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Title: The Viper of Milan: A Romance Of Lombardy (1906) Author: Marjorie Bowen * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 0800181h.html Language: English Date first posted: February 2008 Date most recently updated: February 2008 Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html
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'Lovely in the midst of crime, |
CONTENTS
Author's Note
1. Gian Galeazzo Maria Visconti
2. 'Francisco'
3. The Hostage of the d'Estes
4. Valentine
5. The Painter's Daughter
6. The Rescue of Count von Schulembourg
7. Graziosa's Bracelet
8. For a Lady's Gift
9. The Return of the Dead
10. The Turquoise Gloves
11. Mastino della Scala
12. Graziosa's Lover
13. Valentine Visconti's Toast
14. The Tumult at the Western Gate
15. A Prisoner from Milan
16. For a Game of Chess
17. The Terrors of the Night
18. Giacomo Carrara's Reward
19. A Sign from Heaven
20. In the Duke's Absence
21. The Duke's Return
22. The Secret Passage
23. For Love of Ambrogio
24. Treachery
25. In Cloth of Gold
26. In Visconti's Hands
27. Unequal Odds
28. The Viper
29. The Ordeal of Mastino della Scala
30. The Wedding
31. The Pride of the d'Estes
32. The Price of Dishonour
33. The Storm
34. An Instrument of God
This story should be read as a fantasy, the theme of which is Italy of the late Middle Ages. The various potentates mentioned and places described belong to the author's imagination. The names of some of the characters will be found in the history books, but the names only.
It is a day in early summer, as beautiful as such days were in the Southern lands of 500 years ago. It is Italy steeped in golden sunlight which lies like a haze over the spreading view; the year 1360, when cities were beautiful and nature all-pervading. Here is Lombardy, spread like a garden in the hollow of the hills, ringed about with the purple Apennines, covered with flowers, white, yellow, purple, and pink. This wide road, one of the finest in Italy, winds from Milan to Brescia, its whole length through chestnut woods and plains covered with flowering myrtle. Primroses in great clusters border its sides, and from the midst of their delicate blooms spring the slender stems of poplar-trees; these are red-gold, bursting into bloom against a tender sky; tufts of young green; clumps of wild violets.
But for all its unspoiled beauty, the road was one of common use, for Milan was within hail. Villas, the summer dwellings of its wealthy peers, stood back among the trees, surrounded by magnificent grounds. Behind them beautiful open country spread into the blue distance, fragrant and glorious with budding trees. And cold and magnificent the great city itself, with its huge walls and gates, crowned and emphasized the landscape's beauty. The lines of hundreds of turrets and spires, bold and delicate, leaped up against the sky. And paramount, catching the eye with colour, weighing on the mind with meaning, were the city's banners. They floated from the gates and the highest buildings, half a score of them, all with the same device. Far off could that device be read: a green viper on a silver ground: the emblazonment of the Visconti.
From afar the city was a vision of stately splendour, and the low dwellings clustered round about her walls, in the shadow of the palaces, appeared to the nearing traveller but a touch added of the picturesque. A close survey, however, revealed semi-ruined huts; in their foul neglect and unsightliness, a blot upon the scene. They were homes of peasants, who, tattered and miserable, starved and unwashed, seemed their fitting occupants. Here comes a band of them slowly dragging along the road toward Milan, men, women, and children, leading a few rough-haired mules, laden with scanty country produce. It was poor stuff, and a poor living they made at it. The wealthy grew their own fruit and vegetables, the poorer could not afford to buy. Crushed by hopeless oppression into a perpetual dull acceptance, the crowd trudged along, with shuffling feet and bent heads, unheeding the beauty and the sunshine, unnoticing the glory of the spring, with dull faces from which all the soul had been stamped out, and 'fear' writ large across the blank. Every movement showed them slaves, every line in their bent figures told they lived under a rule of terror, too potent for them to dare even to raise their eyes to question. A stream of grey and brown monotony along the glorious road, decked with the fairest: beauty of fair Italy, these miserable peasants were strangely out of keeping, both with the radiant blossoming country and the magnificent city they drew near.
Keeping close behind them walked a young man and a boy, better attired than the others, yet travel-worn and weary-looking. The delicate cast of their features bespoke them of another part of Italy, as did the soft Latin tongue in which they held their whispering excited conversation. The elder, whom his companion called Tomaso, was a fair-haired youth of about nineteen; the other, like enough to be a relative, a mere child of ten or twelve. The sun was growing hot, and their stout cloaks of dull red serge were flung back, showing their leathern doublets, to which the elder boy wore attached a great pouch of undressed skin, which evidently bore their day's provisions.
Suddenly, when Milan, clear and grey, was distant barely half a mile, the group of wretched figures was roused from its shuffling apathy: and the terror latent in their aspect leaped into life and motion.
Swept back by the others, the two Florentines gazed in amazement to learn the cause of this panic. In the distance, brilliant between the dark stone of the gateway of the city, fluttered a banner, blazoned with the same device as those that blew above the walls. The peasants' eyes, sharpened by fear, were quicker than Tomaso's: it was some seconds before he could discern that the banner fluttered from the canopy of a splendid coach, magnificent in gold and scarlet, issuing from the sombre shadow into the sunshine of the road; and as it drew nearer, he looked with pleasure not unmixed with wonder at the rich gildings, fine silk, the beauty of the four black horses, the size and magnificent liveries of the huge Negroes who walked at their heads. To him it was an interesting sight, an incident of his travels. But to the Milanese peasants it was the symbol of the dread power that ruled Lombardy with a grip of blood, the device that kept Milan, the wealthiest, proudest city in the north, cringing in silent slavery; the banner that had waved from city after city, added by force or treachery to the dominions of Milan; the banner of Gian Galeazzo Maria Visconti, Duke.
With trembling hands and muttered threats to their slow beasts, the hinds dragged their burdens to the roadside, forcing the children back into the hedges; leaving clear the way. Cowering and awestruck, in fascinated expectation, they stared, toward that oncoming banner, and at the horseman who rode behind.
Still at the same measured pace the coach advanced; a cumbrous structure, swung high on massive gilded wheels, and open under an embroidered canopy of scarlet silk. At the head of each black horse walked a Negro, richly dressed in scarlet and gold. The trappings of the steeds were dazzling, in stamped leather and metal.
But this splendour of array the peasant folk of Lombardy were used to; it was not that which made them crouch as if they would ask the earth to hide them, shiver and shudder yet farther back as if the soft green bank could save them.
In the coach sat two, a man and a woman, but both so old and shrivelled that the distinguishing characteristics of their sex were well-nigh lost. Both were richly clad in furs, and half-hidden in satin cushions, nothing of the old man visible but his wrinkled face, grey beard, and, loaded with rings, thin yellow hands, the fingers of which were clutching nervously at his heavy silken robe. The woman, painted and bedizened under a large red wig, weighed down by a gown of cloth of gold, and pearls around her neck, wrung her hands together, and whispered incoherently below her breath. Both had sunk together among the cushions in an attitude of despair, the man looking steadily in front of him with white face, the woman casting terror-stricken eyes over the wretched spectators in a mute appeal for help, if even from them.
Behind them rode the single horseman who had struck the terror. His pace was leisurely, his horse's bridle held by a pale-faced man with long red hair, of a stealthy bearing, crushed and mean-looking, but resplendent in a jewelled dress. The rider himself, slight and handsome, about thirty, plainly attired in green, gave, at a first glance, small token of the spell he exercised. He rode with ease and surety: in one hand a half-rolled parchment from which he read aloud in a soft voice, in the other a long whip with which he flicked and teased the occupants of the carriage.
The coach and its occupants, the solitary rider, and the red-haired man, were the whole of the procession.
At the rider's side hung a single dagger, the others were unarmed, yet the crowd trembled under a spell of fear as if half Italy had backed that man. No one gave sign of feeling, no one moved, though the wretched couple looked around keenly and eagerly, with the helpless misery of those who have fallen below everything save fear, and will stoop to ask help of the lowest. And the Visconti banner floated out dreamily upon the light spring breeze, and the rider rode at ease and read from the parchment with a smiling face.
Suddenly the old man rose, and threw out his hands with a wild gesture toward the crouching peasants. His frantic cry was stifled on his lips, and a cut from the whip sent him back to his seat with a snarl of impotent fury. The woman sobbed aloud, but sat still, for the tease of the whip followed their slightest movements, though the horseman seemed to heed nothing but the parchment from which he read.
'Beautiful the Tuscan flowers grew
Around the Florentine—'
The soft lines died away on his smiling lips: he raised his eyes and looked straight at the old man, who, at the words, had turned in his seat and was gazing over his shoulder with an intensity of hate.
But on the pause there followed a cold laugh as the old man winced, faltered, and dropped his eyes from that charmed and steady gaze. Again the whip circled round them, and the calm voice continued
'But straight and firm the poplars grew
The Lombard ranks between.'
The woman gazed around at the crowd, desperate in hopeless misery. Hopeless indeed. Not a finger was raised, not a word uttered, though, men alone, they numbered more than fifty.
'Perchance thou wouldst not dare to turn
And draw the veil, from off that face,
Fearing what secrets thou might'st learn
Both for thine own and her disgrace,'
read the horseman, and the cavalcade passed on its heavy way, and the faint hope that had leaped to life within the wretched victims, at sight of human eyes upon them, died within them.
But on the outside of the crowd, Tomaso and Vittore, kneeling with the rest, as that banner drew near, now stirred uneasily, and, as the coach came abreast, the woman made a convulsive movement with her hands. The elder sprang to his feet and stepped forward impulsively. At sight of him in the roadway the horseman drew rein, and the terror-stricken crowd watched breathless, while the youth advanced boldly to his stirrup, hot words upon his lips, defiance in his eyes. The red-haired man at the bridle crouched, but before the lad could speak, the rider, leaning forward, struck him a blow full across the face.
There was no need for a second. With a scream of pain, Tomaso fell back, and then, as if noticing them for the first time, the horseman sent his glance on the crowd. No sound or movement: they cowered beneath his eyes in deprecating silence.
'Drive on,' he said, and the dreary procession started again, winding through the sun and shadow toward Brescia.
So great was the spell upon the peasants, that though the wounded boy lay moaning in the road not a man, scarce a child among them, stirred from his place till the banner of the Viper was a silver speck in the distance.
Then with shaking hands the youth was dragged into the ditch amid a babble of blame and fear. Vittore, rising from his stricken comrade, gazed into the distance with horror-stricken eyes.
'Who was it?' he whispered at last to the woman near him. 'Who was it?'
She turned a dull face from the scattered vegetables she was gathering together.
'Who art thou that thou knowest not?' she asked.
'I come from Florence,' said the lad quickly, 'travelling to Verona.'
'To Verona! Thou art not on thy way to Verona here.'
'I know it, but the company we travelled with was bound for Milan. Three days ago we missed them, and thought to find them in the city where we looked to spend the night, but now—'
He glanced at his companion and could scarce refrain from weeping.
'To Verona!' said an old peasant, turning sharply at the name. 'To Verona!'
The child dropped again to his knees beside Tomaso.
'Yes,' he said, over his shoulder. 'My cousin—he is done to death, I fear me—and I were travelling by way of Milan to della Scala's court—'
He broke off, and wrung his hands. 'Oh, help me, someone; Tomaso is dying!'
With a certain dull humanity, kindness it could scarcely be called that was so inert and full of apathy, one or two of them gave what help they could.
'Thou art from Florence!' said the old man again. 'Aye, indeed, I know thou art from Florence, for thy mate here to have had such daring. Why camest thou from Florence to anywhere by way of Milan?'
For even to the dull mind of the peasantry, Florence, who alone of the cities of Italy had preserved her liberty, seemed a country of the free, a republic of equality.
'Tomaso's father sent for him to come to him in della Scala's court, and as last year my father was slain in the wars with Venice, since then I have resided with my cousin—and so accompany him—having naught else to do!'
The boy looked up bewildered; he was half-dazed with this sudden misfortune.
'We go to Verona!' he repeated. 'We have food and a little money—if only this had not happened!'
He turned to his prostrate cousin and burst into tears.
The woman looked at him with pity: the old peasant shrugged his shoulders.
'Thy cousin was over-bold! As well face the evil one—' he mumbled and crossed himself, 'as step into the path of the—' he stopped abruptly and cast uneasy glances around him. 'And that?' cried the boy, his tears arrested, 'that man on horseback?'
'That was the Visconti! Aye! Gian Galeazzo Maria, Duke of Milan!'
The lad gazed down the road with interest and new terror. 'The Duke of Milan! He who lately warred with Florence!' he cried breathlessly.
'Aye, and beat her!' There was a touch of pride in the answer, for the peasant was of Milan. But the boy did not notice the remark, he was too absorbed in terrified conjecture.
'And they in the carriage?' he whispered.
