We left Milan that same day, and there followed for some months a season
of wandering through Lombardy, going from castle to castle, from tyranny
to tyranny, just the three of us--Galeotto and myself with Falcone for
our equerry and attendant.
Surely something of the fanatic's temperament there must have been
in me; for now that I had embraced a cause, I served it with all the
fanaticism with which on Monte Orsaro I sought to be worthy of the
course I had taken then.
I was become as an apostle, preaching a crusade or holy war against the
Devil's lieutenant on earth, Messer Pier Luigi Farnese, sometime Duke
of Castro, now Duke of Parma and Piacenza--for the investiture duly
followed in the August of that year, and soon his iron hand began to
be felt throughout the State of which the Pope had constituted him a
prince.
And to the zest that was begotten of pure righteousness, Galeotto
cunningly added yet another and more worldly spur. We were riding one
day in late September of that year from Cortemaggiore, where we had
spent a month in seeking to stir the Pallavicini to some spirit of
resistance, and we were making our way towards Romagnese, the stronghold
of that great Lombard family of dal Verme.
As we were ambling by a forest path, Galeotto abruptly turned to me,
Falcone at the time being some little way in advance of us, and startled
me by his words.
“Cavalcanti's daughter seemed to move you strangely, Agostino,” he said,
and watched me turn pale under his keen glance.
In my confusion--more or less at random--“What should Cavalcanti's
daughter be to me?” I asked.
“Why, what you will, I think,” he answered, taking my question
literally. “Cavalcanti would consider the Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina
a suitable mate for his daughter, however he might hesitate to marry her
to the landless Agostino d'Anguissola. He loved your father better than
any man that ever lived, and such an alliance was mutually desired.”
“Do you think I need this added spur?” quoth I.
“Nay, I know that you do not. But it is well to know what reward
may wait upon our labour. It makes that labour lighter and increases
courage.”
I hung my head, without answering him, and we rode silently amain.
He had touched me where the flesh was raw and tender. Bianca de'
Cavalcanti! It was a name I uttered like a prayer, like a holy
invocation. Just so had I been in a measure content to carry that name
and the memory of her sweet face. To consider her as the possible
Lady of Mondolfo when I should once more have come into my own, was to
consider things that filled me almost with despair.
Again I experienced such hesitations as had kept me from ever seeking
her at Pagliano, though I had been given the freedom of her garden.
Giuliana had left her brand upon me. And though Bianca had by now
achieved for me what neither prayers nor fasting could accomplish, and
had exorcized the unholy visions of Giuliana from my mind, yet when I
came to consider Bianca as a possible companion--as something more
or something less than a saint enthroned in the heaven created by my
worship of her--there rose between us ever that barrier of murder
and adultery, a barrier which not even in imagination did I dare to
overstep.
I strove to put such thoughts from my mind that I might leave it free to
do the work to which I had now vowed myself.
All through that winter we pursued our mission. With the dal Verme we
had but indifferent success, for they accounted themselves safe, being,
like Cavalcanti, feudatories of the Emperor himself, and nowise included
in the territories of Parma and Piacenza. From Romagnese we made our way
to the stronghold of the Anguissola of Albarola, my cousins, who gave
me a very friendly welcome, and who, though with us in spirit and
particularly urged by their hatred of our guelphic cousin Cosimo who was
now Pier Luigi's favourite, yet hesitated as the others had done. And
we met with little better success with Sforza of Santafiora, to
whose castle we next repaired, or yet with the Landi, the Scotti, or
Confalonieri. Everywhere the same spirit of awe was abroad, and the same
pusillanimity, content to hug the little that remained rather than rear
its head to demand that which by right belonged.
So that when the spring came round again, and our mission done, our
crusade preached to hearts that would not be inflamed, we turned
our steps once more towards Pagliano, we were utterly dispirited
men--although, for myself, my despondency was tempered a little by the
thought that I was to see Bianca once more.
Yet before I come to speak of her again, let me have done with these
historical matters in so far as they touched ourselves.
