Love-at-arms being a narrative excerpted from the chronicles of Urbino, during the dominion of the high and mighty Messer Guidobaldo da Montefeltro
she now sat herself to think out the monstrous situation that beset her.
The air was warm and balmy and heavy with the scent of flowers from the
garden below. The splashing of the fountain seemed to soothe her, and
for a little while her eyes were upon that gleaming water, which rose
high in a crystal column, then broke and fell, a shower of glittering
jewels, into the broad marble basin. Then, her eyes growing tired,
they strayed to the marble balustrade, where a peacock strode with
overweening dignity; they passed on to the gardens below, gay with early
blossoms, in their stately frames of tall, boxwood hedges, and flanked
by myrtles and tall cypresses standing gaunt and black against the deep
saffron of the vesper sky.
Saving the splashing of the fountain, and the occasional harsh scream
of the peacock, all was at peace, as if by contrast with the tumult that
raged in Valentina's soul. Then another sound broke the stillness--a
soft step, crunching the gravel of the walk. She turned, and behind her
stood the magnificent Gonzaga, a smile that at once reflected pleasure
and surprise upon his handsome face.
“Alone, Madonna?” he said, in accents of mild wonder, his fingers softly
stirring the strings of the lute he carried, and without which he seldom
appeared about the Court.
“As you see,” she answered, and her tone was the tone of one whose
thoughts are taken up with other things.
Her glance moved away from him again, and in a moment it seemed as if
she had forgotten his presence, so absorbed grew the expression of her
face.
But Gonzaga was not easily discouraged. Patience was the one virtue
that Valentina more than any woman--and there had been many in his
young life--had inculcated into a soul that in the main was anything but
virtuous. He came a step nearer, and leant lightly against the edge of
her seat, his shapely legs crossed, his graceful body inclining ever so
slightly towards her.
“You are pensive, Madonna,” he murmured, in his rich, caressing voice.
“Why then,” she reproved him, but in a mild tone, “do you intrude upon
my thoughts?”
“Because they seem sad thoughts, Madonna.” he answered, glibly, “and I
were a poor friend did I not seek to rouse you out of them.”
“You are that, Gonzaga?” she questioned, without looking at him. “You
are my friend?”
He seemed to quiver and then draw himself upright, whilst across his
face there swept a shade of something that may have been good or bad or
partly both. Then he leant down until his head came very near her own.
“Your friend?” quoth he. “Ah, more than your friend. Count me your very
slave, Madonna.”
She looked at him now, and in his countenance she saw a reflection of
the ardour that had spoken in his voice. In his eyes there was a glance
of burning intensity. She drew away from him, and at first he accounted
himself repulsed, but pointing to the space she had left:
“Sit here beside me, Gonzaga,” she said quietly, and he, scarce
crediting his own good fortune that so much favour should be showered
upon him, obeyed her in a half-timid fashion that was at odd variance
with his late bold words.
He laughed lightly, perhaps to cover the embarrassment that beset him,
and dropping his jewelled cap, he flung one white-cased leg over the
other and took his lute in his lap, his fingers again wandering to the
strings.
“I have a new song, Madonna,” he announced, with a gaiety that was
obviously forced. “It is in ottava rima, a faint echo of the immortal
Niccolo Correggio, composed in honour of one whose description is beyond
the flight of human song.”
“Yet you sing of her?”
“It is no better than an acknowledgment of the impossibility to sing of
her. Thus----” And striking a chord or two, he began, a mezza voce:
“Quando sorriderán' in ciel
Gli occhi tuoi ai santi--”
She laid a hand upon his arm to stay him.
“Not now, Gonzaga,” she begged, “I am in no humour for your song, sweet
though I doubt not that it be.”
A shade of disappointment and ruffled vanity crossed his face. Women
had been wont to listen greedily to his strambotti, enthralled by the
cunning of the words and the seductive sweetness of his voice.
“Ah, never look so glum,” she cried, smiling now at his crestfallen air.
“If I have not hearkened now, I will again. Forgive me, good Gonzaga,”
she begged him, with a sweetness no man could have resisted. And then a
sigh fluttered from her lips; a sound that was like a sob came after it,
and her hand closed upon his arm.
“They are breaking my heart, my friend. Oh, that you had left me at
peace in the Convent of Santa Sofia!”
He turned to her, all solicitude and gentleness, to inquire the reason
of her outburst.
“It is this odious alliance into which they seek to force me with that
man from Babbiano. I have told Guidobaldo that I will not wed this Duke.
But as profitably might I tell Fate that I will not die. The one is as
unheeding as the other.”
Gonzaga sighed profoundly, in sympathy, but said nothing.
Here was a grief to which he could not minister, a grievance that
he could do nothing to remove. She turned from him with a gesture of
impatience.
“You sigh,” she exclaimed, “and you bewail the cruelty of the fate in
store for me. But you can do nothing for me. You are all words, Gonzaga.
You can call yourself more than my friend--my very slave. Yet, when I
need your help, what do you offer me? A sigh!”
“Madonna, you are unjust,” he was quick to answer, with some heat. “I
did not dream--I did not dare to dream--that it was my help you sought.