A silence fell. The crowd shuffled away from him, and turned their faces to the city. Used to scenes of horror as they were, the cavalcade that had just passed them seemed, even to their half hearts, to have chilled the sunlight with its terror.
A young woman suddenly snatched her child up from the ground and strained it to her, in a passion of distress.
'Oh, Luigi, Luigi, my little child, it was his father and mother, his father and mother!'
She grasped the old man's arm. 'Marked you how she looked at me?' she cried.
The peasant checked her outbreak, but looked down the road with gloomy eyes.
'They will never return from Brescia,' he said; 'they must be near seventy—old for such an end. However, hush thee, woman, 'tis no affair of ours!' Several anxious voices echoed him.
'Why should we care!' said one, ''tis a Visconti the less to crush us.'
And Vittore saw the whole band turning off, pushing, driving, and urging their beasts along. He dragged at his still senseless companion in a sudden panic.
'Help me!' he said. 'We would go on; I dare not stay alone.' The old man laughed harshly.
'Where will you go to? Are we to drag you into Milan to be whipped to death for harbouring you; and Verona is in the hands of the Visconti—his last and greatest victory!'
'But my uncle—della Scala's court!' cried the boy distractedly. The old man drew himself up in his rags and spoke with a mixture of pride and awe.
'Mastino della Scala perished in the flames of his burning palace; his wife is a prisoner, yonder in Milan, in the Visconti's hands. Thou hast not much to look for from della Scala's court,' he said.
'Hold thy peace! Hold thy peace!' cried angry voices. 'What hast thou to do with such as he?' and the old man, whose better intelligence made him a source of danger to the others, was dragged away.
'But thou wilt not leave me here?' said Vittore, in distress. 'Where shall I go? What shall I do?' But the peasant folk were not much moved by his misfortunes, too much used to scenes like this.
'We risk our necks by staying by thee,' growled one dark-browed man. 'As for thy companion, it is his own mad doing. He is dead, and we may be dead by this time tomorrow, and kicked into the ditch like hint'
Even the woman listened blankly to his entreaties, and the throng sullenly departed on its way.
'Any moment a soldier of the Visconti may come by, or the Visconti himself may return, then anyone found tending one of his victims will be in sorry plight.' This, mumbled out with curses at the delay, was their only answer.
The peasants of Lombardy lived in the shadow of an awful name. Gian Galeazzo Maria Visconti knew fear of neither God nor man, neither pity nor remorse.
The young Florentine sank down upon the grass, and looked after the retreating train in mute distress. To seek for help would mean to leave his cousin, and he could not move him. Tomaso lay in a deep swoon, for the blow had driven him back upon a stone. Terribly wounded about the face, Tomaso added to his young cousin's distress by his ghastly appearance, his head bound in rough bandages, torn from Vittore's clothing, and now darkly stained with blood. The boy wrung his hands and looked up and down the road—no one in sight.
It was just after the victory in the long-standing wars between the cities; Verona had fallen into the Visconti's hands; interchange of traffic was for the time laid low; the road was likely to be deserted, and for hours none passed.
The boy dragged Tomaso's head and shoulders as far into the shade as he could manage, remoistened the bandages about his head, and tried to force down his throat some of the food and drink they carried. But the youth muttered between clenched teeth, and lay with wide-staring eyes, inert and unresponsive. His consciousness had returned, but he was delirious with fever. As the day wore on, new and sickening terror seized on Vittore. The Visconti would return to Milan! Hiding his face in his hands, he sobbed aloud. Since the bright dawn of the morning, what a change in prospects! Della Scala's court a ruin, and Tomaso's father—his uncle, the only parent he had left now—what of him! And Tomaso too! He must sit there and see him die beside him. As the noontide waned, he had fallen again into stupor, and the boy looked at his changed face distractedly.
'He is dead!' he cried, 'I know he is dead!' But he dared not leave him; besides, Milan held a terror, and he would scarcely dare to enter it. Perhaps when the peasants returned they might have pity on them; if not—again his sobs filled up the lonely outlook. The long hours dragged by; a horseman passed, a mercenary laden with some plunder from Verona; he did not even turn in his saddle. A few peasants slowly came back from Milan, seeking their huts around the neighbouring villas. But they were as deaf to his cries as before; he could come with them if he liked; but the other—he was dead and killed by the Visconti; let him lie there. And now Vittore was in despair; the sun was beginning to drop behind the trees, the delicate stems of the poplars stretched in long blue shadows, the faint golden light lay across the primroses, making them fairylike. Suddenly a step aroused him. Someone along the road. He started to his feet, and there, still in the distance, but rapidly approaching, was the figure of a traveller, his shadow thrown before him, his face set toward Milan.
A gleam of hope sent Vittore forward. Here was someone who, alone and on foot, must know the perils of travel, and might be kind-hearted; though, with Tomaso dead, what even pity could do for him he scarcely knew. Then again the boy's heart failed him. Perhaps this was no more than some wandering robber. He paused, drew back, and the traveller came on not noticing him, his gaze fixed keenly on the distant city.
By the roadside some boulders, half-hidden in violets and golden with moss, offered a seat, and half-stumbling over them, the stranger abruptly withdrew his eyes from Milan and saw for the first time the boy who from a few paces off was timorously observing him.
He was a powerful man of gigantic size, clothed in coarse leather, undressed, patched, slashed, and travel-worn. His legs were bound with straw and thongs of skin, the feet encased in rough wooden shoes stuffed with grass.
A battered leathern cap covered his head, and from his shoulder hung a ragged scarlet cloak. A dagger and a sword were stuck in his belt, a leather pouch hung at his side. The man's face and bearing belied his dress. He was not handsome, and a peculiar effect was given to his expression by the half-shut brown eyes, but he had a grave and stately bearing, and as he bestowed a searching gaze upon Vittore, the boy felt renewed encouragement.
'Sir,' cried the lad advancing, 'I am in great distress. My cousin lies there dead, or dying. Help me to get him to some shelter.'
'I am a stranger here,' replied the traveller, 'and have no shelter for myself tonight.'
His accent, like his bearing, again belied his dress. He spoke in the refined Tuscan tongue, the language of the better classes, and to Vittore, who was gently nurtured, more familiar than the rough dialect of Lombardy, which he and Tomaso could only barely comprehend.
'But what I cart find for myself,' he added, 'thou art welcome to share. Where is thy cousin?'
Vittore pointed to the recumbent figure half-hidden in the bank; the man glanced across, then around him. The sun was almost set, a whole flock of delicate little pink clouds lay trembling over Milan, its noble outline already half in shadow.
'It will be dark soon,' he said, 'and perchance—' he broke off abruptly. 'Thy cousin, didst thou say?—what has happened to him? Wounded in some roadside fray?'
He rose as he spoke and crossed over to the fallen boy. 'And what are you two doing travelling alone?' he demanded sternly. 'Alas, messer, we were going to Verona.'
'To Verona, by way of Milan?'
We had no choice. The company we travelled with wen bound hither, but three days ago we missed them, and came on here alone, lest perhaps they had preceded us. But for this accident we thought to pass the night in Milan—but now, what shall we do? And we hear that Verona has been taken!'
The stranger was bending over Tomaso, and Vittore did not see his face.
'How did this happen?' he asked presently, touching the mark upon Tomaso's face. And Vittore told him.
The stranger was quiet a long breath.
'So this is Visconti's doing,' he said at last. 'Thy cousin is a brave lad.'
And he fell again into a silence which Vittore dared not break, while under the stranger's care Tomaso opened his eyes, and feebly muttered and tried to rise. But the other bade him wait a while, and turned to Vittore again.
'And which way did Visconti ride?' he asked.
The boy pointed. 'The peasants said it was toward Brescia.'
'And he has not yet re-entered Milan?'
'No, messer.' By now Vittore felt and showed respect.
'Then we will not enter Milan either,' said the stranger, 'since Visconti has not.'
The boy gazed on him, struck by his tone, and Tomaso's eyes, half-closing, re-opened and fixed themselves upon the stranger's face.
'Messer, you hate Visconti?' whispered Vittore.
The man laughed shortly. 'There are many in Lombardy who hate Visconti,' he said. 'Perhaps I not less than others. Boy,' he added, with sudden intensity, 'I have only two things to live for: one is to tell Visconti to his face what one man's hatred is.'
And leaving them half-terrified, he strode into the road, and shading his eyes looked long and searchingly away from Milan; but the dusk was settling fast, and there was not a soul in sight, not a sound.
Presently, with an air of relief, born of new-sprung resolution, the stranger returned to the expectant boys.
Revived by his tendance and by the cool evening air, Tomaso was helped upon his feet. Vittore clasped his hands in joy to see him move again.
'Messer, how shall we thank thee!' he exclaimed.
'Call me Francisco,' said the traveller. 'Thou wert journeying to Verona, didst thou say? What kinsman hast thou there?'
'My father,' whispered Tomaso feebly, 'Giorgio Ligozzi.' Leaning against the stranger, indeed half-carried by him, Tomaso felt him start. 'Thou knewest him, messer?'
'He was put high in favour at della Scala's court, and sent for us to share his fortune,' put in Vittore eagerly.
'Ah,' said Francisco, 'della Scala's court has perished. I am from Verona. I saw it burned.'
Tomaso's head sank dizzily upon his helper's shoulder. Vittore's young heart swelled, then seemed to break within him. He choked back his sobs.
'And della Scala—and my uncle: did they perish too?'
Who can tell?' replied the stranger sternly. 'Who shall say who perished or who not on such a night as that on which Verona fell?'
'But della Scala's wife, the Duchess, is yonder, prisoner in Milan.'
'And that proves, thou thinkest, della Scala must be dead! Maybe; who knows? All the same, thou art a brave lad and a gallant for the thought.'
He paused to rest Tomaso on the boulders that had been his seat. 'And for that speech of thine!'I'll tell thee something, boy. I am the Visconti's foe. For the sake of della Scala, whom I knew, for the sake of Verona, where I lived, for the sake of something dearer to a man than life, I am sworn to hunt him down—and now, no more. We will see to shelter.'
Resting Tomaso's head against his knee, Francisco turned a trained and searching gaze about him.
To the right, on some thickly wooded, slightly rising ground, could be discerned the unmistakable outline of a great wall, built to a monstrous height, no doubt the boundary of a villa of unusual size and magnificence. Beneath the wall, half-hidden by a grove of chestnuts, was the usual cluster of huts: the dwellings of the hinds and vassals of the villa's noble owner. But no smoke trailed upward, nor did any sign of life strike upon the ear.
'We will try those huts yonder,' said Francisco. 'They are far enough from the road for security, yet not too far to hamper any return hither. They seem deserted, but even if inhabited, they are scarce likely to refuse me shelter for a wounded boy.'
And Vittore, looking at his size and stern appearance, thankfully agreed with him. Almost carrying Tomaso, Francisco led the way, and quickly reached a footpath which, after many twistings, brought them out into a turf-grown opening around three sides of which the cottages were built. The fourth was the wall enclosing the grounds, and along it, bordering a ditch, ran a pleasant path which, as they subsequently discovered, led to a small stream, artificially extended, where it passed the villa, to a lake of some not inconsiderable size.
But, as Francisco had surmised, the whole place stood empty and deserted, though it could not have been long since the faggots had blazed on the open hearths. Signs of occupation were too recent.
The wayfarers gazed about them wonderingly. It was a place of charm. The fast-grown grass was thick with flowers; and a wooden bucket hung idly from its chain above the wooden runnel.
Supporting Tomaso, Francisco turned into the nearest hut, and noted it was better fashioned and better fitted than many of the like. A low doorway admitted into the long divisions of the space, each lit by small square openings in the walls. The light by now had faded, and save that it was empty of life, little else would have been discernible, but a portion of the roof had been broken away, as if by some pikeman's reckless thrust, and through the gap some of the sweet spring dusk showed them faintly their surroundings. A few stools, a wooden table, roughly hewn, a broken earthenware bowl, and a rudely painted crucifix, half-torn from the wall, completed the furniture.
'They fled in haste,' said Francisco grimly. 'Has Visconti been here too?'
'See,' cried Vittore, and he picked up from his feet a silver goblet.
The other turned from where he had laid Tomaso and took it from him eagerly.
The piece was heavily chased, bearing a raised shield wrought with the German eagle and lettering 'C.S.'.
'German,' he said. 'Plunder. Possibly from the villa. This may account for its desertion. Yes—no doubt: the owner of the villa has crossed Visconti's path.'
And his teeth ground over the name as he set the goblet on the table, where it gleamed with a faint ghostly light.
'Sleep,' he said presently to Vittore. 'Eat this and then sleep. Thou canst do so with safety.'
The boy, glancing up into his face, believed him, and was soon lost to everything in the deep sleep of utter weariness of mind and body. Francisco bent above Tomaso and gave him wine to swallow, and set water by his side. The youth caught the hand that tended him and kissed it.