We had left the nobles unresponsive, as you have seen. But soon the
prognostications of the crafty Gonzaga were realized. Soon Farnese,
through his excessive tyranny, stung them out of their apathy. The first
to feel his iron hand were the Pallavicini, whom he stripped of their
lands of Cortemaggiore, taking as hostages Girolamo Pallavicini's wife
and mother. Next he hurled his troops against the dal Verme, forcing
Romagnese to capitulate, and then seeking similarly to reduce their
other fief of Bobbio. Thence upon his all-conquering way, he marched
upon Castel San Giovanni, whence he sought to oust the Sforza, and
at the same time he committed the mistake of attempting to drive the
Gonzaga out of Soragna.
This last rashness brought down upon his head the direct personal
resentment of Ferrante Gonzaga. With the Imperial troops at his heels
the Governor of Milan not only intervened to save Soragna for his
family, but forced Pier Luigi to disgorge Bobbio and Romagnese,
restoring them to the dal Verme, and compelled him to raise the siege of
San Giovanni upon which he was at the time engaged--claiming that both
these noble houses were feudatories of the Empire.
Intimidated by that rude lesson, Pier Luigi was forced to draw in his
steely claws. To console himself, he turned his attention to the Val di
Taro, and issued an edict commanding all nobles there to disarm, disband
their troops, quit their fortresses, and go to reside in the principal
cities of their districts. Those who resisted or demurred, he crushed
at once with exile and confiscation; and even those who meekly did his
will, he stripped of all privileges as feudal lords.
Even my mother, we heard, was forced to dismiss her trivial garrison,
having been ordered to close the Citadel of Mondolfo, and take up her
residence in our palace in the city itself. But she went further than
she was bidden--she took the veil in the Convent of Santa Chiara, and so
retired from the world.
The State began to ferment in secret at so much and such harsh tyranny.
Farnese was acting in Piacenza as Tarquin of old had acted in his
garden, slicing the tallest poppies from their stems. And soon to swell
his treasury, which not even his plunder, brigandage, and extortionate
confiscations could fill sufficiently to satisfy his greed, he set
himself to look into the past lives of the nobles, and to promulgate
laws that were retroactive, so that he was enabled to levy fresh fines
and perpetrate fresh sequestrations in punishment of deeds that had been
done long years ago.
Amongst these, we heard that he had Giovanni d'Anguissola decapitated in
effigy for his rebellion against the authority of the Holy See, and that
my tyrannies of Mondolfo and Carmina were confiscated from me because of
my offence in being Giovanni d'Anguissola's son. And presently we heard
that Mondolfo had been conferred by Farnese upon his good and loyal
servant and captain, the Lord Cosimo d'Anguissola, subject to a tax of a
thousand ducats yearly!
Galeotto ground his teeth and swore horribly when the news was brought
us from Piacenza, whilst I felt my heart sink and the last hope
of Bianca--the hope secretly entertained almost against hope
itself--withering in my soul.
But soon came consolation. Pier Luigi had gone too far. Even rats when
cornered will turn at bay and bare their teeth for combat. So now the
nobles of the Valnure and the Val di Taro.
The Scotti, the Pallavicini, the Landi, and the Anguissola of Albarola,
came one after the other in secret to Pagliano to interview the gloomy
Galeotto. And at one gathering that was secretly held in a chamber of
the castle, he lashed them with his furious scorn.
“You are come now,” he jeered at them, “now that you are maimed; now
that you have been bled of half your strength; now that most of your
teeth are drawn. Had you but had the spirit and good sense to rise six
months ago when I summoned you so to do, the struggle had been brief
and the victory certain. Now the fight will be all fraught with risk,
dangerous to engage, and uncertain of issue.”
But it was they--these men who themselves had been so pusillanimous at
first--who now urged him to take the lead, swearing to follow him to the
death, to save for their children what little was still left them.
“In that spirit I will not lead you a step,” he answered them. “If we
raise our standard, we fight for all our ancient rights, for all our
privileges, and for the restoration of all that has been confiscated;
in short, for the expulsion of the Farnese from these lands. If that is
your spirit, then I will consider what is to be done--for, believe me,
open warfare will no longer avail us here. What we have to do must
be done by guile. You have waited too long to resolve yourselves. And
whilst you have grown weak, Farnese has been growing strong. He has
fawned upon and flattered the populace; he has set the people against
the nobles; he has pretended that in crushing the nobles he was serving
the people, and they--poor fools!--have so far believed him that they
will run to his banner in any struggle that may ensue.”
