhardy recklessness,” the
courtier returned. “You may learn it to your undoing.”
That Gonzaga was not the only one entertaining this opinion they were
soon to learn, for, as they reached the courtyard a burly, black-browed
ruffian, Cappoccio by name, thrust himself in their path.
“A word with you, Messer Gonzaga, and you, Ser Ercole.” His attitude
was full of truculent insolence, and all paused, Francesco and Valentina
turning from him to the two men whom he addressed, and waiting to hear
what he might have to say to them. “When I accepted service under you,
I was given to understand that I was entering a business that should
entail little risk to my skin. I was told that probably there would be
no fighting, and that if there were, it would be no more than a brush
with the Duke's men. So, too, did you assure my comrades.”
“Did you indeed?” quoth Valentina, intervening, and addressing herself
to Fortemani, to whom Cappoccio's words had been directed.
“I did, Madonna,” answered Ercole. “But I had Messer Gonzaga's word for
it.”
“Did you,” she continued, turning to Gonzaga, “permit their engagement
on that understanding?”
“On some such understanding, yes, Madonna,” he was forced to confess.
She looked at him a moment in amazement. Then:
“Msser Gonzaga,” she said at length, “I think that I begin to know you.”
But Cappoccio, who was nowise interested in the extent of Valentina's
knowledge of the man, broke in impetuously:
“Now we have heard what has passed between this new Provost here and his
Highness of Babbiano. We have heard the terms that were offered, and
his rejection of them, and I am come to tell you, Ser Ercole, and you,
Messer Gonzaga, that I for one will not remain here to be hanged when
Roccaleone shall fall into the hands of Gian Maria. And there are others
of my comrades who are of the same mind.”
Valentina looked at the rugged, determined features of the man, and
fear for the first time stole into her heart and was reflected on her
countenance. She was half-turning to Gonzaga, to vent upon him some of
the bitterness of her humour--for him she accounted to blame--when once
again Francesco came to the rescue.
“Now, shame on you, Cappoccio, for a paltry hind! Are these words for
the ears of a besieged and sorely harassed lady, craven?”
“I am no craven,” the man answered hoarsely, his face flushing under the
whip of Francesco's scorn. “Out in the open I will take my chances, and
fight in any cause that pays me. But this is not my trade--this waiting
for the death of a trapped rat.”
Francesco met his eyes steadily for a moment, then glanced at the other
men, to the number of a half-score or so--all, in fact, whom the duties
he had apportioned them did not hold elsewhere. They hung in the rear
of Cappoccio, all ears for what was being said, and their countenances
plainly showing how their feelings were in sympathy with their
spokesman.
“And you a soldier, Cappoccio?” sneered Francesco. “Shall I tell you
in what Fortemani was wrong when he enlisted you? He was wrong in not
hiring you for scullion duty in the castle kitchen.”
“Sir Knight!”
“Bah! Do you raise your voice to me? Do you think I am of your kind,
animal, to be affrighted by sounds--however hideous?”
“I am not affrighted by sounds.”
“Are you not? Why, then, all this ado about a bunch of empty threats
cast at us by the Duke of Babbiano? If you were indeed the soldier you
would have us think you, would you come here and say, 'I will not die
this way, or that'? Confess yourself a boaster when you tell us that you
are ready to die in the open.”
“Nay! That am I not.”
“Then, if you are ready to die out there, why not in here? Shall
it signify aught to him that dies where he gets his dying done? But
reassure yourself, you woman,” he added, with a laugh, and in a
voice loud enough to be heard by the others, “you are not going to
die--neither here, nor there.”
“When Roccaleone capitulates----”
“It will not capitulate,” thundered Francesco.
“Well, then--when it is taken.”
“Nor will it be taken,” the Provost insisted, with an assurance that
carried conviction. “If Gian Maria had time unlimited at his command,
he might starve us into submission. But he has not. An enemy is menacing
his own frontiers, and in a few days--a week, at most--he will be forced
to get him hence to defend his crown.”
“The greater reason for him to use stern measures and bombard us as he
threatens,” answered Cappoccio shrewdly but rather in the tone of a man
who expects to have his argument disproved. And Francesco, if he could
not disprove it, could at least contradict it.
“Believe it not,” he cried, with a scornful laugh. “I tell you that Gian
Maria will never dare so much. And if he did, are these walls that will
crumble at a few cannon-shots? Assault he might attempt; but I need not
tell a soldier that twenty men who are stout and resolute, as I will
believe you are for all your craven words, could hold so strong a place
as this against the assault of twenty times the men the Duke has with
him. And for the rest, if you think I tell you more than I believe
myself, I ask you to remember how I am included in Gian Maria's threat.