'I am grateful,' he murmured. 'Tomorrow I shall be well.'
'Aye, get better,' said Francisco. 'Thou mayst be of some service if thou wilt. Nay,' he added, checking Tomaso's feeble but eager impulse, 'I know not yet what I can do myself. But we have a cause in common,' and he smiled faintly. 'And now sleep. You sought della Scala's court. I will not desert thee.
Taking his tattered cloak from his shoulders, he laid it over him, and Tomaso lay back on the ready spread couch of heather, and watched peacefully.
There was no light in the hut, but the moonshine began to show across the open doorway. Francisco pulled a stool to the table, and sitting, drew out his dagger and carefully examined it, then laid it ready. He felt in his wallet as if to reassure himself of something, and then Tomaso saw him slip something on his hand—it gleamed: a ring!
Who is he?' thought the youth, not sure he gazed upon reality. 'Who is he?'
Then he dozed unwittingly, and, waking with a start, saw the moonlight streaming through the broken roof, the faint stars, and near him Vittore sleeping. The goblet still shone upon the crazy table, but the hut door had been closed and, save for themselves, the place was empty.
Francisco stepped out into the spring night, fire beating at his temples: Visconti was abroad!
The moon, half-shrouded in a misty vapour, was rising above the fragrant chestnuts, and brilliant in the semi-dark, like flame behind a veil, the clumps of wallflowers gave out intoxicating scent.
Franciscco noticed them, and thought grimly they were the colour of blood just dry.
The spell of the moon and of the hour lay on everything; a weird ghostliness seemed to step among the trees; a sighing came from the great bushes in the garden of the villa: 'Visconti is abroad!'
Francisco touched his dagger and went forward. Across his path two white moths fluttered, white by day, now silver purple, illusive and mysterious. To the man's fevered mood they seemed an omen; souls of the dead allowed to take farewell of earth; and with straining eyes he watched them float away and up, and out of sight. Who had perchance just died?
Francisco's giant sinews tightened. He went forward swiftly to the road, and strained his eyes and ears along its silvery length.
Nothing to be heard! Nothing to be seen! Had he, lost his chance, had the Duke re-entered Milan? Or had he gone too far to return that night? He sat upon the boulders where he had rested previously, his face turned toward Brescia, his hand upon his dagger.
The soft air was strengthening into a gentle wind; the poplar leaves were dancing, and darkening clouds began to drive across the 'moon. But the man heeded nothing the changing; light or dark, what matter once Visconti had crossed his path? Long he waited. Not a sound save the dancing of the leaves, the rising wind, the soft noises of the night. At length Francisco leaped to his feet, and his breath came short and fast. He could hear something. The wind was against him. He lay down; he put his ear to the ground; then he leaped to his feet again, transformed. It was unmistakable, though still far off; the thud of horse's flying feet.
Francisco waited.
With each second the wind rose; the clouds raced and gathered, and darkened half the sky, and the man, straining every nerve, thought at first it was the wind he heard mingling with the trample of the oncoming hoofs. Then he knew it for screams of fury and wild shouting. 'It is the Visconti,' he said, and involuntarily his tense arm sank and his muscles loosened; those mad shrieks could freeze the marrow.
Nearer came the onset, trampling horse and yelling rider; and Francisco set himself anew.
'He rides with his own soul for company,' he muttered grimly. Now the furious cries came clearly, terrible, inhuman; and in another moment, horse and rider were in view.
'Yes, Visconti.'
Standing in the stirrups, he lashed at the foaming horse in a blind rage and horror. His cap was gone, and hair and cloak were blown about him. He shouted wildly, cursed, and shrieked.
For a breath Francisco paused. This could be no human rider; well was it known in Lombardy that the Visconti trafficked with the fiend, and this must be he; and the man shrank and turned his eyes, lest he should see his damning face.
But the next instant his courage and his purpose had returned. The horse was upon him. Swift as thought, Francisco leaped and clutched the bridle in a hand of steel.
But the mad impetus defeated him. He was dragged forward like a reed; only his own great strength for the moment saved him. And now his wild shouts were added to the rider's. He struck upward with his dagger; he tore blindly.
'Do you not know me, Visconti?' he called. 'Do you not know me?'
But his dagger was dashed from him. The horse's foam blinded him as it sprang desperately on. He heard Visconti's demon scream, and as the earth whirled round with him, caught one fleeting glimpse of the white, distorted, hated face—then, he was prone upon the ground, and Visconti, spurring on his way, looked back upon him with triumphant yells.
'Fly fly!' he screamed, 'they are after us, but we escape them. Fly!'
The dawn was showing when Francisco, spent with the passion of failure rather than from any hurt, came slowly back and picked his dagger from the road. Not far from it he saw a parchment roll tossed from Visconti's doublet in that frantic forward lunge—Visconti who had safely disappeared within the walls of Milan!
Francisco picked up the roll.
It was inscribed with poetry and patched with blood.
'A hundred thousand florins—and no more, even if they refuse the bargain.'
It was the Visconti that spoke. In a small dark room in the Visconti palace, he and the pale-faced, red-haired man, who had held the bridle of his horse two days before in the procession that had wended toward Brescia, were seated opposite to one another at the table; between them a pile of papers over which the secretary bowed his shoulders.
'The demand is a hundred and fifty, my lord,' he said, his voice meek, his eyes furtive.
'They said two hundred to begin with,' was the curt answer. 'A hundred thousand florins, or I go elsewhere.'
The secretary's pen flew nervously across the parchment, filling it with a cramped, mean writing that trailed unevenly along the page. Visconti's secretary wrote a characteristic hand. Visconti leaned back in his chair, watching him in silence.
The room was small and circular, hung with leather stamped in gold, and furnished plainly even to bareness. A narrow lancet window, placed low in the wall, admitted a subdued light, which fell upon the only spot of colour in the room, the suit of turquoise blue the secretary wore.
'A hundred thousand florins, to be paid in gold,' repeated Visconti; 'and no more, Giannotto.'
He rose and began to pace the room. Long habit and constant contact had not lessened the secretary's fear of Visconti, nor mitigated the hate, none the less intensified for being for ever concealed under the mask of cringing servility. But in Giannotto's dislike there was nothing noble; it was merely mean hate of a sordid soul that grudged the success of the bold crimes itself could never dare to undertake. Had the secretary been in Visconti's place, there would have been as vile a tyrant, of equal cruelty and far less courage.
The Duke moved to the window and stood there in observation awhile, then turning, spoke to Giannotto with a smile. His eyes were a beautiful grey, open wide, and just now lighting up a pensive, pleasant face. But the secretary knew it too under a different guise.
'My sister's alliance with the Duke of Orleans gratifies my ambition, Giannotto,' lie said, 'and is well worth a hundred thousand florins. So far the Valois have never married out of royal houses.'
'Yet they consider themselves honoured by this match, my lord,' said the secretary.
'They consider themselves well paid,' returned Visconti. 'Now, if I can find a daughter of the Plantagenets for brother Tisio, behold us firmly placed among the dynasties of Europe!'
Early in the fourteenth century, but no more than a meagre fifty years ago, before the last Visconti culminated the evil of his race, Matteo Visconti, Gian Galeazzo's grandfather, had first firmly established his family as lords of Milan, supplanting their rival the Torriani, who had long reigned as magistrates-in-chief, and under Martin della Torre risen to some eminence. Every year of the fifty since then had seen some increase of territory, some fresh acquisition of power, till with his last overthrow of della Scala, the seizure of Verona, and the murder of his father, already miserably deposed, Gian Galeazzo had planted himself upon a level with kings.
Almost the whole of Lombardy was under his sway, and that sway extended from Vercelli in Piedmont to Feltre and Belluno. Florence, lately leagued against him in support of his deposed father, had been beaten in battle after battle and was glad to escape, shorn of her fairest possessions, and cherishing only her liberty.
All this Giannotto knew. Della Scala, Duke of Verona, had owned fair lands and wide, Verona, Brescia, all now in Visconti's hands. The secretary wondered, as he thought, how long it would be before the triumphant Gian threw away the mere rag of respect, the mere mockery of a title which bound him to the Empire, and became King of Lombardy in name as well as power.
'And thou thyself, my lord,' he said. 'Thou wilt marry a Valois to thy sister! Who will be thy bride?'
Visconti smiled. 'These marriages are for ambition. Dost thou think I shall marry for ambition? No, Giannotto, I have placed myself above the need of that. The alliances that make the Visconti one with the kings of Europe are for Valentine and Tisio; I shall marry—'
'For love, my lord?' ventured the secretary, with a hint of sarcasm.
'Whom I please,' said Visconti. 'Which is not what Valentine is doing,' he added with a smile.
'She may give trouble yet, my lord'
Visconti frowned. He thought of Conrad von Schulembourg, the brilliant young German noble, who had been a favourite with him and all his court and had won the heart of Valentine Visconti; no favourite of his now. 'As for my lady sister,' he said, 'let her dare turn her eyes save where I bid her.'
His own grew ominous, and Giannotto shuffled uneasily.
A noise without broke the sudden silence of reflection. Visconti, responding at once to what it meant, glanced a moment from the window where he still stood, then swept down to the head of the table. He leaned across to Giannotto, not that he valued any response that he could offer—Visconti's secretary was no more to him than the chair on which he sat, valued solely for his skill in letters—but his triumph had to have its vent. 'Hark!' he cried. 'Listen to it, Giannotto! The wealth of Verona is pouring into Milan! The spoils of Verona, Giannotto, the treasures from Mastino della Scala's palace!'
Giannotto winced before Visconti's passionate joy.
''Twas a man I hated, Giannotto—I would he had lived to feel it. The only man I ever hated, because the only man I ever 'feared, the only man who ever dared to despise me! But he has fallen, he is dead, his wife is in my power, and in his fall he has placed me higher than my highest hopes.'
Carried away by his transports, he seized Giannotto by the arm and dragged him to the window.
The secretary gazed into the courtyard, where a group of soldiers and servants were busy conveying statues, gilt and silver plate, rich tapestry, glass, china, and arms, from carts and mules into the narrow doorways that led into the grim interior of the palace. They were presided over by a major-domo in a black gown, who called out directions in a shrill voice. To one side a few unhappy men, of note enough to have been spared, watched in grim silence the unloading of the spoils that came from the sacking of their palaces. The great gates stood at their widest, and through them wound a long train of soldiers, some driving before them groups of prisoners, tightly chained together, others galloping in laden with plunder of all kinds, art treasures, blackened as if by fire, banners, and suits of armour.
'Ah, Giannotto, look,' cried Visconti, 'della Scala's collection, della Scala's jewels. How my treasury will be enriched! Only one thing mars it, that he should not be here to see!'
He turned from the window. Giannotto followed, cringing. 'Still, thou hast his wife, my lord,' he said. Gian's eyes flashed afresh.
'Isotta d'Este—ah!'
He leaned back against the wall in silence. A certain winter morning, five years ago, rose clearly before him; a massive castle, frowning from the rocks above Ferrara, and on its steps a fair girl who stood there and laughed to see him ride away back to Milan, his offer of the Visconti's friendship scorned and flung in his face by her proud family, the haughty Estes. Visconti's face grew dark as he remembered her; almost more than della Scala, her dead husband, did he hate Isotta, della Scala's wife. And she was in his power. Greatly would it have soothed him to know her death was in his power too, but the lust of ambition was greater with this man even than the lust of pride or hate.
Isotta d'Este was a valuable hostage to be used against her family, should they think Of avenging their fallen kinsman.
'Where hast thou finally placed her, my lord?' asked Giannotto, with his stealthy glance. The Duke started from his reverie.
'In the West Tower,' he smiled. 'Every day I go to gaze on the room that holds her to make sure it is not a dream; to see and feel with my eyes and my own hands that her prison is doubly sure. If Isotta d'Este should now escape me—but she will not!'
He crossed the room to leave it, but paused at the door.
'Be watchful, Giannotto, the Princess Valentine may try to leave the palace. I have spies on her every movement; still, thine eyes upon her also will do no harm—to me!'
He laughed an instant. A rustle of the hangings and he was gone. Giannotto sat on silently, looking in front of him. His thoughts were with Valentine Visconti, Gian's unhappy sister, whom he had been told to watch; from her they travelled to the German Count, who, five days ago, had left the palace.
'I wonder if she loved him,' he mused. 'I do not think she did. Dear God, she did not need to wait to love a man, her life was not such that she could pick and choose her way of escaping from it. Conrad offered one and she was ready to take it—now—five days ago! Yes—Count Conrad is dead, and she will marry the Duke of Orleans! Ah, well! The German was a fool, he deserved no better fate than a fool! I do not think she'll break her heart if she can find some other way'
He returned to his papers, pausing now and then to glance toward the door, as if to keep himself on the alert for the Duke's noiseless entry.