He dismissed them at last with the promise that they should hear from
him, and on the morrow, attended by Falcone only, he rode forth again
from Pagliano, to seek out the dal Verme and the Sforza of Santafiora
and endeavour to engage their interest against the man who had outraged
them.
And that was early in August of the year '46.
I remained at Pagliano by Galeotto's request. He would have no need
of me upon his mission. But he might desire me to seek out some of the
others of the Val di Taro with such messages as he should send me.
And in all this time I had seen but little of Monna Bianca. We met under
her father's eye in that gold-and-purple dining-room; and there I would
devoutly, though surreptitiously, feast my eyes upon the exquisite
beauty of her. But I seldom spoke to her, and then it was upon the most
trivial matters; whilst although the summer was now full fragrantly
unfolded, yet I never dared to intrude into that garden of hers to which
I had been bidden, ever restrained by the overwhelming memory of the
past.
So poignant was this memory that at times I caught myself wondering
whether, after all, I had not been mistaken in lending an ear so readily
to the arguments of Fra Gervasio, whether Fra Gervasio himself had not
been mistaken in assuming that my place was in the world, and whether I
had not done best to have carried out my original intention of seeking
refuge in some monastery in the lowly position of a lay brother.
Meanwhile the Lord of Pagliano used me in the most affectionate and
fatherly manner. But not even this sufficed to encourage me where
his daughter was concerned, and I seemed to observe also that Bianca
herself, if she did not actually avoid my society, was certainly at no
pains to seek it.
What the end would have been but for the terrible intervention there was
in our affairs, I have often surmised without result.
It happened that one day, about a week after Galeotto had left us there
rode up to the gates of Pagliano a very magnificent company, and there
was great braying of horns, stamping of horses and rattle of arms.
My Lord Pier Luigi Farnese had been on a visit to his city of Parma, and
on his return journey had thought well to turn aside into the lands of
ultra-Po, and pay a visit to the Lord of Pagliano, whom he did not love,
yet whom, perhaps, it may have been his intention to conciliate, since
hurt him he could not.
Sufficiently severe had been the lesson he had received for meddling
with Imperial fiefs; and he must have been mad had he thought of
provoking further the resentment of the Emperor. To Farnese, Charles V
was a sleeping dog it was as well to leave sleeping.
He rode, then, upon his friendly visit into the Castle of Pagliano,
attended by a vast retinue of courtiers and ladies, pages, lackeys, and
a score of men-at-arms. A messenger had ridden on in advance to
warn Cavalcanti of the honour that the Duke proposed to do him,
and Cavalcanti, relishing the honour no whit, yet submitting out of
discreetness, stood to receive his excellency at the foot of the marble
staircase with Bianca on one side and myself upon the other.
Under the archway they rode, Farnese at the head of the cavalcade. He
bestrode a splendid white palfrey, whose mane and tail were henna-dyed,
whose crimson velvet trappings trailed almost to the ground. He was
dressed in white velvet, even to his thigh-boots, which were laced with
gold and armed with heavy gold spurs. A scarlet plume was clasped by a
great diamond in his velvet cap, and on his right wrist was perched a
hooded falcon.
He was a tall and gracefully shaped man of something over forty years of
age, black-haired and olive-skinned, wearing a small pointed beard that
added length to his face. His nose was aquiline, and he had fine eyes,
but under them there were heavy brown shadows, and as he came nearer it
was seen that his countenance was marred by an unpleasant eruption of
sores.
After him came his gentlemen, a round dozen of them, with half that
number of splendid ladies, all a very dazzling company. Behind these,
in blazing liveries, there was a cloud of pages upon mules, and lackeys
leading sumpter-beasts; and then to afford them an effective background,
a grey, steel phalanx of men-at-arms.
I describe his entrance as it appeared at a glance, for I did not study
it or absorb any of its details. My horrified gaze was held by a figure
that rode on his right hand, a queenly woman with a beautiful pale
countenance and a lazy, insolent smile.