I am but a soldier like you, and such risks as are yours are mine as
well. Do you see any sign of faltering in me, any sign of doubting the
issue, or any fear of a rope that shall touch me no more than it shall
touch you? There, Cappoccio! A less merciful provost would have hanged
you for your words--for they reek of sedition. Yet I have stood and
argued with you, because I cannot spare a brave man such as you
will prove yourself. Let us hear no more of your doubtings. They are
unworthy. Be brave and resolute, and you shall find yourself well
rewarded when the baffled Duke shall be forced to raise this siege.”
He turned without waiting for the reply of Cappoccio--who stood
crestfallen, his cheeks reddened by shame of his threat to get him
hence--and conducted Valentina calmly across the yard and up the steps
of the hall.
It was his way never to show a doubt that his orders would be obeyed,
yet on this occasion scarce had the door of the hall closed after them
when he turned sharply to the following Ercole.
“Get you an arquebuse,” he said quickly, “and take my man Lanciotto,
with you. Should those dogs still prove mutinous, fire into any that
attempt the gates--fire to kill--and send me word. But above all,
Ercole, do not let them see you or suspect your presence; that were to
undermine such effect as my words may have produced.”
From out of a woefully pale face Valentina raised her brown eyes to his,
in a look that was as a stab to the observing Gonzaga.
“I needed a man here,” she said, “and I think that Heaven it must have
been that sent you to my aid. But do you think,” she asked, and with her
eyes she closely scanned his face for any sign of doubt, “that they are
pacified?”
“I am assured of it, Madonna. Come, there are signs of tears in your
eyes, and--by my soul!--there is naught to weep at.”
“I am but a woman, after all,” she smiled up at him, “and so, subject to
a woman's weakness. It seemed as if the end were indeed come just now.
It had come, but for you. If they should mutiny----”
“They shall not, while I am here,” he answered, with a cheering
confidence. And she, full of faith in this true knight of hers, went to
seek her ladies, and to soothe in her turn any alarm to which they might
have fallen a prey.
Francesco went to disarm, and Gonzaga to take the air upon the ramparts,
his heart a very bag of gall. His hatred for the interloper was as
nothing now to his rage against Valentina, a rage that had its birth
in a wondering uncomprehension of how she should prefer that coarse,
swashbuckling bully to himself, the peerless Gonzaga. And as he walked
there, under the noontide sky, the memory of Francesco's assurance that
the men would not mutiny returned to him, and he caught himself most
ardently desiring that they might, if only to bear it home to Valentina
how misplaced was her trust, how foolish her belief in that loud
boaster. He thought next--and with increasing bitterness--of his own
brave schemes, of his love for Valentina, and of how assured he had
been that his affections were returned, before this ruffler came
amongst them. He laughed in bitter scorn as the thought returned to her
preferring Francesco to himself. Well, it might be so now--now that the
times were warlike, and this Francesco was such a man as shone at his
best in them. But what manner of companion would this sbirro make in
times of peace? Had he the wit, the grace, the beauty even that was
Gonzaga's? Circumstance, it seemed to him, was here to blame, and he
roundly cursed that same Circumstance. In other surroundings, he was
assured that she would not have cast an eye upon Francesco whilst he,
himself, was by; and if he recalled their first meeting at Acquasparta,
it was again to curse Circumstance for having placed the knight in such
case as to appeal to the tenderness that is a part of woman's nature.
He reflected--assured that he was right--that if Francesco had not come
to Roccaleone, he might by now have been wed to Valentina; and once wed,
he could throw down the bridge and march out of Roccaleone, assured that
Gian Maria would not care to espouse his widow, and no less assured that
Guidobaldo--who was at heart a kind and clement prince--would be content
to let be what was accomplished, since there would be naught gained
beyond his niece's widowhood in hanging Gonzaga. It was the specious
argument that had lured him upon this rash enterprise, the hopes that
he was confident would have fructified but for the interloping of
Francesco.
He stood looking down at the tented plain, with black rage and black
despair blotting the beauty from the sunlight of that May morning, and
then it came to him that since there was naught to be hoped from his
old plans, might it not be wise to turn his attention to new ones that
would, at least, save him from hanging? For he was assured that whatever
might betide the others, his own fate was sealed, whether Roccaleone
fell or not. It would be remembered against him that the affair was of
his instigating, and from neither Gian Maria nor Guidobaldo might he
look for mercy.