But Gian had bent his steps elsewhere. Plainly dressed, he passed almost unnoticed across an inner courtyard to a dark angle of a wall where a secret door anew admitted him. The whole Visconti palace was a sombre and gloomy place; men crept about it on their tiptoe, glancing fearfully around them, afraid of their own shadows. Visconti smiled to himself at sight of fear; he loved to be feared, to hold lives in the hollow of his hand, and play with them and death.
The door let him into a long narrow passage flagged with stone, and lit by diamond-shaped holes left in the walls; the air was damp and chill, and Visconti drew his cloak around him. Unlocking a second door, he ascended a flight of stone steps, pitch dark, from which he emerged into a large circular chamber with a thick pillar in the middle from which the groined ceiling sprang. Save table and high-backed chair of blackened wood, there was no furniture. This chamber was the outer guard-room of the prison wing, and a gloomy-faced man leaned against the pillar, his eyes fixed upon the opening door. It could be no other than the Visconti entering thus, and he crouched almost to the ground.
What is thy guard?' said Visconti.
'Twenty men in each guard-room, my lord, and each one picked for size and trustworthiness, and I myself keep watch upon the door. Escape is impossible.'
By so much the more that thy head will answer for it.'
As he spoke, Visconti flung wide one of a ring of doors opening from the chamber, and stepped into a posse of soldiers. No one spoke. Glancing keenly to the right and left, Visconti passed through their ranks into the room beyond—a small apartment, dim lit and hung with arras. An old woman sat at a tapestry frame with her back to the door, but at Visconti's entrance she rose, as at something expected, and sank in a deep obeisance.
Gian Maria closed the door behind him.
'How is she?' he said. 'How, does she bear her change of prison?'
The old woman glanced toward an inner door, massive and iron-clamped.
'When I am with her, my lord, she sits in silence, her eyes for ever on her missal; indeed she has not spoken since we brought her here; but when she is alone, she weeps, I have heard her through the door; she weeps passionately, and calls wildly upon her husband to save her.'
'I would I had him, to stand him gagged against the door to hear her,' said the Duke.
'By the look of her she will die of it,' continued the old woman. 'But if I know anything of prisoners, and I have seen a few, thou wilt never break her spirit, my lord.'
'She must be more humbled now,' he said to himself. 'She must turn and implore me for pity.'
The huge door creaked and swung on its hinges, and he stood at the top of two low stone steps, looking down into Isotta's prison. It was little better than a dungeon of stone, lofty but dark, with one window deep set, high out of reach, and thickly barred. The walls were hung with faded tapestry, the gloomy, sad-looking folds drooping like torn, captured standards. A huge chest of sombre blackness leaned against the wall; above it hung a horn lantern, which after dark gave all the light that was obtained. For the rest, a few high-backed chairs stood stiffly about the room. In his black dress Visconti, pausing at the head of the steps, seemed part of its gloom. His wide-open grey eyes looked straight across at the solitary occupant.
Isotta sat in one of the huge black chairs, her delicate hands resting on the faded crimson velvet of the arms, her feet on a wooden footstool. She was of a fair and noble appearance, but her face was marred by sorrow and her eyes red from many tears. Her pale yellow hair was drawn under a white veil. Her long grey dress clung close about her slender figure. On her knee rested a little book, and on this she kept her eyes. Not by so much as a flutter of her hand did she show she knew of the Visconti's presence.
He waited, raging inwardly, but words would not come easily to break that silence. At last he slowly descended into the room, his eyes still on her face.
She never stirred, nor raised her own. With his noiseless tread, Visconti paced around the chamber, raising the arras, and testing with his dagger every block of stone. It was a superfluous precaution; any attempt to escape would have been simple madness, and Isotta d'Este was not likely to give way to frenzy. Still it was joy to be sure and doubly sure that she was safe. Every inch was inspected, every crevice searched. Meanwhile from time to time he observed her keenly. But she seemed not to know her solitude was broken, save that once, when he passed her, she swept in the train of her gown, as she might have done had a leper come too near. A simple thing, but it goaded him, and for a moment she was near her death; rage almost overcoming prudence. But as he stood behind her chair, half-inclined to strike, he noticed on her hand, a ring. His expression changed; he smiled; his hand dropped down. The ring was of pearl, cut with the arms of della Scala, and worn on the third finger of her left hand; her wedding ring.
Visconti smiled again. Stooping, he raised her hand, and—'Will she bear this in silence?' was his thought. For a moment it seemed as if she might not. The delicate fingers stiffened and half-closed, then, as if remembering anew, she left her hand passive in Visconti's hold, and only by a faint quiver told she knew the ring had been withdrawn. The spoiled hand fell back again on to the velvet arm, her eyes were fixed immovably upon her book, and Visconti, turning away to the door, silent as he came, looked back at her, incredulous of such control. She was sitting straight and slender, her delicate head poised high, but—ah yes, he thought it must be so!—he noted with delight that her breast heaved and the firm line of her mouth trembled ever so slightly. For a second he stood thus, a ray of the pale prison light caught by the ring he held, then the door clattered and shook back into its bolts, and he was gone.
Swiftly as he had come, Visconti returned to the palace, and the banqueting hall beyond. He stepped in silently, and softly let the curtains fall behind him.
The room was of enormous size, and overawed the gaze. The four large entries, one in each wall, were curtained alike with gloomy purple. The ceiling was domed and of immense height, showing a dim tracery of carved wood, from which hung golden chains, suspending jewelled lamps. The high and narrow windows were wrought with painted saints, splendid in colouring. From domed ceiling to panelled floor the walls were carved with men, women, saints, martyrs, flowers, and birds wrought together, in simple-minded joyousness of design, executed with the delicate workmanship of Niccolo Pisano's school. Silk arras, hung from carved gold rods, here and there concealed the carving. A carpet, the work of two men's lives, delicate in purple, brown, and gold, spread across the centre, where long low tables of walnut wood, rich and dark, could seat two hundred guests. Purple velvet chairs were set about in the corners, and the light streaming through the coloured window saints fell in gold and'' green across an ivory footstool inlaid with jewels.
As Visconti entered, the hall was empty, yet he stepped stealthily, as if he felt eyes watching him. Seating himself in the window recess, he waited, and presently, as if at an unuttered summons, the curtains at the far end of the room were rustled apart, and a lady entered. She was Valentine Visconti, Gian's sister. Her dress was of red and brown, embroidered with gold, her tawny hair piled high under a golden net upon her well-set head. She had the clear, colourless skin and the wide red lips of the fair-haired Italians, their rich presence; she was of a fine carriage, not easy to overlook; she might have been ten years younger than her brother; she was as tall and as stately.
She looked straight toward the window where Visconti sat. Gian returned her gaze, not changing his position. Valentine drew nearer.
Why hast thou set spies upon me?' she demanded.
'Why didst thou try to fly Milan with Count Conrad?' he returned. 'I was foolish not to spy on thee before.'
Her grey eyes glinted.
'I tried to escape from a life that was grown intolerable,' she cried, 'and I will try yet again!'
Visconti smiled.
'My sister, thou art much too precious; I shall not let thee go. Thou art worth a great deal to me. Through thee our family will be united to the Royal House of France. My sister, thy husband will be the Duke of Orleans, and not a German fool.'
But Valentine was also a Visconti: she advanced with blazing eyes.
'I will not marry to serve thy ambitions; I will not help to steady thee upon the throne. Mark me, Gian, sooner than wed a Prince whom thou hast chosen, I will drag thy name into the mire, and sit in rags at thy palace gates.'
'Only thou hast not the choice,' he answered pleasantly.
Her anger rose the more as she felt her helplessness.
'I will not marry the Duke!' she cried. 'I will not walk up to the altar.'
'Thou canst be carried,' said Visconti.
She moved up and down, twisting her hands in an agony of impotence.
'I will appeal to the Duke of Orleans himself!' she cried.
'A. bridegroom who is bought for a hundred thousand florins!' sneered her brother. 'And how will thy appeal reach him? Come, my sister, be calm, the Duke will make as good a husband as Count Conrad. Bethink thyself, thou mayst live to be crowned Queen of France. Wilt thou not thank me then, that I saved thee from a German count?'
Valentine fell to weeping.
What has become of him?' she sobbed, 'the only human being who ever turned to me in pity. The only one who ever cared for me. What has become of him?'
'What becomes of a fool when he crosses the path of a Visconti?' asked her brother calmly.
Valentine lifted her head.
'He is dead, then?' she said.
'It matters not to thee. Thy husband will be the Duke of Orleans, and thou art a prisoner in the palace till he takes thee from it.'
She caught at the arras; Visconti left her, and reached the door, his figure a shadow among the shadows.
The girl rushed forward with a cry. 'Gian!' she called.
He paused, his hand upon the curtain, and looked back at her.
'Gian!' she repeated, and stood still gasping, her hand upon her breast. The stiff folds of her dress gleamed richly in the subdued light that fell upon her from the painted window. 'I know thee for what thou art,' she said; 'there are only three of us left, only three. Where are our parents, Gian?'
'They were stricken down at Brescia,' and Visconti took a quick step toward her.
'They are dead,' she breathed, 'and they died as our brothers died, Filippo and Matteo—'
'Did they so! Then take warning by it,' and Gian, coming stealthily still nearer, turned a look on her. Valentine quailed, as Francisco well-nigh had done; the hot words of remorse and rebellion died away unuttered, and she hid her face, her high spirit cowed again into a bitter weeping.
Visconti left her noiselessly.
Three days had passed since that futile midnight encounter, and Francisco had found no means to enter Milan.
He stood on the banks of the water looking moodily toward the city, watching the figure of Vittore, who trudged along the meadows—his errand to procure provisions.
The three still sheltered in the ruins, to which no owner had returned, nor had any signs of life or occupancy broken the silence within the villa's all-encircling walls: now, as he watched Vittore out of sight—the boy looking back often to renew his courage—Francisco's brow was furrowed, and his eyes heavy with sleeplessness. The stream, clear, deep, and sparkling, here ran darkened with the shadow of the willows that bent over it their long bluish leaves. A path, thickly bordered with reeds, ran beside the water to the head of the small lake into which the stream flowed, whence it continued, a scarcely discernible footway, toward the city.
Behind Francisco, separated from him only by the fosse, was the wall of the villa and, Vittore being lost to view, Francisco withdrew his gaze, always roaming restlessly in quest of something that should aid him, and glanced along it curiously. His eyes rested on a great tuft of yellow lichen, brilliant with scarlet spikes; it was so huge and spreading he could not but stare at it. From the lichen his gaze travelled slowly upward, but not a foothold could he see. Spreading above the wall the topmost boughs of a gigantic yew showed a clear-cut black against the sky, and on the broad, fan-like surface brooded a pair of doves, pink, grey, and white. The beauty of the scene, its calmness and repose, exasperated the man's inaction. He stamped on the little flowers at his feet, then, with a bitter curse at his folly, threw himself upon the grass to watch for Vittore's return, and ponder, for ever ponder, on his purpose. Suddenly there shot into sight upon the stream a little boat, with high curling prow and gaily painted sides. A blue sail was furled above it, and it was impelled lightly forward by a delicate pair of oars. The grounds of the villa formed a promontory, and coming around the brow of it the boat broke upon his gaze and was within hail at one and the same moment. It came rapidly nearer, and the stranger's first impulse was to hide himself from these unexpected and unwelcome intruders; but there was no time; as he rose he was observed, but the genial hand-wave and the merry laughter reassured him. These were simple pleasure-seekers. He reseated himself, and the boat came on.
The rower was a dark-haired man of middle age, clothed in a plain brown robe. Lean and vivacious, eager-eyed, he appeared one of those people who are always talking and moving; even seated and rowing he gave the impression of restlessness; of the good humour common to the people too. His companion was a young girl dressed in a simple blue gown. She was a delicate blonde, very young, very slender; the curls of her amber hair were blown across a round dimpled face; eyes of a dancing blue; a sweet small mouth curled in laughter, a fine chin and throat, a slack young figure. This was her principal characteristic, the floating yellow hair like a veil about her.
Coming abreast of Francisco, the man paused on his oars with a friendly greeting.
'Good day, messer,' he called. 'So thou hast found our secret haunt. Graziosa and I had thought this place our own,' and as he spoke he waved his hand around him at the water.
The boat rocked now alongside the path, and Francisco courteously approached.
'I am a stranger here,' he said.
The other glanced at him anew, and with the awakening of a little friendly wonder.
'A stranger? Ah, then, this is new to thee—this most beautiful part of Italy. I assure thee,' he continued excitedly, 'I have been through the fairest parts of Tuscany, I have wandered about Naples, but never have I seen such colours, such lights as here!' Again he waved his all-inclusive hand. 'Thou, messer, as a stranger, must see how wonderfully fair it is?'
He paddled the boat nearer among the reeds in his eagerness to obtain new sympathy.