My sympathy, I believed, was all that you invited, and so, lest I should
seem presumptuous, it was all I offered. But if my help you need; if you
seek a means to evade this alliance that you rightly describe as odious,
such help as it lies in a man's power to render shall you have from me.”
He spoke almost fiercely and with a certain grim confidence, for all
that as yet no plan had formed itself in his mind.
Indeed, had a course been clear to him, there had been perhaps less
confidence in his tone, for, after all, he was not by nature a man
of action, and his character was the very reverse of valiant. Yet so
excellent an actor was he as to deceive even himself by his acting, and
in this suggestion of some vague fine deeds that he would do, he felt
himself stirred by a sudden martial ardour, and capable of all. He was
stirred, too, by the passion with which Valentina's beauty filled
him--a passion that went nearer to making a man of him than Nature had
succeeded in doing.
That now, in the hour of her need, she should turn so readily to him for
assistance, he accepted as proof that she was not deaf to the voice of
this great love he bore her, but of which he never yet had dared to show
a sign. The passing jelousy that he had entertained for that wounded
knight they had met at Acquasparta was laid to rest by her present
attitude towards him, the knight, himself forgotten.
As for Valentina, she listened to his ready speech and earnest tone with
growing wonder both at him and at herself. Her own words had been little
more than a petulant outburst. Of actually finding a way to elude her
uncle's wishes she had no thought--unless it lay in carrying out that
threat of hers to take the veil. Now, however, that Gonzaga spoke so
bravely of doing what man could do to help her to evade that marriage,
the thought of active resistance took an inviting shape.
A timid hope--a hope that was afraid of being shattered before it grew
to any strength--peeped now from the wondering eyes she turned on her
companion.
“Is there a way, Gonzaga?” she asked, after a pause.
Now during that pause his mind had been very busy. Something of a poet,
he was blessed with wits of a certain quickness, and was a man of very
ready fancy. Like an inspiration an idea had come to him; out of this
had sprung another, and yet another, until a chain of events by
which the frustration of the schemes of Babbiano and Urbino might be
accomplished, was complete.
“I think,” he said slowly, his eyes upon the ground, “that I know a
way.”
Her glance was now eager, her lip tremulous, and her face a little pale.
She leant towards him.
“Tell me,” she besought him feverishly.
He set his lute on the seat beside him, and his eyes looked round in
apprehensive survey.
“Not here,” he muttered. “There are too many ears in the Palace of
Urbino. Will it please you to walk in the gardens? I will tell you
there.”
They rose together, so ready was her assent. They looked at each other
for a second. Then, side by side, they passed down the wide marble steps
that led from the terrace to the box-flanked walks of the gardens. Here,
among the lengthening shadows, they paced in silence for a while, what
time Gonzaga sought for words in which to propound his plan. At length,
grown impatient, Valentina urged him with a question.
“What I counsel, Madonna,” he answered her, “is open defiance.”
“Such a course I am already pursuing. But whither will it lead me?”
“I do not mean the mere defiance of words--mere protestations that you
will not wed Gian Maria. Listen, Madonna! The Castle of Roccaleone is
your property. It is perhaps the stoutest fortress in all Italy, to-day.
Lightly garrisoned and well-provisioned it might withstand a year's
siege.”
She turned to him, having guessed already the proposal in his mind,
and for all that at first her eyes looked startled, yet presently
they kindled to a light of daring that augured well for a very stout
adventure. It was a wildly romantic notion, this of Gonzaga's, worthy of
a poet's perfervid brain, and yet it attracted her by its unprecedented
flavour.
“Could it be done?” she wondered, her eyes sparkling at the anticipation
of such a deed.
“It could, indeed it could,” he answered, with an eagerness no whit less
than her own. “Immure yourself in Roccaleone, and thence hurl defiance
at Urbino and Babbiano, refusing to surrender until they grant your
terms--that you are to marry as you list.”
“And you will help me in this?” she questioned, her mind--in its
innocence--inclining more and more to the mad project.
“With all my strength and wit,” he answered, readily and gallantly. “I
will so victual the place that it shall be able to stand siege for a
whole year, should the need arise, and I will find you the men to arm
it--a score will, I should think, be ample for our needs, since it is
mainly upon the natural strength of the place that we rely.”
“And then,” said she, “I shall need a captain.”
Gonzaga made her a low bow.
“If you will honour me with the office, Madonna, I shall serve you
loyally whilst I have life.”
A smile quivered for a second on her lips, but was gone ere the courtier
had straightened himself from his bow, for far was it from her wishes
to wound his spirit. But the notion of this scented fop in the role
of captain, ruling a handful of rough mercenaries, and directing the
operations for the resistance of an assiduous siege, touched her with
its ludicrous note. Yet, if she refused him this, it was more than
likely he would deem himself offended, and refuse to advance their
plans. It crossed her mind--in the full confidence of youth--that if he
should fail her when the hour of action came, she was of stout enough
heart to aid herself. And so she consented, whereat again he bowed, this
time in gratitude. And then a sudden thought occurred to her, and with
it came dismay.
“But for all this, Gonzaga--for the men and the victualling--money will
be needed.”
“If you will let my friendship be proven also in that----” he began.
But she interrupted him, struck suddenly with a solution to the riddle.
“No, no!” she exclaimed. His face fell a little. He had hoped to place