And now the thought of extricating himself from his desperate peril
turned him cold by its suddenness. He stood very still a moment; then
looked about him as though he feared that some watching spy might read
on him the ugly intention that of a sudden had leapt to life in his
heart. Swiftly it spread, and took more definite shape, the reflection
of it showing now upon his smooth, handsome face, and disfiguring it
beyond belief. He drew away from the wall, and took a turn or two upon
the ramparts, one hand behind him, the other raised to support his
drooping chin. Thus he brooded for a little while. Then, with another of
his furtive glances, he turned to the north-western tower, and entered
the armoury. There he rummaged until he had found the pen, ink and paper
that he sought, and with the door wide open--the better that he might
hear the sound of approaching steps--he set himself feverishly to write.
It was soon done, and he stood up, waving the sheet to dry the ink. Then
he looked it over again, and this is what he had written:
“I have it in my power to stir the garrison to mutiny and to throw open
the gates of Roccaleone. Thus shall the castle fall immediately into
your hands, and you shall have a proof of how little I am in sympathy
with this rebellion of Monna Valentina's. What terms do you offer me
if I accomplish this? Answer me now, and by the same means as I am
employing, but dispatch not your answer if I show myself upon the
ramparts.
“ROMEO GONZAGA.”
He folded the paper, and on the back he wrote the superscription--“To
the High and Mighty Duke of Babbiano.” Then opening a large chest that
stood against the wall, he rummaged a moment, and at last withdrew an
arbalest quarrel. About the body of this he tied his note. Next, from
the wall he took down a cross-bow, and from a corner a moulinet for
winding it. With his foot in the stirrup he made the cord taut and set
the shaft in position.
And now he closed the door, and, going to the window, which was little
more than an arrow-slit, he shouldered his arbalest. He took careful aim
in the direction of the ducal tent, and loosed the quarrel. He watched
its light, and it almost thrilled him with pride in his archery to see
it strike the tent at which he had aimed, and set the canvas shuddering.
In a moment there was a commotion. Men ran to the spot, others emerged
from the tent, and amongst the latter Gonzaga recognised the figures of
Gian Maria and Guidobaldo.
The bolt was delivered to the Duke of Babbiano, who, with an upward
glance at the ramparts, vanished into the tent once more.
Gonzaga moved from his eerie, and set wide the door of the tower,
so that his eyes could range the whole of the sun-bathed ramparts.
Returning to his window, he waited impatiently for the answer. Nor was
his impatience to endure long. At the end of some ten minutes Gian
Maria reappeared, and, summoning an archer to his side, he delivered
him something and made a motion of his hand towards Roccaleone. Gonzaga
moved to the door, and stood listening breathlessly. At the least sign
of an approach, he would have shown himself, and thus, by the provision
made in his letter have cautioned the archer against shooting his bolt.
But all was quiet, and so Gonzaga remained where he was until something
flashed like a bird across his vision, struck sharply against the
posterior wall, and fell with a tinkle on the broad stones of the
rampart. A moment later the answer from Gian Maria was in his hands.
He swiftly unwound it from the shaft that had brought it, and dropped
the bolt into a corner. Then unfolding the letter, he read it, leaning
against one of the merlons of the wall.
“If you can devise a means to deliver Roccaleone at once into my
hands you shall earn my gratitude, full pardon for your share in Monna
Valentina's rebellion, and the sum of a thousand gold florins.
“GIAN MARIA.”
As he read, a light of joy leapt to his eyes. Gian Maria's terms were
very generous. He would accept them, and Valentina should realise when
too late upon what manner of broken reed she leaned in relying upon
Messer Francesco. Would he save her now, as he so loudly boasted? Would
there indeed be no mutiny, as he so confidently prophesied? Gonzaga
chuckled evilly to himself. She should learn her lesson, and when she
was Gian Maria's wife, she might perhaps repent her of her treatment of
Romeo Gonzaga.
He laughed softly to himself. Then suddenly he turned cold, and he felt
his skin roughening. A stealthy step sounded behind him.
He crumpled the Duke's letter in his hand, and in the alarm of the
moment, he dropped it over the wall. Seeking vainly to compose the
features that a chilling fear had now disturbed, he turned to see who
came.
Behind him stood Peppe, his solemn eyes bent with uncanny intentness
upon Gonzaga's face.
“You were seeking me?” quoth Romeo, and the quaver in his voice sorted
ill with his arrogance.
The fool made him a grotesque bow.
“Monna Valentina desires that you attend her in the garden,
Illustrious.”