I have not been used to judge lands by their beauty,' returned Francisco. 'Yet methinks I have seen spots as beautiful and easier to hold in time of need.'
The other twisted his mouth in contempt. The girl leaned forward, laughing. 'You forget, father,' she said, 'everyone is not a painter.'
But the little man, as if he had found a sudden mission, secured the boat, and, still in silence, stepped ashore, helping his daughter to follow him. Francisco, preoccupied and mistrustful, saw this with uneasiness, and would gladly have withdrawn. Moreover, the smiling face of the happy girl was an added sting to a burning thought.
The enthusiast, however, had no idea of giving up a possible convert, and swept aside the other's protestations while he commenced pointing out the beauties of the yellow lichen against the villa wall, the sight of which had restored all his good humour. 'See!' he exclaimed. 'How bright it is! See the contrast of the yew—so brilliant, yet so in harmony, so—you do not, paint?'
'No,' said Francisco between grimness and scorn. 'Do I look as if I did?'
The artist glanced anew at his huge frame and tattered attire, and mentally decided he did not.
'Ah, then, thou dost not understand,' he said; 'but I, I am a painter. Agnolo Vistarnini is my name, messer, a student of Taddeo Gaddi.' He swept off his leather cap with an air of profound respect.
'Ah, he could paint! I am' far behind him, messer, but I can see I can see! Which thou canst not,' he added with superb pity.
'Graziosa,' he called, turning to his daughter, 'we will stay here awhile.'
And seating himself on the bank, he produced from his wallet a panel of wood, polished and carefully planed, upon which he began to draw the outline of a corner of the scene, using a dark brown pigment.
Francisco fell again to brooding while the painter chattered on, dividing his attention between the panel and his daughter, who was wandering up the stream, filling with flowers a flat basket.
'Thou see'st yonder my daughter, messer,' he said, pointing to the slender figure in blue. He blew a kiss in her direction. 'She is the model for my angels—'
'And the model for thy devils?' asked Francisco suddenly. Vistarnini started and looked around at the speaker.
'Devils! Messer!' He crossed himself. 'God forbid there should be a model for such found anywhere,' he said.
'Yet methinks thou hast in thy city yonder,' said Francisco with a bitter smile, 'one who well might sit for the fiend himself: Visconti.'
'The Duke? Ah, my friend, hush, hush, thou art a stranger, take care! Even in this lonely spot such words are far from safe. Who art thou, messer, who dost not live in Milan and yet speakest with such a look of the Visconti?'
'Do not all who know the Visconti speak with such a look of him?'
The painter gazed at him in silence.
Tut thou askest for my name,' continued the other. 'I am Francisco di Coldra, one who has suffered much from the Visconti'
'In the sack of Verona, perhaps?' asked Agnolo after a pause. 'The sack of Verona was some time ago. The prisoners have been in Milan twenty days!'
These words were inscrutable, and the little painter did not even try to understand them; but they kindled a memory that would not be repressed.
'Ah, and what a night that was,' he cried, 'when the Duke re-entered Milan with them! Since I do not hurt thee by the recollection, messer, let me tell thee, it was a splendid sight, that night the Duke returned. I live a quiet life, as an artist may do, even in Milan. I know little, I care little for the wars of princes. They tell me the Visconti's crimes outnumber the stars; but, messer, his shadow has not fallen across my house, and what one does not see one does not fear—but when he returned from Verona, that was a sight, messer. It was late. Our house overlooks the western gate, and all day long the messengers had come and sped, bringing the news the Duke was here. Towards evening—we leaning from the window as did everyone—Alberic, da Salluzzo comes galloping to the walls—red-hot upon some report that the Visconti has been slain—to look to the arming of the citizens. Even as we strain from the window, following the flash of his plumes—back he comes in madder haste—the Visconti is alive! The people shout and yell, and some cry 'tis not the Visconti's army on the road, but della Scala's. Meanwhile a mob, with Napoleone della Torre at their head, begins to agitate, to threaten riot. With a strong hand Alberic puts them down—the streets are cleared, Graziosa and I on the balcony, all is dark, silent, save now and then the clink of the armour of the sentries on the walls. I am too excited for sleep, messer, all so hushed, so subdued, waiting, waiting. All at once it comes. Oh, the rattle, the roar! The great gates clatter back, the streets fill with crowds no man can keep back. The victorious army pelts through them; two men on every horse, great flaring torches throwing their yellow light on the torn banners and the wild faces of the soldiers, and then the cannon, leaping over the rough stones, drawn by the smoke-blackened gunners, all tearing, rushing through the streets, a mass of light and shade, wonderful, wonderful! In the midst, the Visconti, the ragged light streaming over his battered armour, and Isotta d'Este, guarded between two soldiers, swaying on her black horse, and above all the shouts of the frenzied triumph of the Milanese...Ah!'
Agnolo paused now for want of breath, and glanced at his companion.
But Francisco offered no response. His face was turned away, and his hands were clenched. The little painter had a vague sense of having allowed a mere artist's enthusiasm to carry him too far into a dangerous theme.
'Ah, well,' he continued in a deprecating tone, 'a splendid sight truly, and one to fire the blood, but I am a man of peace, and I greatly grieve della Scala should have perished. He was a noble prince.'
The stranger rose abruptly.
'Do not speak of della. Scala,' he said harshly. 'I love to hear his name as little as Visconti's. His was the crime of failure.'
'Failure! Who would not have failed?' said Agnolo gently, for he thought he spoke to one who must have lost his all in the sacked town. 'I know little of such things, but 'twas here and there asserted he fell by craft as well as force, and he was a great soldier and an honourable man, Messer Francisco.'
'He had all the virtues, doubtless,' said Francisco, 'and lost Verona.'
'And his life!' replied the painter. 'Ah, well, these things are grievous! The saints protect my daughter from all share in them,' and he glanced affectionately toward Graziosa, returning through the grey-green willows with lilies in her hands.
'For my pictures,' said the painter, pointing to them. 'I am painting an altar-piece—for the lunettes. I shall have Graziosa as St Catherine, and Ambrogio (her betrothed, messer) as St Michael. These flowers will make the border.'
He took some as he spoke, and began arranging them in wreaths.
Francisco would scarcely have heeded the speaker's words, save that his glance was caught almost involuntarily by the girl's sweet blush at mention of her lover's name.
Thy betrothed,' he murmured, interested a moment in the happiness that was such a contrast to his own feeling. 'And does he paint too?'
Graziosa looked up with sparkling eyes.
'Beautifully,' she said eagerly. 'He is at work now in the Church of Sant'Apollinare in Brescia. We have not seen his painting, the journey is too long; but some of the panel bits he has shown us, and they are noble.'
Francisco smiled faintly at her outspokenness, and her father laughed good-humouredly.
'Thou must not listen to her,' he said. 'She overrates his painting. He paints well, truly, but cold! ah, so cold; no spirit in it! He will sit for hours thinking how the fold of a robe should fall. I, however, have seen Taddeo Gaddi paint! The angels would seem to flow from his brush as if he gave no thought to them!' But Graziosa turned a smiling face from the boat she was unmooring.
'His altar-piece will draw all Lombardy,' she cried.
'Say rather that his altar-piece draws him away from thee,' laughed the painter, 'and thou wilt be nearer to the truth. The altar-piece has all his time; thou but a few meagre hours a week! Still, they love each other, messer, and are happy, so we never care whether Ambrogio paints well or ill.' Graziosa seated herself under the blue sail, and looked up with radiant-eyes.
'I am very happy,' she laughed softly, 'so never mind whether he paint the best or the second best in Italy.'
The painter grasped the oars and pushed out into the stream: 'Good-bye,' he called, and Graziosa waved a hand; then something in the stranger's aspect made the little painter pause again.
'Gladly would we offer our poor hospitality, messer,' he said, 'only the gates are sternly barred to any stranger...' But Graziosa, glancing also at the strong, commanding figure, and the stern set face, checked her father's impulse.
'We are too humble, father,' she said gently, 'but if there were any service we could render, any message—? We live at the sign of Lo Scudo, the armourer's, near to the western gate.'
'I will remember it,' said Francisco simply.
Graziosa drew her blue cloth hood about her smiling face, and, with gentle strokes from the painter's paddle, the boat disappeared.
When Francisco found himself alone again, momentary misgiving seized him that he had lost an opportunity.
Could these folk have been of service? They were of a sort unknown to him; courtiers, soldiers, burghers, merchants, with all such he was at home, but these plebeians of kindly nature and good speech, of humble rank and careless happiness, were new to him. The painter's talk of his craft had had no meaning for Francisco, it had passed from his mind for craziness; but the girl had said they dwelt near the, western gate—could they perchance have been of service? But presently he dismissed the notion; they were too simple for his purpose.
Raging in the pain of rekindled memory and present helplessness, Francisco paced to and fro, waiting for Vittore's figure in the distance.
Suddenly his eyes rested again on the great clump of yellow lichen, and he stopped, arrested.
In the midst of it he had seen something that interested him, something very much its colour, but not quite its kind.
He approached, and thrusting his hand in among the great tufts, touched the rusty iron of a disused bolt. There was a door here, then, that led into the grounds of the deserted villa! Francisco's heart beat strongly.
From the finding of the silver goblet in the ruined hut, he had associated with the Visconti's name the darkened dwelling and its silent grounds. There was none to question, for there was none of whom he dared inquire; but more than once Francisco had thought of trying to enforce an entrance, only to find, however, that by whomsoever abandoned, ingress to the villa had been left well-nigh impossible. But here was an entrance that had been overlooked, and it was not to be wondered at, for the rusty bolt could have been discerned only by eyes as keen as his, and the door belonging was completely hidden by close-growing ivy, too frail to climb by, but the most effectual of all concealments. Tearing up the lichen from its roots, Francisco set to work upon the ivy. The delicate, rope-like strands clung with their black filaments like fingers bewitched, and little had been accomplished when Francisco, taking cautious survey around him, saw Vittore returning across the meadows. Concealing what he was about, Francisco waited till the lad came up, flushed and triumphant from a successful errand.
'What news going in the city?' asked Francisco.
'All is quiet. One of the soldiers snatched a leek from me, another bade me tell my sister he was still unwed. They jested finely, but I should not like them to have turned to questioning me. There were so many, and so finely armed.'
'And the money? Didst thou need to change the pieces that I gave thee?'
'Yes, messer, I had not enough! They said it was Veronese.'
'Nothing new to them in Milan now—the money of the Veronese,' said Francisco, with a flashing glance toward the ramparts.
'They told me 'twas no longer taken; that the Duke was having it recast. But a bystander reached forward, and gave me a piece of Milanese. He said that he would keep my piece; it bore the della Scala arms, he said, and was a curiosity.'
Francisco muttered something that the lad did not catch.
'Well, thou hast faced the soldiers and the market now,' he said aloud, 'and art safe for other journeys, as I promised thee. Go on to the hut, and give thyself food and Tomaso. Keep close and answer none. I will be with thee presently.'
The boy went on obediently. These two days with his rescuer had taught him and Tomaso both that what Francisco said he meant, and his word was their law already. But Francisco needed stronger allies.
With some half-formed thought that the villa might conceal one, he now returned to his attack upon the ivy, and after many a wrench and cut and struggle, the garden door stood bare enough to use. It was stained, discoloured, locked, and immovable.
But this was nothing to Francisco; with his dagger he cut the woodwork around the lock, removed it, and, thrusting his hand and arm well through the breach, with no great difficulty withdrew the upper and lower bolts. With knee and shoulder then he pressed inward, driving against the weeds and growths that choked it, and presently had forced an aperture that would admit him.
After a cautious glance along the meadow path, fortunately for his purpose little used, he replaced the loose strands of ivy as far as he was able, and slipping through, pushed the door back into its place, filling up the broken lock with green.
He was in a garden of great beauty. The yew-tree overhead shaded a patch of velvety green starred with daisies. Before him a straight path led to a marble seat and a belt of cypress trees.
The ring-doves cooed blissfully; the flowering trees stirred; there was no other sound save the distant one of faintly splashing water. Treading softly, Francisco set forward in the direction in which he knew the villa lay.
The house, a low, graceful building of white marble, was approached by a broad flight of steps, flanked by a balustrade almost hidden in early roses, which trailed in great clusters over it and along the velvet turf. Fronting it was a great fountain, and a wide avenue of yew-trees, patched with sunshine, led up to the facade.
To right and left spread turf-grown paths, edged with orange and lemon trees, and sweet with the scent of the citron and myrtle; around their roots grew violets, primroses, daffodils; and behind, beyond, on all sides, were grass and walks and trees, a sea of moving green.
The place was profoundly quiet. The statues, placed here and there, looked out from the foliage smiling; the dainty seats of coloured stone were empty, innocent of satin skirt or ruffled cloak. There was no sign of the recent care of man; no wild things stirred; beside the basins of the fountains lay two peacocks, dead. The villa doors were open, showing something of the long corridor that traversed the lower floor, but silent as the scene without. The stillness was unnatural; the beauty of the place, the two dead gorgeous birds, the open doors and lovely sunshine, made an impression that appalled.