It was Giuliana.
How she came there I did not at the moment trouble to reflect. She was
there. That was the hideous fact that made me doubt the sight of my own
eyes, made me conceive almost that I was at my disordered visions again,
the fruit of too much brooding. I felt as if all the blood were being
exhausted from my heart, as if my limbs would refuse their office, and
I leaned for support against the terminal of the balustrade by which I
stood.
She saw me. And after the first slight start of astonishment, her lazy
smile grew broader and more insolent. I was but indifferently conscious
of the hustle about me, of the fact that Cavalcanti himself was holding
the Duke's stirrup, whilst the latter got slowly to the ground and
relinquished his falcon to a groom who wore a perch suspended from his
neck, bearing three other hooded birds. Similarly I was no more than
conscious of being forced to face the Duke by words that Cavalcanti was
uttering. He was presenting me.
“This, my lord, is Agostino d'Anguissola.”
I saw, as through a haze, the swarthy, pustuled visage frown down upon
me. I heard a voice which was at once harsh and effeminate and quite
detestable, saying in unfriendly tones:
“The son of Giovanni d'Anguissola of Mondolfo, eh?”
“The same, my lord,” said Cavalcanti, adding generously--“Giovanni
d'Anguissola was my friend.”
“It is a friendship that does you little credit, sir,” was the harsh
answer. “It is not well to befriend the enemies of God.”
Was it possible that I had heard aright? Had this human foulness dared
to speak of God?
“That is a matter upon which I will not dispute with a guest,” said
Cavalcanti with an urbanity of tone belied by the anger that flashed
from his brown eyes.
At the time I thought him greatly daring, little dreaming that,
forewarned of the Duke's coming, his measures were taken, and that
one blast from the silver whistle that hung upon his breast would have
produced a tide of men-at-arms that would have engulfed and overwhelmed
Messer Pier Luigi and his suite.
Farnese dismissed the matter with a casual laugh. And then a lazy,
drawling voice--a voice that once had been sweetest music to my ears,
but now was loathsome as the croaking of Stygian frogs--addressed me.
“Why, here is a great change, sir saint! We had heard you had turned
anchorite; and behold you in cloth of gold, shining as you would
out-dazzle Phoebus.”
I stood palely before her, striving to keep the loathing from my face,
and I was conscious that Bianca had suddenly turned and was regarding us
with eyes of grave concern.
“I like you better for the change,” pursued Giuliana. “And I vow
that you have grown at least another inch. Have you no word for me,
Agostino?”
I was forced to answer her. “I trust that all is well with you,
Madonna,” I said.
Her lazy smile grew broader, displaying the dazzling whiteness of
her strong teeth. “Why, all is very well with me,” said she, and her
sidelong glance at the Duke, half mocking, half kindly with an odious
kindliness, seemed to give added explanations.
That he should have dared bring here this woman whom no doubt he had
wrested from his creature Gambara--here into the shrine of my pure and
saintly Bianca--was something for which I could have killed him then,
for which I hated him far more bitterly than for any of those dark
turpitudes that I had heard associated with his odious name.
And meanwhile there he stood, that Pope's bastard, leaning over my
Bianca, speaking to her, and in his eyes the glow of a dark and unholy
fire what time they fed upon her beauty as the slug feeds upon the lily.
He seemed to have no thought for any other, nor for the circumstance
that he kept us all standing there.
“You must come to our Court at Piacenza, Madonna,” I heard him
murmuring. “We knew not that so fair a flower was blossoming unseen
in this garden of Pagliano. It is not well that such a jewel should
be hidden in this grey casket. You were made to queen it in a court,
Madonna; and at Piacenza you shall be hailed and honoured as its queen.”
And so he rambled on with his rough and trivial flattery, his foully
pimpled face within a foot of hers, and she shrinking before him, very
white and mute and frightened. Her father looked on with darkling brows,
and Giuliana began to gnaw her lip and look less lazy, whilst in the
courtly background there was a respectful murmuring babble, supplying a
sycophantic chorus to the Duke's detestable adulation.
It was Cavalcanti, at last, who came to his daughter's rescue by a
peremptory offer to escort the Duke and his retinue within.