The day was long past noon when, through the dim corridor, there was the faint flutter of garments. Someone was slowly moving. The sunbeam's slanting ray struck through the doorway on a strange, haggard-looking figure: a man. He was wasted, bent, and shrunken; his limbs tottering under him. Where his blue velvet cloak fell back, it showed a splendid suit of black and gold, embroidered and decked out with ribbons, but the splendour hung upon a hollow frame: a skeleton. Long locks of pale golden hair heightened the ghastly hollowness of the pinched face. Conrad von Schulembourg was paying with this form of death for the favour of Valentine Visconti. As her brother's favourite, he had thought it safe to lift his eyes to her; being something of a gallant fool, very gay to face danger, very incredulous of its ever coming to him in this hideous shape. He was not quick to read character, especially Visconti's character. Could Gian Visconti have seen his victim now, even he might have started, for it is hard to imagine what men who die of hunger look like.
The trees, softly moving, made pleasant light and shade; the myrtle blossoms blew and sailed in little clouds of mauve, while the sweet-smelling leaves of the citron hung their rich clusters over opening lilies. Conrad, dragging himself across the grass, with straining eyes and parted lips, thought only of the water in the fountain, and saw only those dead birds. Poisoned! Visconti had forestalled all chances.
The Count had scarcely strength for any definite purpose of self-help. He craved water, and turned to drag himself away in search of some he might dare drink. Ere long, he knew not how, he reached it; a little hollow fringed with fern, in its centre a calm and placid pool, the trees mirrored in its peaceful surface. Count Conrad fell beside it, gazing longingly. A statue of a wood-god, the sunlight yellow in the hollow eyes, leaned from among the bushes, and mocked him with its smile.
Another effort and he had reached the stone. The water was so cool, so clear, so pure and still, it seemed impossible that it should harm him. He reached his hand out, then convulsively resisting the impulse, drew it back, and sank again upon the grass. At a flutter of white from the boughs near, Count Conrad lifted his eyes, and saw a dove that flew past him to rest upon the rim; he watched it eagerly. The bird preened itself, shook its feathers daintily, stooped and drank. Conrad drew himself a little nearer. Suddenly with a cry the bird whirled up into the air, beat its wings together vainly, and fell back into the water, dead! Poisoned! All the water poisoned! Desperation giving him a moment's strength, Count Conrad rose and regarded the dead dove with greedy eyes, but steeling himself against the impulse to devour his own death, he crawled on with the vague thought to reach the gate. Some instinct of remembrance guiding his stumbling steps, he came upon it. It was twice his height, and all its elaborate tracery offered no single aperture through which a child could thrust his hand. Sick and blind he clung to it; he tried to shout, to scream, his voice died in his throat. In helpless rage, his wild face pressed against the iron, his eyes starting, his tongue lolling out of his dry mouth, he gripped and shook the lock.
Two children running by, stopped, gazed, came nearer, and then at what they saw, fled, screaming. No one else approached. The world seemed empty. Twilight began to fall. Then in his half-delirium Count Conrad thought again of the dead bird, and laughed wolfishly to himself, making with tottering steps back toward the hollow. To search coherently for food or drink or succour was now beyond his power. Presently again he, sank across the grass and lay there crying like a child, whimpering and whispering. Once or twice he made an effort, snatched at the long grass, fell back again, and lay now in silence.
After a time, but while it was still light, he seemed to wake as from a trance, and saw a figure moving down the glade toward him. Was he still living? He could scarcely tell. Was this Visconti come again to mock him? The thought spurred the man, though dying, almost to strive to rise and meet his fate standing. But sky, grass, trees, and stone reeled about him in a chaos of green and blue. He strove to speak, but his tongue refused. The dark figure came nearer, stopped beside him, stooped and spoke, but Count Conrad did not see nor heed. He lay, a woeful spectacle, as if dead indeed.
He awoke, as he thought never to wake again, with moistened lips, and water on his forehead, and a face that was not Visconti's bending over him; a dark face with strange brown eyes that looked at him with sombre interest.
'Thou comest from the Duke?' gasped Conrad. Francisco shook his head.
'I am no emissary of Visconti.'
'Then thou comest to save me?' whispered Conrad eagerly, hope dawning in his eyes.
'I will save thee if I can,' replied Francisco. 'Thou art alone?'
Conrad moved his head. He was too weak for more. Then a sudden thought shot horror into his face, and he struggled to a sitting posture.
The water!' he gasped out. The water—from that fountain—thou gayest me to drink of that?'
Francisco followed in surprise the direction of his glance. 'No,' he said. 'I had it with me; 'twas water and wine too.'
'Oh!' Conrad sank back. 'The water is poisoned—all—'
'Poisoned—Visconti's doing!' said Francisco.
'How didst thou get in?' whispered Conrad feebly. 'Visconti barred all entrances.'
'I found one unknown to any; canst thou, with my help, walk there?'
'I think—I can walk—to safety,' was the answer, and the love of life lending him strength, he staggered to his feet, and helped by Francisco and invigorated by the wine, made slowly forward.
But they had not taken many steps before Francisco well perceived he had rescued a man past helping himself, well-nigh past any help from others.
With a sigh Conrad sank speechless into his arms.
Francisco looked around him. He had come far from the entrance he had forced, and Conrad, plainly starved and emaciated as he was, was still a man full grown. To leave him and to return to Tomaso would be too dangerous. The place must be under observation. But to seek safety himself and abandon the helpless man was not a thought to occur to Francisco, though, hampered by his dead weight, he would be at any pursuer's mercy, or fall a prey to any ambush; so with stout words of encouragement, and forcing more wine through his lips, he lifted the Count to his shoulder and made as rapidly as he was able to the door beside the lichen. It was a breathless journey, but at last, and unmolested, Francisco gained the wall and laid his burden down. Reconnoitring without, he saw no sign of danger, and, glad of the oncoming dusk, dragged up the man and laid him, at least free, outside the door. The cool air blowing from the water, a few drops more wine, in which Francisco soaked some crumbs of bread he found within his wallet, enabled the rescued man again to move.
It was an easy matter now to bring Vittore and Tomaso, who would not be left, and between them Conrad, too spent to put questions, was carried to their shelter and laid on the rough heather couch in the hut, from which one of his own vassals had not long been driven; a poor asylum enough, but one for which he only too gladly exchanged the deadly splendour of his own magnificent abode.
'Who is he?' asked Tomaso, in timid surprise. For the first time since their knowledge of him Francisco laughed, and without bitterness.
'One of Visconti's victims! It is some poor satisfaction to have rescued two,' he said. 'I know nothing of him except that it is plainly to be seen he is some person of distinction. We will nurse him to the best of our skill. Tomaso, he may be of use—'
Then suddenly Francisco's humour changed. He glanced around him at the boy, the youth, scarcely recovered from his fever, the ghastly figure on the ground over which he bent, and fury shook him. Of what use anything against Visconti? 'Oh, terrible to be so helpless!' he cried passionately. 'We will leave this place. I break my heart in vain against the walls of Milan. I will to Ferrara, to della Scala's kinsfolk there.'
'And they will aid thee?' asked Tomaso trembling.
Francisco smiled, but this time grimly. 'I can but try,' he said. 'Della Scala was once known and trusted there. And in no case can we stay here!' He pointed down at Conrad. 'The place will not be safe for us, let Visconti once discover his victim has escaped him. We will depart to Ferrara, and fall upon Visconti while he is unsuspecting that I—that anyone lives still to animate the Estes against him.'
An hour or two later, while Vittore and Tomaso slept, Francisco keeping watch beside him, Conrad woke from a light doze and felt that he had hold on life again. He tried to murmur thanks to his preserver, but the other checked him.
'Thou art not of Italy?' he said.
'I am Conrad von Schulembourg.'
'Conrad von Schulembourg!' echoed Francisco in surprise. Visconti's trusted friend!'
'The trusted friend of him who fastened me within my villa yonder to die a lingering death of hunger, or of poisoned food.' The drops started on his forehead, he gasped for breath.
Francisco soothed and tended him.
'Think not of it; get well,' he said, as he had said to Tomaso. 'Live and help rid the world of the Visconti. He would have thee die a dog's death. Is not life dear to thee?'
'Yes, I will live,' said Conrad, 'and I will take revenge both for my own wrongs and for a woman's sake.'
Francisco turned quickly and looked at him keenly.
'A woman's sake! Thy motive is the same as mine: I too am living for a woman's sake.'
Then, at the other's questioning stare, Francisco continued more quietly:
'I am from Verona, Count; that will tell thee much. I belonged to della Scala's court, and barely escaped with life from the sacking of the town. Thou see'st I can for that and other matters more than equal thee in hatred of Visconti.'
He rose and, moving toward the door, looked out.
'Oh, I am impatient!' he cried passionately, 'to be riding toward Ferrara!'
Tisio Visconti, mounted on a white palfrey, rode slowly through the streets of Milan, a lean figure, with a foolish face and vacant eyes.
For the elder Visconti was half crazed, a fact to which perhaps he owed his life, Gian Galeazzo not fearing his poor disordered intellect enough to deprive him of aught, save his birthright—the sovereignty of Milan.
One or two men-at-arms in splendid livery rode behind him, and as he passed the people bowed humbly, respecting him solely as the Duke's brother, for Tisio was powerless for good or ill. Some few there were who pitied him.
About the streets of Milan he was a far more familiar figure than his brother, who was seldom seen, but of whose unscrupulous power Tisio was the living symbol.
Complete liberty was allowed him; still the soldiers behind were rather guards than servants, and charged to see he did not leave the gates. Dropping his loose reins on the palfrey's neck, Tisio Visconti looked around him with lacklustre eyes and a dull smile. He was riding through the long, narrow streets, cobbled and overhung with high straight houses, that led to the western gate.
Through this gate his father lately, his brothers months ago, had been driven to their deaths; his father, infamously, his mother beside him, in the full light of day to Brescia; his brothers, secretly, at dead of night, to Brescia also, whence they returned no more.
Yet to Tisio the gate and street had no memory or meaning; he looked ahead of him at the green trees beyond, and his eyes lit up. It was to see them he came. To him the world outside Milan was paradise; sometimes the soul within him rose and chafed at his dull captivity, and then he longed passionately for those green fields and trees, which he knew only from within the city gates.
The street was empty now; it was noontide, the hour Tisio preferred, when there were few abroad. The sun was hot, its rays flashing on the pikes of the sentinels who paced the walls; and Tisio's followers wiped their brows and chafed. But he gazed with wistful eyes, unheeding, into the beauty and the calm, the green and the gold. The sentry took no heed of him; so many times he had done the same; ridden to the gates, waited, looking eagerly through, then patiently returned to the gloom of the Visconti palace.
Either side the massive entrance lay houses, low, of grey stone, enclosed in square courtyards, entered by doors deep set in the thick walls.
From one of these, as Tisio turned, a girl emerged in a scarlet robe. She carried a bunch of lilies, on her arm hung the basket that betokened her errand. She and the little group of horsemen were the only life in the silent, sunny street. Tisio's eyes lit upon her, and he smiled. Like all the Visconti, there was poetry mingled with his madness, and the sight of beauty touched even his crazy brain.
The girl, starting when she saw the horsemen, paused, as if to retire, her hand on the door, her brilliant robe gorgeous against the background of grey wall. The colour, and the sunshine falling over her golden hair, made a picture Tisio was not slow to see; his eyes fixed upon her eagerly; he drew up his horse and turned to the page who, spy and attendant in one, invariably accompanied him.
'I would speak to her,' he said, with the eagerness of a child.
The girl, seeing she attracted notice, turned, frightened and confused, to make good her escape, but the page, riding up, stopped her authoritatively, but with a reassuring smile.
''Tis the Lord Tisio Visconti, lady; fear nothing; he would only speak with thee,' he said.
But the girl's alarm increased at the mention of that dreaded name.
'He mistakes me for another, sir,' she said. 'I have never so much as seen even the Duke himself.'
'My lord would speak with thee,' repeated the page. 'He is not the Duke, but it is the Duke's pleasure that he be obeyed in matters such as this. Come, maiden, there is no need to fear: it is an honour.'
He turned his rein again, and, indeed, not daring to refuse, the girl followed and stood timidly by Tisio's side. He looked at her long and eagerly, at her scarlet dress, her sunny hair, the white and green lilies in her hands. Still he did not speak, and she raised her head and looked around questioningly and fearful. But the page only smiled: the men-at-arms sat silent and indifferent.
'Thou art very beautiful,' said Tisio at last. 'What is thy name? Whose daughter art thou?'
'Graziosa Vistarnini, my lord; Agnolo Vistarnini is my father. He is a painter.'
But Tisio's eyes grew vacant, and his gaze wandered to the lilies.
Did they come from yonder?' he asked, and pointed beyond the gate.
'No, my lord. From a friend's garden. My father thinks to paint them.'
Still Tisio did not heed her answer; he laughed foolishly. 'I may go?' asked Graziosa timidly. 'I may go, my lord?'
He bent from the saddle and lifted from her shoulder a long lock of her curling hair, and stroked it, dropping it with a sigh. 'Give me these,' he said, pointing to the lilies; 'all the flowers I know grow in Gian's garden—Gian is the Duke of Milan.'
And at his words, and the tone in which he spoke them, Graziosa's pity overcame her fear.
In silence, tears in her eyes, she handed him the flowers. He took them eagerly, but before she could withdraw her hand, he grasped her arm with a childish exclamation and touched the bracelet of fine workmanship she wore upon the wrist.
'I will have this too,' he said, laughing with satisfaction: but the girl drew her arm back sharply and turned to go.
Tisio fumed. 'The bracelet,' he said peevishly, and the page motioned her harshly to remain.
Graziosa turned to him in confusion and distress.
'I cannot give it him,' she said, the tears starting. 'I entreat thee, sir, ask him to let me go.'
But the page intimated to her warningly she had best make no to-do. There was only one law for the citizens of Milan: that was the tyranny of the Visconti; let the one who encountered it only in the capricious whim of the crazy Tisio be thankful.
'Hold it good fortune, it is naught but a bauble he demands,' said the page. 'Give him the bracelet; he will drop it, forgotten, tomorrow. Ask for me one day at the palace. I will restore it. But give it now, before he grows angry. Thou hadst better.'
Tisio's face was darkening.
'Make haste, make haste,' cried the page impatiently, 'or it will be thou and thy bracelet both that will be carried off.'
'My betrothed gave it to me,' she murmured. 'I cannot part with it.'
'I will have it,' repeated Tisio imperiously, with outstretched hand. Graziosa's helpless tears were flowing; slowly she unclasped the bracelet; the page took her treasure with an easy air, handed it to his master, and turned the horses' heads toward home.
'Thou wilt be none the worse,' he laughed, as they rode away. Tisio, absorbed in his new toy, gave her neither look nor thought, for jewels, gold ornaments of rare design, were the craze of this Visconti's diseased brain.
Graziosa pressed her bare arm to her lips, and looked after them, the tears of vexation streaming down. She thought of Ambrogio, the painter-lover, whose gift it was: what would he say to find her bracelet gone?
'Oh, if only Ambrogio had been here,' she cried, 'he would not have let the Duke himself take it from me—but I—what could I do?—if only he is not angry that I let it go.'
She had not much faith in the page's words besides, how dare she venture to the Visconti's palace? Her tears flowed afresh; she picked up the poor discarded lilies, all her pleasure gone. In the distance she could see Tisio, still handling the bracelet with delight, and she half-smiled, even through her tears, at so strange and pitiful a thing. 'It makes the poor crazy lord happy,' she said softly, 'but it breaks my heart to lose it.' She watched Tisio disappear; then, her loss a certainty, she turned with reluctant feet upon her errand.
Meanwhile Tisio, absorbed in his new spoil, rode toward the palace.
The projecting gables of the houses sent clear-cut shadows across his path; the strong noonday sun blended the city into brilliant light and shade, broken only by the vivid colour of the drapery fluttering at some unshaded window, or the sudden flash of pigeons' wings against the golden air.
As they neared the great gate of the palace, a group of horsemen, galloping noisily ahead of them, dashed into the vast courtyard and drew rein with a fine clatter at the entrance steps. Tisio, following, raised his head, and looked dully at them—a band of his brother's soldiers, hired mercenaries; it was usual enough to meet them both within and without the Visconti's abode. As he was dismounting, the leader of the band addressed him familiarly.
'My lord hears thee not, sir,' said the page, 'his thoughts are with his spoils.'
The soldier laughed with a grimace.
It was the freedom of one whose services are valuable enough, even when well paid, to permit him to bear himself with small respect to his employers. For the mercenaries were a power; the transfer of their services could ruin states and lose towns, and even Visconti had to pay them well and concede licence to their leaders; for upon them, to a great extent, his sovereignty rested, and Alberic da Salluzzo could take more liberties than any. He was a famous captain, noted for his skill in wars and turbulence in peace, a man with no country and no honour, endowed with dauntless courage and endurance, of vast rapacity and of all the cruelty his age allowed.
Making no way for Tisio, and motioning curtly to his men, he strode up the stairs, a stalwart figure, overdressed in splendid armour, and swung into the ante-chamber of the Visconti's audience-room. It was deserted. Alberic, astonished, paused on the threshold, looking round in amazement for the crowd—courtiers, servants, seekers, soldiers—wont to fill it.
Opposite was the closed door of the Visconti's room, but even Alberic dared not knock there unannounced. He was turning away to seek enlightenment, when a dark form he had passed unnoticed in the distant shadows of the great room rose, and he recognized, as it advanced, the secretary's stooping figure.
'What has happened here?' demanded the soldier.
'Is there need to ask?' answered Giannotto. 'The Duke has had the room cleared. He will see no one.' Alberic half-laughed, and shrugged his shoulders.
'The madness is on him at Count von Schulembourg's escape. Is that it?' he asked. 'But art even thou excluded?' he continued in surprise, for Giannotto was the one man who could come and go unannounced, unbidden, the one man who knew Visconti's secrets.
The secretary smiled, the slow smile that men's lips learned in the Visconti palace.
'It is best for the Duke to be alone, and for me that he should be,' he said. 'The news that Count Conrad has escaped hath galled him much; it came at a bad moment too, following on those parchments twice found within the grounds'—he paused. 'Thou wert sent to find the writer, or the one who put them there; art thou successful?'
Alberic shook his head. 'I return as I went. Beyond finding that doorway forced in the wall, messer secretary, there is no token whatsoever of how the Count escaped. But after so long a fast, messer,' Alberic showed his teeth, 'it is not likely that it was alone.'
'The one who aided him is he who inscribed those parchments?'
''Twould seem so,' answered Alberic. 'We have searched anew among the huts from which we drove Count Conrad's German dogs; on the threshold of the largest there was—this.'
He drew out of his breast a parchment, a long narrow strip, scrawled across in irregular writing, and handed it to Giannotto.
'What does it say?' he asked.
Giannotto glanced at it hastily, his eyes on the Duke's door. He read, 'Della Scala lives!'
The captain whistled softly. 'Now, thou may'st hand that to the Duke instead of me,' he said.
Giannotto searched the writing keenly. 'Della Scala cannot live; 'tis some trick of the Torriani.'
Alberic laughed harshly. Whate'er it be, I say thou shalt have the pleasure of showing it the Duke!'
'Nay, thou must speak of thy own failures, friend. Besides, the Duke will need thee for his further orders. Count Conrad must be found, alive or dead!'
Was it his ghost attacked the walls last night?' asked Alberic; and not wholly did he speak in jest.
The secretary cast uneasy looks across his shoulder at the ominously shut door.
'It angered Visconti strangely,' he whispered. 'But it was a handful of madmen. Wandering robbers from the hills! They were four at most, and they tried to scale the walls of Milan!' He smiled in scorn.
'And yet,' said Alberic, 'they were almost on the ramparts ere they were discovered, and when they were pursued fled back into the night silently, nor could we find whence they came, nor any trace of them.'
'However that may be,' said Giannotto, 'the Duke hath dismissed even me, and the delivery of this parchment had best wait till his black fit has left him.'
He raised the arras from the entrance that opened on the stairway, and passed out of sight along the corridor, leaving Alberic standing in the unguarded entrance of the deserted audience-room, undecided, the parchment in his hand.
But he did not stand there long alone. One or two servants stole back to their places, afraid to stay away; and presently, with slow steps and vacant smile, there passed by him Tisio Visconti, followed by the page who never left him.
'Thou, my lord?' cried Alberic. 'Now, how would it be if I ask him to hand this parchment over?' and he turned with a swaggering laugh to the page.
The page shook his head, not comprehending. Tisio, unheeding, seated himself in one of the great chairs, Graziosa's bracelet still between his fingers.
'I will wait no longer,' cried Alberic suddenly; 'let the Duke summon me.'
But the next moment Alberic's swagger dropped, and he swung his plumed hat low to the lady who, unattended, stole across the threshold.
It was Valentine Visconti.
Her breast was heaving; suppressed excitement showed in every movement; it was not difficult for Alberic to read she had heard of Count Conrad's rescue.
With a motion of the hand she bade him wait, and turned to her brother, huddled in his chair, gazing blankly at the floor.
'Tisio!' she said, and her tone was very gentle. 'What dost thou here?'
He looked up, and his dull face lit at sight of her.
'I wait for Gian,' he said simply.
Valentine shuddered. 'What wouldst thou see him for, Tisio?'
He smiled, and held out the bracelet. 'To show him this' The tears rushed to Valentine's eyes but she remembered the captain and turned to him.
'Thou carryest something here to give the Duke?' she asked. 'Another parchment, lady,' said the captain. 'But I fear my lord is in no humour for its contents'
Valentine's eyes sparkled brightly. 'Thou has not the courage to present it?'
'I confess, lady, I am waiting till I am obliged to,' answered Alberic.
Valentine held out her hand. 'Give me the paper; I will give it to my brother!'
The captain hesitated.
'Since thou hast not the courage,' she added almost with a laugh. All Gian's orders had not availed to prevent some whisper reaching Valentine of his evil humour and the cause of it: Conrad's escape, the threatening parchments; the hint that della Scala lived. Alberic, glancing at her, saw a triumph and a malice in the lady's glance that made him doubly feel he did not care just then to await Visconti's coming. But still he hesitated; the Duke might vent on him his fury with his sister.
'This business will not wait,' cried Valentine, 'give me the parchment to deliver, or knock at yonder door and hand it to the Duke yourself.'
But the captain of the mercenaries bent low, shook his head with a significant gesture, and, handing over the fatal missive, bowed himself away. Valentine turned again to Tisio's page.
'Take thy lord away,' she said. 'The Duke may not be best pleased to see him here.'
But Tisio would not go. Valentine, bending over him, stroked his hands tenderly, then breaking from him, leaned against the wall in sudden woe.
'All of us crazed,' she cried bitterly. 'All of us, surely; wretched people that we are!'
Then, at the sight of the parchment she held, her former mood returned. Conrad was alive! He had vowed devotion. He would return to her rescue. She would live to be free; to come and go outside the Visconti palace, outside Milan, out yonder in the world. She leaned back against the arras a moment, dizzy at the thought of so much joy, and her courage rose high, her eyes danced.
'The Duke must have this parchment,' she said; 'and since Alberic da Salluzzo does not care to seek an audience for it, why, Tisio, thou shalt see me give it. The Duke loves not an interruption when he is angry,' she added, with a soft laugh. 'But 'tis my duty to show him this.'
And she advanced toward the ominously closed door.
The page looked uneasy. He had no wish to face Visconti in his fury. Yet well he knew he dared not leave his charge. Valentine tapped at the door with gentle fingers.
'Gian!' she called.
'Lady, this is madness!' cried the page, startled into speech. She looked over her shoulder.
'I am also a Visconti, boy,' she said. 'Why should I fear the Duke?'
'Gian!' she called again, her beautiful head close to the dark panels. 'I have something here of great moment. Why let everyone know thou art so moved? Gian! Thou makest thyself a mock; dost thou fear Count Conrad, that his escape moves thee so?'
A pause: then with a smile Valentine stepped back a pace or two into the chamber.
'The Duke comes!' she said, and the page turned pale.
The inner door opened as smoothly as silently, and Visconti stood there looking at the trio. He was dressed in purple velvet, but his doublet was tumbled, the fine lace frills at his wrists were torn to rags, his eyes strained wide open, and for a moment, as it was with any who encountered it, his expression gave his sister pause. But again she remembered Conrad lived, and she held out the parchment. 'I thought it well to give you this,' she said.
Gian advanced and took it in silence. But those torn ruffles, that disordered doublet, had their meanings, and the look in those wide eyes, as he turned them on her, quelled the mockery in hers, in spite of herself.
'Begone!' he said, 'and do not usurp another's office again. Leave me.'
'With thine own thoughts, brother?' she said softly, facing him. 'Be careful,' he answered; 'thou shouldst know my humours, and that 'tis dangerous to cross them. Remember it only suits my purpose that thou shouldst live!'
At this Tisio, as if half-comprehending the threat, rose, and his brother's eyes fell on him.
'Thou too! What dost thou about my doors? Hast thou come too to dare me with thy folly?'
His eyes blazed, his hands worked. Tisio, dazed and affrighted, let fall Graziosa's bracelet.
The page stooped to recover it.
What hast thou there?' cried Visconti with sudden change of tone; and the page, quivering for his life, handed the bracelet on bent knee. Visconti studied it one second, then, with a sound of fury that sent the boy crouching back against the wall, control left him. His eyes lighted on Tisio, and in maniacal fury he seized him by the shoulder and shook him as though he were a rag.
'How camest thou by this?' he yelled. 'How came this bracelet in the Visconti's palace? Answer me!'
Tisio whimpered, but had no reply, till, with a shout, Visconti flung him from him with such force that, save for Valentine, he would have fallen; then he turned upon the page who knelt by, trembling.
'Answer me!' he cried furiously. 'Answer! Where got the fool this?' He held the bracelet out. And the sight of those torn ruffles around his long white hands made the boy's hair rise.
'Indeed, my lord,' he gasped, 'a girl, whom my Lord Tisio—met by the western gate—'
'Gave it him!' shrieked Visconti. 'Ah, the three of you shall pay dearly for this hour's trifling with me!'
'My lord took it,' cried the page, half-wild with terror. 'He took it, my lord; she wept to give it.'
'She wept to give it,' said Visconti slowly.
There was a pause. When he spoke again, his tone was calmer.
'Then he shall be slain for taking it,' he said, flashing a look on Tisio, who, huddled in the chair, moaned with distress as he leaned against his sister.
'Shame! Calm thyself!' cried Valentine. 'What has Tisio done? Is this the first ornament he has liked and taken? Have they not orders to let him have his pleasure?'
'Mark me,' returned Visconti. 'Take care thou dost not make my dislike overrule my ambition—the pair of you hold your lives solely at my pleasure.'
He turned to the page.
'Go, and take thy fool with thee, and keep from my sight.' With a white face the wretched page rose and helped Tisio to his feet. At a whisper from his sister he went meekly, Visconti's mad eyes on him the while.
A terrible silence fell.
Valentine steadied herself against the arras. She was thankful to see Tisio go—alive. To ask why the jewel Tisio had fondled had so angered Gian was beyond her daring. 'He is possessed,' she murmured to herself.
With an unpleasant laugh Visconti turned to her.
'Didst thou urge him to flaunt me with this?' he asked. 'Flaunt thee?' said Valentine. 'How should I know a toy like that could rouse such fury?'
The Duke looked at her keenly, and crushed the bracelet together in his hand.
'As I say, thou darest me far because thou art worth something to my plans—but I have the power, and I keep it'
She was silent, and he turned to pass back into his own room. But at the same moment Giannotto spoke. He had entered unobserved, and drew near his master with an obsequious movement.
But Visconti met him with a snarl.
'I will see no one! Did I not say so? Take care, Giannotto, lest I see thee too often.'
The secretary paled, but kept his composure. He had learned that to shrink before Visconti only served to arouse him the more.
'I would merely say, my lord,' he remarked, 'Alberic da Salluzzo awaits further orders'
'Hath he found the Count?' flashed Visconti.
'My lord, no; nor trace of him, unless these parchments be one.'
'Thou hast another there?'
Giannotto, bowing low, handed Visconti a packet. His head was bent, his eyes downcast, and the smile that flickered over his thin lips unseen.
'This, my lord, was brought in by one of Alberic's men—found an hour since outside the gates of Count Conrad's villa.'
It was sealed, and inscribed with the Visconti's name.
Visconti seized it, and Giannotto, stepping back, watched furtively his furious face.
Gian looked at the packet. There was no attempt to disguise the writing. It was the same as that upon the parchment Valentine had given him with its brief threat: 'Della Scala lives', and the seal of it was the Ladder of the Scaligeri. Long Visconti fingered it in silence, then remembering he was not alone, glanced wrathfully up to see that Valentine was watching him with a faint smile of scorn, and that Giannotto, for all his downcast head, waited with eyes keen with expectation. But Visconti curbed himself. To have the mastery of others he must keep the mastery of himself.
'Giannotto,' he said, and the secretary started as if a whip had touched him, 'thou wilt see to it that da Salluzzo searches Milan and all Lombardy—that he spares neither treasure nor blood—and that he brings to me dead, or living, Count Conrad von Schulembourg, and the writer of these parchments.'
With an obeisance Giannotto went, in silence, and Visconti slowly broke the seal of the packet. Then he turned to Valentine.
'Art thou waiting to see if it contains a message from thy Conrad?' he said fiercely. 'Have no fear! Thou shalt see his head ere night.'
She shuddered before the taunt, and turned to leave him. It was always the same; let her meet Visconti with never so high courage, she left him quelled, discomfited, dismayed.
'Go!' shouted Visconti, in sudden fury, and she stayed no longer to question or defy.
Carrying the half-opened packet and the parchment, Visconti re-entered his private room. It was dark and silent; no sound from within or without broke its deserted gloom.
He was alone, nor was he likely to be disturbed. Seating himself, not without a furtive glance over his shoulder, he looked at the writing again, the writing and the seal, then opened the packet.
A roll of parchment, close writ, strangely stained in places a reddish brown, fell with a rattle on the floor. Visconti started back, he stared at it, uttered a hoarse sound, stooped and picked it up. The parchment was inscribed with poetry. Here and there among the stains a line was readable.
Perchance thou wouldst not dare to turn—
His glance caught the words. He looked around with wild eyes.
A huge, black bureau, fitted with many drawers, stood in one corner of the room. Visconti, the parchment in his shaking fingers, went to it, still with glances around, and drew out drawer after drawer, till he had found the thing he sought. It was among neat piles of parchments, annotated in Giannotto's hand.
Visconti turned them over hastily, till he came upon a document hung with the seals of Verona, a cartel of defiance, neatly endorsed in a clerkly hand, and signed in large, bold writing, 'Mastino della Scala'.
Eagerly he turned to the cover of the packet, and laid the two writings side by side. They were the same.
Visconti leaned against the black chest, breathing heavily, his face not good to look on in its white devilry.
'He lives! Della Scala lives he cried, and struck himself in his rage. Then his gaze came back to the bloodstained parchment crumpled in his hand.
'And this—? And this—where got he this? The parchment that I read from on the road that day; the parchment that I thought was left at Brescia, in that—'
The words died away on his lips. In a sudden paroxysm of something more than fury, Visconti drove it down among the others within the drawer, and locked and double-locked it in.
The day was fading; in that dull chamber the light fled early and entered late. Visconti glanced again stealthily at the dark arras, faint in the dusk. He strained his ears listening; the air was full of voices, far away, pleading for the most part, yet some so near and threatening, Visconti held his ears. They died away as they had come, but to Visconti the silence was more terrible.
'Giannotto!' he called. 'Lights! It grows dark—'
He listened; he heard those sighs again, then suddenly the sound of flying feet, hurrying, hurrying; with a scream of horror Visconti rushed up the steps calling wildly for lights.
The huge door swung open at his desperate push, then, falling to behind him, shook the tapestry; as it fell into place again a long sighing filled the empty room.
Tomaso Ligozzi sat in a corner of the ruined hut, with enthralled face, listening to Count Conrad, who lounged against the wooden table opposite. It was five days since Conrad's rescue. He had made a recovery the more rapid that no leech had been there to meddle with him. Left to the simplest nursing, the barest needful nourishment, and the vigour of his own constitution, Conrad had rallied, till now, in almost full health, no trace was left of the hollow-faced, emaciated figure Francisco had carried into safety.
The morning after the rescue, it was decided that the hut was no longer a safe shelter; and, carefully destroying all traces of their habitation, the three, under Francisco's leadership, helping Conrad between them, betook themselves into a thicket near. There, in his solitary prowlings to and fro, Francisco had discovered a deep cave underneath a sandbank, the entrance well overgrown with boughs and bushes. Here, not without discomfort, they hid till Conrad should be fit to travel, and comforted themselves for the wretched exchange when they heard the shouts of Alberic's men.
Francisco was disappointed in his new ally. Count Conrad showed a levity, a forgetfulness of injury, that chimed badly with his own deep purposes. Tomaso was his chief reliance; his plan was to secure horses, by fair means or foul, and, as soon as Conrad could sit the saddle, to depart for Ferrara. So far Francisco's stealthy and cautious manoeuvres to possess himself of what he needed had been unsuccessful; but at last he had come upon the track of something possible, and today, with Vittore to help him, he had departed to bring back with him the horses for their flight.
Twice between dawn and noon had Alberic's men scoured their neighbourhood. Two, indeed, had come so near the hiding-place that their talk was plain. They spoke of the parchment found the day before and of the Visconti's fury.
It seemed fairly sure that for many hours at least the soldiery would not return, as they could scarce confine their search to the one spot only; so, before Francisco's departure, it was arranged between him and Tomaso that their rendezvous at sundown should be the ruined hut where they had first had shelter, there being no means of horsemen treading the thick brushwood around the sand-cave, and the hut affording opportunities of space and movement.
After a weary day and the second visit of the search party, which alarmed them as to the heat of Visconti's pursuit, but reassured them also as to returning to the hut, Tomaso and Conrad reached it an hour before sundown and prepared to wait.
At first keenly anxious, straining for every sound, as time went on, unconsciously they grew more at ease, and Conrad beguiled Tomaso with his talk.
At last, with a sudden sigh, Conrad broke off, and lapsed into silence. Tomaso sat alert, looking through the open door. 'Francisco is long,' said Conrad after a while.
He was dressed in the leather doublet of a peasant, coarse and plain, yet very different from the rough attire Francisco wore. He was very handsome, of a sunny, pleasant expression, a quality rarely found among the Italians of Lombardy; and today, although prepared for flight, his blond curls were as carefully arranged as though he still shone at the court of Milan.
'Messer Francisco is long,' he remarked again, and Tomaso turned with a start.
'He has doubtless met with unexpected difficulty, lord,' he said with some reproach. 'Horses must be found—somewhere—for our journey tonight. Every hour we stay here is dangerous.'
'My heart misgives me that I did not accompany him,' said Conrad; 'we should all four have kept together.'
'Doubtless too many would have hampered him,' was the reply.
Tomaso did not add, as he might have done, that Francisco had his doubts of Conrad's discretion, and had left Tomaso charged to see he committed no rashness in his absence.
'Thinkest thou he will get the horses?' continued the Count, twirling his curls through his fingers. 'Let us hope he will try naught so mad as that attempt on the walls of Milan we made two days ago! The saints preserve us! But I thought it was all over with us! That was a fine race—tearing through the dark with Visconti's soldiers at our heels!'
Tomaso was hurt at the flippant tone that reflected on Francisco's judgement.
'It was a gallant attempt,' he said, 'and all but succeeded; once within the town, we might have done much.'
'And so might Visconti,' remarked Conrad airily. 'Thou art young, Tomaso, or thou wouldst see how worse than useless was such a mad escapade.'
'Something had to be done,' returned Tomaso, 'this inaction was maddening Messer Francisco.'
Conrad smiled and changed the subject.
'Who is this Francisco, thinkest thou?' he asked. Tor a mere servitor at della Scala's court, he bears a mighty hatred to Visconti.'
'He served the Prince, and lost his master and his all in the sack of Verona. It is not strange he should wish to revenge della Scala's wrongs and his own.'
'I think him of better birth and station than he claims,' said the Count judicially. 'He has the bearing of one gently born.'
'I take him for what he calls himself,' the boy replied. 'I owe him my life. I would die to serve him, nor would I question him.'
'But would remind me that I owe him something too?' laughed Conrad. 'When the time comes to show it, I shall not prove ungrateful.'
He seated himself on the table, and idly swinging his legs, looked around the hut with lazy distaste and seemed to think of dozing.
'Remember we travel tonight, my lord,' said Tomaso, annoyed at such indifference.
'If our good friend gets the horses'
'There is no "if", unless we wish to perish,' flashed Tomaso. 'If Francisco gets no horses, we must from here on foot.'
'I do not oppose it. Rather than be taken into Milan, I will travel on foot in any other direction till I drop,' laughed the Count.
'Thou takest it lightly, my lord,' said Tomaso. 'Thou dost not seem as eager for revenge as thou wert. Think of the death Visconti doomed thee to. Thou hast great wrongs to right—wilt thou not return to Milan to avenge them? Or wilt thou ride away and forget?'
The laugh faded from Count Conrad's face, and his eyes flashed.
'No, Tomaso, I shall not forget,' he said; 'too well do I recall that night when I crept down the palace steps with my Lady Valentine. Visconti met us; parted us; ah, when I think of her face!—she was forced back to the horror of her life again: I, carried off to die of slow starvation in my own villa. Yes, yes; if his wrongs are like mine, Francisco did well the other night when we dashed on Milan; such wrongs put madness into one. Think of it, Tomaso; bound, gagged, half-crazed at the misfortune, I was hurried hither, secretly, at night, to be left to a dog's death in my own villa. Death was what I expected, but I nerved myself to meet it as a noble should. There is a long low room in yonder villa, with narrow windows I could scarce get my hand through—all of st